Room in our Hearts and Other Stories

by K L Chowdhury

  ‘In that case, your safety and security was a mirage. Did the Muslims not wake up? Did they not make any attempt to intervene or help while the butchery was going on that night?’

  ‘I was not there; I was on the run. But if they did not hear the death cries or the barrage of bullets, they must have all turned deaf at the same time. If they heard, they must have shut off their ears and watched from behind their curtains, for no one appeared on the scene till after the dust and smoke had settled down and the blood dried up and there was silence of the dead. The killers had all the time to loot our homes, take away ornaments, cash and expensive belongings, and load the loot in a van which they dispatched before they lined up the Pandits and started gunning them down. It was a major operation, well-planned and well-executed. It could not have been possible without the connivance of the police and, possibly, some villagers as well.’

  ‘Destiny has been unkind to you, yet things seem to be falling in place now. You have assembled the fragments of your shattered life and put them together again. There is so much to be thankful for, so much to look forward to,’ I gently reminded Satish.

  ‘That is right, sir. In fact, I arranged to get my little sister married last year. She is happy with her husband.’

  ‘And your mother? Is she alive?’

  ‘Yes, she is alive to bless us. She likes Neena as much as she liked Suman. She took full control of our lives when we shifted to Jammu and got so busy that she forgot all about her life and long years in Nadimarg. She does not speak about the family we lost, or about our village, or home, or that massacre. She has sealed her past. In fact, we don’t speak about it with anyone. You are the first one to whom I have ever opened up after that horrible night.’

  ‘With that, I hope you have buried the ghosts of the past,’ I said.

  He smiled gratefully and got up to leave.

  A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE

  Ihad no difficulty recalling Shiben Ji when he came to see me after a gap of two years. The congenital squint that betrayed a leash of capillaries at the inner canthus of his left eye evoked inexplicable sympathy. He had been seeing me off and on for hypertension since 2006 but I knew nothing of his personal life.

  I greeted him affably, ‘Haven’t seen you in a long time, Shiben Ji?’

  ‘I was not well, sir. I came down with jaundice last winter and typhoid this summer. There was no one to accompany me here. Thankfully, the medical practitioner at Nagrota navigated me through both the illnesses. Yesterday, I consulted him for headaches that have been bothering me the last fortnight. He checked my blood pressure, found it quite high, and warned me that I could rupture a vessel in my brain and come down with a paralytic stroke. I decided to rush to you.’

  ‘Don’t you have a family?’

  He heaved a long sigh and nodded, ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You mean you live all alone?’

  He nodded again, a gloomy expression coming over his face.

  ‘Does anyone visit you?’

  ‘Why should anyone visit a pauper?’ His squint became wider, his face sadder.

  ‘There must be someone related to you somewhere. You didn’t spring from a void?’

  A pained expression hung on his face as he related his story.

  Forty-six summers back, Shiben Ji was born into a family of modest means. After he failed in his tenth grade, his father took him as an apprentice in his pharmacy that he ran in the backwaters of Rainawari on an islet by the quixotic name Mir Behri Kana Kachi near the famous Lake Dal. Mother Kakni agonised that her son would not be able to find a wife because he had neither a college degree nor a government job—the usual prerequisites for finding a girl willing to marry. Several years later, after the demise of his father, Shiben Ji took over his business as a full-time practitioner, catering to the ailments of the people who lived in the backwaters. His enhanced status as a ‘doctor’ of the boat people enabled his mother to find him a spouse. Chuni was a girl from downtown Zaina Kadal. She was 23, he was 25, and the year was 1989. The family lived happily for a few months after the wedding. But destiny had other plans.

