24-A struggle of a Kashmiri Migrant
About Me
Sham S. Misri
Born, brought up, educated and lived and married in Kashmir, one of the beautiful places in the world. In my mind this best place in the world is Mother Kashmir, which is what I call home. Everyone knows everyone because we have the same mother.
I did my Masters degree in Science (Zoology) from Kashmir University. Initially worked in a college as a lecturer where I was familiar with the children and the staff. I later on switched over my job to Central services where I joined as a scientist, and retired from the same organization as Deputy Director, a senior level officer. Over the years of my active career a lot has been contributed to the cause of Education and science in my own field. There have been many publications in various scientific journals and magazines.
Circumstances forced me and my family to flee from my native place because of barbaric acts of the militants over there in the valley, thus, leaving us as migrants. My mother conquered a great deal in her life, but she can do nothing about her heartbreak and her longing for her home in Kashmir, her routine, her vendors, and her neighbors. She is gone now, having died peacefully in Jammu, surrounded by her children, all sons and daughters, sons-in law and daughter –in laws. She was reassured at the sight of her children who had collected at her bedside; yet her face betrayed the homesickness that was eating away at her. She would have given anything to go home just once. She, always house proud, used to say that she would like to go home at least once to have the furniture dusted the house cleaned, and to have everything sorted out. We could not let her go, as old and delicate as she was. We did not want her to find out what we had hidden from her all these years that her house had been robbed bare by militant crowds out on a rampage against the homes of Kashmiri Pandits. The neighborhood she wanted to go back is now a battlefield. We lived at Baghat, Barzulla, Srinagar, with a big chunk of land and a huge building, now raised to ground. The city is familiar with firearms and weapons. Foreigners have cropped up everywhere, like unfamiliar trees and no one asks who sent them or why they came.
I have my wife Sarla with me. She is M.A. B Ed. and has worked in the Education Department. She has cooperated with me through thick and thin, and she bore me three beautiful children Sandeep, Sanjla and Sumeet. All of them have been given superior higher education at a time when the conditions in Kashmir were extremely bad. I along with my wife had to prove in harder times how to keep the crucial education of our children going. We Kashmiris have a belief, that, our wealth is to give education to our children. In difficult times our children co-operated with us. They perhaps put in extra hours of labor and got admissions in various professional colleges on their own steam. They became engineers and are doing very well in their jobs. They have a strong educational background. They are all married; their wives are also engineers and are happy.
Reluctantly, I, along with my wife and small children leave the Kashmir valley, the valley of my ancestors, looking for safety wherever I can find it. A proud and highly civilized race has been beaten, defeated, and driven out of our birth place- “Kashmir valley.” The cruel militants have evicted us, and made us homeless. They humbled and disgraced and finally ejected us systematically. The Muslim neighbors cannot help me even if they want to do so. For the first time in Kashmir the burqas and the bindi became weapons of communal division in the hands of the militants.
Many of my community, the Kashmiri Pandits, a “Kashur Batta” leave Kashmir. I am a migrant in my own country. Not one, not hundreds, not thousands, but in lakhs, Kashmiri Pandits flee from Kashmir. We Kashmiri’s call ourselves the children of Rishis; we learnt from them how to live with harmony and in tranquil. Now our pride is lost, our houses razed to ground, and the people of my community live in refugee camps, some under tents and some near the graveyards.
My father, Pandit Janki Nath Misri, was an eminent Educationist, a perfect nobleman, and highly disciplined. He taught many, I repeat many; some became Chief Ministers, some Deputy Commissioners, some famous doctors and some lawyers. With affection people would call him Gautam Buddha, what a name, status and stature? In my childhood I would take it otherwise, but no, he was a man of principle, and he retired as a principal of a reputed high school. A celebrity, an author and a gentleman, with a series of publications to his credit. I wonder about the books of my father, the books that he wrote with all care and attention. The books that gave him fame. I remember how publishers used to come with the typed manuscripts, and how much pains he used to take in making the corrections with his green ink pen which he used all along his life. Many of the manuscripts were typed by none other than my wife Sarla, newly married to me. My father’s this daughter in law, an M.A. B Ed., he loved, because he had value for education. He had two more graduate daughters in laws. My father’s modest library had more than thousand books. He would call these books priceless and his treasure. The Book of Knowledge, Several Encyclopedias, books on science, Mathematics, religion and what not. All the books were in hard bound. He would always keep a track of all the books the people would borrow from him. He had catalogued all the books in his library and pasted oval printed bookplates inside the covers. The labels bore catalogue numbers and a famous quote
“My library was dukedom large enough”-The Tempest.
I along with my wife and children have widely travelled to various countries like United States of America, the United Kingdom, India, and Canada. Now we belong to all worlds, and all men are our brothers.
I am here at Seattle, Washington as of now. This I had never thought. For me as most of the Kashmiris it is a dream. Had we been here under normal circumstances things would have been different, anyway, a dream is a dream which has come true. We meet here often, Hindus Kashmiri Battas, the children of Rishi Var, the valley of our common sages, and there are many of us in the United States now. We have get-togethers; we have Kashmiris food and talk to each other in Kashmiri, something we cannot share with anyone else. A single sentence in Kashmiri can reduce us to tears or laughter as no other language can. Even if we live in the calm of Washington, USA, all of us are thrashing about internally, for different reasons, redoing our inner maps. We do not talk much about the current situation in Kashmir, what we talk is about our past culture, we carry on as if nothing had happened.
I am nick named as Bairaj. I love to teach and narrate stories to children, young and old. Our family is a middle class family of Teachers, Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Administrators, and Ambassadors in Foreign Service. We are scattered now. Earlier our children and grand children would come and assemble at Misri Villa, there my mother or father would narrate some story to the young mind which the growing child would remember, but now the stories through the blogs may be of some source to keep the tradition live. Though late, I am at it.
These stories are for you our grand children, Parum, Shiva, Pranav, Neel, Shanky, Arana, Didon, Chinky, Shruti, Ishan, Sindhu, Suchum, Baba, Vrindha, Mona, Nikki, Deepu,or Arihant Aditya , Anshu, and all precious and beautiful children of the earth, the world is so small. This way the blooming ones will get to know about the past glory of their grand parents and great grand parents.
Last night I saw a dream. In my dream I see my old parents, Tath Sahib and Babi. They tell me,” they have become very poor.
They tell me a strange thing – “One day an old beggar appeared at our door. He was asking for food. He had been turned away by all their neighbors, but when we saw him, we were filled with pity.”
“Come inside” we said. “We haven’t much, but what we have is yours.”
All we had to eat was some cooked rice, a stale loaf of bread, and some potatoes and some carrots. We put the plate before the old man and told him to eat as much as he could, until he was full. We filled his cup with last curd water-lassi that we had. After the old man had finished eating, we wrapped a warm cloth around the old man.
“We wish there were more to give you.” We told him.
“But as you can see we are a poor couple and our cupboards are empty. We have been reduced to poverty; we are out of our ancestral home.” We repeated.
The beggar with matted hair smiled, and said, “No, you go and see again in your kitchen and almirahs.”
The couple, my parents went into the kitchen and opened their cupboards. They were stunned when they saw their cupboards full of all delicacies, and all the foods, and juices to drink. Before they could say anything, they realized they were no longer dressed in tattered clothes. They found themselves dressed up in fine dresses. The house they were living had changed to a beautiful big house, it looked like a palace. Most surprisingly, the beggar with them was none other than the god Shiva.
Then the god said, “It is for all the kindness you showed to me. Your kindness shall be rewarded. Ask whatever you want and your wish will be fulfilled.”
The poor couple said,” We have been poor all along our lives, but we have loved each other. We have small children and we love them. We make them to read and write. We have faith in our children.”
They continued their talk, “We worked hard, build our house, but our house has been burnt by Muslim militants. We have been robbed of all our belongings. That is why we are poor again, but now still we have known love only. Please grant that we may have never to live one without the other.”
The couple lived the rest of their lives in luxury. They never knew hunger again. The god assured the family of all Kashmiri Pandits brilliant success. One day when they had become quite aged and old, they were not at all surprised when suddenly they started to sprout leaves. They embraced each other as their arms became branches, and bark grew around them. “Thank you, Shiva,” they said as they turned into trees, for he had granted their wish. They both grow from a single trunk.
The thick branches of that great grand tree bears the fruit, the new branches will go on adding, with more fresh leaves and flowers every now and then. Their seeds dwell, and will continue to grow on the earth. We are all passengers together aboard this spaceship earth. We are all closely related to each other, but time has drifted us a Kashmiri Pandit community, a pure race apart, we are scattered all along the earth.
I think that I shall never see,
A grand and lovely as a tree,
A tree, whose leafy boughs wear,
Nest of sparrows in her hair.
I think that I shall never see
I may not see a tree at all.
I love to read. In Kashmir we had a 14th Centaury poetess, Lal Ded (1320-1392). I love to memorize most of the wise Vaakhs of Lal Ded; of which she has spoken many.
Born in Pandrethan, near Srinagar, Kashmir, she got married at the age of twelve, but, her marriage was unhappy and she left her home at the age of twenty four. Many stories are told about Lal Ded. One story tells how she ignored normal dress and chose to wander about naked. The children would tease her. One day, a nearby cloth merchant scolded the children for showing disrespect to Lal Ded. She asked the cloth merchant for two lengths of cloth, equal in size and weight. That day she walked naked. She wore a piece of cloth over each shoulder, and as she met with respect or scorn, she tied a knot in one or the other. In the evening she brought the cloth back to the cloth merchant and asked him to weigh it again. The cloths were equal in weight, no matter how many knots were in each.
A saint, some say a god. Her over four hundred Vaakhs are words of wisdom. I read them and have memorized them. Apparently I feel I don’t remember, but when I start reciting there is the flow. In exile I have tried to put them in ‘Antakshri ‘form where either the last alphabet or any significant alphabet of the last word may be used to start new vakh.
Omei Akooie Achur Paroom
Sui Ha Maali Ratoom Vondas Manz
Sui Ha Maali Kani Peth Garoom Ta Charoom
Aasas saas Ta Sapdas Sone.
Sone Drav Vohion Mal Gose Wathit
Yeli Mei Aneel Ditus Taao
Kater Zan Gayas Lole Weglith
Ithpath Kathkosh Goul Ta Nish Rav Draov.
Vadane Seetai Gaash Ho Mari
Vadane Vadane Meli Na Zanh
Mun Kar Saaf Tai Zeri Eka Meli
Emav Shala Tungav Nerey Kaya
Aami Pana Sadras Naavi Chas Lamaan
Kati Bozi Dyii Meone Meti Deyee Taar
Aamen Takyan Poien Zan Shaman
Zuv Chum Bramaan Ghar Gach Ha
Ha Manushi Kyaze Chook Wuthan Seki Loor
Ami Rakhi Ha Maali Paki Na Naav
Yi Luekhei Naranan Karamani Rakhaee
Ti Mali Hekhie Na Feerith Kanh
Hu Kous Ta Bu Kous, Teliwan Che Kous
Anoam Batookh Ladoom Daige
Shah Kitch Kitch Vaa Mano
Boomadey Haaras Poonie Chakoam
Boomadey Bona Tekis Tekha
Everything beautiful is broken now. It began with beauty. And then it was about greed. Kashmir’s beauty is the stuff of praise and big movies; a great sage who begged to god to strike a cleft in the valley. It was done, they say, and most of the water drained away, leaving a fertile land, a soft, green place in the midst of the world’s youngest and crudest mountain ranges. The lunatic peaks were thrown up towards the high cloud strata when the Indo Australian plate of the fragmenting super continent Gondwanaland is thought to have collided with the Eurasian plate. During the Time of Reptiles, an inland sea, the Tethys of Suess, is believed to have existed between the supercontinents. Parts of it were hurled upward in the collision and became the Himalayas, bringing marine life to be embedded in mountain walls. This is where Kashmir Valley’s beauty was bred, in the rich silt that was laid down in this high garden that was once an ocean floor.
A vast lake once covered the valley. It was under the care of the goddess Parvati who was so friendly that when she sailed her boat over the lake, its waters became smooth and safe. A wicked dragon disputed her beneficent power. From the deep waters where he dwelt he caused storms to rise and overwhelm any boatman who might venture to cross. Thus good and evil strove for the victory, but the dragon remained unconquered. Then the God Brahma sent his grandson Kashyap to overcome the demo, but in vain. Whereupon the deities took counsel and struck the mountain a mighty blow, making a great cleft through which the waters of the lake rushed forth. Still the demon eluded them, covering beneath the remaining water. At last the goddess Parvati came forth from her rocky height and in despair and anger hurled a mountain down upon the dragon in his hiding place, burying him under the mass of rock. This mountain imbedded in the ancient lake can still be seen, for it is the hill on which the fort Hari Parbat stands. At Baramulla, the present gorge and narrow channel testify the cleft made in the mountain.
A legend says that two demons, Tsand and Mond, occupied the fair valley. Tsand hid in the water near the present location of Hari Parbat and Mond somewhere above the present Dal Gate, and both terrorized the people of the valley. The gods invoked Parvati who assumed the form of a Hor (myna) and flew to Sumer, picked up a pebble in her beak, and threw it on the demon Tsand to crush him. The pebble grew into a mountain. Parvati is worshipped as Sharika. The hill is considered sacred by the Kashmiri Pandits due to the presence of temple of Sharika, the presiding deity of the Srinagar city. This temple is also known as Chakreshwari temple.
The pious and sacred place of pilgrimage has deep roots in religious traditions of Hindus.
Hari Parbat (the hill of Sharika) situated at the periphery of Srinagar city is an ancient and one of the holiest places of Kashmir. It is the abode of Mahashakti - the Divine Mother Jagatamba. The eighteen armed Goddess Sharika (Ashtadushbuja) is regarded as the Presiding Deity of Srinagar city. Ashtadushbuja “The Centuries old idol of Goddess Ashtadushbuja, Mata Kaliji, is there in the ancient temple of Hari Parbat in Srinagar.
Of course, everyone likes to take credit for the formation of the fecund valley. The Brahmins said it was because the holy man, Kashyap, was so diligent in his devotions that he was allowed to call on a god to do his bidding. He called on Shiva, along with Brahma and Vishnu in the temple of gods. Shiva is the destroyer, and, one of the three ruling persons. Shiva raised his trident and whacked the ground.
The fertile valley invited men to dwell there, and it became populated by a primitive non- Aryan people who lived in the fear of demons and imagined the serpent a god. From these superstitions grew Nag worship, the most ancient cult in Kashmir, which has left its mark in many names of places, as Nag Marg,” The alp of the snake”, Verinag, “ the place of many springs and the snake” etc. Their veneration for the snake led them to build tanks for the god to occupy at the springs, which became shrines and were regarded as sacred places.
The Aryan invaders found these primitive people in the valley and in contrast to their well demons and malignant spirits which must ever be placated, brought friendly and shining divinities with whom they stood on good terms.
On this ground, the aboriginal inhabitants of Kashmir, the Kashmiri Hindus, commonly known as Kashmiri Pandits (KPS) constitute a distinct class of their own. We are considered to be a purest specimen of the ancient Aryan settlements on the banks of the river Saraswati and who migrate to Kashmir Valley in wake of the changing course of the river. This River eventually dries up.
The old Aryan word ‘deva’, the shining one, has derivatives in religious use today. Thus through the years arose the kingdom of Kashmir. The valley much favored by nature, its rich heritage brought misery upon the country and people, for it became the prey of envious neighbors and invading hordes. Many times it was racked and oppressed by the alien rule. It passed from the hands of Buddhists to Hindus, Mohammadans, and Sikhs and again to Hindus before reaching the present era of an established government.
When Alexander the Great, King of Macedon, entered northern India in 327 B.C. and pitched his camp on the river which he called Hydaspes, influences were started which were to bear upon the subsequent history of Kashmir for generations. The fabulous Hydaspes of classic fame is the modern Jhelum, the great placid waterway of Kashmir. Not far from the northern boundary of Kashmir, where the river makes a bend, Alexander fought a battle in the course of which his beloved charger (Horse), the renowned Bucephalus, was slain. In his honor Alexander built a memorial city on the west bank of river near modern Jalalpur.
We Kashmiri Pandits begin to settle in Kashmir and try to live closer to each other for reasons of social contacts. We take participation in each other's moments of joy and sorrow, safety and well being. We talk to each other in our mother tongue, Kashur. We observe festivals and keep a track of matrimonial contacts and information to maintain the purity of race. Naturally it becomes necessary for us to form a Society, Sabha, or association to perform up these expectations. But now, it seems the purpose to perpetuate our traditions and culture and to preserve the community identity is a far cry.
Our great grand ancestor , Kalhan Pandit, a historian, tells us about the past story through his most reliable book The Rajatarangini, where he tells us that Gonanda I is the first king of Kashmir. Then Chandragupta Mauryas grandson Asoka the Great (273-232 BCE) who builds many stupas in Kashmir. He is the greatest of the emperors of the Mauryan Empire not only because of his military feats but his later noble ideals. Kashmir becomes part of the Mauryan Empire under Emperor Ashok. Asoka builds a city called Sri Nagar (beautiful city). This city is now known as Pandrethan, (Puranadhisthan). He builds many Buddhist structures, temples and Vihars. During Asoka’s rule Buddhism is preached in Kashmir under state sponsorship. He even repairs an old shrine. Since the people of Kashmir are Shaiva Hindu (worship Shiva), he also builds a Shiva Temple.
SHIVA is our God:
The love story of Shiva and Parvati concludes by saying, “Only Parvati could recognize Shiva under all the ash and the snakes. No ordinary mortal can see the Lord.” According to Hindu view of life, Shiva, the principle male power, unites with his female counterpart in order to acquire the ability to create and destroy. The story of Sati and Shiva, describes the truth and beauty of Vedic concept.
In the days of ancient mythology, Brahma, the Prajapati, mentally creates ten sons to carry out his task of creation and destruction. Both Shiva and Daksha are the outcome of such a creation but Shiva has superior powers. Daksha, however, never likes the supremacy of Shiva. So, he takes Shiva as his rival.
One of the daughters of Daksha is Sati. She is a great devotee of Shiva. She is beautiful and virtuous. Sati always thinks of Shiva and desires to be his wife. Sati, through her sincere and devotional prayers, acquires the blessings of all gods and goddesses. Shiva finally yields and appears before Sati. She pays her reverence and kneels down to Shiva.
Shiva asks her to choose a boon. Shiva knows what she may ask but wants her to speak for herself.
Sati is hesitant, after a while Sati gathers her courage and starts to say, "Lord will you ----"
Shiva does not let Sati complete her question, and he blesses her, "Be my consort Sati."
Soon Sati marries Shiva amidst numerous gods and goddesses.
After the wedding, Shiva takes Sati to Kailas where they spend many a happy days.
Then one day, Shiva requests Sati to accompany him to Prayag, today's Allahabad, to attend a fire- worship ceremony or Yagna.
When Shiva enters the Yagna hall, every one stands up to pay respect.
After some time Daksha enters the Yagna hall. Everyone stands up to pay respect except Shiva. Daksha feels insulted.
"How dare my son-in-law, Shiva, does not stand up! This is a deliberate insult to me," Daksha says to himself.
Shiva, on the other hand, thinks to himself, "Being a superior power, it is not nice of me to stand up, and stoop on Daksha." Shiva did not mean to insult Daksha.
Taking this instance as an exception, Daksha promises to insult Shiva in public. He hurriedly returns home and declares that he will hold a grand sacrificial ceremony. He invites all gods and goddesses, but deliberately excluded Shiva.
When Sati, Shiva's beautiful wife and Daksha's daughter, notices a large procession of gods and goddesses passing by, she curiously asks Shiva, "Where are they going?"
Shiva replies, “your father, Daksha, has to hold a grand sacrificial ceremony, and they are to go there."
Sati is amazed!
"Then why have you not been invited?" she demands angrily. "You should have been the first to be asked."
Shiva smiles gently at his wife's loyalty and fervor.
"Daksha has always been hostile to me," Shiva tries to explain.
But Sati's disbelief increase, "Does my father not realize that you are the supreme power and no one can equal you?"
"You are a good and true wife Sati," Shiva replies gently, "but Daksha thinks differently, he takes me as his rival."
"Invitation or not," Sati says furiously, "I think we should go. It is after all my own father's house and I at least need no invitation."
"Then go with my blessings Sati," replies Shiva. "But do not forget that Daksha will shower insults upon me. You must be strong enough to bear it silently and not allow your rage to show in your father's presence. If you are unable to tolerate his insults, I fear you may come to harm."
Taking Nandi, the gentle white bull that is Shiva's companion and mount, Sati arrives at her father's grand sacrificial ceremony.
Sati feeling bad for not inviting Shiv wants to meet her mother Meena and father Daksh and tell them why Shiv is not invited.
Daksha reluctantly receives her and publicly condemns Shiva - calling him the demon of death and an impious haunter of cremation grounds.
When yega starts all invitees take their seats. Brahma Ji, and Vishnu ji ask Daksh where is Shiva. On this Daksha replies that Shiva who smears his body with ash and has snakes all around his neck with human skulls as a necklace around his neck has not been invited as his presence would have unpurified the atmosphere. On this every body says with the presence of Shiv things get purified and should have been invited.
"What place has the goblin lord of witches and foul spirits in a sacred ceremony such as mine?" Daksha booms.
Sati is hurt by his insults to her husband and begs her father to stop, but Daksha cannot contain himself.
"It is disgraceful for a so-called god to wear filthy rags, cover himself with snakes and dance like a madman at ceremonies ---" continues Daksha on and on until Sati can’t stand any longer. She remembers her husband's caution, "Do not allow your rage to get over you."
Sati painfully says, "I am ashamed to be known as your daughter. As I have promised my husband not to take any revenge, much less upon you, I merely denounce you before this assembly. She falls upon the ground as a dead body.
I shall consume myself in a fire and return to mother Earth until I am born again to a father whom I can respect."
Daksha ignores the disappearance of Sati and orders to continue with the sacrifice.
When news reaches Shiva, through Nandi, that his beloved wife is dead, he lets out a mighty roar that shakes Heaven and Earth. He soon creates a powerful demon, names Virabhadra, from his matted hair. Shiva also creates a huge army of demons to accompany Virabhadra. They descend like a hurricane on Daksha's feast, destroy the sacrificial offering and kill all those who dare defend Daksha. Finally every one walks over to Shiva's side to seek refuge with him.
Shiva is about to destroy the universe, when Brahma comes with other gods to calm him down. Shiva is still trembling and quivering and shakes with anger and wrath, rage and fury. Shiva is in grief and sorrow at the loss of Sati. All the gods try to sooth the furious and angry Shiva and plead with him to pardon Daksha. They beg Shiva to allow Daksha to complete the sacrificial ceremony, which he has started; otherwise he would go to hell.
Relenting, Shiva brings back to life all the people who were killed in the battle and cures all those who were injured. Finally, Shiva looks up, suppressing the power of his destructive third eye, and states, "I will return Daksha to life, but he must bear the mark of his foolishness forever."
The gods agree to Shiva's condition and Daksha is revived. The mark of his foolishness is clear for all to see for instead of his own head, he wears the head of a goat. Daksha falls at Shiva's feet weeping and crying with gratitude, and finally acknowledges Shiva's supremacy.
With a mighty effort Shiva contains his grief for the loss of Sati, and he falls into deep meditation, waiting for the time when she would be reincarnated as Parvati and is his wife once again.
Shiva being perturbed by Sati’s death lifts her corpse on his shoulders and moves from place to place on the Kailash shouting “Sati” “Sati.” Brahma, Vishnu, and other Rishis want to cremate Sati but do not dare to talk to Shiva about this. Devas, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra plan how to cremate the dead body of Sati. However, Inder suggests that the body of Sati be cut into small pieces so that Shiva does not feel the lightening of the burden of Sati’s corpse. The small pieces would be then cremated one by one. The job of cutting Sati into pieces is given to Vishnu who throws arrows on Sati and her each part falls on the ground and is cremated. A total of 108 pieces are cut out of Sati’s body and wherever her part has fallen that place has been named after her….At one time Shiv and Sati are seen together, but Sati was Vishnu…So Shiv and Vishnu again unite.
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Ancestral House
Our ancestral house at Tanki pora, Srinagar, is in the heart of the city. Located on the bank of River Jhelum, the house is exactly opposite to Ganpatyar, the Lord Ganesha’s temple. It is mid way between the first and the second bridge. It is an L-shaped mansion, comprising twenty two rooms, facing the Wyeth. It is the most popular name with which River Jhelum is known. This is the place where my parents grew.
The kitchen and the bath room have a common wall. An earthenware water tank or a copper drum is to be kept in an enclosure which gets the heat from the kitchen hearth. As logs of wood in the kitchen are being lit and the food is being cooked, the fire rises up in the hearth and spreads to the base of the earthenware water tank in the adjoining bathroom. The fire cooks the food and heats up our bathwater simultaneously. This way the water remains warm for the whole day. With this warm water we could manage a winter bath. Besides this, every body has his own management skill. Some use saw dust bukhari’s to warm up water, others use dried cow dung in clay stoves to warm up water.
In traditional homes in Kashmir, the lavatory is separate and far from the main building. It is equipped with commodes made of wood or iron. These are removed and cleaned by a “sweeper” who is a low caste Muslim. There are times also when an outsider sweeper comes early in the morning with a willow basket having a gunny cloth lining. He comes along with some of his men and takes away entire fecal matter of the latrine and carries the same to his vegetable fields, where he mixes the field soil with it. This they use to fertilize their fields which give very good yields in the organic crops.
Now there is a revolution that sweeps the lavatory. We install modern toilets. Everyone is grateful for the “flush” system; it is clearly a great jump forward for all, particularly the “sweeper”. Now he does not manually handle the buckets of feces. He is required only to clean the bathroom and spray phenyl.
The shape of the kitchen is more or less a trapezoid. We have our own culture and cook as per our own culture which is more or less traditional. We Kashmir’s love good food and have great culinary skills. Even a simple vegetable is transformed into a delicacy. On many occasions we eat lot of meat and fish, this perhaps helps us to tide over harsh winters. Kashmiri cuisine is a product of the native genius. It has evolved over a period of thousands of years and has been shaped by the requirements of climate, religious rituals, legends, and on health needs. My mother always lays stress on Sooch (Pure). The cuisine reflects a great variety and has a range for all seasons and occasions. We have separate foods for vegetarians and non-vegetarians in Kashmiri Pandits cuisine. We Pandits call our feast a saal, while Muslims say Wazwan. Mostly, we Pandits use Asafetida- flavor masala, and Muslims prefer garlic-flavored one.
