Shalimar The Clown_ A Novel Part 6

The bus bringing the actors and musicians to Srinagar could not get to the depot on account of the crowds gathering in the city streets under the nervous eyes of the army and police. The bhands had to get out, carry their props and walk. There were already more than four hundred thousand people clogging up the roads. Abdullah Noman asked the bus driver what was going on. "It's a funeral," he replied. "They have come to mourn the death of our Kashmir."

The curtain rose on the story of the good king Zain-ul-abidin, and Abdullah walked out onto the stage with a raised sword in one hand and a spear in the other, clenching the weapons tightly, ignoring the spears of pain shooting down his hands. He was leading by example for the last time in his life, sending a message to his bored, mutinous troupe. If I can rise above my pain then you can rise above your indifference. If I can rise above my pain then you can rise above your indifference. But the auditorium was three-quarters empty, and the few tourists who were sitting out there weren't really listening to him, because through the walls of the theater came the m.u.f.fled sound of the start of the uprising, the crowd of one million persons marching through the streets carrying flaming torches above their heads and bellowing But the auditorium was three-quarters empty, and the few tourists who were sitting out there weren't really listening to him, because through the walls of the theater came the m.u.f.fled sound of the start of the uprising, the crowd of one million persons marching through the streets carrying flaming torches above their heads and bellowing Azadi! Azadi! Sardar Harbans Singh was sitting with his son Yuvraj, a strikingly handsome young man whose modernizing inclinations were trumpeted by his shaven face and lack of a Sikh turban, in the middle of the otherwise empty seventh row. With the sense of a man plunging from a high pinnacle to his death Abdullah Noman fixed his old comrade with his fiercest, most glittering stare and launched into the play with all the power he had left. For the next hour, in the silent tomb of the auditorium, the bhands of Pachigam told a story which n.o.body wanted to hear. Several members of the audience got up and left during the show. In the intermission Sardar Harbans Singh's son Yuvraj, a businessman who in spite of the worsening political situation was successfully exporting Kashmiri papier-mache boxes, carved wooden tables, numdah rugs and embroidered shawls to the rest of India and to Western buyers as well, who supported him "as an act of ridiculous optimism, considering that the region is on the verge of going insane," warned Abdullah Noman that things might get out of hand in the street and demonstrators might even burst into the theater. "You're holding a sword and a spear," Yuvraj Singh reminded Abdullah. "If they do get inside here, a word of advice? Never mind about the play. Throw the props down and run." He himself would have to miss the second act, he apologized. "The situation, you understand," he explained, vaguely. "One has one's proper duties to discharge." Sardar Harbans Singh was sitting with his son Yuvraj, a strikingly handsome young man whose modernizing inclinations were trumpeted by his shaven face and lack of a Sikh turban, in the middle of the otherwise empty seventh row. With the sense of a man plunging from a high pinnacle to his death Abdullah Noman fixed his old comrade with his fiercest, most glittering stare and launched into the play with all the power he had left. For the next hour, in the silent tomb of the auditorium, the bhands of Pachigam told a story which n.o.body wanted to hear. Several members of the audience got up and left during the show. In the intermission Sardar Harbans Singh's son Yuvraj, a businessman who in spite of the worsening political situation was successfully exporting Kashmiri papier-mache boxes, carved wooden tables, numdah rugs and embroidered shawls to the rest of India and to Western buyers as well, who supported him "as an act of ridiculous optimism, considering that the region is on the verge of going insane," warned Abdullah Noman that things might get out of hand in the street and demonstrators might even burst into the theater. "You're holding a sword and a spear," Yuvraj Singh reminded Abdullah. "If they do get inside here, a word of advice? Never mind about the play. Throw the props down and run." He himself would have to miss the second act, he apologized. "The situation, you understand," he explained, vaguely. "One has one's proper duties to discharge."

In the hollow vacuum of the empty theater Abdullah Noman saw his troupe of disaffected youngsters give the performances of their young lives, as if they had suddenly understood a secret which n.o.body had explained to them before. The pounding drumbeats of the demonstration echoed around them, the chanting of the demonstrators was like a chorus crying doom, the menace of the ever-growing crowd crackled around the empty seats like an electric charge. Still the bhands of Pachigam went on with their show, dancing, singing, clowning, telling their tale of old-time tolerance and hope. At one point Abdullah Noman succ.u.mbed to the illusion that their voices, their instruments had become inaudible, that, even though they were declaiming their lines and singing their songs and playing their music with a pa.s.sion they had not been able to muster for a long time, there was complete silence in the theater, the few scattered spectators sat mutely watching a dumb show, while outside in the streets the noise was already immense and grew louder by the instant, and now a second group of noises was superimposed on the first, the noises of troop transports, Jeeps and tanks, of booted feet marching in step, of loaded weapons being readied and finally of gunshots, rifle shots as well as automatic fire. The chanting turned into screaming, the drumbeats turned into thunder, the march turned into a stampede, and as the auditorium began to shake the tale of King Zain-ul-abidin silently reached its happy ending and the actors joined hands and took their bow, but even though Sardar Harbans Singh, the only person left in the audience, applauded as heartily as he could in the circ.u.mstances, his clapping hands didn't make any sound at all.

