Those compared to age of computers, Iaptops, notebooks and kindle were the medieval times. It is not that far away, just fifty years back, our county continued to have a medieval ambiance. The bleats of goats and ewes, solitary cry of chahregour, the herdsman from the nearby locality truncated our morning dreams much before the sun would rise. And it was clip-clops of horses aIong the road outside our home, which reminded me it was time to go to school.
These were not horses of the royal chariots of the Maharaja or his cavalry men. That dispIaying ferociously their glistening long spears had shaken our forefathers with fright and made children piss in their pants for one hundred years. The Maharaja and his cavalry had been bumped into the pages of history never to be resurrected. No necromancy or sorcery could revive them. The cavalry had been replaced by men in olives who on my birth had fiercely clicked their heels on the streets of Srinagar.
It were the horsemen ,with loads of clay on the back of their Ponies from distant villages- miIes away from our home that made me tumble out of my bed like a frog. In early morning hours, they arrived in our part of the city to vend ‘Hurramach’, white clay.
The horseman on top of his voice cried in lanes and by lanes Hurramach Ho Hurramach.The house wives would come out to buy a vat full of this clay for four annas, (Quarter of a rupee). This clay as mentioned earlier was used for painting waIls of the house. Like all other children, I also had a liking for white clay pieces- they used to be of all shape, some as finely cut as diamonds. Some women even children relished chewing a piece of white clay as good as chocolate. My mother would often administer a warning against eating white clay- and say it turns a man bahsa (jaundice-faced).
In the vat of clay,I also looked for a fine piece; not for eating but for making saep, as the clay ink was called. It was with this white day ink that we used to write with on Mashaq, smoothly done up wooden writing board. For making ink, the piece of clay would be fineIy pulverized, put into saepewar an earthenware inkpot and mixed with water and made into a very thin paste. Then some broken pieces of thread ,would be put inside the inkpot to prevent ink spilling over on writing over the wooden board.
The ceramic inkpots were sold at a shop outside our school.It was owned by two brothers-the Gungoos.For us it was all in one shop from roasted peas, candies, groceries they soId everything connected with our school going. Of the two brothers, one was jovial and pleasant and second one with nasal voice was wooden faced and irritating. The ceramic inkpots of different shapes were kept in a big willow basket in front of the shop. I had fancy for inkpot that looked like a miniature flower vase. An inkpot cost one paisa-one could buy sixty four of them for a rupee.
The Gungoos also sold reeds for making pens for writing on the wooden boards. The usuaI Iength of a reed was eight to ten feet. These taIl stiff plants, with hollow stem grew in abundance along maze of waterways in the city and in its outskirts. They grew around lagoons and water bodies. Those days the city was dotted with blue translucent freshwater Iagoons full of mirror carp fish. During past few decades because of the nonchalance of the one after another non-representative collaborator governments almost all of them have vanished from the scene. Tapering part
of the reed was sold by the shopkeeper for making of narakan-qalam-reed pen for writing on the Mashaq. The thick and stiffer portion of the reed was used for making nalacha, smoking pipes for traditional Hubble-bubble and for making flutes. The makers of pipes were known as nalachaband, there were a couple of families in our locality known all over city for making best and fanciful smoking pipes. Some of the fancy pipes wrapped up in intricately designed golden and silver threads used to be real works of artistry and aesthetics.
The flute making was not a popular profession. I do not remember any one in our locality was connected with the trade. However, I and my friends had learned the art of making flutes out of the reeds that we bought for making pens. We would cut a ten to twelve inch long thicker portion of the reed with a sharp knife and bake it in dry grass or put it under hot ashes inside the hearth at our home. Then we made nine holes in it, one for blowing air through it and eight others for playing fingers over them. We never made holes in the pipe by a drill or a borer but had devised our own indigenous method that needed lots of patience. We marked the reed in symmetry at nine places with the clay ink. Then we picked up one or two glowing embers from the Kangri and placed them one by one at the marked places and softly blew at these with our breath till a hole was made. On completion of the hole making in the read- the flute would be ready to play upon. One of my friends had mastered art of playing on the flute.
The top of the reed would cost a Tatra (two paisa) or an Anna. One could easily make over a dozen of good reed pens out of it, The tapering portion of the reed which was very flexible was generally thrown away and pens were cut from its stiffer portion. All that was needed for making a pen from the reed was a sharp domestic knife. Any boy could make a pen out of the reed but the efficiency of the pen depended in eking what was called zeban of the pen–that is cutting through the tapering portion of Mohammad Yusuf was more proficient in making zeban in the reed pen-with his reed pen, he could write like calligrapher on the wooden writing board.
The reed pen the ceramic inkpot was my exclusively writing tools till class three and these primitive writing tools survived up to class five or six.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
