A Childhood in Kashmir (Part I: Early 90’s)

(I)

I was born on Eid, the second day of Eid, to be precise. My father says there was a curfew in Srinagar that day; they had to drive through small lanes and alleys to get to the hospital.

(II)

One of my earliest memories is of soldiers searching our house, and me being afraid that they would take my toys away. The memory is strong, but old; the details are faded but the outlines are clear. I can still see the soldiers wearing helmets, with rifles in their hands, taking a stroll in our attic looking for whatever it was they were looking for, and finding nothing. They were searching every house in the city, my father would tell me years later. He says that he doesn’t remember whether they took off their boots before entering the house or not – but they behaved appropriately, sticking to their job. Fortunately, they didn’t hit us, interrogate us or torture us like their fellows were doing in the villages and in other neighborhoods in the city. He says they acted decently.

(III)

It was around 1996, I guess, and I was beginning to like school. I was still in Nursery, two or three years old. My mother says that most kids of my age could be seen crying at the bus stop because they didn't want to go to school without their parents to accompany them. I didn't cry.

My favorite part about school was the rhymes we were made to sing in the class and taking the school bus home. Most of all, I liked sitting near the bus driver in the bus and asking him questions about driving, which he would answer rather disinterestedly. There was a guy from fourth grade who was good at origami, but didn’t have anyone his age to sit with in the bus, so, sometimes we would sit together and he would teach me how to make paper airplanes and other creative stuff using only plain paper that I would gladly tear from my notebook.

Staring out the window was another alternative - along the way home we would see rows and rows of soldiers, in a never ending line. Our teachers would tell us to wave at them. We didn’t know what for, but we would. We would wave. Some of them would wave back, others… not so much. I remember that sometimes the school bus would have to stop so that leviathan army truck convoys could pass by.

(IV)

Most of my cousins were older than me, so I attended a lot of weddings during this time. Kashmiri weddings are elaborate celebrations – lots and lots of food, so much food that sometimes, it’s too excessive, wastefully excessive. For women, the wedding means lots of singing and music throughout the mehndiraat – the night of henna, when the bride’s closest friends apply henna on her hands, arms and feet in intricate floral and abstract patterns. For the groom, the henna is just applied on the pinky finger. For men, the wedding means chatting, discussing politics and cricket as they sit by the waaza – the cooks, watching over them as they prepare the seven-course meal – waazwaan. As for children, they just chase each other outside and play. For boys and girls, the wedding means a chance to socialize with each other, even if just a little.

For kids like me, who’re not much interested in chasing other kids and playing - weddings were about running useful errands for people so as not to have to stay in one place: greet the guests, walk the guests to the sitting area, keep them engaged, and see if they need anything, inform an elder if they need anything. Piece of cake.

The drive back home at midnight was what I would usually look forward to. We would almost always have to stop at army checkpoints; turn on the inside lights of the car, explain the reason for driving out this late and let the soldiers stare at us, all dressed in our fancy clothes. I felt like laughing sometimes, but was too scared to actually laugh.

(V)

I used to take binoculars with me on school picnics, and use it to take a look at the mountains around - especially if it happened to be a picnic to Pahalgam. Looking back now, I think that the binoculars weren't too powerful and I was mostly showing off.

"Look at me, I'm the guy with the shiny new binoculars."

Embarrassing. Yeah.

The girls would play antakshari- a singing game. The boys would get into the cold stream and have what we called 'water-fights', it involved getting the other person as wet as you could. Of course, being an ever chivalrous bunch, if one of the girls tried to start a water-fight by throwing water at us, we wouldn't attack them in return, but just smile back like (drenched) knights.

(VI)

I still have clippings of newspapers from those times, and they aren't nice.

The preteens of my generation in Kashmir grew up somewhat in a constant state of fear. There used to be a football ground nearby, with a huge army camp beside it. Our parents wouldn’t allow us to play there. Thousands of civilians, especially youngsters, people in their twenties had been picked up by the army and the local police known as the Task Force or something - all that without warrant or trial. These youngsters who had no whereabouts would later be known as “the disappeared”.

A few years ago, mass graves were discovered in North Kashmir. 2943 bodies. All unmarked.

Ten years later, today, while on my way to the bookstore in the City Square, to buy a new novel or magazine, I sometimes still see the relatives of these people – old mothers, fathers, children and widows, sitting in a corner of the park, holding placards like “Where are our dear ones?” The only people listening to them are a few reporters from the nearby Press Enclave.

There are still more than half a million Indian soldiers in Kashmir, making it one of the most militarized zones in the world. Most of these soldiers aren’t locals, have never been here and don’t know much about the local language and culture - and thus this heavy presence is intimidating. Any story that I narrate about my coming-of-age is inseparable from that constant “don’t go out, it’s too late.”, “keep your ID card with you.”, “be home by nightfall.”

(VII)

Being a twelve year old was also a battle against poor social skills. I wouldn't learn to have a normal conversation until later in high school when I actually made friends.

This was also the time when I discovered books. Books were a way to escape reality. I remember having nothing to do outdoors because it was either a strike or a curfew day and finding solace in a new novel or a book I had borrowed from the school library. No one recommended books to me, I just found a shiny set of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven in a corner of the library, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Pinocchio are some books I clearly remember borrowing. I also read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment rather prematurely, but it helped me understand that there was a whole world out there, full of stories.

I don't remember watching a lot of TV back then, except for the Indian superheroes Shaktiman, Captain Vyom on Sundays and the Alif Laila series - Urdu adaptations of the Arabian Nights. The occasional Tom and Jerry and He Man.

My father used to buy me comics so I was always busy with something. He was a bit a of reader himself, having read volumes of Urdu Poetry, some History in general and Islamic History in particular, I often dared to open his books, and found underlines here and there.

My mother says she used to write ghazals - Urdu poems with a couplet structure - when she was in college, but she didn't read any of them to me.

Literature thus became my escape. I think I wrote my first poem when I was 8, it was titled 'Soil Erosion' or something. Genius.