At the starting corner of the lane that split out right from the downhill road was this four storied old house. Made of old ‘half a size’ bricks that fitted closely in a pattern and latticed windows with small stained glass, it was home to many families of Kashmir Pandits. With a rusted iron roof, this old structure stood quietly overlooking the mohalla square. A mud and rock wall bordering it ended by the old wooden door that creaked and opened with some effort, leading to a barren mud baked courtyard. On the fourth floor of this cluttered house lived my mathematics teacher, my tuitions of evenings became a journey of sorts from here. The mathematics teacher took fewer and small groups of tuitions, not more than 4 or 5; more often than not it had Muslim students.

A low entrance door on the ground floor led to an old narrow staircase that wound up to small and dimly lit rooms. The teachers family had three rooms of this house, three and a half to be precise. The room on the top floor overlooking the square had the ‘dubb’, a wooden extension that gave more space (dub could be seen somewhat a cross between a porch and a Rajasthani Jarokha). This room was the kitchen and the sitting room combined, divided by a half wooden partition in between; we sat by the first partition where the teacher used to enjoy his ‘kho’ess’ full of tea during sessions of learning. A family of three, the teacher had a beautiful daughter, who we never dared to see in the face or talk about; the sanctity of teacher – student relation was adhered to by us in totality. Form a learned family, our teachers other brother was also into education, an English lecturer known to resemble a famous movie star of his years, lived in a separate house next lane.

Mushtaq and I studied together in this group and even though were not from the same school (I had come from boarding & he studied locally), became best buddies. Mushtaq would take out his shoes outside the ground floor low entrance only; some of us would carry them to inside where the teacher also had his pairs kept. My pairs soon joined Mushtaq’s outside the ground floor main door, part of his code of teacher house ethics.

Two bends down main road near the govt boys’ school was the post office. The road widened here to narrow again ahead, and it was here that Mushtaq leant of this bully lad, who had been troubling the teacher, his imputations that reeked of viciousness. One of those occasions when the teacher passed that way and we witnessed the bully at his wily ways, Mushtaq and I confronted him. For all the ‘bully’ that this lad was worth, he stood no ground before us and fled. We thought he was done with, but he was not. The fox won’t try conviction & bravery but will attempt deceit. The ‘paper bully’ tried provoking the local milkman’s son, a strong wide bodied young man with a flat nose known to throw his weight around, against us but unsuccessfully.

Next day afternoon during tuitions for the first time ever tea was offered to us by the teacher. Aroma that had always tinged me during learning sessions of complex theorems was finally conquered, the ‘kho’ess’ of tea was briefly in my hand.

It was a bleak winter morning that had cast barricades over a curfewed night, January clouds gathered ferociously across Kashmir. In many places even the Muezzin has gone silent, his Azaan muted by a petrified quiet. Days barely passed, lengthened by their own shadows, time had no course to escape. By one of these evenings, I juggled by the inner lanes, crisscrossing bolted doors and sobs of a terrified population. Over a dirt filled track which had not been cleaned for days, I crossed over the square being placed right in front of the old four storied house. I was all alone confronting the brutal emptiness that blew like the tundra wind in my face, Mushtaq had since taken to sleep (Mushtaq died, shot near Hawal while he was coming out from his classes). Confronted by an intriguing noiselessness, the old house stood like a lifeless monolith, occasionally only disturbed by the hum of overhead wires. Everybody was gone and soullessness had taken over. On the top floor, an old latticed window by the ‘dubb’ was creaking, hung in stillness of time. Had the window been left unlatched by the fleeing owners as the only sign of a lifeless existence or was it trying to break free from the bonds of this reluctant lull? I kept searching for souls, for voices in this forced insipidness, but in vain.

Many years later on one of my autumn vacations from college, I was revisiting this place (my family had long ago migrated from these habitations in that coerced winter chill, to city suburbs, nocturnal flights of a lifeless land). In the faint sundown golden glow, the monolith structure stood as lifeless as could be. The creaking latticed window of the ‘du’bb’ remained no more, perhaps blown away by the winds of desolation; a philosophical interpretation could be ‘it finally managed a union with its fleeing souls’. The rusted iron roof had caved in, no longer able to sustain the burden of neglect in this conflict. When human lives become collateral, skies are known to have collapsed in torment and twinge.

