Loss And Longing In Kashmir

I AM home. Babi and Babuji are already in their room. Babi laughs her hearty laugh, seeing me tiptoe into her room. Babuji smiles his old smile. It is the smile of a child who is about to crack a magic trick. He is making the bed바카라”one of the very few things he loves to do.

바카라˜Remember this quilt?바카라™ Babi says, taking a quilt out of a wooden box. 바카라˜It is 100 years old today. Come and smell it. Do you know why it still smells the same? Because of this box. It preserves everything. Your Babuji got it made some days before our wedding바카라¦바카라™ she goes on, marvelling at her belongings.

바카라˜Sleep early tonight,바카라™ says Babuji, giving me a hug and a kiss. The hug and kiss of a man who is reuniting with a grandchild separated two lifetimes ago.  

바카라˜Don바카라™t worry! I will wake you up early tomorrow,바카라™ says Babi. Her old habit of interjecting her husband.  

바카라˜The tonga will come at dawn and then바카라¦바카라™ says Babuji.  

ALSO READ: Kashmir: This Isn바카라™t A Postcard Series

바카라˜And then it will take us until lunchtime to reach Ladhoo,바카라™ says Babi, cutting him off yet again. She바카라™s doing it for me, and not to irritate him. Babuji has never known irritation in life.  

바카라˜Triloki Nath바카라™s children are going to be there,바카라™ she says, sensing my reluctance to go anywhere. Half of her world is outside, in the countryside and in other people바카라™s homes. 바카라˜They will take you to the orchard. Don바카라™t be a pest and steal plums the way you did last time.바카라™  

바카라˜This isn바카라™t the season of plums,바카라™ says Babuji. 바카라˜Winter isn바카라™t over yet.바카라™

바카라˜Don바카라™t teach me about seasons,바카라™ says Babi. 바카라˜I have seen summer in winter, and winter in summer, haven바카라™t I?바카라™

바카라˜There she goes again바카라”the greatest raconteuse Kashmir will ever see,바카라™ Babuji whispers to me.

ALSO READ: Kashmir Files: Flawed Narratives Of The Fault Lines

Nobody tells anecdotes and stories the way Babi does. She will make you believe the unbelievable. For instance, she will tell you about the day a crow whispered into her ear and spilled the beans about her husband. Something nobody knew. Not even the husband. And then her tryst with an elephant when she carried her calf across a river.  

바카라˜Take this along,바카라™ says Babuji, handing me his transistor. 바카라˜It should work after we get the batteries replaced.바카라™

I switch the transistor on. A song plays. And then the unthinkable happens.  

바카라˜Babi, Babuji, where are you?바카라™

ALSO READ: Routes Of Grief: Two Translations

Babi and Babuji are sitting next to each other in their room with smiles beaming on their faces. On the wall are two paintings바카라”The School of Athens by Raphael and Krishna taming the five horses of Arjuna바카라™s chariot. The window frames an apple tree.  

***

I am now going to tell you about a secret dream. The dream is 33 years long, with a day equalling a year, a year equalling a century. I have been dreaming this dream over and over again for the past 33 years. Thirty three years are two full lives. I came here when I was 15. Now I am 48. I have kept a close watch over time. No one knows of my secret existence, except a bird which comes here every evening to feed her chicks in a nest high atop the tree next to my cabin.  She doesn바카라™t look like any of the birds I have seen in my life. The only birds I have seen are crows, sparrows, pigeons, kites, and kingfishers. But she isn바카라™t any of them.  

The bird whispers about you. I trust the bird because only you are capable of such things. She hides a smile behind her tears and tears behind her smile. Such terrible things that can바카라™t even be dreamt.  

ALSO READ: Kashmir: Of 바카라˜Stories바카라™ And Friends

바카라˜She has now forgotten you,바카라™ says the bird.  

바카라˜You are lying. She will never forget me. She will forget herself but not me.바카라™

The bird wants me to hate you, to forget you and never to think of you. But how will I ever do that? I named her after you. Yours is the only name I know.

***

It is the spring equinox of the year 2090. A 100 years have passed since I was forced to leave Kashmir. Not Kashmir, the place; but Kashmir, the person. You, I mean!