For a time it was impossible to return home. Forty demonstrators had been killed. The situation in the streets was highly unstable, there were roadblocks and troops and armored vehicles everywhere, and public transport was not a priority. The bhands of Pachigam blockaded themselves inside the theater and waited. Sardar Harbans Singh refused to stay with them. "I'm going to sleep in my own bed, chaps," he declared. "The wife would be most suspicious if I don't. Besides which, I have my garden to attend to." Harbans's walled garden villa was one of the secret wonders of the city, and was believed by some to have been placed under an enchantment by a pari pari from Pari Mahal, a magic spell which protected it and all who dwelt there from coming to harm. But Harbans didn't seem to need the a.s.sistance of fairies. He managed to find his way back to the old-town residence on foot in spite of the wildness of the city. Harbans was an intrepid old fox, knew all the city's byways and back alleys, and came back every day without fail, immaculately turned out in from Pari Mahal, a magic spell which protected it and all who dwelt there from coming to harm. But Harbans didn't seem to need the a.s.sistance of fairies. He managed to find his way back to the old-town residence on foot in spite of the wildness of the city. Harbans was an intrepid old fox, knew all the city's byways and back alleys, and came back every day without fail, immaculately turned out in achkan achkan jacket and trousers, his silver beard and moustache trimmed and pomaded, to bring the company food and essential supplies. He was sometimes escorted by his son, but more often came alone, on account of Yuvraj's unspecified "duties," which turned out to involve the hiring and management of a private security force to protect his business premises and warehouses against looters and firebombers. Sardar Harbans Singh shook his head sadly. "My son is a person of high ideals and n.o.ble beliefs," he told Abdullah, "who is obliged by the times to deal with guttersnipes and bounders, mercenary hooligans whom he hires to save our goods from other hooligans, and whom he then has to watch like a hawk in case they do the bad hats' dirty work themselves. Poor fellow never sleeps, but never complains. He does the needful. As we all must." Sardar Harbans Singh carried a silver-headed walnut swordstick and walked briskly through the unsafe streets, pooh-poohing the risk to himself. "I'm an old man," he said. "Who would trouble to do anything to me when Father Time is doing such a dashed good job already?" Abdullah shook his head wonderingly. "You can know a man for fifty years," he said, "and still not know what he's capable of." Harbans shrugged in self-deprecation. "You never know the answer to the questions of life until you're asked," he said. jacket and trousers, his silver beard and moustache trimmed and pomaded, to bring the company food and essential supplies. He was sometimes escorted by his son, but more often came alone, on account of Yuvraj's unspecified "duties," which turned out to involve the hiring and management of a private security force to protect his business premises and warehouses against looters and firebombers. Sardar Harbans Singh shook his head sadly. "My son is a person of high ideals and n.o.ble beliefs," he told Abdullah, "who is obliged by the times to deal with guttersnipes and bounders, mercenary hooligans whom he hires to save our goods from other hooligans, and whom he then has to watch like a hawk in case they do the bad hats' dirty work themselves. Poor fellow never sleeps, but never complains. He does the needful. As we all must." Sardar Harbans Singh carried a silver-headed walnut swordstick and walked briskly through the unsafe streets, pooh-poohing the risk to himself. "I'm an old man," he said. "Who would trouble to do anything to me when Father Time is doing such a dashed good job already?" Abdullah shook his head wonderingly. "You can know a man for fifty years," he said, "and still not know what he's capable of." Harbans shrugged in self-deprecation. "You never know the answer to the questions of life until you're asked," he said.

The bus service to Pachigam started running again five days after these events. When Abdullah Noman arrived at his front door Firdaus could not prevent herself from weeping copiously for joy. Abdullah fell to his knees in the doorway and asked for her forgiveness. "If you can still love me," he said, "then please help me find the courage to face the coming storm." She raised him up and kissed him. "You are the only great man I have ever known," she said, "and I will be proud to stand beside you and beat back death, the devil, the Indian army or whatever other trouble's on its way."

Bombur Yambarzal had done a brave thing once, when he faced down the rabble-rousing iron mullah Maulana Bulbul Fakh at the door of the s.h.i.+rmal mosque, but now that life was asking difficult questions again in his great old age, his fear for the safety of his beloved wife led him astray. He was no longer the big-bellied vasta waza of yore. The years had withered him, palsied his hands, dotted him with liver spots and put cataracts in his eyes, and he cut a skinny, unimpressive figure as he wondered with some trepidation whether he would live to see the dawn of his eightieth year. This enfeebled Bombur expressed the view that the Lashkar-e-Pak would look more favorably on s.h.i.+rmal and be less likely to attempt any "funny business" if people responded to the radicals' poster campaign in a spirit of compromise, not confrontation. "We should agree to at least one thing they propose, Harud," he said, "or we'll be the ones who look unreasonable and hard line."

Hasina Yambarzal, that powerfully built lady whom age had not weakened in the slightest and who continued to henna her hair in order to justify the rubicund nickname "Harud," was preparing the television tent for the evening's viewing. "What do you suggest?" she said in an uncompromising voice. "I told you my views about the burqa and if you try to stop the women coming in here there will be h.e.l.l to pay." The waza of s.h.i.+rmal accepted her argument. "In that case," he said, "can't we just just tell our Hindu brothers and sisters that in response to the LeP intervention, and having regard to the gravity of the regional situation, and having weighed the available options, and only for the time being, and in this dangerous climate, and until things blow over, and for their own good as well as ours, and purely as a precautionary measure, and without meaning anything bad by it, and taking everything into consideration, and in spite of our deep reluctance, and with a heavy heart, and while fully appreciating their very understandable feelings of disappointment, and hoping earnestly for better days to come soon, and with the intention of reversing the decision at the earliest feasible opportunity, it might be better for all concerned if." He stopped talking because he could not say the final words aloud. Hasina Yambarzal nodded judiciously. "There are a few pandit families over in Pachigam who won't like it, of course," she said, "but here in s.h.i.+rmal there's no need for anyone to get upset."

When news reached Pachigam that the television tent was now for viewing by Muslims only, Firdaus could not restrain herself. "That Hasina, excuse me if I mention," she told Abdullah, "people say she's a very pragmatical lady but I'd put it another way. In my opinion she'd sleep with the devil if it was in her business interest to do so, and she's got that dope Bombur so twisted up that he'd think it was his good idea."

Two nights later the Yambarzal tent was full of Muslim-only TV watchers enjoying an episode of a fantasy serial in which the legendary prince of Yemen Hatim Tai, during his quest to solve the mysterious riddles posed by the evil Dajjal, found himself in the land of Kopatopa on the occasion of their new year celebrations. The Kopatopan phrase meaning "happy new year"-tingi mingi took took-so delighted the enthralled viewers that most of them leapt to their feet and started bowing to one another and repeating it over and over again: "Tingi mingi took took! Tingi mingi took took!" They were so busy wis.h.i.+ng one another a happy Kopatopan new year that they didn't instantly notice that some person or persons had set fire to the tent.

It was fortunate indeed that n.o.body was burned to death in the blaze. After a period of screaming, panic, jostling, terror, trampling, anger, running, bewilderment, crawling, cowardice, tears and heroism, in short all the usual phenomena that may be observed whenever and wherever people find themselves trapped in a burning tent, the congregation of the faithful all escaped, in better or worse condition, suffering from burns or not suffering from them, wheezing and gasping on account of the effects of smoke inhalation, or else by good luck neither gasping nor wheezing, bruised or not bruised, lying around on the ground some distance from the now-incandescent tent, or else (and more usefully) fetching water to ensure that the fire, which had by that time taken hold of the tent too powerfully to be extinguished before it had consumed its prey, at least did not spread to the rest of the village, but burned itself out on the spot.

As a result everybody missed the scene in which Hatim Tai met the immortal princess Nazarebaddoor whose touch could turn away not only the evil eye but also death itself. At the precise instant when Nazarebaddoor attempted to kiss Prince Hatim-he valiantly refused her advances, reminding her that he loved another "more than his very life"-the television set of the Yambarzal family exploded loudly and died, taking with it a major source of the family's income, but, as against that, a significant cause of communal discord as well.

