in bits and pieces
Village Tulamula, 2008.
“Zara Zara hai mere Kashmir ka mihman-nawaz
Rah men pathar ke tukrun se mila pani mujhe”
I first came across these lines (typically, unattributed ) in the book ‘Kashmiri Pandits’ by Pandit Anand Koul (1924). Recently, picked up that the lines are by an Urdu poet of Kashmiri origins, Brij Narayan Chakbast (1882–1926).
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| Self. 20th August. 2012. |
Talle mere phatte de’n, par ghar mere Dilli’n
I’m in rags, but I hail from Delhi
~ A Dogri saying. Came across it in ‘Tales from The Tawi: a collection of Dogri Folk Tales’ by Suman K.Sharma.
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.
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| Cherai Beach |
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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It was started in 1918 (1915?) by Amar Nath Mehta and Ram Chand Mehta on a houseboat on Jhelum river.
Mahatta & Co, Connaught Place, Delhi.
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Previously: Picture Postcards of Kashmir from Mahatta & Co
Ganga Bank, Rishikesh. 2009
Yamuna Bank. Delhi.2012.
Below some pages from ‘Vaishava Art and Iconography of Kashmir’ (1996) by Bansi Lal Malla
Yamuna in niche on right, Avantisvamin temple, quadrangle porch, outer chamber, southern wall, Avantipur (Pulwama), Mid 9th cent. A.D., Bluish grey limestone.
Yamuna, Baramulla, 8th cent. A.D., Grey schist. S.P.S. Museum, Srinagar.
Ganga on left, antarala, main shrine, Martanda (Anantnag). First half of 8th cent. A.D., Sun temple, Martanda.
Yamuna, Dhumatbhal (Anantnag). 11th cent. A.D., Present location (?)
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| Vitasta at Zero Bridge. 2010. |
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A young Mani Kaul and A.K. Haangal in Basu Chatterjee’s Sara Akash (1969).
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Anyway, from various volumes of ‘The people of India : a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan’ (1868) by John William Kaye, Meadows Taylor, J. Forbes Watson, here are photographs of some of the Kashmiris that one could come across in India back then.
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| Zahore Begum, Mahomedan, Allahabad. [from Volume 2] |
“Zahore Begum is a Cashmere Mussulmani, and follows the profession of a courtezan. As may be supposed, her charecter is not very respectable. She belongs to the Soonee sect of Mussulmans.
She has a very fair complexion, black hair and eyes; she wears a black silk dress and yellow shawl; a diamond ring on her left thumb, cloth shoes, embroidered with gold and set with precious stones, and her silver anklets have small bells attached to them.”
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| Pandit Aftab Rae. Hindoo Priest – Brahmin. Allyghur. [from Volume 3] |
“Aftab Rae, like Ramnarain, is a Pundit, or expounder of the Hindoo scared books. He is a Brahmin of Cashmerian origin, but his family have lived at Lucknow for more than a century. He has himself resided in Allyghur and the neighbouring districts for nearly fifty years. Persons of this class are rarely to be met with in this part of Hindoostan. They are for the most part shrewd, clever, and designing. Their habits are migratory, generally seeking employment in the civil department under Government. They go any distance to obtain it. They are Brahmins by caste, and a keen-eyed, crafty race. Their food is mutton, fish, vegetables, and grain, but not beef; and they generally live to the age of seventy or eighty years. Aftab Rae is seventy years of age; his height is five feet six inches, complexion fair, hair and eyes grey.”
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| Pundit Jowalla Nath. Brahmin. Saharunpoor. [from Volume 4] |
“The gentleman here represented is a fine specimen of his class, a secular Brahmin, in the service of Government. Well educated and liberal in their ideas, they are for the most part above the narrpw-minded and exclusive sectarianism of Brahmins of religious or priestly profession, and prove most intelligent and valuable public officers. The Pundit is, or was, tehsildar, or collector of revenue of the Roorkee district. He is a native of the valley of Cashmere; and as will be evident from the Photograph, his features are of the highest class of Aryan charecter – identical, in fact, with the European; and the difference between them, and those of other Brahmins represented in this work, will be at once evident on comparison. Pundit Jowalla Natli is a person of essentially European mind. He has mastered the English language, which he both writes and speaks with a fluency and correctness rarely attamed by a foreigner ; and his honorary title of Pundit could only be assumed upon a high standard of proficiency in the Sanscrit literature of his own country.
