There are some photographs in Brian Brake’s 1957 Kashmir collection that I feel deserve individual attention. This one because comparatively Babri and Hydrabad are simple.
The thought occurred to me a few years ago when I showed a few images on this blog to my Nani. Among these images was an old photograph of Mosque of Shah Hamadan and just for the fun of it I quizzed her if she knew which place it was.
Her answer was quick. With hands held in a namaskar she said, ‘ Kali Mandar’.
I knew the history of this place, both the oral and the written one, about the fights, about how this spot stood for both a mosque and a temple and probably a Buddhist shrine too, but this knowledge didn’t make me realize what this place would have meant for people who lived in Srinagar during a particular era. Most of the old western travelogues I read simply referred to it as the Mosque of Shah Hamadan. Discussed it’s architecture and importance is discussed. In one book, ‘Houseboating in Kashmir’ (1934), an angrez woman, Alberta Johnston Denis, probably finding ‘men only’ policy of the shrine incomprehensible wrote:
Shah Hamadan was holy, according to the Mohammedans of Kashmir; but whatever he may actually have been, in their loyalty to him, at least, they were intolerant. To this day, this is evidenced in the inscription, elaborately carved on the verandah over the entrance, which, translated, reads: “This is the tomb of Shah Hamadan, who was a great saint of God. Whoever does not believe this, may his eyes be blinded and if he still does not believe it, may he go to Hell.”
In one of these books, I did read about Pandits who while going about their daily business, would pass along this place, stop at a particular spot where water could be seen oozing out and bow down and wash their hands and face. The pull of a hidden holy spring. A spring of strange stories, stories of Kali Nag, an ancient spring, that apparently sprang up just at the moment when Ram killed Ravan, a spring that kids are told holds broken bits of ancient sculptures, a dark spring they say turns you blind if you look into it. Stories of flying chappals and falling gods.
An interesting account on birth and survival of the spot is given by Pandit Anand Koul in his book ‘Archaeological Remains In Kashmir’ (1935):
Going up by boat, one’s attention is arrested farther on by a large building on the right bank between the 3rd and the 4th Bridges, which is called Shah-i-Hamamdan.
There is on this spot a spring, sacred to Kali. There was a Hindu temple over it which was built by Pravarasena II (110-70 A.D.) and was called Kali-Shri. The Mahall, in which it was situated, is still called Kalashpur, a corruption of Kali-Shri-pur. This temple was destroyed by Sultan Qutb-ud-Din (1373-94 A.D.) and, with its materials, he built a khanaqah. The later got burnt down twice and was rebuilt.
Soon after the conquest of Kashmir by Sikhs (1819) the Sikh Governor, Sardar Hari Singh, ordered the demolition of the mosque, saying that as it was a Hindu shrine, the Muhammadans should give up their possession of it. He deputed a military officer, named Phula Singh, with guns which were levelled towards the mosque from the Pathar Masjid Ghat, and everything was ready to blow it away. The Muhammadans then went to Pandit Bir Bal Dhar [a hero, a villian based on which Kashmir narrative you hold dear] who, having brought the Sikhs into Kashmir, was in great power, and requested him to intervene and save the mosque. He at once went to the Governor and told him that the Hindu shrine, though in the Muhammadans, was in a most protected condition and the removal of the mosque would be undersirable as it would simply lay it open to constant pollution by all sorts of people. There upon Sardar Hari Singh desisted from knocking it down.
On the wall fronting the river the Hindus have put a large ochre mark, and worship the goddess Kali there.
The spot captured by Brian Brake in around 1957. A spot that is now claimed and hidden by a tree gone wild. Claimed by a grayness that now fills the recent photographs of Kashmir. A place very simply once claimed in speeches made in Indian parliament floor as proof of syncretic culture of Kashmir.
From ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys. Below you can see the impact that these images from Kashmir had in shaping the western imagining of this land.
A page from a children’s book set in Kashmir and written around 1939.
‘Rhamon a boy of Kashmir by Heluiz Washburne, pictured by Roger Duvoisin‘ (1939).
