The Apology

Night patrols in Kashmir have a silence of their own.
A silence that is not peace, but pause. A pause that listens before it speaks.

The air was sharp that night, the kind that slips under the collar and settles between your shoulder blades. The moon hid behind thin clouds, and the wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then stopped, as if reminded that nights in this part of the world are not meant for noise.

My team of eight walked in single file, boots sinking softly into the slush that winter rains had left behind. No one spoke. In Kashmir, words carry farther at night than footsteps. And far enough to get you killed. I led the patrol, the responsibility resting squarely on my shoulders that night.

We moved through the village, past shuttered wooden homes, each with its own story sealed behind a bolted door. Smoke still lingered above some rooftops from smouldering bukharis. A lone street lamp flickered in an alley, fighting a losing battle against the dark. Even the wind felt hesitant, brushing past walls as though afraid to disturb the sleeping valley.

It was 01:37 hours. I remember the time clearly because the green glow of my watch was the only predictable thing in a world where nothing else was.

Then we heard the voice.

A raw, jagged voice, loud, broken, directionless. Not the cry of a man in pain, not the call of someone seeking help. It was something else. Something that did not belong to a night already heavy with fear.

We stopped.
Hands tightened around rifles.
Breaths grew quieter.

The voice rose again, bouncing off the mud walls, rising and falling like someone wrestling with his own voice.

Onkar and Satish, my scouts, moved ahead, rifles raised, bodies low, eyes sharp. I followed close behind. The rest of the team spread out instinctively, taking cover of the walls and chinar trees. Training becomes instinct in places like this. Instinct becomes survival.

The alley we approached was narrow, a jagged path between two rows of houses that leaned into each other like tired old men. Ahead, at the bend, a shape moved. An uncertain, staggering silhouette swaying unevenly, as if searching for balance it no longer remembered.

“Haath upar karo!” Onkar shouted.
Hands up.

The figure froze, then slowly lifted its arms. The mumbling continued, slurred and tangled, refusing to form meaning.

My first thought was simple. Drunk. Must be drunk.
But this was Kashmir. Even simple thoughts carried weight.

We edged closer.

The man stepped forward into the dim spill of a lone bulb hanging outside a doorway. That is when I first saw him. It was just a glimpse really, but enough to tell me that whatever he was, drunk was the least of it.

A small, bent man with a crooked left arm jutting from under the loose fitting firan that hung like weary skin. Unkempt hair greying around the ears. Mud caked on his worn rubber shoes. And on the corner of his lips an odd, uncanny smile that did not belong to the fear of the night.

He swayed again and mumbled something none of us could understand.

That was when I really saw him. Though at that moment, I did not know his name. I did not know his story. I only knew that something about the man standing before us in the dull, yellow light, would stay with me long after that night ended.

Onkar reached him first, rifle steady, boots splashing in the slush. Satish and I followed. The man did not resist. He simply stood there, arms raised, swaying ever so slightly as if the night itself were pushing him around.

“Ruk jao!”
Stop.

He stopped.

“Seedha khade raho!”
Stand straight.

There was no smell of alcohol. No attempt to resist. Only a tired compliance.

“What’s your name?” he asked loudly.

The man mumbled something, thick, broken words, slipping from his mouth like sound from the idling engine of a diesel truck.

Onkar slapped him lightly across the cheek. “Naam batao!”
Tell your name!

He flinched, startled more by the shout than the slap. Then, breathless, he stammered,
“Khurshid… Khurshid ka… chacha…”
Khurshid… Khurshid’s uncle…

“Which Khurshid?”

“Medical wala… bazaar mein…”
The Pharmacist… in the market…

Before we could piece his words together, Satish stiffened beside him.

“Sir…” he whispered, “there’s something in his firan.”

“Lift your firan,” Onkar barked.

He tried. His crooked arm hung awkwardly, bent at an angle the body isn’t meant to endure. Up close, I could see his clothes. An old, frayed kameez-salwar, soaked at the edges, torn at the knees. His rubber shoes had long retired from their duty, the right one had a hole through which his big toe pressed out like a tired traveller seeking fresh air.

A small, rusted woodcutter’s axe was tucked into his trousers.

