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Palace of Fairies

‘What is you name nikka?’
The little one just looked on. Not a word. Not an emotion. Just a blank stare. Had he been a grown up, it would have been an uncomfortable scene. But here it was just a kid getting asked a question in familiar tongue  by a stranger.
On the highest terrace of Pari Mahal if you feel like having water and you do manage to find the local watering hole, a rusty old tap, the water you are likely to taste comes straight from the mountains. Here standing next to the tap my Chachi tried rather unsuccessfully to strike a conversation with a little Muslim kid. Her daughters, my little nieces, looked on, a bit embarrassed and a bit amused.

‘He doesn’t talk much.’

A young woman approached with a broad open smile, her voice full of joy, of life. She reminded me of Posha.

‘You are Pandit? Where do you live? You live here? Yes?’

I have met these women. Heard about them. Common Kashmiri Muslim women: they don’t hold back. Taez- Balai. Fast. Talk, emotions, tone, laugh, scream, cry, love, they are always beaming with a certain energy.

‘No, we don’t live here. Not anymore. Just visiting.’

‘Tohi kyet aasiv rozaan? Where did you used to live?’

This was no woman. She was a girl. The quick question. A quick answer.

‘Javhaer Nagar.’

And then they talked about this and that. About children.

In the summer of 1990 my Chachi’s family moved to a room in Udhampur.  I couldn’t understand why would anyone choose to live in Udhampur when everyone was living in Jammu. I came to answers slowly. And the answer was just too simple. Jammu was full. The great theater had no tickets left. Those who arrived late found the entry really tough, there were people already watching the show sitting in aisle. For a few month stay, for some families, having to undergo discomfort and humiliation in Jammu was just out of the question. When months became years, question was not a option. Some years later, at the time of her marriage the Baraat came all the way to Udhampur from Jammu. Her brother now have places of their own in Jammu.

My Chachi’s family had moved to the new locality of Jawahar Nagar in the late 1970s. A lot of Pandit families, including my mother’s family, had moved to new locations, more modern developed localities, in the 70s and the early 80s.  In these places often the interaction between Pandits and Muslims was low. It was going to take time to built new relations, new friendships and new enemies. My mother still remembers a certain Khatees Ded, an old Kashmiri Muslim lady who cried her heart out, holding onto my Nana’s arm, the day he moved from old neighbourhood of Kralkhod to a new locality – Chanpore. My mother makes it sound quite dramatic – ‘The entire neighborhood came to see us off. Khatees Ded kept crying. She had raised my father. Took care of him when he was young. He was like a son to her. He grew up in her lap.’ The scene must have made quite on impact on her. From her stories I can say it wasn’t a perfect place with the perfectly peaceful people, a paradise of angels, it was more of an earth with real people, but people who knew each other for just too long. Had I, by choice, ever moved out to a new world, the woman in my case could have been Posha, daughter of old lady Mogul who had a Yendir in her little wooden balcony. Posha who yelled ‘Aazadi’ in those processions whose pictures unsettle some, not many. Posha whose little son miles away from home didn’t reply to ‘T’che kya chuy Naav?’ while sitting among strangers . Posha my little caretaker.

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We tell our stories to anyone. My grandfather reminds a security man that he used to live in Kashmir. While he talks, my father checks on his pulse.

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An old postcard (from famous Mahatta & Co) capturing the old ruins of  Pari Mahal

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Near Chashma Shahi, at the foothills of Zabarwan mountains, Dara Shikoh, Shah Jahan’s eldest son, the sufi one, converted an ancient Buddhist monastery into a school of astrology and dedicated it to his master Mulla Shah. Pari Mahal or the Palace of fairies, was a place steeped in magical stories. Walter Rooper Lawrence, who visited Kashmir in 1889 as the Land settlement officer, wrote in his book The Valley of Kashmir (1895):

Strange tales are told of the Pari Mahal, of the wicked magician who spirited away kings’ daughters in their sleep, how an Indian princess by the order of her father brought away a chenar leaf to indicate the abode of her seducer, and how all the outraged kings of India seized the magician.

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flight of Katij

Papilio Polytes, Jammu. 2010.
A butterfly that mimics the appearance of
an unpalatable  butterfly so as to protect it self from predators.

‘Where are you? What’s going on?’

‘Office. Nothing.’

