You are in the attic at our native house in Kashmir. I am helping you sleep. You’re glued to the song, ‘zindagi denewaale sun, teri duniya se dil bhar gaya, mai yaha jeete ji mar gaya’. I’m sewing a white shirt for the long journey. Somebody came from behind, snatched it from my hands and burnt it. The pillow is drenched in tears. Your face has grown thin. I can only see the curled beard. I have been shaving your face all day.
Somebody else is on that bed. He called me for the very first time at 5 am today; shaking my hands: ‘Tathee, tathee, wake up, what about the watuk, bring these things along, time to gather for herath pooja.’ It’s July 29, 1976. The baraat has arrived in our village Pajjan. I haven’t seen him in person. We don’t know each other. We are getting married. The family is asking for some time so that both of us could talk before the marriage ceremony. He’s playing cricket with the village boys. He removed the headgear and kept it on the ground. Gurujee is asking for him. He washed his headgear and sat in the lagan. He whispers in my ear, ‘my family is now complete.’ I am the happy bride. I can’t remember a day when we were not together.
All the houses are colliding with each other, our home in Kashmir, the one in police quarters, Krishna Nagar and the one we've built in Barnai. All of them have been grounded to soil. There’s mud around. I’m stuck in the mud. When there’s nobody in the house, it feels the entire concrete will fall on me. I run towards the living space, to the lane outside, towards the verandah. I’m fearful that lightning will strike me anytime. I'm at Adlach, Trail searching for you. Behna met me on the way, somewhere; she said I had reached Chodur, far from our native village. He is holding a stick in his hands. He can't walk properly due to some ailment. I run towards the village, open the door of the house, you're sitting on the bed, wearing pheran, you sobbed like a child, wailed, ‘I looked for you everywhere, near the temple, around the orchard, I thought I lost you.' ‘I'm only here, how can you lose me!’
Get me my white kurta. I contested my death with Chitragupta, I wasn't ready, I was healthy, a blinding white light took me away, he promised me that I'm allowed to visit my house in the evening. I came last night. Where were you? Nobody heard me. I ran towards the door and fainted. You were fast asleep. ‘It was 1 am. It was the only hour I slept during the entire night. You were our Aknandun. You were a raging river. The river has dried now. What will happen to us?’ Your head is resting on my hand. Why haven’t you cleaned the house on Shivratri? I’m tired. I don’t want to.’
The year is 1975.I’m posted at Srinagar in the Police Department. I’ve to reach home by evening. The weather is bad. It has started snowing. I boarded the last bus at the tourist reception centre. I reach Khanabalat dusk; the entire place is draped in snow. There’s hardly a soul around, not a single vehicle plying on the road. Nothing is visible. I start walking in my long shoes towards home. It takes me about three hours to reach home by foot. As I entered the village, I saw people huddled around. Upon enquiring, they tell me that they have to remove snow from their roof and they can’t wait till the morning because the houses can cave in during night due to heavy snow. I take the shovel and climb on almost five houses, clear the snow from all of them and finally reach home at around 11pm.
A robber has entered the courtyard of our house. I see him through the chink in the window. It is dark outside. I chased him to the end of the village. He turns around and throws his axe towards me. I take the heavy axe home. The entire village is thrilled to witness my bravery.
I’m getting married, three of my sisters too, it’s our mehndiraat, somebody takes a picture, it’s our only memory from the marriage ceremony, we are wearing new wristwatches. I am with my father at Kokernag. We are on a picnic. I am in the garden with the entire family. We stayed at this beautiful place for three years. It’s the place of my dreams. I accompany my father to a new place in Kashmir on every posting.
My father suffers a heart attack while bathing in the brook (naag) near our house. He is only 53. All of us ran towards the place. He is on the ground; his body has turned oily and warm. I keep my fingers near his nose. He is no more. Years piled up. I survived an assassination attempt in Kashmir when twelve terrorists barged into our house in the evening of February 1990. I had stayed back in the nearby village. The commander of the terrorist organisation known by the name Mann Darzi had already killed a number of Kashmiri Pandits figuring in his hitlist. The Valley was on the boil. Pandits were hounded out of their homes during that year. I stayed in the village Bongam at one of our neighbour’s house, in the cowshed, then at Sham Lal’s place, then in my own house, in one of the rooms, forced by my wife to leave, reached Mattan, came back to my village again, left again next morning, came back from Wanpoh realising that I can’t leave my family alone.
Animal carcass was thrown at the temple in the village to lure me out. She gave her earrings to the temple treasurer, borrowed Rs 1,200 from him and gave Rs 500 to me, asking me to leave. I turned up again in the morning. We packed a bag or two containing the school certificates, other documents, some rice, stove and kerosene oil, thinking that if we stop anywhere we should have something to feed our children.
