Our Moon has Blood Clots Read online

  Her death left some indelible mark in my heart, some sort of pain—as if she had jumped into the Jhelum to meet me, and I was not there to save her, to rescue her. She must have been very lonely, or in love, or both.

  For years afterwards, whenever I thought of homelessness, or when I heard singers at marriage ceremonies, I always remembered her. I thought of the spot from where she must have met the waters of the Jhelum. I also remembered a moment when she winked at me from behind the staircase of my home, where she sat writing something in her diary, and how she then kissed me on my cheek.

  Her memory always makes that dull throbbing pain return—the pain of being in exile.

  During summers in the Valley, we would shift to the first floor of our house. I didn’t quite understand the logic, but I believe it was to take advantage of the cool breeze that blew during the nights. In Kashmir, no ceiling fans or refrigerators were required. A table fan was good enough. You returned from outside and sat in front of the fan till it dried off your sweat. That was it. On hot summer nights, you kept the windows open and wrapped yourself in thin white bed sheets.

  On one such night, I had a nightmare. It must have been 1987. I saw that the space between my uncle’s house and ours—that was where our kitchen gardens were—was infested with sword-wielding marauders who wore sandals made of dry straw. That was how Grandfather had described the tribal invaders who entered Kashmir in 1947. In my nightmare, the marauders went on a killing spree, thrusting their bayonets and swords into people. We were scared, and we tried to hide behind a wardrobe. That was when a few marauders caught hold of Ravi. One of them plunged his sword into Ravi’s abdomen and he shouted for my mother. I woke up covered with beads of sweat. It was morning already, and everyone else had awoken. I was still dizzy with fear and couldn’t get up. Then I heard the sound of a motorcycle and pulled myself to the window. I was happy to see Ravi alive and riding his motorcycle—perhaps to the university. I was so relieved that I shouted out to him. He didn’t hear me and rode on.

  Ravi was my maternal uncle’s son. I was very fond of him and, more than me, my mother adored him. Among Kashmiris, the women have a strong attachment to their brother’s children. But in my mother’s case, it was much more than that.

  Ravi was pursuing an MPhil in Botany. I never left him alone, and sometimes Ma had to drag me away from his room to give him some privacy. After all, he was a young man. For hours, he would be locked inside his room, a kangri under his pheran during the harsh winter months, listening to ghazals. When I was younger, I would get jealous of Jagjit Singh and Talat Aziz and maul their images on the audio cassettes with the long needle Ravi used to isolate anthers from flowers. He would look at their mauled faces and lift me in his arms, shadow boxing with me. He never complained. Sometimes he teased me by singing a ditty he had created using my nickname—

  Vicky ko bhar do dickey mein, apna kaam karega.

  Put Vicky in a dickey, he will do his work there.

  I would watch him in fascination as he went about his routine. He would shave, filling water in a while enamelled cup, and I mentally made a note of the Old Spice aftershave he dabbed on his cheeks. Like him, I also stuck a poster of the cricketer Kris Srikkanth in my cupboard. Sometimes, he would give me gifts he acquired from his friends who worked in pharmaceutical companies—a plastic cat from Glaxo with an outdoor thermometer fitted in its guts, or a Brufen pocket paper-cutter. He had many friends, and he went out frequently with them. I would see them often sitting at a local provision store—the owner was their friend. But most times he would sit in his room, listening to his beloved ghazals and preparing notes and drawing botanical illustrations in his clear hand. For days, I remember, he tried to teach me how to correctly pronounce ‘geography’, and to irritate him, I would pronounce it incorrectly. It became a joke between us. When I think of those days, I reckon he must have been quite popular among girls of his age. Some of them would visit him every now and then, on the pretext of borrowing his notes or an audio cassette. He always wore jeans under his pheran. When I was a little older and found the traditional checked pyjamas we wore as children quite embarrassing, I understood why he did that.

