She was a Kashmiri Hindu woman, returning home after a gap of thirteen years. She said her situation was a bit like the exiles in the epic Mahabharata. I apologized for my limited knowledge of Hindu epics. I grew up in the Sikh tradition, I confessed. She studied my face carefully. So why, sardar-ji, have you cut your hair and removed your turban?
I said nothing.
My husband had a travel agency in Srinagar, she told me, and I used to teach biology in school, classes 6, 7 and 8; but we were forced out of the city by the militants. Deep down all Muslims are pro-Pakistan, she said. Our servant was an exception, she said. He would send us letters about the house, now the house is with the militants, he would write, and now it is with the army or paramilitary, but in the last letter he told us that the house was empty, and the roof of what used to be the kitchen and the bedroom had fallen in.
Listening to her I thought of those moments lost to time, my first arrival in Kashmir when Chef took me on long bike rides, plane leaves rustling under the tires, ruins on left, and ruins on right, and so many empty houses, and once or twice he had said that the city without the Kashmiri Hindus looked incomplete. Why, Chef?
‘Without the Hindus (who have been forced to flee by some Muslim extremists) this valley looks exactly like Swiss cheese,’ he said.
‘Cheeze?’
His comment initially left me confused. Cheeze means a ‘thing’ in my mother tongue. Punjabi, the only language in the world made entirely out of puns…
I am talking about paneer, Kirpal. Swiss cheese is a strange variety of paneer with holes in it. In school they taught us: Kashmir India ka Switzerland hai. Well, this place has certainly become the ‘Swiss cheese of India ’. When I look at the empty Hindu houses in the valley, Kirpal, I realize there is no bigger tragedy for a land that forces its own people out and makes them wander from place to place, and leaves them damaged with an intense longing to return home.
The woman changed her seat. She found one next to a peasant girl just before the bus entered the three-mile-long tunnel. Whenever a woman sitting next to me changes seats I ask myself if I did something wrong. She had a plastic bag full of cherry tomatoes, and she kept eating them one by one. She did not offer me a single tomato. Did I misbehave? Did I offend her with a swear word? Do I have bad breath? Did I utter something very lucid? Islands of lucidity are forming inside my brain. Did I mutter something on love? I have wasted the years of my life being too much in love. Love that was not even returned. Love for the wrong person or a thing. Love is a dish that is either overcooked or undercooked. Love never tastes right. Love smells like the inside of a garbage bag. Love has the odor of decay. Throw it away.
I unpack my suitcase. Breathless again. There is a little package for Rubiya. And a gift for someone else. My clothes have all tangled up in each other. The jacket and pants and the tie I brought along from Delhi need ironing. They will look good on you, Mother had said. They will look good on you, Kip.
I don’t deserve to wear these things. They are too bloody new.
I have the breath of death, I say to myself in the hotel room. Women sense it more than men. And they do not want to get closer. In a way I felt relieved when the woman moved because I was able to stretch, but an old man occupied the empty seat minutes after she vacated it. She never once looked back and kept eating her tomatoes. She did not notice her replacement. He was a Muslim man, conical cap on head. Hooked nose. He was using a toothpick to clean his teeth. As he settled on the seat, the man asked, What time is it, jenab? I noticed he had a watch on his wrist, and I assumed it must have broken and I told him the time, and he thanked me – shoorkriya jenab, he said – but right after the tunnel in bright light I noticed the man’s watch was showing the correct time.
Inside the Jawahar tunnel we had to shut the bus windows. The driver feared a militant grenade or an improvised explosive. Inside the tunnel water kept dripping from rock. The tunnel is three miles long. For three long miles yellow sodium lamps lit the road. Then the light of Kashmir appeared. Blue mountains. Bright numinous light reached out to touch us. The driver, that idiot, put the bus in neutral and coasted all the way downhill. Coasting saves him diesel. Just before hitting the valley he asked us, the passengers, to look towards the right. Verinag, he said. This is where the river begins, he said. As if we did not know.
The bus was coasting down. The tunnel disappeared behind us in the crack of the mountain. A few miles later it reappeared. I looked upwards from the window seat and noticed the arch of the tunnel. The happiness and unhappiness of so many people depends on the tunnel and the road, and the road to Kashmir is not so bad. The buses are, the drivers are, the checkposts are. If there is one thing right about our country it is the road.
From my hotel window I can see the Hindu houses. They have been empty for so long, the roofs are falling in. It has been ages since someone burned fire in those rooms. No smoke rises out of chimneys. Time is mocking the chimneys. In one of those kitchens I would like to cook for both Hindus and Muslims.
The difference between Hindu cuisine and Muslim cuisine is very easy to explain. In Kashmir the Hindus avoid sexy onions and garlic; they love the taste of heeng (asafetida) and the non-incestuous fennel and ginger. Muslims find heeng (and its sulphurous odor) unbearable. They adore garlic, green praans, garam masala, and on certain occasions, mawal flowers. So there is a ‘Hindu’ Rogan Josh, and a ‘Muslim’ Rogan Josh. Over the years I have developed my own recipe, a Rogan Josh inspired by these two great traditions. I have perfected the dish, and I can say without hesitation that it is my finest accomplishment. Rogan Josh is red because of Kashmiri chilies, which are ten times more red than the ordinary Indian mirchis. I know this from Irem. I must discuss the menu yet with Rubiya, but I will manage to persuade her to allow me to prepare this delicacy at the wedding.
Rogan Josh
900g lamb (shoulder cut, with or without bones), well rinsed and sliced into one-inch rectangles
5 tablespoons ghee
1 cup dahi
6 cloves, crushed finely
2 tablespoons Kashmiri red chili powder
1 cinnamon stick
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
4-5 garlic cloves, minced or finely sliced
2 teaspoons ginger powder
2 teaspoons fennel powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
¼ teaspoon cumin powder
¼ teaspoon crushed cardamom
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon heeng
14 strands of saffron
Marinate the lamb for two hours. Coat the pieces with ginger-garlic paste, cumin powder, crushed cardamom, and turmeric. Sprinkle salt (to taste).
Heat ghee on high flame in a large heavy-bottomed pot (for best results, use degchi).
Add cloves, cumin, heeng, and cinnamon. Sauté for 2 minutes.
Add onion. Sauté until golden.
Add garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes.
Add lamb. Sear until dark brown on all sides. Oily juice will come out of pieces.
Stir till all liquid in the pot becomes vapor. Make sure the meat pieces don’t stick to the bottom.
Add dahi (well whisked) one spoon at a time, stirring constantly.
Cook for 15 minutes on medium heat.
Stir constantly till the sauce becomes very thick. Make sure the meat pieces don’t stick to the bottom.
Now add Kashmiri red chili ‘liquid’ (chili powder dissolved in 2 cups of hot water). Stir well.
Switch to high heat.
Add ginger and fennel powder. Stir and bring the pot to boil.
Cover and cook on low heat till the lamb is tender (approximately an hour).