By Ghulam Nabi Shahid
Another bang on the door and Bhushan Lal was almost frightened to death. He turned his blank eyes towards the ceiling and waited. He did not respond to the bang. He let out a deep sigh, rolled over and looked at his little girl. She was sleeping soundly. He then turned to Phoola. She was wide awake and looking towards him. Bhushan Lal got out of the bed without making a noise.
There was another bang on the door. Phoola sighed. Bhushan Lal said a little more loudly. “Probably it is curfew today as well!”
“How do you know?” Phoola retorted slightly irritated.
“We would have heard an Azan1 by now otherwise. The day has progressed,” he continued the conversation.
“It is still too early!” saying this, Phoola pulled out her arm and brought the small time piece closer to her to check the time. She put the time piece back at its original place as though saying to herself, “It is only four thirty.” Bhushan Lal sighed once again staring at his daughter. The night lamp made her face look different than usual. But after some thought he chose not to speak up. Bhushan Lal felt a sort of suffocation and finally spoke while turning towards Phoola, “Do we have milk for the girl?”
Phoola too remembered, “Yes, but not enough! What do we do now?” Bhushan Lal gave it some thought and then reassured her, “Khatij will probably bring more today.” Phoola felt a bit relieved but soon remembered, “No! I don’t know how and from where she managed to do so a day before! What if they see her? They can’t be trusted at all!”
“Bhagwan will protect her! She is too good! The other day she passed on a bag of pulses and refused to take a penny in exchange.”
Somewhere a loudspeaker was switched on. Hearing the scratching noise both held their breath and waited. Will it be an Azan or an announcement? A second later there was an announcement that the curfew will continue. There will be no relaxation. Hearing the announcement both felt as though they received a whiplash on their legs.
Bhushan Lal started calculating the curfew days in his mind. The figure got mixed up and he uttered while losing control, “What will happen now?” Phoola Ji answered in a similar state of helplessness, “Bhagwan knows!”
A few seconds later, electricity failed too. Myriad of thoughts raced through the minds of both while in darkness. A long time seemed to pass while they kept tossing about in their bed, till finally echoes of Azans reverberated all around. The echoes seemed to reassure them both. Simultaneously dogs started howling, adding further to their confidence.
Phoola Ji lifted herself from the bed and self-assuredly opened the door and went down the stairs to the corridor. Bhushan Lal feeling a bit secure too stirred up and started looking around the room. He moved towards the window on the roadside. He pealed off the newspaper from the corner of the wood meshed window and started looking out. He had his thick bottle-bottom glasses on. Normally whenever he looked out in the day he could see as far as the square near the bridge. But this time he sensed fog all around and could not decipher much.
He tried to look on harder towards the road. He resolved something in his mind and pasted the newspaper back on to the window. He turned around and saw that Phoola had come back to the room. Some light had begun to enter the room. She looked at Bhushan Lal and said in an irritated tone, “What exactly are you doing?” As though Bhushan Lal did not hear this, he said with some smugness, “I looked out through the window. There is nobody at the door.”
Phoola Ji could not resist saying, “Even if there was somebody, what would you have done?” He smoldered with ginger inside but responded with control, “What can I do? They are nobodies’ relatives?” Phoola, lost control, “Who asked you to look for relatives out there? I have been telling you for days! Go out! Meet some officer! Tell them that we are Pandits! What have we done (to deserve this)?”
As though Bhushan Lal had a ready answer, “Hello! They do not differentiate between Pandits and Muslims. Did you not see the other day how they treated Vinod Ji? He is still plastered all over!”
Phoola Ji recollected something, “It was good that they treated him that way! He is too cynical and cocky. He must have irritated them somehow!”
“He only said this: that I am a Butta4, A Pandit!” he looked at his wife more intently. He wasn’t satisfied with his answer, so he went on trying to convince her further, “They suspect we are the ones who throw stones at them. That is why they were banging violently on our door and that of our neighbours.”
“Have we struck them with lightening!?” He swore, “May these loafers get destroyed too! Wonder where they come from and throw these stones at them over our roof! How can the stones harm them?”
Bhushan Lal remembered, “Yes! Voste-Khaliq’s5 son leads them all. He shows them how to go about it.”
Phoola Ji recollected something, “Yes that half-wit6 keeps staring at me.” Bhushan Lal could not believe this, “What are you saying! He is just a kid! The other day when Voste-Kahilq came with a bag of turnips, I warned him about his son.”
“What did he say?” Phoola Ji tried to reassure herself. “What could that poor fellow say? He too is in a fix about his son!” Phoola Ji did not feel satisfied with this response. “Ha! In a fix about a halfwit!” Saying this she left the room. Bhushan Lal kept looking intently at his daughter.
Bhushan Lal’s house is located just across the bridge right on the road. It has too shops on the front-side. Around it are a couple of houses belonging to people of his own denomination. On the interior are the houses belonging to the people of the other denomination.
Bhushan Lal’s house also has a small compound on the inner side. There is a public street next to it. The boys from the interior mohalla assemble in this street during curfew hours and pelt stones at the army-men stationed near the bridge over Bhushan Lal’s roof. Some stones hit the doors and windows of his and his neighbours’ houses and some reach across to the road.
During such ordeals, Bhushan Lal and Phoola Ji confine themselves to the inner corner of their house along with their daughter. At such times Bhushan Lal also feels great anger towards his father for having constructed the house right on the road, “How lucky are the residents of the interiors of the Mohalla7, neither does anyone break their doors and windows nor does anyone question them. Moreover they are also able to move about in the inner streets. I can’t even leave the house. If I leave… they might come in. They keep hanging around the door.”
