Come, stranger, rest awhile under the shade of this chinar tree. I’ll fetch you some water … that long blue motor-car is yours, isn’t it? The tyre is punctured? Don’t worry, you will still be able to reach Srinagar before dark. It’s only a matter of twenty miles now … No, son, I can’t take money for the cup of water. Thanks to Allah, we have not started selling water and air yet … What shall I do with the money anyway – a pice, an anna, even a rupee? There is no one I can call my own in this world … Alone? Yes. I am alone. Neither son, nor daughter, nor husband … I work in the Zaildar’s field; I fetch water from the spring; I pond the paddy. Allah gives me a handful of rice to eat! Five above sixty I am, what would an old woman want to do with money – an old woman who has already one foot in the grave. If I die today, who will remember me tomorrow … But why am I worrying you with all this? You think I am a garrulous old hag, don’t you? What did you say, son? No, no, these are not poppies that you see growing in the field; they are saffron blossoms … You are right. Saffron flowers are mauve in colour with yellow pollen inside them. Even now, as you go along the road you will see that the saffron crop in all the other fields has mauve flowers. But in this field, this year the saffron blossoms have turned red. Blood-red! … Why? Because this is a miracle wrought by God, my son. But you dwellers of the plains, young men of today, you don’t believe in miracles, or in God. You think we poor Kashmiris are stupid and superstitious because we believe in such things …
What will it avail you to hear the story of these flowers? In a little while your motor will be repaired and you will be gone and the story will remain unfinished … Motors are always passing by on this road. One motor, two motors, ten motors, twenty motors, a hundred motors. Even if they stop for a moment or two they are gone again, trailing clouds of dust. But this saffron crop will remain standing in this field till it is time to pick the flowers, and these blossoms, red as blood, will be dried in the sun and sent off to the four corners of the world. And no one knows in what strange cities, and on whose dinner tables, food will be served, flavoured with their fragrances. And, like you, there will be many who will ask: Why is this saffron red – like blood? … But no one will be able to tell them. For no one knows. No one but me …
You think I am mad – a crazy old woman who talks nonsense, don’t you? Do you really want to know the secret of these red saffron blossoms? Or do you just want to kill time listening to my ravings while your motor is being repaired? Anyway, I don’t care. Here is my story. Listen if you want to…
It is only this year that red saffron blossoms have sprung up in this field. Before this, we too used to have mauve flowers with yellow hearts as in all the other fields. The whole valley would be covered with them. It looked as if a shy young bride lay covered with a saffron-coloured shawl. The countryside, for miles around, was charged with the fragrance. When cars passed by on the road, even the dust they blew became perfumed, and it seemed that everything from the earth to the sky was soaked in saffron …
A long, long time ago, another traveller once stopped here to gaze at the saffron crop that had just begun to blossom in this field. He looked a very simple-minded young man. He walked straight into the middle of the field and started breathing in the air in a strange manner – as if he was not smelling the flowers but drinking their smell. Then he started talking to himself. ‘Strange. Why don’t I?’ And when I said, ‘What are you talking about? Why don’t you what?’ He replied, ‘Why don’t I laugh? Strange, very strange. It is clearly written in the books that if you go into a field of saffron you immediately begin to laugh.’ That’s what was worrying him and he looked so serious that I couldn’t help smiling. Just then, as Allah would will it, Za’frani happened to pass this way, carrying a bundle of dry twigs that she had gone to collect. When I told her about this, she burst out laughing. Seeing her laugh, the stranger first looked a little embarrassed and even angry but when he saw Za’frani laughing away like mad, his tight mouth opened in a grin. The next moment he too was laughing. And, seeing these two laughing like that without any reason, I too couldn’t help but laugh. Later on, the stranger said, looking all-knowing and proud, ‘Don’t you see, it is true – what the books say. There are three of us standing in this field and all of us are laughing, aren’t we?’
