Room in our Hearts and Other Stories Read online

Gulam Mustafa did return, though, after three weeks. Placing a bunch of keys on the table, he said, ‘Please check your house. I have left it in good condition. I hope you will return and live there. But if you ever think of selling it, keep me in mind. Your house was lucky for my family. We have happy memories of the place since we treated it as our home, not just a house.’

  Kakaji was confused. Was he dreaming or was it a hoax? Were these really his house keys? Thousands of Pandits houses had been wrongfully occupied in Kashmir but, to his knowledge, not one had been voluntarily vacated.

  Gulam Mustafa shared his phone number and left.

  Kakaji picked the bunch of keys in his hand. The momentary clatter of cold metal sent a strange sensation up his arm to his face and head. He closed his eyes and travelled back to his home. He opened the front gate, moved into his lawn, took off his shoes and walked barefoot on the cool dewy green turf, admiring the marigolds and roses. He entered his house, opened the rooms one by one, and stepped reverentially inside the puja room where he bowed low in front of the deities…

  His wife found him crying.

  The next day, Kakaji phoned an acquaintance in Srinagar who confirmed that his house had been vacated. But the joy of getting his house back was short-lived. Ironically, the bunch of keys found him locked in a dilemma. What should he do with his house? Could he afford to leave it vacant for long? Should he return to Kashmir to start life all over again? How would his family adjust to the changed milieu there after such a long time?

  With the passage of each day, Kakaji realised to his utter bewilderment that the thoughts of reclaiming his house made him more miserable than when it was occupied by the butcher. But he could not afford to wallow in indecision for long.

  Four months after the keys were handed over to him, he decided to look for a buyer.

  Zeshta Ashtami, the festival of Kheer Bhavani, the most revered deity of Pandits, could not have arrived at a more opportune time in the year 2009 when summer was at its most miserable and Kashmiri Pandit refugees craved to get away from Jammu for a few days. There had been a perceptible decline in militancy in the last few years. Kashmir had been declared safe for tourists. Hundreds of exiled Pandits boarded buses to participate in the festival, arriving as tourists in their own homeland.

  Kakaji and his wife also joined the entourage. It was his dream to visit Kashmir and to show his wife the house where he had spent his youth. The bus took them straight to Kheer Bhavani, 20 kilometres from Srinagar. They spent the night in meditation and prayer, sitting near the spring in the midst of which sat the presiding deity in divine splendour. It was a profoundly spiritual and satisfying experience. The next day, they boarded a taxi to Srinagar, and went straight to Shali Store.

  They left the taxi waiting on the main road and decided to walk the street to Kakji’s house. It was a unique feeling of exhilaration, like meeting a beloved after a long time. The topography had changed quite a lot. The house came into view from a distance. It was very much there, the three-storey building with an imposing façade, a sloping shingle roof, a huge front balcony. As they neared, his heart beat faster, a warm sensation ran along his face, and his temples throbbed in anticipation. For a while, he forgot it was no longer his home. His wife watched him in amazement.

  They stopped at the door and looked at each other, wondering if they should knock. What would they gain by going in, thought Kakaji. Everything had changed in Kashmir. Inside his old home everything must have changed as well—his favourite spaces and corners now a haven for the new owner and his family; a copy of the Koran in place of the Gita on the bookstand in the puja room. That is all it had come to—houses and estates exchanging hands, territories being redefined, spaces being re-assigned.

  While these thoughts were racing through Kakaji’s mind, a boy opened the door.

  ‘Who are you looking for?’ he asked.

  ‘Gulam Mustafa,’ Kakaji replied.

  ‘No one with that name lives here.’

  ‘Gulam Mustafa, the butcher. This used to be our house; we sold it to him some 10 years back.’

  ‘Oh, the butcher. But he doesn’t live here any longer.’

  ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘Mushtaq Sahib.’

  Someone from inside called, ‘Who is there?’ Kakaji’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t have missed that voice in a million.

  ‘It is a man and a woman,’ the boy shouted.

