THEIR CRY FOR JUSTICE
“ We want to be on par with the others, so why should we accept a truncated state?”
Q. What are the big takeaways from your many months in detention?
• OMAR ABDULLAH You get so much time to think and, fortunately, I am one of those people who are extremely comfortable in my own company. Very early on, I set myself a routine which I thought was the best way to stay sane. I spent a lot of time just walking, trying to reconcile and understand what had happened and what I felt about it. You don’t have anyone to bounce your thoughts off, so it is purely what you make of things yourself. I did read a lot and, when we had cable, also rediscovered my love for old Hindi movies on one of the TV channels that shows the classics.
• I was alone and without my family, and nobody likes to be in that situation. I was also thinking about what was happening outside; it was really troubling me, the crackdown. Also, I had this thing in my mind all the time about how my father (the late M.M. Sayeed) got it all wrong about aligning with the BJP for a resolution of
