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Naseeb Bazigar

Naseeb Shah and son Ayasan Shah. 1987.



“He begins by letting them doubt that greatness, his skill and power, by briefly allowing them to think their perceptions are valid and their reasoning is effective. In teaching me this cups and balls routine, Naseeb demonstrated how to make it look like I was concealing one of the balls under one of the cups. The move was subtle – it had to be done slowly enough to make sure the spectator saw it, and yet quickly and deftly enough so that the spectator would believe that he was not meant to see it, that another observer, someone not quite so sharp, would have missed it. This prepares the spectator for the revelation that the magician is always one step ahead of him, and for the realisation that his perceptions are being controlled by the magician, but at first they must think they know, that they see through the magic:”You put it in the other hand! It’s under your foot! It’s in the fold in your pants!” And if they don’t shout the words, Ayasan does their heckling for them, voices their thoughts and suspicions. Then, all at once, they are shown that what they saw did not happen, what they thought was untrue, and what they believed was unreal. There is then the surrender, the yielding to their need, out dark longing, to be deceived; the roadside crowd gathered around a vagrant con man and a scruffy little boy becomes the spellbound audience at a persistent play, a cosmological, social, domestic, and psychological drama, that everyone has at some time seen in some sacred sanctuary or darkened theatre, in some room or dream.“

~ From the book ‘Net of Magic: Wonders and Deceptions in India’ (1991) by Lee Siege. [Google Books, Flipkart]. It offers one of the most insightful and detailed look into the live of a street magician in Kashmir. And along the way brings alive the street scenes of Kashmir from 1987. We also get to know things like: in Kashmir ‘Chinese Stick’ trick (one trick I actually witnessed as a kid in Jammu) was performed by naming one stick as Hindu and another as Musalman.







Naseen is still around in Srinagar and was recently featured in this film on his disappearing tribe:


Tomorrow we Disappear.








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Previously:


Ghulam Da’en, the three card trickster

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– A Snake Charmer in the New Bazaar, Srinagar, Kashmir, 1892.  J. E. Goodall. Illustrated London News.
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Rascally Kashmiri

Image: Indian memories (1915) by Robert Baden-Powell

Agar kahat ul rijal uftad, azeshan uns kamgiri
Eke Afghan, doyam Kamboh soyam badzat Kashmiri |

Although a scarcity of men should happen, do not cultivate the acquaitance of these three people:

the 1st, an Ufghan, the 2nd, a Kumboh, and the 3d, a wicked Kushmeerian.



— ‘A collection of proverbs, and proverbial phrases’ (1824) by  Thomas Roebuck (1781-1819), Part I. p. 99 [Extracted from Shahid-i-Sadiq]
Complete saying is supposed to have following additional lines [unverified/untranslated]:

Ze Afghan hila bhi ayad, ze Kamboh kina bhi ayad,
Ze Kashmiri nami ayad bajuz andoho dilgiri ||

Probable transliteration:

If a deceptive Afghan comes
If a tyrannical Kamoh comes
If an infamous Kashmiri comes
Nothing except sorrow follows

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Other variations:

Agar khalal mardan ufad, az inan na bagiri: yakam Pathan, duyam Kamboh, seyam badzat Kashmiri
If mankind should be coming to an end, do not select (for its restoration) first the Pathan, secondly the

Kamboh, thirdly the rascally Kashmiri.

– ‘Eastern Experiences’ (1871) by Lewin Bentham Bowring, pp.274

Agar kaht-i-mardurn uftad, az ín sih jins kam gírí; Eki Afghán, dovvum Sindí, siyyum badjins-i-Kashmírí

Though of men there be famine yet shun these three First the Afghan, second Sindi, thirdly the rascally Kashmiri.

– Arabian Nights by Richard F. Burton, Vol. 10, pp. 178-219

If folk be scarce as food in dearth ne’er let three lots come near ye: First Sindi, second Jat, and third a rascally Kashmeeree.

