by Gulzar
Everyone was quiet.
Then the local leader spoke up, ‘Meanwhile, a Pakistani solder, with his hands raised in the air, came and stood near the check post.
‘With his gun aimed at the Pakistani soldier, the sardar asked: “Surrender?”
‘After a moment’s pause, the Pakistani soldier said: “No! I want permission to carry back my friend’s dead body.”
‘“Who was he?”
‘“Habib Ali … my childhood friend and our officer. I can’t leave him here for the kites and crows.”
‘Our officer looked closely at him and said: “Don’t worry. We will bury him with full military honours.”
‘“Please allow me to take him. I will take him to our village, I want to bury him after offering a proper namaz-e janaza.”
‘The sardar stayed silent for a while. Then he said: “What is the proof that you will do so?”
‘The Pakistani soldier snapped back: “Look here, you are a sardar and I am a pathan. I have no greater proof to offer!”’
The palm stood silently in the morning light. It could hear the shriek of the kite as she circled the skies.
Aadam-boo … The scent of Man…!
Search*
THE ENTIRE suitcase was opened at the Delhi airport. It is all right till they simply rummage through clothes, but when male police officers pick up bras and wave them about before putting them back, a tremor runs through one’s body. Would I hide grenades in my bras? When they picked up my lipsticks and began to examine them closely, I said: ‘These aren’t bullets; they are lipsticks. Keep them. Use them in your rifles if you can.’
The shameless fellow bared his yellow teeth and said, ‘The days of the two-bore are long gone, memsahab; nowadays you get them with a hundred cartridges.’
The lady police officer with him had possibly caught my tone. She said, ‘We have to be extra careful on a Srinagar flight, madam. Come … come this way.’ She took me for a body search towards a curtained but half-open cubicle.
I was on my way to Kashmir – in search of my roots. Even though I am not a Kashmiri. I knew that my parents had gone to Kashmir after their wedding for their honeymoon. By the time they returned, I had been ‘conceived’. My birth had begun!
‘On a houseboat floating on the icy waters of the Jhelum, on a carved walnut bed, when two souls had, for one resplendent moment, become one and given birth to a new life…’
In a very poetic manner, relishing every moment, Ma would narrate the stories of Kashmir to me, her stories about herself and Papa. She would say, ‘He didn’t know how to ride a horse. So, a table would be brought close to the horse. Papa would climb on top of the table while the syce would push the horse close to the table and Papa would mount. Still, five times out of ten, he would fall!’
Papa would remove the newspaper hiding his face and object, ‘Don’t lie; I fell only once.’
‘And what about the time you tore your precious trousers?’
Ma was from Lucknow and Papa was from Kolkata.
‘That’s because the table had fallen; I didn’t fall.’
‘And when you fell on top of the syce?’
‘The horse had run away; what could I do? Anyway, stop it … when I take Shonali, I will show her.’
Ma would draw a long breath and mutter, ‘When will you ever go to Kashmir now? It was only those days that we could go every year. Buds don’t burst into flowers anymore; only shells do. Skulls split open day and night out there…’
It must have been 1981 or ’82. Or perhaps it was ’82 or ’83 when I was studying in school. I would get angry listening to the news. Who do the Pakistanis think they are? Grabbing my Kashmir from me like this? I thought of Kashmir as though it was my personal property.
Ma would tell me, ‘We used to have a Kashmiri servant; he was just a young boy. We would employ him for the entire month when we went. His name was Wazir … Wazir Ali. Sometimes we would stay at the houseboat, and sometimes at the Oberoi Hotel. At the Oberoi, we always chose to stay at the Annexe where the front lawn had two chinar trees – two large, stately, healthy trees. To me they always looked like a king and his queen, surveying the Dal Lake with their hands folded across their chests, while the rest of us stood on the lawn like their servants! They were both very self-respecting – one Jahangir, the other Noorjehan!’
Ma was really a poet. But all she ever wrote was a diary.
