Will You or Will You Not?

Upon your return from the desert odyssey, facing the bedroom mirror as you dig the comb of resolve in your matted strands and a golden sprinkle of cold sand pours from your head, like a fine rain of our memories, or when the late sun sneaking through the curtains awakens my dried kiss on your nape; will you genuinely care retracing your steps back to the cold nights of Jaisalmer, into the heart of your solitude, where we always met in thoughts of longing? And lie down on the desert floor may be, inside your tent with my omniscience beside you, and watch the moon enthral a village of stars gathered on the sloping roof, with its silver humming of love songs? When the feral night winds of my desires fill your skirt and your thighs contract to a carnal bliss, will you not unlace the silken knots on your bony back and lie naked in submission, feeling my shadow climb your body? Will you not open your arms to the emptiness of your world, and behold my ghost in the sheltering warmth of your bosom, honouring a love that we, alas, couldn’t be?

Will you ever cherish returning to places we had together been, I wonder, even if it is with your lips in a different mouth, or simply lean into the sun cracked mirror of your reality and vapour the glass in a hard breath of denial, calling me ‘a fucking mirage' ?

By - Sobhan Pramanik

Weeping Winds

Today, the sun had receded at the earliest, I think. Fallen quietly into the trough of mountains, even before the day birds from their tireless soaring have returned to their home in the pines. The mist is thin—floating in lazily from the distance, like plumes of smoke fanned away by someone trying to light an oven somewhere for this early night’s supper. Handful of scattered stars wink and fade behind the drifting smoke, and the moon, slightly thicker than a sickle shaped moon, up somewhere behind me at the back of the house, traces shadows of trees on my dewy courtyard. Fallen night jasmines, soaked in dew, lend their fragrant soul into the rushing winds. 

In the cold blue gleam of winter, I observe that the Maple at the eastern corner of my courtyard had dropped its last clinging leaves to survive the winter and the wind now roves about my house in seclusion. It had lost its sole companion. The lush green canopy that once was home to his breezy wanderings, were now barren. The day long cuddling under the sun, listening to bird songs; her embracing the rain, his shaking her dry; his whistling praises and her lustrous blush--winter had snapped them all. It now sweeps the mountains howling in agony, returning every now and then to the empty branches with memories of their togetherness.

It thumps at my window in anticipation, hoping for someone to push it ajar. Someone equally lonely perhaps, to weep the loves lost this dreading night.  The panes stuttering in their frames, binds me to the autumn in my heart. I remember the fateful winter when she bid her adieu and I was the sullen wind at her window, pleading to be let in, to let go every conflict and connect our fate once again into a united forever. I wish to throw the window open and let the weeping wind gush in. Perhaps awaken my buried wounds with its cold touch once again and spend this night reaching out to a wishful dream, crawling along our respective bridges of false hopes. But something holds me back. The window is now shrouded in mist, the knocking drowned, as I hear a commanding voice in my head and steady myself against the desire to fall back into time. ‘To love is to let go…to love is to accept’

Some Springs never happen and some loves are never returned. It was a reality that needed time to sink in. And stranded on either side of the fogged glass pane, it was for us to bare our wounded hearts to the healing of time and let fortune eventually lead us to the right person, to that evergreen tree, who won’t ever leave our side, no matter how bad the cold gets. 

By - Sobhan Pramanik

Lampshade

It was from the early days of your embroidery classes, I remember, when you were perfecting your skills for a French knot, that you made me a lampshade. Discarding the dusty, butter paper hat from over the aluminium base, I had watched you drape the light with your creative accomplishment – a strip of orange fabric with three French knotted bright yellow daisies in bloom, etched equidistant along the length of the shade. You had then thrown the switch on and a muffled yellow sheen, permeating the satin, had drowned my gloomy room in a warm sundown glow. Across the sombre horizon of walls were our rolling shadows--outstretched arms curled into stick figures, a couple strolling hand in hand beneath low mountain peaks.

It had been many years now, since you had walked off your chosen way and the tungsten in the bulb too had snapped with time. But never for once had I desired to replace it from beneath the shade. Only sometimes, early morning, I move it from my table to the window sill and carefully place it in the path of the drifting sunbeams. For once, the daisies come to life. The rising sun screened through the lampshade, fuses my reality and the past into a happy possibility; until soon I hold out my arms against the yellow dust torches pouring into my room and meet a lonely, weeping man in the mountain shadows.

By - Sobhan Pramanik

Lost Pride (Mountain Tales - V)

Evenings are a hushed whisper in the hills. Unlike the long, dwelling hours of sunshine, the darkness is a slowly befalling sheet of calm. Long after the sun has slept in the valleys, it is the cool grey of dusk that lingers, till all the mountains and the huddling pines become pyramids of shadows against the sky and the moon awakens over Srinagar - a beautiful bride blushing in the rippling mirror of the Dal.