– Arabian Nights by Richard F. Burton, Vol. 6, pp. 156

Better have no friends at all than take up with an Afghan, a Kamboh, or a rascally Kashmiri

– A meaning given in The People Of India (1908) By Herbert Hope Risley, William Crooke

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Other oriental quotes on “Rascally” Kashmiri:
If you find a snake don’t kill it;
but if you find a Kashmiri it is another matter

~ Indian memories (1915) by Robert Baden-Powell. Another one from it:

Many chickens in a house befoul it:
many Kashmiris in a country spoil it
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Kashmiri bas Kashmiri guft
Kash miri ki man khalas shavam
Kashmiri desires the destruction of his fellow countryman
~ Kashmiri Pandits by Pandit Anand Koul, 1924.

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“a snake in his morals and a fowl in his manners”

The Kashmiri bears an evil reputation in the Panjab, and indeed through-out Asia. Proverbs liken him to a snake in his morals and to a fowl in his manners, and men are warned against admitting a Kashmiri to their friendship. Moorcroft writes of the Kashmiri, ‘ Selfish, superstitious, ignorant, supple, intriguing, dishonest and false, he has great ingenuity as a mechanic and a decided genius for manufactures and commerce; but his transactions are always conducted in a fraudulent spirit, equalled only by the effrontery with which he faces detection;’ and Drew admits that they are ‘ false- tongued, ready with a lie, and given to various forms of deceit.’ Hugel has nothing good to say of the Kashmiris, and it is a matter of history that in the Mutiny the Kashmiris of Ludhiana turned against the English, and in the Settlement Report of the Kangra district the Kashmiris of Nurpur were spoken of unfavourably by Mr Barnes. But it must be remembered that Moorcroft was speaking of the city people, and that the Kashmiris of Ludhiana and Kangra were the shawl-weavers, who are the lowest and meanest of the population, and it would not be fair to apply Moorcroft’s epithets to the villagers as a body. He admits, too, that the vices of the Kashmiris are not innate, but are due to the government under which they lived. ‘ The natives of Kashmir have always been considered as amongst the most lively and ingenious people of Asia, and deservedly so.

~ The valley of Kashmir (1895) by Sir Walter Roper Lawrence.

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Update:

Some more. These from Seir Mutaqherin: or a View of Modern Times, being a History of India from the year 1118 to 1195 of the Hedjirah. From the Persian of Gholam Hussain Khan, V1-4. 1789. A history pf Muslim nobel families of Bengal. Translated by Nota Manus alias Raymond alias Haji Mustapha, a French-born Muslim convert.

Cashmiri, bi Piri; Bengallee, Djendjali. The Cashmirian acts as an Atheist ; but the Bengallee is always one from whom there is no disentangling one’s self. 

and one directed at Kashmiri women

Cashmiri, bi Piri ; ne Lezzet, ne shiri. The faithless Cashmirian affords neither taste nor flavour.

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Update:

From the book “Kashir” (1947) by G.M.D Sufi

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Salima lives in Kashmir, by Anna Riwkin-Brick, 1971

Salima lives in Kashmir.