Now, son, look where I have got to. At my age the mind begins to wander. Yes, that’s what it is. The mind begins to wander and I forget what I am talking about. Well, then, as I was saying, Za’frani … What did you say? Who is Za’frani? … But haven’t I already told you that she was my daughter? I haven’t? Then I must have forgotten to mention it … That just shows you, son, how bad my memory has become … Anway, her real name was Nooraan, but in the village everyone called her Za’frani. And the angrier she was, the more they teased her by shouting, ‘Za’frani! Za’frani!’ You know these children; they are the grandfathers of the Devil himself … As I was saying, when my Za’frani attained her youth, the boys in the village began to say that there wasn’t a girl half as pretty as Za’frani in the whole district, that her skin was the colour of saffron flowers, that her eyes were a pair of lotuses, and such nonsense. Personally, I never saw much beauty in her. In the first place, she was too thin – like the willow reeds that grow yonder by the side of the brook. I often wondered how a thin girl like her would ever be able to bear children. Then, she was so pale – one thought she was suffering from jaundice. On top of all this, she had no manners at all, respecting neither the young nor the old, always bent on some mischief or the other. I never gave her the least encouragement, but amongst three brothers she was the only sister and had been thoroughly spoilt by her father and her two elder brothers. I imagined no one would care to marry such a girl, but, on the contrary, there was hardly an unmarried man in the village who was not set on her … You boys have strange tastes, my son. One never knows what might catch your fancy.
So offers of marriage kept coming in from all sides until even the Zaildar sent a proposal on behalf of his son, who was studying in a school in the city. Tell me, can a peasant’s daughter aspire to a better match? I thought, surely fortune was smiling on Za’frani … But Allah willed it otherwise … What is written is written. And who can change the course of destiny? Hardly had my husband been laid to rest in his grave than trouble descended on our household from all sides. The land was auctioned to repay the mahajan’s debt. Even then, I did not lose heart. After all, I still had my three sons. I thought they were my real property, my real wealth. May Allah keep them alive and I would get back everything. On Za’frani’s account, however, I had cause to be worried, for, who would marry a poor orphan girl even if she had eyes like lotuses and skin like saffron blossoms …
For hundreds of years our family has lived in this village and tilled this land. Sometimes the crop is good, sometimes it is bad. Sometimes it rains, sometimes there is a drought. One year it rains so much that the land is flooded and the crop is washed away; another year the frost works havoc with the paddy. Sometimes we work on our own land; sometimes we are hired to work on someone else’s fields. Who can escape the ups and downs of Kismet? And it is also true, son, that sometimes the raja’s officers are cruel and oppressive. But then princes are princes and people are people, and if only one is patient and knows one’s place and respects one’s elders and betters, one can live one’s life contentedly, if not happily. But, truly, it has been said that this is Kalyug – the Age of Evil, and strange and frightful things happen every day.
One day, several years ago – when the man of the house was still alive – I was pounding rice in front of our home when my second son, Nooroo, came shouting, ‘Ma, Ma! Sher-e-Kashmir has come, Sher-e-Kashmir has come!’ Sher-e-Kashmir? This was the first time I had heard of lions or tigers appearing in our part of the valley. Before I could tell him that if a maneater was about he had better go and ask the Zaildar to bring his gun, Nooroo was gone. But after a few moments, what do I see but all the villagers – men and women and children – running out in a flurry of excitement? They must have caught the lion, I thought, otherwise all those women and children wouldn’t be going there so carefree and unafraid. Let me also go and watch the fun …
That picture I have still not forgotten. On the other side of the village – look, there behind those trees – there is a schoolhouse. At that time it was only a primary school, but now, I hear they teach up to the middle standard. Anyway, when I go up to the schoolhouse, what do I see in front but a big crowd, squatting on the ground or standing behind, and facing them on the platform neither a lion nor a tiger but a fairish, tallish sort of man who was saying something in a loud voice. This, then, was the lion of Kashmir! I said to myself. Look at these naughty children. They frightened me for nothing. This is no lion or tiger, he is not even an official. Officials don’t wear such coarse homespun clothes. The way he was shouting, I imagined him to be a tea salesman. In a moment, I thought, he would produce music out of his big black box with a horn and distribute free sample packets of tea. So I also went and stood there. But I was surprised to hear him speaking in Kashmiri. And if it was tea that he was selling, it was a very hot and dangerous cup of tea, indeed.
