They worked as I stared at the mutilated corpses in their blood-soaked clothes. Their entrails were exposed, their faces, unrecognisable. That evening, I could not eat. I couldn't sleep for days; the corpses haunted my dreams.
At the time, I didn't realise that this was a prelude to an unending tryst with death and mayhem. But as the months passed, and the deadly game between security forces and militant groups continued, the violence began to seem mundane to me, almost normal, a part of my daily reporting routine. There were exceptions of course, days when death was anything but routine.
October 12, 1996, comes to mind: I'm half asleep, sipping my morning tea. The phone rings. It's my police contact. My mind is racing as I begin to scribble notes. How many? Where? When? I call my photographer and then I'm out of my house, riding my bike like a madman. We arrive to find wailing women and unshaven, huddled men. The dead bodies lie scattered, like rag dolls discarded by careless children. I feel my legs growing heavy. I feel incredibly tired. I want to throw down my notebook and sit silently with the mourners. Then I hear the photographer's shutter clicking. The noise forces me to remember that I have a story to do. I examine the bodies. I take out my notebook and start asking my questions. Who? What time? Any witnesses?
For years, there has been nothing to write or think about in the valley except the violence. If I manage to avoid doing a news story on that day's gory details, I inevitably end up writing a feature about orphans or widows of the conflict. When violence rules the day, there is nothing but tears to jerk from the reader's soul.