His costume is a richly embroidered robe or choga of Cashmere cloth, trimmed with fur, with an under vest of cloth. His trowsers and shoes are of Enghsh fashion, and the embroidered cap is perhaps an invention of his own, since it is not common among his people. Notwithstanding his English habits and manners, the Pundit preserves the rules of his own caste inviolate; while he, and his class generally, are free from those gross superstitions and idolatrous observances, which are followed by Brahmins of other and less enlightened professions. There is no doubt that educated natives of India, in the class to
which the Pundit belongs, are increasing in numbers and in influence ; but they can do little as yet, perhaps, to affect the ignorance and bigotry of their countrymen. “
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| Cashmiri From Cashmere. Mussulman. Simla. [from Volume 4] |
“MAHOMEDAN merchants from Cashmere are very commonly met -with at Simla, and, indeed, in all the northern stations of India. They bring shawls, scarves, embroidered cloths, and other local manufactures for sale, as well as dried fruits, which are readily disposed of. The costume of the Cashmiris differs from that of ordinary Mahomedans of India. Instead of the tight and often ungraceful tunic, the garment shown in the Photograph, which is called chogha, is almost universally worn, especially in winter. The best are made of soft serge, or cloth, woven from the fine wool of the shawl goat, and the natural colours, brown, grey, or white, are preserved. These garments are frequently handsomely embroidered on the chest and shoulders, as also down the back, by silk or woollen braid in remarkably chaste patterns; and there is no class of Cashmere manufacture, perhaps, which more perfectly exhibits the exquisite taste of the artizans of the country, than these embroideries. They are never in varied colours, and the best effects are produced by braids in monotone, crimson upon white, dark grey upon light grey, and other combinations. These manufactures, both in shawls, scarves, cloaks, and even choghas, are now becoming known in Europe, and are to be found for sale in the shops of London and Paris shawl merchants; while in the beautiful collections of the India Museum, many specimens of the finest descriptions of work can be examined by those interested in Indian productions.
The Mahomedans of Cashmere are in no wise different from their brethren of Northern India. They are, for the most part, Soonnies, and have a strong admixture of Aftghan blood; but, as a rule, they are not a military class, nor have they ever been remarkable for the military spirit so abundantly displayed by Mahomedans elsewhere. They are, however, a fine, handsome race of people, and their women, who have not unfrequently fair, ruddy complexions, are esteemed very beautiful — the Circassians, as it were, of India. Since the sale of Cashmere to Golab Sing, the Rajah of Jummoo, by Sh H. Hardinge, in 1846, the oppressive character of the local administration has induced many of the shawl weavers and embroiderers to leave their native country, and settle in the northern cities of India ; and in most of them, colonies of native Cashmiris have been established, which subsist upon the manufacture of articles in local estimation; but the shawls have not the softness or beauty of those produced in Cashmere, and the best articles produced are perhaps the embroidered shawls, scarves, and choghas, before alluded to.
Cashmere was originally an independent Mahomedan kmgdom, but was conquered and attached to the imperial dommions by the Emperor Akbur in 1587, and was used by him and by his successors as a place of retreat from the summer heats of India. It passed from the Mahomedan rule to that of the Sikhs in 1818, and remained in then- possession till its sale to the Rajahs of Jummoo. Could the entire possession of the Punjab have been foreseen, it is not improbable that the beautiful valley might now have been a British province. “
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Some shawl bearers:
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| Diljan. Bazar woman. Saharunpoor. [from Volume 3] |
“Diljan, the “heart of life,” is like Wuzeerun, a Mahomedan courtezan. Her dress is black tunic, black silk trowsers, and Cashmere shawl.”