  Mushtaq Nalicha materialised at the door at once. On seeing them he thundered, ‘Ah, what a surprise! It is Kakaji… and Bhabhi, I believe? Say, when did you arrive? Come in, come in. After all, this is your house, your very own.’ Then to the boy, ‘Go tell your Aapa, we have Kakaji and Bhabhi visiting us.’

  Kakaji was mystified. Was it a hallucination or an apparition? He lost his speech for a while and kept gazing at Nalicha’s face. Time had wrought no change there, except a little greying at the temples, a few lines on the face.

  ‘Come on, why do you stare at me like that? I am no ghost. Pray come in; come in Bhabiji.’

  ‘Thank you, Nalicha, but we are in a hurry to return to Jammu. We had been to Kheer Bhavani. Just came here to say hello to everyone in our old neighbourhood. What a surprise to meet you yet again. Finally, it seems, friendship has come full circle.’

  ‘Yes, it has. I could not have let that butcher live in my friend’s house.’

  NOTES

  Dalae Batta – timid lentil-eating Batta (Kashmiri Pandit)

  jannat – heaven

  tehreek – freedom movement

  YOUSUF

  Why I thought of Mohammad Yousuf on that cold January morning defies explanation, as it does when someone with whom I have lost contact for a long time floats into my thoughts for no reason whatever. Yousuf phones me on my landline once in a while; he doesn’t have my cellphone number. I never cared to save his number, never felt the need to. In fact, I lost all contact numbers following the exodus from Kashmir. Some of my old contacts found out my landline in Jammu and call me when they need my consultation but I don’t save their numbers. Probably because it is they who need me, and not the other way round. But Yousuf is different. And here I was wracking my head trying to figure out how to phone him though there was no particular reason for my wanting to do so, except just a fancy.

  Suddenly there was also an urge to visit Kashmir, to drive down to where Yousuf used to live. Does he still live there? Post-militancy, many people in the Valley have changed residences—villagers have relocated to towns, down-town people to posh areas, and others into houses left behind by Pandits. What about Yousuf?

  For all I know, Yousuf’s family, too, has climbed up the social ladder. Could he, too, have moved from his ancestral residence? I didn’t ask him when he visited Jammu last year to consult me about his daughter. In any case, if I ever visit Srinagar I will make it a point to drive down to Nawab Bazaar and straight on the road to the Girls High School, Nawa Kadal, from where I will take the first left. He lived in a small enclave hardly 200 metres from there. I vividly remember a small central park around which two score or more houses stood shoulder to shoulder, belonging mostly to Yatoos, the vegetable growers who, in earlier times, fertilised their land with human waste collected in huge vats that they carried on their backs, scavenging the local latrines before sunrise to enrich their produce, most famously the Kawadari haak that the denizens of the city would pay a premium for. It would serve as the main dish with boiled rice —the staple haak and bhatta of Kashmiris. What was that mohalla called? Oh, how can I forget the name of a place that I must have visited scores of times? I scratched my head hard but the name has receded into the dark nooks of my memory.

  Well, it doesn’t matter; I will, in any case, drive there, stop my car in the square and shout: Does Mohammad Yousuf Yatoo still live here? The denizens of the mohalla will be surprised. Who is this stranger asking for Yousuf? Someone will recognise me, someone whom I would have treated for some ailment— after all, most residents of the place were my
patients. ‘Ah, he is Choodri seb, doctor Choodri seb’—that is how they would pronounce my name and rush forward to hug me. They will all come out of their nests to see me. For all I know, Yousuf will be there too. Yes, he can’t leave the place. He was always contented with his lot; that is why he is still the same skullcap and pheran-wearing loud-voiced rustic. He won’t be able to adjust anywhere else. He might have built a new home, a bigger better house to live in right where he was born and grew up, but he wouldn’t change places. When he comes to know that I have arrived, he will carry his large frame on his stubby legs and run out of breath in his eagerness to hug me. The curious onlookers of the mohalla—what is the place called; oh, how can I forget!—will nod their heads in approval and speak highly of the golden chains between Pandits and Muslims that militancy and exodus have failed to break!