I stood there still and frozen in infinite turbulence. Deep inside I heard the teacher asking me to redo the mathematical theorem, I heard him praise Mushtaq for his efforts and hard work. I could see the glee of his daughter running down the old stair case, his wife by the kitchen corner stove and the latticed window open by the teacher’s side. It soon rained, outside and within me; the skies had opened up. Time and apathy had swept ruin to homes of Kashmir and time like sand slips from our hands even before we realize it.

The burden of our relentless wounds far overweighs our human capacity to heal. When will peace return and when will we all heal? Will Kashmir return to the old happy days when all faiths and beliefs lived happily under the same sun, when peace reigned? 

 ~ S ~ 

10^th December, 2012

Just two days after Dad and Uncle had been rescued from armed militants, on an early morning one of the young men, part of the group who had earlier kidnapped them, suddenly appeared in our courtyard calling for my Dad.

Dad looking out of the sitting room window, walked up the path which dissected our lawn in the middle, meeting the young man there, halfway towards our main gate. Dad made it a point to stop the man there, potentially blocking him from coming close to our home.

The militant in jeans and an oversized thick shirt seemed very upset. In the distance, from the verandah near the main door, my family could hear the two talking in rushed tones, without making out what it was.

Dad was nodding his head while the young man kept shaking his hands and raising his voice in defiant refusal to what Dad was saying.

Soon it turned out that the lone militant had barged in to demand money from Dad, claiming that he had split from the previous group. In most probability he had either got less (or nothing) from their previous kidnap earnings, or maybe he had been emboldened by the payment of ransom money to the group leader days ago.

The rouge was asking for twenty thousand rupees, Dad insisted he did not have even twenty rupees to give him. The previous event notwithstanding, Dad had made up his mind to resist any such attempts and draw a line.

On the first appearance the militant appeared to have come unarmed, with bare hands.

Our neighbor Basheer sahab lived right opposite our home and we shared a low wall between the two houses, so low that the two families could see each other from their respective verandas. When the militant started to shout, Basheer Sahab and his family hearing the commotion rushed to their front verandah. The intruder further raised his pitch to Dad’s clear refusal and started to draw his hand towards under his shirt. In no time Basheer sahab and his son leapt from over the low wall that separated the two houses.

The militant drew a pistol that he had concealed behind his loose-fitting shirt, tucked away under the belt. He quickly unlocked the pistol, aiming at Dad, but while unlocking the chamber got stuck somehow, jamming the weapon. In no time Basheer sahab along with Dad leapt on the lone militant and pinned him to ground. Mom had already rushed barefooted to the path, in despair standing close to Dad. The militant lay on the path with his face pushed towards the flower bed, that had been trampled by his weight and the rushing footsteps. His hands had been locked towards his back with Basheer Sahab and his son holding them while Dad pinned him down with his knee. The pistol had been pushed away towards the lawn. The militant moaned, struggling to be freed, while the elders held forcibly in an uncertain silence for a few moments.  

Realizing the gravity of the situation, Dad started taking politely to the militant, releasing his pressure gradually, then looking at Mom ‘Get some water for the young man please. These are like our own kids’.

This reconciliatory tone from Dad, and later Basheer Sahab, was intended to offset any further harm the militant, or his group, could have caused to the families. You walked a very thin line during the peak of turmoil in Kashmir, between wanting to live safely and maintaining a safeguard against excesses. Most often than not, the safe line existed in withdrawing to obscurity, in pretending to lack of your existence even when you existed in a nothingness of our own assumed and imaginary confines, those could often be trespassed by violators at their own free will.

Soon the militant was helped on his feet and walked up to the verandah where he sat dispirited. He was offered water, while Dad explaining that he actually had no money to give and that his intention of refusal was not to hurt him but out of a material fact. Basheer sahab then gave him his own comforting words, the militant silently pretending to listen and understand to all of this, which those around understood these words went beyond his comprehension. He then looked at the jammed weapon that lay on the lawns, reflecting on the courage displayed by these two old men in overpowering him.

Sensing the militant had been deprived of his bravado, Basheer sahab lay his arm around the militant walking him back towards the path, slipped two hundred rupees into his hands, whispered “treat me as your uncle, son”.

The militant picked up his jammed weapon from the lawn and was escorted by Basheer sahab, Dad and few other people towards the gate, bolting it again after his exit. He fled, failed and bruised, melting into an oblivion outside. While our families shrunk back to their uncertainties.

The fear of a repeat of such violent violation continued to haunt us.

Sometime later we migrated from this place, further up north.  

~ S ~

11th July, 2012