Scattered Souls

by Shahnaz Bashir

  Then?

  We crossed the border together, Fayaz Shah who belonged to my neighbourhood, Irshad Beigh from the Srinagar Downtown, and I. We were trained in one camp, returned together and brandished similar guns. I was promoted to the position of area commander. I was the boss, but it was always Fayaz Shah who gave the orders.

  Still, I never compared myself to him. Not until the day we first went into action, in Lal Chowk.

  During the ambush, Fayaz was to be my cover and wait for my signal, but when Irshad signalled the cue, it was Fayaz who opened fire, not me, not even Irshad. I couldn’t even cock my gun. My shivering finger touched the trigger several times, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull it. I felt weak in the knees. My bowels rumbled and I felt a dire urgency to sprint to the toilet. I can’t fire. I was too ashamed to admit this, even to myself. The sound of gunfire sounded from all around me. I realized I had crawled on my belly to a point where I had become a cover for Fayaz and Irshad. So Fayaz had become the boss.

  I peeked over the wall I was hiding behind. The only thing I could see were cartridges falling from Fayaz’s smoking AK-47. I lost sight of Irshad.

  Fayaz was very happy that day. He had gunned down two troopers and kept telling me, ‘You kill for the first time, and then the rest becomes easy.’

  Overnight, Fayaz became a hero in the area. He got a Mithun Chakraborty hairdo and assumed Sanjay Dutt’s prance, as was the rage in those days. He began to court a local elder’s younger daughter who had earlier thwarted every attempt he had made to woo her. As for me, my shivering fit refused to go for days. I accepted that I was either a coward or Allah only knows what. I could never kill.

  Continue.

  In early 1991, we had an assignment from the outfit to stencil slogans of the freedom struggle on the walls in Raj Bagh. Fayaz, Irshad and I were partners again, daubing the walls of the locality with green paint. Fayaz left his share of work to me and Irshad. He didn’t like this painting business, he said, but only pulling triggers. He sat beside me and smoked a cigarette. We were talking about our mission when an Army patrol caught us unawares.

  Just a second. Side A is full. Let me turn the cassette … Continue.

  We were blindfolded and loaded into the back of a one-tonne Army truck. The men who had captured us kicked and abused us the whole way.

  When our blindfolds were finally removed, we found ourselves in a musty, windowless room. There was a lone bulb that glowed softly. I sensed later that there was a coarse black blanket under us.

  The following days were spent in torture and fear. I often fainted in front of the men with handlebar moustaches on their inscrutable faces. They came in turns carrying registers. They interrogated us, extracting right, affirmative answers to wrong, twisted questions. They would note down, leave and then come back. They were impervious to our responses and screams. They would just roll a cement roller on your legs, let suspended burning tyres drip on your bare back, pour buckets of dirty water over you and rattle you with electricity until you’d puke out some broken pieces of vague information. In the moments of partial consciousness, Sakeena’s face would dart before my eyes. Or I would remember my mother, doing the namaaz on a faded prayer rug; my father, his shaking fingers threading a needle. I saw myself trying to take shelter under an awning during a sudden rainstorm, and finally everything fading away.

  I hated Fayaz when I heard about the recovery of an hour-long videotape from him. In this video, he demonstrated the use of various kinds of guns and weapons. Unlike other militants in such videos, Fayaz had chosen to show his face to the camera.

  With the knitting pin worked into my organ, I broke quicker than Fayaz and Irshad. I brought a raid to my home, got my brothers beaten and got our verdant kitchen garden and the entire floor of our cowshed dug up to unveil my beloved Kalashnikov, my Chinese pistol, a fraying pouch full of bright bronze rounds, four hand grenades and a diary that maintained an account of my unit’s movements.

  And then?

  After four weeks of torture, we were taken out into daylight and mingled with other inmates in the lawns of Papa 2, the main interrogation centre in Srinagar. I met some guards who were good to us. They would facilitate our mulaqaat, meeting with parents and relatives.

