In rapper Ahmer’s ‘apolitical’ potent verses lie truths about Kashmir that must be told
Ahmer’s music speaks to and for the people of Kashmir — for the people in Srinagar’s Downtown, for his family members who suffered abuse and death
In Kashmir, families don’t talk about their shaheed in front of the children. Not that there is any stigma attached, there is actually a lot of reverence — for all those who have died fighting the State. But they often feel that their stories are too potent to be told to children, for they’re the kind of stories that can influence young minds to tread a similar path. No matter how dear the cause, the thought of losing a loved one is far too painful.
“We didn’t talk much about my uncle in our family. Neither during dinner table conversations, nor during morning chai discussions. But you could easily discern that his absence was a void that no one was comfortable talking about,” says Ahmer Javed. Ahmer is an emerging rapper from the Valley who, impacted by the conflict-riddled violence, has resorted to hip-hop as a means to oppugn narratives — “narratives of falsehood,” he calls them.
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