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Honey bee publish details |
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19th Shodh Yatra |
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No celebration for fifteen years |
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Time and again, in Sadiwara, Verinag, Nagam, Batagund, Bragam, Kreri, Lisser etc., every school where we had a meeting, interaction with the students revealed one painful fact. For the last fifteen to twenty years, no function had taken place. A whole generation had grown up without knowing what it meant to celebrate collective joy, have fun, and display one’s talent. Not many outsiders seemed to have visited these schools, even for ceremonial purposes. This meant a very rich feast of cultural presentation by students in every school we went. The stay at Kreri village from where most members of the voluntary team had been mobilized was very eventful. Three schools had organized a very rich cultural program for our welcome in addition to a recipe competition. The “chutney” of apricot was a novelty, which most people had not heard about. It was also believed to have nutraceutical properties.
Young learners who just started walking with us
Spontaneity of the spirit of Shodh Yatra was captured in a memorable way by the decision of two young students who started to walk with us after interacting with us. Ahmer Hussain Jan, a student of tenth class joined us from the first day itself, when we started the Shodh Yatra from Quazigund. He had lost his father, had a younger sister and an elder brother who studied in Srinagar in first year arts course. He wanted to do an ITI course in electrical fittings and start a shop of his own. He had been learning this from his maternal uncle. The small farm that he shared with his uncle did not fetch sufficient income for the family. He gave an application to the principle for leave and came with us. When asked if he would not lose out on studies, he said that he had already learnt what the teacher was going to teach in that period.
Aquib Javed joined us from Doru. His father worked as a ranger in the Forest Corporation. He learnt the herbal preparations from his maternal grand mother (Nani) who passed away a few years ago. He used to observe her making various herbal concoctions and got interested in the same. He showed us “Gulkand” (a kind of preparation of rose petals with sugar after a few months of fermentation in an air tight container), which when taken with hot water helps clear throat congestion and is also good for health. He had brought some other herbs from which he made a “Churna” (a powder formed by grinding the dried contents) for indigestion and another for curing worms in the stomach. He wanted to do Ph.D in Botanical sciences and contribute something useful for the society. There were two students who joined us from Kokernag, Syed Intekhab Firdaus and Saifjan Wani. They had also helped the scouting team earlier.
Memories of the neighbours who might return some day
While walking to Kokernag, we met three young people who were curious to know about our walk. One of them worked in Police department and the other two were students. They told us about the gardens Pundits of the region had maintained, the ruins of their houses, temples and the rest. They recalled how they used to celebrate all the functions together; join each others’ parties and marriages. They regretted that the Pundits had migrated and felt uncertain about their coming back. It was destiny they felt, which might decide about the timing of their return.
Earlier when we had passed by Watishtha Ashram, the young locals showed us the ruins of the houses of Pundits. They mentioned how during the days when they were there, they would not let any one take bath in the holy pond. They always wanted to maintain the sanctity of the stream, which originated there. Those norms had weakened in recent times. The parting of a community, which was woven together in the mixed (mili-juli sanskriti, tehjeeb) culture of Kashmir had not brought solace to any one. It seemed to reverberate in the minds of local communities almost always with affection and nostalgia. Those who divided the community might not realize the scars they have left behind. But the yatris felt quite optimistic about the possibility of their coming back.
We moved to Shangus village where we honoured some of the Traditional Knowledge holders in a roadside meeting. While entering the village, on the way, we saw a beautiful house. The walls of this house seemed to be painted with clay, but had absolutely no mark of rain or dust. We decided to enter the house and find out more about the impressive architecture. What we learnt was quite a revelation. It was a house of a weaver, made of unbaked clay bricks. It was plastered with clay mixed with gunny bag fibre (jute), without any use of concrete. More than 30 years old, the house looked very new. It was reported to keep warm in winter and cool in summer. It was also safe during earthquake. Later we heard that people felt that modern architecture involving baked bricks and concrete walls and floor was perhaps a reason for people having frequent back pains.
While walking towards Deethu – Reenipora, we saw a row of trees closely planted. On enquiry, we were shown an abandoned house of a Pundit family, for which these trees acted as a natural curtain and a noise-block. In Soafsali village, we met a physically challenged person, Firdoos Ahmed Matkoo, who had a great gift of making clay toys and components resembling the ones made of metal. The finish was so perfect and the surface so smooth that it was difficult to believe that it was a hand crafted product. In Mattan, we saw the famous sun temple. A middle aged Muslim farmer came running on seeing us. He thought we were the Pundits who were returning home. When he came close, he just said, “I want to say Ram Ram to you”. The Shodh yatris were deeply struck by this pure demonstration of love and respect. The sun temple was also called Pandava’s temple made in sixth or seventh century. It had prayer rooms for large number of devotees and stone idols of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati.
The yatra officially ended with a meeting at the Boys' Degree College, Anantnag. After we introduced ourselves and explained the purpose of our yatra, a student asked, when did you first come to Kashmir? When we answered that it was 2005, he was dismayed. Why did we take so long? Another student commented as to where were we for last 47 years. This summed up the situation. Why had we not engaged with them for so long?
A thought that has remained with us since then, unresolved, uneasily but persistently. |
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| Volume No. |
Honey Bee, 18(3) & 18(4):5-7, 2007 |
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