I was walking down the embankment garlanding the infamous Dal lake of Kashmir, that Arshid called up to inform us about two men being shot down by the army in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. It took a moment for me to absorb the sudden sadness in his voice. A Kashmiri woman from one of the nearby villages, was molested by an Indian army soldier. Hands that once were held out in a pledge to upholster the honour of the nation, that evening, like many other evenings, couldn’t safeguard the little world of humanity. Hearts that on any other day would have taken a bullet for its people, that fateful moment, crouched behind the veil of evil.

The shameful happening had at once set the mob off and people had flocked onto the streets in protest. Stones were pelted at army barracks and in response to the rebuke of the civilians, the army had opened fire. Cruel and unapologetic as it may sound, the fair disappointment expressed to stand guard of a woman’s pride, was thus met with the fatal killing of two young men. A degrading choice, perhaps, to numb the powerless with the vision of death. But then too much of grief, held too long at the gun point of terror, evolves into a fearless expression of its own. A curfew broke out and the rampage moved from one village to another like a gouging fire. The mountains at once united to redeem its wounded self.

It no longer felt like the usual evenings on the mountains. The wind mourned the fallen souls and the wounded dignity of our women. The otherwise happy chaos that dwelled the streets of Srinagar, the call of vendors selling Pashmina shawls and the haranguing of tourists, were all replaced by a dreading calm. A seething anger could be felt doubling in the air. I heard the shutters come thundering down on the shops around the lake. Sikhara owners having long moored their boats, had left the Ghats.

I walked back to my hotel and at the waiting lounge caught sight of a lady sitting across the brown velvet couch kept against the wall. Her long, dark hair set free upon her shoulders. In a small second of my collecting the keys to my room from the reception and taking the stairs, I met her wandering eyes and all of sudden, everything came rushing came back at me, like a hungered leopard – Arshid’s lamenting voice over the phone, the innocent lives bleeding to death and that woman I do not know, her cold tears in her frozen eyes, when an evil man had pulled at the cord of her respect, crushing his own status of a man to  leave her in ruins and all violated right up to her soul. Our civilized existence, our own pride and principles, resounded in the hollow dome of my head, like gunshots of mockery being fired from the muzzle of shame.

Lowering my head, I quietly ambled the stairs. The mist outside had masked the net of stars across the mountains, as the lone moon wept its broken light into my shamed, shattered heart.  

Srinagar was still mist-bound that day, sleeping sound in the wrap of mountains, as we set off on our way to Pahalgam. We drove down the asphalt road that looped around the Dal’s neck like a black cord to ward off evil. Stunningly sculpted boat houses sitting upon the still waters, looked like a city in flood. Sikharas moored at the ghats, swayed in the wind, clicking against one another. At the horizon, the smoky sky filled the V between mountains, like a puzzle finding its pattern. An almost soundless drizzle soon dotted the windshield of our car, as Arshid flicked on the wiper and the roads narrowed ahead of us, meeting the dusty, broken village tracks crawling through the boulevard of walnut and pine.

Passing through the troubled region of Anantnag, we stopped at multiple checkpoints. Army men had then walked across to us, vengeance peeping from their penetrating eyes, as Arshid rolled down the window and a small conversation sparked off in Kashmiri. It was only when every vehicle was sniffed clear of any kind of threat or suspicion, that the long, bamboo ahead was lifted to let the cars pass.

We continued on our way down the stone pelted roads. The silence of the trees filled the valleys like a sadness woven deep into the heart of a betrayed man. Troops of army stood guard by the streets behind makeshift bunkers. A sprawling net thrown at the front, prevented any clear image to the onlookers. Armed guards toiled the roof tops of all nearby buildings. Combat trucks were propped along the roads. The camouflaged head of a soldier rose out through the deck, his eyes narrowed in an unfaltering gaze behind the muzzle of AK47(s). Not even a bird could have flapped its wing in flight that guarded morning, without inviting a suspicious stare from any of the army men.

The early morning breeze stirred the stench of cruelty back into the air. The call for justice, the protest of the civilians for the wounded pride of a woman and the grieving for the lost lives, all seem to wake with the light of day. The curfew, the unforgiving military and the hurled stones rolling the place were tears that fell from those two beautiful eyes that crowned India’s northern head with honour and diligence - Jammu & Kashmir.

In that dew scented light of the new day, there were two people who cried the most – Kashmir shedding tears for all the blood bath in her heart and me -  someone who loved Kashmir with everything he ever had.