Instinctively I pointed the rifle at him with my index finger shifted to the trigger. Satish moved fast. A sharp blow with the rifle butt to the man’s stomach, another quick strike to his arm, and the axe was on the ground. The man doubled over, gasping.

He cried out, words tumbling out in pain, cracking at the edges:

“Hindustani… Hindustani roti… main khaata… sacha Musalman…”
Hindustani… I eat Hindustani bread… true Muslim…

The chant did not make sense. Not yet.

Another kick and he shrieked, a thin, brittle sound that disappeared quickly into the night.

I raised my hand, lowering the rifle.
“Enough.”

I stepped closer and caught him by his arm to steady him. His skin felt cold, almost lifeless. He tried to look up but his eyes couldn’t quite focus. They were sunken, ringed by exhaustion, and yet there was that strange, misplaced smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Who are you?” I asked gently.

“Khurshid ka chacha…” he repeated. “Medical wala… Khurshid…”

“What are you doing here at this hour?”

He swallowed, winced, and whispered,
“Duty… night duty…”

There was no duty in this village that required a man to wander at 2 a.m. with an axe in his hand.

“It’s dangerous. You know that?”

He shook his head slowly, then nodded, then shook it again, like a man whose thoughts kept slipping through his fingers.

“Yes… dangerous… very dangerous… they came… they broke my arm… my leg…”
He lifted his crooked arm as if showing proof.

“But I killed them… killed them…”

My men exchanged glances.
His words were too broken, too scattered, too far removed from sense.

“Kisko maara tumne?” Whom did you kill?

“Sabko…All of them.”

“How?”

“With my hands,” he whispered.

“Bare hands?”

He nodded. His eyes glistened strangely in the dim light.
“Yes… haan… all of them…bare hands”

The wind carried the cold deeper into my bones. Something about the man, his voice, his broken arm, his smile, felt unsettling and unbearably sad.

“Take him to Khurshid’s home,” I told two of my men, “And confirm if he is indeed his uncle.”

They helped him up, his feet dragging through the mud, his lips still murmuring that strange, desperate refrain:

“Hindustani… roti… sacha Musalman…”

We resumed our patrol.

That was the first time I met him.
But the night had already planted him in my thoughts. Like a question that refused to stay unanswered.

After that night, I kept seeing him. Not often, but just enough to stay in the corner of my thoughts. My men confirmed that he was indeed Khurshid’s uncle and that he had not been in his right mind for years.

Sometimes he appeared at the bend of a lane, shuffling along with that same crooked gait. Sometimes near the stream, staring at the water as if reading something only he could see. Sometimes outside a closed shop, mumbling to no one in particular.

Always the same clothes, the same broken shoes, the same crooked arm. And always that chant.

“Hindustani… Hindustani roti… main khaata… sacha Musalman…”

The words came in fragments, much like a radio signal that caught meaning and then lost it again. A phrase here, a murmur there. Half-swallowed. Half-spoken. Echoing long after he had passed.

I tried to ignore him. Told myself it was not my place. But his voice followed me into my days and nights. Into my tea. Into my reports. Into the quiet moments when the valley exhaled. Every time I saw him, there was something unsettling about his presence. Not threatening. Not dangerous. Just… unfinished. Like a book left open in the rain, its pages warped, its words running away from themselves.

One afternoon, while returning from a meeting with the village sarpanch, I saw him sitting on a stone near the narrow stream that flowed from the high mountains above. His one foot was dipped in the icy cold water, his crooked arm dangling uselessly by his side. A group of children played nearby, ignoring him completely, as if he were part of the scenery like an old bench, a broken fence, a thing that existed but didn’t matter.

He looked up at me. For a moment something flickered in his eyes.

A flicker of recognition.
Or pain.
Or memory.
I could not tell.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something. Only a breath escaped.
Then again, the cracked, familiar chant, “Hindustani… roti… sacha Musalman…”

I walked away, but the sound followed me all the way back to my post.

By evening, I grew restless. Sleep felt far and peace felt farther. The man had become a question mark I could no longer ignore.

People lose their minds in many ways in Kashmir.
Fear takes some. Grief takes others. Silence takes the rest.

But something told me this was different.