‘Okay. Guess what. I am right now crossing Jhelum on a boat.  The traffic on the bridge was a bit too much today. So, I thought why not. So here I am crossing it on a boat. Just like old days. I thought I should call you. ‘

‘Do you have the camera with you?’

‘No, I forgot.’

‘What? How can you?’

My father got a bit irritated by my demands.

‘Is a man supposed to carry a camera on him while going to work? There is nothing here that I have’t seen. Be Chusa Tourist yeti. I am not  a tourist. Anyway, get back to work. I will try to keep it with me next time. There is always next time.’

I pull the mobile off my ear, place it in my pocket and stair back at a computer screen that for a moment still remains illegible. Envy was soon replaced by something else, perhaps not soon enough. Perhaps a wish, a longing, a regret. In that moment, I knew it was indeed turning out to be a deliciously difficult year.

At the start of year 2010 my father, nearing retirement, found himself back in office in Srinagar. In the run up to it he spend hours on phone discussing the ‘Ardar‘. My mother and sister found it a worrisome prospect. ‘Adar hasa drav, voyn kyah karav!’ (Order is on the way, what will we do now!) I had romantic notions about it. First thing I did was to ensure that he buys himself a camera. ‘At least, do not return empty handed.’ All this ‘Dangerous Place, Kashmir’ talk is so often repeated, it all is probably half made-up ghost stories to lull the civilized people to sleep, to just close their eyes. At the end of it, I thought, his adventures in an alien Hindu plains may outshine his adventures in his native Muslim valley. Imagine getting your head smeared with vermilion while being proclaimed a ‘Hindu-Brother’ by a bunch of drunken louts in a seedy Beer bar in Aurangabad. ‘Phikar knot, Pandit Ji! Now you are in Hindu Maharashtra. In this land, proudly sport your tilak, without fear.’

‘India Bahut Bada Hai, Becho-Becho, Yaha Shamshaan ki rakh bhi bikti hai’,  is the mantra he has been chanting for last twenty years. It remains one of the few mantras on which I agree with him.

The decision of going back was sealed by him with, ‘Woyn Gasav Kasheer ti.‘ (Now, I will go to Kashmir too). Economics always wins. So he packed his bags and reported back to duty in Kashmir after a gap of around twenty years. I must mention here that, I am in awe of my father’s packing skills. Experience has made him expert. Even twenty years back, on some-days, he was packing his bags in Srinagar and reporting to duty in a place called Handwara, working on irrigation canals. Later, he packed bags in 1990 and left for Jammu. Two decades later he packed bags and left for Delhi. Always with family. A few years later moved to Hyderabad and Aurangabad, alone. Now, he was going back to Kashmir.

‘I have taken you to that place…Handwara. You won’t understand. You were too young when we left. You probably don’t remember.’

‘No I do.’

‘Really! How is that possible? You must have been only…’

‘No, I am just kidding. So what’s going on. Howz KASHMIR?’

‘Hmm…I saw a Katij Ool (a Barn Swallow’s nest) a couple of days ago.’

‘What’s a Katij?’

‘Ye cha na aasan ek bird. (It’s a bird). It arrives in spring. Flies in a really peculiar way. When I was a kid I used to sit on a high window and watch it for hours while it tried to outpace and outmanoeuvre the buses plying on the road.’

‘What’s so special about this Ool?’

‘You have to see it to believe it. The one I saw recently had built a nest under a Hanji’s houseboat on Jhelum.

‘What do you mean below it?’

You remember the Zero-Bridge. Well, while talking to a boatman there I asked his whatever happened to Katij. If  they still arrive. The man lead me to his boat and showed a recently built nest.’

‘Did you take a picture?’

‘No, I didn’t have the camera with me.’

‘Again! Did you buy it just to photograph yourself cooking Roganjosh in a hotel room? What am I supposed to do with fifty photographs having a bunch of Uncle Jis, who I just do not know, all holed up in a room eating your hand cooked mutton?’

‘Those are for me. I was cooking because the hotel staff here, for some strange reason, just does not know how to cook meat.

‘Isn’t the staff Kashmiri?’

‘These kids are from Chamba or Garhwal, besides all sorts of Biharis. What do they know about cooking meat?’

My father at a ‘Pandit’ Hotel, the kind around zero bridge, the kind often run by a reformed former militant, the kind that houses Hindu government employees during Durbar move to Srinagar. He shared his room with three or four other Pandit employees caught in a similar situation, the situation faced by a dwindling tribe of Pandit government employees, the situation of the employees who are suddenly asked to report back to job after a gap of twenty years, the situation of Rip Van Winkle. Only there was Rip Van Winkle-Panti from government side too.