The very first words I heard alarmed me and I feared that now surely some great calamity would befall our village. The way he talked and the things he said were really frightening: the real owners of the state are not the raja and his officers, but us folk – the peasants. We are being oppressed and ill-treated. The landlords and moneylenders are growing fat and rich out of our toil and sweat and blood. We must all raise our voice against this system. We must become united. We must fight for freedom. We must send our boys and girls to school. They must be educated because they are the future leaders of the Kashmiri people. And I don’t know what other dangerous things he said in the same violent strain. I never heard the end of it. Za’frani sat huddled in a corner with eyes and mouth wide open with wonder, as if she were drinking in every word that poured from the speaker’s lips. I caught hold of her and dragged her away, determined to get her so soundly beaten by her father that she would not dare set foot in such a dangerous place again. But in front of the crowd, where the elders of the village sat on the ground, my old man himself was there with the rest. I simply flared up …
You know, my son, if you throw a stone in the middle of a pond, the ripples disturb the entire surface of the water. This Sher-e-Kashmir was one such stone which turned the quiet and calm waters of the village into an angry whirlpool. Since that day, contentment and peace and order vanished from our midst. Everyone became discontented, full of grievances, bitter against life and determined to change it. I would often say to them: ‘Didn’t your fathers and grandfathers live their whole lives under these very rajas and officers, quietly suffering the same oppressions and cruelties, without uttering a single word of complaint or protest? Are you so different from them, adorned with the feathers of Surkhab, that you should want to change the world?’ … But who would listen to me, son? They were all under the spell of that Sher-e-Kashmir … You have grown tired of my rambling talk, haven’t you? … The secret of those red saffron flowers? Yes, my son, I am talking about nothing else. You must be wondering why I am telling you all this? But the fact is, had it not been for that speech of Sher-e-Kashmir, the saffron blossoms would never have turned red … How is that? That’s what I am trying to tell you if only you would be patient and not interrupt me every now and then.
He had hardly been gone from our village three or four months when news came that the raja had arrested Sher-e-Kashmir and locked him up in prison. I said to myself: ‘So much the better, now they will all forget the dangerous things he has taught them and the quiet days of contentment will return to the valley.’ But I was mistaken. After his arrest, he became more popular than ever. His name was on everyone’s lips. People spoke with anger and bitterness against those who had imprisoned him. ‘The days of this government are numbered,’ they said in frightening tones. And among those who talked like this, the loudest were my own sons. After some days, I heard that he was released and I was glad for it, because if he had been kept shut up any longer, the boys would have continued to abuse the sarkar, and they would surely have got into trouble if the Zaildar or some other official had happened to overhear them …
As long as their father was alive, the boys were somewhat kept in check. But hardly had he been buried when the family started breaking up. Our land, as you know, was already gone. The eldest, Ghulam Nabi, said he wouldn’t like to work as a hired labourer on someone else’s land. ‘I would rather go to Srinagar or Gulmarg and work as a porter, carrying loads for the sahib-log who visit Kashmir in the summer; that way I can earn two or three rupees a day.’ I tried my best to dissuade him, but he wouldn’t listen. When he went away, he was a well-built young man with the broadest shoulders of any boy in the village. But six months later, when he came for three days, one could hardly recognize him. His complexion was even paler than Za’frani’s. his eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and, on his forehead, there was a wound-like depression where the porters tie the rope to support their load. The whole night he coughed and, sometimes, a fit left him almost unconscious. I asked him what had happened to him and if he was ill. ‘No, Mother,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about me. The other day, I got wet in the rain while carrying a sahib’s luggage from Tangmarg to Gulmarg. I think I must have caught a chill. That’s all.’ When he went back to Tangmarg, the second one, Nooroo, went with him, saying that he too would seek some work in the city. I said, ‘Do what you like. When you people have lost all respect for your elders, what is the use of staying here?’ Some months later, the Zaildar, who had been to the city on a visit, said to me, ‘You had better beware, mother of Ghulam Nabi, your second son, Nooroo, has joined Shaikh Abdullah’s party. He rows a shikara in the day while at night he goes and delivers speeches at the meetings of boatmen and other workers.’ Look at the little frog, I thought, even he presumes to have a cold! That Sher-e-Kashmir, after all, was a teacher once. But look at this peasant’s son playing at being a leader. So I told everyone never to mention his name in my presence. From that day onwards, he wasn’t my son and I wasn’t his mother.
