# Own Me, Srinagar

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2015/07/19/own-me-srinagar/
- Published: 2015-07-19T18:15:54+00:00
- Author: admin

3.6/5 - (9 votes)

**Author:** Basant Rath
 **Pages:** 76 **Year of Publication:** 2013 **Price:** 
Rs 150 **ISBN:** 978-93-5045-053-6 (9789350450536)

_**About the Author**_
 Basant Rath was born in 1972 in a village in coastal Odisha.
He studied Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, before joining the
Indian Police Service in 2000. He considers Mandi, Poonch (a border district in 
Jammu and Kashmir) his second home. At present, he is working on a novel.

_**Teaser**_

_A Lonely Line of Control_

A lonely line of control
 in a left-over land.

Her terror nights
 infiltrating her freedom days.

One sunny morning
 standing naked near the Jhelum she looked at her reflection in
the waters and saw history winking an eye at her.

A caesarian baby
 born six grenade decades ago among absentee landlords she lived
in the same valley.

Whatever they fancied
 they placed on her curves a mine, a sniper, a fence or a 
splinter of their own hatred.

Whatever they fell for
 they stole from her house a church, a chinar, a prayer or
a season of their own snowfall.

And all these years
 of bunker and bullet-proof jackets she felt she was in control
of her destiny.

A lonely line of control
 in a left-over land.

Note: The chinar, _Platanus orientalis_ or oriental plane, is one of the most familiar
trees in Kashmir, almost symbolic of the Valley.

A review of the book can be read [here](https://www.lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/another-look-at-indias-books-basant-raths-own-me-srinagar/).

_**Contents**_
 38 poems