  Of all his friends, the kohl-eyed Latif Lone was closest to Ravi. The whole family knew him. We used to call him John Rambo. He was tall, muscular and always wore jeans and sneakers that he would top with a slim-fit pheran he had had specially stitched in the Bund area of Srinagar, famous for its tailors. Latif was a romantic and a big fan of Mohammed Rafi. He ran a small cosmetics shop called ‘Bombay Beauties’ and an electronics shop. The latter did not do much business, but he still ran it thinking it would fetch him an income someday. Also, it enabled him to listen to Rafi all the time, whose songs he would play amplified through a tall speaker.

  I saw him often at Ravi’s house, arguing about who the fastest bowler was in cricket. He also liked a cup of hot Lipton tea. In Kashmir, it was important to say what tea you wanted. Apart from the pink salt tea that most youngsters despised, there was the spiced kahwa. But it was considered ‘hep’ to sip on Lipton tea from bone china cups with flowery designs, just like the English did.

  In those days, the state-run Doordarshan television network was quite boring, so in Kashmir we would extend our TV antennas as far as possible through the roof to catch the signals of Pakistan TV. I remember they had some really nice serials, including a few for children. We particularly enjoyed Alif Laila, based on the Arabian Nights, while the grownups wouldn’t miss a serial called Emergency Ward.

  During the harsh winters it would snow heavily and in the dead of the night we would wake up sometimes, startled by the sound of a heavy load of snow falling from the tin roof, sounding as if the sky were falling. Sometimes the snow also brought the antenna down. Ravi would then be sent to fetch Latif Lone. Latif would come, survey the antenna and then race up to the attic from where he would climb atop the roof to fix the antenna back into position. While clinging to the roof, he would invoke the name of a Sufi saint: Ya Peer Dasgeer. The family would meanwhile watch him from ground level, praying for his safety. Sometimes Ravi’s mother would curse herself for making him do it.

  Treth payen Pakistan Tv’eyus, she would lament. To hell with Pakistan TV.

  Latif would ask Ravi to straighten the antenna pole, look left and then right, as if offering namaz, and finally fit the antenna. ‘Now I want a cup of Lipton tea,’ he would say. And so Latif would have his tea while Ravi’s mother and sister sat in front of their TV to check how clear the signal had become.

  I would sometimes spot Latif at Lal Chowk with a girl, and sometimes they boarded the same bus as mine. And if I had a seat and they didn’t, I would offer mine to the girl. She would smile and offer to seat me on her lap, but I always refused. I was eleven then, almost a teenager. I wanted to stand, as Latif did; and he would place his hand on my shoulder and it made me proud.

  Sometimes I visited his electronics shop to get songs recorded on a cassette. I had no taste for Rafi then, and would want him to record songs from films like Dance Dance and Tridev. Whenever I tried to pay him, he would take the money from my hand and put it back into my shirt pocket, whistling carelessly and breaking into some Rafi song. He sang them always.

  In June 1983, as a seven-year-old, I have vague memories of the Indian cricket team’s winning the World Cup. It was a day–night match; I fell asleep only to be woken later by shouts of celebration. But I remember everything of October 13, 1983. It was the day when the first ever international cricket match was played in Jammu and Kashmir. And the last, too. The Indian team and that of the West Indies arrived the day before the match and were put up in a hotel close to the Sher-e-Kashmir stadium. Ravi had somehow procured two tickets for the match, and we reached the stadium quite early, walking past sniffer dogs.

  We took our seats on the freshly painted green benches. The two captains came down for the toss, which was won by the West Indies. They chose to field. I shouted in joy when a few minutes later Sunil Gava
skar and Kris Srikkanth entered the ground to open the batting for India.

  And that was when it all began.

  Ravi and I sat in disbelief as the stadium erupted with deafening cries of ‘Pakistan zindabad!’ Green flags, both Pakistani and the identical Jamaat-e-Islami banner, were seen being carried by people in the stadium. Many in the crowd also held posters of Pakistani cricketers. The Indian batsmen looked like rabbits caught in glaring headlights. On the sixteenth ball he faced, Gavaskar was caught out, having scored only eleven runs. The whole team crumbled in 41 overs for a total score of 176 runs.

  Later, as the West Indies team batted, the Indian fielders faced severe harassment. They were booed badly. A half-eaten apple was thrown at Dilip Vengsarkar, which hit him on his back.

  Of course, India lost that match.