  It will be great to see him and his family—his wife in particular, for she is so simple and genuine, rustic like her husband; and, Lalli, their favourite daughter. He had a large brood of children but I remember Lalli because she was married off into a family much higher in social status when still in her teens. All was not right with the marriage. Possibly, she got divorced. Did she marry again?

  But why did I think about all this on that cold morning? Since my departure from my homeland, Yousuf and I are as separated as Kashmir and Jammu, except for his rare phone calls, and rarer visits when he wants medical advice. He calls sometimes on Eid and Shivrtari. During the last 26 years I have visited Kashmir only once and that too for just two days. That was in 2008, when I decided the place was inhospitable, even offensive. At that time I couldn’t visit him because the downtown was off limits due to a hartal announced by the militant-separatist combine. Since then Kashmir has degenerated further; for all practical purposes, I have lost interest in the place. So what was this sudden urge to have Yousuf’s phone number, to visit the place and visit the mohalla I have forgotten the name of? What was the link between Yousuf—illiterate and unpretentious, with a hermaphroditic voice— and me? How had I come to know him? Why did I recall him now, out of the blue?

  It all started with his older brother, Rehman, who used to be my classmate at Rangteng High. He was not a close friend, but when I started my medical practice he often came to consult me for his wife and himself, both intractable hypochondriacs. Perhaps Yousuf was introduced to me by Rehman. In any case, Yousuf stuck to me. I don’t know what he did for a living except that he had the vegetable farms. He didn’t tend them himself, and certainly didn’t carry the vats on his back. He seemed to have all the spare time and little work, except to be a Good Samaritan. That is how he brought all the neighbours and his own family to my clinic, convinced that he was doing them all a good turn by bringing them to what he boasted as ‘my doctor’. I owed my popularity in his mohalla more to him and less to my professional acumen.

  In the early days of my career, my practice at Karan Nagar didn’t take off as I would have desired. Yousuf suggested that I start another practice at Ali Kadal, the downtown hub. He found me a place on the right bank of Vitasta and offered to be my secretary. There were no patients for several days, and he sensed my impatience. Then, one day, there were half a dozen. I was surprised. It was much later that I came to know he had called up his relatives and, possibly, paid the fees of some of them out of his own pocket, just to encourage me! Despite his efforts, Ali Kadal ended up as a failed venture and I wound it up after a couple of months.

  That was 40 years ago. Much water has flown down the Vitasta and the Tawi. Despite the distance between Srinagar and Jammu having shortened by the new rail line, the gulf between the denizens has grown wider. But how can one help a strange, sudden surge of sentiment to call up old connections, and to revisit familiar places from the past? And if it is not possible for some reason or other, you often heave a sigh and move on. That is not what I did; I uttered a blessing instead.

  The next day, as I was sipping my evening cup of coffee, catching up with The Times of India editorials, my phone rang.

  ‘Salaam, Doctor seb.’ It was the unmistakable voice of Yousuf that I would not miss in a million.

  A twinge of emotion crossed my face like a whiff of spring breeze. ‘Yousuf, where are you? Just imagine, I was thinking about you yesterday!’

  ‘Balaei lagaye, my son is waiting outside your house.’

  ‘What is he doing there?’

  ‘Just open the door for him, he will tell you.’

  I was startled by the urgency in his voice. ‘How are you? And what is your phone number?’ I asked.

  ‘I am fine, will speak to you again later. Balaei lagaye, ask someone to open the door first; my son is waiting.’

  I opened the door to a round ruddy face, a balding square head, sharp brown eyes, an innocent smile, a pheran and a muffler.

  ‘Yousuf’s son?’

  He nodded. ‘My name is Ashraf. You may not recall me for I must have been 13 or 14 when you were in Kashmir. But I remember you quite well for you used to treat me for sore throats and tummy aches and never prescribe injections that I dreaded the most.’ He spoke just like his father, husky voice with a feminine drawl.

  ‘You look and speak so much like Yousuf.’

  He grinned like a proud kid.

  ‘So, what brings you here?’

  ‘I want you to examine me. Abu said only you can cure me.’

  ‘You know it is a Sunday. I don’t examine patients on Saturdays and Sundays.’