Za’frani? You want to know what happened to her? Look how my memory fails me. I completely forgot to mention her. But, after all this, there was no one left in our house except me, Za’frani and my youngest son, Ghafoora. Za’frani was now nearly twenty and still unmarried. Without any money in hand, how could I even talk to anyone about her marriage? As it was, we had not a cowrie. On top of that, we heard war had broken out in the land across the seas and the price of every little thing soared. Za’frani and I had to work hard to earn a precarious living. We worked in someone else’s fields, collected firewood to sell, fetched water from the brook, spun wool yarn on our charkhas, and only then were we able to make both ends meet. Little Ghafoora was nearly ten years old, and so I wanted him to start working too, but Za’frani wouldn’t hear of it and insisted on Ghafoora going to school. ‘Are you mad?’ I asked, but she was adamant, and the next day, without asking me, she took Ghafoora to the school and got him admitted. What was I to do? I couldn’t very well beat up such a big girl. Besides, I felt a little guilty for not having been able to get her married so far. So I kept quiet. But there was a stone on my heart, and I said to myself, ‘Today, the first boy from this family has gone to school. Who knows what evil will befall us now…’ But Za’frani seemed to be obsessed with her brother’s education. Night and day she was after him. Even when he came back from school, she would not let him have a moment’s rest. He must do his homework; he must improve his handwriting by writing out the alphabet over and over again; if he got stuck over a sum in arithmetic he must go to the teacher’s house and ask him. He must do this; he must do that. If only it were possible, I’m sure she would have liked to dissolve all the books in water and let Ghafoora drink them all in one draught.
You know very well, son, that in a house where there is a berry tree, stones will come … Za’frani was a fully grown girl of twenty or twenty-one. And even if she were not exactly a fairy or a hoor of paradise, she was at least not cross-eyed, pock-marked or otherwise repulsive. And then you know the boys of today. What dirty ways they learn in the city from the cinemas and nataks and what not! One day, when I thought she was out collecting dry twigs for fuel, I saw her returning empty-handed and crying bitterly. When I asked her what the matter was, she gave no reply but just kept on weeping. ‘Aray, cursed one, why don’t you say something? Did someone abuse you or beat you or did you fall down and hurt yourself. For God’s sake speak and tell me what happened.’ Her reply chilled my heart, for, what she said was something no mother could ever have heard from the lips of her daughter. She said, ‘Ma, please get me married.’ And then she started crying again. For ten minutes I must have asked her before she blurted out what had actually happened. It seemed that while she was collecting the twigs, the Zaildar’s son, who had recently come from the city on a holiday, appeared from nowhere and started teasing her and talking some nonsense. When she rebuked him for this, he caught hold of her by the hand and started dragging her into the wood with evil in his eyes. With difficulty, she managed to wrench herself free and came running to the village, but the terror of the scoundrel still sat in her heart and she was trembling like a peepul leaf in the summer wind – trembling and crying. Whenever she paused in her sobs, she implored in almost the same words every time. ‘Please get me married, Ma, or one day my honour will be ground to dust…’
Now you tell me, son, what could a poor old woman do in the circumstances? Without any money whatsoever, how could I even think of getting my daughter married? Still, I looked around for some poor but good-natured man who might agree to take Za’frani as his wife. But even then, one requires at least fifty rupees, while we had not even a silver ornament left to sell or pawn. I was worrying over this matter one day when a visitor arrived. From his appearance he looked a coolie with the telltale mark on his forehead. He had the sort of look from which it is impossible to guess the age. It might be forty or it might be sixty. ‘Ghulam Nabi sent this for you,’ he said and then added in an awkward, halting manner, ‘I am his friend – Mahamdu.’ Saying this, he placed a little bundle wrapped in dirty rags in my hands. When I opened it, I found that it contained money. Some notes and some loose change. I counted seven over sixty rupees and ten annas. Mahamdu said, ‘Ghulam Nabi asked me to give you this and say that it was for Za’frani’s marriage.’ I thanked God that at least the runaway had cared to think of the mother and sister he had left behind. But seeing a peculiar expression on Mahamdu’s face, I asked ‘How is Ghulam Nabi? Why hasn’t he come?’ Mahamdu’s voice was choked and he spoke slowly, reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to speak. ‘Maji, Ghulam Nabi has departed. He used to cough blood.’ He said no more.