That night, while the soldiers in my team cleaned their rifles and the cook stirred dal on the blackened kerosene stove, I made a decision I had no right to make, and yet felt compelled to: I needed to know who he was. And what had broken him to such an extent.

Curiosity is a dangerous thing in these mountains. But sometimes, not knowing is even worse.

The next morning, I sent word for Khurshid to come to the post.

He arrived around noon. A young man in his late twenties, sturdy build, a hint of moustache, the easy confidence of someone who had spent his whole life in these hills. He walked in with the polite caution villagers often carried around soldiers. He ran a pharmacy shop in the village… we had involved him in a medical camp that we did in the area.

“Janab, you called?

I nodded and offered him a chair. He sat, restless, as if eager to return to his shop.

“I want to ask you something,” I began. “About your uncle.”

His eyebrows rose slightly.
“Rehman chacha?” he asked, a trace of annoyance slipping into his voice. “What has he done now?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just need to know about him.”

Khurshid let out a short breath, half laugh, half irritation.

“Janab, woh toh pagal hai. A gone case. Creates trouble sometimes. Shouts nonsense. Why worry about him?” he said dismissively.

But his tone did not match his words. A kind of practiced indifference. A way of closing a door politely but firmly.

“I still want to know,” I said quietly.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then shrugged.

“Pagal toh hai hi,” he repeated, softer this time. “He wasn’t always like that… but these days… what to say?”

There was something in those few words…He wasn’t always like that…that pushed the story onto a new path.

I leaned forward.
“What happened to him?”

He looked away, fiddling with the edge of his shawl. The sigdi embers crackled behind us, and somewhere outside, a mule brayed. One of my men brought in two cups of steaming tea, biscuits arranged neatly on a plate. Life carried on as if nothing in the world had ever gone wrong.

Khurshid cleared his throat.

“Sir… it’s a long story,” he murmured.

Somewhere in his voice, I heard reluctance. Somewhere beneath that, I sensed pain.

“Still… tell me,” I said.

He hesitated again.
Looked at the door. Looked at me. Looked at the ground.

And then, as if something inside him finally allowed it, he began to speak.

“Seven years ago,” he said slowly, “Rehman chacha wasn’t like this. He had a family. A daughter and a son. A normal life. But then everything changed.”

His jaw tightened.

I did not interrupt. Didn’t push. Some stories have to surface on their own, breath by breath.

Khurshid exhaled sharply, as if bracing himself for something unpleasant.

“Rehman chacha used to be a truck driver,” Khurshid said.
He travelled the National Highway every week, vegetables from Punjab, deliveries to Srinagar. Days on the road. Nights in roadside dhabas. A life spent between valleys and markets.

His wife had died long ago. So long that even Rehman had stopped remembering the year.

He had two children.
Ruksana, twenty-one.
Ejaz, about seventeen then.

Ruksana ran the house.
Ejaz went to school.
Rehman earned what he could. Barely enough to live on, yet a family that held itself together.

Ruksana, my cousin, was beautiful in the quiet, effortless way valley girls often are. A sharp nose with a silver ring. Thin, lips the colour of ripened apricots. A faint apple blossom blush that looked permanent. And a presence that made people look twice.

“Bahut khoobsurat thi,” Khurshid murmured. Too beautiful, he meant.

Too beautiful for a place where beauty can become danger.

Bilal lived two houses away.
Older than her. Unmarried. Idle.

“He used to stare at her. Would stop her in the lane…try to talk to her.”

She refused him every time. Quietly but firmly.

“Rehman chacha wanted to get her married quickly,” Khurshid added.
“Fikr karta tha woh.” He worried about her.

A father’s instinct. A father’s fear.

We got engaged in a small ceremony and were to be married in a few months.

One night, Rehman was on the highway.
Ejaz was on a school trip to New Delhi organised by the military.
Ruksana was alone.

Bilal came.

“No one knows what happened,” Khurshid whispered. “But the next morning…”

He paused, eyes fixed on the floor.

“Ruksana was found on the kitchen floor. Half clothed. Her wrist… cut.” His voice was heavier, damper.

The words did not need details. Some tragedies speak loudly through their silences.

The villagers gathered.
They looked at the floor.
They looked at the walls.
They looked at the sky.

