Seated
on the floor Varuna looked around excitedly at other neighborhood children. She
was my best friend, lively and vibrant. This was not her first visit to the
mosque, where she had often accompanied me for Friday prayers, but the mosque
had changed. It had become a public school in May, 1990, six months after the
armed conflict between India and Kashmiri militants began in Kashmir. This was
the clash of the sacred with the profane. Education was crucial for children’s
success, the only hope for Kashmiris
during the tumultuous years of the political conflict. Public schools had been
closed for about a month and amid the endless deaths from bombings, the mosque
harbored hope.
Children
were perplexed, perhaps contemplating how they would open a textbook in the
mosque. It hardly looked the place where people prayed and found solace in
God’s embrace. Besides, we had never
studied together. We had played puzzle games and scrabble together. Sometimes,
in the winter, we would make snowwomen and snowmen with coal for their eyes and
noses. We would use scraps of colorful woolen fabrics to adorn them.
