Srinagar, Feb. 7: Ghazals were a passion with Afzal Guru before he picked up arms for Kashmir's " aazaadi". His nephew Shoaib has graduated to hip-hop music.
The 17-year-old wants to make it big in music, with some of his songs like Tribute to the martyrs of Kashmir and Elaan already viral on social media.
"If I get a chance in Bollywood, I will definitely give it a thought," he says. But the Class XII student is quick to add a caveat, saying "he will do so only if his family allows him".
The desire for a Bollywood career is a surprising admission from a boy whose uncle was executed on February 9, 2013, for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack, triggering protests that lasted days. It has become customary for the Valley to observe a shutdown on February 9.
Shoaib seems to refer to the theme in the Tribute song, a clip of which is now grabbing eyeballs on the Internet. "Tum act laga lo ya chalwalo goli, hum na rukenge, chahe chada do sooli, hum chahate aazaadi (You slap the Public Safety Act on us, or open fire. We will not stop even if you execute us. We want freedom)."
The clip is interspersed with images of his uncle, Hizbul poster boy Burhan Wani and clashes between security forces and stone-throwers during last year's unrest following Wani's killing in a gunfight in July.
Shoaib, a student of St. Joseph's, a prominent missionary school in Kashmir, has long been a fixture in music shows. "I would perform at school and before other audiences. In 2015, I participated in Chhoona Hai Aasman (a music contest organised by Jammu and Kashmir police) and stood first in Baramulla district."
Music is not Shoaib's only passion, though. He is an avid cricketer and proudly says that friends at home in Baramulla call him " Chhota Virat Kohli (junior Virat Kohli)".
Afzal too had been fond of music. Before he joined the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in the early 1990s, he loved ghazals. Friends at a medical college in Srinagar, where he studied before leaving the course midway, recall that he would sing Ghalib's couplets.
That apparently is the reason why Afzal named his son, now 16, after the legendary poet. "My grandmother would tell me that my uncle was in love with ghazals," Shoaib, whose father Aijaz is a businessman, said.
Unlike Shoaib, however, Afzal's son Ghalib wants to become a cardiologist.