Of course, I miss Kashmir, and Srinagar, the city I was born and lived in until I finished university. Desperately. And it does not help to hear the people who live there today say they feel exactly the same! It was a place so unlike any other part of India in every sense and sensibility, not to mention the culture and cuisine, which was literally and figuratively a world apart.
It’s Paradise Lost all over again.
But Kashmiris never had a Texas complex about Kashmir, sad to say, we took what we had for granted. Our self-esteem was battered by centuries of serfdom and foreign oppression, and not being widely travelled we thought there was nothing special about our valley. Yes, we loved our Kashmir and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but didn’t everyone feel that way about their homeland? Only when I left my Beloved Valley for the wider world did I realise that people regarded our landscape, beauty, spices, fabrics as legendary.
Everyone seemed to claim a connection with some part of Kashmir.
So many Pakistanis I met in the States professed to have ancestry from Kashmir that I wondered if their nation was a wilderness before we wandered on to it. Truth be told I never met a Pakistani who said something different. A Chinese scholar in Princeton, upon hearing that I was from Kashmir, did a double take and looked at me with some perplexment. He said the beauty of the women was legendary in Chinese songs, where Kashmir was known as Cache-mi-lo. He obviously concluded I was not a good sample of Kashmir’s celebrated pulchritude, rather the exception that proved the rule.
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Ordering Indian groceries here I found any chillies worth their salt purported to be from Kashmir, as did razmah or kidney beans for that matter. The egregious vulgarisation of roghanjosh by restaurant chefs is common knowledge, not a menu exists without it, and not a single menu serves the real deal. Why should they care, when it is wolfed down by phalanxes of self-anointed Indian Cuisine hounds some of whom call it “rojanjosh”. I could go on, but the reader must be irritated enough by now.
Now that Paradise is well and truly lost, all one can do is memento mori the valley as I knew it.
The following is what brought it on.
Someone sent me a video today of Zoon Begum in her mesmerising voice singing “Karyo lollemuthe Lai Madano!” which translates roughly into “I will cuddle and cradle you my love”. This hardly leaves anything to the imagination, and to think that it was a de rigueur hit at wedding henna nights when musicians sang all night, ushering in the morning with the incredibly soothing and protracted Gulrez. Children and grandmothers sang all lyrics – whether romantic or ribald – along with the performers, without contemporary constipation or censorship.
It was what you might call an open society.
There was always a Chhakri troupe of musicians on hand when a joyous occasion arose, ready with our instruments, the rabab, tumbakhnari, noet (a terra cotta pot borrowed from the kitchen, sometimes played with the household keys) and the ubiquitous harmonium, all ancient and homely. Chhakri veterans were mainly from the proletariat, and their day jobs could be tanga driver or office peon, but they were cherished. The santoor and the sitar were comparatively elite, as was Sufiana Kalam, and required some instruction and their performance was reserved for formal occasions. Ustad Mohammed Abdullah Tibetbaqal, the Grand Maestro of Sufiana, used to come to our house to sing for my grandfather Professor Sham Lal Dhar on his birthday.
But we also had our pop stars. Zoon Begum and Raj Begum were the Beyonce and Madonna of my childhood and bagging them for a gig at a wedding (no small feat) for the mehndiraat showed power and goodwill. You had to have both because the ladies had a mind of their own and were adored and regarded with great care. As one of our retainers reported from an earlier stint with songstresses, they wore bras, which was unheard of, something akin to our women donning space gear.
I can never forget the wedding of a friend whose father had arranged for Raj Begum and her troupe for the all-nighter of henna, food, tea and music. Raj Begum with her deep sexy voice and striking looks was my personal choice, in fact it was because of her that I decided when I grew up to load my eyes with kohl. Accompanying her troupe originally as an acolyte (known today as a groupie), and then participant on that night was the other musical icon of Kashmir, Mohan Lal Aima, a relative of the host I believe. I could not believe my eyes when I saw both these giants of our musical world sitting next to each at the centre of the shamiana. As well as being a phenomenal singer himself, Aima was a composer par excellence, having provided music to Dina Nath Nadim’s libretto in the iconic Bombur te Yemberzal. His moving rendition of YAH Nabi! – a Muslim prayer – is soul stirring, particularly so in today’s riven atmosphere, sung as it is so devoutly by a Hindu.
The musicians accompanying the stars were usually all Muslim, and working class, though the lead may have been Hindu. My friend and I, ever ready for adventure readily accepted the invitation from a class fellow to sing in his chhakri at a concert in the Tourist Reception Center. When the curtain lifted our families ensconced in the front rows gasped as they saw us sitting down with the players, a couple of whom were tanga wallahs, as was our class fellow from the public administration studies. There was no fallout, our performance of the earthy “Posh hai lagyeye wozeeliye ho (I will decorate you with red flowers)” won the day, rising above class and such ephemeral things.
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The musicians were Muslim, but when at a Pandit wedding, they would start off lustily with Om Shri Ganeshaye Namah, giving it a Persian twist by changing namah to numah. The lead singers were “bachas” and wearing ankle bells sang Bacha Nagma, an obvious hangover from Afghan rule and the tradition of Beresh Bachas, beardless singer/dancers. At the time there were two leading Bachas, but these were no boys, they were prosperous stars and Guppa (Gopi) Bacha had a paunch to prove this though it did not diminish the extreme gusto with which he sang and danced, dramatically wiping his brow with the silk scarf he hung about his neck for this purpose. Ghani Bacha, the other super star was younger, leaner and good looking with a curly long black forelock he nodded back often to great effect. They each had their distinctive style and we loved them and when invited to a wedding nautch, if you could call it that, prayed it would be one these marvellous performers, though there were some other nearly as good ones too.
All did not go well with all nocturnal nocturnes. At the wedding of an uncle of mine, the late great Ghulam Nabi Dolwaal had been bagged by a relative, a senior government officer who pulled rank to secure the coup. Dolwaal was a revered Radio Kashmir artiste, as in fact were the two singing Begums. The groom was out for the count at a very well supplied bachelor party, and when his mother was told about this she had one of her religious outbursts. She decided impromptu that the dinner for guests would be vegetarian, her atonement for her son’s excesses. In a thoroughly carnivorous valley the menu overhaul came like a bolt from the kitchen, a nasty surprise, particularly to the musicians who had, like all musicians on such nights been plied liberally with alcoholic libations.
Upon hearing of my great aunt’s perfidy, Dolwaal and his musicians made ready to leave, saying they could never perform on a bellyful of cottage cheese. Somehow, the relative who brought him managed to detain him while a car was summarily dispatched to Ahdoo and Sons and a heavily meat-centric spread was procured and served. Ahdoo had been the British Residents chef, but being a good businessman his eatery served exemplary British and Kashmiri cuisine at his elegant eatery.
The musical soiree began later than expected, but as we say, der aya durust aya, what ensued in the nightlong performance was every bit worth it. My great aunt, having performed her righteous duty, namely of taking the fun out of things, like all righteous people, slept through it all.
But once the night was under way, the gathering enjoyed dinner and then Kashmiri delicacies like green tea with sugar followed by green tea with salt and clotted cream, both sprinkled with crushed almonds, cardamon and cinnamon. These were served often enough to keep the audience alive and well, accompanied by our various breads, pre-ordered for weddings from the indispensable bakers of our daily breads.
Maej Kasheer!
Sudha Koul is the first woman IAS officer from Kashmir.