Photos by Anna Riwkin-Brick, story by Vera Forsberg.
Children of the World Series
Published 1971 by Macmillan
Anna Riwkin-Brick (1908, Russia -1970, Israel), Swedish photographer, spent a good part of her life traveling the world, and to place she went she captured the lives of children on camera. Later, these photographs were used to produce a series on day-to-day lives of ‘Children of the world’, with text captions from collaborating writers added to weave a story. In all there were 19 such book with titles like Dirk lives in Holland, Eli lives in Israel, Gennet lives in Ethiopia, Marko lives in Yugoslavia, Matti lives in Finland, Noy lives in Thailand, Randi lives in Norway, Gia lives on Kilimanjaro and Salima lives in Kashmir.
Anna Riwkin-Brick captured children on camera like few could, perhaps because she started photography by first capturing dancers (her photograph of Third Reich dancer Alexander von Swaines in 1930s, although considered imperfect in its time for the ‘motion blur’, can now be called perfect). 
The beautiful photographs in ‘Salima lives in Kashmir’ in all probability come from Anna Riwkin-Brick’s visit to Kashmir in 1969. The story that the pictures tell has a nine year old Kashmiri boat girl named Salima and she struggle for joining a school, about how she convinces her grandfather to let her go to school.  
“Certainly there are few things more attractive than the friendliness and broad smiles of the Kashmiri children.” Even V.S. Naipaul, the man who thinks ‘World is What it is’ confessed it once.
And this book offers something akin to that, broad smiles, Kashmiri children and a friendly camera. The effect casts a spell of heart-aching beauty upon the viewer. A spell that is broken only by the realisation that this beauty, this innocence is now gone. It is only an illusion in the mind and a shadow on the book. Or so it seems to a grown-up and the world of children remains the same.
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Kashmir, Shinya Fujiwara, 1978

Kashmir
Shinya Fujiwara
Translated by Margaret F.Breer
This Beautiful World Vol. 60
Kodansha International Ltd., 1978

Shinya Fujiwara arrives in Srinagar at night through road. Tired he decides to sleep late into the morning and explore the ‘Emerald City’ of Srinagar after lunch. He goes to sleep. He awakes to the sound of someone singing. He checks his watch, it says 5:00 A.M. He looks out the window and sees few stars twinkling in western sky and hears birds chirping. He thinks he has woken up in evening and missed an entire day. He is about to jump out of bed but just then again he hears the strange singing.

“These words were sung by a strong quivering masculine voice and sounded strange to my ears, the ears of a foreigner. But the spiritual intonation might cause one to feel that long ago, when still in the womb, one heard these sounds together with the mother’s heart beat.”

He was hearing Azan for the first time in life.

After a few days in the city Shinya, the Japanese photographer,  noticed a phenomena typical to Srinagar city. The second Azan.

“Hearing this second song after Azan always cheered me. It came from the stray dogs which roam this emerald city. Even thee dogs must have felt the force of the morning prayer for they seemed to be singing the Azan. The first few times I heard this far away howling, i did not know what it was. By the third or fourth day, however, I was sure that the dogs were calling in response to the people. It then seemed rather comical, and as I lay in bed I could hardly contain my laughter. Yet listening to this wordless song day after day, it began to sound just as devout a prayer as the real Azan and I was moved almost to tears. I should probably not even have written about being impressed by the distant howling of stray dogs, yet any tourist in kashmir who fancies the unusual should listen for this wordless Azan. It made me vividly aware that religion in Kashmir governs not only man, but all living creatures right down to the smallest insect.”

This is one of the most subtlety humorous ‘Guide Book’ I have read about Kashmir. Later in the book when he compliments a man for his devotion to religion, he is reprimanded and told, ‘I am not the only one who is religious. Here in Kashmir, everyone gets up early. While the Azan is recited, many people are in the temples saying their prayers. We believe that anyone who stays in bed when he hears Azan will receive only half the profit of Allah’s blessings.’

In addition to some beautiful photographs, this slim little book also offers some useful tips to the travellers  besides listing and describing the ‘must sees’ (although the history of the places is a bit breezy, bit wrong, but yes interesting for tourists ). Every chapter starts a some neat drawings of oriental designs giving the book a feel like you are reading one of those old English travelogues.

The only problem with a book is problem that books with great photographs often suffer: sometime great photographs are slip over two pages. Who likes that?

In between pages, the subtle funnies just keep rolling. When Shinya is tired of all the salesmen chasing him in the streets and on the waters of Dal for buying one or another thing, he decides to employ a trick to avoid unwanted attention. He change his look. He goes about the city unkempt and wearing worn out cloth. Of course, everyone starts ignoring him. He roams the city unattended. But this also upsets him, he misses the nagging calls of the infamous Kashmir salesmen. He even comes to like them. This is a book of simple pleasures that gives a glimpse of simple pleasures that Kashmir could offer travellers.

