BY DR.ABDUL AHAD
Immediately on sighting him from a distance, they were always thrilled to holler at him and throw away these hilariously riotous and funny words to forewarn people, especially the womenfolk, about his arrival so that necessary measures to stay away from an unexpected and abrupt exposure to the fakir’s nudity was taken accordingly.
But everyone among the elderly generation held him in such a large esteem that they would never fail to accept the dust of his feet as the decoration of their eyes and would always regard his spoilt brat, brashness, brazenness and bawling as huge blessings. They had, indeed, grown to become increasingly particular about the meaning and significance of his maxims and incoherent and incomprehensible words as these were believed to foresee the momentum of life and concomitant contentment as well as tumult of stress and ensuing frustration and disappointment. Seldom he screamed out such typically peculiar and impenetrable words to create ripples of great exhilaration as well as utter bewilderment in the well-knit social set-up of Shehr-i-Kashmir and, thereby, engaged the Kashmiris in an emotional mess and mental obsession to find out what was hidden behind these riddles which remained enigma most of the time and on occasions proved prophetic enough to relate themselves to various occurrences that shaped the future events to impact the history of Kashmir so deeply. And for seekers, it was a very tough, knotty, convoluted and above all a time consuming process to ponder and hunt for the actual meaning of his paradigmatically bottomless words and unfathomable expressions.
But that autumn Monday the situation was more complex, battling and unusually different like weather. The nanga mout had for the first time cried out that day: Wount-e- natsun tea Kashere-sazqun, that too while farting and defecating publicly ; a happening and an experience generally considered as a bad omen and warning of a fast approaching doom. He was obviously referring to an entity (came) that was alien to Kashmir and is not at all found here even today.
Evidently, fakir’s whimper and moan were taken seriously by the Khankah goers. They thought these as indicators of gloom that was clandestinely gathering on the political horizon of the Valley of Kashmir.
Janabhata and Ammababa, the two respected residents of Mohalla Fateh Kadal, recognized for their knowledge, understanding and foresight, interpreted these apparently senseless and ambiguous words according to their own per spectives. While Janabahata claimed that these were hinting towards the disquieting development that had already cast its shadow on the State owing to the tribal incursion, Ammababa interpreted them as a pointer towards Patiala regiment, the alien troops who had, a few days earlier, been transported to Kashmir to make fool-proof arrangements for the landing and stationing of the Indian army in near future.
In fact the Baba was sharing what he had learnt from Wahab Wani, a native of Budgam district, who had come the other day to stay for the night at his home so as to be able to have his physical examination done in time without any bother next morning by an eminent and experienced tabib (Unani physician), Aziz Hakim of Nowhatta. Wahab Wani had been told about the arrival of unfamiliar forces by an eye witness; one of his Sikh friends of the village Rengreth who had been engaged by the regiment in the making do work of the airfield just undertaken to render it hassle free for the safe landing of foreign army that was subsequently despatched by Delhi on 27th October
1947 to launch its operation JAK; a development both these residents were like many other Kashmiris, unaware of and which ultimately lead to greater than a burden bequeathed to us by history, besides creating a squad of political mules, distinctly remembered as yes men’, yours faithfully and His Masters voice”, to assist and collaborate with the aliens in their colonial programme of awful consequences.
Meanwhile the devotees started moving towards their homes. A few of them stopped for a while outside on the street corner to buy and relish the sizzling massala, a superbly tasty and pleasantly flavoured indigenous cuisine generally sold in the mornings and also delivered at door steps. After reaching their homes along with their milk lotas, collected from local milk women, they sat down sipping at their sher-i-chai, the famous salt tea, and chewing on hot lawasas which they had bought from nanbai’s on their return from the prayers. Then they began smoking hukka for a while and, subsequently, readied themselves for going out to attend their routine jobs and occupations.
The mushkis were the first out to sprinkle water on the roads with their goat skins, enabling the safa-i-woals to remove the dust and chaff that had heaped up there. They were followed by sabz-i-faroshs or vegetable sellers who adjusted their baskets with bundles of hakk, mujje, gougji, nadur, paluk and a variety of other locally grown vegetables on the pavements of various streets. Above and beyond Naid Kadal and Bohri Kadal, the legendary business localities of Srinagar, the shopkeepers too began turning up steadily to let open their shops. The cloth merchants displayed the latest arrivals of fashionable fabrics from Lahore; the traditional wanis or the grocers and spice merchants smoothed into shape their grocery: huge bags of tea, sugar, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, powdered chillies and cute packs of turmeric, henna and white mountain of Pakistani salt.
Things were also slowly stirring up at Gada Kocha where attractive and zealous gada-e-hanzenis were fervently occupying their appointed places and premises to sell their products, especially the much-sought after telbali variety of fish which is widely known for its deliciousness and freshness even now. With their luminous innocence, brightly gleaming eyes, bewitchingly curly hair and incandescent smile, these beauteous visages had, undoubtedly, attained the status of enchantresses of this famous fish market of Kashmir. They were great crowd pullers and chief source of harmless levity, frivolous comments, lewd jokes and public attraction.
At about 10 O’clock the entire Shahr-i-Khas was pulsating with life. There was a great hullabaloo, clatter and rattle all over the Srinagar streets. The tradesmen, small investors, Karkhandars and petty manufacturers were seen engaged in business transactions, commercial deals and a little pump-priming at the core bazaars of the city.
…. to be continued
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