The book tells the story of a little Kashmiri boat boy who is deputed by the King to visit the city on a special mission. There is houseboats, floating gardens, a mela, a trip to the big city alone, adventure, all the ingredients that would trigger the imagination of a young child. Most of the illustrations in the book are based on some old photograph of Kashmir, and in some cases (like the case of stealing of floating gardens) based on an old travelogue.
This is from a time when you could tell children wonderful stories about Kashmir – a far-off exotic land of simple, beautiful people, with a nice king – without you having to worry that they would one day grow-up and probably think that the world is actually a very messy place to be.
Yes, definitely it is a book meant for children
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Update: Below is an alternative view of the first image of “Living Human Welcome” published in National Geographic, Vol 40, 1921. We can see here that unlike the first image the word “welcome” is not mirrored, it actually spells right. Also, if one goes by the caption, the event was held to welcome the British viceroy (should be Minto and his wife) into Kashmir and not the Maharaja as claimed in the book ‘Our summer in the vale of Kashmir’ (1915) by Frederick Ward Denys.
A drawing from 1860s by Austrian artist Moritz von Schwind (1804-1871). Found it in ‘Schwind des Meisters Werke’ (1906) by Otto Albert Weigmann. The drawing is based on the story of “The Magic Horse” that appears in The Arabian Nights/Thousand and one nights. The scene depicts a Prince of Persia rescuing a Princess of Bengal from a King of Kashmir.
The are a couple of variations of the story (as it reached west) but mostly goes something like this: An Indian arrives in Shiraz with a magical mechanical flying horse. The price of Shiraz takes it for a test ride without knowing the landing instruction. He somehow lands in Bengal and brings back a princess with her. The Indian steals the princess and flies away to Kashmir. The king of Kashmir rescues the princess from the Indian by killing him but wants to marry the princess much against her wish. Princess loves prince of Shiraz. Meanwhile, the prince of Shiraz arrives in Kashmir with a plan to take back the princess. His plan works and he flies away on magic horse with the princess.
What is interesting about Schwind’s this particular painting is that in an earlier version of it the reaction of King of Kashmir was muted, he was an amazed spectator. But in the later painting, the one we see here, the Kings and his courtiers are gesticulating in helpless anger. Schwind took the text, in which no mention is made of reaction of King of Kashmir and added a layer of emotion over it.
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‘Aakho Sherer-e-Sheerazo‘ (You have come from city of Shiraz) remains a popular Kashmiri song at weddings. It’s about women singing about an ideal bridegroom who arrives from Shiraz. Probably not related to the tale but an interesting fact.
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Hemjuneh, Princess of Kashmir, be-spelled and held prisoner behind a trap door.
From ‘Tales of the Persian Genii’ (1917) by Francis Jenkins Olcott. Illustration by Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogany(1882 – 1955).
The story is told by Mahoud, a jeweller of Delhi, who tries to free her from a merchant of Fez who serves an an evil Enchantress, but is turned into a red toad. Her story is something like this:
A King of Kashmir wants to marry her daughter to the prince of Georgia but the girl does not want to get married at all. Then one day an enchantress in the form of an old woman hands her a handkerchief having a sketch of a handsome man. Enchanted, the princess resolves to marry that man. She seeks that old woman’s help and is flown away to Fez only to realized that the Enchantress has brought her there on request of a local merchant who had heard her beauty. She is now stuck in a foreign land with a bunch of evil types. Luckily for her a good genie, a servant of Soloman, arrives who tries to help her. This genie first admonishes the princess for leaving home of her parents on her own will driven by words of some stranger. He then puts a spell on her to protect her. The spell works in a strange way. If the merchant of Fez looks at the princess, she shall fall asleep till the next full moon. She shall sleep behind a trapdoor that the merchant can only find on the night of full moon and can only be opened by a friend of his. It is in this scenario that the jeweller of Delhi opened the trapdoor for the merchant of Fez but then tried to help the princess.
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Kids chanting “Samamber has a lover in Iran” in front of would-be husband of Samamber, daughter of Qazi of Kashmir. Haider Beg of Persia, a silent admirer of Samamber pays them to do it.