‘I pretty much started my career in the same way. At Hiranagar near Jammu. From the train, on way to Jammu, you can still see the water channels I worked on.’

‘Not boasting, but you can see the things I built online.’

‘Online-Shonline. Cement and Iron are real. My fist in your face in real. Not this software thing.’
‘It is funny. I am here sharing a room with a bunch of guys and you are there sharing your room with a bunch of guys.’

‘The people here laugh when I tell them I have seven houses.’

The Muslim guys in the office would often ask him, ‘Tohi Keetah Ghari Pandiji’. (How many houses do you have?)And my father would reply, ‘Me Che Voyn Sath Ghar.’ (My one house in now divided in seven). They seldom understood the meaning of the claim. Instead, my father spend too much time getting dragged into arguments over things like, “Isn’t world Beautiful? Surely, someone created it. So, Pandit Ji…you think evolution is a fact? Why do your gods have 5 heads and 10 hands? And what about the stones in your home?”

Post script: Less than a year later, another order arrived sending my father back to Jammu (but sent to Doda, again hundreds of kilometres away) and onto his retirement. Someone in his office, an old friend was too bothered by his presence. A few months later another fresh round of violence started in Kashmir.

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‘Don’t Basherakawa Me’

A Marwari friend of mine calls me up to tell me:’We had a visitor from your place yesterday.’
‘My place’
‘A Kashmiri. Kashmir. Your place. You folks are quite something.’

I know. I know which way the conversation will go this point onwards. The last time he called me up to talk about people from ‘my place’, that was about a year or so back, the conversation was about a Kashmiri truck driver opening up his heart in middle of Delhi’s Loha Mandi to a bunch of shop-helps. He told them how his life was messed up because he, a poor Kashmiri, was caught between Militants and Army. ‘Yes it is bad,’ shop-helps conceded. But time and again some shop-helps, much to the displeasure of the Kashmir, kept interjecting his laments to remind him what his people did to the Pandits, the Hindus. ‘We did nothing. They left on their own.’

‘You folks are quite something. What do you expect?’
‘Is this why you called me? You @$#!’ I have stopped peddling stories. I am through telling them about the ordeal, the exodus, the great evil that evil men did, the evil that drove them, drove us out, the apple and the almond farms and the assorted addendum. I have to stop listening too.

‘Yes. Kashmiri. So listen. He came in a Lancer. A Pashmina dealer, we have known him for more than 10 years. And I didn’t know that. My family has had many dealings with him.’
‘Yes, they operate that way.’
‘My mother was buying Pashmina for her would-be bahu.’
‘That would be your would-be wife. How’s your Sheesh Mahal coming along? Is it finished? It has been what two years? Do you plan to cover it with Pashmina? You Marwari. Boozwa pig.’
‘Yeah. So. He greeted me in English. Funny guy. ‘
‘So.’
‘Pashmina he gave us for fifteen. A special discount price, he said, specially for us. My father told him not to misuse to term. Discount. It’s his take on Geelani that I found interesting. Funny you people are no doubt! Freee…’
‘For fifteen. Are you sure that is the real stuff? Because…’
‘Yeah, he said it is some hybrid or something. New stuff. Some Kalakari or Kamkari.’
‘Kalamkari. What that got to do with…anyway I don’t know what you got but you got it cheap.’
‘My father asked him about the situation.’
I have to stop telling random strangers travelling in  trains about the situation. You can keep advising GOI and GOP about how to go about solving the situation. You can keep exposing the truth to the world.
‘What can we do against Goondas? That’s what he said.’
‘I am working. Don’t you have Loha to sell. I gotta…’
‘China wants to make Geelani the Dalai Lama.’
‘What?’
‘ He said China wants to make Geelani the Dalai Lama. Tum log!’
‘Chal bye! I gotta run. Bye. You Marwari @$#!er.’

Call over, I listen to Dimyo Dilas Gandyo Valas Paertho Gilass Kulni tal.