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Some more photographs from the book:

In his photographs Shinya inadvertently also captured a phenomena that doesn’t exist in Srinagar anymore. A Kashmiri Pandit wedding. Although the book makes no special note of it, in the photograph we can see the the ‘groom’s welcome song’ being sung by women who were muslim neighbours  An old Kashmiri tradition.

Also, it is interesting to note that the composition of a basic Kashmiri Pandit plate for the wedding day hasn’t changed much, there is: Hakh, Razma, Dam Aloo, Tchaman (in the pic probably served by someone from a bucket), Nadur Ya’khin, Palak, Aulav Churm’e and Muj Cha’tin.

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Bahadur Shah’s paradise

‘Journey’s End’, 1913
Abanindranath Tagore

“Paradise is there where no harm is received, where no one has (any) concern with any other.”

~ Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah I, second son of Aurangazeb, in Lahore days before his death on dilemma of choosing Kangra or Kashmir for summer. He died in Lahore. Days before his death, he turned a bit insane. He almost entitled Lahore Dar-ul-Jihad. He asked Ali be declared chosen heir in daily khutba. People suspected he had turned Shia. There was political chaos. People said, ‘This cannot take effect in Hindustan; it is not Iran’. Two khatibs,  reciters of new khutba were murdered. One in Gujarat. One in Kashmir. He threatened Mullas that he would make them eat in same platter as dogs. Mullas responded, ‘That matters not — for we feared that you would make us eat out of one platter with yourself.’ A commander revolted and threatened coup. Emperor had to eat his pride. They say he turned insane. He couldn’t sleep at night. The howling dogs wouldn’t let him sleep. It is said he had hundreds of dogs slayed. And then he died. Some say he died of apoplexy after a bout of cold, some say he was poisoned, some say he was stabbed by a General whom he caught in his harem…’They say that an inverted sore (dumbal-i-makush) formed on his stomach, and some have said other things which are not fit for me to repeat nor in accordance with his honour. God alone knows the truth!’

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* Based on ‘Later Mughals’ (1922) by William Irvine.

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Previously: Gardens, Paradise, Kashmir

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Kal Tuhund/Their Head

Sketches of two Kashmirian Skulls. One Male. One Female.

Came across it in “Ladāk, physical, statistical, and historical ; with notices of the surrounding countries” (1854) by Alexander Cunningham. In the book they were given as a reference for comparing with Ladhaki skulls.

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A walk on Water

“And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.
But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out: For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.”

~ Mark 6:45-53, King James Bible.

At the appointed time a murmuring crowd gathered on Nehru Park Island to witness the miracle.  For days the local newspapers had advertised the event: “A Man to Walk on Dal wearing only a Khrav.“

 A silence fell on the crowd as a young man carrying a garland of marigold around his neck stepped forward and approached the waters. This was The Walker. “The sheen of his face is unmistakably that of a man with great spiritual powers,” said someone in the crowd. It was a perfect day for a miracle.

The Walker poised to take his first step, took a deep breath, unimagined the water, kept his head straight and looked ahead. Across the waters, on the other side, another crowd stood in anticipation, ready to receive him. He exhaled and unimagined the crowd. Looking at the scene unfolding in front of them, even the doubting Thomases, even as they we getting unimagined, for a second did start wondering, ‘But, what if…’

For The Walker the world faded away. The was no water. It was just him and his Khrav.

The Walker raised his foot and as it was about to hit the surface of water, in confidence, he moved his other foot to meet the water too. To the onlookers it looked like a jump. Just as his first foot was about meet the surface, a thought sprang like a bolt in his mind, he remembered something, words and a face. His body in response to the thought wanted to undo its previous two actions. His two feets now sought solid ground. To onlookers it looked like a jolt. The Walker tried to balance himself. But he knew it was too late. He was done. His body craved for land and found water instead. Gravity took over. As he fell face first in water, Khravs slipped off his feet and floated away from him and towards shore. A kid picked them and ran away. A few brave onlookers, not in spell anymore, jumped into water and pulled him out.

