[Reader-list] Zalzala!

[kavita pai]

It happened in Sopore. It happened as I was climbing on to the roof of the Sumo, reluctantly and against my better judgement, to shoot the funeral procession of the two girls killed in Friday's firing in Sopore.

Emotions were at a fever pitch and the mourning chants of the women were frequently drowned by the angry slogans of men. Though sympathetic to their grief, I was afraid of rousing them further by pointing the camera at them. But they wanted to be heard and I couldn't refuse, so there I was climbing on to the roof.

I'd barely managed to pull myself up, when there were screams and people started running helter skelter. Someone said 'firing', and i thought this is it, the army's opened fire on the procession and we're dead meat. Hastily I scrambled down.

The trees, the electricity poles, the houses started swaying. 'Its the accumulated trauma of the past few minutes,' I thought,' I'm probably collapsing under the strain'. It took me a few moments to realise that the ground beneath my feet was also shaking, and people were running not to take cover from army firing, but to escape nature's wrath.. there was only one word on everyone's lips 'zalzala, zalzala..earthquake'!

Slowly other sounds started filtering in..voices around us urged us to sit down and stay calm. The chanting of the mourners resumed as if it'd never stopped. All around us people were praying. From the heart rending cries of mothers pleading for justice, the prayers had now taken on the aspect of fear and awe at His wrath, and belief in His mercy.It was as if the quake was divine retribution for the thousands killed in the past 15 years in the valley. It was His way of saying, "I know, and I care."

And then I saw X, the maternal cousin of one of the girls killed, crouching with my two companions, reassuring them that they were safe, no harm would come to them.. "You are my sisters," he was telling them, "and Insha allah you'll be fine,"..all of a sudden I wanted to be reassured too.

At that moment it was as if my long lost faith was re-ignited, not in God, but in His believers, X and others, who, even in their grief, had not forgotten the three frightened strangers in their midst, who despite  the danger to their own life and limb were concerned about our well being, who despite the bleak hopelessness of their existence, had found it in their hearts to pray for us and give us hope.

We'd arrived in Sopore only a few minutes ago but it had begun to seem like a lifetime. We were three of us - myself,and my friend and colleague Hansa, who were there in connection with a documentary on Women and Conflict, and our young translator Safia, a local from Srinagar, for whom it was the first day of work.

Only the previous day we'd received news of the grenade blast in Sopre followed by the firing in which the two girls were killed, among others.There was also talk of a Fidayeen attack and an ongoing encounter with security personnel.

We reached Sopore early morning of the day after and accidently bumping into a recent acquaintance in the town square, asked him about the incident."Yes, they were killed in cross fire," he said, drawing angry denials from local bystanders, who dared us to go to the house of the victims, to their mohalla, if we really wanted to know the truth.

"You want to go there? i'll take you there,"said a young man,whose name I still do not know. Before we had time to think, X and his friends had jumped into our vehicle. She was my cousin, he said, killed on her way back from school. We'd like to meet her parents, we mumbled.

A little way from the house our vehicle was stopped and we proceeded on foot, followed by a quickly swelling crowd. One either side of me walked X and his friend, grim faced, but constantly reassuring us that we should not be afraid, we were safe in their hands. Having no choice I strided alongside, sticking as closely to him as possible.

But no sooner had we reached the house than he spun around on his heels to face the crowd, and began shouting slogans for azaadi, for freedom from the terrorising Indian state. His cries were met with answering shouts from the crowd, massed in the narrow lane and craning out of overhanging windows.

Hemmed in from all sides and feeling suddenly bereft, I kept my eyes on the ground, uncertain and nervous about what might happen next. But it was a momentary fear. No sooner had the crowd started to push and shove than X and his friends once again threw a protective cordon around us and slipped us in into the house.

The air was rent with the anguished wailing of women. Next to the coffin of one of the victims sat her mother, quietly weeping, while her father stood stoically to one side. In an enclosure in the courtyard, the other victim was being bathed and dressed in preparation for her final journey. "They were like peas in a pod - Shehnaza and Ulfat - of the same age, always together - cousins, friends and lifelong companions..go and see for yourself, see what they've done to her..record it, so that the world knows what they do to us and our children."

I entered the 'tent' and looked, just a glance, and then could look no more..the ground seemed to give way beneath my feet and I could feel the camera slipping from my grasp. She was young, half woman, half child, pretty, like the boisterous and cheerful students of Women's College in Srinagar, and innocent, like the vast majority of the casualties of conflict in Kashmir.

And now, she was just a statistic - collateral damage of the bloody war waged by the world's largest democracy on her own people.And as a citizen of the sovereign secular socialist democratic republic of India, the guilt was mine. I was as culpable in her death as the bullets that brought her down, the fingers that carelessly pulled the trigger..I was guilty thorugh my refusal to see, to acknowledge the terrible truth of this most beautiful of graveyards.

Did you see the mehendi in her hands, Hansa asked me later. I hadn't because I'd looked, and then looked away, overcome with guilt. As my composure cracked, it fell to her to calmly take the camera from my hands and shoot. Her predominant emotion then, she told me later, was rage - rage which impelled her to put the horror, the shame and the sorrow of it on record, for all to see.

So she shot the mothers bathing their little girl - stroking her beautiful seemingly unscarred body, gently combing her hair and kissing her fingers.

She shot them while I fled to the courtyard and tried to tell her family that we really didn't need to shoot then, we could come back in a few days to record. I told myself we were intruding on their grief, that they may not be up to talking about so fresh a wound. The reality was that I was not up to it. I'd never before come face to face with such evil and such desperation.

