Ashok Ogra
Short stories are humbling. They may seem simple but demand incredible skill and focus. For an author, short stories provide freedom to explore characters, define situations and dig into memories.
A new breed of authors is coming up among the exiled Kashmiri Pandit community with their range of writing skills. Some are writing about the pain of their land, while others are enlightening people about hope and peace.
THE TULIPS AND THE SNOWSTORM is a collection of short stories – mostly based on the true incidents of the post 1990 migration. The other segment of the book comprises anecdotal stories on life in Kashmir- sort of a journey down the memory lane.
The author, Avtar Mota, noted poet, art critic and photographer, offers the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of hundred words to give form and substance to complex and not so complex situations and incidents experienced and encountered by him.
In most of the stories the author pours out his emotions of longing and separation from his homeland – Kashmir. His sense of grief is heightened over the realization that as an exile, he has had to re-settle into a new environment, adapt the new ways of the place and accept their culture norms.
In a moving account in the story TARAWATI, the author describes the struggle that a Pandit family faces when searching for a roof immediately on reaching Jammu in the winter of 1990.
The sad irony of those times is brilliantly narrated in the story BANK LOAN GUARANTOR- how a family is driven crazy to arrange for a bank loan to meet their son’s education. Asking the migrant family who had to flee the valley overnight with virtually no belongings to arrange for a guarantor captures the helplessness of the community.
In the story ‘BOOK RELEASE’, Mota makes a telling comment on the writers/ poets keen to get their works published – even if sub-standard- and subsequently stage manage a book release function: “when ex-minister Shastar Sahib was contacted, he readily agreed to chair the event. Shastar Sahib assured Behosh Sahib (the author) that he will bring twenty five party workers as the audience. These workers are now taken by him to many literary events where Shastar Sahib is invited as the Chief Guest.”
The feature ‘A DAY INSIDE THE LALLA DED HOSPITAL SRINAGAR’ pulsates with Kashmiri humour: “You Sidda (short name of Mohammad Sadiq, her husband). Let you fall victim to paralysis. Let you fall victim to Syphilis. You have put me to this grave pain. Don’t ever come near me. Now don’t ever touch me. Mother I am in great pain”.
Some young nurses giggle. An elderly nurse says, “Let her deliver. She will forget everything.”
The author evokes images of our past when communities lived in great harmony. The story, FLOWERS OF INNOCENCE, is defined by tenderness, compassion and brutal realism. The story is about two families – Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmiri Pandit- whose children born post 1990 show utter disbelief when encountering the ‘other’ for the first time. Children brought up on a diet of false propaganda have formed a distorted image of the ‘other’ as an evil looking person.
The author is overwhelmed by a rush of memories and emotions that accompany each page of the book; the prospect of revisiting the past by returning to the place where one was born and raised even when the cruel realization beckons that ‘he no longer belongs to his hometown.’
Nothing escapes Mota’s scrutiny. The feature ‘SURTI GUJRATI HOTEL OF KASHMIR’- a restaurant that the author often used to visit when residing in the valley resonates with nostalgia:”I was pained to see the plight of this restaurant when I visited the place sometime back. The restaurant stands totally gutted and converted into a heap of debris. Dosa is now sold at many places in Srinagar city but many friends miss Surthi’s Dosa, coffee and the Gujrati thali. We equally miss the man whom we fondly called ‘Seth.’
Locality, old home, those streets, those old haunts that he frequented with friends and family, those days, those bittersweet moments, those memories- Mota muses on everything. Nostalgia takes over and that gives him a smile and also makes him cry.
From the GOSSIP SHOPS OF RAINAWARI to QAZIGUND:ANDA, CHAI, PARAATHA & BATHROOM, LADDI SHAH OF KASHMIR to HUMOUR & KASHMIRIS and many more such stories, Mota captures the social fabric of Kashmir and its inhabitants with great interest and acute observation.
He reminds us of the popular radio serial MACHAAMA written by Padmashri Pushkar Bhan:”And this word Machaama brings a nostalgic smile on every Kashmiri’s face. Most of us are familiar with characters of these Machaama series of radio plays. I mean Machaama, Kaak, Kaken, Khadiji, Sula Gota, Rehman Dada and many more. Most of us also remember Tuvaan Bacha, Zingari, Singari, Djinn, Rakh (huge bird) and some more characters from Pushkar Bhan’s radio play Sindbaad Macaama.”
Even as he takes a dim view of certain traditions and practices, Mota interweaves fables from the peripheries of history into the texture of his comedy-satire, celebrating and reveling in folk idiom and stories that derive strength from the socio- cultural fabric of the valley.
Dudda (uninvited guest) attending marriage and other related functions was a known practice in Kashmiri society. Mota dwells on this unique trait among the Kashmirs using subtle sarcasm: “Kashi Nath had developed a novel way of knowing clear details about marriage dates, lunch or dinner functions and the nature of feats (vegetarian or non-vegetarian) along with the expected number of guests joining the marriage feast anywhere in Srinagar city. Kashi Nath would sit in Kral Khud ‘Waza baithaks’ (place where Kashmiri cooks lived) and gossip with the cooks over a Charminar or Passing Show cigarette to collect his date. Kashi Nath would attend feats in downtown, Jawahar Nagar and Rainawari where he could not be easily identified.” This practice was also found Among Kashmiri Muslims.
Despite the middle-class underpinning of the settings, these stories boldly overstep the cloisters of propriety, and mince no words in communicating the continuing suffering of the community.
Published by the author himself, THE TULIPS AND THE SNOWSTORM is a multidimensional book about political, cultural and societal life of the Kashmiri society in general and Pandits in particular. It should interest all those who continue to long for their homeland. There are no villains, and even the satire is never cruel or derisory. The stores do not swell to a climax. However, there is a ring of familiarity. One effortlessly identifies with the characters of the stories that are individuals as well as types belonging to us all.
(The author works for the reputed Apeejay Education Society)
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