Among the non-veg. recipes of Kashmiri Pandits cuisine are:—Kabargah, Rogan josh, Qalia, Chok Charvan, Yakhni, Gogji Siyun, Khatti Machli. Hogad (Dry fish), Demin Nadru, etc. are not part of cuisine among old Pandits.
Kashmiri speaking Pandits continue to call cottage cheese as Chaman. Dum Alu, Dum Nadru, Nadru Ki Kurkuri, Dal, Haak, Karam Hak, Shalgum, Tao Gugji, etc.are the vegetarian dishes. Often, Tehar Turmeric laced Rice; an item is prepared on auspicious occasions (Birthday, Slam Shivratri, Navreh, and Ram Navmi).
Kashmiris are fond of eating fish; river fish, lake fish, and trout as well. Mother Soma cooks fish with care, anxious that the inviting aroma of frying fish might attract some unforeseen calamity. On the other hand we serve fish at the dinner prior to traveler’s departure, certain that the lingering fishy smell will see him safely to his destination. Some fish are forbidden to us. These are the fish from the sacrosanct springs, the residence of mythical snakes. We have an honored timeless understanding with these nags. The springs are clear green, mysterious and strangely peaceful, tucked away among the mountains.
Many Muslim women sell the fish. These ladies with fish of one or two kind carry the stuff in the drums. They call out ‘Fish’ ‘Fish’ and often come to our house. We generally select a big fish or may be several whole fish. After a little amount of haggling, laughing, and mock anger, the deal is struck. Then she weighs the fish as per our requirement. Our Pandit ladies usually tell her to please clean the fish. She cleans the fish, washes, removes the gut and the scales and passes it to us. Within minutes the fish reaches us in a wicker baskets still dripping water. It goes to the kitchen where mom cuts it into pieces and hands over the cut pieces to the eldest daughter in law for us to cook. We have some favorite fish dishes; like fish with lotus stalk, fish with radish, or fish with kohlrabi. To cook fish is an art, the different kinds of spices and the proper quantity of them, the daughter in law quickly learns from her mother in law.
Some popular Kashmiri snacks and beverages are Luchai, Puri, Roath, Sheermal, Firni, Shakkar Pare, Sheer Chaya, and Kehwa. All these eatables are used as per the occasion.
Chutneys are also used by Valley Pandits e.g. Marchwangun Chutney, Doon (walnut) Chutney or Alchi (apricot) chutney are relished by Pandits. A special spice cake called Wari is also prepared by some people.
Our house is an old mansion like having more than twenty five rooms. All the rooms are spacious and airy. In this huge house lives Kudmali, my grand mother.
Grand mother Kudmali
Kudmali has four sons and a daughter. The eldest son is Pandit Sri Kanth, having three sons and two daughters. The name of the second son is Pandit Prem Nath, having two sons and three daughters. The third son is Pandit Sama Kak, with five daughters and no son. The youngest son is Pt.Janki Nath, and is an apple of an eye. He is affectionately called Lala JI. He has four sons and four daughters. Since Pandit Sama Kak had no son it was decided by the elders, and my grandmother Kudmali that one son of Lala Ji be adopted by Pandit Sama Kak. Those days what ever the elders would suggest and decide would prevail in the family. It was under these circumstances that an oral commitment was made by the brothers of the family that the male child of Pandit Janki Nath would be adopted by his elder brother Pt. Sama Kak, who had no son. Sama Kak is an employee in excise department. All the family lives together in a joint house. Everything is under the control of Kudmali.
When, Somawati, the wife of Pandit Janki Nath Misri conceives for the fifth pregnancy she delivers a baby. This time it is a baby boy. The baby is very fair of complexion and cute. Soma does not want to part with her lovely child, but family compulsions and respect compels her to keep her promise. For two years she keeps the new born baby with her, breast feeds the baby. On some auspicious day the actual adoption is to take place. Pandit Janki Nath works at Baramulla, a distance of nearly thirty miles from Srinagar. He is intimated about the date when adoption ceremony has to take place at Srinagar. Somawati, her daughters, and her sons adore the baby that is me. They dress me with finest clothes and bring me from Baramulla to Tanki Pora, Srinagar, home. Kudmali and Soma wati say the day passes nicely with all celebrations, as all relations were invitees along with close neighborhood around. I am just two year old,
Thus, I live with my uncle, Sama Kak, now adopted father. I grow up under his sheltering care. My biological father, being the last comer, is of course my grandmother's favorite son. My grand mother Kudmali is, an old lady with a tremendous will of her own who is not accustomed to be ignored. It is said that on her insistence I am adopted to my uncle who is elder to my biological father Lala Ji. .It is now nearly more than many years since her death that she is still remembered in our house amongst old Kashmiri ladies as a most dominating old woman and quite a terror if her will was flouted.
It is said that Kudmali, my grand mother, has paid a greater attention in rearing me up as a child. I have a faint remembrance of her, and, how she would keep me warm in her Pheran. She has a small two cup samovar, a special kettle type pot in which she took pleasure to make tea. Though small it is always very shiny always nearby her. It is not in the kitchen but the little window near which she mostly sits. The window is at a higher level and the lower level of the window designed to form a window sill with a low shelf. On this shelf she usually keeps some four five things like sugar, salt, dry tea leaves, a jug of water some almonds, cardamom, and cinnamon handy. The shiny samovar also finds its location there. Besides these, there is a small willow basket full of charcoal. After making the tea she puts some kind of bread, generally a kulich, and a baker’s small cake fresh from the oven in the cup. She then sips the tea and often makes me to drink from her mouth. My grandmother, Kudmali has a mouth that smells like babies, all milky, toothless and harmless, except when she may do her snuffing. Kudmali wears a Pheran, a type of long cloak, a Taranga- sort of headwear and longi around her waist. She usually washes her own cotton dress and leaves it on the wooden railing of a big verandah in the sun to dry up for the day. When dry she picks up all the clothes half bent, murmuring something, may be remembering god. Kudmali then slowly moves to her room and sits near her room window and sip tea many a times during the day. This room is shared by her second son Prem who works in postal services.
The Great Asoka is succeeded by his son Jaluka; who rules over Kashmir. There is an interesting piece of history about him. Jaluka clears the valley of the Malechas who they regard as foreign tribes. Malechas it seems is another group of "unclean and untouchable" people in Bengal (Bangla) mention in the ancient texts. Malechas name also brings to mind the name of Meluhha. The Meluhha is the name that the Sumerians used to call the pre-Aryan ancient Indus civilization. Perhaps, the native Dravirs of Kashmir, who came from the ancient civilization, worshipped Shiva and the original Kashmiris worship Shiva?
Shiva of the matted hair and live snake jewellery and ashes for the talcum powder meditates atop a snow clad mountain in a yogic pose, inanimate until the energizing Female awakens him. His neck is blue from the poison it has imprisoned, and his only garment is loincloth of snow leopard skin. To Parvati he is the most desirable man she has ever seen. The Female is transfixed, this beloved daughter of a mountain king, and she cannot move or be moved.
“Cosmic forces are at work,” says my mother, “they are just doing the dance of creation”
There is nothing more important for a mother of a post pubescent girl than to collect her trousseau and then to keep watch over her and her dowry preparation.
“The king is enraged, how can his priceless daughter be given to a wandering ascetic with a begging bowl? He weeps and cries and rants and raves. He curses his wife for the way she has brought up their daughter”.
Mother narrates the story. I understand some of her phraseology, but I dare not question the authorship of the lyrical narrative. I have no doubt that Shiva and Parvati speak fluent Kashmiri. This she tells me every time.
“What happened?” I ask.
“What else?” This was going to happen; nothing could stop this union of two halves which make a whole. The mountain king held the wedding as if nothing had happened, as if Shiva was the most eligible bachelor.
When the bridegroom sitting on a bull arrived, the relatives shrieked with laughter. But Parvati was Goddess and her father knew that now. Her father married her off as he should and Shiva and Parvati set up house in the Himalayas.”
Presumably this is where we found them and worshipped them. They belonged to us and we belonged to them.
But Shiva is unpredictable and he can turn everything to ashes just in the blink of his third eyes. So we appease him by celebrating his marriage every year. As seductive he was to the Female, his attraction to Parvati must have been equally overpowering. He became a regular fellow, gave up his asceticism, threw off his snakes, his smoking pipes and his ashes, and went in for traditional marriage, with in-laws and receptions and feasts and banquets. This is the part we like, and we being mortals, try to imitate the divine.
Kashmiri Pandits are Shiva believers. In summer there is an influx of door to door ascetics from all over India heading for the phallic lingam in the Amarnath cave. They rattle dried gourds and cymbals at our gates and loudly invoke Shiva, and we give them alms. Alms can be anything rice, lentils, fruits or money.
We hurry inside the house, because the ascetics are barely clothed, and secondly because they seem to be long to another cosmos. Sometimes we give them tea or food. When they sit, then they tell us some strange stories. When angered they can impale a person with their tridents. We have also heard that when they reach Amarnath Cave of Shiva they meditate naked in the freezing temperatures wearing garlands around their erect penises.
Our finding of the divine couple on our mountains, centuries ago a Muslim shepherd found a gigantic ice lingam in the Amarnath cave while taking shelter during a storm. The shepherd’s descendants now receive a percentage of the temple income.
The presence of stone depictions of sexual intercourse in our temples does not embarrass us at all. The symbol has transcended the fact. The business of fertility and life is so vital that representations of reproductive parts of our bodies and sexual activity go quite unnoticed.
Soma, my mother by birth is of a stern temper, while my father of reflective nature and a ready laugh. Mother is known for her commanding nature, but I have never seen it. She is unafraid, particularly when it comes to protecting her children. She has great faith in her capabilities, and considers herself literate even though all she can do is sign her name. This she will do slowly painstakingly in a childish hand on official documents.
Things were cheap then and living was simple. Everybody lived under the same roof, in a joint family. People were clothed in white khadi, Khaki or militia cloth, and in winter may be with flannel. Some rich people would wear Pheran of Pattu woolen cloth as well.
…Most of the Kashmir Pundits belong to the respectable middle class who wear clean, starched white clothes, duly ironed. A family washer man comes on Sundays and takes away the dirty linen, clothes for a proper washing. The rate with a washer man is per hundred numbers of clothes. It may include big clothes like quilt covers, bed sheets or small like shirts and trousers. A washer man keeps a dog. The dog is very faithful and accompanies the washer man. It is a scene to see washer men wash the clothes at dhobi ghats. In winter the clothes do not dry easily and so there are unusual delays. Clothes are limited and as such one has to go to washer man’s house to get the clothes on priority himself. Sometimes the clothes are washed but not ironed. Again there is interaction and the washer man pleases us by ironing the clothes and handing them over.
Those days, the elders were considered the wise men and women of the society. Whether they had been to any school or college or not, whatever they said was accepted as the gospel truth. Their advice was followed word by word-nay letter by letter.
One day my mother asks my eldest son that she wants to see one of her close relations, Bal Kak Dhar’s sons place, to pay a courtesy call at her residence at Barzulla. We are also living at Barzulla that time. My mother Soma is always proud of them and holds them in high esteem. Bal Kak Dhar was Wazir Wazart of Kashmir at one time, and was very renewed person. He was a self-made courageous man, full of guts. Now Soma has to go to Dhar’s, and Sandeep takes her to their house. Soma and her cousin talk …. As it became quite late and dark, her cousin tells her to stay on for dinner. She agrees.
After dinner, her cousin Veena Dhar asks her how she would go back. Soma replies, “I came by a car and shall go by the same car". "But where is your driver?" asks Veena. "I don't have a driver. I drive myself", replies Soma. There was surprise and confusion written deep on every face. "Oh my God! It is pitch dark outside. Roads are deserted. Avoid the ditches and drive slowly. There are stray dogs on the road. They keep on barking. See that you do not lose control of your car. Are you a good driver anyway? Please be careful." Not even for a moment did Soma give her the feeling that she was not taking her advice seriously. Instead she gives her the impression that she is giving her the most valuable and timely advice. When all are in the compound Soma tells them that she has told her grandson, Sandeep to come at a fixed hour and pick her back home. Soma was very sharp, intelligent and farsighted. When they opened the gate, her grandson, Sandeep was waiting for her anxious to make her reach home safe. Just imagine the concern shown by an old lady, Soma, driving a car was just a humor.
That was the care and concern, juniors really felt for elders those days, and that was the esteem and respect in which the younger generation held the elders. They were taken as the wise people of the society, whether they had been to any school or not. Whatever they said was absolute wisdom, to be followed word by word; nay letter by letter.
Soma’s husband, Pandit Janki Nath Misri is a Headmaster in a well recognized High school. He is quite famous in the entire area. He is very punctual in his duties and people of the locality respect him very much. They address him as master Ji. He has taught many people of all categories in his locality. Some free and some often pay a nominal amount. He always says that knowledge is power and has to percolate and has to be shared. A dedicated teacher and an educationist, he along with some other noble minded people starts a school called National School. The school caters to the needs of all the students of all the communities.
Besides this, Mr. Misri practices his own austerities and rituals. Together with my mother, they offer prayers for the betterment of their children. Though, my mother Soma has her education upto primary level she has a terrific memory power. She has a command on Bhagwat and is always eager to know more and more from the Brahmins who on various auspicious occasions may visit our family. Many times she is seen discussing some doubtful point with them.
Our family priest tells me that he has lot of reverence for our mother much because she knows and tells certain things which even he does not know, She recites many Vaakhs of Lal Ded extempore. The many bhajans of Pandit Krishna Joo Razdan are at the tip of her tongue, and she always keeps herself abreast with the political activities of the country.
Now foreign invaders come to Kashmir. The first of which were the Indo-Greeks. These kings were Buddhist and ruled Kashmir for 2 centuries. Under the Indo-Greeks a new school of Indian art is born. Even the architecture of Kashmir is much influenced by the Greeks. After the Indo-Greeks come the great Kushans (Indo-Chinese) who are also Buddhist. The Kushan Empire spread Buddhism just like the Mauryan Empire before them and Kashmir becomes the foremost Buddhist centre. Great Vihars and temples are built. Each Kushan emperor builds cities in Kashmir.
Kanishka (127–147 CE) of the Kushan Empire is very famous. The famous Kushan emperor holds the third great Buddhist Council in Kashmir in Kundalvan (Harwan, near Shalimar garden). Hundreds of Buddhist and Hindu scholars attend the council. Famous Buddhist scholars like AshvaGosh, NagArjun, VasuBandu SugaMitra and JinaMitra are present. It is presided by a Kashmiri Hindu, VasuMitra and is also attended by Hien-Tsang. The entire proceedings are recorded in Sanskrit and inscribed on copper plates, which then enclosed in stone boxes and put in a Vihars. After the conference, Kashmir becomes the centre of Buddhism. It spreads Buddhism to China, central Asia and Tibet. More Buddhist missionaries go out from Kashmir to preach Buddhism.
In my early childhood I have seen very hard and tough times. There is abject poverty; people do not have many dresses and clothes to wear. In big joint families things are different. A dress of an elder brother is passed on to his younger one to wear. There is scarcity of money. Books are cheap but one cannot afford these books too. When annual exams are over, the old books have a brisk sale, as most of the people prefer to buy these old books. The cost of a book in those days is just well below one rupee. Ten to twelve year old boys sell their books across the Habba Kadal Bridge, making the books in a lot, keeping them on the road side till the get sold out. I am shy and do not mix up with most of the boys. I do not mind being very clever too. Going to the school in school uniform which is of Militia half sleeves shirt and a Khaki shorts, with a rubber shoe , sometimes the shoe is torn near the toe and all cool air and water enters through it. It is perhaps there is poverty which has its role in my getting early education in a Government school. The education in these schools is free. Everybody cannot afford to study in private schools. There is a reason for this. The families are large and only one person to earn and many mouths to feed. I am sent to a government school where the standard of education is by comparison not that high as compared to the Private schools. I read upto seventh standard in government middle school Raghu Nath Mandir. The medium of instruction is Urdu. Time rolls on and on and one fine my Grand mother Kudmali passes away.
Being an adopted child, I was not aware about this thing till I passed my seventh standard. The adopted parents were planning to get me absorbed in some service as the domestic conditions warranted that. All these years passed in a low profile.
After the death of my grand mother, the conditions of the house change. The four sons of Kudmali who had a single kitchen by then, gets split into two. This is the first ever shock in the great joint family. Many in the family could not reconcile with this split for a pretty long time.
This is perhaps the family strength now goes up and becomes difficult to manage such a large kitchen. The two-two brothers agree to live together. The kitchen stuff gets shared between the two groups. One group takes more and the other gets slightly less. Ration Tickets get split into two. Things do not remain as calm as they should have been. The eldest brother has retired. His three sons are in government job, and they are posted somewhere. The second brother has also retired, he has five daughters and one adopted son, and the conditions are pathetic. In the school the teachers press to come with the uniform. I have none. Things become worse when one chilly day my adopted father told me to meet him at a certain point nearly two miles away. I left the home early in the morning, with a wooden sandal. Punctuality was his hallmark. I leave home early in the morning, with thin clothes on. Reach the meeting point. I am well entertained. I am given some five to six kilograms of fish wrapped in a gunny bag, soaked with ice cold water. I have to carry it home; my hands are cold in the chilly season. While coming home, it snows and snows. I have no umbrella with me. My bare hands loaded with load of fish pull my arms down. I often change hands, try to move fast. But alas! The rubber strip of the wooden sandal breaks. I have now to carry this one foot of the sandal also in my hands. One foot with wooden sandals and one bare foot, in falling snow and biting cold makes me to think, is hell worse than this. Somehow, with numb hands I carry the fish, the sandal and reach home. Everybody is waiting for the catch, the fish. The fish is for our festival Shivratri. When I reach home I fall down, swooned, for some time, I am given hot Kangri to get warmth, but no, the heat pricks me; that is my experience when somebody uses a fire pot or kangri after having extreme chill.
The shoe turns the events. I have to go to school with uniform on. Part of the uniform is a black rubber shoe. My shoe is torn. I humbly request for a shoe, but no. I have to go to school with a shabby uniform and a shoe with front portion off. I leave for the school, the form teacher, Jankinath Safaya, tells me you are under punishment.
I say, “What punishment”
He says, “First face the wall for one hour, then I will tell you”
I do as I am told.
Second punishment he tells me to do is; ‘sit down and stand up’ fifty times. ‘I had to count the number as well, and that too aloud.
I do fifty sit down and fifty stand ups. I am exhausted.
The school closes at four O’clock, I also leave. I reach my home, narrate the whole story. And still I don’s have the shoe. Father loves, mother also feels the pain, poverty is the culprit. Everybody in the house listens to the story, some laugh, others moan, some grumble and some whine.
My mother Soma cries, at her sister in law; she booms, “Did I give you a part of my heart’s flesh for this.” Perhaps you don’s deserve to have a son.
The day passed. Nobody asks me to eat food. Nobody cares for me. Dark cold night is ahead. I go without food; I fall asleep on a new verandah. That dark cold hungry night can never be forgotten.
Early in the morning at about 4.30 A.M., my father Janki Nath Misri comes to me, holds my hand, and gives me an old leather shoe of his son to wear and we both leave for Hari Parbat Prakrama. Hari Parbat is nearly five miles from our house. I get excited; I have a leather shoe on for the first time. We walk towards the Hari Parbat. Have the darshan. On our way home my father now tells me what went wrong yesterday.
I narrate the whole story.
We reach home. My father pushes me back into my adopted father’s room. My adopted mother is there, the moment she sees me in her room, she rejects me, by telling she was forced by her mother in law to have a male child. Now she does not want to have it. Things have changed.
This is the second day of my fast, being hungry; there is enough of bowls movement with loud noise. Breakfast time is over, I am without it. Time moves on. Everybody has his lunch, I wait for it. Till the dinner time the situation is standstill. It is only at dinner time when my elder brother by birth calls me and gets me some food which I voraciously eat. Since that day I am back with my parents.
THINGS CHANGE
The first thing that is done is I am shifted from government school to a private school for my studies. Till seventh standard I studied in a government school, then from eighth standard I get shifted to National High School where my biological father is a Headmaster. I had a belief that hard work, and determination may lead to success. The best motto for me for a long march is ‘Don’t grumble, carry on’, although I have a lot to grumble. One thing that constantly sounds my ears, “You hold your future in your hands, and never waver in this belief”. Things slightly change to better, everybody now respects, even some fear, as I am now the son of a Headmaster, and the father is there every time. My father tells me a Guru Shabd; three words that are always being hammered in my mind by my father are be kind, be honest and are loyal. I think the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being unselfish.
Initially I feel very hesitant to ask my parents for anything that I want. This however continues for a very long time. My father by birth is quite an educated and a popular man. He never believes in my doing any service at that very tender age with just matriculation as a qualification. The idea of making me to join services soon after matriculation is thrust and repeatedly being told to my adopted mother by a villain in the family. I pass my Matriculation. Lakhs of students appear, most of them fail, the result of successful candidates is 22%. My father encourages me to join a college.
Our family priest is still alive. He told me an interesting story. He told me that earlier one day when he had visited our family on some function she had persuaded him to come personally on the day she would leave this world. She knew that even after many requests our family priest does not come, as he remains very busy in his schedules. The day when my mother expired we tried to call the family priest to perform the last rites. Even people were sent to his home to catch hold of the priest, but he was not at his home. When we received the message back that the family priest was not available we were very much worried. The elders in the family tried to contact some other person, when .lo! Our family priest was seen coming to our home. We told him did he receive any message about our mother’s death. He shook his head and took a deep breath, moaned, sighed and then said, “I had come to know about her welfare of Soma.”
After Abhimanyu, Gonandiya dynasty and his family rules for many generations. Some others eventually a Pratapaditya, becomes a king. After a couple of generations some Vijaya from another family takes the throne. His son Jayendra is followed by Sandhimat Aryaraja (34 BCE-17 CE). Sandhimat Aryaraja spends “the most delightful Kashmir summer” in worshiping a lingam formed of snow/ice “in the regions above the forests” which appears to be a reference to the ice lingam at Amarnath. After Sandhimat the Kashmir rulers are local and are weak.
Mihirakula (510-542 CE) of the Huns is a cruel tyrant, on whose arrival a thousand vultures and crows, came to Kashmir. Kashmir endured the savage attacks and massacres. Luckily the Hun attacks did not last very long.
After the Huna, Meghavahana of the Gonandiya family is brought back from Gandhara. His family rules for a few generations. Meghavahana is a devout Buddhist and prohibits animal slaughter in his domain. King Meghvahan, an ardent Buddhist, even undertakes the conquest of other countries to stop the killing in those countries. The other king is a Shaiva king, Praversein II who founds the city of Praversein Pura which is today known as Sri Nagar, the summer capital of Kashmir.
Our house itself was on the bank of River Jhelum (Vitasta). The house was quite big and was opposite to Ganesha Temple of Ganpatyar. The house sheltered a large family of cousins and near relations, after the manner of Hindu families. Most of my cousins were much older than I was and were in government jobs. I being a student at the high school, they considered me far too young for their work or their play. And so in the midst of that big family I felt rather lonely and was left a great deal to my own fancies and solitary games. When I started growing up one of my cousins started taking interest in me and he would take me on an outing with him either to Dal Lake or to a Mughal garden. He was a good sportsman and taught me how to swim.
Winter
I vividly remember that the winter used to be very severe and harsh. The school children used to have a break of nearly seventy five to eighty days. The schools would generally close down from first week of December till ending February. The teachers would give us the home task for this long holiday spell. This the children would finish within the first thirty to thirty five days to be free to enjoy the rest of the winter spell. There used to be more than one meter long icicles which would often melt and fall on someone and cause injury. The Kashmir winter is severe, and people keep sufficient woolen cloth. Until recently, the wome of every village house hold spun yarn from local sheep’s wool to be made up in to Pattu, tweed like material, by semiprofessional weavers- who exercised their hereditary skill during the long cold months of winter. Pattu was either tailored for a Kashmir’s unisex garment the Pheran, or made up as a chadar, an all purpose blanket worn over the Pheran in winter or used as bedding.
In winter there is chill and Chill everywhere. Old man feels chill, the son feels chill, and the baby feels the chill…
The icicles hang from the roof tops…every body uses the Kangri….
One day…I wear my wooden sandals and move over the snow and the mud, a firepot is kept ready. I put my clothes over it, so that they are warm when I wear them. I bathe quickly; shivering and suckling in little mouthfuls of air I just put my clothes on. The worst is only a couple of times in a month during winter; I have to take a bath. The conditions are very severe. The taps get jammed with frozen water and frost everywhere.
……. Winter in Kashmir…This story makes me shiver, because I know that like all Kashmiri Brahmin women, she does not wear any trousers under her long dress, or any underwear, for that matter. I understand about the freezing wind blowing about her legs, and yes her buttocks, and other private parts.
When told to them, an elderly lady would answer. Its elderly lady would say that they were told that if the women’s clothes touched their private parts they could not enter the prayer room or the kitchen without a bath. But mostly we do not know the reason why Pandit women dispensed with underwear. This is how the dress code of the women was and had always been. Men, like lamb and fish, are exempt from these strictures. The Muslim women, on the other hand, wear trousers under their shorter knee length dresses.
The snow lasts for a longer period. Winters are always harsh. Our bath rooms are typical. We will use warm water but we don’t have any showers. The bathing rooms are usually attached with the kitchen. This way it can share its fires,
The severe snowfall was enjoyed by the children very much. The snow in the compounds of the houses used to be more than 12 inches. In most of the cases a labour would be engaged to clear of the roofs from the snow. Children used to make snow men in the compounds. The eyes of the snow man used to be of round charcoal and the tongue of red full Kashmîri chilies. Sheen Jung Snow fight) used to be very common among the children. We used to the balls made of snow upon each other. This used to be a great fun. During the months of December and January there used to be sub zero temperatures which would continue and cause treacherous icy conditions well into January. The continued cold snap would leave almost every house hold without electricity and water. The snow would bring down electricity cables and poles. The water works department would be seen struggling with the number of reported burst pipes. There were few who were trying to burn dry grass around the frozen water pipes. Women folk had a tough time in getting a bucket or so of drinking water from the near by public tap after having waited in the queue for a pretty long time.
The Chinar is brought to Kashmir by the Mughals from Persia………..
The Chinar leaves take us from season to season. The large full leaves in the summer to flame red, retreating into brown and then into nothingness. Kashmir women mostly Muslims collect the Chinar leaves fallen on the ground , make several heaps and put it to fire half burnt, and use it as coal in their Kanuri’s during the winter………..
