It was my first year in Islamia High School- then premier educational institution of Kashmir. Just a couple months back, I had been admitted in Section-C of Soum -the third primary. Fair complexioned, rubicund as strawberry, turbaned, Nizamuddin Sahib was our form teacher. His red maize beard made him distinct from all other teachers in the school.
I was not happy about being admitted in Section-C. I suffered a complex that the boys admitted in section-A compared to other sections were the best and those in section-C were mediocre. How this belief had got etched on mind, is intriguing me. Perhaps, the complex was rooted in my belief school authorities preferably admitting kin of board members and boys from the elite and the rich families in A- section. As the days passed by and I got lot of love and attention from my form teacher. My complex evaporated like camphor and I became most jovial and studious student in my class.
One fine day, at the morning assembly a senior teacher of the School made announcement about school excursion. He needed no megaphone to reach to boys in the last rows. His voice was as loud and clear as that of famous ‘sloganeer’, Abdul Rehman Sodagar of the Plebiscite Front. The moment senior teacher Ghulam Ahmed Darazi announced date for an excursion to the Numaish; that is how industrial exhibition was then known as there was thunderous clapping from boys. Like other boys, I also jumped out of excitement. There was a reason for my excitement,
I had heard lots of stories from an elderly person Jabbar Joo in our mohalla about the Numaish. Known for artistically blending facts and fictions, he had made me and my buddies in the Mohalla to believe that the exhibition grounds with lot of fun around was no less than a wonderland.
On a Sunday morning at seven, boys dressed in khaki shorts and sky blue shirts started pouring in from all the three gates into the school compound. Every boy carried a Copper or brass tiffin. The school compound resounded with shrieks, laughter and guffaws, it looked like morning scene in a garden filled with chirping of thrushes, sparrows and manias. As soon as headmaster, like Julius Caesar, walked on the dais deathly silence prevailed all over. He directed all children to form rows according to their classes and sections. By about eight led by our class teachers we started coming out of our school. Taking a serpentine course through the maze of small and narrow lanes we reached on the main road. The silent roads, without honks and horns of buses and cars were abuzz with our babble and prattle. The shops in the Bazars that were just opening attracted our attention the most.
The walking down through Bazars and streets was an excursion into the recent history of Kashmir. Of all the teachers it was lean, dark complexioned, with anger always writ on his Darazi Sahib who seemed more knowledgeable. As we paced through the street near Nawab Bazar, he narrated stories about the first major revolt by the artisans of Kashmir against the brutal tax system by the Dogra rulers at Sonar Kul and Ketay Kul-two rivulets emanating from the river Jhelum. He narrated harrowing stories how the soldiers of the Hindu king had chased thousands of shawl-weavers towards the rivulets and drowned them to death. Passing through the then desolate Dewan Bagh he continued narrating stories of atrocities committed by the Sikh and the Dogra on the Muslims of Srinagar full throat- these stories sounded for us as fables but in fact these were our first lessons in the history of our land. Quarter of a kilometre before reaching the Exhibition, our caravan halted. And Darazi Sahib cried, “Yes boys , on your right is the Usmania Zinana Park and on your left is Gool Bagh , the two have their own tales to tell.”
No men or boys were allowed to enter into the Usmani Park. The teacher did not tell us who had laid down the park and when but he was bursting with stories about the Gool Bagh. It was history incarnate; having lots of stories to tell. For decades it had resounded with soaring oratories and speeches of rebellion by towering Kashmir leaders against the autocratic rulers and fascists thereafter. Today, when I am writing about my first on foot excursion about the exhibition, I am also reminded of having been as a young student on many historic occasions part of the vast crowds that gathered in these grounds during sixties and seventies.
In the Kashmir freedom struggle this ground has been as important as the Muslim Park, the Mujahid Manzil and the grounds of Khanqah Moulla. I have some sweet and bitter memories about this ground. Some of the incidents are as fresh in the hinterland of my mind as dew drops on narcissus in the morning. In the wake of the 1964, Holy Relic Movement this ground again emerged as one of the most important avenue for political rallies of Sheikh Abdullah and his Plebiscite Front. In history it is also remembered for the July 1975 massive public rally organized by the Awami Action Committee against Indira-Sheikh Accord. The ground, is also remembered for Imam-e-Kabah addressing one of the largest gatherings of people. Like other important public spaces the Gool Bagh also suffered the policy of shrinking the space for the voices of the resistance and the dissent and was destroyed by building Concrete buildings in it for housing the Jammu and Kashmir High Court and the State Assembly.
Coming back to our first excursion, after squatting a while on the ground, we finally entered into the Numaish, After arduous journey on foot for almost for two hours, wearing the canvas shoe popularly called as the fleet shoes, the army of Tiny Tots on reaching the destination felt at the top of the world, Yes! We were tired to nerves. Nonetheless, on seeing silvery dome of the gate of the Niumaish glistening in sunlight our fatigue evaporated like camphor on my chest after it was rubbed in with oil by my mother to cure me of severe cold during harsh winters.
There were no tickets for students and teachers; the long queues of students trickled through the small iron rotating gates into the main compound. Some boys went up to the hexagonal empty band stand that would come to life only after the dusk with songs, music and dramas. No sooner all boys passed through turnstile gates, the teachers commanded to squat on the green turf. The first thing every student did was to finish with lunch. Then, the class teachers commanded to form section-wise queues. Then conducted us to various sections in the exhibition; it was a journey through a fairyland. Every section in the exhibition had its own excitement. The master craftsmen in traditional dresses huge turbans, skullcaps, astrakhan caps and pherans crouching and squatting on fully adorned raised pedestals looked like animated big dolls. The odorous silk section for pungency was not all that welcome but it was educative. For the first time, I learnt that silk was made by boiling silk worms in big pans and then spinning out thread out of these worms. Those were perhaps the times when Kashmir was top most silk exporter in the sub-continent.
The stall about our forest attracted me the most. It depicted how timber was extracted from the forests. I liked watching falling of artificial rain on tiny trees and then miniature men felling trees and sawing log. It was the stall that I wanted to replicate at home other stalls also had their beauty…evenings in Numaish were different. It looked like a small city of lights with thousands of lights illuminating different building and dome shaped gates.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