The next morning the three Gegroo brothers, Aurangzeb, Alauddin and Abulkalam, rode back into s.h.i.+rmal on small mountain ponies, bristling with guns and festooned in cartridge belts. It was a beautiful spring day. Early moisture glistened on the corrugated metal roofs of the little wooden houses and flowers sprouted by every doorstep. The loveliness of the day only served to heighten the ugliness of the black circle of charred gra.s.s and earth that marked the spot where the fire had consumed the Yambarzals' place and means of entertainment, and the Gegroos halted by the still-smoking spot and fired pistols into the air. Such villagers as were able to do so came out of their homes and saw three phantoms from their past, older, but still giggling and unshaven. Their old home was still standing, locked up and empty like a ghost house, but the brothers didn't appear to care. They had just stopped by to say h.e.l.lo on behalf of their present employers, the LeP. "Did you do this to us?" Hasina Yambarzal demanded. They giggled at that. "If the LeP had laid the fire," screamed Aurangzeb Gegroo at the top of his thin voice, "then every soul in that tent would have met his or her maker by now." This was either true or not true. It was getting to be a characteristic of the times that people never knew who had hit them or why.

Alauddin Gegroo rode right up to Hasina Yambarzal, dismounted and shrieked into her face. "Don't you know, you stupid disobedient woman flaunting before me the shamelessness of your uncovered features, that it's only on account of us that the Lashkar hasn't punished you people yet? Don't you know that we've been protecting our own home village from the Lashkar's holy wrath? Why don't you wretched ignorant people understand who your real friends are?" But an alternative explanation was that it was only on account of the Gegroo brothers' desire for vengeance that the LeP had taken the risk of sending a team as far afield as s.h.i.+rmal. However, this was plainly not the time for a debate.

Abulkalam Gegroo completed his brother's harangue at some length, baring a set of decayed teeth in an exaggerated snarl that marked him out as the very worst kind of weak man, the type who might very well kill you to prove his strength. "You are the same d.a.m.n-fool villagers who sent away the great Maulana Bulbul Fakh. The same d.a.m.n-fool villagers that won't observe the simplest Islamic decencies as politely requested and who nevertheless expect to be protected from the consequences of your refusal. The same d.a.m.n-fool villagers who thought we were dust, us, the worthless Gegroo brothers whom you were ready to starve to death in a mosque, whose lives weren't worth two paisas to you, the pathetic Gegroos who couldn't count on their own people to save them from the murderous Hindus-the same people who are only alive today because those same Gegroo brothers keep interceding for them. Arre, how stupid can even stupid people be? Because even these useless dead Gegroos whom you were prepared to throw away like the corpses of dead dogs can work out that the people who burned your tent must be the same people you threw out of it, your Hindu brothers and sisters, whom you love so much you feel bad about what you did to them even though you didn't give a d.a.m.n about what you thought you did to us, and you still don't get it, you don't see that the Hindus who set the fire, your pandit pals, would have been happy to see the whole lot of you laid out in the street here, burned to a crisp like so many overcooked sikh kababs."

"He's right," said Has.h.i.+m Karim suddenly, taking his mother by surprise.

"He probably is correct," his brother Hatim agreed. "That Big Man Misri loved watching TV, and he was always a big man for revenge."

A carpenter could always find work in Kashmir in the spring, when wooden houses and fences all over the valley needed attention, so Big Man Misri was one of the few citizens of Pachigam to be immune from the general economic depression. He traveled the country roads on a little motor scooter with his sack of tools on his back and often, when he pa.s.sed a secluded little grove of trees that stood just out of sight of his home village around a bend in the Muskadoon, he parked the scooter, concealed himself in the trees, set down his tool sack and danced.

Big Man had always been of the view that his terpsich.o.r.ean skills had been too harshly judged by the Pachigam bhands, and that he could leap as high and twirl as effectively as the next man. Abdullah Noman had told him kindly but firmly that the world was not yet ready for a jumping giant, and so Big Man Misri was obliged to practice his art in secret, without hope of an audience, for love alone, and often with his eyes closed, so that he could imagine the rapt faces of the audience he would never be allowed to have. On the last day of his life he was leaping and pirouetting in his army surplus boots when he heard the sound of insincere applause. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was surrounded by the three heavily armed Gegroo brothers on their mountain ponies, and understood that his time had come. There was a knife tucked into each of his boots and so he went down on one knee and begged to be spared in the most pitiful and cowardly voice he could produce, which amused the brothers mightily, as he knew it would. I could have been an actor as well as a dancer, he mused fleetingly, and in the same instant, when the Gegroos were shaking with laughter instead of concentrating on their victim, he reached for both his knives and threw them. Abulkalam Gegroo was. .h.i.t in the throat and Alauddin Gegroo in the left eye and they fell from their mounts without making any further contribution to events. Aurangzeb Gegroo, distracted by the calamity that had befallen his brothers, delayed his reaction almost long enough to allow the charging carpenter to seize him. Big Man Misri the private dancer made the biggest leap of his life, his hands outstretched toward Aurangzeb Gegroo, but the eldest and only surviving sibling came to his senses just in time and fired both his AK-47s into the soaring Big Man at point-blank range. Big Man Misri was already dead by the time his body hit Aurangzeb, knocking him backward off his pony and breaking his puny neck.

That same night, after the dead body of Big Man Misri was discovered lying on top of Aurangzeb Gegroo as if they were lovers who had made a death pact, with the other two dead Gegroos by their side, Zoon Misri climbed up the hill to the edge of the Khelmarg meadow and hanged herself from a majestic spreading chinar, the only tree of its kind to have taken root and survived at this height, among the evergreens. She was discovered by Boonyi Noman, who understood at once the meaning of this eloquent, final message from her beloved friend. The horror was upon them now and would not be denied.

General Hammirdev Suryavans Kachhwaha realized, as he thought about his approaching fifty-ninth birthday, that the reason he had never married was that for almost thirty years Kashmir had been his wife. For more than half his life he had been wedded to this ungrateful, shrewish mountain state where disloyalty was a badge of honor and insubordination a way of life. It had been a cold marriage. Now things were coming to a head. He wanted to be done with her once and for all. He wanted to tame the shrew. Then he wanted a divorce.

The coming battle against the insurgency, reflected General Hammirdev Suryavans Kachhwaha, would be a conflict that lacked all n.o.bility. The true soldier wanted a n.o.ble war, sought out such n.o.bility as might be available. This struggle was a dirty bare-knuckle fight against dirty gutter rats and there was nothing in it to exalt the martial soul. It was not General Kachhwaha's way to fight dirty but when one faced terrorists any attempt to stay clean was doomed to ign.o.ble defeat. It was not his way to take off his gloves but there was a time and a place for gloves and Kashmir was not a boxing ring and the Marquess of Queensberry's rules did not apply. This was what he had been saying to the political echelon. He had informed the political echelon that if he were allowed to take his gloves off, if his boys were allowed to stop p.u.s.s.yfooting and namby-pambying and mollycoddling and pitter-pattering around, if they were allowed to crack down on the miscreants by whatever means necessary, then he could clean up this mess, no problem, he could crush the insurgency's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es in his fist until it wept blood through the corners of its eyes.