We are heading towards a different place. Before leaving, she untied the cows, the newly born calf and requested one of the villagers to take care of them until our return. We stopped at Pajjanto look for her relatives. All the Kashmiri Pandit families had already left the village. We boarded a bus from KMD stand and reached Krishna Nagar, Miran Sahib Jammu.
The local dogra family gave us a room on rent. They were compassionate enough to look after us, attended our immediate needs, and offered us empathy. We were left penniless. My salary was stopped because I couldn’t return to my duties due to the life threat. I was forced to return back because of my family. I had my children, mother, wife and unmarried sister to feed and look after. I survived the tumultuous years of the valley and was transferred to Jammu after several years, served in different wings of the police department; constructed a small house out of my savings in the year 2003, retired in the year 2011, travelled with my wife to different states, wanted to visit the Sharda temple in Teetwal before I was struck by this terrible disease. It was waiting for me all these years.
I continued struggling for fourteen months, searched across the length and breadth of the internet about it, learnt that there’s no cure. I was diagnosed with Type four motor neuron disease; lost grip of my muscles and the movement. In the initial days, I wasn’t able to hold things up, ataxia, no coordination, a month later, condition worsened, then onto the stick, three months later onto the wheelchair, then problem in breath and swallowing, leading to bulbar palsy, breathlessness, then onto the concentrator, two people helping me in the washroom, lost the movement of my legs completely, body, limbs wasted, turned into a stone, to be lifted only from one place to another.
My sister was also diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma. She died on June 16, 2023. He dictated his last wish to his son, forced him to write the same on a paper, that a portion of his remains be immersed in the brook running adjacent to the crematorium at his native village Trail, Anantnagin Kashmir.
It was August. He wasn’t able to swallow anything. He pulled out the ryles tube inserted a day before, lost his speech and had to be hospitalised for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. The situation worsened. During the procedure, he suffered a heart attack and was shifted to the emergency ICU of GMC Jammu. He kept on hanging for fifty four days. The disease incapacitated him. Pleural effusion, countless X rays, ultrasound, MRI, antibiotics, needle punctures, chest tube insertion, urine catheter, central line catheter. His final days were devoid of memory. He kept on staring at the roof with his glassy eyes and then came the day of final departure. It was 4pm October 17, 2023. One of the doctors climbed on the bed and started giving him CPR. All the vitals went haywire. Nothing worked. He had moved on, away from all the pain. The ECG machine confirmed that he’s no more.
All of you are standing near the cow-shed. I have shifted my kitchenware. Our new house is under construction. The year is 1986. Your feet are covered with mud. You have planted the saplings in the field. Rajni is washing the round brass utensil and has applied the soil paste on its bottom; she is now putting the dots upto the brim. Baji scolds her ‘May lightning strike you, what have you done to it?’
I am washing your feet. You are hiding your face in the long sweater. I force you to reveal. Your upper teeth are missing. You hide your face out of shame. He has gathered all the horses of the town and is leading them to the pond near the National Highway. Several trucks loaded with grass are lined up to feed them. He hasn’t eaten since he passed away. He’s oblivious of the day. He’s lying at my feet and is asking for the evening tea.
We went to Kashmir. Vishal had faint memories of the locality. He spotted his school, the playground; we were told by the family that there are two giant chinar trees near the crematorium. It was autumn. We saw the trees from a distance. There’s only an empty ground strewed with auburn leaves, the remains inside the pot were immersed in the brook; we chanted vedic mantras, took some photos and hurriedly left the place. Vishal narrated the old days, he identified the land of other Kashmiri Pandit neighbours, his voice broke in between, he turned emotional, identified with his native village, said that this feels like homecoming, has moved something in his heart, the home in Jammu is just concrete slabs.
He remembered his childhood days. He saw the place where they played cricket, ‘we called it the golden land in our childhood days, cricket tournaments were organized here, I came back to this place after thirty four years, our roots are still here, this is the garden of Baljee uncle, every single day flashes in my memory, feels I never left this place, my home is only three hundred meters from the golden land.’
We gathered some courage and walked towards the village, opened the bolted door of the temple, poured water on Shivlinga and drank from the brook near the temple. Vishal looked at his house, now sold to some Muslim family, ‘this is the place where I was born and grew up; I remember each and every day spent here, that was my room, we were happy, we had everything, now we are scattered, lost souls forever, without our homes, carrying the burden of the fading memories, everything is finished.’ We tip-toed back to our car and stopped only at Mattan to take a mandatory dip in the cold, sacred waters of the Sun temple. Moti Lal Pandita’s last wish was fulfilled. A portion of him reached home after his death.
(Sushant Dhar is a Jammu-based writer)