I reminded her, ‘You were going to say something about Wazir…’
‘Yes … he used to put you in a pram and take you for a stroll in the evenings. One day we got worried as he was gone for a long time. He set out looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Your papa … Arun Bannerji. He too was gone for a long time. When he returned in a taxi, there you were, with your pram and one other Kashmiri man. Wazir wasn’t there. When I asked about Wazir, he looked angry. He put you in my lap, flung the pram in the veranda and called out to the Kashmiri who had accompanied him, “Murti Lal!” He took out some money and gave the man fifty rupees.
‘The fellow was a talkative sort. He said, “How could you trust a little girl with that man? What if he hadn’t gone home? What if he had run away with her?” With a toss of his hand, your father asked the man to go, and he went away.’
‘My price was just fifty rupees?’ I cut in, just for some fun.
‘Fifty rupees was a lot of money back then.’
But I was interested in knowing where Wazir had taken me…
‘He had taken you to his home, to show you to his grandmother. He was an orphan. His parents had been buried in an avalanche. Their bodies were never found. Wazir was on duty at the hotel for several nights in a row. And so, whenever his grandmother got angry, he would lie that he had got married and even had a little girl. It was only because of his grandmother’s bad temper, he would tell her, that he never brought the child home.’
I quite liked Wazir from what I heard of him; he seemed like the hero of a story. And his story seemed straight out of a fairy tale. It seems like that even today. All fairy tales are born in Kashmir and, when it snows, they come down to the plains. Sometimes I wonder if indeed he had run away with me, would I have been raised in Kashmir? But I didn’t like the idea of being separated from my parents. So, I asked, ‘Did Wazir never come back?’
‘He did; he apologized profusely. And we employed him again, but we never sent you with him ever again.’
We used to have an album in our house. It had a lot of old photographs but Wazir was not in any of them. There were photographs of my childhood, shot in Gulmarg, Yuzmarg, Pahalgam and Chandanwari. They looked like illustrations from a fairy tale.
I was in college when I asked Ma, ‘Shall I go to Kashmir during these holidays?’
‘Don’t you read the news? Watch TV? Don’t you know the chaos that has been unleashed by the Kashmiris?’
I was still in college. There was a cricket match and Kashmiri young men raised anti-India slogans. Several Sikhs had joined them too.
Another incident happened at about the same time. Terrorists abducted a minister’s daughter. I was about to quip, ‘They must have taken her to show her to their grandmother’, but Papa’s angry face held me back. Papa was pacing the room. Suddenly, he turned around and roared, ‘They are making compromises upon compromises. They are releasing terrorists who have been caught. What would have happened had she been the daughter of an ordinary citizen? It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to anybody. There would have been some announcements, that’s all. Do such things not happen during times of disturbances? After all, so much happened during the Partition.’
Ma asked, ‘Why don’t they reach some sort of understanding with Pakistan? After all, they are behind all this.’
For the first time, I heard my father say, ‘Our people are no less responsible. To stay in power, both are bent upon shearing the sheep endlessly.’
I didn’t quite like it. I don’t know why I had a sense of ownership where K
ashmir was concerned. Neither Papa was from there, nor Ma. Still…
At about that time, a good-looking Kashmiri young man had come to Papa’s office in search of a job.
Papa asked him, ‘Where are you from?’
The poor thing answered in a low voice, ‘I am from Kashmir, sir; I am a Kashmiri. But I am not a rioter. I am not a terrorist.’
Papa turned him away gently. ‘I don’t have a job for you right now; you can come back some other time.’
I knew that was not true. Papa didn’t want to get dragged into an inquiry. Those days the police would keep a strict eye on Kashmiris who had come down to the plains and taken up residence. And why just Kashmiris, people would refuse to rent out homes and spaces to anyone with a Muslim name.
Once, when Papa was in hospital, I had gone to see him. There, our Dr Basu had raised the subject of my marriage. I was in my final year and had already joined the Hindustan Times as a reporter. When Ma asked me if I was willing to get married, I had said, ‘Yes, I will … as long as he takes me to Kashmir for my honeymoon.’
‘Kashmir? Now?’ Papa made a gesture with his hand as if to say, ‘Forget it!’