Pahalgam welcomed us with its wide ocean blue sky and acres of apple orchards. Stout, rough barked trees stretched its green arms above us, heavily laden with small white flowers, in a round canopy of hope.

'One flower, one apple’ Arshid said lighting a cigarette perched between his lips.

I reached out to pluck a flower seated between the closure of leaves and held it on my palm. A blossom of hope plucked from the branches of time.

'When will there be Apples?’ I asked Arshid.

'Around September’ he answered letting the ball of smoke float out of his mouth. ‘The whole of Pahalgam will look red. As if some has painted the valley with colors.’

I beamed at him imagining all the trees heavy with its fruits, making a mental note to be back in Kashmir to see the orchards ablaze in red. When the flowers of hope will be at its matured best. Ripe and ready to be savoured.

Following the quick tea break on our way, we rode back into the car as Arshid took us flashing past the colony of houses and the never fading green of tress throwing their shade upon them, like a loving mother clinging to the infant against her bosom. Locals ran their errands in their flowy overcoats. Sleeves hanging limp by the sides, as they warmed their hands in the smothering heat of Kangri (fire basket), held beneath the coat.

It was close to midday when we reached our spot in Pahalgam. A serene clearing between the hills. Lustrous meadows rolled away to the farthest point, vanishing in the chest of mountains. Large pack of horses, white, black, grey and brown, stood huddled by the stream. Their metalled hooved knocking against the pebbles. Their velvety skin shinning under the sun.  

We were to go up the mountains on our individual ponies, to six distinct locations. Soon the rates were negotiated with the owner of the ponies and the horses, held by their reins, were brought to us. It was the first time that I was to ride a horse. I threw my arm around Firdous’s shoulder, one of the three guides who were to accompany us up the mountains and sticking my boot in the D of the saddle, I sat up for the first time on the back of a horse. It was scary to start with. His very shifting on the pebbled bed, felt like I would be toppling over any moment. From anyone looking at me, those initial seconds of sitting on the pony, the grammar of my body was all of a tight rope walker with a huge cliff or an ocean beneath. No movement resembled anything close to that of a rider. The very grunting sound and the dip of the animal’s head while it sneezed, had me slipping from the saddle, until I found Firdous’s supporting hand on my spine and felt immensely relived.

'Aaram se baitho…sahab.’ Firdous smiled. ‘Apko toh sabse tez wala ghoda mila hai.’ He ended taking my hand to his cropped manes. The dense bush of hair tickled through my fingers like a standing breeze.

'Patang…’ He called admiringly, my hand held by his, stroking his manes. The horse responded by lifting its head and stamping its feet on the pebbles. It felt better and for the first time, I relaxed back on the saddle. I stared back into Firdous’s eyes and shared my smile of relief with him. It was amazing how animals, like humans, reflected differently to touches. And often it is that tender reassuring touch of love that we receive or share with someone, is what it takes for a feared heart to feel home.

I held the reins between my fingers and leaned back, as Patang leaped ahead into the trot up the mountains, gradually gaining speed. I watched Firdous scamper behind the line of ponies, often smacking their rears with a cane stick. Patang really was the fastest of all. It drove himself between the other horses and grunting, pulled himself to the front.

We rode along the sun lit valleys into the streams and rocky hedges. Colourful birds swayed from tree to tree. The wind was song. The rivers were orchestra thundering down the rocks. And we, riding along the cliff, the lustrous meadows enfolding around us like a dream, were the hypnotized, mesmerized audience.

At one of the stops in our three hour long, Patang stopped at a stream as I heard Firdous’s screaming voice behind me. He rushed with his cane and was about to strike Patang on his hind legs. I could feel his skin tighten in terror.

‘Don’t’ I shouted.

‘He won’t work, if you allow him to drink water...’

'Let him be. Please.’ I commanded out my agitation, as an exhausted Firdous, perched himself on a massive boulder by the road. Sweat rolled down his furrowed forehead and was struck gleaming by the arrows of sun.

A silence started to fill the air around us. All the other horses came to a halt behind Patang, as I let the reins fall from my fingers and he lowered his head onto the stream of water tumbling through the rocks. Hearing Patang drink in gulps, somehow released the knot of anger in my head. Living beings that we are, our hearts are all even towards the feelings of pain and pleasure. And thirst, the urge for water, the parched sensation within was a kind of pain that turned into death, if not quenched.

As we started again for our next spot, Patang going down the hill this time and the wind rippling through his manes, I did not pick up the reins. I could hear Firdous behind me, ‘Sahaab…lagam…’, but I did not care. By then a part of me had come to believe that Patang won’t throw me off. I instead stooped down and wrapped my hand around his long, bouncy neck.