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| Wuzeerun. Bazar woman. Mahomedan. Saharunpoor. [from Volume 3 ] |
“THIS photograph represents a Mahomedan bazar woman, or professional courtezan. Her dress is a yellow tunic, green silk trowsers, and red Cashmere shawl. There is little to be said for women of this class, who exist under many denominations all over India, and the nature of their profession debars description of them. Many are dancing women, Mahomedans as well as Hindoos. They can never contract real marriage, though some of them avail themselves of the form ” Nika,” under the Mahomedan law, the offspring of which is legitimate, though in a secondary degree. In such cases those married and secluded become honourable women. Public coutezans are devoted by their families to the profession from their early youth ; and, on attaining a fit age, they are married to a dagger, or a tree, with all the ceremonies of a real marriage. This custom obtains as well among Hindoos as Mahomedans. Many of the great Hindoo temples have bands of courtezans attached to them, who are maintained by the revenues of the establishment, and who follow then trade without public shame. It is a strange anomaly that, while a courtezan, born of, or adopted into, a courtezan family, is not held to pursue a shameless vocation, other women who have fallen from good repute are esteemed disgraceful. The practice of purchasing children to be instructed as courtezans was commonly practised some years ago, even in British territories, and is frequent at the present time in those of native Princes; but the stringent nature of the laws existent under the British rule against all practice of slavery, however
it may be disguised, prevents any open violation of them, and the customs formerly existent can hardly now escape punishment. “
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Daughter: Santha Rama Rau spent most of her life defining and explaining India to the world. A citizen of the free world.
Mother: Dhanvanthi Handoo Rama Rau, founder and president of the Family Planning Association of India, fought for women’s reproductive rights in India. First Kashmiri girl to marry outside the community. A citizen of free India.
Grand-mother: A just about five feet tall imposing woman who lived in India but held on to the age-old beliefs of Pandit creed. A woman who worried about finding a suitable ‘Pandit’ boy for her tall grand daughter. A woman of old world pre-occupations, old world biases, and at times old world charm and wisdom. A citizen of imagined Kashmir.
In ‘Cooking of India’, Santha Rama Rau had this to say about her mother’s side of the family:
“In all of this, their fierce sense of origins, their strong feeling for the “Kashmiri Brahmin community,” remained undiminished even though they were exiled in uncomprehending, if not hostile territory. So intense was this feeling that it never allowed them to realize that their food, like their manners, language, even in some cases their dress, had been strongly influenced by centuries of Muslim rule in Kashmir and later in Allahabad. Unlike most Brahmins they ate meat (though not beef); on the rare occasions when they served rice it was in the form of pulaus (imaginative variation of the Persian polo, or pilaf). They delighted in serving an iced sherbet like mixture of fruit juices, a drink they had adopted from the Moghul courts of North India.”
To my collection of Kashmir travelogues, I add Santha Rama Rau’s description of Kashmir visited in 1939 when she was sixteen. Santha Rama Rau’s Home to India (1945):
The diary I kept of the summer Premila and Mother and I spent in Kashmir was entitled romantically. Journey into Limbo. The reason which suggested the title is obscure, but in retrospect it does not seem inappropriate, for it conveys the timelessness of that summer.On the route to Kashmir you can go by train only as far north as Rawalpindi. From there the hourney has to be made in one of the cars on hire at Rawalpindi station. The stockily built Mohammedan driver of our battered Fiat, with his gaudy turban, knew he was a “character”. He warned us before he left the station that he was always sick on this trip, but if we would let him stop the car every forty minutes or so, things could be managed very neatly.
All the way up to Srinagar he used one hand for steering and the other for holding the door on. While Premila, with remarkable imperviousness, slept through the entire journey, the driver talked to me about the good done by the Congress Party for the peasants and small shopkeepers in this part of the country. He said too few people realized how far-reaching the influene of the Congress was in the princely States. Certainly there was a great deal of work still to be done, but while the Bristish protected the Maharajas the people were bound to remain oppressed. I was surprised at his fluent use of political phraseology as he discussed representative government needed in the States which the Congress wanted, and hoped to institute in time, when the power of the Princes could be broken. We of British India, he said, under-estimated the force of the people themselves in the States.
When I asked him why he wasn’t afraid to talk to us so freely, he became excited. “Tell the officials if you want to! Tell the Maharaja himself! We will fight them and the British. Wait and see, we’ll fight!”
I asked him what he would fight the British with – guns? machines? I reminded him that we had not been allowed to produce armaments in the country.
“Machinery!” he said, and tool his hand off the steering wheel to dismiss the industrial age with a flourish.”If we have it, good. If not, still good.”
“Then what will we fight with?”
He looked at me with scorn.”What we really need is to exploit our unity. If every Indian were to spit once, we could drown the British!”
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You can read the complete book here.
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Probable clues to what Pandit writing would read like in a few decades from now when fresh blood will start describing their world, and the world of their parents and grand-parents. And when they will describe their visits to The One Great Limbo of their lives.
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