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Game: Po’si Gu’it

While the family was busy performing the last pooza of Herath, I heard some loud noises coming from the neighbours. The neighbours this year: a bunch of Shia students from Kargil [previous year]. I had to check it out.

The boys, it seemed, were in middle of some kind of game. And they were much enjoying it. I had some trouble understanding the game: a guy from a distance flipping coins into a small hole in the ground, a bunch of guys brimming with loud excitement.

My father later told me he has also played this game as a kid in Kashmir. There they called it ‘Posi Gu’it‘ (Coin-Hole). The rules are simple: A player has a number of coins with him which he has to flip from a distance into a small hole in the ground. After trying to flip all the coins in, some of the coins which make it into the hole, can be retained by him, but to claim the rest of the coins that didn’t make it into the hole, he has to accept a challenge from his opponent. The opponent will challenge the first player to hit a particular coin of his liking (based on his sense of difficulty) among these coins lying around the hole. If the player manages to hit the coin, he retains all, or else he loses these coins to the opponent. The game goes on till one of the player runs out of all his coins.

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Nights of Herath

Night of Twelfth.

Vagur Barun. Fill Vagur.
Since Kashmiris are not very good at explinations, one of the weirdest explanation of Wagur I have heard is that Vagur represents ‘Wahay Guru’.

Day of Thirteenth. Herath Day. Preparation.

Preparing Dam Aloos

Night of Thirteenth. Herath.

At Night, The final Herath Setup.
Offering Food to the gods. 

Night of Fifteenth. Preparing to eat the walnuts. The next set of rituals are actually meant to be performed at a river bank. But a tap will also do.

Actually meant for cutting river water with knife.

The final Herath Prasaad.
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Previously:
Herath File
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Kashmir in Kochi

I was in Kochi last week to set-up a company with some friends. From Kashmir to Kerala, the irony wasn’t lost on me. My Christian friend from Kerala doesn’t worry much about history or politics but then he need not be, Kerala is not a conflict zone. Fortunately, I can’t enjoy that freedom. Only people of conflict entertain themselves watching Owl of Minerva in flight and occasionally shooing the owl into flight. So I know a bit about caste, class and religion based politics of Kerala. There are some parallels between political history of Kashmir and that of Kerala but with Five major differences: One, Kashmir is a conflict zone. Two, politics never really took root in Kashmir. Three, Communism in Kerala was not something that only inspired populist laws and literature, it changed a lot of things on ground and then in turn the Congress lead forces (under Nehru/Indira) that opposed it (with the backing of Christians) also found a political space leading to a heavily contested state where economic prosperity of castes and religious groups got spread out, leading to a state where a Nair would vote for Communist party while a Christian would vote for Congress. A state where Muslims would align with ‘who-so-ever’ powers who would take care of their interests. Four, Kerala is protected by sea, there was no post-partition effect, no Pakistan next to it. Five, population number of the minorities in the state was substantial enough to encourage this kind of politics…No there are actually six major differences. Number six,…everything is different.

 Inane meanderings of people of conflict. On the ground it is all the same: Student wing of CPI(M) having street fights with RSS people. Young people thinking BJP rule, or a  Jam-ath rule, will be a good experience. Some old things: Muslims, bachelors, ‘girls-in-shorts’ and Film-wallas and their troubles finding rented accommodation in a society run by association of Family-wallas. But somehow there is peace. Normality. Calmness. 

Cherai Beach
Staring at the Arabian sea, I wondered about the sheer number of Kashmiri folktales (compiled by Rev. J. Hinton Knowles in late 1800s) centered around ‘sea voyage’. Why were Kashmiri telling stories of sea? Why was the hero running to the sea? How would they know what sea smells like. Vastness of Himalayas and of the Vastness of sea are poles apart. Kashmir and sea are poles apart.

And yet, I did find Kashmir in Kochi.

At least half of it. In an indifferent map.

And in fantasies. Lavish, beautiful and morbid.

What am I doing here?

But then accidently I found some fellow Kashmiris too. They too traveling for rozi-roti. At a place that long ago provided refugee to another set of Pardesi, foreign immigrants.

At Mattancherry, Jew Town, for lunch my friends walked into a restaurant that turned out to be run by a Kashmiri family. Of all the places. I had my first formal conversation in Kashimiri with a stranger in Kerala! They opened up their kitchen for me and I was able to peek inside. Typical Kashmiri set-up.