Winter in Kashmir is cold and then the ice gives way to snow, the snow melts and brown earth appears and new green grass is seen. Spring approaches, our South starts, daffodils, and narcissus appear…
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone,
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of the birds is come,
And the voice of the knight in gale is heard
Again in our land.
In 600 AD, Kashmir becomes a Hindu nation once again. Under the Karkota dynasty, founded by DurlaBhardan, Kashmir has a stone gate, through which only Kashmiris and foreign Hindus are allowed. Under this dynasty, Kashmir starts growing powerful. From this dynasty emerge Lalitaditya Muktapida, the great Kashmir conqueror. He conquers Punjab and defeats Kanuj. He goes out of India to conquer Tibet, Ladakh, Badakshan and Iran. On the east he takes Bihar, Bengal and Kalinga (Orissa). He takes part of South India, Gujarat, Malwa, Marwar and Sindh in the west. He creates a vast empire. His Kashmir becomes wealthy and prosperous and he builds some of the awe-inspiring temples in Kashmir. Art and culture is greatly supported by both him and his son Jayatida.
The Karkota dynasty is the greatest of the Kashmir dynasties and Lalitaditya and Jayatida‘s rule is a brief golden age of Kashmir. After Jayatida, the Kashmir Empire falls apart. Kashmir is reduced to the Vitasta basin. Her economy is also doomed by unscrupulous ministers, according to Kalhan.
Kalhana relates that Lalitaditya Muktapida invades the tribes of the north and after defeating the Kambojas, he immediately faces the Tusharas. The Tusharas do not give a fight but run to the mountain ranges leaving their horses in the battle field. Then Lalitaditya meets the Bhauttas in Baltistan in western Tibet north of Kashmir, then the Dardas in Karakoram/Himalaya, and then he encounters many others and defeats them. In the Karkota family, Lalitapida has a concubine, a daughter of a Kalyapala. She has a son, and the young son is advised by his maternal uncle Utpala, with whom eventually the Karkota dynasty ends and a grandson of Utpala became king.
After the Utpala dynasty, a Yashaskara becomes king. He is a great-grandson of a Viradeva, a Kutumbi. He is the son of a treasurer of Karkota Shamkaravarman.
Kalhana describes Shamkaravarman (883–902) thus (Stein's trans.): "This [king], who did not speak the language of the gods but uses vulgar speech fit for drunkards, showed that he is descendant from a family of spirit-distillers". This refers to the fact that the power is passed to the brothers of a queen, who is born in a family of spirit-distillers.
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Almond, cherry, peach and pear blossoms appear…We run out of our houses to the picnics to the Mughals gardens, Badam wari, orchards, buses full of passengers, Children, old, men and women, new brides move out with baskets full of eatables and Samavaars for afternoon tea, enjoyment on all sides……
Marriage functions of Kashmiri Pandits are a scene in itself. On these occasions we go on a Tonga driven by one horse for most of the way, and walk last some yards or so of zigzag narrow lanes on foot. Sometimes the celebrations go on late into the night and we cannot find a Tonga to come back. Then we just foot the distance singing loudly in the midnight moon. Invariably we are joined by the stray dogs, of which there is never a shortage in the streets of Kashmir.
One day it so happened that some ladies were walking in the narrow lane towards her home when all of a sudden a neighbor inadvertently threw hot starchy substance and it fell on the lady walking below. There was a lot of commotion and people started calling names. This was a talk of the city for some time. With this in mind Women take a careful look down into the streets before throwing out the boiling hot starch water they have to drain out every day from the cooked rice.
On Sundays I would very often go to Nishat Side along with my cousin Mr.RNMisri who would take me on his bike. Just before Nishat was the village of Ishbar, with its site of the goddess Durga-Sureshwari high on a 3000 feet high rock. Here lay the famed springs of Shatadhara and Guptaganga. More recently, Ishbar became known as the site of the ashram of the great Shaivite philosopher Swami Lakshaman Joo.
Beyond the side opposite the Dal Lake is the Hari Parbat hill (from the mynah bird) and its fort. This is the pilgrimage site of Durga as Sharika goddess. The story goes that Durga, in the guise of the Sharika bird, placed this hill here and closed one of the gates of hell. The wall around the hill was built by the Mughal emperor Akbar.
The city had seven bridges across the river Jhelum. A ride in a boat down the river was always enjoyable. Very often on holidays or on a Sunday we would engage a Dunga a big boat and go to Nishat side or even to Kheer Bhawani. While going to Kheer Bhawani we would come across a tributary of Sindh where the flow of river would be fast. There the boatman would pull the boat with stout ropes and we would seldom join the boatmen in pulling the boat. It was all very exciting and a thrilling experience.
The Kashmir winter is severe, and people keep sufficient woolen clothes ready for the winter. In Kashmir the women of every village house hold spin yarn from local sheep’s wool to be made up in to Pattu, tweed like material. This is done by semiprofessional weavers- who exercise their hereditary skill during the long cold months of winter. Pattu is tailored for a Kashmir’s male garment the Pheran. It is also made into a blanket, worn over the Pheran in winter, or used as bedding.
The Pheran is just like an apron up to the ankle. The stuff of the Pheran varies from cloth to cloth. Men use warm woolen cloth some tweed or Pattu, while women use some superior cloth, or Rafal or even Pashmina for their Pheran. Soma, my mother is very fair, with reddish cheeks, and brown eyes. Her eyebrows are sharp and the area under the eyes of some different color as if someone has just dubbed colored powder under her lively eyes.
She wears a large gold beaded garland which is very lustrous and heavy. Besides this she wears several ear hoops, all made of gold. The funniest thing is that all these would pass through the same hole. The only reason why her ear lobes are not torn is that the hoops are held up by a ribbon that goes over her head and takes some of the weight off her ears. Even then, the hole in her ear lobe is stretched and large. Kashmiri women wear gold which is so pure that it turns soft when they stand in front of the kitchen fires.
Among Kashmiri pundits there is a custom that when a new baby is born we make sure that the baby is kept warm. We take the oldest shawl that has worn fine with use, and fold it many times to wrap it around the newborn baby. The valley of Kashmir surrounded by Himalayas, is, for most of the time cool. The snow line encircles us and we are always making sure that we keep ourselves sufficiently warm by the woolen clothing and firewood. Usually the men arrange for the firewood which is generally purchased in the months of June -July so that it dries up and is ready for use in the coming winters. It is a short brisk transaction which every house hold does and keeps the arrangements ready for the harsh winter. The wood is brought, chopped, and arranged in crisscrossed manner in the house compound. The same wood is used in the kitchen for our cooking stoves called Daan in Kashmiri, as well as the bhukhari (iron stoves) to keep the rooms warm. This type of keeping the room warm is costly and cannot be afforded by everybody. Kashmir has an indigenous method of keeping themselves warm by the use of kangri. A kangri is a fire pot which is very handy. An earthenware pot called ‘kondul’ is surrounded by a basket with handles. The basket is made of willow twigs. Some fashionable kangri are woven in green, red, and blue wicker. We carry this kangri everywhere we go in winter. It gives us warmth. Besides this, the wet clothes of the children are also kept tactfully over the kangri to dry in winter. Kangri is very useful in most of the ways. During weddings we burn isband (Pegasus Hermala) incense in it. People interested in Hubble bubble light their hookah tobacco from the red coals of the kangri. After having done the morning domestic kitchen work, which is generally tough and cumbersome, the ladies catch hold of the kangri, saying ‘de meh nareh josh’ meaning give me kangri to warm myself. Often they sit on a handy wooden tool or a chair and keep their feet upon the kangri to get the warmth. If they happen to sit on a rug they keep the legs closed against the chest with their feet away from the body, the kangri is kept under the knees in the space between the feet and the thighs. The ladies often take the advantage of the woolen Pheran of their husbands and use it over them, and then the whole thing appears like a central heating system.
In 885-86 AD, the Karkota dynasty ends with a new dynasty, the Utpala assuming power in Kashmir. The greatest of the Utpala is Maharaja AvantiVarman. (Varmans were rulers of the Dravir nations in older times. They are the original Shiva-Vishnu worshippers.) He recovers Kashmir from utter ruin. A great engineer Suya, during Avanti Varman's rule clears up the Vitasta gorge and built embankments to prevent the recurring floods that devastate the region. This causes greater production in agriculture. Kashmir bounces back to reach great heights in art, literature and philosophy. Great writers appear during his rule. Some of them are Kallata Bhat Sura, Ratnakar, AnandaVardhana, MuktaKana, Siva-Swamin, Rudrata and Mukula. Great Shiva-Vishnu temples were built during his rule. The great king dies in June 883 AD. His death marks the beginning of another decline. It continues to be a centre of learning though for some time. In the 10th century AD a Math centre is established by the king.
After Utpala, it is the Lohara dynasty (based in Poonch) rules (950 - 1339 AD). The Lohara family is founded by a Nara of Darvabhisara. He is a vyavahari (perhaps merchant) who along with others who owned villages like him had set up little kingdoms during the last days of Karkotas. The Loharas rule for many generations. Our great ancestor the author Kalhana is a son of a minister of Harsha of this family.
From 950 AD, Kashmir is inherited by an able Queen called Didda (officially ascended throne in 980 AD after the death of her husband). During her rule come the first attacks by the Muslims.
In summer it is common to see boys jump off the railings of the bridges into the river Jhelum. We live on the bank of a river opposite Ganpatyar temple. That is our ancestral house. It is a great chance for all the members of our family to learn swimming. Even the women folk know how to swim. We would cross the river one or two times a day and sit on the opposite side of the bank for some time and return to our side of the river bank. The River Jhelum has become very much polluted my father generally says all the sewerage drains of Srinagar end up in the Jhelum River. I lament over it:
The river Jhelum, it is well known,
It washes the city of Srinagar.
But tell me, Ganesha of Ganpatyar,
What power divine shall henceforth?
Wash the river Jhelum.
(The Jhelum River flows through Srinagar city of Kashmir valley. I say, if the city dumps garbage in the river, who will clean the river?)
Muslim conqueror, Mahmud Gaznavi tries twice to conquer Kashmir while she is in power. However, he is unsuccessful.
From 1089 to 1101 AD, King Harsha rules Kashmir. His rule is marred by famines and plagues and he is not a good manager. He and his son, Bhoja, are killed in a general uprising led by two royal princes called Uccalia and Succala. Both of these princes meet the same fate.
In 1128 AD, JayaSimha becomes the ruler of Kashmir and rules till 1155. His rule brings some stability but after him chaos is again the norm. There is a lot of infighting during this period until 1339 AD. And naturally Kashmir breaks up into several kingdoms, like. Poonch, the Kabul valley, Rajauri, Kangra, Jammu, Kishtwar and Ladakh become independent of Kashmir then.
Kangri
Kashmiri’s especially women are inseparable from the kangri; they carry it wherever they go. They cannot afford to let the fire die, and they keep an eye on it all the time. Often turning the fire and in the kangri from their naked hands if they fail to have wooden or metal turner that usually hangs from the back of the kangri. Kangri has importance and relation with Kashmiri pundit weddings. Kashmiri pundit married girls are given kangri on several occasions by their parents, most importantly on the Shivratri occasion.
This gift kangri is more festive than everyday ones. It is highly decorated with colored silver paper slipped in between the wicker and the terra-cotta pot as the basket is woven. The shiny silver paper shines as the pot is carried by the hand. A beautifully designed stoker made of silver is tied to the back of the kangri. For this a special circular ring of wicker is made with the basket while manufacturing. With this, the gift is ready to be carried by a married Kashmir pundit girl. Children as well as some grown up take advantage of kangri by putting potatoes under the hot ash of the kangri. At this point of time they keep track of this kangri, usually carrying it in one hand under their Pheran. The quick snack is ready after some time. Then they may fish out the potato with the help of a stoker and have a nice snack, adding salt, pepper, and dry chilies powder to it. This way they neither bother the kitchen nor does anyone come to know about it. Along with this activity some children used to get some fused 100-200 watt bulb and put tea leaves, sugar and a cup of water in it and keep it on the live coal of the kangri. Soon the bulb would warm up and hot tea ready to sip.
Kangri, sometimes the firepots overturn the beds and houses burn down.
“One should know how to hold kangri, everyone does it.” Some people in the village side use an earthen pot having a loop made out of the earthen pot. This loop is used to hold this special type of firepot called as “Manan”. This type of firepot is mostly used in the villages and does not have any wicker over it.
Excessive use of Kangar in Kashmir makes one to suffer from a disease unique to Kashmir alone, and is called as” Kangri cancer. “ People hold the kangri between their legs all the time, some even through summer, and this sometimes sets their inner thighs to get frequent hot touches and the skin rots.
Many people have purple markings on their inner thighs where the kangri has cooked their blood vessels.
The hot stove, the kitchen hearth,.the Ha-coal, the saw dust choola, the lignite buckets, bukhari’s with chopped wood as fuel, the kerosene oil stoves, the electric heaters, and now the cooking gas kitchens are in itself a process of evolution in the history of a Kashmiris kitchen.
In our Kashmir kitchens we would not prepare chickens. Even in some families even the garlic, onions and other sensual bulbs are outcasts. Some would not like to use tomatoes in the kitchens.
Sometimes the potatoes explode in the kangri and the person exposed if in the company of someone else.
Our mother has respect for the people who have ash smeared all over their face and body.
Now saris are used mostly by Kashmiri pundits. My mother also uses sari but is proud of Pheran, a voluminous ankle length caftan with huge sleeves worn over a long cotton shell, the traditional dress of Kashmiri women and men.
Pheran can cover lot of things. The last refuge of cold and tired grandchildren, it is loose enough to hold one adult and one child, and the neck is deep enough for the child’s head to pop out from under the grandparents chin.
Many times I have seen when my sister comes from her in laws to her mother’s home; mom gives her a favorite meal of crisply fried fish, just out of the frying pan, very hot, garnished with salt and red pepper. This she puts in a metal plate mostly a lid of some big metal pot. My sister relishes it a lot. Then the sister makes another demand that she desires to taste dry fish some time. Mother becomes impatient and arranges the same after some time. This time when my sister visits her parent’s home she relishes eating this hot, highly spiced, with Kashmir chilies slightly more with this dish, mixed with cold sweet, leftover Kashmir rice. She quickly eats hot and cold morsels of this delicious diet.
As she eats mother watches her keenly. She involuntarily copies her facial movement when she chews the food, one person is eating, but two persons are being fed.
Mother always looks in the steel trunk which she keeps close by. When the lid is open it gives a smell of naphthalene balls. Some dry pieces of medicinal herb koth and some dry leaves of tobacco, wrapped in a muslin cloth are kept in the trunk. This she says prevents the woolens especially pashmina from the attack of some insects. Pashmina, my mother says is what we keep and know how to preserve it. Mostly it remains in the trunks and passes on from mother to daughter and like that. Fathers give their daughter’s wedding ear ornaments to make sure they had extra gold in case they needed. The most common gold ornament that most of the pundit ladies after marriage wear is the dejahor. It hangs all the way from their ears up to their nipples. A heavy dejahor to a daughter from a father would mean prosperous parents. When women needed money, or when their daughters got married, they would exchange one to make other two. The size was the same but it was hollow from inside; no one would know that they had troubles. You always have to have two, one for each ear. Kashmir pundit girls used to get so many things in their dowry. Gold jewels, silver ware, copper vessels, steel utensils, and dresses for many almost all near relatives of the would be grooms side, which included dresses for her mother in law, grooms sisters, and all close ones.
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KHIR BHAVANI……… Tulamul…………………….
Twenty-one kilometers from Srinagar, set in a grove of ancient Chinars is the shrine of Khir Bhawani. The temple rises from the surrounding waters of a spring, the colors of which are supposed to change according to the moods of the Goddess, thus predicting the fortunes of the state! We offer rice puddings called Khir there. The clear blue green spring surrounding the temple is in the middle of a garden of Chinars.
The main spring dedicated to Goddess Kheer Bhawani has an irregular heptagonal shape with its apex called Pad (feet) to the East. The northern and the southern sides are longer than the western side, which is called Shirr (Head). In the centre of the holy spring where once stood a mulberry tree, there is one marble temple. The water of the spring changes its color from red, pink, and orange, green, blue and has often light green, red rosy and milky white shades.
Abul Fazal in 16th century and Swami Vivekananda in the year 1894 have testified this fact. Any shade of black color is inauspicious for the inhabitants of the valley. Bubbles have been observed which form the mystic Chakra on the surface of the water. We Kashmiri Pandits have great veneration for the holy shrine.
There is a story regarding the holy spring. When Ravana gets killed at the hands of Rama, the Goddess Bhawani orders Hanuman to carry her to Satisar-Kashmir along with 360 Nagas. Hanuman selects the site and installs the Goddess in the Northern part of the valley. She comes to be known as Kheer Bhawani or Ragnya Bhagwati. Her favorite offerings consist of rice cooked in milk and sugar, and all other vegetarian forms of diet.
How the existence of the holy spring comes to light among the people, is, when one pious Brahmin named Krishna Pandit of Habba Kadal in Srinagar gets a vision wherein he is informed by a Deva to offer Puja to Kheer Bhawani in the swamps of Tulamula. How to locate the Goddess and her holy abode is the query on behalf of the saintly Brahmin. Thereupon, he is asked to hire a boat at Shadipora wherefrom a snake guides him to the destination. Krishna Pandit does the same and is extremely happy when the snake guides him through the swampy and marshy land, until he reaches the hollow trunk of a mulberry tree. The snake makes a dip and disappears from sight. The saint takes the clue and after performing Puju pours milk which he has brought for this purpose. It is thus that the holy spring is discovered and is known to Kashmiris. It is believed that the discovery of the holy spring has been made on Ashadha Saptami, the 7th day of the bright fortnight of the month of June-July. Kashmiri Hindus come here on every Ashtami - 8th day of the bright fortnight of each lunar month and majority of Kashmiri Hindus consider Kheer Bhawani as their protector Goddess.
Kheer Bhawani is one of the mysterious springs situated near village of Tulamula. The whole place round Tulamula is swampy and for miles around there are rice fields. By the side of aqueducts grow a large variety of wild flowers, the most common being Mentha sylvestris (Vena) which is used in worship and the sale of which brings money to the peasant population. It appears that Tulamula is a sort of floating garden, as the natives say that if they dig a whole in the ground, they find fish coming from the tributary of the Sindh which drains the place. The village is surrounded by the tributaries of the Sindh which carry water from the Amar Nath and Gangabal glaciers.
The numerous islets are covered with willows and poplars while the main island on which the spring stands is shaded with chinar, mulberry and elm trees. Lately, the place is paved with dressed sandstones. Water and vegetation is abundant. In summer, the birds nestling on trees produce melodious music. The golden oriole, the thrush, the ringdove, the paradise flycatcher, the bulbul are conspicuous by their song and plumage. In winter the wild fowl, the shoveller, the mallard, the gadwall, the widgeon, the teal, the paddy bird, the coot and such other birds are found in the Anchar Lake and round about the swamps.
Mention of this place is made in the Ragnya Pradurbhava. During the early period of the Epic Age, King Ravana rules Lanka, an island to the south of India. It is then a flourishing country having sixteen hundred towns. King Ravana in order to gain power and glory worships goddess Parvati (Shama) who manifests herself to him in all her nine aspects. For sometime he remains sober-minded and worships the goddess with all devotion.
When Shri Rama King of Ajodhya invades Lanka and the generals of his army Sugrev and Hanuman kills King Ravana’s brother Kumbakaruna and his son Megnad, his wife Mandudhari entreats him to make peace with Shri Rama. He is kindled with rage and tries to invoke the blessing of the goddess by offering her various kinds of sacrifices. Thereupon the goddess, wrathful at Ravana’s misdeeds, curses him and orders Hanuman to take her to Sati Sar (Kashmir) on her vehicle along with 360 Nags. Hanuman selects a spot in the northern side of the valley within the space surrounded by the villages of Borus, Ahatung, Ladwun, and Wokur. Here he installs the goddess with all her satellites. She is called Khirbhawani or Raji Ragyni, exclusively preferring milk, sugar, rice and all vegetarian forms of offerings.
Aurel Stein who translates Kalhana’s Rajatarangini says : “When he (Jayapida) was appropriating (the land of) Tulamulya, he heard, while on the bank of the Candrabhaga, that a hundred Brahmans less one had sought death in the water of that (stream.”......
In the midst of the wide waterlogged tract of the Sind Delta we find the ancient Tirtha of Tulamulya at the village now known as Tulamula. The large spring of Tulamulya is sacred to goddess Maharajni. The water of this miraculous spring changes colors.
It is ascribed to the manifestation of the goddess. The Tirtha attracts large numbers of pilgrims from the capital. About two and a half miles to the east of Tulamula is the village of Dudrhom on the main branch of the River Sind.
Mention has been made in the Rajatarangini of Raja Jayapida (A. D. 850-88) confiscating the lands of the Brahmans of Tulamula. The Brahmins troubled by the misdeeds of the Raja went in a body to see him. They were detained by the courtiers. Thereupon, they raised a hue and cry and were called by the Raja. They attacked him vehemently and one of them cursed him with the result that there and then a golden rod from the royal canopy fell on the Raja, causing him a wound which proved incurable and brought about his death. Since then the Brahmans of Tulamulya are held in high esteem and represent a well-to-do people.
It is said that Ravana’s father Pulasti Reshi lived in Kashmir. The land was all swampy, made as it were of floating gardens, it was light and bumpy, and hence it was called Toola Mulla, from two Sanskrit words. ‘Tool’ meaning ‘cotton’ and ‘Mulla’ meaning
Some people say that their elders were seen walking over the reeds, when reeds were placed along the swampy foot-path from Hur Mengin Wor to enable the pilgrims to walk to the island. (Hur Mengan was a Spirit who sometimes possessed the bodies of the persons travelling during the night and he was a dread to the inhabitants of the neighborhood.) After some time a road is constructed by Mahant Dharm Dass. Shah Radha Krishen, a merchant, paves the edge of the spring with Baramulla stones and Dewan Narsingh Dayal builds the big dharmshala on the north of the spring during the reign of Maharaja Ranbir Singh. Later on, during recent times the road is black topped and is made fit for wheeled traffic.
There is a legend that a long time ago the goddess appears to Pandit Govind Joo Gadru who arranges to go in a boat from Sowura Ghat to the swampy side of the Anchar Lake. He takes with him a number of earthen vessels full of milk and when he finds the spring, he pours milk into it.
The spring is situated in the centre of the island round which the Gangkhai a canal from Sind makes a circuit. It is said that this spring is surrounded by 360 springs. Most of these have fallen into oblivion and are covered with bushes and silted up.
Before the main spring came to be known the goddess was worshipped at Solur where under a Chinar tree a spring still exists. This spot is called Devot Wol Buin. One mile north-east of this island near Lodwan village is Ganesh Bal or Vodjen where Ganesh is worshipped. The other springs which are still known are: Ashta Rudhar to the south, Tsandar Nag to the south-east. Machi Nag, Naga Rad, Gokhin Nag are to the east.
The main spring is dedicated to Goddess Khir Bhawani or Ragyni. A mulberry tree also grew here.
Swami Vivekananda visits Khir Bhavani Devi and stays there for seven day worships the Devi and makes Homa to her with offerings of Khir (condensed milk). Every day he uses to worship the Devi with a maund (40 Kgs.) of Khir as offering. One day, while worshipping, a thought arises in Swamiji’s mind:” Mother Bhavani has been manifesting Her Presence here for untold years. The Mohammedans came and destroyed her temple, yet the people of the place did nothing to protect her. Alas, if I were then living, I could never have borne it silently”. When, thinking in this strain, his mind is much oppressed with sorrow and anguish, he distinctly hears the voice of the Mother saying: “It was according to desire that the Mohammedans destroyed the temple. It is my desire that I should live in dilapidated temple, otherwise, can I not immediately erect a seven-storied temple of gold here if I like? What can you do? Shall I protect you or shall you protect me!” Swami Ji said: “Since hearing that Divine Voice, I cherish no more plans. The idea of building Maths etc. I have given up; as Mother wills, so it will be” disciple speechless with wonder began to think “Did he not one day tell me that whatever I saw and heard was but the echo of the Atma within me, that there was nothing outside?” and fearlessly spoke it out also - “Sir, you used to say that Divi ne Voices are the echo of our inward thoughts and feelings”. Swamiji gravely said: “Whether it is internal or external, if you actually hear with your ears such a disembodied voice, as I have done, can you deny it and call it false? Divine Voices are actually heard, just as you and I are talking.” The disciple without controverting accepted Swamiji’s words, for his words always carried conviction.
We meditate upon Shri Maha Rajni. “Shree Mah Rajniyay Namah”
The Great Empress”
Who is the embodiment of peace and
Who is the giver of wealth that is sought?
The people living round the island whether Hindus or Mohammedans have a great veneration for the goddess. They never eat meat when they have to go over there. They go there with their bodies and clothes washed.
Since the discovery of the spring was made on Ashara Sapthami*, seventh day of bright fortnight in June-July, but pilgrims from all parts of Kashmir come here on every eighth day (Ashtami) of the bright fortnight of every lunar month. The chief festival is held on Zetha Ashtami (about May).Light of candles made from ghee (clarified butter), and burn incense, to the accompaniment of the music of ringing of bells played by the priest. The offering is Khir (preparation of rice in milk and sugar), with sometimes admixture of ghee, raisins, dates, coconuts, and pieces of sugar candy in odd numbers. The recitation of Sanskrit hymns from scriptures along with offerings of flowers and rice in spring completes a form of worship. A portion of these offerings is distributed among relatives and friends. At dusk, hundreds of people assemble round the spring with candles waving. The head priest also waves a candle, while the other priests blow conch shells and horns, ring bells, and wave “morechells” (peacock’s tail feathers). All pilgrims recite hymns, producing a singular mixture of sounds, and creating a religious atmosphere diffusing spiritual vibrations everywhere. The whole congregation standing in a devotional mood concentrates on the image of the goddess and seeks to merge itself in the Primordial Energy pervading the universe. I think, this united form of worship is more impressive if some set verses were selected and recited together than individual for sometime. After this had been done every person could follow his own way according to his own peculiar bent of mind.
Every Kashmiris’ Hindu has his own Presiding Deity. When a child is born to him or when his son is married he has to take him to his Presiding Goddess for thanks offering. Khir Bhawani is the Presiding Deity of the majority of the Kashmiri Brahmans.