He could say no more. In any case, he was not allowed to speak much.
I said to Ma, ‘You have always said that my life began there.’
Papa waved his hand in the air and went away. For ever!
Now, after so many years, I was going back in search of my roots. My heart was bouncing in my chest like a rubber ball when the plane landed at Srinagar airport. The moment I set foot outside the airport, I came across a sight I had not seen anywhere in India.
My first thought was: Had the war begun? Had Pakistan attacked us? On the streets of Srinagar, I could see more Indian troops than Kashmiris. Tanks, trucks, guns, check posts, bunkers on every road, armed guards at the mouth of every alley.
The bus that took us from the airport stopped thrice on the way to Srinagar. Thrice, rifle-toting soldiers entered the bus. They looked in every corner. They poked and prodded our bags.
‘Whose is this?’
‘What is inside this?’
Then they got off. The bus moved on.
I was already feeling suffocated. When the bus was stopped for the third time, a solder looked at me with eyes that seemed to rape me and asked, ‘Where are you going?’
I didn’t like his use of the word ‘tu’. I asked a bit aggressively, ‘What do you mean by where I am going?’
He made a sound like a long ‘Huunnn’ and got off. I thought he possibly didn’t know English. No one in the bus budged.
I was looking for an ordinary sort of lodging and hoping to find some place near Dal Lake. If I had the money, I would have stayed at the Annexe of Oberoi Hotel.
The Dal Lake was covered with a thick layer of algae; rotting green vegetable matter was choking the water. A few houseboats could be seen but they were standing near the shore, like scared culprits. Wasted, desolate, tumbledown, as though they would rot away and sink in the waters where they stood, and be buried.
Time and again, my eyes would well up. Each time, I would rub away the tears irritably. I was cursing myself. Which Kashmir were you talking about? Where is the engraved walnut bed? Where … and my throat choked up. For a long time afterwards, I didn’t hear my ‘normal’ voice.
No one was ready to keep a girl in a lodging house or a hostel. My English could not help me, nor could the Hindustan Times identity card in my purse. It seemed most inappropriate to take the help of the police or the military. The moment you mentioned them, a remote look came into people’s eyes.
Khalil put my luggage in his ‘auto’ and said, ‘You have come alone, memsahab; no one will give you a place to stay. Kashmiri people are very scared of Indian troops. They take away people and then…’ He paused, then added, ‘They are never seen again. God knows which lake they get lost in.’
The anger inside him manifested in the roar of the ‘auto’. I didn’t know where he was taking me. He spoke incessantly. Perhaps he was burning the diesel inside him. ‘No one is going to give you a room in any hotel. It will just provide the army an excuse to raid the premises. They will capture the owner and take him away. If the owner is old, they will take his young son or son-in-law or nephew, anyone, instead. Their eyes are set on the youth of Kashmir. They are bent upon destroying everything…’
His voice was getting louder. Suddenly, he stopped his ‘auto’ in an alley and turned towards me.
‘What do you people want? What do you want from us? Leave us to our own fate, Be’n. Now even our greenery has turned red…’ And his voice became like mine.
I sat there, covering my face with my palms. Never before had I felt so ashamed of being an Indian.
Khalil picked up my suitcase and entered his bua’s house. She was his father’s sister; she was middle-aged and seemed to be living alone.
‘You stay here, Be’n. Stay with my bua. I will come every morning to take you wherever you want to go. Don’t go alone anywhere.’ He turned and went away, wiping his eyes. God knows why. He went away without saying a word about money or rent.
But I didn’t stay put. I explained to Bua and set out. Their alley was not far from Dal Lake. I walked along the shore and reached Oberoi Palace. Its gate was shut and a barbed wire was strung along its walls. Perhaps they had shifted the entrance. I lifted the barbed wire and entered the premises. Some birds fluttered their wings and said something to each other; a few flew off to perch on another branch. They were alert. Slowly, carefully, I climbed towards the palace.
