By Z.G.Muhammad
Talisman works. ‘In it, secret power is hidden!’ Yes! I did believe the holy words written are sacred as a poet has said, “and your breath brings out god in them.” This belief gained strength at the time of annual school or board examinations. My siblings and I lovingly drank the blackened water as nectar from cups and saucers scribbled with verses from the Holy Book on the day of the test. We drank the water with complete faith that we would remember every word at the writing examination.
One of our cousins had run away from home. Like my grandmother, I too believed that he would get blister beads all over his body as I got on the tender skin of my hands at the time of chopping a couple of nettle saplings and picking them with a piece of cloth.
Alongside the regiments of nettle grew sazposh, Hollyhock and wild “Ganahar’, Amaranth. My peers and I admired Ganahar. We relished its tiny seeds- they tasted sweet. Besides, we also enjoyed eating Kralamond (shepherd’s purse) that grew wild on the lawns of the hospice. Opening the pod of the shepherds’ purse and eating the tiny fruit inside was a good pastime.
One day Ali returned, and his homecoming was attributed to Amaa Saib, his taweezand nettle kept in his old clothes. Ali had returned home because of the nettle stings inside his old clothes in the attic of our house. I believed it with all my innocence.
The ominous shadows of the nettle stings that I got while cutting them continued looming large. These often reminded me of Noor Sahib, that fearsome white-bearded turbaned teacher checking boys’ uniforms at the morning assembly. Many boys came to school without taking a bath in the morning. Some did not bathe for days together with their necks blackened as if painted with soot from the kerosene lamps of the vendors selling beef tikka outside cinema halls. Noor Sahib first checked the hands and then the necks of the boys. The unclean boys were asked to stay back in the school lawns after the morning assembly- then subjected to severe soai-shalak.
Lashing with bunches of nettle on naked backs, chests, arms, and even faces were the worst kind of corporal punishment children were subjected to. Oh! It was worst than Kana-Paakar (Murga punishment). One of the teachers Arzan Nath, used to hit even the boys’ eyes with nettle for not doing the homework. The teacher perhaps did not know this deadly plant injected a large quantity of formic acid and other chemicals that instantly caused welts on the skin, which could damage the boys’ eyes.
Nevertheless, he knew many stories about this deadly plant, including Roman soldiers using it against their enemies. He talked about the biblical connection of the plant. One of the teachers Abdul Aziz, while lashing boys with nettle for their delinquencies, often reminded them of the story of the tonga-loads of nettle carried in 1947 to Jammu by Abdullah’s lieutenant for controlling the agitating people. There were also stories about a top cop using this “zaliam grass” against political opponents inside the Kothibagh police camp.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