Illustration by Hilda Roberts for “Persian tales written down for the first time in the original Kermani and Bakhtiari, and tr. by D. L. R. Lorimer and E. O. Lorimer. (1919). The story is a Bakhtiari tale presented in the book. In this a story a woman from Kashmir goes to a place in Persia to collect herbs once every year. A man sees her and falls in love with her. The woman does’t like it, challenges him, almost kills the guy and goes back to Kashmir where her father arranges her marriage. The man from Persia arrives in Kashmir and tries to win her even as she is about to be married. After some twists, the woman falls for the Persian man and goes away with him, gets married. Later still in the story, the man asks his wife to leave him and marry his best friend as his best friend has fallen in love with her (a scenario on Hindi cinema was to make countless flicks). She agrees. But at last moment truth is revealed, she is re-married to her original husband and everything turns out fine.
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Princess Farruchnas daughter of Togrul bey, who ruled over Kashmir. Doesn;t want to get married but later falls for Persian prince Farruchshad. From ‘Gulistan: Tales of Ancient Persia’ (1977) by Gotlinde Thylmann Von Keyserlingk, Karl Thylmann. The story is identified by Richard Burton as “Farrukh-Shad, Farrukh-Ruz, and Farrukh-Naz”.
An american construction company employed a 25 year old ex-G.I. from Brooklyn named Russell K. Haight Jr. who during World War 2 had been a non-combatant in France fighting for Canadian Army. After a fall from a cliff, he decided to head back home.But a chance encounter with officials operating the war in Kashmir took him to the Poonch front in southwestern Kashmir where he took part in fighting for two months. At that time all he knew was that Kashmir had a Dogra king and he didn’t like that.
With his american no-fuss attitude he was soon promoted to brigradier general in the tribal army, a rank he later claimed was given to him as a joke by British army officers. On the front he learnt to handle the maundering and looting tribals by playing upon their vanities and tribal rivalries.
But his big american dream of action-adventure did not last long. He got into a fight with Pathans over some machine guns recovered from a downed Indian Air Force place. He killed the guys and became a fugitive. After arriving back in America via Karachi, in an interview with Robert Turnball for New York Times*,
he created a few ripples by claiming that the fighting in Kashmir was managed by Pakistan Army, that the land proclaimed as Azad Kashmir was managed by a puppet of Pakistan. That there had been assasination attempts on his life for criticizing the way the war was being handled. And yet he remained sympathetic to the “cause”.
After the news spread, a communist paper in India claimed him to be an american spy and proof of American meddling in internal affairs of other countries.Around the same time an american author from New York named Nicol Smith (Golden doorway to Tibet, 1949) claimed there was some pro-Russia activity happening in Leh, that the Yarkhandi traders in Leh may be Russian agents. He claimed that there was a chance that the king of Leh may seek help from Russia and seek a separate way out. The old great game just kept going on with old and new players.
In 1967, Russell K. Haight retired from U.S. army as a sergeant-major after a long career of fighting in Korea, Germany, Bolivia and Vietnam.
A photograph from National Geographic Magazine, Vol 40, 1921
It was in the autumn of 1891 , when I returned from Bombay with Mrs Tyndale-Biscoe, that amongst our luggage we brought a football, the first that our school-boys had seen. I remember well the pleasure with which I brought that first football to the school, and the vision that I had of the boys’ eagerness to learn this new game from the West. Well, I arrived at the school, and at a fitting time held up this ball to their view, but alas ! it aroused no such interest or pleasure as I had expected.
” What is this ? ” said they.
” A football,” said I.
” What is the use of it ? ”
“For playing with. It is an excellent game, and will help to make you strong.”
” Shall we gain any rupees by playing it ? ”
” No.”
” Then we do not wish to play the game. What is it made of?”
” Leather.”
” Then we cannot play ; we cannot touch it. Take it away, for it is unholy to our touch.”
You will see that matters had not turned out as my optimism had led me to expect.