For many years the political echelon had been reluctant. For too long it had said yes and no at the same time. But now at last there was movement. The character of the political echelon had changed. Its new belief system was supported by prominent members of the intellectual tier and the economic stratum and held that the introduction of Islam in the cla.s.sical period had been uniformly deleterious, a cultural calamity, and that centuries-overdue corrections needed to be made. Heavyweight figures in the intellectual tier spoke of a new awakening of the suppressed cultural energy of the Hindu ma.s.ses. Prominent inhabitants of the economic stratum invested ma.s.sively in this glistening new zero-tolerance world. The political echelon responded positively to such encouragement. The introduction of President's Rule provided security personnel with unrestricted powers. The amended code of criminal procedure immunized all public servants, soldiers included, against prosecution for deeds performed in the line of duty. The definition of such deeds was broad and included destruction of private property, torture, rape and murder.

The political echelon's decision to declare Kashmir a "disturbed area" was also greatly appreciated. In a disturbed area, search warrants were not required, arrest warrants ditto, and shoot-to-kill treatment of suspects was acceptable. Suspects who remained alive could be arrested and detained for two years, during which period it would not be necessary to charge them or to set a date for their trial. For more dangerous suspects the political echelon permitted more severe responses. Persons who committed the ultimate crime of challenging the territorial integrity of India or in the opinion of the armed forces attempted to disrupt same could be jailed for five years. Interrogation of such suspects would take place behind closed doors and confessions extracted by force during these secret interrogations would be admissible as evidence provided the interrogating officer had reason to believe the statement was being made voluntarily. Confessions made after the suspect was beaten or hung by the feet, or after he had experienced electricity or the crus.h.i.+ng of his hands or feet, would be considered as being voluntary. The burden of proof would be s.h.i.+fted and it would be for these persons to prove the falsehood of the automatic presumption of guilt. If they failed so to do the death penalty could be applied.

In the dark General Kachhwaha experienced a smooth, ovoid feeling of satisfaction, even vindication. His own old theory, which proposed the essentially sneaky and subversive nature of the Kashmiri Muslim population in toto, and which in bygone times he had reluctantly set aside, was one whose time had come. The political echelon had sent word. Every Muslim in Kashmir should be considered a militant. The bullet was the only solution. Every Muslim in Kashmir should be considered a militant. The bullet was the only solution. Until the militants were wiped out normality could not return to the valley. General Kachhwaha smiled. Those were instructions he could follow. Until the militants were wiped out normality could not return to the valley. General Kachhwaha smiled. Those were instructions he could follow.

He had moved on from Elasticnagar to Army Corps Headquarters at Badami Bagh, Srinagar. In spite of its name this was no fragrant almond garden but a center of naked power. General Kachhwaha on his arrival at the giant base had immediately given orders for the replication of his old suite of rooms in Elasticnagar and soon sat once more in darkness, at the center of the web. There was nothing he needed to witness in person anymore. He knew everything and forgot nothing. He went nowhere and was everywhere. He sat in darkness and saw the valley, every cranny of it, bathed in garish light. He felt the bloat of memory expanding his body, he was all swollen up, stuffed full of the babel of the unforgotten, and the confusion of his senses grew ever more extreme. The idea of violence had a velvet softness now. One took off one's gloves and smelled the sweet fragrance of necessity. Bullets entered flesh like music, the pounding of clubs was the rhythm of life, and then there was the s.e.xual dimension to consider, the demoralization of the population through the violation of its women. In that dimension every color was bright and tasted good. He closed his eyes and averted his head. What must be, must be.

The insurgency was pathetic. It fought against itself. Half of it was fighting for that old fairy tale, Kashmir for the Kashmiris, while the other half wanted Pakistan, and to be a part of the Islamist terror international. The insurrectionists would kill each other while he watched. But he would kill them too, to hurry things along. He didn't care what they wanted. He wanted them dead. In the darkness, while he waited, he had refined and perfected the philosophy and methodology of the coming crackdown. The philosophy of crackdown was, f.u.c.k the enemy in the crack. f.u.c.k the enemy in the crack. The methodology of crackdown could be expressed technically as cordon-and-search. Curfews would be imposed and soldiers would go house to house. It could also be expressed colloquially as, The methodology of crackdown could be expressed technically as cordon-and-search. Curfews would be imposed and soldiers would go house to house. It could also be expressed colloquially as, and then f.u.c.k them in the crack again. and then f.u.c.k them in the crack again. Town by town, hamlet by hamlet, every part of the valley would be visited by his wrath, by men who had taken their gloves off, his warriors, his storm troopers, his fists. He would see how much these people loved their insurgency then, when they had the Indian army f.u.c.king them in the crack. Town by town, hamlet by hamlet, every part of the valley would be visited by his wrath, by men who had taken their gloves off, his warriors, his storm troopers, his fists. He would see how much these people loved their insurgency then, when they had the Indian army f.u.c.king them in the crack.

He knew everything and forgot nothing. He read the reports and closed his eyes and ate with relish the scenes he conjured up, drawing nourishment from the details. Village Z came under crackdown and the headmaster of the school was picked up, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d by the name of A. He stood accused of being a militant. He dared to lie and deny it, saying he was not a militant but a headmaster. He was asked to identify which of his pupils were militants and this man, this self-avowed headmaster, had the nerve to claim not only that he did not know about his own students but also that he didn't know any militants at all. But every Kashmiri was a militant as had been laid down by the political echelon and so this liar was lying and needed to be a.s.sisted toward the truth. He was beaten, obviously. Then his beard was set on fire. Then electricity was offered to his eyes, his genitals and his tongue. Afterwards he claimed to have been blinded in one eye, which was an obvious lie, an attempt to blame the investigators for a previously existing condition. He had no pride and begged the men to stop. He repeated his lie, that he was just a schoolteacher, which offended them. To a.s.sist him they took him to a small stream containing dirty water and broken gla.s.s. The liar was pushed into the stream and kept there for five hours. The men walked over him with their boots, applying his head to the rocks in the water. He lost consciousness to avoid questioning, so when he woke up they chastised him again. In the end it was deemed correct to let him go. He was warned that the next time he would be killed. He ran away screaming, I swear I'm not a militant. I'm a schoolteacher. I swear I'm not a militant. I'm a schoolteacher. These people were beyond saving. There was no hope for them. These people were beyond saving. There was no hope for them.

