Living a Lifetime Mere Days in Kashmir
When we landed in Srinagar to brisk mountain air in the same airport where my father told me the Indian army once flew in and dropped tanks in a war against Pakistan over Kashmir, I noticed that my index finger was throbbing with pain—a nail had peeled back exposing tender skin.
My father, who flies in the face of fear, planned this trip to Kashmir, 95 per cent Muslim, agitating for home rule, supported by Pakistan. It is an area of unrest, shooting between armies on both sides of the border, curfews, a 700,000-army presence of Indian soldiers and Central Police who have (and regularly use) the powers to arrest, shoot and kill rebels.
The driver takes us to a deserted hotel in Srinagar where the staff look inordinately joyful at the idea of visitors, bringing freshly cut roses to our rooms.
The youthful Kashmiri hotel guide responds to my father’s query about a nearby hillstation Sonamarg. “You have to go by horse to see the glaciers,” he says in Urdu. “Better to go to in Gulmarg, Western Himalayas, you can go 14,000 feet up sea level by cable. In winter it’s minus 17. Best skiing. Now, in autumn you can see 25-30 types of wild flowers.”
I don’t hear a thing. I was staring, I think. “They are very good-looking people, aren’t they?” my mother said, catching me. “Yes, they are,” I said, sipping KAWAH, green tea with saffron, cardamom, cinnamon, and rose petal proffered by a porcelain-faced beauty in a hijab.
The young man addresses me in Urdu. I freeze. On the plane over my mother said, “For God’s sake, don’t speak in Urdu. Your grammar is appalling. They will know at once that you don’t live in India.”
I stumble through the conversation pleading with my eyes for my mother’s help which she ignores. I ask her later, resentfully, “Why didn’t you help me?” “How else will you learn if you don’t speak?” she said.
I speak in Urdu all week, finding that Kashmiris are like my nail, both raw and tender. The driver tells us while we wait for a few tense moments for police to remove the barbed wire to our hotel there is nothing here for young men, apart from carpet making, dried fruit, and agriculture.
A craftsman says he sees no end to the agitation for self-rule, not while women are raped by soldiers in the villages. ‘Their sons want revenge.’ An educated handsome man cleaning our rooms when we hear the boom of a grenade, says without blinking he wants to be the Chief Minister of Kashmir one day. He says if the Indian government attempts to take away land from Kashmiris, that he will take up arms. ‘Blood will flow through this land.’
A boatman tells us on a lake that in Kashmir, Muslims believe that Allah sends angels disguised as humans to guests. This explains the extreme courtesy, the quickness to console, help. It explains the distress in the face of a waitress on thinking my eye drops were tears even after I assured her I was fine. It explains the tea and roses she sent to my room. It’s apparent Kashmiris who retain empathy, a keen aesthetic are capable of fire, would die and kill for this land.
One week later my mother who refused to help me find words the entire time says, “Your Urdu is finally passable.”
In the evenings, amidst the fragrance of wood fires and pine, the moon rising over the mountains, when the temperature drops to 14 or 15 degrees my father, mother, husband, and I bundled in shawls and jackets, warming our hands with hot toddies (a hot drink, a legacy of the Scottish here, of whiskey, spices, and honey) and sit in the garden under the stately old Chinar tree.
The last time my father was in Srinagar on a houseboat on the lake with my mother he was called to duty for the Indo Pak war in 1965 to build a bridge and lay down land mines. In 13 days in Punjab, he lived more than people do in a lifetime.
He emerged from a battle in the trenches to find amidst dead bodies of Pakistani boys with letters, prayers from their mothers. His jeep was fired at by Pakistani aircraft; his commander and colleagues were killed by shellfire; he dragged a dead colleague out of a river, his wounded driver to safety.
‘You do your duty knowing you could be drinking whiskey with a friend and an hour later, find parts of his dead body strewn over a field.’ When we leave my nail has healed. In my book, I have a rose creamy, with a daub of red, like blood. I’ve lived a life in ten days.