In time, the reason for this failed miracle soon became apparent to people. It was a girl. Only a few months ago, The Walker was indeed on way to spiritual greatness under the guidance of his Guru. But then love god played his tricks. The Walker used to teach music to a young blind girl. In time, as often happens, the two fell in love. The Guru had advised The Walker to remain celibate. ‘No girl, ever.’ Ignoring the advise, just days before the ‘Water Walk in Khrav’ event, The Walker had married the blind girl and thus ending any real chance of him making history by walking on water wearing only wooden Khrav. He had drowned himself in love, fallen for the oldest miracle and got baptized in icy waters of Dal.

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Based on the story of a kin told by an Uncle. The Walker did go on to be acclaimed as a saint. But as the joke in the family goes, that day he did almost drown himself in Dal in front of a big crowd.

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infamous Shaitani Nala

‘Shaitani Nala’ on way to Srinagar.
Winter 2012.
Sent in by my Father.

A story told by a cousin: Years ago, I had a friend in school whose father was taken at Shaitani Nala. The man was on way to Jammu in a bus. It was winter night. The bus stopped at Shaitani Nala because of a jam in vehicles ahead. The man got down to take a leak. That was the last anyone saw of him. He never returned. Wav, the powerful winds that blow at Shaitani Nala part of Pir Panjal, took hiim.

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Previously: infamous Khooni Nala

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Staff Battles of Sannyasis

On the morning they left Pahlgam there was a battle among the Sannyasis, which almost came to a bout with staves. One flag only is carried on the pilgrimage to Amarnath, and it entitles the standard-bearer to a third of the pilgrims’ offerings. For years the privilege has fallen to the Shivaites of Bhairon Asthan in Srinagar, but the Mahunt of a rival temple, the shrine of Mahadeva on the Takht-i-Suleiman, claimed that his followers were more numerous. He had carried his banner far through sun and rain, and he swore by all the attributes of Siva he would not leave it behind. When he drove his little standard in the ground, the others protested with loud cries, and the two parties met in the streamlet which separated their camps, shouting and waving their staves. The magistrate of the pilgrims rode up on his ambling tat, and in the middle of hearing both sides declared in favour of the Bhairon Asthan party. It was the order of the Maharaja of Kashmir that they should carry the standard as before, and that there should be no other flag.

The Takht Sannyasis boded foul weather and disease if the Bhairon flag advanced. The Bhairon party threatened some special visitation if the unorthodox standard was raised, whereat the Takht
priest cried out angrily :

“Under what provocation, then, has the cholera goddess scourged the camp in past years?”

One of the others struck at him with his staff, but a bearded khaki-clad Mussulman of the Maharaja’s police intercepted the blow and pushed the scowling Sannyasi aside. He threatened to go back. Thus a scourge would fall upon the pilgrims.

“It will be ill for those who disobey the orders of the Maharaj Adhiraj,” the magistrate said as he rode away. And the defeated Shivaites retired to their camp with sullen murmurs. The sun stood high over the valley between the cliffs, and the last of the Maharaja’s camp-followers had filed by when they rose sulkily and followed in the track towards the snows.

~ On the edge of the World (1919) by Edmund Candler who visited Kashmir around 1913.

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Scenes of Chaddi Procession in Srinagar  captured by Brian Brake in 1957.

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Previously: Trash for Icicle God, 1921

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Dal in Time

Slow primordial death.

Created based on satellite images of Dal Lake dating from 1998 to 2012 made available by Google (here, although they were supposed to have images dating from 1984 but somehow the actual data available is only from 1998. The image came alive and death of the lake became clearly visible by applying certain line filters on the images. I tried something similar for Wular, but there the lake is hardly visible in any case, all one sees is movement of a green cover.

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