  When the tempest of terrorism struck Kashmir, it blew the Battas off from their little islands of calm, and hurled them into the uncharted deserts of exile. Shiben Ji and his family were tossed 320 kilometres away into Geeta Bhavan at Jammu where they found themselves in a dormitory packed like sardines along with other refugees. Thereafter, life took a stormier course, altogether different from the relative peace of the backwaters of Rainawari. Within three months, the place was bursting with the influx of refugees that spilled over to the verandas and the yard. Shiben Ji’s family—wife Chuni, mother Kakni, sister Doora, and his two brothers, one of whom was married and had a child of two—were shifted to a refugee camp at Miraan Sahib, a hamlet 15 kilometres from Jammu. They were provided a tent, which they could now call a home. Two years passed. By that time, it was clear that terrorism was not just an aberration that would correct itself, but an escalating catastrophe that was bound to change the course of lives, of those thrown out as well as those who chose to stay back in the Valley. The State administration constructed a limited number of one-room tenements at Nagrota, 15 kilometres north of Jammu, where Shiben Ji’s family was allotted a room of 10 feet by 12 feet. But they soon realised that while they could enlarge the space of the tent at Miraan Sahib by opening the flaps and making use of the adjoining ground, the room at Nagrota offered no such scope. This family of eight found themselves cramped into a claustrophobic existence. There was a wrought iron door for entry into this dark dwelling. A three by two feet latticed opening in the brick wall by the side of the door served as the window. The asbestos roof trapped the heat during summer in a greenhouse effect, raising the room temperature several degrees higher than what they had experienced inside the tent. However, there was not much to choose between getting blown away by the hot, howling, blinding dust storms in the tent and being stewed in their own sweat and grime in the one-room dwelling.

  The family lived on dole— ₹450 per head to a maximum of four members in a family. That worked out at ₹225 each for this household of eight. This cut-off at four for each family was as arbitrary and unrealistic a decision by the authorities as it was heartless. Two hundred and twenty-five rupees could not even buy milk for Shiben Ji’s two-year-old nephew.

  It was not long before the family split up. Jeevan, the older brother, found a job as a salesperson in Jammu and moved to a rented room in the city along with his wife and son. Sister Doora was married off. That left only half the family in the room. This was a relief. They could now claim a corner each and stretch their limbs somewhat.

  Shiben Ji was rendered jobless in exile since he could no longer peddle his quackery. It was one thing to inherit his father’s pharmacy and practice and treat rustic boatmen, another to deal with fellow Battas who rarely compromised on health and sought qualified specialists even for minor illnesses. He did not venture to start a pharmacy, for he had neither the capital nor the contacts to obtain a new licence for practising in Jammu. His Kashmir licence would not work here, he was told. Having savoured total independence as a practitioner in the backwaters of Rainawari and established a status amongst the boat people, the idea of seeking a job as a helper or an apprentice with a local pharmacy was repugnant. So he chose to do nothing but sulk in his corner.

  But that was not good enough for Chuni. She decided to supplement the dole by working in a factory for ₹400 a month. The extra income gained her extra clout within the household. In a few months, she seized control and coerced her husband to throw out mother Kakni and younger brother Rakesh. He resisted but she pressed on. He kept silent when she harangued him for being an idler and a pampered child who refused to toddle out of his mother’s lap. To augment her offensive against the trio, she invited her brother who materialised every so often, bearing bottles of liquor, cracking lewd jokes, and creating a ruckus that caused Kakni great embarrassment and pain. Soon he brought a stranger along who becam
e a frequent visitor. Together, they indulged in orgies of eating and drinking, often hurling abuse and invective at Shiben Ji, deriding him as an unlettered half-doctor, mocking Kakni for having given birth to a nincompoop, needling Rakesh for being a sloth and a parasite who refuses to move out and live on his own.

  Shiben Ji felt utterly helpless in the face of this sustained tirade, but there was nowhere to go, none to run to for help. He stayed put even as the tormentors threw innuendoes for being a despicable husband who failed to father a child for seven long years. One day, after a wild argument, Chuni gathered her belongings and eloped with the new-found friend. Peace descended. Shiben Ji was rid of pestilence even as he had to fend off taunting neighbours who suspected him of pimping out his wife. Kakni was devastated more by the family dishonour than by the trauma of exile. Her memory started failing, she seemed lost and only talked about her halcyon times at Mir Behri Kana Kachi.

  ‘I never regretted when Chuni left me but I curse the day I left Kashmir. Had I stayed back I would not be condemned to this humiliating existence, even if I were to face the Jihadis every day,’ Shiben Ji mused while relating his story.