  Years later, as a journalist, I met the cricketer Kirti Azad at a party. Azad was a part of the Indian team that day and had hit two defiant sixes in a lost cause. ‘How can I ever forget that day?’ he told me. ‘It was like playing in Pakistan against Pakistan.’

  Returning home after witnessing the madness, Ravi and I had not spoken a word. He tried to comfort me by treating me to a soft drink.

  The next morning, I had avoided Rehman. But I also knew there would be no escaping him.

  Rehman was our milkman. Every morning he came to our house, announcing his presence by shouting at the door. Most days, I would come out to collect the milk. We would argue with each other, about cricket and Pakistan. It used to be simple banter, but sometimes I would take it quite seriously.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked my mother when she came out that morning to collect the milk. I was hiding behind the door.

  ‘Pakistan zindabad!’ he shouted, as if he felt my presence behind the door. My mother smiled.

  ‘Tell your son that Gavaskar is a lamb in front of our Pakistani heroes,’ he said.

  I could no longer hold back. Though I was no fan of Gavaskar’s, I felt I had to defend him. I stormed out to confront Rehman.

  ‘All your Pakistani heroes are shit scared of Kris Srikkanth,’ I said, on the verge of tears.

  ‘There you are!’ he said, and he laughed. ‘The dal-eating Indians cannot fight Pakistan.’

  ‘Are you a kid like him?’ my mother intervened.

  ‘This is war, behnai,’ he said and looked mockingly at me.

  ‘And you! You stop watching these matches,’ my mother said. ‘They mean nothing. It is just a game.’

  But by then it was war indeed.

  By 1986, forced blackouts were the norm in the Valley on India’s Independence Day. In some places, if India won a cricket match against Pakistan, a stone could crash through one’s windowpane and land in the bedroom. On April 18, 1986, India and Pakistan played against each other at Sharjah in the final of the Austral-Asia cup. In anticipation, I bullied Totha into buying me firecrackers from Maharaj Ganj.

  On television, you could see Arab sheikhs in the VIP enclosure throw money in the air whenever a Pakistani batsman hit a boundary. But India managed to stay afloat.

  The last over. My heart was pounding against my ribcage. The last ball. Pakistan needed four runs to win. Javed Miandad was on strike. Chetan Sharma was bowling. I had a matchbox in my hand. Sharma bowled a low full toss and Miandad hit it for a six. The stadium erupted. Miandad and number 11 batsman Tauseef Ahmed ran to the team pavilion, jubilant. My matchbox went limp with sweat. Every combustible item in the Sharjah ground was on fire.

  A few minutes later, it was as if it were Diwali in Kashmir. I think every cracker available in Kashmir was burst in the next one hour. People streamed out of their houses and on to the streets chanting Allah ho Akbar. In the nippy April weather of the Valley, people drank gallons of Limca to celebrate, the way they had seen cricket stars celebrate with champagne.

  And I lay huddled in a corner of my house.

  Twenty-five years after that episode, in 2011, when we had been in exile for more than two decades, India registered a World Cup victory. I am grown up now, and victory or defeat in a cricket match means nothing to me. But my father had tears in his eyes when India won. He looked at me expectantly. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that though I don’t care any longer for cricket, my feelings from 1986 remain.

  In More Die of Heartbreak, Saul Bellow calls such feelings ‘first heart’. My first heart remains with that failed yorker bowled by Chetan Sharma.

  During the summer vacations, I stayed at home while my parents were at work. Ma was always visiting some village or the other. When she returned in the evenings, her handbag would be full of small tokens of gratitude given by villagers who sought treatment at her health centre. Someone would fall from a walnut tree and get hurt badly. Or someone would accidentally be hurt with an axe or some other tool. Or a child would have a fever and Ma would provide the required medicine. Or an anaemic mother would get better because of a health supplement Ma recommended. Once they got well, the villagers would return and offer her apples, or raw walnuts, or almonds, or the juiciest of chestnuts, or a small packet of saffron. As children, we ransack her handbag and treated ourselves to its contents.