The spring has been cleansed several times. An electric pump conducts these operations round the clock. The mire and sediment which lay at the bottom are removed. A large quantity of water flows out making the spring fresh and sparkling. As a result of this operation, the spring bubbles out in several directions. In the middle of the spring, milky water flows out. While the mud and mire are being removed several golden ornaments and silver pieces offered by the devotees from time to time are collected, from the bottom of the spring. The spring is thus cleansed from time to time.
The first Muslim invasion of Kashmir takes place in the eighth century and is defeated by the Himalayas. The soldiers of the prophet find it impossible to move beyond the mountains’ southern slopes. At the beginning of the 14th century, Dulucha, another Mongol conqueror attacks Kashmir. Like other Mongol invaders, Dulucha is savage and destroys towns and burns villages massacring thousands of people. With this attack the end of an era of Kashmir is ushered. When the adventurers enter the weak King Shaha Dev rules Kashmir. Udayan Dev is the last ruler to be in power in Kashmir before it is finally conquered fully. It is actually his wife, Kota Rani, a very intelligent woman, who rules Kashmir in reality. She tries to save Kashmir but in vain.
Victory comes unexpectedly five centuries later, as a result of palace coup. Rinchin, the Buddhist chief from neighbouring Ladakh carries out the coup, and seeks refuge in Kashmir. He embraces Islam under the guidance of Bulbul (‘Nightingale’) Shah. Rinchin becomes ruler of Kashmir for three years. When Rinchin dies, Shah Mir takes control and founds the first Muslim dynasty to rule Kashmir. It lasts for seven hundred years.
In 1399, comes the death of Kashmir. Shah Mir, also taking advantage of the chaos, defeats Queen of Jayapur (Sumbal) and like the tradition of many other Muslim conquerors, Shah Mir wants to marry her. She commits suicide by stabbing herself rather than marrying him. Thus ends the long history of Kashmir and Kashmir is overrun by the Muslims to usher in the medieval period of Kashmir. In this period Kashmir starts changing; its Buddhist/Hindu culture is purged.
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Kalhana lives in a time of political turmoil in Kashmir, at that time a brilliant center of civilization in a sea of barbarism. Kalhana is an educated and sophisticated Brahmin, well-connected in the highest political circles. His writing is full of literary devices and allusions. Kalhana borrows from authors sand tells us that he uses many other sources to confirm his information including engravings, literary manuscripts, other histories and local verbal traditions.
LAL DED is born, at Pandrethan near Srinagar in the 14th century. Lal gets married at the age of twelve. Her marriage is unhappy and she leaves her home when she is twenty four. Many people say many stories about Lal Ded.
There is a curious legend about her birth. Prior to her birth as Lalleshwari i, she is born somewhere in Kashmir and is married to a man living at Pandrethan - the old capital of Srinagar. There she gives birth to a son. The priest of this family, Shri Sidh Kanth, is called to perform the 'Kahanether' ceremony. Lala enquires of the priest - "What relationship has the new-born baby with me?"
Sidh says perplexed - "What an absurd question: Why - he is your son" to which,
Lala says - "No"
"What then is he to you", asks Sidh.
She replies, "I am going to die now and shall be born as a filly (mare) in Marhama village with such and such marks. If you care to have the answer to your query, you may come to meet me in Marhama after one year from now and I shall give you the answer".
The woman dies just after uttering these words. Sidh in order to satisfy his curiosity goes, after a year, to Marhama and searches for the filly. He finds her and puts the old question to her.
She (Lala) tells him - "Well I would like to give you the answer but I am to die just now and am to be reborn as a pup in Bijbehra with such and such marks and if you care to get the answer you may come to meet me there".
After the filly has finished this talk, a tiger jumps out of a bush and devours her. Sidhi's curiosity increases and after six months, he goes to Bijbehra. There he searches for the puppy and he does find it. He puts the same question to it, and it tells him as before that it is to die just then and is to be reborn as such and such at such and such place and he may come there to receive the answer. No sooner has it said this, than a man riding on his pony passes by and the puppy gets killed under the pony's hoofs. In this way Sidh is dismissed by her without having the answer he required, until she takes six rebirths in different places and being thus baffled, he gives up the idea of making further attempts to satisfy his curiosity. He then goes to Wastervan to perform penances. In the same family, in which Lalleshwari has died on the eleventh day of her confinement, she takes her
7th rebirth. When she is twelve years of age, her marriage is arranged in a Pandit family surnamed Nica Bhatt living in the Drangabal Mohalla of Pampore. Just one day previous to the wedding day, Sidh returns from Wastervan to preside over the ceremony. While the ceremony is being performed, the bride whispers to Sidh - "That baby who was born to me and you were pursuing me in my several rebirths, anxious to know what relationship he bore to me, is this very boy who is the bridegroom here". Sidh recollects the matter and is astonished beyond belief.
‘The buildings of Kashmir are all wood.’ The Mughal Emperor Jahangir wrote in his memoirs in March 1622. ‘They make them two, three and four storied, and covering the roofs with earth, they plant bulbs of the black tulip, which blooms year after year with the arrival of spring and is exceedingly beautiful. This custom is peculiar to the people of Kashmir.
Father
Pandit Janki Nath being the youngest in the family is the favorite of every body. It is a joint family and all the members in the family called him Lalla Ji. All the brothers wish that he should be given the best education. The older brothers would take care of him in the school and would guide him well. After having passed his BSc. Medical group examination from The Punjab University (Undivided India) with high marks, he showed a keen desire to go in for higher studies. Those days it was very difficult to get admission in B.Ed.training course .However, he got the admission in Kolhapur (Maharashtra) University and passed the examination with flying colors. After acquiring the degree he came back to his native place Kashmir. He was offered job in the education department which he did for some months and later resigned to serve the community in a better manner. He had passion for teaching and soon he along with some other colleagues opened a school initially at Baramulla. When the swelled and its reputation spread they opened another branch at Srinagar and named it as National High School, which exists till date. He wrote a score of books on different subjects, which included Standard English Translation for class tenth,
Other books for this class were Standard Physiology, and Standard Hygiene. These books were published by Kapoor Brothers, Book Sellers, Habba Kadal, and Srinagar. “Mathematics Made Easy” another very popular book for 9th and 10th class was published by Ali Mohammad & Sons, Habba Kadal, Srinagar, Kashmir. Another book named “Essence of English Paper B” for 9th& 10th was a very widely book sold on grammar. This book was published by Omkar Brothers, Lal Chowk, Srinagar, and Kashmir. A book named “General Science” book for Higher Secondary elective class, was also published by Kapoor Brothers. Besides these Children’s Grammar series and Popular Translation series were also published. These books contributed a lot to the cause of education in Kashmir. He was a luminary in the field of education.
Besides being a great teacher, he tutored, many boys and girls with utmost devotion. Some of his students rose to very high posts and would hold masterji in high esteem.
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Several areas of the town could be reached by the intricate waterways and canals connected to the Dal Lake. Waterways also connected to the Nagin and the Anchar lakes to the west of Dal. And then the city itself had several delightful parks, temples, and mosques. Down the river at Shadipur, the junction of Vitasta and the Sindh rivers was a delightful park.
Fourteen miles from Srinagar, up the Sindh River, is the town of Ganderbal. A few miles from there is the temple of Khir Bhavani in a village called Tulamula? The spring at Tulamula is a sacred one and the water of the spring is believed to change in color from time to time, foretelling important events. This temple is the site of a popular pilgrimage and festival, as it is even now.
FESTIVAL: … Our old god Shiva is always with us. We celebrate Shivratri as an important festival. Most of the people in Kashmir take 'Herath' as the marriage day of Lord Shiva with 'Uma'. Shivratri in Kashmir is popularly known as 'Herath'.
It starts from the first day of Hur Okdoh and ends on 'Tela ashtami', lunar fortnight of Phalgun. From the first day, the entire house is cleaned and washed - the walls, the floors, linen, utensils, everything receives a face lift and is made to look wonderfully perfect. On 'Hur Ashtami' on the eighth day people organize religious kirtans, jagran originally at 'Hari Parvat', 'Pokhribal' and 'Khirbhawani'. Fish is a very important item to be cooked on all these days of fun and merrymaking. On 'Dyara Daham' the day of the Laxmi, the new brides come wearing new clothes and bring with them 'Herath' Bhog' [Shivratri Kharcha] i.e. presents-in kind and cash for her in-laws. Besides the new brides, all ladies who come back from their parent's homes bring presents and 'Atagat', and also 'Kangri', symbolic of good luck and prosperity. This small gesture pleasantly enough still carries on and is treated as a very good omen.
'Gad Kah' comes soon after on the eleventh day. This day fish is bought home and cleaned and fried for the main day, followed by 'Wager Bah', the day when new earthenware, specially prepared for the occasion is installed in the 'Puja room'. This marks the beginning of 'Herath'. Walnuts have a very important role to play in this festival. The shape represents the universe. They are filled in earthen pots covered with water up to the top. This water has to be changed every day. The 'Watuk' consists of a big earthen pitcher, two small ones and two smaller ones, one elephant trunk shaped figure, seven bowls decorated with flowers and 'Sindoor'. They represent Shiva Parvati, Ram Brahmin, Seven Rishis, Ganesa and some other Rishis. These walnuts are washed and placed into the pitchers of and seven bowls. Then these are filled with water and some milk and Mishri is poured into each one of them. Pooja is started at 'Pradosh Kala' [dusk] and all the family members take part in it and the same carries on till late in the night. The fast is broken and boiled rice with a variety of cooked vegetables is taken. The Shivratri comes to a close in the evening of 'Amavasya'. The walnuts in the pitchers are taken out and washed. Pooja is once again performed, signifying the culmination of the Festival. The 'Samgri' and the flowers used are immersed in the river. Walnuts are used as Prasad and distributed amongst the neighbors and friends.
For Kashmiri Pandits, Shiv-ratri is the most important religious festival. Celebration of this festival has remained proverbial from ancient times. In Kashmiri, Shiv-ratri is also known as Har-ratri and Herath. It is said that Lord Shiva called Devi Jagatamba by the name Hairte on this day which eventually got transformed into Herath. Shiv-ratri is celebrated on the thirteenth day of the dark fortnight in the month of Phagun. In Kashmir we have maintained the ritual of Vatuk-puja, along with the worship of Shiva and Shakti on this day. A historical episode reflects the faith of Kashmiri Pandits in Shiv-ratri.
It is said that Jabar Khan, the Pathan governor of Kashmir, forbade people to perform Vatak-puja in Phagun and instead ordered them to celebrate it in July. Helplessly, people obeyed the order but to everyone's surprise (harath) it snowed on that day in July. Since then the people of Kashmir recite, ''Jabar Jandah-Haras awe Wandah" (Jabar the rag-man, winter came in July).
Lord Shiva is omnipotent and omnipresent. The worship of Vatuka is dealt within several Tantric works. Vatuka, like Ganesha, has been described as a mind bom son of the Mother Goddess. He is the deity who saves his devotees from all sorts of misfortunes and calamities. When Kashmiri Pandits were driven out if the valley in the first half of the fifteenth century, a few families in the remote villages stayed back. It is speculated that these people may have started worship of Vatuka for their protection, the custom having been continued by others when they returned to the valley in the later part of that century.
Herath truvah is the day for lord Shiva's worship. On Doon mavas, the Prasad of walnuts and rice cakes (tomala-chuut) are distributed, in past, this often continued until Tila Ashtami. The latter day also marks the end of winter, and is celebrated by burning kangri and singing the chorus of 'ja-tun-tn'. On the social side, there used to be great joy all around. People wore new and their nicest clothes and families would sit together and enjoy the game with sea shells.
It is now difficult to perform the Vatak-puja in the traditional way, as most of us have now migrated to far off places, all over the world. However, we need to maintain the spirit of this, the most important festival of ours. We have people like Gurtus and Razdans, who observe strict vegetarianism during the Shiv-ratri festival. Most of us have given up the tradition of offering and eating meat on Shiv-ratri day.
One other practice is the celebration of salaam on the day following Shiv-ratri. Muslim neighbors and friends visit us and wish happy Shivratri. People would also invite their relatives and friends for a sumptuous dinner. But now who will come to us, for us the significance of this day is diminished. The 13th day of dark fortnight in Phagun is celebrated as Shiv Ratri. During this time house cleaning is done. Money and fish are sent to married daughters. On the 13th day the head of the family performs the puja of Shiva on night following a feast on the 14th day.
Time unravels like a dog’s tail, then it curls right back into a circle, and you start all over again. As we live out our lives, we look to the heavens and stumble on the nearest rock, and then we pull ourselves up, dust off the sand, and look around us. If we were to look back we would see a disappointing line of predecessors whose lifetime we have unknowingly mimicked.
The Muslim rulers ousted the Hindus in the fourteenth century.
Then comes Zain-ul-Abidin
A fanciful tale centers round this illustrious kings of Kashmir, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1423-1474 A.D.) fondly named 'Badshah', the great king, by his loving subjects and remembered with love and reverence by the posterity even to this day. His kind reign spreads over half a century. There is peace and prosperity, the king provides a special healing touch to his Hindu subjects who had suffered everything that hell possessed during the preceding one hundred years. A highly civilized race had been humbled and disgraced systematically.
Sultan Sikander (1389-1412 A.D.) hatefully known as 'Sikander But-shikan' (the iconoclast), was father of Zain-ul-Abidin. Assisted by Suha Bhatt, his Prime Minister, a neo-convert to Islam, assuming the name of Saif ud-Din, the king in mad frenzy of skewed religious fanaticism and bigotry surpassed even the greatest tyrants of History. Putting hundreds and thousands of his Hindu subjects, mostly Brahmins, to sword, desecrating, plundering and destroying all the famous temples and libraries, forcibly converting some to Islam, inflicting all possible cruelties upon them, the king stopped short at nothing. His equally ruthless soldiers tired of wielding their swords dragged their hapless victims to the Dal Lake and drowned them in it at a place which is still known by the name of 'Bhatta Mazar' meaning the graveyard of the Hindus. Those who yielded got converted; those who could escaped to the subcontinent; but those who resisted, perished. To these people it must have been impossible to believe that a Muslim king and the son of an arch tyrant (Sultan Sikander) at that could be so generous, so kind-hearted, secular and large-hearted as to allow them the same freedom and privileges as his Muslim subjects enjoyed. The only explanation for this incredible phenomenon that could readily occur to them must have been the intervention of some divine or supernatural power affecting the thinking and psyche of the king.
There is tale that has puzzled many. One winter morning Pandit Shri Bhatt, a local Vaid (physician) sits in the ground floor room of his house which serves as his clinic, is feeling the pulse of one of his patients. Patients were many. He hurriedly scribbles a prescription for the patient. His face is anxious as if he has some worry. Apparently he has something on his mind. He has received the other day, through one of his Muslim friends, a courtier, a detailed report about King Zain-ul-Abidin's illness and also the inability of all the royal physicians to cure him. He is anxious to prove his worth as a physician and his friend has already recommended his name to the king. He is asked to reach the palace at noon that day. He takes his medicine box with him and leaves for the palace. The guard at the palace gate escorts Shri Bhatt to the main building. Here silence prevails everywhere and men and soldiers talk in hushed tones. The king's illness has engulfed everyone with deep anxiety. Straightening the loose folds of his gown he walks with a light foot trying to avoid the sound of his footfalls. Presently he finds himself at the doorstep of the king's bedroom. Shri Bhatt, head bent, approaches the vast bedstead upon which the king is reclining. Two royal physicians are changing the bandage of his infected wound, which a sinister looking boil at his back has turned into. Saluting the Sultan, he stands at a respectful distance. The royal physician addresses the king," Your Majesty, Shri Bhatt is here. May we give him a try?" The Sultan makes a noise of disgust. "Do what you think best, Shri Bhatt. We are in great pain," he says, throwing the back of his hand to him. A chill caution of a trained physician enters Shri Bhatt's mind. He unbandages the wound and touches lightly the skin round it, which looks red and tender. He applies some medicine on it covering it with a bit of cotton wool and then bandages it securely. "Tonight Your Majesty will enjoy sound sleep and within three days, God willing, sit up completely cured", he addresses his king. The king's emaciated face gives back a bald and bland smile in reply. That night the king feels his back relieved of much of the pain and it is late in the morning when he opens his eyes feeling refreshed after peaceful sleep. Whether it is the efficacy of Shri Bhatt's medicine or his good fortune that did the trick none can tell. But after a few days the king, completely cures, does attend the court as predicted by Shri Bhatt. Sitting on his throne, the king looks around for his doctor, the Vaid, and spots him standing in a corner.
The king calls him to his presence. With short pauses in between the king expresses his gratefulness more eloquently than the words he speaks. The king asks Shri Bhatt to name anything in the world and that will be granted to him. Shri Bhatt expresses his gratitude for the magnanimous offer and says that His Majesty's recovery is all that he desires. This prompts the king to speak out his mind as he is keen to do something for him, Shri Bhatt keeps silent. He feels like a prize winner who does not know how to carry his unwieldy trophy home. The king's eyes bore into his face as if trying to find a path leading to his mind. This time Shri Bhatt looks straight into his eyes and sees in them a deep sea of generosity. Shri Bhatt sees a true and sincere eye, he feels encouraged by the kind smile playing on kings lips. Shri Bhatt prays that his Hindu subjects be let off the hook of tyranny and religious persecution so that their honor and religious freedom can be restored. Pleased with the reply, the king grants him his wish with a nod. That day after the Darbar is over; Shri Bhatt walking along the narrow paths leading to his home feels strange and finally rests in his home. He has seen the suffering of his brethren. Tears of relief well up in his heart and dribble down his beard. The single streak of good fortune is God's last gift to Shri Bhatt, as the king, after some time, is again down with a disease with this time neither he nor the royal physicians can diagnose or cure. Each day that passes seems to sap his life force drop by drop, inch by inch. Demented with prolonged fever, the king looks prematurely senile and his face takes an ashen hue. His royal head, once so robust and youthful, looks inadequate even to support his beard. Gloom envelops the city and the people pray for divine mercy. Shri Bhatt's failure to find out an effective cure for the king’s illness makes him desperate. He is weighted down by great anxiety. He loves his king and does not want to lose him. Now his reputation as a physician is at stake. But more than that the decrees issued by the king have not been yet implemented. His untimely demise may undo all that he has achieved so far. That day Shri Bhatt goes for an early dip at the Vitasta direct from the palace where he has spent the whole night beside the king's bed. It is predawn and the bathing ghats are deserted. Only a lonely star beams at him from the sky. While on way back he sees a figure approaching him. It is a Sadhu, six foot two and Shri Bhatt had not seen a Sadhu in the city for a long time. Folding his hands in reverence he touches his feet. The Sadhu's dim profile is now visible in the early light of the dawn. His head with long matted hair, thick as a thatch, matched perfectly with his long flowing beard. But the sight of his bloodshot eyes giving out flares of hate give him gooseflesh. "You are the first Brahman that I have seen since yesterday. I have been roaming all day and night to find a temple for a day's rest but I have not seen any. Are my eyes deceiving me?" he says to Shri Bhatt without any preliminaries. Shari Bhatt looks at him like a bird that has been shot and parrying the question requests him to accept his hospitality as his house is just nearby. At home he offers him some food and sits before him not knowing how to explain the disaster that has overtaken the place, and its people. Obviously the Sadhu does not belong to these parts and have come from the south of the sub-continent. He sums up briefly the tragedy that has overtaken his people and tells him about the desperate situation he is in at the moment. The Sadhu listens with rapt attention with his eyes closed. "Your king has finished with this world and there is nothing one can do now," he says. "But the promise he makes to relieve my people of their miseries will soon be forgotten. Justice will not then be done. If only the king can live for a few months more!" Shri Bhatt says throwing his hands in despair. Something lit up the Sadhu's face. He opens his eyes and pulls viciously at his beard as if to soften the impact of the idea that has hit him like a bolt. He opens up in measured tones, "Listen carefully. I can animate your king by my own Atman for hundred days immediately after he breathes his last. I hope that much time should be enough to get your plans in action. During that time I shall be leaving my mortal shell here and you must promise to preserve it safely for me." It takes some time for the strange scheme to sink into Shri Bhatt's mind. He thinks the Sadhu is playing a cruel joke on him. But the tone of the Sadhu's voice reassures him. His Adam’s apple moves convulsively. He looks at him up and down, not knowing what to say. Shri Bhatt changes gear. "Am I not putting you to a great risk? What if something unusual happens? No, no, it is asking too much," he says hovering between despondency and hope. Without answering back, the Sadhu now sits cross-legged and closes his eyes softly. He does not even wait to elicit from Shri Bhatt the assurance asked for and goes into a deep trance. Slowly his breathing stops altogether and he looks like a statue. Shri Bhatt races out of the room locking it up from outside. He runs to the palace and goes straight into the King's bedroom. He finds the king's face deathly pale, cold sweat dotting his brow. Presently his whole body convulsed and he heaves out a long sigh and lay still and stiff. The king is no more. Shri Bhatt is all eyes now. He wants to be the witness to the miracle promised by the Sadhu. Yes, the miracle does occur. The king's face begins to regain its color and very soon his body begins to move. He asks for water in a feeble voice for the first time after many days. The Sadhu's soul has taken over while that of the king has made its tryst with his Maker. Shri Bhatt is now fully convinced that the Sadhu's soul has animated the body of the king. But it would take more than a hundred days for the king to regain his shattered health completely. The period is too short to get his plan implemented. A thought, a blend of devilment and intrigue passes through his mind. "If the Sadhu's body is disposed of for good, his soul would remain stay put where it is now. Better to cremate him here and now than risk our future, “he argues with his conscience, and his conscience agrees with what he proposes. So he gets the Sadhu's body cremates with due religious ceremonies in his own presence and earns the gratitude of his people. As the pyre gets engulfed in flames, Shri Bhatt is heard saying to himself." After all, in the end, it is nothing but the ashes for every one of us, tomorrow if not today. Why not today?" Up above in the evening sky a faint honking of the wild geese seemed to echo his thoughts, as if saying, "Yes, we know."
The great Muslim Mogul emperor Akbar conquers the valley in 1586 and made it summer residence.
We sing the songs of a beautiful village girl in a field of flowers……
Habba Khatun and Yousuf Shah Chak..Love get married…………………………..but she is already married to a village boy……….
Her lips are on fire from her songs and her saffron and he is consumed. Habba’s poems become famous. She is persuaded and leaves the village to become the adored poet queen of King Yousuf.
Royal duties separate the lovers, Yousuf leaves Habba…?? Habba is extremely beautiful, so beautiful just like a moon; she is given the name of Zoonie, being comparable to moon.
Zoonie, the wife of Sultan Yusuf Shah, is a peasant from the village of Tsandahar who has been taken up by a Sufi mystic enchanted with her voice. Under his guidance she learns Persian and begins to write
Her own songs. One day, passing with his entourage and hearing her voice in the fields, Yusuf Shah, too, is captivated. He takes her to court and prevails on her to marry him. And that is how Zoonie enters the palace as queen and takes the name Habba Khatun (Loved woman). She gives the Kashmiri language a literary form and encourages a synthesis of Persian and Indian musical styles. She gives the women the freedom to decorate themselves as they wish and revives the old fashion of tattooing the face and hands with special dyes and powders. The clerics are furious. They see in her the work of Iblis, or Satan, in league with blaspheming, licentious Sufis. While Yousuf Shah remains on throne, however, Habba Khatun is untouchable. She mocks the pretensions of the clergy, defends the mystic strain within Islam and comprehends herself to a flower that flourishes in fertile soil and cannot be uprooted.
Habba Khatun is queen when, in 1583, the Mughal emperor, Akbar, dispatches his favorite general to annex the kingdom of Kashmir. There is no fighting. ; Yousuf Shah rides out to the Mughal camp and capitulates without a struggle, demanding only the right to retain the throne and strike coins in his image. Instead, he is arrested and sent into exile. The Kashmiri nobles, angered by Yousuf Shah’s betrayal, placed his son, Yakub Shah, on the throne, but he is a weak and intemperate young man who set the suni and Shia clerics at one another’s throats and before long Akbar sent a large expeditionary force, which took Kashmir in the summer of 1588. In the autumn the emperor came to see the valley’s famous colors for himself.
Habba Khatun’ situation changed dramatically after Akbar had her husband exiled. Unlike queen Sughanda and Didda two powerful 10th century queens, who had ascended the throne as regents
Habba Khatun is driven out of the palace. At first she finds refuge with the Sufis, but after a time she begins to move from village to village, giving voice in her songs to the melancholy of a suppressed people. There is no record of where or when she died- a grave, thought to be hers, is discovered in the middle of the last centaury.
Habba Khatun exemplifies a gentle version of Islam, diluted with pre Islamic practices and heavily influenced by sufi mysticism. This tradition is still strong in the countryside and helps to explain Kashmiri indifference to the more militant form of religion.
In 1757, wild Afghans overran Kashmir. Then in 1819 came warlike Sikhs, until they in turn were defeated in the Sikh wars by the army of British East India Company, which annexed Punjab and Kashmir. In 1846, the British East India Company sold Kashmir to Ghulab Singh, the Hindu Maharaja of Jammu, giving him the status of an independent princely ruler under the Raj, to which the Maharaja paid annual tribute. Supported by the British, Gulab Singh annexed the neighboring regions of Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, and Chitral to his kingdom of Kashmir and Jammu, creating the region today termed Kashmir. Muslim Kashmiris rebelled repeatedly against their new Hindu ruler, but the revolts were put down by the Maharajas forces, aided by troops of the British Indian Army.
When Islam comes to Kashmir, it brings conflict as it brings wherever its followers go. We the KPs withstood and despite centuries upon centuries of humiliation, persecution, and torture at the hands of foreign rulers we survive. We pass through numerous periods of shame and indignity and physical torture, yet century after century we recover our glory by our own power of self-preservation. This shows the potential that a Kashmiri Pandit has, and this power or potential is our faith in education, and learning, but, how long? Our older generation suffers, our young children also suffer. We have succeeded against fierce odds in preserving our rich cultural heritage. Our forebears who were man and women as great saints, free thinkers, intellectuals and literary giants showed matchless maturity and tolerance. We are a tolerant culture and civilization and have never shown apathy and aversion to new and foreign influences, thoughts and faiths whenever they came into contact with us. We are known for our dignity, piety, hospitality and patience. Our culture has evolved over period of time, having come in contact with ancient Greek, Roman and pre-Islamic Persian culture. Tolerance has been and continues to be the hallmark of KP culture, despite severe pressure to make it different.
