A cold evening in frontier Kashmir:
“There is a long way to go. So why don’t we sort time telling each other something interesting,” the long-jawed man said to the boy.
“Not a bad idea,” the boy shot back, his gaze firm.
Then looking ahead at the dirt track he added “How long is it going to take us to get there?”
“Four hours if we walk at this pace. Five if we go a little slow,” the tall man said for effect.
The boy and the man had been walking like this for more than two hours. They began their trek immediately after the evening tea — at 5pm. Clouds had gathered in the evening sky after a particularly dry day. A mild breeze suggested that hilly rain was in the air.
It was only a matter of time before the clouds could hold it no more. A grey feather fluttered aimlessly in the wilderness. Black crows hurried back to their white eggs. Eager jackdaws followed them, occasionally getting tossed up in the now-mellow, now-strong gales. The wind was like an invisible orchestra master and everything flapped to it — the village dust, twigs of the old tree, hustle of the new city, border-line of the cream Pathani dress the boy wore, the odd feather.
The boy was a city slacker who lived in a hovel by the shallow Jhelum. Raised in old quarters of the city, the only worthwhile vocation he ever learn’t was swimming. His father worked as a helper in a local politician’s [Gula nationya-el‘s] office and could ill-afford to send his three children to school. Mother was old-fashioned, who believed that earthquakes were caused by a certain dark bull.
The bull tale stayed on with Imy – as his friends would call him — for a very long time.
*****
It was Imy’s eighteenth autumn and he returned home one evening after attending the Ramadan prayers. Children would enthusiastically rush to the local mosque in evenings – near Iftar time – to collect cheap-quality dates and pieces of peeled oranges usually distributed to the faithful free of cost – to break the fast.
The ritual was festive.
Imy sat in the last row with his friends. Children had to content with smaller dates and lesser slices of oranges. The fat distribution guy knew that no kid fasted and they came to the mosque only for the fruit. The children hated the lardass.
The day was more colder and the trees looked stark naked, as they usually do in autumn. After dinner Imy watched a soap on the black and white TV at home while his father went out for the last prayer in the day. The boy didn’t bother to go for the day’s final Namaz because they gave no dates or fruit bits this time. Also the last prayer was longish. It was the month of fasting — Ramadan — but Imy wasn’t fasting. He found it difficult to sit up – and worse still, eat — at 4am on a biting cold morning.
In Ramadan Imtiyaz’s mother made salty tea in the evenings. It was a pink addiction no Kashmiri family – worth its salt — could do without. The tea bubbled in the copper samovar while the family waited for father to return. Imy’s dad came home shortly after the last Namaz for the day and declared that it was cold as stone outside. Everyone drank endless tea bowls of the carnation-colored brew. Imy drank a couple. They retired to bed soon after. Their teeth tasting mildly salty.
Around mid-night Imy went to take a pee. He thought he smelled camphor but quickly dismissed his olfaction. Back in his cozy bed, his thoughts meandered on a blue-eyed girl who sold Dal-Masaal [Kashmiri baked beans] in her little basket, outside Gula nationya-el‘s big office.
******
Walking with the long-jaw and inching towards the invisible line of control [variously called line of actual control, border, boundary, no-man‘s land and sarhad], Imy commenced his account.
The big man listened with rapt attention.
So you see guide-Saab, Imy began, “I am only 18 now. That boring night when I was trying to get some sleep, I was actually thinking naughty things — about a girl. Despite the fact that it was the holy month of Ramadan and as a Muslim I shouldn’t have been thinking about unholy things. But the best things in life are — often — prohibited. I remembered her eyes and her bosom. You must be thinking how shameless I am.”
“Oh no no”, long-jaw urgently said, “Please continue”.
The guide was 33 and completely hooked onto the story of the boy, almost half his age.
The boy recounted.
The girl must have been my age. She had the greatest smile in the entire city and could set a quick fire to an entire forest with a mere ember of her beauty. She came with her grand-mom everyday of the week and they sat opposite the politician’s home-cum-office selling the Dal-Masal. Now Dal-Masal isn’t exactly a dull thing to eat.
It used to be the best snack of Srinagar in those innocent years. The best black lentils would be boiled and sprinkled with the best spices and neatly decorated in twig baskets to be carried to all parts of the city. Usually women sold the snack. The big-eyed, bean-basket bearing women were the Kanephoros of the Dal.
The boy proceeded:
On many days I accompanied my father to his office only to see the girl with her light-tresses, hanging from beneath her black and white scarf. Her tresses seemed to protect her beautiful eyes. And may be her knockers too! My father sometimes gave me a two-rupee coin embossed with a poor lion joined to his two unfortunate siblings by both hips. I ran to buy Dal-Masal from the old lady. While the grandmother put the little black beans in the white paper cone, I secretly watched her grand-daughter from the corner of my eye.