” All right,” said I. ” Rupees or no rupees, holy or unholy, you are going to play football this afternoon at three-thirty, so you had better learn the rules at once.” And immediately, with the help of the blackboard, I was able to instruct them as to their places on the field, and the chief points and rules of the game.
Before the end of school I perceived that there would be trouble, so I called the teachers together and explained to them my plans for the afternoon. They were to arm themselves with single-sticks, picket the streets leading from the school to the playground, and prevent any of the boys escaping en route. Everything was ready, so at three o’clock the porter had orders to open the school gate. The boys poured forth, and I brought up the rear with a hunting-crop. Then came the trouble ; for once outside the school compound they thought they were going to escape; but they were mistaken. We shooed them down the streets like sheep on their way to the butcher’s. Such a dirty, smelling, cowardly crew you never saw. All were clothed in the long nightgown sort of garment I have described before, each boy carrying a fire-pot under his garment and so next to his body.’ This heating apparatus has from time immemorial taken the place of healthy exercise.
We dared not drive them too fast for fear of their tripping up (as several of them were wearing clogs) and falling with their fire-pots, which would have prevented their playing football for many days to come.
At length we are safely through the city with a goodly crowd following and arrive at the playground. Sides are made up, the ground is cleared and ready, the ball is in the centre, and all that remains is for the whistle to start the game.
The whistle is blown, but the ball does not move.
Thinking that the boys had not understood my order, I tell them again to kick off the ball immediately after hearing the whistle. I blow again, but with no result. I notice that the boys are looking at one another and at the crowd of spectators with unmistakable signs of fear and bewilderment on their faces.
On my asking them the cause, they say : ” We cannot kick this ball, for it is an unholy ball and we are holy Brahmans.” I answer them by taking out my watch and giving them five minutes to think over the situation : at the expiration of the time, I tell them, something will happen if the ball does not move. We all wait in silence, an ominous silence. The masters armed with their single-sticks are at their places behind the goals.
Time is just up, and I call out : ” Five seconds left — four — three — two — one. Kick ! ” The ball remains stationary ! My last card had now to be played, and I shout towards the right and left goals : ” Sticks ! ”
Sticks won the day, for as soon as the boys see the sticks coming the ball bounds in the air, the spell is broken, and all is confusion. Puggarees are seen streaming yards behind the players, entangling their legs; their shoes and clogs leave their feet as they vainly try to kick the ball, and turn round and round in the air like Catherine wheels descending on any and everybody’s head. The onlookers who have followed us from the city are wildly excited, for they have never in their lives before seen anything like it — holy Kashmiri Brahman boys (in dirty nightgowns) tumbling over one another, using hands and legs freely to get a kick at a leather ball.
Well, as I said before, all was noise and excitement, when all of a sudden the storm is succeeded by a dead calm: the game ceases, the Brahmans, both players and onlookers, are all sucking their fingers for all they are worth (a Kashmiri way of showing amazement), and all eyes are turned towards one of the players who is a picture of misery. And no wonder, for this unholy piece of leather had bounded straight into this holy one’s face, had actually kissed his lips. He had never before in his life felt the smack of a football, and certainly never dreamed of such a catastrophe. He thought all his front teeth were knocked out and that his nose was gone for ever. He would touch his mangled (?) features, but he dared not. Once or twice he essayed to do so, but his heart failed him. His face was defiled, so that he could not do what he would, and would not do what he could. He did the next best thing, which was to lift up his voice and weep, and this he did manfully. This moment was a terrible one for all concerned, and especially for me, for now all eyes were directed to the primary cause of all this misery.
What was I to do? I was not prepared for such a turn of events. I could ” shoo ” an unwilling school to the playground, I could make unwilling feet kick, but how could I make an unholy face holy ? Fortunately the idea of water came into my distracted mind, and I said : ” Take the fool down to the canal at once and wash him.” Immediately the thoughts and the eyes of the victim’s sympathisers were diverted to the cleansing waters and their magical effect on the outraged features of the body. On their return I placed the ball again in the centre, blew my whistle and the ball was kicked off. All was excitement once more, and the game was played with enthusiasm until I called “Time!”