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Sitcz

Kashmiri Durzies/Tailors/Sitcz, 1890s

A tailor at Jammu. 1917. Found these two ar Cobumbia.edu site
A Tailor Shop, 2008

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The shops where carved furniture, silver, bronzes and brasses are to be found are for the most part in private houses, or what have been private houses and changed into shops. The tailors, however — and there are a great many of them — have shops in the bazaars, and these are frequently, like the bazaars themselves, open to the street, although the more important ones that cater to European trade have arranged rooms in the rear of the front where their goods are to be seen in greater privacy and where the measurements are taken and the garments are tried on. At some of these it is quite surprising to find such excellent materials, and even more so to see how well the garments are cut and made, especially if the purchaser has a garment of a certain style that he can give the tailor as a sample. One of these men, for instance, has a cutter who was taught, or learned his trade, in a London shop where there were many American patrons ; and some of the garments made by this tailor are so well cut and shaped that it is impossible to realize, or to believe, that they have not come from London, or Paris, or New York.

More astonishing, however, than all else, and seemingly incredible to many, is the cost of these articles. For instance, one gentleman had a suit of homespun that had been made in America and for which he had paid eighty dollars. As this was getting a little old he asked one of the tailors if it would be possible to get any more cloth like it. The tailor said:
“Certainly, I can get you some exactly like that.” The gentleman asked how long it would take, and was told about three weeks. The gentleman exclaimed: “What! is this possible? How can you get cloth out from England in so short a time as that?” “Oh!” the tailor replied, “it would not be brought out from England. It would be made here.” “What!” the gentleman questioned, “can cloth like this be made here in Kashmir?” “Yes,” said the tailor, “and if it is not satisfactory you need not take it. The only thing necessary will be to loan me one of your garments so that I can give it to the weaver who will make the cloth.”

This was done and in less than a month a piece of cloth large enough for a couple of suits of clothes was shown the gentleman, and so nearly like his own was the material that it was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other, the only difference being in favor of the native product, which seemed somewhat nicer in quality. This suit of clothes was made and lined with silk, there being three garments — a coat, waistcoat and trousers — and when it was finished it fitted just as well as the suit that he had been wearing. For this suit of clothes, made of cloth that had been especially woven for him and lined with an excellent quality of silk, he paid only the equivalent of a little more than six dollars as against eighty dollars. His wife was so pleased with this experiment that she took the balance of the cloth and had it made into a dress that would have cost her at least a hundred and fifty dollars at home, and for which she paid seven dollars.

And what is true of this suit is true of all the clothes and cloth made in the Valley by the natives, and though it really seems incredible that such could be the case, it is an absolute
fact. These, however, represent the expensive and extravagant suits, as a homespun suit without silk lining could be bought for from between three and four dollars, and with such suits
a cap, or hat of some sort is made of the same material without charge.

– Our summer in the vale of Kashmir. By F. Ward (1915)

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winter treat

My Mother and Massi hit the I.N.A market, a blessing for immigrants in Delhi, and came back with loads of Var’muth (or Krehin Dal, as Kashmiri Muslims usually call it), dried Kashmiri Chilly (Hotch’ Mar’tchWangun), Wangan Hat’ch, Al’Hat’ch and Kasher Wari. And not not to forget, a Kangri. The winter is officially here.

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Bichhua, a Kashmiri chutney from Himachal

A product of EarthyGoods, this mango chutney with the catch line ‘a traditional Kashmiri recipe in memory of Saraswati Mushran’ presents an intriguing mystery. A Kashmiri recipe for Mango chutney!

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Update August 2018

This was in fact a German product marketed as “Kashmiri”

Nandita Haskar discusses this post in a passage from here book The Flavours of Nationalism (2018).

She write:

Saraswati Mushran was my father’s older sister. She taught Linnet, her English daughter-in-law, the art of Kashmiri cooking. Many years later Saraswati Mushran died, Linnet bought my father’s apple orchard in Himachal and started making jams, just the way her German mother, Katherine, had taught her. The jams are famous as Bhuira jams – Bhuira is the name of the village in Himachal Pradesh where the orchard is situated.”