  ‘Would you have been safe?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I might have been killed, but that would have been better than this living hell. Better to lose one’s life at the hands of the militants than suffer the ignominy of losing one’s wife to a stranger.’

  ‘The militants might have spared you for being useful to the boat people.’

  ‘I am not sure. Before we fled, they would often visit my pharmacy for medicines and money. My neighbours said it was not a big price to buy peace with them. I did not mind as long as my family was not harmed. But when rumours ran around about the directive to several Jihadi groups from their mentors to eliminate all Battas, I knew that my truce with the militants would not last. One day they crossed my path as I walked to my pharmacy. One of them drew a Kalashnikov from under his pheran. Pointing it at me, he growled, “Batta, be ready to die; state if you have a last wish.” I trembled with fear and asked them to spare me, for I had committed no offence.’

  ‘“You have committed the biggest crime of being born a Batta. It is time for your final release from all sins.” Just then, a community elder passing by recognised me and pleaded for my life, “Pray spare him; he has been a good doctor to the community.” I was let off with a warning never to be seen thereabouts again. We left Kashmir the next day.’

  ‘Where is the rest of your family now? I mean mother Kakni and your brother Rakesh. He must have found a job.’

  ‘They are both dead,’ he said in an unemotional tone, as if that were the most natural thing to happen.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. What about your older brother who had moved to the city and your sister who was married? Don’t they visit you?’

  ‘Jeevan has built a small place in Durga Nagar. Doora has moved to Himachal Pradesh with her husband. They visit me sometimes, more out of curiosity to find out if I am alive since I have nothing to offer but my allotted room which would be up for grabs when I am gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘To the netherworld. And that might be better, for I am of no use to no one, not even to myself.’

  ‘Why don’t you work?’

  ‘I have grown out of the habit. I used to visit houses and houseboats, treating people for their little ailments, suturing their cuts and wounds, incising their boils and abscesses. I would even set sprains and fractures. One time, I bandaged a foreign mem’s sprained ankle. She gave me a big tip and a warm handshake. I had learned to give injections as well. My patients said I had a balmy hand; they never felt the needle prick. They used to shower me with gifts—fruits and vegetables and flowers that I offered to the deities. It is all gone, a world blown away by the foul winds of terrorism…’ His voice trailed away wistfully.

  ‘How do you spend your days?’

  ‘Doing nothing in particular,’ he replied without any embarrassment.

  ‘You mean you just sit there in your room the whole day long and do nothing?’

  ‘You must have heard the adage: A person without a job has a hundred chores. I realise that now. I seem to be so busy with one thing or another. I don’t know how time passes. And when there is nothing else to do, I spend time in the temple.’

  ‘What do you live on?’

  ‘My ration card.’

  ‘I hear the government has increased the dole for refugees. By now you must be getting ₹1,000 every month?’

  ‘A thousand and five hundred.’ He corrected me.

  ‘But you are single and entitled to ₹1,000 only.’

  ‘Yes, I am single after Kakni and Rakesh passed away, but I was advised not to get my brother’s name deleted from the ration card.’

  ‘Who advised you?’

  ‘The officials at the relief department.’

  ‘That is illegal.’

  ‘I know, but that is how it works.’

  ‘So you get the dole of two persons; that should make it ₹2,000.’

  ‘Yes, that should have been ₹2,000. But the officials take half of my brother’s dole. It is 50–50.’

  ‘This is a risky business,’ I cautioned him. ‘Someone may alert the authorities and you could be apprehended. You will not only have to pay back but also go to jail for the fraud. I feel you should get the name of your brother deleted from the ration card at the earliest.’

  ‘I informed the officials about his death and asked them to delete his name but they laughed at me derisively for being a big fool. “If you don’t tell us, we do not know,” they spoke in confidence. “Does it hurt you to pocket another ₹500 every month?” Since it suited me and came at no cost, I did not object. Hira Lal, the ration dealer, said it is all right to have my brother’s name on the card. “Who cares?” he said, “they are all swindlers, mixed up in fraud from the minister down to the lowest functionary. Dead people continue to live in the official registers and receive the dole, while new-borns and fresh refugee arrivals find it hard to enlist unless they bribe the officers. There are fake refugees with ration cards and genuine refugees with none. Who cares in this city of the blind, the deaf and the dumb? Even if you insist that your brother’s name be deleted, they will show him alive and pocket the whole dole. Only you will stand to lose.”’