No one looked at each other.

“What could they do?” he said. “Fear of shame. Fear of speaking the truth.”

Ruksana was buried the next day.

Rehman cried until he fainted.

Ejaz came home a day after. He did not cry at all.

The next morning, he disappeared. Just… gone.

“Two weeks later, Bilal’s bullet-ridden body was found near the khooni nala.”

Seven bullets.
A note on his chest: “Meri behen ke liye.”

For my sister.

That was the last time Ejaz was seen as a boy.

“He joined the militants,” Khurshid whispered.
“His name soon spread across the mountains, carried by fear.”

Ambushes.
IEDs.
Killings.

“He became the one everyone feared.”

Rehman broke after Ruksana.
He shattered after Ejaz.

Then one night, the police arrived.
“They took him away,” Khurshid murmured. “They wanted to know where Ejaz was.”

Rehman did not know. Could not know.
But innocence is a fragile thing in conflict.

“He was tortured,” Khurshid said, his voice tightening.
“Mercilessly.”

He did not describe it.
He did not need to.

Electric shocks.
Beatings.
Hanging from rafters.
Nails pulled.
Starved.
Accused.
Mocked.
Tortured.

And through it all, he kept saying the same thing:

“Main Hindustani hoon… Hindustani roti khaata hoon… main sacha Musalman hoon.”
‘I am an Indian. I eat Indian roti. I am a true Musalman.’

As if repeating it might save him.
As if truth could shield not just his body, but his existence.

“They broke his arm,” Khurshid whispered. “And his mind.”

Two week later, he came back limping.
Bleeding.
Mumbling.
Smiling that strange smile.

“He never recovered,” Khurshid said.

Since that day, he has wandered the village, repeating the same broken refrain.

“Hindustani… roti… sacha Musalman…”

Khurshid stopped speaking. His throat worked once, then went still.

There was no drama in his telling. No exaggeration. Just fact. Raw, unvarnished fact.

But truth, when told simply, often hurts the most.

When Khurshid finished, an odd quiet settled between us.
Not the everyday silence of Kashmir.
Not the silence of fear or caution.
But something heavier, thicker, a silence that made the air feel crowded.

He looked away, rubbing his palms on his trousers as if trying to scrub off the memory of what he had just said.
I thanked him, though I could barely hear my own voice.
He nodded once and left.

The door closed behind him, but his words stayed.

Sleep rarely came easy in these mountains, but that night it refused to come at all.
I lay on my camp bed, staring at the tin roof as the wind hissed through the cracks. The lantern flickered against the mud walls, throwing long shadows that shifted with every gust. Outside, the night-watch sentry coughed. The gaddi dog scuffed its thick hide. The valley exhaled and inhaled in the slow rhythm of a place used to enduring.

But inside my mind, there was no rhythm. Only fragments.

Ruksana on a floor she never should have fallen on.
Ejaz walking into the forest and choosing a direction he could never return from.
Rehman’s crooked arm lifted in the half-light.
His strange, misplaced smile.
His chant.

Hindustani… roti… sacha Musalman…

The words looped inside my head, growing heavier each time they resurfaced.

They were not madness.
Not anymore.
They were echoes of torture, of fear, of identity shattered and stitched together desperately with the only thread he had left.

I had seen men break before.
In war.
In training.
In grief.

But Rehman’s breaking was quiet, innocent, undeserved.
And it was not fate alone that had broken him.
It was men.
Men in uniform like me.

I turned on my side, but the image of his limping figure moved with me.
I shut my eyes, but his cracked voice seeped through the darkness.

We all inherit the consequences of those who came before us, medals, mistakes, memories, guilt.
That night, the weight of that inheritance felt unbearable.

Near dawn, the sky outside my window turned a faint shade of blue. The first azan floated from the village mosque. It should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

I sat up, rubbed my face, and let out a breath that felt like it had been held for years.

I needed to go to him.
Not as an officer.
Not as a soldier.
Just as a man.

I knew he would not understand everything. Maybe he would not understand anything.
But it was the only right thing to do.

My men might think I had lost my mind.
Or grown soft.
Or become emotional.

Maybe I had.

But some things must be done regardless of how they appear.