The town of Y came under crackdown and a middle-aged man by the name of B was picked up along with his sixteen-year-old son, C. The door to his home, a suspected terrorist rat's nest, was kicked down. To show him that the matter was serious his father's Qur'an was thrown to the floor and muddy boots were applied to it. There would be no more special treatment for Muslims. That had to be understood. His daughter was ordered into the back room from which she crawled out of a window and escaped, which was unfortunate but proved that this was a high-value family of rat terrorists. The sixteen-year-old was formally accused of terrorism. He had the cheek to deny. Again he was accused and again denied. And a third time, ditto. He said he was a student and such subterfuge inflamed the sentiments of the men. He was taken outside and rifle b.u.t.ts were applied to his person. The father, B, tried to intervene and he also required vigorous physical attention. When the terrorist youth, C, lost consciousness he was put in the back of a truck and taken away for his own benefit, for medical a.s.sistance. At a later time the middle-aged man, B, claimed that his son had been located in a ditch unclothed and with a bullet in his back. This was not the doing of the men. Probably after he had received medical attention and was allowed to go home he encountered terrorists of a rival faction and they attended to him.

The village of X, high up near the snow line and the Line of Control, came under crackdown because militants often crossed the border in its vicinity and so it was plain that the villagers harbored them, gave them beds to rest in and food to eat. Reports had been received of the presence in the locality of the so-called iron mullah, Maulana Bulbul Fakh, whom General Kachhwaha had once made the mistake of tolerating, back in the old days of tolerant weakness. Those days were gone, as the notorious priest and his gang of desperadoes would discover soon enough, as their henchpersons in X had already learned-the malevolent youth D, who would trouble the security forces no further, the dotards E (gender m.) and F (gender f.) whose house had been demolished to punish them, and the women G, H and I, upon whom the virile wrath of the Indian forces had been potently unleashed. The bayoneting of the womb of the pregnant woman J was a scurrilous allegation, however: pure fiction. None of the personnel on duty that day had carried bayonets; only automatic weapons, grenades, knives. The enemies of the state would stop at nothing to slander its military protectors. This would no longer inhibit the security forces from doing the needful. The manifestation of the protectors' virile wrath against the female population was an important psychological tool. It discouraged the menfolk from carrying out the subversive acts which it was in their nature to perform. Consequently, the danger to the security forces diminished. These were strategic and tactical matters and should not be discussed emotionally.

It was just the beginning. Things would move faster now. He was no longer Tortoise Colonel. He was the Hammer of Kashmir.

That dark summer after the Misris perished the fruit in Pandit Pyarelal Kaul's apple orchards was bitter and inedible, but the peaches of Firdaus Noman were as succulent as usual. The saffron in Pyarelal's saffron field was paler and less potent, but the honey in Abdullah's beehives was sweeter than ever before. These matters were difficult to understand; but when Pyarelal heard on the radio that the well-known pandit leader Tika Lal Taploo had been gunned down the nature of the portents became plain. "In the time of Sikandar But-s.h.i.+kan, Sikander the Iconoclast," he told his daughter at her Gujar hut in the woods, "Muslim attacks on Kashmiri Hindus were described as the falling of locust swarms upon the helpless paddy crops. I am afraid that what is beginning now will make Sikandar's time look peaceful by comparison." In the weeks that followed his prophecy came true and he told Boonyi, "Now that everything I have stood for is in ruins I am ready to die, but I will live on to protect your life from the insanity of your husband, even though neither one of us has anything left to live for." The radical cadres of the Jamaat-i-Islami party had new words for "pandit": mukhbir, kafir. mukhbir, kafir. Meaning spy, infidel. "So we are slandered as fifth-columnists now," Pyarelal mourned. "That means the a.s.sault cannot be far away." Meaning spy, infidel. "So we are slandered as fifth-columnists now," Pyarelal mourned. "That means the a.s.sault cannot be far away."

In the aftermath of the Muslim insurgency against Indian rule another pandit was murdered in Tangmarg. Posters appeared on the road leading from Srinagar to Pachigam demanding that all pandits vacate their property and leave Kashmir. The first Hindus to respond to the poster campaign were the G.o.ds, who began to disappear. The famous black stone statue of Maha-Kali was one of twenty deities who vacated their home in Hari Parbat Fort and vanished forever. A priceless deity from the ninth century fled the Lok Bhavan in Anantnag and was never seen again. The s.h.i.+va-lingam of the Dewan temple also mysteriously departed. These exits were timely, because soon after they occurred the fire-bombings began. The Shaivite temple complex at Handwara, near the famous shrine of Kheer Bhawani, was gutted by a blaze. Pyarelal sat beside Boonyi and buried his face in his hands. "Our story is finished," he told her. "It is no longer the story of our lives, but the story of a plague year during which we have the misfortune to be around to grow buboes in our armpits and die unclean and stenchy deaths. We are no longer protagonists, only agonists." A few days later in Anantnag district there began a week-long orgy of unprovoked violence against pandit residential and commercial property, temples, and the physical persons of pandit families. Many of them fled. The exodus of the pandits of Kashmir had begun.

Firdaus Noman came to see Pyarelal at his house to a.s.sure him that Pachigam's Muslims would protect their Hindu brethren. "My wise and gentle friend," she said, "never fear; we will take care of our own. The killing of Big Man Misri and Zoon's suicide was bad enough, and we won't let it happen again. You are too precious to lose." Pyarelal shook his head. "It is out of our hands," he said. "Our natures are no longer the critical factors in our fates. When the killers come, will it matter if we lived well or badly? Will the choices we made affect our destiny? Will they spare the kind and gentle among us and take only the selfish and dishonest? It would be absurd to think so. Ma.s.sacres aren't finicky. I may be precious or I may be valueless, but it doesn't signify either way." He kept the radio close to his ear at all times. As the bitter apples fell from their trees and rotted on the ground Pyarelal remained indoors, cross-legged, with the transistor held up against his head, listening to the BBC. Loot, plunder, arson, mayhem, murder, exodus: these words recurred, day after day, and a phrase from another part of the world that had flown many thousands of miles to find a new home in Kashmir.

"Ethnic cleansing."