  I was aware of the fraud going on in the relief agency, but it was bizarre to hear it directly from a person who was both the victim and the offender.

  ‘When did your brother die?’ I asked.

  ‘Rakesh died three years ago.’

  ‘What did he die of?’

  He had a single word to describe the cause of his brother’s death: ‘Mental.’

  ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘He could not put up with exile. He lost his equilibrium soon after we fled Kashmir and landed in Jammu. He would hear terrible voices, fear strangers and have visions of terrorists chasing him. Mostly, he sat stupefied for hours in a corner. At other times he went around like a man possessed, uttering profanities, spitting at the walls and shouting at people. Finally, he stopped eating altogether, wasted away and died. Exile madness killed him.’

  Exile madness! I marvelled at the expression. Unwittingly, he had added a new phrase to the lexicon of psychiatric disorders. ‘What about your mother?’ I asked.

  ‘Kakni died of a broken heart. She never reconciled to the humiliation of Chuni’s elopement. But it was the pathetic condition of my brother during his last days that did her in. She followed him after four months.’

  ‘So you should have three, not two, members on the ration card?’

  ‘Only two, I swear by God! I got my mother’s name deleted soon after she passed away. That time, no one in the Relief Office offered any deal.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Possibly the official realised that it was too risky to hush up two deaths in the same family. “Let us follow the rules this time,” he said.’

  ‘You swear by God without a scruple. W
ould he approve of the swindle the relief officials and you are mixed up in?’

  He looked away and nodded in the negative.

  ‘Are you religious?’

  ‘I swore by God out of habit. Back home in Kashmir, I used to visit the temple every morning. It was a practice inculcated by my mother that grew into faith. She would take me along to different temples. She taught me the rituals and mantras. But I think I lost my faith in exile. Now I visit the temple out of sheer boredom, for there is nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, no one to talk to.’

  ‘So you talk to God?’

  ‘I don’t even know what to say to him. If God is what we have been made to believe he is, then he should be in the know of everything.’

  ‘What do you do inside the temple?’

  ‘Wash the idol of Shiva and pour water on him, offer wild flowers that I pick from the bush, for I can’t afford to buy them. Sometimes I light an oil lamp and pray.’

  ‘You said you lost your faith?’

  ‘I pray out of habit.’

  ‘What do you pray; what do you ask of Shiva?’

  ‘I don’t really know how to pray, nor what to ask of Shiva. I crave to return home; can he send me back? All that is left of me is my ailments; can he relieve me of them? So I pray to him to end my misery; can he do it? I feel he doesn’t see, doesn’t hear, doesn’t care—like the people who govern us. If he did, I would not be breathing the foul air of exile but the bountiful breeze of Mir Behri Kana Kachi, the happy island where pretty maidens with shy smiles glide by in flower and vegetable-laden boats, selling their ware.’

  ‘Maybe Shiva wants your hands clean and your conscience clear.’

  Outraged by my insinuation, he asked, ‘Is there a person with clean hands and a clear conscience? I spend nearly ₹400 a month just on medical consultations, tests and medicines. How would I survive on the remaining ₹600 of dole if that is all I had to depend upon? Has Shiva ever thought of that? A little dishonesty that hurts no one is better than stealing and begging. That is what Hira Lal, the ration dealer, advised me. Look how the officials have become fat on bribes and built fortunes from swindling the funds that the Central Government sends for our relief and rehabilitation! Look how the militants and their mentors are amassing wealth, expropriating our properties in the Valley and building mansions for their families. Look how our killers are running free while our families are rotting in one-room prisons. Look how the government crawls on its belly, begging the militants for a dialogue but refuses to hear our woes. Look how various initiatives and incentives are offered to win the Jihadi youths back into the mainstream and how we, their victims, are being pushed deeper into the quagmire of depression and desolation. Who cares for us? Do you? Does Shiva?’