  As more captives filed in, and as boys piled up, older detainees were shifted to other jails to make room for the new. Fayaz and I landed in Kot Bhalwal in Jammu, three hundred and something kilometres from Srinagar. Irshad was separated from us and shifted to some other place we wouldn’t ever know. The non-Kashmiri inmates, those who were charged with rapes, murders and forgery, abused us in Kot Bhalwal. They called us terrorists and traitors. The food served to us was what you would throw out back home. But still, compared to the long torturous days of Papa 2, Kot Bhalwal was a heaven. I loved the daylight that streamed in through the windows of my cell. I would marvel at the dust particles dancing in the shafts of light. I learned to listen to and love the birdsong that reached through those windows.

  I had never prayed regularly, but since I had nothing to do there, I began to pray five times a day. I let my beard grow and trimmed my moustaches.

  Every month I saw new entries from Kashmir. Boys who had never been able to read or recite from the Quran—I taught them. Gradually, I initiated organized prayers and regular classes on the Quran. But Fayaz had begun to avoid me. Our cells were right next to each other, but I would hardly see him. His parents paid frequent visits to Kot Bhalwal. He wouldn’t appear at the meals counter, would hardly be seen in the bathrooms, wouldn’t come to the prayer hall. Later, a Kashmiri inmate told me about Fayaz’s release. I was both happy and surprised. Fayaz’s father had been bringing pashmina shawls and Burzali almonds for the entire jail staff.

  Did anyone come to see you at Kot Bhalwal?

  It took my father and mother at least six months to reach me. They had never stepped out of the Banihal mountains before, but managed to make it all the way to sweltering Kot Bhalwal, carrying dry-cleaned Khansuits, toothpaste, toothbrushes, combs, bars of soap, cakes of detergent, sweaters, jackets, undergarments, hooded shoes, a pair of nylon slippers, fresh oranges, a packet of mixed dry fruit and a wrist watch. They brought a radio set too, but weren’t permitted to carry it into the jail.

  There was talk, tears, smiles, sighs, benedictions and news from home—killings, disappearances, crackdowns, curfews, our cow’s giving birth to a heifer. Everyone was going to celebrate it with cheese made from the thick, first post-delivery milk of the mother cow. Then there was the sad news: my eldest brother’s wife had given birth to a second daughter.

  There was mention of the newly built bunkers and details of political killings. They gave me an account of elimination of some innocent persons on mere suspicion, the killing of my first cousin Muhammad Yousuf Dar of Daddgam, the loss of my group mates, the death of my successor, Area Commander Shakeel Ganie, Cover Commander Javaid Dar and Aijaz and Bilal and Ishfaq and … a whole lot of them. The conversation even touched Wali Mot, a widely known slavering lunatic, who was pitted with bullets for having lobbed his naar-e-kaanger, a portable brazier with hot embers, over a trooper in the crackdown. Nobody had been allowed to touch his bleeding body till he bled to death. I offered in-absentia funeral prayers, for all the lost souls, in the jail, and would later also visit the graves in person and offer fateha and dust the weather-beaten epitaphs to properly read the dates.

  Also, there was a slight mention of Sakeena. She was still waiting for me, having rejected the formal marriage proposal of a local plumber.

  Oh! Achha!

  I asked my father about Fayaz. I was told that his father had flown him to Bangalore to study engineering.

  What happened to Irshad finally? Did you ever hear from or about him?

  After my release, I saw Irshad in the newspapers, but I could never meet him in person. He had joined Hurriyat by then and had married a lady doctor. Irshad came from a well to do Beigh family. Besides other assets, he had inherited one hundred and seve
nteen acres of apple orchards. He had become an active separatist leader, enjoying Indian security and local respect. He had begun donning waist-coats to look charismatic. For a man like me, he had become inaccessible.

  Three long years of my life were lost in Kot Bhalwal.

  A fortnight after my release in 1993, my father lost his battle with esophageal cancer. Then my mother followed him a year later, but not before she supported me in my efforts to marry Sakeena. It was difficult for ex-militants to find wives and Sakeena’s parents were against our marriage. So my mother helped us with our court marriage.

  A month after my mother’s death, our joint family split into a cluster of nuclear families. My elder brothers distributed our family land in old Raj Bagh, the cattle and the copperware, amongst the siblings. Our ancestral home was sold to a shawl merchant from downtown Srinagar and the cash divided unevenly.