It was a simple act of adoration. My wrapping of arms. The kind of love that can be transmitted from one living being to another, without sound or words, through the divine channel of feeling that can exist only between two beating hearts. I let my love found its way to Patang’s heart on our way down the slope, as he waded through pools of mud and boulders. And every precarious step that Patang took thereafter, every rise and fall of the mountains, every turn along the mouth of deep valleys, as I sat upon the saddle embracing him, was perhaps his way of loving me back.

As we rode into the evening, the sun throwing saffron shadows across our tired faces, I knew it was nothing but love that somewhere we all were in dire need of – I, you, Patang, this universe and the grieving heart of Kashmir.

    

By - Sobhan Pramanik 

Sehjad (Mountain Tales - IV)

He told me he will wait right there till we come back, as I took his words for a promise and joined the long, line of people awaiting their turn for the famous Gondola (cable car) ride of Gulmarg. Up until then, it did not feel a thing. Even as we moved with hundreds of other people to the boarding platform, down the concrete path flanked on either side by rising banks of snow, the realization of being atop one of the highest terrains in the world and being exposed to the nature’s wild, almost life threatening tantrums, did not register any impact in me. While we squeezed ourselves inside the dome of Gondola at the initiation platform and the electronic doors jammed shut, I was still to have a deep understanding of the truth, the unsaid stories and struggles of the world that held my breath with its very first sight.

It was only when the cable car winded out of the platform and shuddering, rose into the sky that I could finally feel what it was to belong from a land, so immensely bereft of clear sunshine. The white world beyond the glass enclosure of the Gondola was how the heavens looked through a painter’s brush or perhaps felt in a poet’s verse. I let my eyes feed on the serenity of it. The unending expanse of snow covered earth ahead of us, sprinkled with the gathering of pines, it felt like a dream gliding through the clouds from one connecting tower to another. I watched the trees below bend into the storm outside with grits of snow hurling onto the Gondola walls. Occasional lines of footprints was seen riding up the terrain, only to vanish into the thicket of pines. Snow leopards, our guide told us. Villagers carrying timber, strolled the slopes in herds. Their long, flowy overcoats (Pancho in Kashmiri) flapped in the blizzard. Abandoned houses stood in the flood of snow. They belonged to the ‘Gujjars’, the guide said. Gujjars are agricultural clans who owned a large fleet of cattle. During the summers, he said, when the ice from the valleys have melted away, they move up here to let their cattle graze on the fresh mountain grass and with the first flake of snow, they migrate to the lower altitudes for their livelihood. The very snow, this wilderness that brings people from all over the world to the mountains to be a witness of this devastating beauty, actually drove its own people away from their homes. Up there amid the pelting of snow, moving further into the wilderness of Gulmarg in our cable car, I felt for the first time that perhaps the mountains had a flawed sense of oneness.

We de-boarded at the destined station into the foreplay of mist and snowy winds. Setting your feet at that point was exactly like walking the clouds. Except the fact that everything felt like an adventure. It was hard to strike the right balance and walk ahead. The crust of snow kept slipping beneath our feet. The mist hung so low and was so dense, that we lost sight of each other within one hand distance. I took my gloves off and knelt down to touch the snow. I felt my fingers singe and fall away. It was like touching the calamity itself. I grabbed a handful of it and pressing it into a tight ball, hurled it into the endless expanse of the white universe. We danced, laughed, skied and posed before the camera, 15000 feet above sea level. We celebrated the nature’s outcry by embracing the storm and praying to the heavens for the wellbeing of this other heaven that Kashmir is.

When we came back, Sehjad was there waiting for us at the platform, braving all the rain and snow. He pulled open his umbrella for me. Thick drops of rain sang and murmured over our heads, as I walked with him to his sledge.

‘Kaisa maza kiya, saab?’ He asked in his stopping Hindi accent.

‘Bohot. Zindegi bhar yaad rahega.’ I smiled at him, as he held my hand and helped me sit on the wooden plank of his sledge.

I watched his apple skin face, ice water dripping from his hair as he picked up the cord and wrapped it around his shoulder.

‘Ab hum race lagayega….darna nahi bilkul…aap aram se baitho…’ He remarked, as I leaned back on the sledge.

We were at the mouth of a slope and I looked around to find numerous other sledges prepared at the edge to take the plunge. I waved at my brother seated at a distant sledge and wrapped the cord around my fingers. Somewhere an unheard, unseen signal went off and all the sledges at once, jumped into the race. In the thrilling dive down the snow. I took off my glasses and let the winds weave past my face. I saw Sehjad running ahead of me. His long, brown Kurta billowing around him. His head bent low and rolling as he ran into the whirlpool of wind and snow. The whole world seemed diluted to a clear, frozen screen of white in my eyes.