"Kill one, scare ten. Kill one, scare ten." Hindu community houses, temples, private homes and whole neighborhoods were being destroyed. Pyarelal repeated, like a prayer, the names of the places struck by calamity. "Trakroo, Uma Nagri, Kupwara. Sangrampora, Wandhama, Nadimarg. Trakroo, Uma Nagri, Kupwara. Sangrampora, Wandhama, Nadimarg. Trakroo, Uma Nagri, Kupwara. Sangrampora, Wandhama, Nadimarg." These names had to be remembered. Forgetting would be a crime against those who suffered "whole-hog" burning of their neighborhoods, or seizure of their property, or death, preceded by such violences as could not be imagined or described. Kill one, scare ten, Kill one, scare ten, the Muslim mobs chanted, and ten were, indeed, scared. More than ten. Three hundred and fifty thousand pandits, almost the entire pandit population of Kashmir, fled from their homes and headed south to the refugee camps where they would rot, like bitter fallen apples, like the unloved, undead dead they had become. In the so-called Banglades.h.i.+ Markets in the Iqbal Park-Hazuri Bagh area of Srinagar the things looted from temples and homes were being openly bought and sold. The shoppers hummed the most popular song of the times as they bought their pretty pieces of Hindu Kashmir, a song by the well-beloved Mehjoor: "I will give my life and soul for India, but my heart is with Pakistan." the Muslim mobs chanted, and ten were, indeed, scared. More than ten. Three hundred and fifty thousand pandits, almost the entire pandit population of Kashmir, fled from their homes and headed south to the refugee camps where they would rot, like bitter fallen apples, like the unloved, undead dead they had become. In the so-called Banglades.h.i.+ Markets in the Iqbal Park-Hazuri Bagh area of Srinagar the things looted from temples and homes were being openly bought and sold. The shoppers hummed the most popular song of the times as they bought their pretty pieces of Hindu Kashmir, a song by the well-beloved Mehjoor: "I will give my life and soul for India, but my heart is with Pakistan."

There were six hundred thousand Indian troops in Kashmir but the pogrom of the pandits was not prevented, why was that. Three and a half lakhs of human beings arrived in Jammu as displaced persons and for many months the government did not provide shelters or relief or even register their names, why was that. When the government finally built camps it only allowed for six thousand families to remain in the state, dispersing the others around the country where they would be invisible and impotent, why was that. The camps at Purkhoo, Muthi, Mishriwallah, Nagrota were built on the banks and beds of nullahas, dry seasonal waterways, and when the water came the camps were flooded, why was that. The ministers of the government made speeches about ethnic cleansing but the civil servants wrote one another memos saying that the pandits were simply internal migrants whose displacement had been self-imposed, why was that. The tents provided for the refugees to live in were often uninspected and leaking and the monsoon rains came through, why was that. When the one-room tenements called ORTs were built to replace the tents they too leaked profusely, why was that. There was one bathroom per three hundred persons in many camps why was that and the medical dispensaries lacked basic first-aid materials why was that and thousands of the displaced died because of inadequate food and shelter why was that maybe five thousand deaths because of intense heat and humidity because of snake bites and gastroenteritis and dengue fever and stress diabetes and kidney ailments and tuberculosis and psychoneurosis and there was not a single health survey conducted by the government why was that and the pandits of Kashmir were left to rot in their slum camps, to rot while the army and the insurgency fought over the bloodied and broken valley, to dream of return, to die while dreaming of return, to die after the dream of return died so that they could not even die dreaming of it, why was that why was that why was that why was that why was that.

She knew where he was. He was in the north with the iron mullah at the Line of Control. He was part of the elite "iron commando." She knew what he was doing. He was killing people. He was killing time. He was killing everyone he could find to kill so that he could tolerate the time that had to pa.s.s until he could kill her. She blamed herself for their deaths. Come and get it over with, she told him. Come: I release you from your restraints. Never mind what you promised my father and the sarpanch. My father is right, there is no longer any reason for any of us to live. Come and do what you have to do, what you need to do in a place so deep it causes you pain. I have nothing but you and my father, his love and your hatred, and his love is ruined now, his capacity for it is damaged, his picture of the world has been broken and when a man does not have a picture of the world he goes a little mad, which is how my father is. He says the end of the world is coming because his apples are too bitter to eat. He says there is an earthquake trembling in the earth and he has started believing in the snake stories of the sarpanch's wife, he has started believing the snakes will awake, out of their disgust for humankind they will come forth and kill us all and the valley will have peace, snake peace, the peace it is beyond human beings to make. He says the earth is sodden with blood and will give way and no house can stand upon it. He says the mountains will thrust up all around us, they will push higher into the sky and the valley will be gone and that is what should happen to it, we don't deserve such beauty, we were the guardians of beauty and we could not do our work. I say we are what we are and we do what we do and I am beyond pride in myself I am just a thing that lives and breathes and if I stopped breathing or living it would make no difference except to him, except, in spite of everything, and for a few more moments, to him. Come if you want. I'm waiting. I no longer care.

He said: Everything I do prepares me for you and for him. Every blow I strike, strikes you or him. The people leading us up here are fighting for G.o.d or for Pakistan but I am killing because it is what I have become. I have become death. Everything I do prepares me for you and for him. Every blow I strike, strikes you or him. The people leading us up here are fighting for G.o.d or for Pakistan but I am killing because it is what I have become. I have become death.

He said: I'll be there soon enough. I'll be there soon enough.

The situation as it stood had developed new characteristics that lent themselves to advantageous exploitation by the armed forces. General Hammirdev Suryavans Kachhwaha closed his eyes and let the pictures flow. Already the army had made contact with renegade militants around the country and when extrajudicial activity was required these renegades could be used to kill other militants. After the executions the renegade militants would be given the use of uniforms and would bring the corpses to this or that house belonging to this or that individual and place the corpses in the said location with guns in their hands. The renegades would then depart and be relieved of their uniforms while the armed forces attacked the house, blew it to bits and murdered the dead militants all over again for public consumption. If the householder and his family objected they could be charged with harboring dangerous militants and the consequences of such charges would be dire. The householder, knowing this, was unlikely to squawk.

There was beauty in such schemes, elegance and beauty. General Kachhwaha was discussing with himself whether or not the renegade militants might be used against other categories of person, such as journalists and human rights activists. The deniability of such operations was a big plus. The possibilities should be explored.

The battle against the weaklings of the JKLF would be won soon enough. General Kachhwaha despised the fundamentalists, the jihadis, the Hizb, but he despised the secular nationalists more. What sort of G.o.d was secular nationalism? People would not die for that for very long. Already the crackdown was having an effect. Soon the two leading JKLF factions would sue for peace. The HAJY group's Yasin Malik would crack, and so would Amanullah Khan himself. The back channels would open and the deals would be done. This month, next month, this year, next year. It didn't matter. He could wait. He could tighten his grip on the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of the insurgency and let it come to him. Word was reaching him from over the mountains, floating over the ice caps and fluttering down into his ear, that Pak Inter-Services Intelligence felt the same way about the JKLF as he did. ISI funding to the JKLF was being reduced and the Hizb was getting the cash instead. The Hizb was strong, maybe ten thousand strong, and he could respect that. He could despise them and respect them simultaneously. No difficulty there.

Intergroup rivalries played into his hands. Already there had been a case of a JKLF area commander murdered by the Hizb. Once the JKLF was done with, the jihadis would turn against one another. He would see to that. The Lashkar of this and the Harkat of that. He would see to them all right. Also the feared "iron commando" of Maulana Bulbul Fakh. Soon he would have the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in his sights.