The people, our Muslim brothers, to whom we have been nourishing, to with whom we have all along been good teachers, have now, not only plundered our nests but have burnt all bridges. Is this the principle they stand for.
The Kashmiri Pundit community is as helpless and friendless today as never before. Although forced to leave our homes we have been named migrants. The ship is as rudderless as never before. The destination is not in sight. Turning the pages of history one finds that the sun has set on the glories of the community in 1339 AD itself, with the fall of Kota Rani at Inderkote. In comes Sikandar- the idol breaker. He puts thousands to sword, makes lakhs to flee. Then comes Khokha Khan the mere mention of whose name frightens the children into silence even today.
But then again there is a silver lining. We also find a Bad shah in the history acting as a healer for the wounds inflicted by Sikandar. We also find Abdul Qudoos Gojawari risking his life to save the family of Birbal Dhar from the wrath of the Afghan ruler. We also find Maqbool Sherwani getting himself crucified but rising against the tyranny.
Kashmir changes many hands under Muslim occupation. The last, in 1756, was the Muslim Afghans, who rule it briefly, but lose it to the Sikhs, 1819. It becomes part of the Sikh kingdom of Punjab. Soon, however, the territory is given over to Gulab Singh which in effect brings it under British control. The last of the foreign rulers are the British. The British rule India for 200 years but these years change India dramatically.
The plight of peasants of Kashmir is not good in 1920. When His Highness drove the car to Pahalgam, admiring peasants surrounded the car and strewed fresh grass in front of it. The Maharaja acknowledged their presence by letting them touch the car. The car is Cadillac one. A few peasants began to cry. ‘Why are you crying?’ asked their ruler. ‘We are upset,’ one of them replied, ‘because your new animal refuses to eat grass.’ Such is the ignorance, poverty.
When the Muslim poet and philosopher Iqbal, himself of Kashmiri origin, visited Srinagar in 1921, he left behind a subversive couplet which spread around the country;
In the bitter chill of winter shivers his naked body
Whose skill wraps the rich in royal shawls?
Kashmiri workers go on strike for the first time in spring of 1924. Five thousand workers in the state owned Silk Factory demand a pay rise. A clerk is dismissed who is the ring leader. The management agrees to a small increase, but the workers do not agree. Many workers and leaders on protest are arrested. The workers then come out on strike. With the backing of the British Resident , the Maharaja (Partap Singh) sends in troops. Workers on the picket line are beaten, suspected ringleaders are sacked on the spot and the principal organiser of the action is imprisoned.
Some months later a group of ultra conservative Muslims send a memorandum to the British Viceroy, Lord Reading, protesting the brutality and repression. The viceroy forwards the petition to the Maharaja, who is enraged. He wants the ‘sedition mongers ‘harsh treatment, but the Resident wouldn’t have it.
As a sop he orders the immediate deportation of the organiser of the petition, Saaduddin Shawl. Nothing changes even when, a few years later the Maharaja dies and is replaced by his nephew, Hari Singh. Albion Bannerji, the new British approved chief Minister of Kashmir, found the situation intolerable. Frustrated by his inability to achieve even trivial reforms, he resigns. ‘The Large Muslim population,’ he says, ‘is absolutely illiterate, labouring over poverty and very low economic conditions of living in the villages and practically governed like dumb driven cattle.’
In June, 1931, the largest political rally ever seen in Srinagar elected eleven representatives by popular acclimation to lead the struggle against native and colonial repression. Among them is Sheikh Abdullah, the son of a shawl trader, who dominates the life of Kashmir for the next half century. One of the less known speakers at the rally, Abdul Qadir, a butler who works for a European household, is arrested for having described the Dogra rulers as ‘a dynasty of blood suckers’ who have ‘drained the energies and resources of all our people.’ On the first day of Qadir’s trial, thousands of demonstrators gather outside the prison and demand the right to attend the proceedings. The police open fire killing twenty one of them. Sheikh Abdullah and other political leaders are arrested the following day. This is the founding moment of Kashmir nationalism.
Tara Devi the fourth wife of Maharaja Hari Singh gives birth to a boy, Karan Singh. In the Srinagar bazaar every second person claims to have fathered the heir apparent. Five days of lavish entertainment and feasting marks the infant heir’s arrival to Srinagar. A few weeks later , public agitation breaks out, and Kashmir could no longer be quarantined from a sub continent eager for independence.
The viceroy instructed the Maharaja to release the imprisoned leaders, who were carried through the streets of Srinagar on the shoulders of triumphant crowds. The infant Karan Singh has been produced in vain; he would never inherit his father’s dominion. Many years later he wrote of his father;
He was a bad loser. Any small setback in shooting or fishing, polo or racing, would throw him in a dark mood which lasted for days. And this would inevitably lead to what became known as muqaddama, a long inquiry into the alleged inefficiency or misbehaviour of some hapless young members or staff or servant....
On their release from the jail, Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues establish a political organisation capable of uniting Muslims and non-Muslims. All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference is formed in Srinagar in October 1932 and Abdullah is elected its president. Non-Muslims in Kashmir are mainly Hindus, dominated by Pandits, upper class Brahmins, and Sikhs. The Pandits are well educated. The British, characteristically, use the Pandits to run the administration, making it easy for the Muslims to see the two enemies as one. Sheikh Abdullah is a Koranic scholar. He is absolutely secular in his politics. The Hindus are a minority population in Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah knows it will be fatal for Kashmiri interests if the Brahmins are ignored or persecuted. Another leader, an orthodox, Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah breaks away- there is a split in the party. Sheikh Abdullah is being accused of being soft to Hindus. Unmindful of the orthodox faction in his own ranks, Sheikh Abdullah draws closer to Jawaharlal Nehru, who advocates nationalism.
At the end of 1920’s Sheikh Abdullah gets enrolled as a student in Aligarh Muslim University. The college authorities encourage Muslims to stay away from politics, but by the time Sheikh Abdullah joins at Aligarh, students are divided into liberal and conservative camps.
To demonstrate his commitment to secular politics, Sheikh Abdullah invites Jawahar Lal Nehru to Kashmir. Nehru, whose forebears are Kashmiri Pandits, brings with him Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, ‘the frontier Gandhi. The three leaders speak to groups of people, workers, intellectuals, peasants and women. The visitors enjoy loitering in the Mughal gardens.
Sheikh Abdullah promised liberation from Dogra rule and pledged land reforms. Nehru preaches the virtues of unremitting struggle against the empire and insists that social reforms can come only after the British leave. Gaffar Khan speaks of the need for mass struggle and urges Kashmiris to throw fear to the wind: ‘you who live in the valley must learn to scale to the highest peaks.’
Nehru knows the main reason they have been shown affection is that Sheikh Abdullah is with them..,
There is now strong political bond between Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah. Abdullah is a Muslim from a humble background whoso outlook remains provincial and whose political views arise from a hatred of suffering and social injustice. Nehru a product of Harrow and Cambridge is a lofty figure, conscious of his own intellectual superiority, rarely afflicted by fear or envy, and always intolerant of fools. Sheikh Abdullah becomes Sher-i-Kashmir, the Lion of Kashmir, and his wife Akbar Jehan Madri –i-Meharban, the kind mother. Akbar Jehan is the daughter of Harry Nedous, an Austro-Swiss Hotelier, and Mir Jan, a Kashmiri milk maid. The Nedous family had arrived in India at the turn of last century and invested its savings in the Majestic Nedous Hotel in Lahore- later there were hotels in Srinagar and Poona. Harry Nedous first caught sight of Mir Jan when she came to deliver the milk at his holiday lodge in Gulmarg. He was immediately smitten, but she was suspicious.
‘I might be poor’ she told him later that week, ‘but I am not for sale’. Harry pleaded that he was serious, that he loved her, and that he wanted to marry her. ‘In that case’ she retorted wrathfully, ‘You must convert to Islam’. I cannot marry an unbeliever.’ To her amazement he did so, and in time they had twelve children (only five of whom survived). Their daughter Akbar Jehan was brought up as a devout Muslim. In 1928, Akbar Jehan was seventeen years old; she left school and moved to Lahore. Colonel T.E. Lawrence had spent some weeks fighting and destabilising radical Afghans. Lawrence was trying to modernize Afghanistan and was fighting anti-British regime of King Amanullah. T.E.Lawrence disguises as ‘Karam Shah’, a visiting Arab cleric. He provokes religious sentiments of some tribes resulting in civil war. Akbar Jehan may have met him at her father’s hotel. Her father insists they get married immediately; which they did. Three months later in January 1929, Aman Ullah is toppled and pro British ruler is installed. Newspapers report that Karim Shah was indeed ‘British spy Lawrence’, fighting on Afghan frontier. Lawrence became a liability and returned to Brittan. Karim Shah was never seen again. Nedous insisted on a divorce for his daughter and again Lawrence obliged. Four years latter, Sheikh Abdullah and Akbar Jehan were married in Srinagar. The fact of her previous marriage and divorce was never a secret; only the real name of her first husband was hidden. She now threw herself into the struggle for a new Kashmir. She raised money to build schools for poor children and encouraged adult education.
When Nehru and Gaffar Khan revisited Srinagar as Abdullah’s guests in the summer of 1945, the Lion of Kashmir had laid on a Mughal style welcome. The guests were taken downriver on lavishly decorated shikaras (gondolas). Barred from gathering on the four bridges along the route, Abdullah’s local Muslim opponents stood on the embankment, dressed in phirans. As the boats approached, the male protestors, who had been allowed to carry banners, faced the guests and lifted their phirans to reveal their pencils of creation, while the women turned their backs and bared their buttocks. Muslims had never protested in this way before. Gaffar Khan roared with laughter, but Nehru was not amused. Later that day Gaffar Khan referred to the episode at a rally and told the audience how impressed he had been by the wares on display. Nehru asked at a dinner the next day how he compared the regions he had seen most recently, replied: ‘Punjabi’s are crude, Bengalis are hysterical and the Kashmiris are vulgar.
India again is free in 1947. However, freedom is achieved at a very high price. India, in history, has been always divided into more than one empire and has many different nations living together but India is still a united nation, united in spirit. But this time it is torn apart; no longer is it one nation. India is broken up into two parts by the departing British. It is a clever scheme of "divide and rule" disguised in the form of religious incompatibility. The Kashmir trouble, one of several, starts at this point in history when India achieves bitter independence.
Mother knows something like partition has happened. India has been split into two countries. When the British leave India, the princely states are given the option to join either of the two nations. A few princely states readily join Pakistan, but the rest--except Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir (with 3 million inhabitants), and Junagadh merge with India. The maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, unpopular among his subjects, is reluctant to decide on accession to either dominion.
My mother tells me when she is at Baramulla, and how raiders from Pakistan raid the valley. The raiders come first to Baramulla…….
Some nightmarish stories she tells me that relate to the fleeing families from Baramulla and nearby villages which brings everything to a standstill in Kashmir. The year is 1947; Maharaja of Kashmir has given his consent to be with India. This perhaps does not suit Pakistan.
My parents live at Baramulla then, when Pakistani Army along with Kabailies launch a series of surprise attacks across Jammu and Kashmir on October 24, 1947.
My father Mr. J.N. Misri is Headmaster of a school in Baramulla. He teaches English, Math, and Science as well. He is a very straight-forward man, a strict disciplinarian and a perfectionist, who brooks no nonsense from anyone. He calls a spade a spade, not a shovel. My father, along with some other teachers has laid the foundation of National High School. The school is functioning well, with good number of students. At the time of raid they are at Baramulla, and they have to flee along with other family members and teachers.
Then Pakistan sends tribal’s to attack us here in Kashmir. Their appetite is whet by truckloads of carpets, brassware and luxury goods stolen from wealthy homes, topped by a beautiful girl, borrowed from her usual chores, and sometimes a fresh corpse borrowed from the morgue. They are told that all this has been looted from Kashmir, and the brassware is pure gold, and that this is what they will find once they will reach Kashmir. These tribesmen are brave, bold, brutal, and fearless. They are warriors but not connoisseurs of fine life. The trucks look good enough to them and soon they are on their way, hungry, pouring into the valley, guns on their shoulders, ready for the kill. As these Kabulis come down into the Baramulla valley, they see a Kashmiri shepherd and ask him the direction to Kashmir, where we live. One look at their guns and knives tells him they do not belong to the valley and he sends them in the wrong direction. When they discover what he has done , they return, track him down , and crucify him with nails driven through his hands and heart and head at the very crossroads where he mislead them. This unspeakable act and the shepherd’s martyrdom we can never forget.
“Who are these people? What did we do to them, why have they come?” I ask my mother. With a long sigh she tells me that they are Kabulis from Pakistan. These Pakistani raiders have come hunting infidels and treasures and beautiful women of Kashmir. The women of Kashmir are beautiful, the songs from Persia to China have said for centuries, but it is soon apparent that neither religion nor beauty is what men are after. If you come in their way, whatever your beliefs or looks , they dispatch you with the same fierceness with which they tore the British army to shred a century ago, reducing entire battalions to just a shattered man or two.
The Kabailis are approaching us fast and are only about short distance away in the foot hills of the mountains. People flee in opposite directions, taking just a few possessions.
My mother tells me how I am brought in the lap by my parents from Baramulla to Srinagar. How nice our Muslim neighbors have been, how carefully they give us shelter.
Our family runs to a Muslim neighbor’s house where we are quickly hidden in women’s quarters. We all live on food given to us by our Muslim friends; no one asks who cooked it. As we wait for the outcome of the attack, we can hardly breathe because the hordes have left behind acts of brutality and cruelty. Even our hosts are not safe if they harbor us, but to them the choice is simple and made immediately.
They sit protectively in their outer rooms. They are one of the few families with a telephone, but the phones are out of commission so they sit glued to the radio for the news of the fighting. Then the raiders attack the power station and we are surrounded by an awful silence. I am in the mothers belly and, and she is also hiding in the dark, waiting for the relief with the rest of the family.
Pakistani invaders come in a huge group and attack the forces of Maharaja Hari Singh. Most of the Muslim units of J& K Army have jawans of Mirpur. They isolate and joined the invaders after killing their Hindu and Sikh Officers. Muzaffarbad falls within a few hours of the attack and the invaders proceeded towards Baramulla, Sopore, and Srinagar. At the Uri Bridge Brigadier Rajinder Singh loses his life. He holds the invaders for two days which gives time to the Maharajah to flee the valley.
When the Pakistani invaders enter Baramulla on October 26, 1947, they proceed to indulge in Rape, murder, loot and arson, especially targeting Sikhs and Kashmiri Pandits community. By the morning of October 27th some raiders reach the outskirts of Srinagar. Now the Pakistani tribals 'Kabailis' reach Shala Teng, as close as about 2 miles from the Srinagar town. It is from this point the raiders are pushed back by the Indian army. Maharaja Hari Singh has already left Srinagar from Jammu after conducting last Dassera Darbar in his palace at Srinagar. It is on the evening of this Dassera day that Srinagar city is plunged into darkness, as all the lights go off suddenly, giving a signal to everyone that the raiders have reached Mohara where the main power generating station is located. There is no electricity in Kashmir valley for months together then. Later on, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, the undisputed leader of the state, takes over the reins of the government. He is assisted by his team of dedicated colleagues from the National Conference. He is called the Prime Minister of the state, till he is summarily dismissed and put under house arrest at Kud in August 1953.
Hari Singh's exit breaks the morale of the government and security persons. Police stations are empty. Anything could happen at any time. Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference organize a voluntary force of young men known as Salamati Fauj in the city. They have specific directions to maintain communal harmony at all costs. Halka (Mohalla) Committees became the police stations. People join this force to patrol the streets to ensure nobody disturbs the communal harmony. Most of the Hindu leadership leaves the valley for Jammu. We hear the tales of atrocities, plunder, rape, and murder of innocent Hindus and Sikhs by the Pakistani invaders.
Many volunteers from Sehyar, Rehbaba Sahib, and Reshipped come for assistance of Pandits. The Kabailis reach Patten where they kill 14 Kashmiri Pandits. Pundit’s houses are looted. Volunteers see pieces of Indian currency notes and human skeletons scattered here and there in the streets. The Sikh adults have killed their women and children to ensure they do not fall in the hands of the treacherous Pakistani’s. At one place a Mullah is seen teaching Quran to two Pandits women who are dressed in a veil. As the Mullah sees the volunteers he takes to his heels, the women retract and throw their veils .The Hindu shrine in village at Seer is reduced to heap of rubble. Volunteers reach the Christian School and find that even the Nuns are not spared. Many have been raped before being murdered.
Out of respect volunteers go to the spot where Maqbool Sherwani was hanged for misdirecting the invaders. At that point the Army Commander advises volunteers to return to Srinagar as Baramulla was still not safe for Hindus and Sikhs. It was clear that 30,000 Hindus, men and women (Pandits, Sikh, and Kahtri) have either lost their lives or were taken as sex slaves by the Pakistani invaders.
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Help arrives in time in planeloads of the Indian army. The 11th Sikh Regiment of the Indian army had by now reached Srinagar, but was desperately waiting for reinforcements. The tribesmen stay at Baramulla for three days. Here they looted the houses, assaulting Hindus, Sikhs and some Muslims alike. They raped men and women and stole money form Kashmir treasury. The local cinema was transformed into a rape centre. The Kabailis are sent back without any carpets, infidels, or beautiful women, but they do damage to extricate an odd gold tooth or two pulled out of the mouths of some hapless Irish nuns they attack at a rural outpost of the order. The Mother Superior and her nuns had tried to smile at the tribesmen, hoping to stir some humanity in their cartridge belt- belt decorated chests. A group of invaders attacked St. Joseph’s Convent, where they raped and killed four nuns, including the mother superior, and shot dead a European couple sheltering there. But they managed to save the girls at the convent school, it was said..
News of the atrocities spread, turning large numbers of Kashmiri’s against their would be liberators. When they finally reached Srinagar, the tribals were so intent on pillaging the shops and bazaars that they overlooked the airport, already occupied by Sikhs.
The assault has made us aware that to outsiders we are not Kashmiris but Hindus. The monarchs of Kashmir have always been foreigners who have treated native Kashmiris Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs like serfs.
Kashmir was a present given by the British to Dogra rulers in the 19th centaury. The British stationed a resident in JK to keep a close eye on the matters. When in 1947, armed groups from the North-West Frontier Province entered the maharaja's territory. The ruler requested military assistance from India but had to sign documents acceding to India before that country would provide aid in October 1947. The military was called upon to defend the borders of the state of Jammu and Kashmir when tribals-- attacked Kashmir on October 22, 1947. India’s Infantry Brigade was deployed and frustrated the advance of the tribal forces; Indian Army fought the Kabailis out.
The government of Pakistan refused to recognize the accession. Pakistan launched an active military and diplomatic campaign to undo the accession. The UN Security Council eventually brought about a cease-fire between Pakistani and Indian troops, which took place on January 1, 1949, thus ending the first Indo- Pakistani War. India appealed the UN Security Council, and a Line of Control (LOC) demarcating India and Pakistan held territory was drawn. Kashmir, too, was now partitioned. The leaders of Kashmir Muslim Conference shifted to Muzaffarbad in Pakistan- occupied Kashmir, leaving Sheikh Abdullah in control of the valley itself.
If Abdullah, too, had favored Pakistan, there wouldn’t have been much that the Indian troops could have done about it. But Sheikh Abdullah regarded the Muslim league as a reactionary organization and rightly feared that if Kashmir became a part of Pakistan, the Punjabi landlords who dominated the Muslim League would stand in the way of any social or political reforms. He decided to back the Indian Military presence, provided the Kashmiri’s were allowed to determine their own future.
The cease- fire agreement formalized the military status quo, leaving about 30 percent of Kashmir under Pakistani control.
At a mass rally at Srinagar, Nehru, with Abdullah at his side, publically promised as much.. In November 1947, Abdullah was appointed Prime Minister of an emergency administration. When the Maharaja expressed nervousness about this, Nehru wrote to him, insisting there was no alternative. ‘The only person who can deliver the goods in Kashmir is Abdullah. I have a high opinion of his integrity and his general balance of mind. He may make any number of mistakes in minor matters, but I think he is likely to be right in regard to major decisions. No satisfactory way out can be found in Kashmir except through him. ‘
In 1944 the Nation Conference had approved a constitution for an independent Kashmir, which begun;
We the people of Jammu and Kashmir , Ladakh and frontier regions, including Poonch and Chenani districts, commonly known as Jammu and Kashmir state, in order to perfect our union in the perfect in the fullest quality and self determination, to raise ourselves and our children for ever from the abyss of oppression and poverty, degradation and superstition, from medieval darkness and ignorance, into the sunlit valleys of plenty, ruled by freedom, science and honest toil, in worthy participation of the historic resurgence of the peoples of the East, and the working masses of the world, and in determination to make this our country a dazzling gem on the snowy bosom of Asia, do propose and propound the following constitution of our state…….
But the 1947-48 war had made independence impossible, and article 370 of the Indian constitution recognized only Kashmir’s’ special status.’ True the Maharaja was replaced by his son, Karan Singh, who became the non hereditary head of state, but it was a disappointed Abdullah who now sat down to play chess with the politicians from Delhi. He knew that most of them, apart from Nehru and Gandhi, would like to eat him alive. For the moment, though, they needed him.
Most people want a promise to be kept.
Promise by who asks my son.
The then Prime Minister, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru. He is a Kashmiri Pandit as we are. He is a Brahmin just like us. They want their opinions on their political future to be polled. On the other hand, India has decided that since so many elections have taken place in the valley, it confirms the people’s decision to be part of India. These two ways of looking at the same facts are to fester and grow in the belly of Kashmir, and finally end up in a volcanic eruption that no one’s prayers can avert. We have managed to avert calamity so far, but no one can avert destruction.
As the elected chief minister of J&K he pushed through a set of major reforms, the most important of which was the land reforms-‘Land to the tiller’ legislation, which destroyed the power of landlords. They were allowed to keep a maximum of 20 acres, provided they worked on the land themselves; 188,775 acres were transferred to 153,399 peasants, while the government organized collective farming on 90,000 acres. A law was passed prohibiting the sale of land to non-Kashmiris, thus preserving the basic topography of the region. Dozens of new schools and four hospitals were built, and a university was founded in Srinagar, with perhaps the most beautiful location of any campus in the world.
In 1948 National Conference had backed ‘provisional accession’ to India, on condition that Kashmir was accepted as an autonomous republic with only defense, foreign affairs and communications concede to India. Influential Kashmiri Pandits and Dogra nobility were fearful of losing their privileges. They campaigned against Kashmir’s special status and agitated against Kashmir Government. Abdullah , who wanted to integrate non-muslims at every level of the administration, was enraged. His position hardened. At a public meeting at Jammu on 10th April, 1952, he made it clear that he was not willing to surrender Kashmir’s partial sovereignty;
Abdullah was mistaken only in his belief that Nehru would protect them. When the Indian Prime Minister visited Srinagar in May 1953 he spent a week trying to cajole his friend into accepting a permanent settlement on Delhi’s terms: if secular democracy was to be preserved in India, Kashmir had to be part of it. Nehru pleaded. Abdullah wasn’t convinced: Muslims were a large minority in India even if Kashmiri’s weren’t included.
Three months later, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was dismissed by Karan Singh and one of his lieutenants, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, was sworn in as chief Minister. Abdullah was accused of being in contact with Pakistani Intelligence and arrested. Kashmir erupted. A general strike began which lasted for twenty days. There were arrests. An underground war council, organized by Akbar-Jehan, orchestrated demonstrations by women in Srinagar, Baramulla and Sopore. The unrest subsided after a month. The situation was no happier in POK.
Sheikh Abdullah, detained for four years without trial, was released without warning in January 1958. Declining the offer of government transport, he hired a taxi and was driven to Srinagar. Within days he was drawing huge crowds at meetings all over the country, which he used to remind Nehru of the promise he had made in 1947. ‘Why did you go back on your word, Pandit Ji?’ Abdullah would ask, and the crowds would echo the question.
By spring he had been arrested again. This time the charge against him, his wife and several other nationalist leaders, was a conspiracy case. Nehru vetoed Akbar Jehan’s inclusion: her popularity made it inadvisable. The conspiracy trial began in 1959 and lasted more than a year. In 1962 the special magistrate transferred the case to a higher court with the recommendations that the accused be tried under sections of the Indian Penal code for which the punishment was either death or life imprisonment.
In December 1963, with higher court still considering the conspiracy charges, the single hair of Prophet’s head was stolen from Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar. Its theft created uproar; Country was paralyzed by a general strike and mass demonstrations. Pandit Nehru ordered that the Prophet’s relic be found- and it was, within a week. The crisis abated. Nehru concluded that a lasting solution had to be found to the problem of Kashmir. He had the conspiracy case against Abdullah dropped, and The Lion Of Kashmir’ was released after six years in prison. A million people lined the streets to mark his return: Nehru spoke of the necessity of ending hostilities between India and Pakistan.
Kashmir troubled Nehru’s conscience. He met Abdullah in Delhi and told him that he wanted the problem of Kashmir resolved in his lifetime. He suggested that Abdullah visit Pakistan and sound out its leader, General Ayub Khan. If Pakistan was ready to accept a solution proposed by Abdullah, then Nehru would, too. For a start, India was prepared to allow free movement of goods and people across the ceasefire linne. Abdullah flew to Pakistan in an optimistic mood. After a series of conversations with Ayub Khan he felt progress was being made. On 27th May 1964 he reached Muzaffarbad, the capital of Pakistani controlled Kashmir, and was cheered by a large crowd. He was addressing a press conference when a colleague rushed in to inform him that All India Radio had just announced Nehru’s death. Sheikh Abdullah broke down and wept. He cancelled all his engagements and accompanied by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, flew back to Delhi to attend his old friend’s funeral.
Fearing that there would be no peaceful solution without Nehru, Abdullah travelled around world, trying to get international support. At some places he was received as head of state. This created a furor in India. And so, on his return, Abdullah was sent to prison again. This time he and his wife were sent to a prison far away from Kashmir. There were strikes and demonstrations again.
In 1965, Pakistan army crossed the Line of Control, aiming to cut Kashmir from rest of India. The Indian army was caught by surprise, suffered several reverses. They responded dramatically by crossing the Pakistan border near Lahore. Had the war continued, the city would have fallen. But, Ayub Khan appealed to Washington for support. Washington asked Moscow to bring pressure on India and a peace agreement was signed in Tashkent under the watchful eyes of Alexi Kosygin.