‘Takhtaa Mondhur‘, the wooden log traditionally used for cutting meat, brought all the way from Kashmir. We ordered two pieces of Gostaba, four bowls of Rista with two piece each and rice for four.

Ejaz opened up the place around 25 days back. I noticed that Rista had a more soupy feel to it and a different taste. Ejaz mentioned that here they add extra saffron to everything, apparently the foreign tourists love it, so all the traditional recipes have been modified. Bill was around Rs.1000. Meat is a lot costly in Kerala  while cheaper options are fish (available obviously in plenty), beef (a good decent plate of fry for breakfast can cost as little as Rs. 40. Most of the cattle is imported from T.N) and chicken (available universally).

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Vivekananda’s Last Day in Valley

Years were 1897-98. Vivekananda wanted to set up as Math in Srinagar. He needed some land. Like most visitors, he stayed on houseboats, traveled on boats. Camped at sweet European camping spots. Met the royalties. But land was refused by the British Regent Adelbert Talbot. With his foreign friends, he celebrated American Independence day floating on Jhelum, holding on to a locally made crude American flag. He even wrote a poem about the day: Bethink thee how the world did wait, And search for thee, through time and clime. A few years later, died on the same day of July. In Kashmir, he visited Mughal gardens – Shalimar, Nishat… and ancient temples – Bijbehar and Mattan. He climbed hills- Shankaracharya and Hari Parbat, and trekked his way to mountain abode of god Amarnath.  Here he told shell shocked Sadhus to not treat Muslims, and others, as infidels. Suffered what his doctor called a ‘massive heart attack’. Survived and claimed: ‘Now I have seen Shiva too’. In valley, he worshiped four-year-old daughter of his Mohammedan boatman as goddess Uma. He told Pandits that it is fine to send their children to a missionary school. At Khir Bhawani, he wondered why Goddess of this land didn’t protect herself from the Muslims. Claimed Mother Goddess answered, ‘It’s alright! I protect you, not the other way around.’ Here he picked up a Muslim devotee, a man he cured of migraine by a roll of a hand over the head. Here he made a mistake and found himself in middle of an ancient game of metaphysical star war. This man used to be a devotee of a local Muslim Fakir. The Fakir on losing a soul, cursed the man in orange robe, ‘Before you leave this valley, you shall taste your own blood. You shall remember, you too have a body. You shall vomit blood. Mark my words!’ And the words soon turned true. The story goes: Just before leaving the valley, Vivekananda vomited blood. It shook his core: ‘I have seen gods, talked to them, understood their mind, and yet something as crude as this can happen to me. I can be cursed. How? Why? What chance do the common folk have? What are we up against?’ His mind tossed and turned. His disciples took notes. Once back in his land, virgin-widow of his dead Guru advised, ‘Even Shankaracharya couldn’t survive these machinations. Even your Guru Ramakrishna was once cursed and vomited blood. Don’t worry. It probably saved your life. Had the blood gone to your head, you would have surely died. It’s probably all the yoga that you do.’ Some disciples wrote: Even gods are susceptible to craft. Rules of craft-  words, written, said and thought – are all binding even on Gods.

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* Based on ‘The Life of the Swami Vivekananda’ by Swami Virajananda (Publisher K.C. Ghosh, 1912) [archive.org]

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Kashmiri Sword and Guns, 1884

Came across these in a German work titled ‘Aus dem westlichen Himalaya: Erlebnisse und Forschungen’ by  Károly Jenö Ujfalvy (1884). All these specimen appear to be from Bhaderwah. In Kashmir, the art of gunmaking was introduced during era of Afghan rule. Best of the gunsmiths had shops at Nawatta in Srinagar. There still remain some old makers at Bandook Khar Mohalla, Rainawari (Gunsmith Lane) of the town.

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Previously:
Kashmiri Swords, Divine Bow and Arrows, Shalimar the Clown 

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algebra nay jabar kiya

From an image published in 1952

A popular old ditty from Kashmir on Maths and its mind befuddling mysteries.

Algebra Nay Jabar Kiya
Waqt Ki Rahi Tangi
Kalam Bechara Kya Likhay

Kakaz Rahi Nangi

Algebra unleashed terror.
There wasn’t enough time.
What could the poor pen cover?
Naked, was left the Paper.