When the sun touched the snowy tips of the mountains, I rose, washed my face with cold water, put on my boots, and walked towards the village.

I did not know what I would say. I only knew I had to say something.

Some wounds demand silence. Others demand words.

Rehman’s demanded both.

I found him near the same narrow lane where we had first seen him. Morning light had just begun to warm the rooftops, but the valley was still cold, still half-asleep. Smoke rose from a few chimneys, curling into the air like tired prayers.

He stood alone, muttering to himself, the familiar refrain spilling out in broken pieces.

“Hindustani… roti… main khaata… sacha Musalman…”

In daylight it sounded tired, almost like a memory wearing itself thin.

For a moment, I simply watched him, his crooked arm hanging uselessly, the loose firan fluttering in the breeze, the smile tugging faintly at his lips as if he were remembering something no one else could see.

Then I walked towards him.

He noticed me only when I was close. Close enough to touch.

The moment he did, he tried to pull away, not out of fear but instinct, the reflex of a man used to being struck for reasons he no longer understood.

I reached out and held his crooked arm gently.

“Rehman,” I said.

He froze.

His eyes darted around, restless, unfocused.

“Hindustani… roti…” he whispered again.

“Rehman, suno.” Listen.

He blinked slowly, confusion clouding his face, the chant faltering on his lips.

I took a breath.

“I did not come to question you,” I said. “Not to scold. Not to arrest.”

I paused, choosing words the way one chooses stones while crossing a river, slowly, cautiously.

“I came… to say something else.”

He stared at me with sunken, hollow eyes, as if they had been emptied out long before the morning arrived.

“I want to apologize to you,” I said softly.

The words felt strange in the cold air. They were heavy, unmilitary, human.

His lips twitched. Just a flicker, like something inside him had heard the sound but not the meaning.

“Hindustani…” he murmured.

My voice cracked, just enough for me to notice, not enough for anyone else.

“What happened to you should never have happened,” I said.

“Not to your daughter.

Not to your son.

Not to you.”

Each sentence felt like laying stones on the ground between us. Fragile ones. Uneven ones.

“You suffered because of us,” I said. “Because of men wearing a uniform like I wear today.”

His breathing slowed.

His chant faded.

“I am sorry for that,” I continued. “Main maafi maangta hoon.”

I ask for forgiveness.

His eyes shifted. Not fully, just a millimetre, but something in that millimetre felt monumental, as if a stiffness inside him loosened for the first time in years.

“I know you may not understand,” I murmured. “Maybe none of this will make sense. But if even a part of you hears me… if even a shred of you remembers… then know this: we wronged you. And I am sorry.”

For a long moment, he did not move.

The village around us slowly woke. A door creaked open. A chicken fluttered its wings. Someone called out for tea. Rehman stayed still, as if the world had stepped aside for him to breathe.

Then…

A single tear formed, trembled, and slipped down his cheek.

The smile on his lips disappeared.

In its place, for the briefest heartbeat, came something else…

Recognition?

Pain?

Release?

I could not tell.

He whispered again, barely audible, softer than the wind itself:

“Hindustani… roti… sacha… Musalman…”

But this time the words were not frantic.

They were not a defence, not a reflex, not an echo of pain.

They sounded… lighter.

Almost like an exhale he had been holding since the night the world broke around him.

He gently pulled his arm free, not in fear but with the quiet dignity of someone who has heard enough for one lifetime.

Then he turned away and took a few slow steps down the narrow lane with the same limp, the same worn-out shoes, crooked arm hanging by his side as always.

At the end of the lane he paused, as if listening to something distant, then continued on, murmuring into the cold morning air until his voice blended with the rustle of the pines.

I stood there long after he had gone.

The cold morning sun touched my face, but the warmth I felt had nothing to do with the light.

I watched him walk until he turned the corner and disappeared.

The village was fully awake by then, a kettle whistling somewhere, a child laughing, a door slamming shut against the cold.

But his voice still lingered in the air like a fading echo.

I should have returned to my post, but I stood there longer than necessary, staring at the empty lane.

Sometimes the only thing we can offer is acknowledgement.

Sometimes that is all a broken story needs.

In my heart, I know the apology was accepted.