I recollected Sehjad's words, ‘Darna nahi….’ and surrendered myself to the wonder of the moment. It felt free in the lap of mountains. I buried all the negative thoughts in the snow and closing my eyes, wished with all my heart for the fall to never end.

By - Sobhan Pramanik

To read Part 5 Click Here

Arshid (MountainTales - III)

I met Arshid for the first time at the parking lot of Jammu Tawi railway station. It was early morning and thin fog embraced the horizon. I watched him lead us down the rubble strewn alley of the station yard to his maroon Xylo car. In the cool shade of dawn flickering through the leaves of trees, I saw him help himself to the roof of the car, as he loaded our luggage on the carrier.

Arshid seem to have just the right built of a mountain resident. Strong, lanky Kashmiri, with carved features etched deep into his fair skin. Hair parted from the center and thinly cut nose that rose between his eyes like a steep hill. Unruly beard, speckled with twigs of grey, tapered down like a cone till his neck. There was a smile in his eyes and like most Kashmiris, it had creases bleeding from the corner. The way roaring streams erupted from the chest of mountains. Arshid's eyes burst into rivulets, every time I joined him in a talk about the gorgeous terrains of Kashmir.

Riding with Arshid, was riding the mountain air. We leaned with our praying hearts into every blind curve, as he sped past the green valleys. We held our breath with every rise and fall of the mountain slope. It was scary. But it was only some time before we got accustomed to the ways of the man, who loved his life, just that way. At the edge. And we let our fears drown in Arshid's acquaintance with the mountains. In his long, skilled years behind the wheel, cutting through precarious roads.

Exhausted from the overnight train ride, everyone had already hit the snooze button. Sitting right at the front beside Arshid, I tried hard to keep my eyes ajar. But such dreamy was the chain of mountains and the calming touch of winds, that I couldn’t help drift to sleep. When I opened my eyes, we were racing into a mountain. Arshid was hard on the accelerator and the car was flying into the rocky walls, with a fountain cascading down it. I clenched my teeth in terror. Everyone looked traumatized in the mirror. I turned to Arshid, hoping he hadn’t lost his head and before I could manage a word slip through my feared state, I saw the landscape slow down. The car slid to a halt inches away from the mountain. And the gushing fountain bolted down hard on the bonnet with a shudder. Cold water flew in through the window and lapped against my cheek. I was quick to slide the window up. Arshid went out into the rain of fountain and opened the hood. The fountain thus poured into the engine room and thick smoke erupted out of it. That was when I in my numb, feared state, came to know about Arhsid's way of cooling the car’s engine. 

He came back drenched. His white cotton shirt stuck to his back as got behind the wheels.

“Ye hui nah baarish…” He smiled at me, as the creases deepened around his eyes and ignited the car. I was stunned and awestruck at the calmness he perceived at the edge of his life and in the thrill of losing it in the next second. Arshid was someone, who lived and died for the mountains.

He took us past adobe of pines that danced in the wind, high up on the frozen slopes. Across streams tumbling over rocks. Over bridges that vibrated with the breath of mountains. I rested back, watching the landscape zoom past on my window and played music from the 90’s. That was where I felt we bonded the best. I watched his wrinkled eyes lit up as a love song hit the speakers. Those were my songs, reeling out of my playlist. They say, a person’s choice of songs, speak a lot about them. With Arshid lending his heart into my songs, as we meandered between quiet valleys, it was perhaps our own sad memories associated with those songs that held us together.

Close to evening, while we stopped at a Dhaba for some tea, watching the sun lower in the valley from my seat, Arshid came and sat beside me. He played one of the many songs in his phone that I had transferred to him. We did not exchange any words. There amid the sea of quietness brooding around us, the twilight reflecting from the snow, we let the song guide our love struck heart across the mountains to that one person in our lives, who mean everything to us.

By - Sobhan Pramanik

To read Part 4 Click Here

Gulzar (Mountain Tales - II)

This morning in Kolkata, as mother recounts the snowy terrains of Kashmir; the equally exciting and scary pony ride in the valleys of Pahalgam; the pine willows trembling in the snow breeze, I am taken back to the man who held the cord of my life, when my own body had abandoned me.

Drunk with every landscape of the snowy heaven, I remember those heart battering seconds of having my feet dug in snow at 19000 feet, while I can feel my own fall to death. My knees buckling, head thrown back, warm air thrusting through frost bitten lips and in a while I knew, in one long slide through the white meadows, I will be right at the bottom of the hill, that Gulzar slides in like a blessing from heaven, a saviour in all rights, grips my numb hands and steadies my fall. Those seconds of having life slip away from beneath your feet in the exhilaration of climbing high and then held tight by someone, by an absolute stranger, was in itself an universe of learning. The passing breeze hurled grits of snow into my face. I rubbed clean my glasses and lifted my vapored eyes to his bony face. He sat up high on the hillock, his stretched out hand tightened against mine, as I dangled down the slope.