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In Kashmir, Kagaz is Kakaz.

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I first came across that ditty thanks to my grandmother who would use bits of it to taunt me while I would fall asleep while reading. Then, recently, I came across two lines in book  ‘Srinagar: My City My Dream’ by Zahid G. Muhammad‘, a complete ‘Kashmir Nostalgia’ trip, (first and only book that someone actually bought from Flipkart based on a recommendation on this blog). Then, today, I came across the full ditty in ‘Cashmere: Kashir That Was Yarbal’ compiled by Somnath Sapru. [PDF download link].

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Bhattni/Haenz’bai by Fred Bremner, 1900

Another beautiful case of disjoint text and images. In this case a simple goof-up by an ‘angreez’ leads to a funny situation where a ‘pandit’ photograph ends up getting tagged as ‘musalmaan’, and then almost a century later, due to a vacuum created by lack of information, on a ‘social network’ the photograph and the actual subject does the rounds in all three social groups, in a ‘secular’ manner, devoid of any specific context, as a symbol of ‘Kashmiri Beauty’.






From National Geographic, 1921. Photograph by Fred Bremner. What is interesting about this photograph is that the caption suggests that the woman pictured is a boatwoman while the special danglers in her ear point to the fact that she is a Pandit woman.



Another photograph. Another pose. Same woman. By Fred Bremner in around 1900.


 Titled ‘A Panditani [Hindu] Kashmir’ 



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Even at the worst of times, it is only love that reaches out to me from Kashmir.

Talked to Posha  today. It was after almost fifteen years. That was when she visited our house in Jammu. She talked so fast, so animated, so alive,  just the way I remembered her. She talked of old times. Kashmiri flew out of her mouth like little sparrows. I wanted to keep pace. Catch all I could. I needed time to find the right words. To reply. I failed. She talked and I listened. And then all my memories of Kashmir came flooding back. She said I had all grown up. She had brought her young son along.  We played ‘bat-ball’. I balled and he batted. A debt I needed to pay. She used to ball and I used to bat. She was the first stranger I ever knew. My first friend. When I must have been younger, just a toddler, she too must have sometimes picked me up, hurled me in the air and then caught me. ‘Ha’tay’e Posh’ey! Wai Bhagwaan!‘ Mother must have screamed. And Posha would have just laughed.

Today, she visited again and asked about me. My father told her I often talk about her. He then rang me up and handed the phone to her. We talked for a minute.

I can’t write what we talked about and none of it would make any sense. Even at the worst of times, it is only love that reaches out to me from Kashmir.

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Summer. 2008
Veena Didi with Posha’s mother Mohul, entering their home.
Posha wasn’t home.
After marriage she has moved to a new place about half-a-mile down the road. 

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Update[26th Feb 2013]: Talked to my mother a few days ago and got the full import of the story.

Posha had an accident while riding her ‘scooty’ around Chattabal. Yes, she drives a Scooty now. Given the serious nature of the injury, Posha decided to get herself checked up at a better hospital in Amritsar. But there was one problem: her husband was in Bung’lore selling shawls and other Kashmiri merchandise, so there was nobody to take care of her three young children. But bones need mending. So Posha left her eldest son with one neighbour, other son at the house of a friend and her little daughter with her mother Mogul. Then she traveled to Amritsar. While Posh was in Amritsar, Indian Government decided to hang Goru and declare curfew in most of Kashmir. Posh was now stuck. But then she remembered something. She remembered she has a place to stay in Jammu. Posha headed straight for our house, house of her old neighbours from Kashmir. She stayed at our place till the road to Kashmir cleared. She slept in the same room, on the same bed next to my mother, a room with more than half a dozen Gods on four walls. She looks so pretty now. No more running nose. She is not the same old Posha now. She works as a laboratory assistant.  Draws a salary of 25000. In her toes, she has gold rings. Despite her recent injury, for the time she stayed, Posha, not so quietly, singing some song sometimes, sometims shouting,’Bhabhi, Be havav! Aunt, let me show you how to do it!’,  went about cleaning and dusting old cupboards, shelves and clearing ceiling corners of cobwebs. She stayed for two days and then went back to Srinagar after the halaat got better.