I was hopelessly in love.
The fat beans appeared whispering to each other: She is the one for him! And the truth be told she really looked so much like me. Her grand mom made her money from Gula nationya-el‘s visitors, just like my father made his living cleaning the politician’s office. She looked poor though. And of course I never dared to ask her name.
Lying on my mattress, on that boring cold-as-a-stone night, in the middle of Ramadan, I was thinking about her. The smell of camphor now gave way to the smell of skunk. It was getting overbearing.
I looked around but nothing seemed amiss. I felt a little ashamed at my boner. I was being naughty. I got up to look outside, troubled by the smell. The smell of skunk was now the smell of a million weeds on fire. Perhaps the poor girl went in the forest and actually smiled, I thought. May be the woods are on fire!
I went near the nut-wood window that opened on the river. A sharp stench blew in as I opened the window. Only a drunken haze of orange was visible. I was befuddled, unable to make out anything. It appeared as if someone was laying dynamite to the entire vale. My boner evaporated. I tried to look hard into the darkness but saw nothing. Then suddenly my eyes caught an orange orb. It was fire, at a distance!
I ran to tell my parents. My father quickly put on his Pheran [woolen cloak] and immediately ran out in the never-ending darkness.
I followed him towards the flames.
*******
Fire is a very curious element. We roast marshmallows on it and we warm our souls by its heat but it has to be watched over — always.
It lunges at you if you leave it uncared. The Greeks thought Prometheus stole fire from Zeus. What beautiful myths?
A fire can steal us of dignity, Imy thought, as he ran, faster than his peon father. In less than a minute it was clear. Gula nationya-el‘s office-cum-home was on fire. Surprisingly not a soul was out.
Father-son were the first to reach the spot. Where was the politician? Either everyone had vanished into the ebony night or they were simply snoring away, their teeth still tasting salty,
in anticipation of the early-morning meal. Ever a loyal, the peon started hollering for help.
The commotion woke some people in the vicinity. Meanwhile Imy ran to the mosque and woke the Hamami [mosque keeper] up.
“We need to switch on the mosque loud-speaker system and ask for help”.
“Oh boy, you’ll have me skinned alive, we can’t put on the mike”
“How else do we inform the fire tender service?” Imy asked.
“Oh God, Okay I’ll look for the keys to the mike cabinet”.
“Quick, hamam-kak, or else the whole area will be razed”
“God, I can’t seem to find the keys” the Hamami said.
“You dimwit, you’ll get us all killed.”
“I seriously put them somewhere but can’t remember”
The Hamami looked everywhere except his neck. That is where the bunch of keys hung. Now a very few people knew that the kindly old man had partial dementia. The only thing that kept him working in the mosque for a dozen years was that he almost always forgot to ask for his salary and people thought, gleefully so, that he was volunteering for the holy bondage. An extended corvee.
Imy had to make a quick decision. He knew that his father’s hollering must have aroused people but that was not going to be enough. They needed to quickly call the fire tenders to douse the raging fire. But it was early 90’s and it was Kashmir. There were only two telephones in the entire area. Doctor Nadia had a granite black rotary phone but the telephone pole outside her gynae-clinic-cum-home was quietly uprooted many days back and artfully arranged on the main highway, some yards away from the unsuspecting doctor’s compound. Men in chequered masks laid an ambush. They awaited a two-jeep, two truck military convoy that was seen going uphill. They expected it to come downhill. They expected the convoy to halt to remove the pole. They expected to shower the troopers with bullets. The convoy never turned up. The pole was removed next morning by some truckers. No one came to connect poor doctor Nadia’s telephone. The second telephone belonged to the politician.
And his home – with the telephone in it — was on maroon fire.
With the telephone option ruled out, Imy thought about the next best option. Though he never went to school, his natural instincts were sharp and he quickly ran to the riverside. The fire brigade was located on the other end of Jhelum. There used to be a big bridge, connecting people, on which men and motor cars and horse carts would merrily cross, only about a year back. It was summarily burnt to ashes by men in chequered masks just when the militancy began. They expected to halt the military moment in the city. They ended up halting old lifestyles. Now boatmen charged one rupee per person per taar [crossing the river in a boat] during daytime.
No boats operated at night.
Imy dived into the onyx river. A cruel cold current entered his head and left through his toes, near his toe-nails. Though the water was calm, the chill pierced his skin and chomped at his young bones.
His head began to spin but he swam hard. The nightly fish watched his thighs urgently pedal at the waters. Each stroke was a searing pain but he waded on. A smart swimmer never raises his head till he touches the target with his little finger, his father used to tell him. The swoosh of the cold autumn water made him dizzy. He sliced past a school of fish on a nightly patrol, all of them breathing through their gills. He ducked small logs that floated on the youthful river. Imy froze to his marrow but pushed on to reach the other bank. His little finger was too pale, too numb to touch anything.
