I was born in this country. This was my motherland. This was the soil that nourished me in to being what I became. I left my home eight years ago, to pursue a life of adventure, of new worlds, a life of thrills. Today, I'm back in my home, and my nation bays for my blood.
I am not Ajmal Kasab. My name is not Dawood Ibrahim. I was no high profile terrorist. You don't know my name. Pick a 13 year old guy from anywhere in your world. I was him. I didn't even live in Kashmir. My religion, I forgot long ago. But I remember, I was born to poverty. I was born to circumstances that didn't allow my ambitions to prosper. I lived in a society that had taken everything from me. My dignity, my hope, my chances of living the life of a successful human. One of the reasons, I didn't believe in god, was that then I'd have someone to blame for it. I don't blame. So I have no god.
I first handled a gun, when a friend of a friend who I'd run away with, met us in the big city. It was amazing and intoxicating, the power it gave me. Knowing that the person on the other end of the barrel would bow to any demand I made, gave me a heady sense of euphoria. I liked the adrenaline rushing through my veins every time I would run up to do a "job". I had learned that it was not easy for me to kill, to end a life, of someone, who had done me no personal harm. But then I found out, that every person I saw begging for his life from the other end of the gun, had done me personal harm. He was a member of the society, that had outcast me, that had made my life miserable. After the day I shot my first victim, I was addicted to this game of death.
I hated myself, the spite burning through me, eating at my conscience. But I had found a way to vent my feelings. When they came to me, asking to join their fight for a religion, I joined them. It gave me further opportunities to exercise my evil. I was just a teenage kid, with only one way to vent the volcano inside me; violence. I craved love, for intimacy. When I couldn't find any, I got it at the point of my gun. I craved respect, for the individual I was, for what I could do, I didn't get that either. So I stole it, again, at the point of my gun. It seemed that all that life had refused my, I was getting back from ending it. I had notoriety, I was feared, I had fame. Everything that I had hoped for or dreamed of once, was mine. But deep down, I cried. For I knew that it was not in this way that I wanted it. But my life had left me no other options. Come to think of it, there was one, but I was just a teenage kid, I wanted it all quick, I wasn't too particular about my means. But I always knew, I was wrong.
When they caught me, after I had massacred hundreds, in my delightful glee of realizing my so-called revenge on life, I told them that I did it for a religious purpose. I tried to seek self justification by pretending that I served some higher purpose, I was just an agent of god. On the inside, I knew how lame it was, I'd never believed in any god. Those who had hired me for this job claimed that they were doing god's work. But honestly, they didn't seem that foolish.
My nation today, debates my fate; to end my life, or to sentence me to a lifetime of imprisonment. I think today of all those I killed, I feel remorse. Not remorse for killing them, but remorse over the fact, the they needn't have died. There's no face in particular that I remember, I only remember the society I was waging my personal war against. They could have stopped it, had they not left a void in me, had they not evil creep into it, I was not born a monster. I was a child of the mother, who never taught me the way to live, never held my hand to make me walk. I grew up with a grudge against her. She who had been the reason of the innumerable bruises inflicted upon me. When I became strong enough, I killed her. Was I happy doing it? No. Then why did I do it? Because to the child that I was, violence was the only option that had been left open, both by me and my people. My mother.
I hope they are kind enough to kill me. Living with what I have done, is worse than death.
I get up, it's time for my final hearing, I look into the metal plate screwed onto my cell's wall, that works as my mirror. I see myself looking back at a 13 year old kid, who could have been human.
"What a waste of life" I think, as a 21 year old demon, walks out to the final turn, on his road of fate.
I am not Ajmal Kasab. My name is not Dawood Ibrahim. I was no high profile terrorist. You don't know my name. Pick a 13 year old guy from anywhere in your world. I was him. I didn't even live in Kashmir. My religion, I forgot long ago. But I remember, I was born to poverty. I was born to circumstances that didn't allow my ambitions to prosper. I lived in a society that had taken everything from me. My dignity, my hope, my chances of living the life of a successful human. One of the reasons, I didn't believe in god, was that then I'd have someone to blame for it. I don't blame. So I have no god.
I first handled a gun, when a friend of a friend who I'd run away with, met us in the big city. It was amazing and intoxicating, the power it gave me. Knowing that the person on the other end of the barrel would bow to any demand I made, gave me a heady sense of euphoria. I liked the adrenaline rushing through my veins every time I would run up to do a "job". I had learned that it was not easy for me to kill, to end a life, of someone, who had done me no personal harm. But then I found out, that every person I saw begging for his life from the other end of the gun, had done me personal harm. He was a member of the society, that had outcast me, that had made my life miserable. After the day I shot my first victim, I was addicted to this game of death.
I hated myself, the spite burning through me, eating at my conscience. But I had found a way to vent my feelings. When they came to me, asking to join their fight for a religion, I joined them. It gave me further opportunities to exercise my evil. I was just a teenage kid, with only one way to vent the volcano inside me; violence. I craved love, for intimacy. When I couldn't find any, I got it at the point of my gun. I craved respect, for the individual I was, for what I could do, I didn't get that either. So I stole it, again, at the point of my gun. It seemed that all that life had refused my, I was getting back from ending it. I had notoriety, I was feared, I had fame. Everything that I had hoped for or dreamed of once, was mine. But deep down, I cried. For I knew that it was not in this way that I wanted it. But my life had left me no other options. Come to think of it, there was one, but I was just a teenage kid, I wanted it all quick, I wasn't too particular about my means. But I always knew, I was wrong.
When they caught me, after I had massacred hundreds, in my delightful glee of realizing my so-called revenge on life, I told them that I did it for a religious purpose. I tried to seek self justification by pretending that I served some higher purpose, I was just an agent of god. On the inside, I knew how lame it was, I'd never believed in any god. Those who had hired me for this job claimed that they were doing god's work. But honestly, they didn't seem that foolish.
My nation today, debates my fate; to end my life, or to sentence me to a lifetime of imprisonment. I think today of all those I killed, I feel remorse. Not remorse for killing them, but remorse over the fact, the they needn't have died. There's no face in particular that I remember, I only remember the society I was waging my personal war against. They could have stopped it, had they not left a void in me, had they not evil creep into it, I was not born a monster. I was a child of the mother, who never taught me the way to live, never held my hand to make me walk. I grew up with a grudge against her. She who had been the reason of the innumerable bruises inflicted upon me. When I became strong enough, I killed her. Was I happy doing it? No. Then why did I do it? Because to the child that I was, violence was the only option that had been left open, both by me and my people. My mother.
I hope they are kind enough to kill me. Living with what I have done, is worse than death.
I get up, it's time for my final hearing, I look into the metal plate screwed onto my cell's wall, that works as my mirror. I see myself looking back at a 13 year old kid, who could have been human.
"What a waste of life" I think, as a 21 year old demon, walks out to the final turn, on his road of fate.
