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