Sheets of tarpaulin hung from the ceiling to the floor of the verandas leading off the main gate. The hotel was shut. A segment of troops was living in one part; they had set up their own kitchen. A mustiness had settled over the verandas. I had to cover my nose with a handkerchief, such was the overpowering odour. The Annexe was shut. The lawn was littered with filth. And the two chinar trees stood with their heads bowed, their gaze lowered and hands folded – like slaves. Their shoulders had stooped. Both looked old.
Feeling suffocated, I returned to Bua’s house. She had spread out a bed for me on the mezzanine floor.
I woke up to the sound of children’s chirpy voices. For the first time since I had come here, a happy sound reached my ears. I got up and opened the rear window.
There was a graveyard right behind Bua’s house. Children were playing hide-and-seek there. Strewn among the old tumbledown graves were countless new ones, covered with mounds of fresh earth. Perhaps this was the safest place for the children to play!
When I came down I couldn’t find Bua. Water had been drawn for my bath; and there was a towel and soap too. I am not used to bathing with cold water but this was not a hotel, after all.
Gingerly, I first wet my body with my hands, letting my skin get accustomed to the water. It was icy. Gradually, I began to pour it over myself. And as I did so, the water became like a dress. The moment I stopped I felt cold. So, I kept bathing and kept pouring water over myself. All my sorrows were washed away.
Bua had a young son; his name was Aziz Ali. He had been learning computers when he was taken away by the police. It was alleged that he had met some Pakistani. That was nine years ago; there had been no news of him since. Every time corpses fell in an ‘encounter’, Bua would go to see the bodies. Sometimes, she went to the police stations, sometimes to the mortuaries. When she heard of some place where prisoners were kept, she went to look for him there too. She had been to all the prisons in Kashmir. But she had kept her hand on the lambent flame of hope. She was not willing to give up. Her eyes had run dry but, still, she cried.
I said, ‘Bua, perhaps he has gone to Pakistan. Or maybe they have taken him to Tihar Jail.’
‘Where is that?’
‘In Delhi.’
Bua’s face fell but I couldn’t bring myself to say that perhaps her son was dead.
One day, just before dawn, the entire neighbourhood was surrounded and cordoned off. Military trucks were posit
ioned in all directions. Two searchlights were mounted on two trucks. An announcement was made on a loudspeaker directing all the residents to come out of their homes and assemble in the graveyard. All the houses would be searched. Within minutes, frightened-looking people came out of their homes as though they had rehearsed this drill many times. The sun rose. Soon it was noon. Hungry and thirsty people sat in their places without the slightest fuss or protest. The search operation continued.
I finally gathered my courage in the afternoon. I went up to the colonel and spoke to him in English. He allowed me to take Bua home as she was nearly collapsing with hunger and thirst. By the time I returned after escorting Bua home, there was suspicion in people’s eyes. And a certain contempt and distance too.
Scared, I went and sat in a far corner.
By the time the drama enacted by the military police finally got over, it was evening. People began to return to their homes. When I got back, I found a lock hanging on Bua’s door. And my belongings, including my suitcase, were kept beside the door.
I dragged my luggage and reached the road. I sat down on the esplanade built along the edge of Dal Lake. I felt I had lost everything when a passer-by stopped and asked, ‘Where do you have to go, memsahab?’
I tried to smile. ‘I want to stay in a houseboat for one night.’
‘There are no guests in houseboats now, memsahab. There are no houseboats left. There is one man, though; he lives in the houseboat he owns. It’s his home.’
‘Where?’
He pointed and said, ‘There … that is Wazir’s houseboat.’
‘Whose?’ I got to my feet in a rush.
The stranger said, ‘The man’s name is Wazir Ali. He is an old man.’
‘Will you take me there? I will request him, plead with him … I am sure he will allow me to stay … it’s only for a night, after all.’
A little surprised and also somewhat half-heartedly, the man agreed to take me. He picked up my suitcase. ‘Come, memsahab. But let me tell you he doesn’t keep guests. In any case, no one comes any more. And why just guests…’ He talked as he walked along. ‘Even the birds that used to come from Russia and God knows where have stopped coming to this lake.’