‘Sambhal ke, Sirji’ I heard his voice come echoing to me, as I once again lifted my numb legs and set it forward into the climb, in the deep mud of snow.

There at the top, the spreading terrain of Sonamarg was quilted with white snow. Low clouds indulged in an intimate affair with the handsome pines, as the sky continued to hurl us with crystals of ice. Skin cracking wind kept sweeping fresh sheet of ice into our face, as we huddled together before the camera to freeze this moment of achievement in our memories for the rest of lives.

Sitting atop the drenched sledge, I asked him is name.

'Gulzar’, he replied.

'Shayari bhi karte ko kya?’ I remarked, as we joined in a laughter. Fumes wafting from our rounded mouths.

We went downhill in a sledge, as I closed my eyes and embraced the winds that rushed into my arms with sheets of snow. I collected in my head images of Gulzar sliding down the snow to hold my hand. His dug cheeks and ruffled hair. Thousands of feet above sea level, in extremes of climate, bereft of everything that encompasses our daily, there was this man, Gulzar, who was ready to set his life on line for an exchange of two thousand rupees.

Down below as I sipped hot Kashmiri Kahwa at a refreshment stall, the endlessly beautiful unevenness of nature shimmering in my eyes, I met with the hollowness of my soul. Looking at the spread of the mountains that towered around us, it was an awareness, a learning of our own insignificance. About how small our existence is in the whole universe. About how vague and meaningless all the parameters of dignity and status are. Mountains are where you bury your own head to reach to the top. It crushes all your heroism, snatches away your principles and belittles your ego. It is all about how big and brave, sometimes, a little human heart can get. That's it. And dangling from Gulzar’s arm at 19000 feet with the winds threatening to sweep me away, I learnt exactly that. 

To the heaven’s savior. 
This one’s for you, Gulzar bhai!!

By - Sobhan Pramanik

To read Part 3 CLICK HERE

Bashir and Mr. Natwarlal (Mountain Tales - I)

I had followed the sun’s trajectory from my front seat that day, propped up beside Arshid, in a day long drive from Jammu to Srinagar. It stealthily rose behind our backs to its pinnacle, lacing the dark, misty hills in the clear warmth of day. Still green valleys, wrapped in smoke and silence, absorbed the sunshine like a numbed pair of hands against a courtyard fire on a winter night, to return to their usual life of birdsongs and blooming Tulips. Winds shook the mist curtains away and the sun at its beaming best, rained on us with its golden shower of light from a corner on the windscreen. And soon it started to fall in its journey. Like everything else in this universe that rises. This time ahead of us. Down an invisible celestial path to an infinity beyond the mountains. I watched the shadows drift and lengthen across the road. The distant peaks enswathed in the colours of dusk, looked like a fire raging in the sky. I laid back in my reclined seat, stretched out in exhaustion from the day long swivelling up the mountains en route Srinagar in a car and saw the night arrive in a charry darkness in the sky, settling over the city like a heavy shroud of smoke from those burning mountains at sunset, leaving the undulating terrain in shadowy heaps of a fallen day.

‘Badami Bagh Cantonment’, Arshid remarked slowing down behind a trail of vehicles and reaching out from behind the wheel to turn down the stereo. I turned to him. His bony face glowed red from tail lamps of cars halted ahead along the narrow two-way road cutting through the heart of the cantonment. A holographic print of Mecca on an oval disc, hung from the mirror on a beaded string. It swung to and fro as he plodded along the bumpy road, casting oscillating shadow across our faces, like a butterfly frisking in the dark.

Outside, high walls crowned with barbed wire fences, rolled along either side of the road, sheltering the settlements to thousands of army personnel deployed in the valley. Hideous watch towers that rose in the dark, had guards crouched behind sand bags, overlooking the valley from the tip of their Kalashnikovs. Combat jeeps, sand coloured and striped in green, sat by the massive iron gate entrances to the cantonment. And propped on their decks were armoured sentries, thick as an old banyan’s trunk, looking around from their position, like a human camera moving about its axis with a rifle strapped to its chest. Through the fine slit on the iron gates where they met in a close, I observed signs of life on the protected world beyond. Fuzzy dots of light scattered at windows and the occasional fading roar of heavy trucks as they meandered along their way through the cantonment acres. Lining the distant backdrop were shadows of mountains and the humming Deodars that bored the evening with a breezy nip, as the pedestrians trundling in their loose phirans, crossed their arms across the chest for warmth.