Anees Noman had taken over leaders.h.i.+p of his roving JKLF militant group after the departure across the mountains of the invisible commander Dar. His heroes were Guevara the Cuban and the FSLN of Nicaragua and he liked to cultivate the Latino guerrilla look. When the group was on an operation he affected a beret, Western combat fatigues and black boots, and wanted to be known as Comandante Zero after a famous Sandinista fighter, but his soldiers, who were less solemnly respectful of him than he would have wished, called him Baby Che. In the period after the start of the insurgency his mine-laying skills had led to some notable successes against military convoys and the reputation of the Baby Che group grew. Word of its existence reached the ear of General Kachhwaha in Badami Bagh, and though the ident.i.ty of Baby Che was uncertain the military authorities had had their suspicions for some time. More than once, however, the proposal to put Pachigam under crackdown so that its subversive a.s.sociations could be properly explored had been vetoed by the civilian authority. An army attack on the folk arts of Kashmir, on its theatrical and gastronomic traditions, was exactly the kind of story that made headlines. Even in retirement Sardar Harbans Singh was standing up for his old friend the sarpanch of Pachigam. Even in his claw-fingered old age Abdullah Noman could still claim to be protecting his village, just as he always had.

There was no work, however. There was no money. The Noman family's peaches and honey were distributed free of charge among the villagers. Pachigam was a lucky village, with its fertile fields and animal herds, but everyone knew that great hards.h.i.+p was just around the corner. If the crisis continued, a statewide famine was a real possibility. "We'll face the famine if it comes," Firdaus Noman told her husband. "Right now I'm so sick of honey and peaches I might even prefer to starve." Her sons Hameed and Mahmood agreed. "Anyway," Hameed said cheerfully, "maybe we won't live long enough to reach the point of starvation." Mahmood nodded. "What a stroke of luck! We can choose from so many different ways to die."

Firdaus Noman awoke one night with her husband snoring by her side and another man's hand over her mouth. When she recognized the s.h.a.ggy, beret-wearing figure of the son she had not seen for many years she allowed herself to weep, and when he made as if to remove the precautionary hand from her lips she seized it and covered it in kisses. "Don't wake him up right now," she told Anees, looking across at Abdullah. "I want you to myself for a while. And what do you think you look like with that hair? Before you meet your father you'd better start looking like his son, not a wild man from the woods." She led him to the kitchen, sat him down on a stool and cut his hair. Anees didn't object, didn't tell her it was dangerous for him to stay too long, didn't hurry her up or insist she wake his brothers or his father. He sat on the wooden stool, closed his eyes and leaned back against her, feeling her body move slowly against his back as the dark curls fell from his head. "Do you remember, maej, maej," he said, "when I was the saddest clown in Pachigam, and people actually cheered up when I left the stage?" She made a small dismissive noise with her lips. "You were the most profound of my children," she said proudly. "I used to worry that you would go so deep inside yourself that you might just vanish completely. But look at you: here you are."

When the men of the house were awake the family held a kitchen-table council of war. "Because Big Man Misri did us all a favor and rid the world of those worthless Gegroos before he died, the Lashkar-e-Pak now has Pachigam in its sights much more than s.h.i.+rmal," Anees said quietly. "This is bad. Even without the Gegroos those crazy LeP b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have maybe forty or fifty soldiers in the area and there is no question that they will pick their moment and attack." Firdaus Noman shook her head. "How can a woman's face be the enemy of Islam?" she asked angrily. Anees took her hands in his. "For these idiots it's all about s.e.x, maej, maej, excuse me. They think it is a scientific fact that a woman's hair emits rays that arouse men to deeds of s.e.xual depravity. They think that if a woman's bare legs rub together, even under a floor-length robe, the friction of her thighs will generate s.e.xual heat which will be transmitted through her eyes into the eyes of men and will inflame them in an unholy way." Firdaus spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. "So, because men are animals, according to them, women must pay. This is an old story. Tell me something else." Anees nodded in his grave, unsmiling way. "That's why I'm here," he said. "My unit has decided that we will defend Pachigam and s.h.i.+rmal too, if need be. Don't worry. We have a hundred good guys and can get some friends to a.s.sist. But you must be prepared. Hide weapons in every house but don't try to fight them when they first come. Be patient and take whatever insults they hand out. When we start the battle, then and then only you can help us beat the living s.h.i.+t out of them, excuse me, excuse me. They think it is a scientific fact that a woman's hair emits rays that arouse men to deeds of s.e.xual depravity. They think that if a woman's bare legs rub together, even under a floor-length robe, the friction of her thighs will generate s.e.xual heat which will be transmitted through her eyes into the eyes of men and will inflame them in an unholy way." Firdaus spread her hands in a gesture of resignation. "So, because men are animals, according to them, women must pay. This is an old story. Tell me something else." Anees nodded in his grave, unsmiling way. "That's why I'm here," he said. "My unit has decided that we will defend Pachigam and s.h.i.+rmal too, if need be. Don't worry. We have a hundred good guys and can get some friends to a.s.sist. But you must be prepared. Hide weapons in every house but don't try to fight them when they first come. Be patient and take whatever insults they hand out. When we start the battle, then and then only you can help us beat the living s.h.i.+t out of them, excuse me, maej. maej. Soldier's talk." Firdaus thumped the table, softly. "Little boy," she said, "you won't know what the living s.h.i.+t looks like until you've seen me at work." Soldier's talk." Firdaus thumped the table, softly. "Little boy," she said, "you won't know what the living s.h.i.+t looks like until you've seen me at work."

The Lashkar-e-Pak came to Pachigam on horseback three weeks later, in broad daylight, not expecting any resistance. The leader, a black-turbaned Afghan homicidal maniac aged fifteen, ordered everyone into the street and announced that since the women of Pachigam were too shameless to conceal themselves as Islam required they should take off their clothes completely so that the world could see what wh.o.r.es they really were. A great murmur arose from the villagers but Firdaus Noman stepped forward, took off her phiran and began to undress. Taking their cue from her, the other women and girls of the village also started to strip. A silence fell. The LeP fighters were unable to take their eyes off the women, who were stripping slowly, seductively, moving their bodies rhythmically, with their eyes closed. "Help me, G.o.d," one of the LeP's foreign fighters moaned in Arabic, writhing on his horse, "These blue-eyed she-devils are stealing away my soul." The fifteen-year-old homicidal maniac pointed his Kalashnikov at Firdaus Noman. "If I kill you now," he said nastily, "no man in the whole Muslim world will say I was unjustified." At that moment a small red hole appeared in his forehead and the back of his head blew off. The Baby Che group was getting to be known for the marksmans.h.i.+p of its snipers as well as for its land mines and it had a reputation to protect.