  But sometimes, staying inside the house for the whole day would make me cranky. One day, out of sheer boredom, I asked Ravi if I could accompany him to the university. He sensed that I was down. ‘Today, I have classes to attend. And anyway, there is not much to show you at the university. But why don’t you be ready tomorrow morning and we will go for a small outing,’ he said. I was so excited that the moment Ma returned in the evening, I told her about our plans.

  I couldn’t sleep for hours after Ma had tucked me into bed. And when I finally did, I dreamt of the next day and the fun we would have.

  By sunrise the next morning I was wide awake. I put on my best shirt and a pair of trousers father had bought for me from the Blue Fox garment store and I waited for Ravi to wake up.

  We set out in the early afternoon on his Yamaha bike. It was a bright afternoon and in no time we left the hubbub of Lal Chowk to enter the tranquil area of the Shankaracharya temple near the foothills.

  While riding on a long road, Ravi slowed down his bike and asked me to look far ahead. ‘Can you see water on the road?’ he asked. I looked intensely but couldn’t see anything. Embarrassed, I lied and said that I could.

  ‘That is just an illusion. There is no water there, but in the heat one imagines that there is. It is called a mirage,’ Ravi explained.

  ‘Oh yes, I see it clearly,’ I lied again.

  Our first stop was at the Shalimar Garden. We parked the motorcycle next to photo studios where pictures of studio owners with various film stars were displayed.

  Inside the garden, Ravi bought a packet of red cherries and we sat down under a tree like two old friends meeting after a long time. He told me of an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, who had devised the law of genetics using pea plants. He spoke of other things as well, but by that time my attention was diverted by a foreigner with green hair. She had perched herself atop a tree, and below, her friend was beseeching her to climb down. But she refused, and after every minute or so, would break into uncontrollable laughter. My school friends had told me how some foreigners consumed drugs. I had no idea what they meant and what drugs really were. I had heard of how foreigners carried ‘brown sugar’. We thought sugar, if burnt in a pan, turned brown and acquired the properties of a drug. That day when I saw the green-haired woman, I thought she must have consumed brown sugar.

  We thought of foreigners as either very educated and cultured—‘Englishman type’—or bohemian. We loosely termed the latter as ‘hippies’ and even had a ditty for them:

  Janana yeh ajab haal dekho, hippiyon ke lambe lambe baal dekho.

  Oh dear, look at their strange ways, look at the long hair of the hippies.

  From Shalimar Garden we went on to Pari Mahal and Ravi told me how it was built by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh as his library. According to legend, the place was inhabited by fairies, a
nd I remember asking Ravi many questions about their existence. At the entrance of the Chashm-e-Shahi gardens, Ravi treated me to an ice-cream cone.

  Our next stop was Nehru Park, where we hired a shikara to take us to the middle of the Dal Lake. In chaste Kashmiri, the kind I had never heard Ravi speaking before, he bargained with the boatman. In the middle of the lake, when the waves hit the shikara making it sway a little, my heart sank. But I showed no fear. I didn’t want Ravi to think of me as a sissy.

  Back on Boulevard road, we went to a small eatery and Ravi bought us hot dogs. He also asked for a bottle of Gold Spot for me and a Thums Up for himself. He always had Thums Up.

  On our way home, I urged him to speed up his bike, and he did so on some stretches. I was thrilled. I held him tightly.

  For days afterwards, I would boast to my friends about Mendel, Dara Shikoh and the green-haired English mem I had seen.

  Eleven years after that carefree day, the nightmare about Ravi I had had a few months earlier came true.

  It was in September 1986 that Totha also left us. A few weeks prior to his death, on the day of Eid, he fell in his room and lost consciousness. After that, he was never able to stand on his feet. His reckless smoking had taken a toll on his lungs. His kidneys were also damaged because of excessive blood sugar. He was shifted to a bigger room on the first floor, and his bed lay beside a glass cabinet where Ravi kept his copies of India Today.

  Totha was shocked by his new circumstances. He barely spoke, and for hours he would stare into nothingness. We visited him every day and tried to make him as comfortable as possible.

  One day my aunt entered his room and found him smoking. She called my uncle and he admonished Totha for being so callous towards his condition. They searched his belongings and found a few cigarettes underneath his pillow. They were taken away. Throughout this episode, Totha did not utter a word. He kept his eyes closed.