Arshid had then broken off from the bustling Jammu-Srinagar connector, pulling into an even busier by lane. Running parallel to the road were high, boulder stone pavements on either side, occupied sparsely by vendors seated beneath neon street lamps. Shawls, jackets and handicrafts stocked in heap across a tarpaulin sheet, as people stopped in their stroll to check the items and bargained till the convincing price was reached. Tall, broad men in their woollen phirans, gathered in huddles, smoked and chatted in Kashmiri. Their fair, bony faces elusive behind transcending sheets of smoke. A plump looking man in a velvet jacket walked down the gossiping street selling roasted peanuts. His wicker basket worn around his neck stayed balanced atop his protruding belly. A tiny kerosene lamp embedded in the mound of nuts, its sooty flamed trembled in the breeze. On one side, beyond the pavements, stood a colony of hotels and restaurants. Wide, colourful billboards lit across the façade in a welcoming, highlighted their respective amenities to make the guests feel home. Or even better. And on the other, across the road, reflecting the glittering Srinagar across its still waters, was the beautiful Dal lake. Hundreds of boat houses stationed closely upon the water looked like a wooden island. With stars dancing on its ripples and a half-moon with its coy sheen silvering the lake, like how a woman’s coquettish smile engulfs a man’s heart, it was there in Kashmir that I met the sky descend to earth, submitting in love and desires to the wonderment of mountains.

‘Welcome to Cashmere?’ (Kashmir) Bashir greeted shaking my hand, as I descended from the car. His deep, baritone voice was a reliable reassurance we all tend to reach out to on a strange land away from our homes. Tufts of smoke wandering out through his thin lips.  

‘Thank you’ I smiled back, feeling my hand vanish in his massive grip. Thick, knobby fingers calloused at the touch, with the ridges on his palm hardened into thick corns - hardworking pair of hands of a labouring man, I wondered.

We stood there until Arhsid had brought down all the baggage from the rooftop carrier of his car, untangling them from the coil of nylon rope and then followed Bashir down the embankment towards the ghats. He walked ahead of us. A tall, looming stature with his head slightly ducked, leading us on with his small but heavy steps. A young boy in a red jacket walked past him carrying most of our bags. Having arrived at Ghat 7, I cautiously took the wet steps down towards the lake with Bashir. Two Shikaras closely moored, awaited our arrival. The young boy lent me a hand as I stepped onto the prow. It dipped and wobbled as I walked up to the seat in quick steps to reclaim my equilibrium. Bashir leapt onto another boat behind us and waved the man to move. I saw the boy bend across the prow and pick the oar from the sunken belly of the Shikara. His long hair fell over his face like a lustrous veil. He then straightened up and pushing his manes across his cheek, plunged the oar into the glittering water. Ripples raced towards the shore and the boat started to glide. Bashir stood firm on the boat behind us, like an ATC tower that directed flights across the sky to their destinations. In less than two minutes, the young man with his long, powerful strides of the oar had crossed us over, stopping at the de-boarding platform of our chosen houseboat - Duke Well. I had then seen him move across to our boat, his heavy frame pushing the boat into the water for a moment and had lofted himself quickly on the platform, holding the boat close to the steps with his left hand as we ascended. It was there beneath the yellow light of chandelier at the foyer of Duke Well, that I saw Bashir’s face for the first time.

He seemed to be in his sixties, sternly defying time, wearing his unruly, silvered hair short with slightly longer tufts swept back from the front. Broad, tall and strong. He had a milky complexion and his wide forehead was always creased in three dipping lines at the centre. Smokey grey eyes, seated in two hollow caves under his brows, bore an even penetrating gaze. Like every other Kashmiri past the first half of their lives, his eyes too were surrounded by radiating lines, like streams erupting out of mountain chests. His neck was a loose sheath of skin clung to his Adams apple that shook under his heavy, baritone voice. And his beard was a narrow strip of powdery white hair, rounded perfectly at his chin, reflected the razor works of a veteran barber. He wore a striped woollen shirt, its collar worn and softened over the years barely stood around his neck, draped over which was visible the neckline of a dull brown sweater and topping it all off was the traditional phiran. Thick grey in colour with its huge fan like collars thrown over his shoulder, running all the way down to his ankles. A coppery zipper, half pulled, kept the billowing cloak in place.