The politician’s home continued to burn in flames from hell.
*****
Imy limped his way to the fire brigade office. He looked like a Popsicle.
Upon seeing a pale boy with a pale little finger, drenched to the bone, listlessly walking to the fire-station office, the sleepy guard quickly rose to his feet.
“There is a big fire at the minister’s home,” Imy said as he dropped on the door.
Firemen quickly took off Imy’s wet shirt. Another man offered to pull his still dripping trousers off. Imy’s foot smelled of fish fins. They gave him a fire-tender color towel to wipe himself. Since he was too droopy to do it himself, two kindly firemen helped. Imy instantly swooned.
The youngest firefighter Ahmed ran upstairs to fetch his clothes from his fire-tender color steel trunk. The older firefighters asked the rookie to swiftly dress up the boy. He got the braveheart [with some difficulty] into his shirt and his fire-fighter color jacket. Imy looked numb and dead. Ahmed felt like dressing up a corpse. He removed Imy’s wet underpants and got him [with much difficulty] into his pants. He carefully pushed the boy’s boyhood aside to zip him.
Imy was put on a cot. Someone dragged the cot to a hot rusty furnace, billowing away in a corner. Meanwhile three fire tenders with fifteen firefighters in them [five-in-one-tender] rushed to extinguish the flames. They had had to take the long circuitous route to Gula nationya-el‘s house since there was no bridge. It was burnt down in another fire! Why did Prometheus have to steal the damn fire?
Five of the remaining firefighters watched Imy warm his cockles by the hot rusty furnace. In absence of a proper heating system, the furnace was the only alternative. The state had recently issued a tender for a new furnace and was currently awaiting bidders.
Four winters would pass till the lowest bidder would step forward and bag the deal and deliver the new furnace. And the firefighters would continue to use the rusty furnace. Poor men. They looked at Imy as he came to.
“Here a cup of nice salty tea to warm yourself, brave boy,” one bearded fireman said.
“Thanks,” Imy replied and almost instantly added “Have they put off the fire?”
“We have no ways to know, gubra [Sonny],” another fireman glumly remarked.
“Hey you crossed the mighty cold river in the dead of night, that is some courage,” a third fireman said.
Imy felt a feel-good bubble [red color] go up and down in his veins. He drank quick hot shots of Kashmiri tea in an ancient government bowl. They issued tenders for tea-bowls too. He had no idea why he nearly killed himself. He thought his foot smelled of fish fins and his clothes smelled of big firefighters.
“Where are my clothes,” Imy asked the kindly firemen who were watching him drink his tea, as if he were an alien from Uranus.
“Your clothes are still wet and we spread them on the other cot,” Amhed said. “And you are wearing my clothes,” he added.
“Who took off my clothes,” Imy asked, feeling a little embarrassed.
“Me,” Ahmed said with an impish boyish smile.
*******
Across the river the fire was brought under control by the fifteen firemen in three fire tenders but not before Gula nationya-el‘s house and office were reduced to grey ashes. Only the brick walls remained, badly smeared and darkened. The family did make it though their pet poultry couldn’t. Animal’s don’t have souls anyway. The telephone melted completely. The Hamami – by some divine intervention — found the bunch of keys — thankfully — an hour after fire-tender’s left the scene. The politician thanked his luck and his loyal peon. He said that he would recommend a bravery medal for the peon’s son.
Imy had saved an entire neighborhood.
——————————-
Three days after Eid:
Everyone from the neighborhood was invited to the high school. A few journalists from the Urdu press sat on folding steel chairs in the front row. The school principal looked like Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, in a big Jinnah cap. Ahmed the young fire man too was present. Soon Gula nationya-el arrived with the mayor. Twenty policemen guarded the dais. Everyone stood up. After smiling and frenetically shaking each others hands, the guests settled down on school chairs, usually reserved for school masters. These constitute the high-rise furniture. Too high.
Gula nationya-el went to the mike and tapped it two times.
Then he proceeded, “We have all assembled here today to honor a brave boy amongst us. He saved lives and he saved the locality, south of Jhelum, from being razed to ground”.
“The young man, showing immense presence of mind jumped into the river at night, not to fetch some treasure, but with a deep sense of duty and he braved the chill to get to the other bank and bell the fire brigade”.
There were huge claps. The feel-good bubble [red in color], now very big, like a soap bubble, went up and down Imy’s neck. He just hoped no one would notice it.
Imy was called on the wooden dais, which didn’t look very clean. The mayor jumped from his high seat and pinned a medal on his chest.
