Youngsters from Kashmir discover a new world

pune: for salima anjum and noor amir, the world was their small hamlets in the uri sector of jammu and kashmir until a few days ago. they had not explored even the valley, let alone venturing out of it. but all this changed on december 18, when the army decided to sponsor an all-india tour - himsagar yatra - for 25 children from the border area. since then, it has been an experience of their lifetime for most of these children. for 14-year-old salima, it was a dream come true, literally, as she happened to have an exclusive photo-shoot with bollywood heartthrob hrithik roshan. equally fancied was third standard student umer noor mir, who spent an entire day at the esselworld in mumbai. in pune as part of the last leg of the tour, the children are ecstatic. nisreen asgar, who is from shahdara village, said, "for me, life has been always unpleasant. i have grown up hearing gunshots. there is hardly any activity happening in our village, and we feel claustrophobic." most members of the 25-member group narrate similar experiences, but are extremely happy to be part of the tour. "there are hardly any people in our village, as most of them have shifted to other (safer) places to survive the constant shelling," said 14-year-old shafiqua majid. the area has been bearing the brunt of the constant across the indo-pak border shelling for so many years now. and, "going out of house has always been a question of life and death" for these children. hussain, headmaster of the government girls middle school at kamalkot, who is accompanying the children along with major r.s. chaudhury of the 15 maratha light infantry stationed at uri, said, "for these children it has been a unique experience, to see the 'outside world' and interact with 'different people'." brig v.k. sawani of the southern command, who received the children at the army headquarters here, said the idea of the tour was mainly to make these children realise that the country extends much more than they have been seeing. "the whole idea is to give them a taste of different places and cultures," he said, adding that the group was picked from eight different schools. the children may be happy about the tour, but one question constantly lurks in their minds, as syed asif shah gulam (14) from chappar, who it appears has lost his childhood in the cross-fire, put it, "why can't kashmir be like other places? why can't peace prevail in kashmir?"