  I got some copperware, and a residual patch of land that I sold, thank Allah, and the money almost sufficed to construct this one-roomed house and buy a secondhand, old-model autorickshaw. My brothers cut off a considerable amount from the share of cash I was to receive. ‘Father spent bundles of currency on the journeys he took to visit you in Kot Bhalwal,’ they said. It was futile to argue with them. To tell them that even they knew it so well that father had visited me only once in Kot Bhalwal and that wouldn’t have cost much. But they simply wouldn’t accept.

  Construction of this shanty seemed nearly impossible in the beginning, but, thank God, I managed to get it built. The entire wood used in the walls had to be bought on credit. It took me four years to repay the account at the hardware store. Not literally, I, actually for one, worked as a labourer for my house, with the other labourers, even though my back had long given up. I would tie a lumbar belt in the morning and untie it in the evening; I’d carry bags loaded with wood, I’d roll stones for the tin roof, would sit with a claw hammer in my hand and straighten bent rusty nails for hours in the evenings to make them fit for reuse.

  What was the social response to your release?

  It took me nearly two years to grow accustomed to the estranged neighbourhood. Many things had changed. New things had happened and many old things had vanished. New realities had to be accepted, like the obscenely opulent hotels that had sprung up in the swathes of land that had once been orchards.

  I am going to share with you something very, very personal because I trust you.

  Please.

  In the first year of my marriage, I was nervous about having children. In Papa 2, they had squeezed my organ and tried to crush my balls. I wasn’t sure about my capabilities to father children. The coming of my daughter proved that my worry was unnecessary.

  Continue.

  Life had somehow again begun to assume some meaning with my marriage and subsequently with Insha’s birth. A year passed, then another. One night we woke up to a loud thumping on the main door. I was terrified. I could feel losing some drops of pee.

  I answered the door to find a posse of plainclothesmen.

  I was bundled into a numberless white Sumo, Insha crying and screaming in my wake.

  Again?

  Yes. This time I was not blindfolded but driven around in such a convoluted manner that I couldn’t keep track of where I was being taken. The men didn’t speak. Once again, I was tortured for three days, handed over to ruthless men who inflicted the same treatment on me as all those years ago at Papa 2. It’s hard to narrate difficult things over and over again.

  Indeed it is.

  Even you cannot repeat them in your story. So many miserable things in a story make it stale for readers and listeners. People wouldn’t like to publish such stuff. They have to take care of the market, the target buyer. I understand. You can trim the narrative according to your own judgment, I won’t mind. But do change the names, please.

  Anyway, where was I? Sorry, I keep having these memory lapses. Please remind me what I was saying …

  The second time you were picked up …

  This time I had a clear understanding of what it was all for. It was a lesson to be learnt and digested quietly: that I wasn’t ever supposed to resume my earlier life. The detention and torture was a threat, a warning …

  Would you like one more cup of tea? Please have one more. See, you haven’t touched the biscuits. At least have some snacks from that bowl. Please scoop out a spoon for my sake …

  Three days later, I was handed over to the Raj Bagh police. After some paperwork, I was released and sent home, pale and limping. I resumed driving my autorickshaw and behaved as if nothing had occurred. As if I had been somewhere, visiting my in-laws, perhaps. Now, Sakeena looked ever more worried about me than she had before.

  What do you think about Kashmir? About the situation here?

  Confused. I can’t talk about that at all. I can talk about anything on earth, but not about the future of Kashmir. Its present is so confused already.

  I can only say that things have become worse. Almost all the things—familial, social, financial, political, and so on. We are stuck.

  Recently I was called by the principal of Insha’s school. I was informed that she was going to be expelled. The reason was my failure to pay her tuition fees for the last four months in a row.

  Just a second. Side B is full. Let me change the cassette … Continue.

  Fayaz Shah returned from Bangalore without any degree in engineering. He, like many ex-militants, slid into mainstream politics. When I was on my way to meet the principal of my daughter’s school, I saw Fayaz. He looked clean in his white Khansuit and jet black waist-coat, supervising men who were tying buntings of Janta Party all over the place.

  It had become difficult and awkward for me to meet him and remind him of the old days.