People clapped even louder. Boys from the neighborhood turned green with envy. The bubble bounced violently.
Imy’s father said he was never more prouder.
His mother felt Allah was kind on them.
Hamami Kak wept.
*****
The same night:
That night father bought a big cut of lamb to cook. Mother was making my favorite Yekhni for dinner. I was talking aimlessly to my sisters, narrating the tale of the award-winning swim for the umpteenth time. My thoughts however stayed with the old Dal-masaal lady’s grand-daughter. I had a constellation of questions in my head.
How would she feel about it? Would she like to date a brave boy? Would she ever know of my feat?
Three men arrived at our home just before dinner. They wore chequered-scarf’s around their necks and hadn’t seen a shaving blade in weeks, perhaps. One of them had a big nose. Another looked glum. One fellow looked good. They wore woolen pherans.
Their arms were in their pherans.
“Salam-Alikum,” they began.
“Salam-Alikum,” father replied.
“So you are the brave-heart,” one man spoke, as he looked at me.
Father interrupted. “Yes he is my son.”
“You called the fire service, didn’t you,” the second one said.
“Yes I did,” I said.
The third man didn’t speak. He was the one who looked good.
The first man took a Kalashnikov out from beneath his Pheran.
You see, Meer Saab, he addressed my father, your son indeed is brave but silly.
“We set the politicians house on fire. Now he is safe and worse still, cautious. Only his hens perished in the fire. We feel bad about the poor chicken but that is not what we actually wanted.”
“Your brave son, unfortunately, screwed our plans”, he said with an ugly stare.
“We wanted to wipe his entire family off.”
“Now”, the second man added, “we are going to ask your son to come with us.”
“We need brave tips from such young men”.
Father got furious. He tried to argue with the men but they pushed him. I was stunned by this sudden violence. Alarmed by the melee mother entered the room. Suddenly the men brandished chocolate-color guns. Real ones. The good looking fellow took me by arm. They bolted the door from outside.
I could hear my parents scream.
Was I being high-jacked. No, silly, I thought to me. They high-jack planes. I was being abducted. Part of me was freaked out. Part of me curious. Aren’t these guys rebels? Would they really take tips from me? Wow!
My kidnappers didn’t talk. They walked in the dark. I was tagged along. Good-looks never left my right hand. The medal was in my left hand. We walked for two hours.
*****
Next morning:
I woke up in a smoky room. It was filled with fumes from cigarettes and burn’t wood. I was sleeping on a mattress, spread on the mud floor and had a thick white quilt on me. I don’t remember what time I dozed off because I must have been too tired after all the walking. I remember, though, that we reached an old abandoned house at a very ungodly hour. I thought one of the rebels [Good looks] slept with me because there were only three mattresses in all and we were four people. May be they wanted to make sure that I don’t run away.
They gave me salty tea to drink. They were good rebels, I thought.
The good looks spoke for the first time. “You are a brave boy and naughty too”. The tea rolled on my tongue. God, how does he know? I have never told a soul about the blue-eyed girl. Or my boner.
I sipped mouthfuls of the pink tea. Do they read minds, these rebels, I thought?
Looking straight at me, the big nose said, “Look kid, we are sending you to some place where your brave tips are badly needed.” He added, “Rule one: You are not going to ask any questions and rule two: You will accompany a guide to take you to our secret hideout tomorrow.”
*****
Following evening:
Imy has been walking for a few hours. The guide is taking him to some undisclosed place.
Imy thinks it is going to be the secret hideout of rebels and he is supposed to give them a crash course on bravery. On what to do in an emergency situation! The guide, has been sworn — on some scripture — not to tell the boy that they are headed to a secluded mountain gorge where people await him. The party had plans of crossing the border — over to land of the pure — when it starts to snow.
Imy continued his innocent account.
“Right here”, he showed the spot on his chest to the guide.
“They pinned the award”.
A single sniper bullet hit Imy at the exact spot. An army man on duty, hiding somewhere high on a mountain bunker, wearing night-vision glasses had spotted some movement. The guide, used to such dangers, dashed to the ground and slithered away.
Things slowly began to blur. Imy called out to the guide but he had sneaked away. No one needed his advice. No one needs advices in this world! He was the proverbial ’sacrificial lamb’ because he tried to be human in an inhuman world.
He continued to bleed from where the bullet entered him. A beautiful feeling blanketed him. He thought of the Dal-masaal girl. He smelt fish. He saw Ahmed clapping in a distance. He felt the medal pin rubbing against his chest. He saw dates and orange pieces chasing each other. He felt kissed under a quilt. He felt water in his young mouth. He felt brave. A wide-eyed bubble [red in color] exited from Imy. Then there was calm.
A soft rain fell that night.