Having freshened up, we all sat together on the floor of the carpeted foyer. Elegant looking couches sat by the pine wood walls and low stools, shining from the varnish, held fine flower vases. An artificial stack of coloured leaves and petals heaved out of their narrow necks. From the intricately carved low roof, hung antique lanterns in a soft golden glow, that threw around us small round shadows of our gathered existence. Bashir walked in through the door, taking out a smoking fire basket from under his phiran and kept it between us.

‘This is called Kangri in Kashmiri.’ I watched him lower his massive torso gently onto the floor, reclining slightly by the edge of a couch. His phiran oozing a dry scent of weed smoke. ‘In severe cold, everyone here carries it under their phiran to warm their hands.’ He held his hard palm out over the basket, feeling the heat on his fingers. The pot was filled with hot embers, sprinkled over with a sheet of saw dust, burning slowly underneath and emanating a smothering heat that warmed our strained, tired bodies. Over a low glass top table, I saw the young man who had rowed us over, pour tea into porcelain cups from a samovar. Fumes poured from its curvy nozzle, as the cups filled with a gurgling sound, leaving a trail of bubbles on the surface.

As we drank hot ginger tea, Bashir in his heavy voice enlightened us with glimpses of his life. A savouring look back at his life in the mountains. He shared with us his experience of Amitabh Bacchan and Rekha arriving at the Duke Well, which according to him was only a small, humble lodging back in the late seventies to shoot for Mr. Natwarlal. A black and white polaroid in a mahogany frame had Bashir along with Amitabh and the director Rakesh Kumar, hanging from the wall. A hint of pride gleamed in his deep eyes, like a splinter in Kangri, as he talked of how through his hard work he managed to get his sons educated from abroad and then raised his hand to point at the young man in red jacket standing in a corner with the samovar in his hand.

‘He mastered in Hospitality Management from Durban, South Africa.’

I stopped with the sip in my mouth and turned to him.

‘I came back here to help my father with this business.’ He paused. ‘More tea?’

He asked with a smile and leaning forward, peered down my empty cup. I hesitantly held it out and he refilled it with warm, sweet tea.

I was enamoured off him. A deep sense of gratitude hung heavy over me and suddenly, on an impulse, I wanted to get up and serve him a cup of tea from the samovar. While the world on the other side was drowning in self-indulgence, digging their own ways to the grave striving for power and influence and the prevailing pseudo elitism, that like a termite infestation was silently and gradually hollowing up the universe of its courtesy; here was another man in the cold heart of Kashmir in India, returned from abroad, lifting baggage and rowing boats in a humility, mocking the standards of dignity at its face and reforming, resetting the legacies of selflessness at a whole new level.

Dinner was a small but a filling spread composed of spicy lamb curry and naan brought in from Shamyana, a popular eatery in Srinagar around the Dal lake channel. We savoured the meal till the very last bit and getting up from the table absolutely stuffed, headed straight to our rooms. Wrapped in electronically heated quilts, sleep stole me away as soon as my tired head sank into the pillow.

Late into the night, it was the sound of rain drumming on the pine wood windows that woke me up. I left the bed and putting on my slippers went out of the room. Passing through the warmly lit aisle and into the foyer, I heard the thud of my footsteps on the hard wooden surface beneath the carpet. With an effort I slid opened the entrance and emerged on to the rectangular veranda overlooking the Dal lake. Leaned over the balustrade, I watched an amorphous rain fall in silence, coating the landscape in a liquid shine. Fine granules of cool rain dotted the still surface of Dal making it look like a sieve. Reflection of street lamps trembled across the water, like Kashmir struck by a low Richter earthquake. A cool, crisp wind swept down the mountains, hurling in my face the soft drizzle and I smiled back at the drenched darkness, exhaling a sigh of relief.    

Bashir and his son sat on a bench playing cards. In one hand he held the cards spread, analysing his next hand and on the other burnt a chillum – a strip of rag fastened around it where his fingers held the fuming pipe. He raised it to his lips, the heel of his palm covering his mouth and chin and puffed. The coal made a whirling sound, as the tip of the chillum brightened to a flaming red and then lowering his hand, played a thoughtful card from between his fingers. Somewhere a gun was fired. The sound hung in an echo in the heavy mountain air. I look at him. Brown curls of smoke covered his face as he breathed, pouring in through his mouth and nostrils. He nodded back with a smile. His thick, calloused hand raised in a ‘Do not worry’ at me and I sat back relaxed, facing the windy lake and the looming circle of mountains in rain.

‘Come, I will show you a magic’ Bashir’s son said shuffling the deck on his palm with a smile plastered to his face.

I sat across him wondering which among the two was more magical – the hideous play of cards or that I was sitting there in the dark watching the rain drench the mountains, as the golden leaves of Chinar danced in the pre-dawn light.  

By - Sobhan Pramanik     

To read Part 2 CLICK HERE