He would also remember the two shops and his anger would subside a bit. Pitaji8 from his point of view had thought well to have built the house on the road since he did not know how wretched the times would become. Along with this, he would remember his neighbours, Haji sahib, Voste-Khaliq and Khatij who would help in various ways during the curfews. And he would say to himself, “If we didn’t have these good neighbours, we would have passed off long back.”
He would also remember Voste-Khaiq’s son and sons of other neighbours who throw stones from the opening of the street and would tie… He would resolve in anger, “I would catch each of them one by one and hand them over.” And again decide to warn their parents one more time… but who can make Voste-Khaliq’s son understand the torment his stone throwing unleashes. He used to often think about this but fail to do anything about it.
On the other hand, his wife was of erratic temper. She would hold him on a small matter and it would blow out of proportion. Their concern for the daughter would finally put them to silence.
Both were in the kitchen. They had just had cups of tea with nothing to eat and were now waiting for Voste-Khaliq’s son to mobilize the boys who would then pelt stones over their roof. They felt a sense of exasperation due to this waiting. They waited for some more time. Nothing happened.
Phoola suddenly remembered her daughter. She got up hurriedly and went across to the room. Bhushan Lal’s gaze followed her as she went and suddenly the stones started raining. Stones kept raining while Phoola lifted her daughter in her arms and returned. Her face had lost its colour. She put the girl in Bhushan Lal’s lap, “What has happened to her Mahra9? Have the skies fallen upon me?” She started rubbing her hands pacing about the room.
Bhushan Lal saw his daughter’s face and lost his breath. The girls face had swollen. Her eyes were shutting down. In dread he started shaking her violently but she did not make any sound. He started looking towards his wife in a state of helplessness, who was by now, pacing about like a mad woman.
She looked at Bhushan Lal and said, “Why are you just staring about! Do something or my daughter will die! Oh, Bhagwan, what do I do now!”
Bhushan Lal got up along with his daughter. She appeared to weigh tons. He spoke to himself, “What do I do now!” Phoola heard this. She came close to the girl, “Take her to the hospital!”
Bhushan Lal tried to recover his senses. The stones had stopped raining. Even before they could decide what to do, somebody started banging on their door while mumbling something…
The banging on the door rendered Bhushan Lal senseless. Looking at the door, a thought occurred to him, “If only the door would give way and they would come in and kill three of us and end this misery forever.”
They were both frozen in their respective positions. The banging finally stopped stirring Phoola Ji back to her senses. She came close to her daughter again, looked at her and gave her a kiss and said, “What are you waiting for? Hand her over to me! I will go myself.”
In the meanwhile, Bhushan Lal had gathered himself once again. He left the kitchen, took a few steps in the corridor towards the outer door and then suddenly turned back. “Lock the door behind me and go to Haji Sahib’s house. I will return from the back street.”
He said to her in a strange tone. Phoola Ji kept looking towards him. He turned towards the door which had cracked at many places due to the regular banging it had received. He tucked the girl properly in his left hand and suddenly opened the door with his right and emerged on to the road.
The officer was in the middle of the road. Bhushan Lal said something to him loudly and simultaneously showed his daughter to the officer. After some persuasion, the officer let Bhushan Lal pass and he started towards the hospital. Along the way he was stopped repeatedly. In a couple of places he even received a few blows of baton. Somehow he finally managed to reach the hospital.
At the Emergency, the sound of moaning was reverberating. For a moment he forgot his own concerns. When he recovered, he started chasing doctors like a madman. No one paid any attention. Gloom overtook him. How will he face Phoola Ji! Someone shook him from behind. He turned around and saw a young doctor saying something. He had probably seen the girls face.
Bhushan Lal showed him the ticket and then brought the girl down from his shoulder. Doctor saw her and started reassuring him. He gave her an injection and wrote some medicine on the ticket. While leaving he told him, “there is no need to worry Mahra, I have given her an injection. Swelling will subside soon, but you must give her the medicine regularly.”
He kept looking at the doctor and eventually came out of the hospital. While leaving he felt as though his daughter was reviving.
He reached the main gate and stopped for no reason. He looked at her face and remembered the doctor’s statement, “The swelling will subside soon.”
Bhushan Lal looked ahead towards the road. As though they were angrily waiting for him at every step towards home. He reentered the main gate and started thinking while taking a couple of paces inside. “If her swelling goes away, how will I explain it to them? While coming, they let me pass seeing her swollen face. If I stay on, what if they get inside the house in the meanwhile? Did Phoola Ji go over to Haji Sahib’s house or not?”
Bhushan Lal could not decide… It has been some while since Bhushan Lal took a few steps inside the main gate, while carrying his daughter on the shoulder he sort of froze, unable to decide what to do.
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1 Muslim call for prayer
2 Colloquial Kashmiri version of the name Khatija
3 Hindu word for God.
4 Kashmiri Native Hindus
5 Ustaad or Master Khaliq in Urdu and English respectively.
6 How does one translate the swearword Adetsotl
7 Neighbourhood
8 Respectfully referring to his father
9 Respectful address
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Ghulam Nabi Shahid is Kashmir’s Urdu short story writer. His recent published anthology ‘Ailan Jari Hai’ has weaved the narrative reflecting the ground scenario of valley from the common man’s perspective. The short story is translated by Gowhar Fazili.
