Along the Curve of the Jhelum

          The news of the floods in Kashmir reminded me of this: In another century, (just a few years ago, actually), Sri Husband and I lived in a little stone house on the banks of the river that troubled Kashmir last week.

Ram-Munshi-Bagh was the name of the locality and the house incongruously called ‘Venus Villa’. To reach there from Goa, we boarded a steamer (24 hrs) or bus (12 hrs) to Mumbai, thence a no-pantry train to Jammu via Delhi (another 30 odd hours). We couldn’t afford airfare and KRC was decades away. From Jammu, a day-long journey by bus over the only pass (Banihal) through the mountains took us to Srinagar. Often, depending on the weather, we had to spend a night at Udhampur. Since plastic bags weren’t common then, and anti-motion-sickness pills not always effective/available, when a passenger felt like vomiting a window was opened and s/he let out the demons of travel-sickness.

Our lives depended on Banihal. From soggy, fungus-lined onions and the newly-available milk-powder for babies everything came via Banihal.

Through the summer, we walked along the ‘bundhs’ that contained the gentle Jhelum waters. Born of a Verinag spring, the Jhelum merged (still does!) with the Chenab, the Sutlej and lastly the Indus. Beyond the banks, we could see the snow-covered peaks of the pretty Pir-Panjal range lacing the distant western horizon.

I said to Shri Husband: “Their loveliness belies their formidability. Only the toughest can cross them or live in them through all weather conditions.”

Shri Husband’s retort: “Our soldiers do.”

The soil by the Jhelum was so fertile that if you stood long enough in one place, your feet would sprout roots. Ok, I’m exaggerating, but it’s true that plants, especially seasonal, flowering ones, grew very, very fast. The rose creeper that veiled the wall and roof of ‘Venus Villa’ budded and bloomed within a week of ‘Holi’ getting over and stayed beautiful till September. We have pictures… but how does one preserve to ‘show’ the memory of a heady fragrance?

My landlady (Shri Husband argues, ‘house-owner’ is a more appropriate word) taught me to make garlands of slices of egg-plant (‘shuddha shivraaks’ please note, the egg-plant is not related to the hen, it’s another word for ‘vaingem’), tomato, ‘doodhee’ and other vegetables. These were hung outside our windows and dried (like we dry fish here) to be hydrated and consumed in the lean and wretched winter months, when pipes burst because the water inside them expanded on freezing. We had to keep taps dripping just a little, 24x7 to prevent mishaps.

Winter memories include dragging a big lump of coal over a ‘kuchha’ road and breaking it (by candlelight since electricity was so erratic and nearly ‘powerless’) with a hammer into small pieces to feed the ‘bukhari’ and ‘kangdi’ that warmed us through Diwali, Christmas, New Year and the final exams of friends’ school-going children.

The turmoil of the past many years and improved transport and communications have changed Kashmir. Though unconnected, the Jhelum seems to have shown her displeasure rather severely in recent months. Hand in glove with heavy rains, she has wreaked havoc through fields and valley, homes and hospitals, sparing neither neonates nor nonagenarians. Politicians, never at a loss for words and ever at a loss to act, have yapped at each other and at Delhi on television.

“The only ones,” Shri Husband quipped, staring at the I-box news, “to silently, efficiently save life and limb without asking for praise or raise are the Indian Armed Forces.”

“God wears a uniform,” I said, loftily.

Shri Husband gave me a weird look.

I hastily added: “Not my words. Someone in Uttarakhand said that. I remember.”

Weird look turned to normal scowl. We were on our regular wavelength once more.

He: “It’s remarkable how we Indians from different parts of a vast sub-continent, who barely comprehend each other’s language or food-habits, work as a seamless team in the Services.”

Me: “By the time this column is read, landslides would have been cleared, by human…”

He: “…mostly military…” (the customary interruption!)

Me: “…hands and simple implements when big mechanized equipment can’t reach sites. Updated statistics will reveal number of lives saved and the loss of crores of rupees.”

He: “How many jawans were injured in the rescue operations will not be ‘advertised’. How many jawans missed going home to get married, be with their children through board exams or be by a dying loved one’s side will never be known. This is one Indian institution that bashes on regardless to do its duty, more than duty, come what may.”

Silence. A rare, comfortable one.

Then Shri Husband, in a thoughtful and sombre tone, watching (on-screen) the MLAs of that same troubled state involved in fisticuffs: “In spite of the jokers in the Vidhaan Sabhas, this country is doing well thanks to the workers of the Railways, the Postal Services, the Telecom chaps, the truck-drivers, loaders, the high-tech private sector and…”

I butted in: “…the poders who give us our daily bread?”

And together we laughed at a long-forgotten memory: in ‘Venus Villa’ near a bend of the Jhelum, too, early in the morning and in the evening, on a cycle came a bread-boy delivering the hot, fresh, local ‘roti’, quite like our chap here.