Everyone left the field and scattered to various parts of the city, to tell their parents and neighbours of the great “tamasha” they had witnessed or in which they had taken part. The remarks made about me and the school in their homes over their curry and rice that night were, I expect, not all favourable.
I have been told more than twice that I behaved in an un-Christian like manner, and that I had no business to force football or any other game upon boys. against their will.
Well, we cannot all see alike, and it is just as well that we cannot, otherwise Rome would never have been built and there would not be much progress on this terrestrial sphere. That game introduced the leather ball to Srinagar and to the holy Brahman who lives therein, and although for the first year my presence was a necessity at every game, football came to stay.
Now all the various schools in the city have their football teams, and in all parts of the city you see boys playing this game with a make-shift for a football.
This year I watched an inter-class match, most keenly contested, the referee being not a teacher but a schoolboy. His decision was not once disputed, nor was there any altercation between any of the players ; it was a truly sporting game.
~ Kashmir in sunlight &shade; a description of the beauties of the country, the life, habits, and humour of its inhabitants and an account of the gradual but steady rebuilding of a once down-trodden people (1922) by C. E. Tyndale Biscoe
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This was a time when football was first introduced by emissaries of Raj to far off places like Afghanistan and Tibet too. What is interesting in the description of the event provided by Biscoe is the powerful consciousness on part of the missionary that he was irreversibly changing the social mores of the natives. And according to him, for the better and forever. He was building Rome. Rome or no Rome, he did add a new chapter to how Pandits assimilated some new things from Missionaries too. But the path, as often is the case of evolution of a society or a community, wasn’t as smooth as one would like to believe now.
While C. E. Tyndale Biscoe would have one believe that after initial reluctance Kashmiris wholeheartedly gave up their Pherans and Pugrees and started playing football, in a photograph published in National Geographic Magazine (top) just around that time, we can see kids playing football with their Pugrees and some even in the beloved pheran. The truth is that the acceptance of strict missionary ways wasn’t accepted by purist Pandits without giving a tough fight. Pandits employed all kind of tactics as a way to block the path of missionaries. It was almost modern warfare that included media blitz, calling for support from mainstream Hindu Nationalist leaders and employing age old Kashmiri technique of giving nasty nicknames to people who were siding with the Missionaries. The National Geographic Magazine tells us that these Pandits were nicknamed Rice Christians, or ‘Batte Christain‘, one who converted to Christianity for rice. Much late, when communism arrived in Kashmir, the term was modified and became ‘Batte Communist‘ or ‘Rice Communist’, for one who claimed to be a communist for discount in Rice rations (this was probably around 1950s of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad). Also, around this time moniker Kari was coined for people who were suspected to have changed religion to Christianity.
The above photograph from ‘Character Building in Kashmir’ (1920)’ has Biscoe boys dragging a “dead dog”. The story:
Around that time often leading the social attacks on Biscoe school were Brahmins and the supporters of other “more normal” schools including ones that had the backing of Mrs. Annie Besant, of theosophical fame, who opened Hindu School, on the other bank just opposite the CMS school near the third bridge of Srinagar. Often local Newspapers were filled with News snippets targeting the school and its way of functioning. In one such news story, the paper claimed that Mr. Biscoe made Brahmin boys drag dead dogs through the city. Strange as the news may seem, Mr. Biscoe’s response was equally typical. He writes in his book ‘Character Building in Kashmir’ (1920):
Many of the native papers had done us the honour of telling their readers what they thought of us, and gave accounts of what had not, as well as of what had, happened chiefly the former. For many of the Indian papers greedily swallow the lies made red hot in Srinagar. One of the yarns that appeared is worth quoting :
” Mr. Biscoe, principal of the Church mission school in Srinagar, makes his Brahman boys drag dead dogs through the city.”
This ” spicy ” bit of news took our fancy, and we thought it a pity that one of these yarns at least should not be founded upon something tangible, so we decided to help the editor of the paper in this matter.
