I remember a summer spent going around houses asking for Eedi. Asking random strangers for money. Even then I understood there was no difference between post eid money and post Shivratri money. Back then I had a friend, all I remember is that his name started with Q. That Eid morning, he asked me to recite Kalma…I did…and it was done. I could tag along with him asking for money. We made lot of money and spent is all on ice cream. He would call me when ever a Bakra was getting zibah. The place was always crowded, you couldn’t see anything. Only drains in the entire neighbourhood used to turn red. He was a strange fellow. If he saw human blood on ground he would put soil and bury it. For a whole month he wouldn’t talk without spitting And he would piss while sitting. The kid was a Kashmiri like me. But, this was all in Jammu. Kashmir didn’t have this story anymore. Qadir, that was his name.
There was another much elder kid, an adult…had a nice big
zabiba mark on his head from all the 5 time prayers he must have read in 23 years. The man could swing the ball like Imran Khan. He would play sometimes and people would watch just to be awed with speed. A man in pathan suit, a short run up, and the plastic ball bends in air like a flying snale. Sometimes, he would bring news of Kashmir. One time he told me ditties they were singing in Kashmir for pandits. There was one funny song in which he would ask a pandit to keep
paache (feet) clean…for he was coming to have them. Even then I knew it was a sort of warning. I still don’t understand why they wanted to eat our feet. Then there was Nafi, he was best buddies was a guy whose father we liked to imagine was in RAW, because he was a Kaw. However, Kaw was more of a Jammu boy, his mother was a Dogra, we could tell, he was dark. He was the kid with the biggest comic collect, the costliest bat, a VCR, a color TV, he had the best of everthing. And Nafi from Kashmir, kid with crew cut and Uzbek looks was his second in command. We all hung out together. I had come to Jammu from Kashmir with a bat that had no handle, a cousin had broken it. The bat was no good but I continued using it for a few years, playing without handle. Finally father bought me a Kashmir willow. Nafi came to check out the bat. Nafi, Nafi, Nafi, how mad you made me that day. Nafi took the bad and then went door to door in the quaters we lived in. He went to each boy in the neighbourhood, me in tow. Showed the bat, “We have a new bat.” Another door, another kid, “We have a new bat.” Another door, another kid, “I got another bat”. Another door, “I got another bat”. I got worried, irritated, “tommorow he may declare it to be his bat, he has all the witnesses also now.” We must have gone to 20 houses like that. I told him to return the bat, I had to go back him. He was not done yet, there were 20 more doors to knock. He laughed. He knew what he was doing. Something inside me snapped, I made a dash at the bat. He wouldn’t let go. Nafi was not even a batter, he was a bowler, he could hit, but he was a bowler. His grip on the bat tightened. I pushed, he pulled. A second later we bother were down rolling on the ground like two snakes grappling. It was not about bat anymore. It was something more primal. I could see his eyes, just as he could see mine. There was hate that normally comes with age. But, we were locked, neither of us ready to give up. As we rolled on the ground, from the corner of my eyes, with horror I could see, a little girl with a big rock in hand running towards us screaming something that my sense were too shocked to register immediately. “
Myani Khodaya!!! Baya!!” (My God! Brother!) It was Nafi’s youngest sister, no more than seven or eight. She was about to bash my head. Nafi turned, he left the bat, got up, took the stone from her hand. Tuned around towards me and dropped it. He then slapped his sister yelling, “
Maetchi…ye chu mai boi. Ghas dafa!” (Mad girl! He is my brother. Be lost). I got up, took my bat and left for home.
A few days later I was sitting at the window with a matchbox in hand. I saw Nafi passing, I threw the matchbox at him. “A gift for you.” Nafi picked it up with a smile and opened. A big yellow Tumudi, a wasp flew out singing that stingy song. Nafi jumped, both feet in air, running away, thowing the matchbox away. It was a scene straight out of Charlie Chaplin. Nafia was still shivering when he looked up screaming, “Batta gokha pagal!” (Have you lost you mind Pandit!)
Still laughing, I replied, “I am coming down. We have a new bat, get everyone, let’s play.”
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P.S.
Feb, 2019. The quaters in Jammu where site of big communal flare-up between Kashmiri Muslims quater dwellers and outside locals.