Sheikh Abdullah (released from prison on grounds of ill health in the mid-1970’s) had made his peace with Delhi and was again appointed chief minister in 1977, courtesy of Mrs. Gandhi, who forced Congress yes-men in the Kashmir Assembly, to vote him. The change over was calm: Kashmiri’s were pleased at Abdullah’s return, but mindful of the fact that Mrs. Gandhi was calling the tune.
Abdullah seemed tired and stale; his time in prison had affected both his health and his politics. He was now attempting to create a political dynasty. At a big rally in Srinagar he named his eldest son, Farooq Abdullah- an amiable doctor, fond of wine and fornication, but not very bright-as his successor.
As he lay dying in 1982, Sheikh Abdullah told an old friend of a dream that he had haunted him for the past thirty years. ‘I am still a young man. I’m dressed as a bridegroom. I’m on horseback. My bridal party leaves our home with all the fanfare. We head in the direction of the bride’s house. But when I arrive she’s not there. She’s never there. Then I wake up.’ The missing bride, so it has always seemed to me, was Nehru. Abdullah had never fully recovered from his friend Nehru’s shock.
My father encourages me to go to college for higher studies. I join S.P.College as a medical student. To get admission in medical group is tough and is open only to students with merit. While writing the answer books in the examination hall, which is conducted in the S.P.College itself, a friend H.Vada, is by default behind me in the same row. A boy with mischief, pushes me to show what I write, he meant copying. I get worried lest I am caught. I keep my answer book in such a manner so that it is easy for him to copy and write. One day, it is the physics paper that I have to write. The paper is stiff, with many numerical, and less of theory. I get nervous, and want to piss after having finished sixty percent of the questions. I leave my pen, inkpot, and the question paper and the answer paper on the desk. My friend who is behind me in the row sitting for the examination, removes my answer book from my desk, keeps his answer book as a replacement on my desk there, and writes on the continuation sheets he has , without of fear. When I return, I find a different answer sheet.
“It is mine”, he says. “Wait till I finish. “
After having done, he returns the answer book. I become panicky. I have some questions still left to answer. I pass my intermediate examination, but do not get admission in M.B.B.S. course.
H.Vada also passes with fewer marks, but gets admission in MBBS. He is a doctor. I am a teacher.
I continue my studies to be a medical graduate in S.P.College. It is two years course. It is Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad as the CM.
My friend and class mate Bashira, has an ambition to be a doctor. An extremely poor boy, with a will to be a doctor. He tells me how I can help, as if that would matter. Just as a joke I tell him you meet Bakshi, the CM, after all he is just eighth pass, and you studying graduation. He takes it serious. For full one year he pursues the case, meets him at his private office, which is very near to our S.P.College. Comes back and tells me, he has given the assurance. I give my friend encouragement that assurance from the C.M. is not to be taken easy; after all they are respectable people.
Bashira, my friend is disheartened.
“One year has passed and I have not studied also”, he says.
“I will fail in the examination” He says.
“I will remain under graduate,” He says.
I motivate him, your labor will never go waste, and after all you have now been following the case for fifteen months.
One day I go to my S.P.College on my fathers old cycle. It is really old and is of “ZEBRA” brand. My friend tells me to spare the cycle so that he can meet the Chief Minister at his private residence. It appears C M. may have recognized him.
Now when he meets the CM, the chief Minister tells him Hay if you can meet me in the office today you will get the admission. Poor Bashira is excited. He quickly leaves the chief Ministers place, comes to college, informs me, takes my bicycle and rushes to Secretariat, waits at the gate. When the CM arrives the Secretariat, he does the drama, of CM has asked him to meet at the office. Things get clearer, Bashira gets admission signal. Bashira is a doctor; after all he is my very good friend, for he calls my mother as his mother.
Soon after passing my graduation examination,
I stay in the college for four years till I graduated myself. I had thought that soon after my
WORK AS TEACHR
Soon after m graduation I work for some months in D.A.V. School as a teacher. I love teaching very much.
I start taking private tuitions. My father helps me a lot in getting me introduced into very Hi Fi families.
My first tuition is Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s grandson, and Gul Shah’s son Iffy Shah. A bright smart boy studies in Biscoe School. With love I call Iffy Jan, as others in the home. He lives at Magarmal Bagh. His Mamma Farooq Abdullah is studying at London. He sends him extremely good story books, some history books. And some pop up books- very uncommon in Kashmir those days. I get very much fascinated by the book, I tell Iffi’s uncle if I can take one to read. He promptly responds masterji have I to give you permission for the book, you keep all; his room is full of books. I gather courage and pick up the book “Jolly Jumps Ups And Downs” and take it home.
Since my father is a luminary in the field of teaching he encourages me to go in for some tuitions right from the years I joined the college. During these years of my college days I get very good contacts on my tuition business. I earn as well as learn my lessons. It gives a very good experience, it makes one to utilize every hour carefully, and it brings in discipline. This also makes me confident of work and makes me self sufficient monetarily. I do not have to ask any body for money; on the other hand I I generate potential to lend money to any of my close friends in need.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo
1960 Nehru A celebration that all children look forward is the arrival of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, into Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Boats, and shikaras, all gaily decorated, make their way through the river to the cheers of the spectators on the banks. Our house is also on the river bank cheer the loving Prime Minister, a Kashmir Pandit. There are exciting boat races. .
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo
FIRST LOVE
Time passes on. Some of my students are now girl students. The youth is there for both the student as well as the teacher. Soon some girls want to develop friendship with me. They love me and I like them a lot.
Among the many girl friends, four love me more……………………………………………………….I love only one, and that is Nancy, is her name. I have girl tuition near Habba Kadal. The girl whom I teach is quite hefty, short and with a broad face. I teach her for forty minutes almost daily. Finance wise the family is high, as they have their own petrol pump and pays me reasonably good. One day she gets her friend with her and tells me she has some difficulty in Math’s, and needs some help. I look into her problem and give her the easiest solution. After some days I see her again there. This repeats, I fail to understand why?
I take courage and tell her, “Have you any difficulty in any question.”
I look in her eyes each day and feel nothing but love.
“I am so lucky to be loved by you,“ one day she says.
I look around to see no one has heard it.
“We don’t have anybody in the home this time, as everybody has gone out for purchases, it is some one’s birthday tomorrow and you are invited.” She tells me.
After some time she leaves the room and returns with a rose flower and a glass of water.
She passes on the rose bud to me and says, “We have so many more birthdays to celebrate. Ours is a big house and have a joint family. More dreams to make a reality, more memories to make. My dream has already come true; I get to spend my entire life with you. Please come tomorrow”
I get frustrated, I hold my breath again, and say nothing.
Are girls so bold, I take time to think?
She gets courage and tells me,”If I hold your hand I hope that the night will never end.”
I get irritated and upset and tell her, “I have never loved any girl so far.” There is no doubt that she is extremely beautiful. Her beauty is easily comparable with Madhuballa, I guess. I don’t get easily moved as I don’t have any time to love. I always have to rush to attend my tuitions, I remember looking at her cheekbones and wishing I could kiss them. But then…then I don’t kiss her. I am lost in her eyes. They continue saying this.
The next day I have to go there for a birthday party-a dinner. I feel like home. Many people are invited. I know only few.
Here, Bushan, Usha’s brother meets me and takes me to a separate corner and tells me that every body has come to know about Nancy’s affair with you. I get perturbed to hear this. He continues his speech by saying that some time back everybody in the Mohalla was praising her, people were setting examples of her character, but now many people are eager to see you, may be they tell you something.
I had taught Bushan, Usha’s brother some years back, and this time it is his younger sister to whom I teach.
Nancy is Usha’s friend, and it is Usha who introduced Nancy to me.
Usha’s parents desire that their daughter be married to me. She is dwarfish and her looks are not appealing.
It feels like a world I have never known.
“It is love. I love you. I love you more than words can say. You are the most handsome boy I have ever met.” Mutters Usha.
I don’t attach any importance to her words.
“When I look at you I see the future in your eyes” Says Nancy.
I gaze, “why me?” “Why did she choose me?”
“You don’t have to answer those, really. I feel lucky enough and whatever your reason is for loving me I thank you.” Retorts Nancy.
Most of the time I think about how lucky I am to have someone so beautiful and from such a respectable family, but, how can I take that for granted. How will her parents react?
As night falls people start pouring in. There are now preparations ‘to cut a cake’.
Nancy steals some time and comes to me and says,” My sister-in law wants to talk to you.”
I say, “O.K.”
Nancy signals her sister in law Mohini, and she approaches us. After exchanging good wishes she (Mohini) tells me that Nancy has told me about you. Do you really love her?
I take a pause...
Mohini continues by saying,” I admire you for your sense of confidence and self esteem. You always seem so cool and in control and I look at you in awe. Ours is a respectable family and it should not be a mockery.”
I say, “What mockery.”
Mohini tells me,” Nancy has taken me into confidence. She is young and ignorant about what she is doing. If I take her side, and motivate other home members will your parents agree?”
I tell Mohini,”Nancy is an intelligent girl. She understands the world and people and always knows the right thing to do. She is such a good and beautiful girl...”
Mohini feels shy, and tells me,” Thank you for teaching Nancy, our daughter, we trust her instincts, and you are the first person to whom she has shown respect and has fallen in love. She tells me her own truth.”
Birthday candle has been lit, the cake cut hour has reached, and there are clapping and high voices of happy birth day. People rejoice and make fun. The dinner is served, it is late in the night and I also plan to leave.
Next day I go there to teach. Nancy is also there. I tell her, “You looked so beautiful last night it literally took my breath away. I was thinking, oh my God, am I really with you? “
“Did you see how many people had come to attend the birthday party? I had told Mohini to meet you; her voice has a weight in our house. I had only taken her into confidence. I know she can only help. She is a bank Manager.” Says Nancy.
“What did she say about me?” I tell her.
“You’re a vision, a beacon of light.” replied Nancy.”Last night when you left I was in tears, for I missed you so much as hours melted like minutes.”
I tell her, “You are going to be the most beautiful bride the world has ever known. Tears of joy they were I say, Nancy.”
She smiles, with babbling words she tells me, “I love you more than life itself. Nothing can make this go wrong. We are going to have an ideal life together, the kind other people are jealous of.”
I leave for Karnataka where I have get admission in Aeronautical Engineering. I study there well. One year passes with great difficulty, thinking of Nancy. I receive some communication in between. Things went well in the beginning. It was Onam festival; it is celebrated with great pomp and show in South India. There are holidays during this celebration. I also came to Srinagar on holiday break. Here everything has changed. I am told that Nancy’s marriage has been fixed.
I write her a letter:
Dear Nancy,
I used to think that time couldn’t separate us. That the love we once had was eternal and could survive
anything. We had such a magical time. The world was right. I remember staying up late at night and
looking at the stars with you wishing the sky could just suck us up and take us to a new dimension where
it was only us forever and ever. Whatever the truth may be the only thing I know now is that you are
getting married. I have to move on. I want to meet you.
She gathers some courage and meets me in the school lane. She has a horrible tale to tell. It is pathetic. She has to get wed with an elderly man, with smallpox. It is a forced marriage, a marriage that has been thrust upon her, that is what she told me.
I have to admit that while she was talking to me, I lost track of what she was saying for quite some time because I was so gripped by watching her lips move. They are so moistly seductive I actually wanted to kiss them, just to see what they felt like.
I could feel her skin. Her cheeks looked soft; I was fascinated by their purity. I was spellbound by her almond shaped black eyes. They are written with trust. I felt like I could stare into her eyes and learn anything I wanted about her, that caused all this to her.
She did not talk, she only cried, tears welled up through her eyes. I kept mum.
“Only one word of consolation,” she told me to tell.
I with murmur said, “You have great eyes. I could get lost in those eyes. I know that sounds really upfront but I can’t help it. I really had a great time with you.”
I hope I’m not jumping too far ahead of myself I just want to get to know from you, who this lucky man is.
Nancy is in tears, she still wants to talk. She says,” A year and a half we have been together. An impressive feat some might say. I, however, have grown to see time as a meaningless measure. I feel as though your presence thrives within me, long before we met for the first time. Every memory we share together is held deep in my heart. Never shall I forget the day we cease to be alone. Your beautiful eyes gaze directly into my eyes, as I nervously utter that life altering question. It am rewarded when such a simple yet wonderful word slid past your soft, irresistible lips.. "Yes!" This marked the beginning of what has been the greatest and most rewarding experience of my life and I hope yours as well. No secret may be kept between us, neither the good nor the bad. Honesty flourishes in our hearts and has helped to make us a powerful.
One day she forces me to meet during the day hours, I mostly avoid, as I am busy with the tuitions, in fact over busy. She tells me many things, among them the most crucial is that she wants me to go for higher studies. I am taken aback.
I say, why?
“Mom agrees, but Papa says, teachers don’t earn that much.” She tells me.
I tell her, “After graduation to do another graduation is not desirable.”
“Let us leave Srinagar,” She replies.
“Where will we go” I say. “It is not that easy”
Perhaps things were going out of control. I take courage and tell the tid bits to my mother.
I Join engineering college, stay there for a year, return on Onam festival holidays…..
In between she is married, I leave my engineering half way..
I hope that we can still be friends in some capacity. I hope that we can put our differences aside and still root one another on as we continue to travel on this crazy life journey. You are my source of inspiration and the reason I get up for work every day.
I Join Post graduation class... complete my MSc. course….Join again now DAV. College…..
Post Graduation?
The Post graduation course at the university complex is a glorious period. The university campus is at a distance of nearly six miles from my home. I mostly commute by my own car.
The university succeeds in making good students out of us…Normally we would have looked for the jobs in the valley , but the political conditions do not auger well for anyone’s future, and it looks particularly dismal for we Kashmiri Pandits.
It is quite clear now why we have nothing but sympathy for Kashmiris who have to live outside the valley and endure unbearable weather. Through the centuries Kashmiri Pandits have undergone several Diasporas to other parts of India because of intolerant Muslim rulers. Once again Kashmiri Pandits are in upheaval, some running to safety, some digging in their heels, some still trying to figure out if things have really gone beyond the imagineable. The question that runs around my mind is, where we go from here. We have fled persecution several times before, but this is the first time we have been set upon by fellow Kashmiris. During one of these upheavals, some centuries ago, a family of Kashmiri Pandits who lived by a canal in the valley left for the plains of India. One of their descendants nourished the Indian freedom movement in its early stages, his son carried the movement to success and this son’s daughter is the P.M of India.
The head of the department is an eminent scientific personality. It is very difficult to get admission in post graduation course and that too in science stream. The intake is just nineteen students, and I am one among them. I have seen that there is lot of politics in scientific organizations which apparently seems invisible. Our Head of Department is a genius, and is always surrounded by scientific books; Writing papers and helping post graduate students in making thesis, having produced many PHDs. With pleasure he would take two classes in a week, sometimes more. I would ensure not to miss his class. I like his style of teaching; he too develops a soft corner for me and would check my attendance in his class. It is not because he cannot do without me, but in me he has an interest. I go to the university campus in my car, this privilege very few people have.
One day the Head of The Department takes us on a zoological tour to Pahalgam, a distance of nearly 80 miles from Srinagar. It is summer, we the students of the university camp up in the mountains. In this excursion we have some of the university girls with us. All students from all communities, Hindus, Muslims, Sardars and Dogras are together. The parents of all the communities allow their children to mix up well, and to go on these trips is a pleasure. People have faith among each other. At night we light a bonfire and sing Kashmir folk songs. Some sing Punjabi and some Dogra. All cultures are blend into one. Antakshri, Hindi film songs and tell ghost stories are on. Many pilgrims on the famous pilgrimage to Amarnath yatra is in full swing.
…….
One can hear the deafening roar of Liddar rolling down from the mountains, rushing over huge rocks. The valley is set perfectly, as if by design, below mountains covered with pine forests. Every day of the camp we explore Pahalgam on foot and on horseback. A few ponies accompany us, carrying our tea, bread and other eatables. We light a fire with kindling and small logs and make a brick or stone stove to keep the pot over it to make food of our choice. After the days long truck, we move towards the water stream. We sit on the rock and put our feet in the ice cold water. After resting for a while we proceed back to the camp.
Next day we move through the nearby village. We are city people, and the villagers watch at us and laugh. They see the city people rarely. We look to them as foreigners. As we walk through the village someone shouts “Pakistan Zindabad” “Hail Hail Pakistan. “ We get panicky. They laugh.
We move back towards our camp. On the way, we see some gojars and the shepherds, both men and women. They show us a loaf like cheese bread, of which they have plenty. This type of buffalo milk cheese bread they can only make. We did not bargain much and everybody purchased several to take home as a gift. It is a great enjoyment. I pass my M.Sc.
Soon after my post graduation from J&K University, I join D.A.V. College, the upgraded wing of the D.A.V School where I have earlier worked as a teacher. This college is recently upgraded from Higher Secondary to College. I joined as Head of Zoology Department. I teach biology at D.A.V. College, Jawaharlal Nagar Srinagar.
Among others I am one of the basic members who run the college with dedication. The college wing is that time under the able hands of Mr. Arjun Dev Jalla, a Mathematician and a Gold Medalist. He encourages me to get myself settled there as well as in the establishment of the new college. I stay there for some years. I take up the noble profession of 'teaching'. Still teaching Science and Mathematics to young students. Keeping in constant touch with past and present students and thus acquiring energy and everlasting youth.
One day there is an inspection to give recognition and grants from the government. The inspection committee lays emphasis on the infra structure, the open play ground, the quality of the staff viz, their educational qualification, the science laboratory, and the College Library. Most of the requirements can be met, and there is some deficiency in the library books. The college has a new grand building, a big play ground, but the last, i.e. the library was not up to the standards. The principal convenes a meeting, how can the library be upgraded. I suggest if we can help the college by complementing our personal books temporarily on loan to the college. This is a novice idea and I pack up all my personal books and the books from my father’s library in a car and deposit them in the college library. All these books are immediately catalogued, and an oval shaped paper label affixed on them and the books are ready for the show in the cupboards of the college library. The books still continue to be there. I never take them back. I have a belief that the books are to read. Also in the library the following poster is calligraphically prepared by me and hung:
(These facts were published in a German Magazine, which deals with World History.)
a) India never invaded any country in her last 10,000 years of history.
b) India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
c) The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
d) Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages.
e) Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today, Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.
f) Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth.
g) The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindh 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word 'Navgatih'. The word Navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.
h) Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by Earth to orbit the Sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Samrat. Time taken by Earth to orbit the Sun
(5th century) 365.258756484 days.
i) The value of 'pi' was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, long before the European mathematicians.
j) Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106, whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 1053 (10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BC during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is tera 1012 (10 to the power of 12).
k) According to the Gemological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds in the world.
l) USA has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
m) The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.
n) Chess (Shatranja or Ashta Pada) was invented in India.
o) Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health
Scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like caesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones, and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipments were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics, and immunity is also found in many texts.
The inspection committee’s members come see everything and give a favorable, note of ascent, and the funds they assure.
We Kashmiri’s are very hospitable. Whenever a guest comes to our house we offer him tea, no matter, what time of the day, may be even an odd hour. On birthdays our family priest comes to have the birthday prayers. After the function he may have his food also there if he has not go to any other house. He stays in the house for long. The women in the house come with a long paper wound into a circular roll; this is the prophetic document that is prepared at the time of birth of the child. Our priest is an astrologer and a good artist. He makes this birth document after making lots of calculations, the writing on the entire length of the paper scroll is in Sharda. The scroll is full of geometric figures, circles, and triangles. Having drawn one or two yards out of this prophetic document, he looks at it intently and starts counting moving it up and down, because the planetary charts have to be seen from all the angles. The astrologer sips the tea and rubs his head, pushing his cap slightly, and then moves his head, twists his lips and starts telling his prediction as per the combination of stars. The astrologer draws a sharp breath and waits for some time. Now the priest slurps his tea in a noisy fashion, and we all surround him to get our results. He tells whatever he has to say and suggests something as a remedy if found anything adverse.
One year merchants from somewhere came to our house on their bicycles. They had some stuff on the cycles. They were carrying a large collection of some antique Kashmir tapestries. No one has woven these jamavars for over a hundred and fifty years and none can make them any longer; contemporary revival looks like caricatures of originals. Kashmiri weavers perished when the shawls were mercilessly if accurately copied by the thousands on machines by Europeans.
The jamavars merchant spreads out his shawls on a white cloth; there is some cellar like odor which gives some idea that the jamavars are really antique.
When an antique merchant has to sell he puts on a bit of dance, a bit of theater, to carry on the theme of royal court procedures. He wants to lend authenticity to his tapestries, which could have only been owned by the royal people. But the poor man is at the wrong place. Far from being flattered by his courtliness, the ladies in the house are perturbed and sit on the farthest sofas as if afraid of contamination. Old mother, who is also there, makes an announcement. “The shawls were used as shrouds by Maharajas, or given to the priest to appease the gods in case of illness, or to combat the evil eye, or pay for sins committed by royalty. We don’t want any of these things in our house, “declares the mother to the astonishing merchant.
Nobody could dare challenge this forbidding decision, which is totally lacking any proof, because Soma has always been counted on to do and say the right thing. We are averse to anything second hand or worn by anyone else. The merchant still not losing the battle goes on on defense, but Soma on firm footing says, “For a bride everything has to be fresh, like a bride, previously unwonted. The seller merchant’s assistant gives a contemptuous look, muttering the unutterable under his breath as the two leave.
______________________________________________
When I met Sarla
Now the child is of marriageable age tells my mother to her husband. Search starts, many of the relations come to know about it. One of our relations intervenes and she proposes one family. Negotiations are on, things shape well. One family at Ganpatyar is under consideration. Our neighbor has her daughter married in that vicinity. A day is fixed to meet her casually and un officially.
When I meet Sarla first time at Ganpatyar through a neighbor of mine Shyama Rani, it is an experience in itself. Well, to meet an unknown girl for the first time and that too for a marriage is something to be well thought of. I greet Sarla with the finest choice of words, but she returns my greetings by merely shaking her head and striding off. It is just an unofficial moment to at each other and we do not talk much. This first meeting is just to see each other, and get first visual view. I ask for a second meeting.
Without informing her, on another occasion, I remember I see her wearing a college uniform which is a white frauq, Shalwar and a white sari. This time she is coming from her college. Clad in this snow white dress she seems no less than a fairy to me, I watch her from a distance, sitting in a chair, in the shop. The shop belongs to a very close friend of mine. I tell him frankly about the purpose of my stay there, as he is also surprised how I am available for such a long time in his shop. I make up my mind to proceed ahead.
A word is sent to her to meet me and a day is fixed. That day we decide to go to Darbagh in our car. Darbagh is a calm place near famous Harvan reservoir and is nearly 12 kilometers from Srinagar. This lovely isolated place is attractive to me as this is the place where my sister in laws matamal resides there. It is autumn season when all the fruits are ready; Sarla and I are roaming the hillocks and knolls adjacent to the temple of Darbagh. I am wearing a tight grey paint and a half sleeves shirt as tight fittings is the fashion of the day. The temple a small one of course is perhaps the first meeting point where we look at each other for quite long time and offer prayers. Many ideas came to my mind and all the time I find her soft spoken and telling me “Someone is looking at us” though there is none to watch us.
When we come out of the temple, we are suddenly caught in a strong wind and the tempest casts me here and there like a boat whose rudder has been broken and whose masts have been torn by a gale in a rough sea. As we have to ascend a small hillock I direct my steps with difficulty towards Sarla’s place, saying to myself,” This is an opportunity I have long sought, to hold Sarla in my arms, and the tempest will be my excuse for this maiden embrace while my wet clothes will serve as good reason for lingering” My Mom and Dad are with me also and I have to take care of them also. When I look back I see them quite far behind. Perhaps their matured experience makes them to walk slowly and maintain the distance. I am in a miserable plight when I reach them. My hair which is already less has almost disappeared as the tiny rain drops and the wind has completely compressed them. I sit on a rock with an idea to wait till my parents reach us. During this period she stands calm and gazes with true looks at me. I want to tell her the funda of my life but hesitate. However, I think that it is not an opportune time to tell her that. Instead, I tell her,” what are your strengths”?
I am a very confident person. I am dedicated and like to work hard and never give up till I achieve my goals, replies Sarla.
Good, is my reply?
What is your dream? I tell her.
Be a good wife.
Wonderful I reply.
My third question to her is,
Your aim in life
To do something that will make my family more proud of me.
All these replies are so convincing and touching that in the heart of my hearts I decide to have relationship with her.
It is getting late now; my parents in the meanwhile reach the place where we are waiting for them. My mother who is full of humor tells me what you forget your parents during the uphill journey. This makes me blush and gently I reply I am trying to find out if you can get a good daughter in law for your service. This makes her to laugh and from that point we all move together to the destination were we have to go. After having dinner there we return late in the night and first we drop Sarla at her Nai Sarak residence and then we proceeded towards our Tanki Pora residence. On this occasion my parents are also with me. On enquiring from me the views I reply that they can go ahead.
Nobody looks after the women; they are supposed to look after everyone. In fact no one ever asks if they are hungry. When a male child would comes of age, and then there will be a talk with the eldest of the family, ‘anuen vuen noshi mohinev’ meaning thereby marry the boy and get a woman servant to the house.
“For our bride we must have gold jewellery and some Pashmina shawls”, Mom Says.
I teach Zahoor, his father and the whole family deals in shawls. I tell Zahoor that Mom is interested in some shawls. He tells me that he will send his elder brother and let Mom make the selection.
Kashmiri ladies are very fond of Pashmina. Everyone wants to use high embroidered pashmina shawl.
Kashmiri women use d to spin and weave their own pashmina, no one else knew the arcane technique that produced the inimitable weave.
Spinning, a hereditary skill among the women of many Kashmiri families, looks ridiculously easy, until you try it. The magic in the fingers and manipulation of the fiber as it leaves the spinners left hand, and the absolute precision and coordination between hand and spindle.
Weaving of pashmina on a homemade wooden wheel called spinning wheel or ‘Yendir’ in Kashmiri used to take time. For this one should have patience to do. A family used to keep a spindle to weave pashmina. A six inch length of hollow paddy straw slipped over the spindle serves as a replaceable bobbin, and later the yarn in wound off the straws on to a large reel or swift (Kashmiri pritz). It is then doubled and twisted, again using the wheel; finally it is wound into standard size hanks with the help of a simple device ; block of wood with two large nails driven into it at a fixed distance apart. The yarn in every hank is counted off into bundles of twenty threads, each tied with a length of sewing cotton, for ease of calculating the amount , both for payment due to the spinner , and getting the correct quantities dyed.