ALSO READ: The 바카라˜Homeland바카라™ Dream Of Kashmiri Pandits

I have a dream and a memory of the day which is yet to come. An almost impossible day that is about to be returned to me. A day that has equally waited for me. As if I have belonged to it from the time I wasn바카라™t even born. As if the curse were over and the boon granted by the little bird, the lone messenger of the most supreme of celestial beings.

바카라˜You shall come back to me in the spring of 2090,바카라™ sings the little bird.

Me: But what if I die before that happens?

She: What if you don바카라™t? What will you do that day?

ALSO READ: Kashmir Files: Memories Of Another Day

Me: Don바카라™t you know already?

She: What did you do on the day you left?

Me: I didn바카라™t think it would be forever.

She: You mean a 100 years?

Me: Is a 100 years forever?

She: Will you cry now that you바카라™re back?

Me: I have cried enough. It is time to be happy now. I will laugh like that mad person who died laughing, telling people that they have gone mad, seeing them unleash hate upon their own friends and neighbours.

She: And you will바카라¦

ALSO READ: Kashmir Needs Healing, Not Politicisation Of Pain

Me: I will go to the places where Babi and Babuji wanted to go.

She: Why would you want to step out of the house now that you바카라™re back after a century?

Me: I have some unfinished work in those places. Shouldn바카라™t I finish what they were not allowed to finish?

She: Would you ever want to go back to the places where you spent these 100 years?

Me: One last time, for these are the places where I learnt how to sleep on burning sand. Where I learnt how to hide my scars, even from myself. Where I learnt how to be silent, how to love, how to wait and how to dream.

***

There was a time I couldn바카라™t live without you. Not even for a second. I missed you even when you were next to me. Babuji is working in his laboratory, examining samples of blood. I am waiting for him to break for lunch. That is when he will teach me how to identify cells using his microscope. 바카라˜Look how beautiful these cells are,바카라™ he says, pointing to their dance-like movements. 바카라˜Some day you should learn how to cure the sick ones.바카라™ Babuji has never been sad in his life. He has always known boundless happiness because his happiness is others바카라™ happiness.  He sees beauty and goodness in every human because the very cells which give them life are made of nothing but beauty and goodness. He has deep love for even those who have never loved and who don바카라™t know what love is. He is the ambassador of humanism in the entire locality. 바카라˜What will you do with my memory after I am gone?바카라™ he says, as we start cycling back home.

Babi is in the courtyard, making apple jam. The first person to taste it will not be her husband but her grandchild.

ALSO READ: Kashmir: The Political Capital Of Pain

I am sitting on the branch of a plum tree listening to a song playing on Babuji바카라™s transistor. Plums hang low on the branches, tempting me to pluck them. But I have promised Babuji and Babi that I wouldn바카라™t even touch them. Triloki Nath바카라™s family is preparing for the wedding feast. In the courtyard of the house, a boy is chasing crows away. 바카라˜Crows are harbingers of bad news,바카라™ his mother says. 바카라˜Don바카라™t let them near us.바카라™  
Triloki Nath comes out of the house with saplings in his hand. 바카라˜Come with me, all of you,바카라™ he says to the kids. 바카라˜I am going to teach you how to plant a sapling. Years from now, these apple trees will be yours.바카라™

ALSO READ: Kashmir: Requiem For A Dream

From inside the house comes laughter. Everyone is laughing at Babi바카라™s jokes. Babuji is sitting in a corner, lost in his own solitary world, content in being a sunrise-to-sunset man.

I close my eyes, thinking that this day will last forever.

***

Whenever the history of the happiest people that ever lived will be written, Babi (Uma Shori Gigoo) and Babuji (Omkar Nath Gigoo), to whom home meant everything, will be spoken of in the happiest terms. In 1996, six years after being forced out of his home in Kashmir, Babuji lost his memory and sense of hearing, but the forever smile on his face proved that he left this world happy after tasting the sweetest nectar of life. Babi breathed her last in a hospital in Srinagar, one day before having her last wish fulfilled바카라”to be home one last time.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Loss and Longing")

ALSO READ

In Search Of Home In Pandit Houses

Kashmir: A Scattered Archive

Fairies In The Memory Garden

Inheritance Of Words

Kashmir Diary: Childhood Memories Of Kashmir

Siddhartha Gigoo is a Commonwealth Prize-winning author