The battle for Pachigam didn't last long. Anees's men had been well positioned and were eager for the fight. The LeP militants were encircled and outnumbered and, in a few minutes, also dead. Firdaus Noman and the other women put their clothes back on. Firdaus spoke sadly to the dead body of the fifteen-year-old Lashkar commander. "You discovered that women are dangerous, my boy," she said. "Too bad you didn't get a chance to become a man and discover we're also good to love."

The extermination of the LeP group of radicals failed to rea.s.sure some of the villagers. The old dancing master Habib Joo had pa.s.sed away peacefully in his bed some years earlier, but his grown-up sons and daughter, all in their twenties now, sober, quiet young people who had inherited their father's love of the dance, still lived in the village. The eldest son, Ahmed Joo, came to inform Abdullah Noman that his younger brother Sulaiman, his sister Razia and he had all decided to go south with the pandit refugees. "How long can Anees protect us?" he said, and went on, "We don't think it's a good idea to be Jewish when the Islamists come to town again." Abdullah knew that the Joo children were gifted dancers like their father, they were the future of the Pachigam bhands except that the Pachigam bhands didn't seem to have a future. He didn't try to stop them. The next day the village's dance troupe was further impoverished when the Sharga girls came to say that they, too, were leaving. Himal and Gonwati had been terrified by the stories of the attacks on pandit families and had forced their father the great old baritone to go with them. "This is no time for songs," s.h.i.+vshankar Sharga said, "and, anyway, my singing days are done."

Sad to say, the Joos and Shargas were not saved by their decision to flee. The crowded bus in which they were heading south met with an accident at the foot of the mountains not far from the Banihal Pa.s.s. The driver, terrified of being stopped by anyone, security forces or militants, had been charging onwards as fast as possible. He screeched around a certain bend only to discover that one of the huge piles of garbage that were acc.u.mulating everywhere in the valley on account of the breakdown of the sanitation system had toppled forward across the road. Frantically, he took evasive action, but the bus ended up on its side in a roadside ditch. The driver and most of the pa.s.sengers were seriously injured and one of the older pa.s.sengers, the noted singer s.h.i.+vshankar Sharga, was dead.

There followed a long topsy-turvy wait in the crashed bus. The air was full of petrol fumes. Everyone who could scream or cry was doing so. (Himal was screaming, while Gonwati wept.) Others, less vocally capable, contented themselves with moans (the Joo siblings fell into this category), while still others (e.g. the deceased baritone) were unable to make any sound at all. Eventually the emergency services showed up and the injured pa.s.sengers were hospitalized in a nearby medical facility. The emergency room was dirty. The sheets in it were badly stained. Rusty red marks ran down the walls. There were few beds and the mattresses on the floor were filthy and torn. The pa.s.sengers were placed on the beds, on the mattresses, on the floor and along the corridor outside. One single doctor, an exhausted young man with a thin moustache and a numbed expression on his face, addressed the crash victims, who continued to scream (Himal), weep (Gonwati) and moan (Ahmed, Sulaiman, Razia Joo) while he spoke. "It is my onerous obligation before proceeding," the young doctor said, "to offer you our obsequious apologies and to seek from you an obligatory clarification. This is odious but indispensable current routine. Heartfelt apology is primarily offered for understaffing. Many pandit personnel have decamped and policy does not permit replacement. Many ambulance drivers also are being accosted by security forces and are being extremely chastised and therefore no longer are reporting for duty. Apology is secondarily offered for shortages of supplies. Asthma medication is unavailable. Treatment for diabetics is unavailable. Oxygen tanks are unavailable. Owing to load shedding certain medicaments are not refrigerated and condition of said medicaments is dubious. Replacements, however, are unavailable. Apology is additionally offered for failure of all X-ray machines, sterilization devices and such equipment as is designed to a.n.a.lyze blood. Apology is further extended owing to supply of blood not tested for HIV. Ultimate apology is regarding presence of meningitis epidemic in this facility, and for impossibility of quarantining same. Guidance at this time is sought from your good selves. Under circ.u.mstances as sorrowfully outlined above you will kindly and severally confirm or de-confirm your wish to be admitted to or de-admitted from this facility so that treatment is able to proceed or de-proceed. Have no doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that if you trust in us we will make our best effort."

Alas! Not one of the Pachigam contingent of five dancers survived, succ.u.mbing to an undetected internal hemorrhage (Himal), an untreated and subsequently gangrenous broken leg (Gonwati), horrific and eventually fatal convulsions brought on by being injected with bad medicines (Ahmed and Razia Joo) and, in the case of Sulaiman Joo, acute viral meningitis caught from a seven-year-old girl who happened to be dying in the bed next to him. There were no relatives on hand to collect the bodies and no facility existed for returning the five dancers to their home village and they were burned on the munic.i.p.al pyre, even the three Jews.

Their characters were not their destinies.

In early 1991, before the spring thaw, Pandit Pyarelal Kaul felt his life detaching itself from his body in a series of small, painless, inaudible pops. Well, that was all right, he thought, he had n.o.body to teach anymore except himself, and even to himself he no longer had any knowledge to impart. He spent much time in his small library in those final days, alone with his old books. These books, his true treasure, would also be lost when his time came. He ran his fingers along the worn spines of the treasure vaults on the shelves and pulled out the English romantics. Now more than ever seems it rich to die, to cease upon the midnight with no pain. Now more than ever seems it rich to die, to cease upon the midnight with no pain. Ah! Poor Keats. Only the very young could imagine that death was a proper response to beauty. We in Kashmir have heard the Bulbul too, he apostrophized the great poet across s.p.a.ce and time, and he may prove to be the death of us all. Ah! Poor Keats. Only the very young could imagine that death was a proper response to beauty. We in Kashmir have heard the Bulbul too, he apostrophized the great poet across s.p.a.ce and time, and he may prove to be the death of us all.

He closed his eyes and pictured his Kashmir. He conjured up its crystal lakes, s.h.i.+shnag, Wular, Nagin, Dal; its trees, the walnut, the poplar, the chinar, the apple, the peach; its mighty peaks, Nanga Parbat, Rakapos.h.i.+, Harmukh. The pandits Sanskritized the Himalayas. The pandits Sanskritized the Himalayas. He saw the boats like little fingers tracing lines in the surface of the waters and the flowers too numberless to name, ablaze with bright perfume. He saw the beauty of the golden children, the beauty of the green- and blue-eyed women, the beauty of the blue- and green-eyed men. He stood atop Mount Shankaracharya which the Muslims called Takht-e-Sulaiman and spoke aloud the famous old verse concerning the earthly paradise. He saw the boats like little fingers tracing lines in the surface of the waters and the flowers too numberless t