It is the finest fibers ever woven; on the arrival of the raw material in Srinagar it is a grubby and a greasy mass as it has come from the goat, mixed with all sorts of dirt and dandruff and coarse hairs from the animal’s outer coat. To transform this unpromising material into a fabric of fineness, takes all the artistry and skill of Kashmiri’s spinners, dyers weavers and many ancillary workers. The painstaking work of picking out from the raw fiber the admixture of coarse hairs from the goats outer coat, hair by individual hair, entirely by hand. It is estimated that hand dehairing of 50 grams of Pashm takes up to eight hours. Next, wool’s natural oil and other impurities are removed by rubbing damp rice flour. The yield of the finest quality fiber is about 35 % of the original weight.
“Pashmina has always meant security for the women of Kashmir. In the old days women got saris of pashmina in their trousseaux, but they only wore everyday wool at home. If they fell upon bad days they cut a shawl out of a length of pashmina and sold it to the shawl peddler for cash. Never forget, these shawl are equal to gold.” The soft wool is made from the fleece of the goats found only in the upper reaches of our mountains of Ladakh and Tibet.
Our shawl peddler is a Muslim, a Shea. We Hindus are all Brahmins and are commonly called Pandits, denoting our tradition of being learned caste. There are no other castes in the valley. Many explanations …….
Hindus are in minority in the valley…..
When the shawl peddler visits our house, he takes off his shoes before he enters the kitchen and sits on the floor with the ladies of the house. In Kashmir, being cold, the floors are never kept bare. The floors are covered with a cushioning reed ‘waguv’. Over this are laid embroidered woolen namdas or gabhas for warmth. Those who are rich may use carpets as well.
The shawl dealer is given a cup of tea set aside only for Muslims. The shawl merchant is content not to drink tea from a Hindu cup.
Hindus generally garnish their foods with asafetida, which he, like many others, comes from pig’s feet. He can hardly bring himself to use those words. Nothing is said, no misgivings explained, these mutual misunderstandings are completely acceptable and completely in place
All this religious stuff is irrelevant in light of the real business at hand. The shawl merchant is privy to the innermost secrets of the household, because girls, pashmina, gold, silver, shawls, puberty, and marriage are all wrapped up in the same tender package, opened up only to the innermost members of a family circle. He carries his own bundles of exquisites, wrapped up in many times over, on his bicycle rack, as he pedals through the narrow lanes of the old city and through the wide streets of the new city Barzulla, where we now live. When he sits down, with some ceremony, to display what he has brought them; all the women of the house surround him.
The shawl merchant takes embroidery orders based on his prized silk samples that are very old. His village has grown fat white cocoons of the silkworm on mulberry leaves since the days of Chinese traders. No one knows the silk traders any more, but we continue to grow silk, weave it and wear it, and it lasts forever………
His family has sent the silk carpets around the world for generations, but he loves the shawl trade. Carpets take months to weave; the young weavers follow t song pattern that is sung for them out of a tattered book, day in and day out, by an old master sitting by the side. ….
With a quick flick of his wrist the shawl peddler opens up a sampler. The silk of the sampler has turned ivory, and the embroidered flowers look as though they have been printed; time has pressed the threads in to the fabric. Anyway we know the pieces are very old, passed on from father to son, because the needle work is too painstaking to be made by contemporary human hands. The women folk become happy after seeing the sampler. They are soon engrossed in mixing and matching choosing and designing. I, as a silent observer, sitting nearby, only say well, very well. The women know that the shawl maker is listening intently and will faithfully execute their masterpieces. When the finished shawl comes back the women feel delighted after seeing the shawl.
The shawl maker is a dandy. He wears a black cap. His hair under the fur cap is red from the henna dye.
He always seems to have saliva in his mouth. It looks as if he is holding it back by cupping his lower lip. He has puzzles and non sense rhymes, with which he entertains himself and the children around, while the women look at the shawls. He tries to keep the children busy by one game he gently pounds their lower jaw up against the upper jaw with his closed fist while they repeat a non sense rhyme. The object is to catch the tongue between the teeth. “Ten teeth chattering, ten tongues running, Ten tuck, tuck, tucks, “ the shawl man says as the children fall into the game and repeat the rhyme while trying to save the tongues. All present laugh when the words are said in the rhyme the way he does. He tries to keep the audience busy and keeps the women laugh with sales talk, for which he has a unique tongue. He repeats the words uncommon piece, unique piece, an antique piece etc. and does the sale. On one hand he sips the tea, but his full attention and his ears towards the women, and what they want. Whenever a question arises about the shawls he shouts back an answer at the women, and looks at them from the corner of his eye to gauge the body language of purchase. Sometimes he forgets himself and something comes over his eyes and he puts his hand behind his head and pushes his cap forward at a rakish angle. It is a momentary lapse and he immediately rectifies the slip by making as if he has to scratch his head and places his cap on his head again. It is a family gathering and he is a part of it, it is a time for tea gossip. In Kashmiri Pundit joint families something is always to happen. Young women and men are always coming of age and if it is a marriage then there is money for him. Usually, though one cousin comes of age, then another, then another and pashmina is required for all of them and their spouses, and the list is unending. The shawl valla is a busy man and causes great consternation by not showing up on a promised day. If he is late, even by hours, we don’t mind. He always keeps on saying don’t worry don’t worry. Finally, when he does show up he spends a lot of Sunday morning or the afternoon with us. After a few hours of selection the shawl session ends, and the shawl merchant carefully folds up and puts away his silk archives and then his shawls.
The shawl dealer always keeps on saying that no one does that kind of fine work anymore. The old masters are too old and the young would like to make quick money. The shawl seller swears that the samples are the best and standard and promises to adhere to the sample. He further says,” This is why you open your door to me when I knock. Otherwise every other person in Kashmir is a shawl maker,” gazing at us without a wink. Not to bargain with a Kashmiri businessman is to suck the breath from his lungs. A customer has to try to beat down the prices to a great extent.
He tries hard, of course, but times have changed. In the past artists were said to have gone blind bringing the Mughal gardens in silk to a half blind Sikh emperor who could not travel to Kashmir. When the carpets were unraveled before him the emperor took off his shoes so that he could walk in the gardens of Kashmir. His bejeweled ladies wept as they wore the embroidered shawls they were presented because they had no idea that such beautiful flowers or fine wool existed in this world.
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1970 Marriage
My eldest sister is very curious to know about the developments. She tells me as to how be my opinion about the girl and how she looks like. I feel shy and hesitate to tell anything. She persuades me to tell everything. What I would say that I have seen a small scar on the neck. Somehow, I gather courage to tell her about everything. She comments everything is fine fine and fine… She wants to go deep into my heart by saying but how does she talk and all that. My reply to her is that she is simple yet beautiful like full moon. I find and can see sincerity in her eyes. She is love, she is truth. What ever talk I had with her I could find she is soft like a flower but hard like a diamond. On this my sister tells me that this is the true character of a woman, and that appearances are deceptive. This strengthened my decision of marrying to her.
The elders from both the sides move the marriage proposal. One of our common relations negotiates further in the matter and both the families agree to take the matter further for the marriage. The marriage day and date is fixed for 9th October 1970. By then the blood of twenty seven summers had passed into my veins, and Sarla was twenty three.
The day for the marriage is fixed and all preparations are done.
An incident
Sacred Thread: For a Brahmin, the most important event in his life is the 'Thread ceremony' called Yagneopavit. The ceremony involves shaving the head of the boy followed by a Yagna accompanied by chanting of Vedic mantras by a group of priests. After all the rituals are over, the sacred thread is put round the neck of the young boy. A Brahmin has to have this sacred thread on him till he lives. It also acquires special significance on various momentous occasions like birthday, marriage, engagement etc. On these occasions, certain puja is performed wherein the sacred thread is partly round one's neck and partly covering the open palm of the person. The priest sprinkles holy water on it, starting from the palm, and carries on the process till the whole thread is partly wet. This is repeated a number of times during any important puja in a Brahmin's life.
I am married in October 1971. I know the importance of the use of wearing the sacred thread. I am also aware that I will be requiring it during the puja at the bride's house. Therefore, I take care to keep the sacred thread neat and clean round my neck. I daily do the mantra at the time of washing the sacred thread and use to have it on me as a part of my routine work. Every now and then, I make it sure it is safe in its place.
Finally, the day dawns; I leave my house as a groom with the Barat for bride's place at Nai Sarak, Ganpatyar. After the customary welcome at the main gate of the house, I am supposed to stand at the inner entrance to the main house, where I have to be with some eldest gent of my family by my side. Here, the two priests- from groom's and bride's side encircle us, and have to perform the puja before entering the house. Naturally, I am the centre of attraction. The puja commences. I am told by one of the priests to take out the sacred thread Jenou and keep it out on the arm. Confidently, I put my hand under my shirt collar to display it to the priests. I take my hand round my throat and neck several times but can’t locate the Janou. It is not there! It is missing!! A hush descends on all and sundry. I feel as if the floor was giving way under my feet. Blood freezes in my veins. I turn pale. More than me, my father, and my old uncle who are standing by my side feel shamefully embarrassed. More so, because he is known in the society as a deeply religious man. That is the only time he is immensely upset with me. Very angrily, he whispers in my years, "You have put me to shame. It is all right for you since you do not know the value of being a Brahmin, but you have put me to absolute shame." Quickly, one of the priests succeeds in acquiring a Jenou for me and I put it round my neck. The puja continues. All the rituals like going round the sacred fire seven times are over. Accompanied by my bride and others, I return home at Dadi Kadal, Tanki Pora. I go to the bathroom to have a wash. And there I find the wonderful Jenou, which has put me to the worst embarrassment, hanging from one of the pegs on the wall. With a mixture of feelings, I gaze and gaze at it deeply. It seems to laugh at me with sadistic delight and tells me, "The day you acquired me, you took a pledge that you shall always keep me on you, round your neck and we two would be inseparable. You broke that pledge. The helpless situation, in which you found yourself today, is the retribution you rightly deserved".
Our wedding incense is handful of seeds Isband -which we throw on live coals, a Persian habit with a Persian name. We use isband to dispel the evil eye of evil spirits, and to create a celebratory ambiance. The smoke and perfume and sound given off when it sputters and burns on red hot coals are a part of marriage nostalgia. The wedding is celebrated with all pomp and show, and we get the bride home.
In a typical Kashmiri marriage Jewellery of the bride is that every woman of the groom’s side would generally weigh by her hand. On this our Kashmiris (women folk) are perfect. Ornaments of the Ear; these are Bala, Dor-hor,
Kanadoor, Jumaka, Deji-hor, Kana-vaji. Bala is studded with turquoise with a fringe of hanging gold leaves and balls. Kana-vaji is an ornament studded with a fringe of small pearls and Jumaka is a bell-shaped earring. Deji-hor and Talraj are indispensable ornaments for Kashmiri Hindu married women. They wear them day and night as it is for them a symbol of wedlock. Kana-door is especially liked by young girls. These are made of gold and silver and are studded with red and green stones and pearls. In Kashmiri poetry a beloved is often called kana-door, as in the following couplet:
Goora goora kar yo kana ke dooro, kan ke doro;
Nal cai khalemal hati hanzooro, hati hanzooro.
Meaning,
I will rock thee, my kana-dooro, O my kana dooro,
Thou wearest khali mal and hanzoor round thy neck.
Ornaments for the Neck; Halqa-band, necklace, tulsi, raz. Halqa-band is sometimes studded with mirror pieces.
Ornaments for Wrists; these are hangar, gunus and dula. They are made of solid gold and silver.
Bangar is often studded with colored stones while gunus and dula generally are not. These ornaments find a special place in Kashmiri poetry, as in the following verse:
Shroni dar bangra nare lola gandi navi
Shoka chani dilbaro pan parum.
Meaning,
Gold necklaces studded with stone I got made
for love of thee, my beloved, I decorated my person.
Unlike present day, we did not plan for a first child. Perhaps, it is the urge and the Gods grace that gives us the first child. A child that we crave and desire. I have heard my seniors say that the first child should grow with you and he should be like your friend. That has perhaps always been lurking in my mind. We soon discover that Sarla is in a family way and is under the best medical care. It is on …5th July, 1971 that she gives birth to a male baby whom we love the most. For us the baby is a precious child and we rear with utmost and all care. We make a wish as to what can we make the new born baby. To revive those past moments I just write the following lines to my eldest child, for our remembrance. This is first time when I became very emotional; after all I have become a Dad.
Dear child,
It's been some time back since you set foot in the world. When I held you for the first time in my arms at the Lal Ded hospital, your tiny hands were twitching and your eyes were shut tight. It was late in the night that day.
Your clenched fist reminded me of a science lesson that said to get an idea about the size of ones heart; you should clench your fist. I could imagine the little heart throbbing inside you. The eternal miracle of birth. When it was my turn to witness it, I cried.
Before I married your mother, I used to debate one question endlessly with my friend. Which is, "Is it really worth bringing another life into this world?"
This is my attempt at an answer. Yes, to bring a child and to prepare him to live in this world is an old phenomenon. I can't imagine the world for you, son. But I can certainly show you the way to live in an uncertain world. Make a pact with yourself. Understand the following early on.
Life is precious, and equally fragile. So every day is a gift. Get up early once in a while just to watch the sun rise. Be aware of every passing second. Look around you. Pray to God for a short while for He is great. Appreciate mother's cooking. Praise it to heavens... Make it a habit to eat together as a family. No, make it a rule. Fall in love with books. Follow your heart. The mind can waver but the heart seldom does. Respect your conscience. It's like a post-it note from God.
When you grow up, seek a job you love. As you enter the world of careers and cocktails, you'll get sucked into a current called rat race. Don't be overwhelmed. We're all human. But have the courage to step out of it. Nothing will be lost. Some illusions will shatter. Good riddance. Money is important, but it has its place. Don't make the mistake of putting it right on top. Find your love. Hold it dearly. Be a good husband. A patient father. Give your children less space to make mistakes. But hold them when they fall.
Speak up when you have to. Like this occasion. Whether we like it or not. Sure it has its pitfalls. But don't forget the positives too. Be alert. But try not to live in a state of fear.
Don't have regrets. They defeat the very purpose of life. Immersed as I am in work most of the time, I thought of writing a letter to you to ease myself and as my wish.
The second time I became emotional was when my eldest child gets married. That was again a moment when we felt that our eldest child has come of age, or we had grown old. When on Mahanadi raat the musician sang a song “Kati folhama lo gulabo lo” was very much sentimental and emotional. ……………….. …….. The relationship between children and parents is always considered emotionally strong. A child is believed to be his parents’ extension and the bearer of their essential characteristics. It is wise father that knows his child, says Shakespeare. A Jewish proverb says” when a father gives to his son, both laugh, when a son gives to his father both cry”. Doing what is good makes us feel good. Sometimes, temptations that surround us prove irresistible. Children are eager to please, a pat on the back for a job well done. It is important to channel their exuberant energy into positive behaviour.It is our responsibility to model the qualities and values we expect our children to follow.
Love, Dad
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Now everything is in the hands of a cub, Farooq Abdullah,- Kashmiri Muslim leader, Sheikh Abdullah, “The Tiger of Kashmiris son.”……
Years pass, Sheikh Abdullah’s son Farooq Abdullah, rules. Later on; the state undergoes the traumatic experience of militancy from 1989 onwards.
It was a biting winter afternoon on December 8 later that year. A young medical intern got into a city bus in Srinagar, near the only Women’s hospital, Lal Ded, named after a venerated 14th centaury Kashmiri, a woman born into a pandit family, who became a yogni. The young intern was making her way home. About twenty minutes later she was forced off the bus by three men who held guns to her head. They bundled the girl into a blue Maruti car. Those remaining in the bus watched as she was driven away. Peopled were unsure what to do. It is said that they sat for a while without moving. The young doctor had been taken by the main separatist movement, The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. No one had believed that the boys of the valley would really take up arms. People used to joke.”Yes, yes my brother is a militant now. He has a gun”. People used to laugh about it, a little proud, of the notion of a freedom fighter in the family.
The men in the blue Maruti had a good bargaining chip in the young doctor. She was the daughter of the newly sworn in home minister of the central government in Delhi, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, and the first Muslim to hold such a post in modern India. He had been sworn in only a few days before Rubia Sayeed was kidnapped. He was also a Kashmiri Muslim. The separatists did not like the idea of his working with ‘the enemy’.
During following six days the central government negotiated with the kidnappers. At first they communicated via a journalist at the Valley’s main news paper, the Kashmir Times, and a high court judge, a close friend of Rubaiya’s father. The the negotiations became more direct. The separatists wanted five of their imprisoned colleagues in return for releasing Rubia. On December 13, a message was passed to the separatists that the five men had been released in a downtown area of Srinagar. The journalist at the Kashmir Times got a call. He was told that Rubaiya Sayeed would be back with her family soon. Within an hour she was home. People did not particularly celebrate the return of the young doctor to her parents. But in the downtown area of the city thousands of young men gathered around Rajouri Kadal, the bridge near which the five jailed separatists had been set free. The crowd marched in a victorious procession, shouting a news slogan as they went. As quickly as they had gathered they melted back into the winding streets as police trucks reached the scene.
A few young men had been able to bargain with Delhi at the end of a gun. Among the hot, excited crowd at Rajouri Kadal freedom from India felt possible. The battle cry of the triumphant procession became the rallying cry of the people: “Jo kare Khuda ke khauf, Utale Kalashnikov!” (All god fearing men pick up the gun!)
During the summer, in July 1990, the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Ordinance had been introduced. It provided “extra ordinary powers of shoot to kill, search and arrest without warrant “to the army, police and paramilitary without the risk of prosecution within Jammu and Kashmir.
By now whole sections of the city seemed to be on fire, and the valley was a neutralized zone, effectively cut off from the rest of the country. Two new Indian governors had been appointed during that time, and their policy was to stamp down hard on the militants. The majority of the Pandits, the Kashmiri Hindu community had left in the wake of the attacks on their people in the first few months of the insurgency. By late March 1990 almost all the Pandit areas of the city were empty, many of their wooden houses in the old city burned out. Most of them were now living in squalid conditions in refugee camps outside Jammu and Delhi.
In May the traditional leader of Kashmiri Muslims, the Mirwaiz, had been assassinated in his home, and violence during his funeral procession had led to further attacks and rage against the government.
Shabir (JKLF) was angry with Mufti Mohammad Syed, the Union Home Minister, and the father of kidnapped Rubaiya. “He should not have done that; he dealt with JKLF himself, face to face”, Said Shabir. When a question was put to Shabir by a journalist, “Why not, wouldn’t you have done the same if it had been your daughter?” “Of course, but I am not a minister in the government. See the message it sent out? The Mufti showed those boys that they could get what they wanted by waving guns around”.
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
The coming to Nagam bypass stand of a V.V.I.P.'s daughter in a public carrier (Matador) on the particular day when she was abducted, instead of her daily used family car cannot be dismissed as a chance or a casual event. It is unbelievable. The plugging of the leakage of the dam of militancy could have been done easily on that occasion but the freeing of an undisclosed number of hardcore militants is still not explained and remains a mystery.
OOOOOO
To what Pakistani’s call Azad Kashmir, Free Kashmir; the Indians call, Pakistan- Occupied Kashmir POK. The JKLF was the same separatist group that stirred the first phase of militancy, and it had been behind the kidnapping of young doctor, Rubbia Sayeed., in Dec. 1989. It was also the group that, in spite of its initial claims of wanting Kashmir for both Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus, leveled the first real threats against the Pandit community in the valley.
OOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Our milkman tells us that some strangers are turning up at their village at night. He says they are very tall and broad, and wear strange hats, and they might have weapons. They have taken rooms in the village. They buy these peoples clothes and want to look like Kashmiri. They want to learn Kashmiri. I don’t attach any importance to it.
We hear village folk bringing us stories of witches and wizards they have encountered in the fields at night. We think that it is just a modern twist to those tales.
Next time milkman comes and tells that infiltrators have been sent by Pakistan to foment an uprising among the Muslims in the valley….
One day, after my father had retired, some three men came to our house. They were all elderly. Some somber looking bearded men in Persian style turbans. They were looking for Misri Sahib, my father. My father met them and took them on the balcony, which was on the river side, and listened to them. They insisted him to be the principal of one Muslim school at …He entertained them with the tea and struck some deal with them. After an hour, my father saw the men off at the gate. The men, most of who were on the board of the school, had requested him to teach science and upgrade the institute, and be all in all for the betterment of the school. My father was honored and gratified that these distinguished old men had come all day from a far off place to look for good teachers and dedicated persons.
Things continued like this for some time .Then one day he returned from the school unexpectedly. Something was terribly wrong. He had never looked sad. After some time he said, “I have handed in my resignation”
We could not believe. “Why?” I asked him.
“The students only want Muslim teachers. They threatened the Hindu staff of dire consequences if we did not resign immediately” I had never heard him disheartened before. The old men of the school who had come home for the request were embarrassed. They apologized and said that they could do nothing.
“This is the new crop” They said, and we are helpless. We do not know who planted these seeds.
There was a protest on residency road. Some people moved into the lanes when police chased them. The protesters ran on the other side of the lane. We could not make out what they were shouting, but they were shouting at the top of their lungs. In panic, we immediately rushed home. There was fear for the first time in our neighborhood. The whole night resounded with slogans. It was morning; our milkman came with a pail of milk. We told him what the matter was. He slowly told us, “They are demanding freedom from India, they want Pakistan,…. , they are shouting anti India slogans.” The separatists had dared to express themselves in public in our neighborhood.
The government machinery and the C.M. did not take immediate measures to arrest the movement. Perhaps he played politics. Perhaps he knew that the anti India voices had gathered movement, and left the realization unexpressed, hoping that the truth would go away. Ugly rumors of unheard things happening in the city reached us, and everywhere police people were seen. No one talked about it openly, but the air was charged with uneasiness. Honestly, people continued with their lives, playing ostrich and refusing to accept that the events in the valley were moving in wrong directions.
Our mother fond of having outdoor trips, told us to go to Pahalgam, as a distant relation of ours has a hotel there and gives us accommodation at the shortest notice. It was a short trip of two days and one night. First day it was all fine as we were in the main city, but the next day when we went up in the pines, we saw someone looking at us from the pine forests. He gazed at us for a long time, we did not take it good and did not move up, and instead we decided to cut short uphill and returned back to the hotel. When we reached home, we read in the newspapers that we were seen just a few minutes away from a camp for guerilla trainees. The anti India movement had broadened and spread underground. Political movement had multiplied, and no one seemed to know what to do about it.
Our milkman a regular visitor to our house would come and deliver us the milk regularly. It so happened that the milkman did not appear and deliver us the milk for three days. We were forced to go and buy milk from a shopkeeper for those three days. The fourth day when he came, he informed us that the police had arrested his son. He continued saying that he has been accused of terrible things.
The milkman has eight children, five boys, and three girls. Two girls and three boys are already married. This boy, who was arrested by the police, was charged on the grounds that he was seen with some other boys who looked like foreigners and who do not speak Kashmiri. “We cannot see them; they only reveal themselves to other boys, like angels of doom. Our boys follow them blindly; I do not know what these devilish people teach them. Many sons in my neighborhood are missing. Some have returned home as Mujahedeen, some have turned up dead and some have completely disappeared.” Says the milkman. The cry for independence had become a holy war. ”Wonderful young g boys are finished. The mothers and fathers have gone mad and are running up and down their streets screaming for their children to return.”The milkman sighs.
One day the milkman had come along with his son. He told me to take his picture, which I did. I developed the picture, and took a print of it and handed it over to the milk man. The milkman blessed me via all the shrines, saints, and the God he knew.
The relatives from the old city bring us all the news that actually happens in the downtown. The incidents seem to be much more radical than what we had experienced.
Today our close friend walks disjointed; his eyes are vague. He says some Muslims have been arrested because they found a young Hindu boy in the lane with his stomach slit open and his guts pulled out. The poor fellow was returning home from college with his books lay scattered all along the street.
My friend pulls a handkerchief and wipes his face.”This is the beginning of a terrible time for us.” What are we, just a few homes surrounded by hundreds of Muslims? We could be mowed down in one night. It could be any one of us next.”
He is a grown man but he wipes his tears like a child, with his naked palms, and I think he is not only crying for the young man but for the tragedy and the loss that has struck us all in the valley. He has never cared how many pundits lived in the city; there had been no reason to do so. He lives simply, and struggles like a Muslim neighbor to make both ends meet, and is content with his lot. Everything he has taken for granted is threatened, and he is no longer free but in fear of his life, the future of his family. He has nowhere to go, he cannot afford to move anywhere, nor does he want to go anywhere. He lives in the house that has come down to him from his great grand parents, in a Mohalla, a neighborhood, where generations of his family have always lived, for thousands of years. He has never thought of himself as the representative of any country. He is just a hardworking man, like his neighbors with whom he has shared his woes through the years. It is not possible for him to think differently. His neighbors now think he should go to India because he is a Hindu, but India is an alien place for him just as it is for them, and only Kashmir is home. In the past when things go awry we go to Hindu and Muslim soothsayers, but no amulet can reverse this situation. All
Of us, Lotus Eaters and inhabitants of bewitched gardens, have to wake up and come down to earth. We must put our feet on the ground if we want to survive. It is dark, and there is no moonlight, our days and nights of celebrations are over for the likely future.
The dead boy’s body lying in the street, and people around, look at it and move. The milkman’s wife has found a sharp knife and the blood stained clothes of her son under the shelf. She screamed out bringing in her neighbors, both Hindus and Muslims. A scuffle ensured when the police came in they took her son away again. Her head hung on her chest neck as though her head was broken; she had sent her angry son to hell. Had the mother known her son better, she could have protected him; if only she knew what bitterness he had grown into. The boy had entered into a merciless world and she did not know where it was and how he got there.
The self-determination that had been promised to Kashmiris by Nehru can no longer be swept under the carpet. It has become a war cry and a weapon of destruction for forces beyond control. Rebellion is spreading like a slow, sure fire even though we ignore the smoke that is everywhere about us. The Kashmiris are divided into those who want Pakistan to win Kashmir in a battle with India, those who want an independent Kashmir, and those who want the status quo. Kashmiri pundits do not want the Islamic state of Pakistan, but then neither do some Muslims. We being in lesser percentage of population, it really does not matter to anyone in India or Pakistan what we Pandits want, and we will pay with our very existence for that. Our history has taken a terrible turn though no fault of ours.