  He smiled apologetically. ‘Yes, I know, but Abu said you would do it for his son.’

  ‘Besides being his son, you have come all the way from Kashmir; how can I disappoint you. Please, come in.’

  Ashraf complained of a heavy head, of getting easily annoyed and losing temper. This had gone on for the last six months and he had consulted doctors without getting any relief. He and his family—a loving wife and two children, 18 and 15—lived in the same house as his parents, but as a separate unit in the ground floor. They got along well. There were no stressors to explain the symptoms except that he had to travel a lot. A vendor of embroidered shawls and pashminas, he went places hawking his ware, including Punjab, Delhi, Kolkata and other metropolises.

  I examined him and wrote a prescription.

  He opened his purse to pay the fees.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. You are Yousuf’s son. I never accepted fees from his family. He was close to me...’

  ‘I know. But you didn’t come to my wedding.’

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Of course, I received the cheque you sent as gule myooth. I was overwhelmed. And then my sister, too, got your cheque on her wedding.’

  ‘That was a small gesture of my warm feeling for your family. You know, I was thinking about Yousuf only yesterday.’

  ‘We often speak about you.’

  ‘Backbiting?’

  ‘God forbid!’ he said, holding his earlobes between his thumb and forefinger, biting his tongue.

  ‘I was joking,’ I said reassuringly.

  ‘Why don’t you visit Kashmir? Do come this summer; we have built a new house and there is plenty of room.’

  ‘Have you moved from your mohalla?’

  ‘How can we ever leave Kani Mazar? Our ancestors are buried there. Abu scoffs at the suggestion of moving to one of the new colonies that have come up. “I was born here, I will die here”, he says.’

  Kani Mazar! That is what I was trying to recall—Kani Mazar. How could I have forgotten that name! A name so packed with meaning—Kani Mazar, a graveyard of stones! But in truth, that was a place where there were neither stones nor a graveyard, but a peaceful habitation of simple, affectionate people full of life. Was that the reason for the name because a mazar is the only peaceful place!

  When he left, I forgot to ask him for Yousuf’s phone number. I don’t know when Yousuf will call again.

  NOTES

  haak and bhatta – kohlrabi and rice

  balaei lagaye – may your woes be mine
>
  gule myooth – gift

  hartal – shut down

  seb – an honorific

  mazar – graveyard

  A CRAVING FOR CLAY

  She sat in the chair across me, pale but plump, looking away, smiling bashfully. Her husband, standing by her side, spoke for her.

  ‘Doctor Sahib, Sushma is shy of speaking about her problem; may I explain?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  He shot her a glance as if to seek her permission. ‘Well, it is about her strange cravings,’ he said hesitatingly.

  ‘Cravings?’ I turned my gaze to her, wondering if it was about some physiological urges that she was shy to explain. She was 45, fine lines on her face, hair greying at the temples.

  ‘I remember the cravings she used to have in the first few weeks of her pregnancies. But that was long ago, and I think she may have already crossed the reproductive age.

  Besides, the cravings this time are of an entirely different nature.’

  ‘What does she crave?’ I asked.

  ‘Clay. She craves clay; she likes to eat it. It is embarrassing. I have tried to stop her, to reason it out with her, but it has become an obsession. It is an ordeal to find clay for her.’

  ‘Why should it be an ordeal? There is soil everywhere you look.’

  ‘But she only craves the soil of her village far away in Kashmir.’

  ‘That sounds extraordinary. Can you explain, Sushma?’ I asked her. Her kohl eyes with deep brown irises shone bright against her pallid face.

  ‘She is chatty when she wants to,’ he replied, an impish expression on his face, ‘but on this issue she is dumb.’

  ‘Give her a chance,’ I said, looking encouragingly at her.

  Sushma broke her reserve. ‘Doctor Sahib, it began two years ago. Initially, I had an urge for rice grains. The more I ate, the more the urge until rice filled my stomach and I could eat almost nothing else.’

  ‘Isn’t that strange? Why should she prefer to eat the uncooked grains to the cooked rice that is our staple diet like that of all Kashmiris?’ he interjected.