I still remember the day I had arrived in Kashmir the first time. The mountains and lakes were covered with thick fog. I was nineteen. And I had bought a second-class ticket on this very train. For some reason I remember the train moved faster then.
2
I must have fallen asleep. I am woken up by a tap on my shoulder. ‘Is this bag yours, is this one yours?’ Two police-wallahs in our compartment. ‘Yes, that one is mine,’ says the civilian man occupying the aisle seat, the girl no longer there. One police-wallah sticks labels on already identified luggage. ‘And the brown suitcase on the rack belongs to my missus,’ the man says.
‘Whose is this big trunk?’
‘Mine,’ I say.
‘You don’t look like a commissioned officer.’
‘It used to belong to a general.’
‘Show me your ID card.’
‘I forgot my card.’
‘What is the name of the general?’
‘He is retired now.’
‘Name?’
‘He is the new Governor of Kashmir.’
‘Name?’
‘General Kumar.’
The police-wallahs look at me with contempt. They have rifles slung around their necks. The younger one turns on his flashlight.
‘What things are there inside?’
I do not respond. I take pity on their contemptible tasks.
‘Open it.’
One of them transfers the heavy trunk to the aisle, and I hand him the key. He is rough-handling the bottles, and he does not read the labels. His face resembles the face of people who don’t take responsibility for their actions.
‘What is all this?’
‘Don’t you see?’ The middle-aged woman sitting close by comes to my rescue. ‘This is heeng and that one is cinnamon… cardamom, coriander, cloves, fenugreek, crushed pomegranate, poppy seeds, rose petals, curry leaves, nutmeg and mace.’
‘Why so many spices?’ asks the first police-wallah.
‘Are you a woman?’ asks the second.
Chuckles from the two of them. ‘Carrying an entire kitchen on the train?’
‘The only reason we will let you go is because your trunk is not a real coffin,’ one of them says from the other end of the bogie, making eye contact with me, staring.
They chuckle louder after making that odd remark, and leave.
Then silence. Only the sound of the train.
Outside I see India passing by. I readjust my glasses. It is raining mildly, and I am glad it is raining because India looks beautiful in the rain. Rain hides the melancholy of this land, ugliness as well. Rain helps me forget my own self. I see a face reflected in the window. Who is that man with spots of gray in his hair? What have I become? But certain things never change. I have the face of someone who is always planning serious work, someone who does not know how to take time off. Now even that will be snatched away from me.
None of my fellow passengers understood the police-wallahs when they said, ‘The only reason we have let you go is because your trunk is not a real coffin.’ Our country is a country with a short memory. They don’t remember the coffin scam which took place in the army during the war with Pakistan and cost the General his promotion. Because of the scam he could not become the chief of army staff. He was innocent really. Officers below him, jealous of Sahib’s abilities, screwed him. Sahib did not get the respect he deserved. There is no way I am going to explain to the civilians the coffin scam. Even if I tried they would not understand.
The middle-aged woman is surveying me, looking at me from the corners of her eyes. She is eager to ask me thousands of questions. Her face resembles a plate of samosas left overnight in rain. The man sitting across the aisle just said he is proud of the Indian army. After the police-wallahs left, he asked me, ‘What did you do in the army, sir?’
‘I kept the top brass healthy and cheerful.’
‘What is it exactly you did, sir?’
‘I was the General’s chef for five years.’
‘Oh, you were a cook,’ he said and controlled his smile. His wife could not control herself. She looked up from the glossy magazine, laughed. The middle-aged woman could not control her laughter either. Civilians.
Then suddenly as if to break silence, he asked: ‘Have you ever won a woman’s heart with your cooking, sir?’
I did not reply.
‘But you must have?’
‘There are no women in the army,’ I said.
‘But sir. Women fall for men in the army. You, sir, had the biggest weapon in your hand. Cooking. Did you ever make someone fall in love, sir?’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I am looking for a chai-wallah. Did you hear a vendor selling tea?’
‘Oh, we have tea in our thermos. Please pour some for sir.’
‘No, no, thank you very much.’
I turned to the window and the conversation stopped. The view outside the window was far more interesting.
3
India is passing through the night. Night, just like rain, hides the ugliness of a place so well. We are running behind the backs of houses. Thousands of tiny lights have been turned on inside them. Towns pass by, and villages. I remember my first journey to Kashmir on this train. It was a very hot day, and despite that, passengers were drinking tea, and the whole compartment smelled of a wedding. Girls in beautiful saris and salwar-kameezes sat not far from me; some of them spoke hardly any English. Their skins had the shine of ripe fruits. How shy I was then. How much I yearned to talk to them, but I pretended that I was not interested. I had picked up the paper the man in the corner seat had discarded, and hid my face behind the news. I would stealthily peek at the girls and when one or two returned my gaze I would hide once again behind words. One time my eyes locked with the eyes of an oval-faced girl, and this created an awkward moment. She started whispering, and then suddenly an exclamation was followed by loud laughter, and I felt they were all laughing at me, and I hid again behind the paper. How I yearned to talk to them, and how I desired for them to leave me alone in the carriage because I could not endure so many of them, and I wanted them to carry on with their usual business without bothering me, and when they disembarked at a strange platform how alone I had felt in that near-empty carriage. I had missed my chance. A beautiful opportunity had presented itself, but I had spoiled it. Partly to deal with loneliness and partly to deal with the absence of girls I began reading the paper. Several times I read the article which had shielded me from the beauties. It was accompanied by a large photograph of the body of a soldier.
BODY OF A SOLDIER FOUND AFTER 53 YEARS
Trekkers on a remote stretch of Himalayan glacier have found the fully preserved body of a soldier 53 years after he died in a plane crash. They discovered the corpse, still in an overcoat uniform, with personal documents in the pockets. The discovery was reported yesterday at the base camp. The team also found aircraft parts close to the soldier, suggesting there could be other bodies buried in ice.
It is believed the crash occurred in early 1934. The soldier may have been flying to or from Ladakh, the high altitude area in Kashmir.
In 1934 India had yet to be partitioned by the British to become ‘ India ’ and ‘ Pakistan ’. So it is not clear whether the body belongs to India or Pakistan. The two countries have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir.
Kashmir. It was my first time, and I found the place different from the way Delhi-wallahs describe it, as paradise, or shadow of paradise. I was a young man, but old enough to separate romance from reality. There was thick fog and it was very cold. I did not have a proper jacket. I had arrived with only one suitcase and the recruitment letter in my pocket. By the time I stood on the lawns of the General’s residence the sound of the train had simply disappeared from my mind. A uniformed man accompanied me from the gate-posts to Sahib’s residence, the Command House, located on a hill overlooking the golf course. I must have waited for half an hour on the lawns. I thought I was going to die of cold when a middle-aged man stepped out of the house. He was wearing an apron. The hair on his head was closely cropped. His face, clean-shaven with thin eyebrows, ears unusually long. The man’s body had a muscular appeal to it. A black dog trotted ahead of him. The dog came to sniff me. I touched its muzzle.