  My life began to feel jinxed. Every bad thing was happening to me. I wasn’t able to deposit the fees at my daughter’s school. My autorickshaw devoured a major chunk of my earnings. Every now and then, one or the other part of its engine would flop. One scorching afternoon, the clutch cable snapped midway while I was carrying a passenger to the Bone and Joint Hospital. Two days later, the vehicle started producing explosive sounds, which the local mechanic diagnosed as resulting from a block in the carburettor. But more than anything, my biggest worry was Insha’s education. I went to her school again to ask for more time to deposit her fees.

  ‘Look, only the trustees can help in this case. I have no objection if they allow you some time or even waive the entire dues,’ said the principal.

  For some time I stared at the sky blue globe on his table. Finally, I asked him, ‘Could you please tell me who among the trustees I must approach to make my request in this regard? I don’t know any trustee.’

  ‘Of course. The chief trustee is Mr. Fayaz Shah. You may meet him.’

  [Sigh.]

  Psychosis

  Look at how many children you can have. Now you are going to have our children.

  —Robert Fisk, The Rapes Went on Day and Night, The Independent, Feb 8, 1993

  Rape is always torture.

  —Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur, United Nations

  Each receding paranoid trooper diminishes, shrivels and fades in the convex mirror of the 407 bus, dragging behind itself a long ribbon of the road. The road bends at Dalgate and stretches through the downtown of Srinagar. Sakeena is one of the thirty seated, standing, lurking, hanging, tired, baffled, happy, inscrutable, serious or garrulous passengers who cram the bus, pushing and nudging each other in the aisle. She makes it a point to spot each and every passing autorickshaw in the reflection of the side view mirror, read its registration number and especially scan the fashionable petty romantic Urdu couplet stencilled on its back. It is a habit she has nurtured over the years.

  Sakeena shares half a grubby seat with an elderly fat lady. The lady has squeezed her so much that Sakeena feels breathless. A young woman stands in the overcrowded aisle, holding onto the roof handrail, stealing glances at Sakeena. Sakeena doesn’t care abo
ut the young woman’s staring at the careless way she conducts herself. That when Sakeena’s dupatta slips down her head, falls off her shoulder and begins to sweep the floor of the bus, she doesn’t care to lift it up. The young woman studies Sakeena’s raw beauty: her fair skin and sharp features—a straight, sleek, long nose, almond-shaped eyes under perfectly arched brows with the extra hair she has long given up tweezing. The woman stares at the plump contours of Sakeena’s cheeks and notices the prominent ugly oily pores on her nose.

  Sakeena’s elder child, ten-year-old daughter Insha, has hennaed ducks on both of Sakeena’s palms. Her fingers are fair, her nails gnarled at their tips. Her sun-kissed hair is slightly dusty and loose over her temples. Although she has deprived herself of all jewellery and make-up, she still wears silver anklets. And a little silver stud glints in her right nostril. But her nose is a bit runny, causing her to occasionally snivel. A black thread with a rectangular amulet is her most prominent adornment.

  A flat plastic bag sits on her lap. Before she alights at Rainawari Chowk, she fumbles for her medical prescriptions and reports, reassuring herself that she has carried them along. She is on her way to the Government Psychiatric Diseases’ Hospital, the only one of its kind in the valley of Kashmir. She has been visiting it for the last six years.

  When she disembarks, her silver anklets jingle, commanding the attention of other passengers.

  Today there are more patients than usual, jostling at the sparsely barred window which doubles as a reception counter of the Out Patient Department. She has to struggle to queue up behind a morose old woman—whose son, Sakeena learnt, has been killed in front of her eyes—and pass her consultation card to the assistant behind the window and collect the token for her turn.

  Clusters of uniformed nurses return from the canteen after their noon tea, chatting and lightly chuckling. Some security guards are helping push an old man’s wheelchair up the cemented entrance ramp. The old man had stopped feeling his legs after an Army tanker ran over his only son. A woman, who pushes the wheelchair of the old man, waves a wet X-ray film of a skull in the air, drying it up. For some days now the paraplegic man has been butting walls. The neuropsychiatric consultant wanted a radiograph of the old man’s head. If it is confirmed that the man has hurt his skull, because he has also stopped speaking, it might lead to further investigations.