We possessed an obedient dog, a spaniel, who was in the habit of “dying” for his friends when required to do so. The rest of the cast was quite easy a party of boys, a rope, and a photographer. The obedient spaniel died, and remained dead while we tied a rope to his hind leg, and placed the boys in position on the rope for the photographer to snap.
So henceforward if ever we find a citizen disbelieving Srinagar yarns, especially those spun against the schools, we can produce this photograph to show that one at least of their stories is true. Papers may err, but cameras never (?).
In one of the still more strange case, Pandits even sought help from Vivekananda on the matter when he arrived in Kashmir in around 1897. Although not naming him directly, Biscoe in ‘Kashmir in sunlight &shade’ writes about Pandits asking a certain Sadhu to intervene in their favor. This man he describes as, “A certain yellow-robed and much-travelled Sadhu” who “visited Kashmir with his cheelas.” and “had travelled in Europe and America, and was highly educated.” Based on the description and chronology of the events this man has to be Vivekananda. What followed was that initially this Sadhu favoured the Pandits but later after talking to Biscoe and seeing his school and work, he did a u-turn and advised pandits to send their children to Biscoe.
And yet the Pandit hatred for Biscoe, this man who was challenging their way of life, didn’t subside. They didn’t understand all this strange business of swimming, rowing, mountaineering, cricket, cleaning street and rivers. They expected the school to just to teach their children maths and essential skills that will help them get a government jobs. But they saw that Biscoe was in-effect changing their children into little Europeans. And he was doing it with a certain brashness. If children drowned while rowing in Wular, Biscoe believed that other children would readily filled their place. He believed in football and its power to change a society. But the ripples that his little experiment was causing in the Kashmiri society can be gauged from writings of Biscoe’s son E. D. Tyndale-Biscoe. In his book ‘Fifty years against the stream. The story of a school in Kashmir’ (1930)* he writes that the children in order to avoid football would often puncture the ball and their parents would shoot off angry letter’s to CMS headquaters in London. One of the letter read like this:
“We, the inhabitants – Hindus and Muhamadans of Kashmir – want this, that if Mr. Biscoe is allowed to remain in Kashmir as a Principal of the school, not a single boy will attend it, and the Society will have to close it for good. Therefore, please sir, transfer Mr. Biscoe for his is exceedingly a bad man, illiterate, deceitful, ill-mannered, uncultured, cunning, and a man too fond of cricket.”
And yet Biscoe stayed on, building his little roman empire in Kashmir, little by little, with diligent social work and an unshakable faith in his unconventional methods.
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* Mentioned in ‘Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post, edited by James H Mills, Satadru Sen.
A funny little tale from Biscoe about what happened when girls first started attending English schools in Kashmir:
“It was somewhere in the nineties that one of the mission ladies started a girl school in the city; it was of course by no means popular, as it shocked the prejudices of all proper thinking folk in Srinagar. The girls who were brave enough to attend were very timid, and their parents were somewhat on the shake, as public opinion was very much against them. The school continued until the first prize day. The Superintendent had invited some of the European ladies of the station to come to the function, thinking it would be an encouragement to the girls and their parents. All the girls were assembled in the school when, on the appearance of the English lady visitors, some one in the street shouted out that the Europeans had come to kidnap the girls. Others took up the cry, and ran to the school windows and told the girls to escape by jumping from the windows, the man below catching them as they fell. Before the visitors could enter the school the scholars had literally flown; the girls of course lost their heads on account of the shouting from the street. It was terrible moment for the Superintendent as she saw her girls disappear out of the windows, for she feared that they would be damaged by the fall. It is said that one of the lady visitors was wearing rather a wonderful hat which upset the equilibrium of the citizens who were standing outside the school”
~ C.E. Tyndale Biscoe, Kashmir in Sunlight & Shade (1925)
~ Maqbool Shah (d. 1877)
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American Soldier, Vaden Carney and British Censorship officer, Pam Rumboldr on Shankracharya. 1943. Photographer: William Vandivert. From Life Magazine.
If I ate lotus seeds, I’d return to Kashmir LIFE 2 Sep 1957
An American couple following Kipling’s trail in Asia.
Peggy Streits swims among lotus plants in Nagin Lake