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Playing an ancient game with Haar’e

She walked away from the dark crowded room that was drowning in screams of game induced frenzy. Shivratri was days away and people of the house had already been playing the game for weeks now. In the room on the third floor, young boys were standing in the outer circle as the old men in center rolled shells and prayed for luck. The legend, the old man of the house, much to the amusement of the young and learning, was rolling a big hand of Cowries. It was a win all-lose all situation. The old man filled both his hands with Cowries, without giving the shells a shake, even though his big hand could still easy manage it, with an easy flick action he threw the shells down on the floor. As the shells rolled, tossed and turned on the smooth mud floor, old man bent his head down, he was  going to lose, his experience told him that much, rest what he did was all instinct, his eyes locked onto a shell, still rolling- but it was going to be a Slit, he needed a Mount for Quin, old man’s will dropped down on the shell, sitting on his two feet like a giant bird, he put his mouth near the shell that had almost stopped in a Slit and screamed his lungs out. He screamed out the words, his war-cry: Cht’ye Pat’e Tekri Astin’da.
Like a miracle, the shell turned, one more time. A Mount. It was Quin complete. He won. Wild celebrations broke out. Cht’ye Pat’e Tekri Astin’da. Cht’ye Pat’e Tekri Astin’da. Most of the old onlookers had a look of astonishment, the old timers were still astonished by this trick. They would have wanted to discuss if it was fair play. But the young saw it as a fete, a miraculous win. They were screaming with joy.

The young bride walked away from the dark crowded room that was drowning in screams of this game induced frenzy. She heard the young singing a strange song. She had her own song to sing. And old song. She walked to the big window, took in the sight, it was still a new sight, this was going to be her new house and new family, the house was old, its mores still older. She looked down to the street, the sight of her on the window had already started a motion down on the street. Young kids of the neighborhood, poor old urchins, all Muslims were gathering. She smiled. She reached for the inside of the fancy little bag that she was carrying in her one hand. She took out Haar’e from the bag that she had brought with her from her father’s house, a bagful of Haar’e just for this day. She filled her hand with Haar’e and started to throw them down on the street. They say in the old days these shells were the currency, the money. While she showered Haar’e down on the street and onto the lapping crowd of little boys, she sang:

Baz’e Chek’e Haar’e Ma’e
Yus Tul’e
Tsu’e Pa’helwaan

For the Eagles
I sprinkle these Cowries
The one who picks them
the one be a strong man

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How to Play with Haar’e/ Haran Gindun

Objective: Take all the shells of your opponents.

Number of players: No limit.

Start: At the start all players contribute a fixed number of shells (usually four) each to form a pool of playable shells for the round. The unit that each player contributes is known as Tchakh. When the playable shells are finished each player again contributes his share of Tchakh till he or she can no longer offer any and hence is out of the game.

First turn: To decide who will throw first a special throw of shells is arranged. Each player contributes a special, uniquely identifiable shell, say a shell with a broken edge or a hole. This shell is known as Botul. To decide who will go first, players take turns to roll the collected Botuls. You win the right to go first if your Botul stands out. The entire game is about shells standing out. A stand out would typically mean that all the other shells are in Mount state and your shell is in Slit state or vice versa.

In the scenario presented in the above image we can say that the owner of the shell with the hole can go first. his Botul won. The next turn may be decided in the same way or you can choose to have turns clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Each Botul is returned to its respective owner. And the play begins.

Play: Each player takes turns to roll the shells.

There is no particular way to throw the shells, only rule is do not obviously turn the shell for your benefit.

The outcome of the each turn, whether you won or won nothing, is based how the shells turned, whether you turned a certain number of shells to Mount state or Slit state.

In the above scenario the player rolling the shells got one shell in Slit state and rest all in Mount State. This is the best possible scenario. It is known a Quin. The scenario in which one shell is in Mount State and all the rest are in Slit state is also a Quin. The player wins all the shells on the floor. In this case eight shells. Other players pool more shells based on the pre-decided quantity of Tchakh. The turn of the winner continues and the the game continues. If the player had turned one more shell to Slit, he could have only picked two shells.

In the above scenario the player threw a dud, all the shells are in Mount state. This is known a Tsooyt.

The above scenario is also a Tsooyt as all the shells turned Slit.

In case of Tsooyt the player does not get to pick up any shells from the floor and the turn passes onto the next player.

In the above scenario player got three eyes or To’l Tr’y – three slits. The player loses. If it had been four Slits, he could have picked four shells and the turn (Baaz in Kashmiri or Baazi in Hindustani ) would have shifted to the next player.

Another To’l Tr’y scenario. Three Mounts and rest are Slits. One more mount and he could have picked four shells. And so the game goes one until everyone else has lost all his shells and you are sitting on a huge pile of shells.

In this way, a good game of Haar’e is played and enjoyed.

Also, if one finds the rules too tough to follow, or if one is looking for some simple fun with Shells. One can also play with them like this:

Hit the Shell to claim it.

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Vinayak Razdan is a Game Developer.

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