By Hakeem Rouf
Bansi Lal Pandit, our beloved neighbour, fondly called Kaka Ji, stuck to his roots through thick and thin no matter what turn did the circumstances take in the strife-torn Kashmir valley.
Concerned about his safety in Kashmir, his family including his affectionate and ailing mother, managed to take him to Jammu a couple of times during the peak of the turmoil. But distraught Kaka Ji, like a kid snatched from her wailing and longing mother’s lap, braved odds and escaped from what felt like a cage to him-a somber and scorching Jammu where his family had taken refuge like many other Kashmiri Pandit families in early 1990s.
This was the time when there were no mobile phones.Communication wasn’t so quick. The anxious family through the local police came to know that Kaka Ji is where his heart was- his ancestral and abandoned home in Tulmul- a modest/quiet hamlet of glaring pluralistic and syncretic culture.In this village in Ganderbal district of Kashmir ,the two communities lived in harmony since ages. Here a devout Muslim has been lighting the pyre of Hindus for decades.
Kaka Ji sacrificed his family , his relatives and friends from his community who fled Kashmir just for his only love, his watan (motherland). He swam against the tide and preferred not to migrate from Kashmir but to live and die among Muslims in his village left almost bereft of his coreligionists.
Kaka Ji’s emotional bonding with his Muslim neighbors, with whom he would eat, and drink like a family member, was as intense as it was for his home and homeland that he never betrayed.
What endeared us all to him were his virtues, honesty and affable nature. He would mingle with elderly and younger alike.He religiously delivered the duty he was entrusted with with utmost sincerity making sure that every mail reached the receiver well on time without fail. Nothing remained undelivered, even if it meant walking several kilometres on foot in the cold evenings. This was his temporary postman job for which he was paid a meager amount.Still, he was fully committed to it.
A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me as I recall my childhood and the fond memories of him and his home, a welcome place for all. It was our sanctum, thak e paend or resting spot.
The beautiful three-storey house laden with magnificent wooden balconies on the railings of which parched the bulbuls and ate the rice and bread crumbs left on an extended wooden shelf attached to one of the windows. This special exterior shelf – a hallmark of our good old homes – was meant for feeding the birds.
This home with inhabitants across the religious divide would be a favourite and cosy place for gup-shup and cinema lovers..
In these good old days, when a black and white television, backed by a ruby battery, was a prized possession in our homes, men and children gleefully would throng to this home spending endless hours watching movies and other entertainment programmes on his television donned in an intricately woven and tidy meez posh ( a decorated piece of cloth ). The ambience of the dimly lit room was akin to that of a mini cinema hall.
When the Khel (a movie in the local dialect), was about to start at 4 on Saturday and Sunday evenings, the curtains of the windows were drawn followed by a pin-drop silence. Anyone chit-chatting or munching anything during the khel would get his due share of scolding, at times mild punches also from Kaka Ji like a strict father does to his kids. A jolly and chubby boy peeing a lot would go out during the ad break and bring the good news of the fresh snowfall in winters.
People in the room cracked jokes amid sips of steaming nun chai (pink salted tea).Some relished freshly plucked juicy pomegranate fruits plucked from one of the trees in the sprawling and serene lawns. One of the trees like a relic is still there outside the main door and continues to bear fruit. People would celebrate Kaka Ji’s birthday, the festivals of two faiths together, gossip and play cards or chess in a room filled with mirth.
A man, with a grey beard and a needle in his hand sat in one corner. Least interested in the movies, he with a great skill embroidered floral designs on a shawl spread over his legs with multi-coloured threads, a bunch of which dangled across his a bit wrinkled neck.
Downstairs, steps in a faithful shopkeeper to perform wazu(ablution) in a small washroom wherein a gold-plated brass tap delivers cold and clear water. With a gushing flow, the water fell into a mortar carved out of a stone with a hole drilled in the center, a sort of basin used to prevent the clothes from sprinkling.
On the walls of the Kaka JI’s room from where one got a splendid view of the kitchen garden abuzz with the melodious chirping of birds and insects, hung framed Quranic verses, photographs of revered Muslim saints besides Hindu, and of Muslim shrines like Charar-i-Sharief and Dargah, where Kaka Ji would regularly pay obeisance even in harsh winters or on strike days when transport on roads was quite scarce.
Besides celebrations and festivities, the house was like Rabinder Nath Tagore’s Shanti Niketan where Bansi Lal taught Hindi language to local students or anyone in interested in learning the language. The classes were held under a shady tree in the lush green lawn or in a makeshift classroom in his home with an old worn out charcoal smeared chalkboard fixed on the wall.
As I write this piece, I’m filled with immense nostalgia with a smile on my face, I’m reminded of a pleasant but touching post-lunch moment of rest with Kaka Ji in autumn’s paddy harvest season, beside our paddy field just adjacent to his. One of my aunts perhaps jokingly asked him.
“Kaka jiya che chuk shakle te aklih asel, zameen makan te che khudayas hawaleh, karezeha nether. woenkya che zurath?”
Translation:
“Kaka ji, you should marry. You are smart and wise enough and have this land and also a good house to lead a content married life. What else do you need?”
“Yete kus batte gar roud woen, yem me nether den.”
Translation:
“There is no Pandit family left to give me their daughter. Almost all have migrated,” he replied with a wit.
“Ade tar teli tamath Jum te kar khander, pateh tar wapas,”
Translation:
“Shift to Jammu for some time, find a good match, get married, and come back with her to Kashmir,” Aunt suggested.
“Dakh karsi. Gar trawne khutei che behter anhorai marun.”
Translation:
“It is better to die unmarried than abandon my home.”
This was his unfathomable level of attachment and fondness for the home where he was born some six decades ago, where he lived alone with no one from his family for more than three decades now. It is where he silently breathed his last in the dark and cold December night last year with nobody around at the parting moment but just a kanger (an earthen firepot filled with hot embers)that warmed his body on his last night at home.
His lifeless body was found on a cold mattress with one palm under the head as if he was in a peaceful sleep.
As the bier carrying Kaka Ji’s bathed and scented body sat on the perron of the house that seemed to be wailing the most among us for having lost the only occupant, people which included a handful of his relatives showered flower petals and candies, offered shawls amid soothing hymns like a groom being groomed to meet his awaiting beloved.
Tann, mann, dhan sab hai tera
Body, soul, wealth, everything is yours
Swami sab kuch hai tera
Oh Lord, everything is yours
Tera tujhko arpan
I’ll give everything yours back to you
Kya lage mera
Nothing is mine
Om Jai Jagdish Hare
O Lord of the entire universe.
As we rowed the boat carrying the bier to the cremation ground for consigning his mortal remains to the flames, the eerie silence was being broken by the murmur of the gently flowing stream as if symbolizing the transitory nature of creation.
In my head reverberates the philosophical couplet from one of the Bollywood songs that often played on Kaka Ji’s old Zeenat Radio.
“AAdmi musafir hai aata hai jata hai Aaatay jatay rastey main yadein chod deta hai…”
“Man is a traveller, he comes and goes
Leaving behind a trail of memories…”
The cremation marked an end to Kaka Ji’s heroic and extraordinary life. A life lived for the pure love of his roots-his beloved homeland , his kashir-till his last breath.His life was a tragic and moving story of love for the motherland transcending/surmounting everything.
Rest in Peace, Kaka Ji! We will always miss you and forever remember you.
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