Looking For Positive News...

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I read this news today morning and felt happy immediately:

How Kashmiri Muslim couple defied a curfew and walked miles to feed Pandit friend's starving family.

Great people!

As Kashmir burns after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, and half the state is under curfew, a lone Kashmiri woman and her husband braved a strict curfew to get some food across to her Pandit friend.

I have read a few more stories like this about Kashmiri muslims.  We had been there in 2004 (Amarnath yatra)Never felt any difference between them and us, South Indians.  In fact, I admired the boatman who was a Muslim (Click amarnath yatra to read the story!) who said that life goes on like their children go to school, all weddings are going on and they take it in their stride when shootouts happen in the neighbourhood.  He too had lost some members in his family.  I had noticed girl children chatting and giggling on their way to school.  He or any other Muslim didn't show any animosity towards us, Hindus.  Well...they are normal people.  Then there was a shootout at the Jammu station when we were in the station and our train was cancelled.  The local people just turned their head towards the station and walked away normally, as if nothing had happened.  Still I felt very sad when I saw the good-looking children who were begging...they didn't look like beggars at all.  They didn't look like terrorist family's children or thieves.  We gave them some chocolates and they were beaming. Got a lump in my chest, looking at them, I remember.

So many angles are there when we think about their problems...Is it the mistakes of the politicians, the media or the real terrorists?  The normal people are getting terrorist brand ... 

Now, one terrorist is dead, the one who shot our Colonel MN Rai, the whole Kashmir is in mourning.  The media also is covering 24 hours a day about this incident.  

During the 2014 floods in Kashmir our army was sincerely helping Kashmiris and they praised our army whole heartedly. 

The social media is inundated with praise for operation Megh Rahat. And the jingoistic, chest-thumping brigade has swamped the net with its ‘look, you’d have been dead without them’ rhetoric.

All this goodwill is being generated because the Army has sent out 20,000 soldiers, 80 medical teams and thousands others providing back-up, to rescue Kashmiris trapped in Srinagar and other regions facing the flood fury.

As the same article says, now, it is back to hatred against each other.  The boatman said that most of the Kashmiri Muslims want to live like normal people. I felt very sad looking at the old blackened buildings which had bullet marks.  Such a beautiful country is devastated now.  The boatman said then that only for the past 3-4 years, the tourists had started coming to Kashmir for vacation (this was in 2004) and their lives were improving.

We visited Vaishnodevi temple via Jammu in 2013 and thought Jammu was normal like anyother city. 

I am writing this post now because we have booked in a Travels tour  to Vaishnodevi temple, Jammu and Kashmir in mid-September.  Is it OK to go there now or should we cancel the trip? Husband says, the Travels know how to handle/take care of its customers.  They are professionals.  I am slightly worried.