Bathed and dressed, Shehnaza and Ulfat began their last journey through the winding narrow streets of their neighbourhood, followed by scores of angry and grieving mourners - the women at the back, their faces creased with sorrow, the men in front, grieving too, yet thristing for justice. Hansa, Safia and I scurried alongside, herded to the head of the procession by one of the relatives. More people were going to join where the lane broadened out and the family wanted us to shoot the procession there, from a house on the second floor.

As we reached the junction I looked around and up at the staring angry faces ranged on all sides, and again got that sinking feeling. Unsure of what might happen next - even one stone pelted by a mischievous kid could give the situation a very ugly turn - I looked for an escape route which came in the form of X, who probably taking pity on us, said I could get into our vehicle and shoot from there.

Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, he thought it'd be better still if I could get on to the roof of the Sumo - he'd probably seen other media persons doing that. Anyways, I didn't know how to refuse, so I found myself half climbing, half hoisted on to the roof, and it was then that the earthquake struck and all hell broke loose.

It was as if the cries of the mourners had shaken the very foundations of the world and reached Allah, and this was his Judgement,his warning and punishment to a creation gone totally awry. "But you will be safe Insha Allah," X was telling my friends.

It was then that I reached out, reached out and took his hand in mine.And I was safe.It was as if he could protect me from the fury of the elements, as if his prayers and the collective prayers of all the mourners would shield us from everything.

After what seemed like a lifetime of fervent prayer, the tremors subsided. People got busy checking on family and neighbours, calling up the police and rushing the injured to hospital. X and his friends jumped again into our vehicle, this time carrying the limp body of a man with a gaping wound in the centre of his head. He didn't look like he'd survive but within moments we'd screeched up to the hospital gate speeding through police and army cordons, the tension of the past 24 hours forgotten. Having entrusted the man to the doctors, they were out again asking whether we'd like to go back and shoot the procession. I demurred and X said understandingly, "You carry on, things are going to get worse here..haalaat kharaab hone waale hain." I didn't know what he meant - what could be worse than what had already happened?

We left shaken, not so much from the earthquake, but from the bizarre timing of it, and the significance it had taken over in that small battered community. For the people of Sopore, it was divine retribution for the many sins that had been committed on this land - the blood of countless innocents had come back to haunt the earth. This sentiment was to be echoed again and again by people across Kashmir in the coming few days, with a slightly different twist. The earthquake was a signal of impending doom - for fifteen years the people of the valley had suffered, but their sorrows had only multiplied. "The Koran says that there will come a day when evil will rule and there will be wars and disasters, zulm all around..these are warning signs, the end of the world is nigh," said not one, but person after person we met.

At another time I don't know how I'd have reacted to such talk, but the reality of Kashmir is so strange that it probably becomes impossible to live without recourse to external explanations for phenomena, which can also go by the name of faith.We'd barely left Sopore and were on our way to Bandipore to meet another family when we were forced to turn around. The countryside was afire with rumours that a prominent leader, Iftekar Ansari, had been killed, and his supporters were out in force on the streets. Taking another route, we found that our way was blocked again. We decided to turn back and head towards Srinagar only to find the same story repeated. With all routes cut off and feeling well and truly trapped we pulled off the road to consider our options - take refuge someplace in the village or try to brave it through.

Spotting a vehicle attempting to sneak through the cordon, we followed, telling our driver to move slowly and cautiously but on no account stop. He was quite jittery from the time spent in Sopore - his tail lights had been damaged, and now again, his vehicle was at risk, if not his life. We on the other hand were confident that as women we would be accorded special treatment. If they don't let us pass, at least they wouldn't harm us. Needless to say we went past not just that block but numerous others before reaching Srinagar safe and sound.I wonder when the women of Kashmir will be able to move about freely with the same degree of confidence about their safety.

As we were leaving Sopore a young boy had pointed out a similar contrast between their world and ours:"Why is it that when one school boy is killed in a blast in Srinagar it makes newspaper headlines whereas when scores of children are killed in broad daylight in Sopore and other places in the interior, we have no one to mourn for us? If this is the cost of education I don't want to go to school, at least I'll live.. I don't know about this azaadi business, i don't want azaadi, but isn't it strange that I'm an Indian and I'm being kiled here everyday and nobody's bothered?"

As an Indian I could only hang my head in shame.As a woman I could only wonder whether our worlds could ever meet - two young girls had died a senseless death less than 24 hours back, while we were alive and well, in large measure due to the consideration shown to us as women, by men.As a human being I couldn't stop thinking about X, couldn't stop myself from scanning the newspapers the next day my mind in a whirl about what might happen to him, what could have happened to him, since the time we left Sopore.The often voiced fears of the many mothers we'd met suddenly came alive for me.As a young man, he was the most hated, the most vulnerable - hot headed, outspoken, a potential militant.For the next two days, every once in a while my thoughts would return to him - who would shield him from his fate, the way he had shielded us from ours? who would pray for him?

Post Script
Today we went back to Sopore after three days to meet the family again.the FIR had still not been lodged, even four days after the incident. when the parents had first gone to the police station, the gates were shut in their faces..then the earthquake came, like a godsend, and the police station has stayed shut since citing the excuse of relief work in Uri.

The second thing we learnt was that at the time of the funeral procession the fidayeen attack (or encounter, whichever u prefer), was still in progress, so there WAS firing going on..the guy we'd evacuated to hospital had a really ghastly wound on his forehead and his brain was visible from the back of his head - I kept telling Hansa it looks like a bullet wound..i might be wrong, but the point is the attack was still on and there was only a brief lull during the earthquake after which it started again..so that was what X probably meant by "it's going to get worse"..i'm still wondering what will happen to him..not what, but when..



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20051019/97911311/attachment.html