By Z.G.Muhammad
Djinns: oh yeah, genie! There were lots of stories about genies in our childhood. The genies were more than apparitions, ghouls or ghosts to most children. Every child in his mind’s eye weaved his image of a genie. It was not film-cast-image or animated-cartoon-image of genie that was embossed on our young minds- we incorporated our images of genies – they changed depending upon the stories we had heard about them.
My grandmother had a quiver full of stories about genies. Like all our grandmothers, she was a great storyteller- articulate and eloquent. She knew only her mother tongue but had an incredible treasure trove of vocabulary- perhaps peculiar to her. She had gone to no grammar school but words flowed from her mouth like sonorous cascades in deep and dense forests. Her every sentence was brimmed with assonance and alliterations. Every time I heard a ‘genie-story’ from her, I conjured a different image of genies- sometimes I saw them tall as towering cedars, sometimes as poplars drooping in gusty winds and sometimes as high as mountains. If the story were about a benevolent one made from ‘smokeless fire’, the image of a tall, fair-complexioned person with a long snow-white flowing beard would come to my mind. If the story was about ‘ifrit’, I invented a different image- a tall, bald man with bulging eyes and thick eyebrows.
Some mosques, hospices and shrines were known abodes of Djinns. There were stories that they lived in coffins kept outside the mosque. There were stories that they lived in hollow Chinar tree trunks- sometimes I imagined a genie in the eagle sitting atop a lonely tree, and sometimes I imagined the owl on the solitary Brimij tree in the graveyard of Patwan Masjid, Pandan. And there were many awful stories about Djinns boding around them.
Like many older women in Downtown Srinagar, my grandmother was a great devotee of Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah. This great religious scholar had been exiled by the ruler much before I was born. My grandmother and her friends Hieji Masa’, Saja Appa, Sundar Ded and ‘Ashe Ded’ had hardly missed a sermon by him in Jamia Masjid. On occasions, they had walked a few miles to Aali Masjid- a fifteenth-century mosque on a corner of Eidgah built by Sultan Hassan Shah to listen to his sermons. Like many other mosques, it suffered neglect for almost a hundred and twenty years after 1819. In our childhood, it was an abandoned place.
I remember those days Eidgah was a vast expanse- perhaps the only place in the city where one could see earth and sky converging. There were vast marshlands’ and swamps on the Western side- possibly fed by Anchar Lake. Many of my schoolmates lived in Mohallas on the Eastern side- some of them were outstanding football players who represented school eleven and later college and university. Many names have faded from my memory or trickled into the hinterland of my mind. But I do remember the names and faces of many. Hundreds of football and cricket players thronged these vast grounds- playing a football or cricket match on the Eidgah grounds was of great prestige. Playing a game on these grounds was always full of thrill and excitement. Whenever I went to the playground to play a match, I dared not to enter the Aali Masjid.
The mosque was known as the biggest abode of genies in the city of Srinagar. There were many stories about Djinns in this mosque. My grandmother had narrated many of them to me. Some bright minds with great imaginations had woven stories about Djinns in this mosque- these stories were believed to be true over time. There were also stories that thieves had played their tricks, making people feel that the mosque was a haunted place. And they used the abandoned mosque for sharing the booty.
My friends and I believed the Zinda Shah Masjid was another mosque that was haunted. The name of this mosque ‘built during the times of Sheikh Hamza Makdoomi built by Abdul Rehman Mank shah, in our childhood got corrupted to Djinn Shah Masjid. Out of fear of genies, my friends and I never went inside this mosque, though we played in a small sports ground near it. I remember a friend Abdul Majid Khan who now lives hardly about three to four hundred meters away from this mosque, always carried a knife in his pocket. He believed djinn could not have power over a person carrying metals with him.
Some trees in my birth burg were believed to be the most haunted. And of these trees, the most dreaded one was a mulberry tree in an open space in the backyard of our house in Roshangar Mohalla, Nowhatta. The circumference of the tree vividly told its age. It was over a hundred years. There was a grave near the tree- whose grave it was, nobody knew about it. My uncle strongly believed that it was the grave of one of Syed Abdul Aziz, one of the companions of Mir Muhammad Hamadani, and he had got a wall around it reconstructed. The tree was the abode of a Muslim Djinns family, and it had come to Kashmir along with the Syed buried under the tree. The myths woven around the tree had become our incarnate belief. My mother had passed strict ‘diktat’ to all children in the family not to go near the mulberry tree after dusk. I don’t think my brothers and cousins ever violated my mother’s instructions.
The fear of the Djinns in the mulberry tree lived with my friends and me until mysterious fires hit the Capital city of Srinagar and some towns. That was in 1967 or 1968. The mysterious fires had caused chaos and worry in people. There were wide rumours that some unscrupulous elements outside the state were setting houses on fire at midnight. There were many stories in the air. It was a jigsaw puzzle; who were these people, these Nara-Tchor as these mischiefs peddlers were nicknamed. Youth groups were organized in all areas, and roasters were made to keep vigil at night to nab these “Nari-Tchor” (fire thieves). Some of my friends, Abdul Majid Khan, Nazir Ahmad Lal, Bashir Ahmad Bazaz, Ghulam Mohi-U-Din, Meraj Din, Abdul Salam Dhobi, and I volunteered for the night vigilance of the entire Mohalla. We decided to camp near the haunted mulberry tree. We got two mats from the mosque and spread them near the tree. I think I performed this night duty for more than a week- in the middle of the night, we took a stroll in the Mohalla and cried full throat “Hushyar Khabardar”. After having a round of the Mohalla, we used to have a cup of salt tea and some bread- kulcha or krep. With these night vigils, we prevented ‘Nari-Tchor’ from hitting our Mohalla and erased the fear of the genies in the mulberry tree forever from my mind.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