Twentieth January, 1990, was a dooms day for the Kashmir Pandits. This day we can’t forget. Every loudspeaker and every sound system fitted in each and every mosque was hurling unprintable, blasphemous slander coupled with threats and intimidations yelling for the blood of Pandit kafirs. We Pandits were forced to assemble at Lal Chowk at "Dooms-night" midnight hour and we had no way but to leave.
They first looted us, the loot has been universal.
Over 25,000 thousand dwellings and houses put to fire. Those of the houses that have been left untouched have the structures of falling down walls, with gaping holes for doors and windows. Many Pandits killed.
Personal libraries and collections of books, audio and video tapes televisions, and kitchen gadgets, all have been pilfered. Recording details of this rampage and loot will be foolish and emotionally painful. Those who fled from the internal fury of the bigots left their holy books, photographs, and other cherished mementoes of remembrances. Yet no one showed any sympathy, shed a tear, or uttered a word of consolation. It was not uncommon to hear from our Muslim friends that all those of the minority community, who were killed were informants and traitors, duly judged by Islamic courts of the Mujahids.
One day, my mother tells me, your father has taught thousands of Muslim boys free and I have fed many mouths, was it all for me to see this fateful day.
I pause, you must be kidding.
“We used to share everything with our neighbors in the village. Mothers who gave birth at the same time would take in another woman’s baby if the woman was sick and could not feed”
Yes, I must have nodded, because she did not answer the question then, and I made an assumption that she meant that there was the possibility that a baby who had been breastfed by a Pandit wet nurse could have grown into a man who wanted to drive the Pandits out of their homes and lives in the valley.
Up until 1990 the evening call to prayer was accompanied by bells ringing from Shiva temples around the city. As the azaan finished the bells would continue for Aarti, evening prayers. The sounds wound together.
There were worse possible scenarios as well.
In the first few months of the insurgency the figure of murdered Pandits given by Indo European Kashmir Forum is fifteen hundred, though the Indian govt. claims that the figure was a less than that.
What is apparent from the records is that more than three hundred thousand Kashmiri Pandits were “displaced “from the valley, about a fifth of the population. It happened just a few days after a press release had been sent to various Urdu newspapers by one of the main militant groups, the Hizb-ul Mujahedeen. It demanded that all the “non-Muslims” pack up and leave the valley. The group later denied the wording, claiming that it had been a typo, and should have read “Gair-Kashmiri”, non Kashmiris, rather than “gair Muslims”, non-Muslim, that happened on the original press release.
We went on talking to our neighbors, our Muslim friends, and they said that they would protect us and take care of us. We trusted them even when we heard stories from other places that neighbors were turning against neighbors, and that terrible things were happening in some villages. Even there were stories that militants were marrying Pandit girls by force, under the gun, making them convert, and treating them as less than dogs.”
It was not the stories that we heard that made us leave, or even the death of the relatives, it was the creeping and loudening sense that we the Pandit community had been marked as the enemy.
“We have always had times when things were bad. When there was trouble we would all stay in the house for some time. And those times would go past and we could all come back out onto the streets, and it was fine again for some time.”
Pandits are being called infidels, and that we must leave, that only those who prayed to Allah would be allowed to stay in the valley.
I asked my friend why it was more frightening than what had happened with the deaths in the close family, and the stories we are hearing of what is being done to other Pandits..
“It was all the time, all day and all night at times, from loudspeakers in the mosques, the ones for azaan [the call to prayer]”
“They added many more loudspeakers at all the mosques”, my friend said. “It became so loud we could not hear in the house when the noise was on.”
It was during this period that Pandits began to moan in their sleep. When Pandits heard that another round of military trucks was being sent so that Pandits could pack up their things and leave their homes, the Pandits packed thinking that they were going for just a week or so, leaving everything at the trust of their neighbors,. Pandits had been warned that they could only bring what they could carry themselves. Extra bags and package would simply not be put onto the trucks. And they all thought they would be back by spring; at the l Pandit families who leave the camp lose their right to compensation money from the government at least. She looked at the people around us, watching them, her expression one of a surprise.
The Pandits leave their homes. We leave the houses, land and businesses. We take to for tented refugee camps around Jammu. Some critics say that the various Indian governments since 1990 have actively kept the Pandits in this state of emasculation, giving them just enough aid to survive, so that they are an exhibit to the outside world proving that it is not just Muslims who have suffered in Kashmir. This has made the homeless Kashmiri Pandits poster the itinerants for a government that can continue to claim that Kashmir’s problem is integral to the secular state of India.
It has been one of the sadder jokes, since 1989, that the boys of the valley were criticized by some for not being very good fighters, that, like their sought after walnuts and almonds, they were paper thin militants. It is not a joke shared among Pandits.
One fateful day the valley bursts apart. Frenzied crowds and neighbors have pulled Kashmiri Pandits out of their homes and then systematically raped the women in front of their husbands and children. Then they brutally killed the Pandits who were left in the neighborhood, as they tried to take cover. One man hid in an oil drum and managed to escape but he saw the men in his family set afire like effigies; he watched them stumble and fall on their faces. He did not want to talk about women and children. The man, who lived in a refugee camp in Jammu, wanted desperately to go home and die there like the rest of his family. Having lived in Kashmir, I know that Kashmiri Pandits were respected by the Muslims of Kashmir. This is not that we were Pandits, quite an accomplishment by any standards, considering that we were in such a minority. We felt completely safe because our valley was our home. The Kashmiri Muslims say that the attack s on Pandits are in retaliation for similar actions by the army and police on their women and children. They say that the army has abducted men and women; there is no trace of some of these vanished Kashmiris. Some say they have underground and are doing business in remote parts of India. They say troops have killed and despoiled the villages without mercy, the villagers are blind with rage, the Kashmiri blood is begging for revenge. The army says that they have only eliminated the bad guys. Pandits have paid the price for being considered synonymous with India. Reluctantly Pandits had to leave the valley of their ancestors, looking for safety wherever they can find it.
My mother receives the best treatment at the Govt. Hospital, Jammu, because, my sons father in law is working as Head of neuro surgery and has the influence to get her the best treatment. When, she starts fading the doctor’s act more like a family than as doctors. They refuse to remove the life support system. The doctors call her Mother, because she loved them like her own sons, as some of the doctors were Kashmiri who were long back the students of her husband, my father. To them she was a relic from a golden time in Kashmir.
Recently we received a letter from our Muslim friend who had condoled on the death of our mother, saying, “He knows he has lost Mother, our hold on Kashmir is slipping, the very ground on which we stood and from where we looked at everything is sliding away from under our feet.”
The ancient culture of Kashmir, grown and nurtured for thousands of years on its beloved earth, is near extinction. The Hindus are gone and the Muslims are living under siege. It happened before our very eyes. Kashmiris can only hope for another miracle now. We cling more fanatically to the legends that tell us how Kashmir rises a new from ruination every time. It may not happen in my generation, it did not happen when my mother died or when my wife’s both parents died, and thousands of others who died is exile, grieving and homesick. It is of some comfort to me that my father, a saintly man had died in the valley, and did not see the nightmares that came after him.
“Freedom of Kashmir” meant becoming part of Pakistan. For Kashmiri separatists it meant total freedom and autonomy.
The valley was dogged by a level of violence that had many layers. One national army fighting another by proxy, the latter using a steady drip of imported militants to bleed India’s military resources ; conflict within the valley between one militant group and another ; savage crackdowns by the various Indian security forces when militants hit their targets. People were living in miasma of nervous energy, from day to day, between curfews and crackdowns, searches and constant disruptions to all forms of business and daily life. The hospitals were full far beyond their capacity. Schools were closed more than they were open. My friend meets me at Jammu and tells me his own story.
Things are terrible in Kashmir now, very bad, and I have had this opportunity to send my children to outside the valley for studies…..studies at Karnataka, Delhi, and Poona……I am very very happy to see my children study there. They learn how to do things very nicely, not just the education, but all the things. How to be with the parents, with the brother and sisters, etc….
Many Muslims have also sent their children to outside the state. Some wealthy class of Muslims has sent the children to overseas for higher education. When I asked a Muslim friend of mine why you have sent your child out for studies, “How would it have been if they have stayed? Imagine those boys would have been trying to study at the time when things were terrible, all the schools closed, and those Pakistanis were trying to find ways to make our young people join the fight, even though we were already at the time so tired of it.”
My Muslim friend has brought his father, brother, and many Kashmiri Hindus with him here and he says he has also become a victim of militancy. He runs a shawl business here. He owns a big shop here. “We have a little Kashmir here in my shop,” He says. “See all of us working together, no problems,” and he smiles. What he left unsaid was that his shop was as Kashmir used to be, before the flight of the Pandits, the Kashmiri Hindus. Some evil eye has torn apart the age old culture and fabric of the valley.
There were stories of terrible “death dances” being performed around the bodies of murdered Pandits. These bred further fear, which was the intention of those who spread them, sources often traceable to the cadres of one of the separatists or pro Pakistan militant groups.
I have seen in many camps that child marriage is being practiced again because, within these enforced tight communities, the matter of family honor has become intensified. The result is that some people are marrying their daughters to boys of families that they knew long before the sexual minefield of puberty has even begun.
A new generation has grown up in exile, the bitterness of this being that they are exiles within their own country. Though it has been instilled into them that they are Kashmiri Pandits they have no real sense of it. They have never been to Kashmir, they do not know the silence of snow, the lakes and orchards, the narrow, cluttered streets where there parent’s sense of community was learnt, or the temples that have long been locked and sealed. They have grown up listening to their parents’ stories and looking at old photographs of a place they do not know. They live in the shadow of a world remembered, their parents’ sense of rupture tugging at them all the time.
On a more recent marriage visit to one of the camps in Jammu a woman who had been a child when she left, who had married and raised children in the camp, said, “We have been told so many times by politicians and leaders that it is safe for us to go now, that we should return to our homes and hearths, but what do they know how do we live? They are all living behind big high fences with so many people guarding them. We would only go back if the people of Kashmir, the people who were our neighbors, come out on to the streets and march for us, waving banners telling us that they want us to return, that it is safe, that Kashmiri Pandits will be welcomed back and protected in the homes that they have been away from for so long.”
My Muslim friend who is a great traveler and shuttles from Kashmir to Jammu, Poona, Bombay, and London, one day meets me at the air port, tells me, that on a cold November afternoon in 1999, my friend was sitting in a hotel, above one of the main intersections in the busiest part of Srinagar, Lal Chowk, Red Square, so named during a period of intense flirtation with Moscow and the notion that communism could be the key to autonomy for Kashmir. Just down the street was a check post and brick built bunker in front of what had once been the city’s most glamorous cinema. Srinagar’s entire cinema had been forced by militants to close in the early days of the insurgency. The groups claimed that all films were UN Islamic. Sandbags and barbed wirings blocked what had once been the entrance to the Kashmir talkies at the Palladium Cinema. The Palladium Cinema had been firebombed in 1990 by the JKLF.
“The crime of suspension Pheran –wearing”
He smiled sadly at the place where the huddle of boys had been outside the cassette and video shop.
“In Pakistan they tell them they will be martyrs, in Delhi they call them terrorists. Here they are just boys like that, someone you were at school with, played cricket or football with once.” It can be said of any hero or murderer that he was just a boy, a son, a husband, a brother, a father, that circumstances gave him a gun and put blood on his hands, or a medal on his chest. The valley is full of martyrs’ graveyards. Throughout the conflict the Indian security forces have been instructed to demolish signs at any of these graveyards that glorified the men buried there. 1931 Abdul Qadir was a local Kashmiri butler in the service of European. He was an early separatist firebrand. In July 1931 he made a speech that called on the people to fight against their oppressors and to massacre those Hindus who stood between them and the freedom. His arrest resulted in the prison being mobbed. The police fired into the crowd and twenty one people were killed. They became the first martyrs to the separatist cause. Since the beginning of the insurgency, fifty eight years later, July 13 the day of Abdul Qadir’s speech and arrest has been marked as Martyer’s Day, and the Kabar-i-shaheed, the martyr’s graveyards, became places where people went both to pay homage to the martyrs and in defiance of the security forces.
“My friend told me that he wants to take steps and keep his children away from being around people who might be telling them that to be a martyr is a good thing.” “The most terrible thing is that when the situation is as bad as this, the idea of martyrdom seems glamorous to boys who think there is nothing better to look forward to than whatever it is they are being sold about paradise. They see no jobs, no way of earning a living, to them their lives already seems to be over because there is nothing to look forward to. And then they are offered the gun, and a salary to go with it,” my friend had said as we had watched the slight boy and the man in the good boots walk away in November 1999. In another coffee shop, nine years later, another local journalist gave his view. “It has not been about martyrdom for a very long time now, not since the earliest days of fighting. From a few years in they did not even have to mention martyrdom as an incentive when they were trying to get people to join the militancy. They did not have to. They had thousands upon thousands to choose from who were just sitting around with no jobs, no sense of any future.
” There are signs of crossfire at this coffee shop, Café Arabica. It is on Maulana Azad Road, opposite what used to be the polo ground, but is now a series of cricket pitches during spring., summer and autumn. There is a police headquarters just up the road, the usual barricades, and brick bunker lookouts around the compound wall. They sell cappuccinos and Diet coke in Café Arabica, and cakes with wild rainbow colored frosting. To have ordered Diet Coke in other coffee shop, above Lal Chowk, in 1999 would have been tantamount to supporting the “occupation” of the valley by Indian security forces. Even to drink coffee was regarded as unnecessary stimulant under some of stricter codes of Islam, was rebellious ten years ago. Now to ask for a cappuccino in Coffee Arabica, the Beatles belting out Love Me Do”, seems normal. Ten years ago just the volume of the song could have elicited some kind of backlash. Now people smile at the familiarity of the tune, the same smile given as coffee is ordered. For the first time in Kashmir the burqa and the bindi became weapons of communal division in the hands of the militants.
Things are different now, many boys have died, and it was a wave.
Youth were given false hope of going to heaven. “In Pakistan they tell them they will be martyrs, in Delhi they call them terrorists. Here they are just boys like that, someone you were at school with, played cricket or football with once.” It can be said of any hero or murderer that he was just a boy, a son, a husband, a brother, a father, that circumstances gave him a gun and put blood on his hands, or a medal on his chest. The valley is full of martyrs’’ graveyards. Throughout the conflict the Indian security forces have been instructed to demolish signs at any of these graveyards that glorified the men buried there. It is a sad story. Now the boys are seen outside the cassette and video shops. This was not some ten years ago.
Now things seem to have quietened a bit. Some Kashmiri’s have started going back to Kashmir on service, and some tourists have stated returning. I want to go home, Kashmir, once tells me, my son and walk on the turf and see to my Amar Chitar Katha comics and my other books. But I tell him we cannot go, our house is not there, the same has been burnt. This we are discussing here at USA, sitting in my room, all around, making a gossip, we can now go to our valley home only as tourists.
There is a call from Sarla’s maternal brother who is on job there in Kashmir. He invites us to Kashmir. We tell him how, are the things now? He tells on phone that “lot of people is praying these days, the rivers seem to have dried, there is no snow and there is no water. In Kashmir, everyone is trying to survive and to keep their dignity intact.”
I turn to the internet for further details. A few clicks and a photograph pop up on the monitor. Corpuses lie scattered across the photographs. Women cry and beat their breasts and their screams are soundless. Men, women children, villagers of all religions, all trying to make little money in a short season, pilgrims on a long promised journey, all dead. The camera is interested only in dead bodies, the dazed on lookers and bereaved relatives.
It is foolish to expect good news when I open newspaper and want to read about Kashmir, but I hope against the hope. Like any lover, I am always starved for a glimpse, even if it breaks my heart. I am always looking for the word Kashmir in the news, but then is so with every Kashmiri. My family and me have now left\\\ Kashmir like lakhs of migrants before me, and think about where we are, where we belong , and where we will be when we are old and undesirable. My eldest son has built a house here in Seattle, Washington, USA, before him some different people had settled here and before them the Native Americans. We are the latest wave in a cycle of change, waiting my turn to be relegated to the dust of history. Is my past and everything it held gone forever? Is everything finished or will something survive?.
Recently I attend a party where there are Kashmiri women, some Pakistani’s and some Americans sitting together. On one table a clean shaven American is already in full flow. His gestures suggest a politician, belonging to either party. He turns out to be a Democratic congressman, ‘a friend of the people of Kashmir.’ Recently returned from a visit to the country, he had been deeply moved by the suffering he had witnessed and was now convinced that the moral leadership of the world must take up the issue. The beards nodded vigorously, recalling no doubt the ‘moral leadership’ had given help in Kabul. The congressman paused; he did not want to mislead these people.
The beards were unimpressed. One of the few beardless men in the audience rose on his feet and addressed the congressman; ‘please answer honestly to our worries,’ he said. ‘In Afghanistan we helped you defeat the Red Army. You needed us then and we were very much loyal to you. Now you have abandoned us for India. The U.S. President supports India, not human rights Kashmir. Is this a good way to treat old friends?’
The congressman made sympathetic noises, even promising to be ‘more vigorous on human rights in Kashmir. ‘He need not have bothered. A beard rose to ask why the US government had betrayed them. The repetition irritated the congressman. He took offensive, complaining about this being an all male meeting. Why these men’s wives and daughters were not present? The bearded faces remained impassive. Feeling the need for fresh air, I decided to leave. The congressman had changed tack once again, speaking now of the wondrous beauty of the valley he had recently visited.
Damn the beauty, I thought, stop the killings. Was the congressman or the attendant beards aware of the Kashmir’s turbulent past, Islamic or pre-Islamic? .Did they know Mughal kings had never regarded religion as a cornerstone of empire building? Were they aware of the strong woman who had resisted rulers in the past, or why Kashmir had been sold for a pittance by the East India Company to a local ruler?
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My friend narrated to me his dream: That all the open area that once used to be in and around Hari Parbat- Devi Angan has been encroached by the Muslims and they have constructed their houses there. They have not spared the compound of the lioness, where we Kashmiri Pandits once used to go, and where the lioness sat on the ground. There is a voice from the skies above that said in a resounding tone, "The piece of land on which the houses have been built was once the abode of this lioness. She lived here along with her four cubs in utmost peace and harmony with the surroundings of all types. But the heartless and unscrupulous builders and promoters intruded into her home broke it apart and shattered her dreams and hopes. Man has thus committed an aggression which is an unforgivable sin".
Seeing this and hearing the celestial voice from above, I felt ashamed of myself as being one of the species of man, whose greed is limitless. Some decades ago people would go for picnic. Those were the days when man and animal lived in absolute peace and harmony. Picnickers would sometimes see lions and leopards crossing the roads without harming or attacking anyone. But things have changed since then. A lush green jungle has disappeared and in its place has come up a concrete structure. Suddenly the star-studded sky was overcast with dark clouds and it became pitch dark. There was a blinding lightning followed by deafening thunder. The lightning was right across the black sky, as if it would part the sky into two. This awe-inspiring scene was similar to the breath-taking one, when the red sea breaks into two, allowing Moses the Hebrew prophet and Israelites to escape from Egypt. When the Lightning and thunder subsided to a certain extent, I heard the same voice again prophesying, “Huge tidal waves several meters high will rise from the sea swallowing all the high-rise structures built on the reclaimed land, which will disappear as the waves recede”. With this loud voice in my dream, I found myself sweating, as I had never experienced such a dream sequence ever before.
Man has to realize that nature is all powerful. Without understanding this, man is continuing to intrude into domains which are not his. The exploding of spaceship Challenger seconds after its launch in January 1986, the bursting into flames of Columbia on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere in February 2003, put a blot on NASA’s space programmes and shook its very foundation. Still man has not learnt a lesson from these tragedies. It is high time we realize that it is better we set things right on the surface of this planet, than to pillage the heavens above. The colossal amount that is spent on various space programmes should be utilized for removing poverty, disease and to provide life’s basic amenities to the poor and helpless. NASA’s mission is "to improve life here, extend life there and to follow life beyond".
First comes first "improve life here", and then think of the rest. A dreamer turns to fiction, which rolls out myths. Some of these eventually become reality which at times is stranger than fiction. Thereby hands a tale!
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I did not want to leave my valley, but now that I have to leave Srinagar, anyplace in the world is good enough for me.
I have sent my eldest child to USA for higher studies which he has completed since. He gets selected by some company and has been working there for some time. I have visited USA many times, but now my child compels me to stay with him, as there is none for me and my old wife to take care of us in old age. I have to think about it and take a bold decision. Perhaps it is the will of God, and thank god we shall now live in America!
The door bell rings, and I open the door. Our grand children, two little flowers, Parum and Neel, come from school; they have to have their lunch. Grand mother is eager to feed them. She has kept the lunch ready on the dining table. They just leave the bag pack and wash their hands; mostly, grandmother feeds them as they are too small to take full care of themselves. Hot lunch on the table, now laid in the plates and grand mom feeding them in the same old fashion, morsel by morsel, their stack of comic books they keep on the dining table. Parum, the elder one is fond of reading books while mom is feeding; less attention towards eating but more busy in reading comics. Sometimes, he even does not know what he is eating.
My wife and I, live with our children and grand children at Seattle. Our younger son who was in India has also joined us here. He is here with his wife, who is carrying a baby. ……His wife is strict vegetarian…….diet…..
One day my wife was busy in the kitchen cleaning the fish which her son had brought from the market. As she worked at the kitchen sink, removing the scales of the fish, she unwittingly had sent many of the shiny scales all around the wooden kitchen floor. From a distance sitting on the sofa I was observing all this, When she was done with, she put the cleaned fish in a plastic basket to drench out water; I remembered my mother and the fish heads. We had a joint family there. To cook the fish for all, we had to first fry it. This frying would take the whole day for the ladies. And then, the fish had to be cooked. So my mother would cook the fish and allow it to cool, so as to present the novel dish in the dinner. We Kashmiris eat rice and greens. On this day fish, rice and greens was something special. Once the food was served to all the male members, it was then the female folk to eat. I would love eating. Out of curiosity when I went to my mother to have one more morsel with the fish, she fed me red curry rice, but said, “This fish is not for you.” My inquisitiveness deepened and she said,” It is the big head of a big fish that we women folk enjoy. We ladies have always to eat fish heads.”
The door bell rang, I looked through the key hole, and saw, and it was a courier man. I rushed out to see the consignment and found a square cardboard box, labeled,”Refrigerate on arrival.” I coolly rushed to the garage, where our room size refrigerator is, and placed it inside the fridge.
My wife was still in the kitchen, murmuring, now where to fry the fish.
She pats the fish in a salt and turmeric mixture and then planning to fry it to a crisp golden brown.
We in Kashmiri kitchen used to fry any time in the kitchen, without thinking where to fry. But here, our electronic gadgets keep a watch on every smoke and buzzes an alarm, to alert if everything is well. She finally took a decision that she would go to a garage and keep the door half closed and fry the fish there. I went to my room to do the regular work, and my wife in the garage busy with frying. After some time, I sensed that some traces of fish frying smell in my room which is in the first floor. I went to the garage and told my wife that the fish frying smell has reached up to my room, she retaliated and said, “And Then you should not desire to eat fish.”
I pulled a long face, as if I had to eat the whole fish.
“What was the great need to call so many friends on dinner the next day?” I said.
My wife replied, “It is our FISH special day.”
“It is our Khichri day tomorrow, we used to celebrate the day with great pomp and show, and I want to keep the tradition alive as long as I live here.” Replied my wife.
Our mother Soma is still with us
*My Mother’s death Anniversary today, the --- of April … she breathes each day within us, blesses us from her abode, guides and teaches us each day what it meant to be under her wing and care, strengthens us with her will and her nerve of never ever giving up. Even in the greatest of disappointments her warmth and courage instilled hope and life in our sad conditions. I wonder where she got it from. She lost her own Mother when she was just a baby... who gave her this spirit and teaching?
In Kashmir we used to keep in mind the death anniversary of our departed souls, Annual shrads used to be performed, so that the departed ones knew that those they have left behind them still remember them and take due care of them. This was our culture, and this we were taught, I will continue with her Shrada
As long as I can, my wife co-operates and remembers this scrupulously; but we will not leave our culture here as long as we live. We will happily accept and collect all the rituals and ceremonies which we have now brought with us. We will try to push our thousands of years old culture to our children here. How long they will be able to continue is upto them. Here our children have taken some of our rituals like Pun, Shivratri, Khichi Mavas, while keeping alive the Halloween nights, and the Christmas. When we go to supermarket to buy, we sometimes tell ourselves that this is much simpler than cooking a four course meal for a hungry yakshas, topping it with a raw carp, and carrying it up a rickety granary ladder for home delivery.
Only the graveyard breezes blow in the valley of Kashmir. Murder tours the region in different guises, garbed sometimes in the uniform of the Indian army or in the form of bearded men, armed and infiltrated by Pakistan, speaking of language of Jihad- Allah and Fate rolled into one. The background presence of nuclear missiles offers a ghoulish, horrid, gruesome, comfort to both sides. Kashmir, trapped in this neither-nor predicament, suffocates. Depressed and exhausted by the decades of violence, many Kashmiris have become passive now. The beauties of spring and summer pass unnoticed by listless eyes. Fearful even of medium-term possibilities, they prefer to live in the present. Oppressed by neither-nor they are silent in public, speaking the truth in whispers. They fear that Kabul might move to Srinagar and, in the name of a petrified religion, ban all poetry and music, outlaw the public appearance of unveiled women, close down the university and impose clerical dictatorship. It is difficult to imagine a Talibanised Kashmir, but it was once equally difficult to imagine Talibanised Afghanistan. A complicated and unpredictable combination of circumstances does sometimes enable the enemies of light to triumph. India carefully has to understand the psyche of a Kashmir Muslim.
This time Farooq’s son Omar Abdullah continues to be the CM right now. Any talk of return and rehabilitation of is a dream of imaginary wistfulness. History has a passion for repeating itself and so the cub of Kashmir has again occupied the seat of power held earlier by his father a Doctor, Farooq Abdullah, in whose hands, his father, known as the lion of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah dreamed the state would be safe. The situation may be saved when the cub of Kashmir will follow his grandfather’s footsteps and take steps that were taken when the Kabailies (tribal) raided the Valley in 1947. The giant poster, I vividly remember, showed a Kashmiri peasant killing a long, coiled, head raised for kill, black cobra with his "liven" (Kashmiri spade). The caption read: "This is a Pakistani spy/ agent. Kill it".
Books by the Author(s)
Cleopatra and Harmachis - Part-2: The Finding of Treasure