My son, no man can ever realize what happens to a mother when she hears of the death of her son … It seems as if someone has cut up and taken out her bleeding heart … For nine months, you see, she keeps the child in her womb. For two years she feeds him at her breast. The child is formed out of her blood, her flesh and bones. He is nourished with her milk. Then he grows up into a broad-shouldered young man like Ghulam Nabi. And then, carrying loads for the sahib-log like a donkey, he starts spitting blood and dies. And, with him, the mother dies too … It is the worst death possible because she dies and yet remains alive…
What I felt, of course, I can never describe. But on Za’frani the news of her brother’s death had a strange effect. She became even more obsessed with the education of her younger brother. Every moment she would be after him, to read, to write, to do his homework. She wouldn’t give him even an hour to play with the other boys. It was as if she were in some desperate hurry to make him finish his one year’s reading and writing in a few weeks. I do not know why she was in such a hurry, I don’t know why…
Yes, and another thing. She sat with Mahamdu and plied him with questions about the last days of her brother. Did he receive any treatment? Do all coolies and porters develop this evil cough? And when Mahamdu said, ‘Yes, many,’ I don’t know why she asked him, ‘And yet you will go back to the same work! Why don’t you stay here?’ … I don’t know why…
At my persuasion, Mahamdu stayed three days more with us. The day he was leaving, I asked him, ‘Tell me, Mahamdu, when this work is so dangerous, why don’t you give it up?’ He said, ‘What is the use Ma-ji? I am not trained for any other kind of work. Besides, I have no one to worry about me if anything did happen to me – neither father nor mother.’ I hurriedly interposed, ‘And wife?’ He sighed deeply and murmured, ‘Died long ago.’ I don’t know whether he understood what I meant when I asked, ‘Why don’t you marry again?’ … During the three days that he stayed in our house, no one had seen him smiling, much less laughing. But when I asked him this question, I noticed a brief flash in his eyes and his dried-up leathery face broke into wrinkles of a smile. ‘Who would marry me, Ma-ji?’ … This is how, my son, Za’frani’s marriage to Mahamdu was arranged.
What did you say? … What did Za’frani think? Do you think marriages are arranged with the advice of young boys and girls? Still, when I mentioned to her that, on the twentieth of the next moon, Mahamdu would come to take her away, she betrayed a feeling of great relief, as if some heavy weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
The days passed in arrangements for the marriage. Yes, my son, even we poor people have to give some dowry to a daughter when she leaves for her husband’s home – even if it is nothing more than a dress and a pair of silver earrings. The day Mahamdu was due to come, I woke Za’frani very early in the morning and after giving her a bath, I made her wear the bridal dress – a pink phiran and a shalwar of green printed chintz. In the old days, we Kashmiri women used to wear only these long phirans. It was this Sher-e-Kashmir who taught the girls to put on shalwars too, and Za’frani insisted that I also wear a shalwar, otherwise Sher-e-Kashmir would be angry. Of course, I was not afraid of any lion or tiger but I thought, when all the other women were wearing shalwars, why should I alone be singled out for sticking to the old ways. So I too had a shalwar made…
I was very angry with this Sher-e-Kashmir when I heard of his arrest. Had he to choose the very day on which my daughter was to be married to get himself arrested? The whole village was in turmoil. ‘Sher-e-Kashmir has been arrested!’ What did I know why he was arrested? For all I cared, they could keep him in prison forever, but this time, I did hear that he had started the talk of driving out the raja himself from the state. So I said to myself: ‘This time, the Sher has put his paw in the jaws of a Babbar Sher; he won’t escape now.’
Hearing noises in the street, I came out, hoping it was Mahamdu arriving in the marriage procession, but instead I found some children carrying red flags with white plough painted on each, and running about, shouting, ‘Sher-e-Kashmir Zindabad. Dogra Raj Murdabad.’ And my own Ghafoora stood on a pile of bricks, writing something on the wall with a piece of white chalk. As he wrote each letter, he was reading it aloud – Q-U-I-T K-A-S-H-M-I-R. And Za’frani stood in the doorway, watching him with a radiantly happy expression, as if she had won a great victory…
I had hardly gone back into the house when I heard the children shouting and crying. When I came out, I turned to stone. A khakhi lorry stood on the road, and soldiers jumping out of it were beating the children with lathis. I ran towards the wall where, a moment ago, I had seen Ghafoora writing with the chalk. But Ghafoora was not there. Only a trail of blood lay on the ground. When I looked in that direction, I saw Ghafoora lying at a distance, unconscious, with a big, gaping wound in his head. He had that piece of chalk clutched in his hand…
I brought my son into the house and there, lying in the lap of his sister, he breathed his last. And, even in his unconsciousness, his lips continued to mutter the letters he was trying to write on the wall: Q-U-I-T K-A-S-H-M-I-R. He had not pronounced the last R when his breath got caught in his throat and, instead of a sound, a thin stream of blood trickled out of his open mouth. For the second time that month, I died – and yet I didn’t!
What happened then? … I remember it only like some ugly dream in which one horrible image seems to have no connection with another, and yet horror piles upon horror and becomes a mountain of frightfulness…
… Za’frani’s eyes, which were once like lotus flowers, were now like two pieces of burning coal … Not a trace of tears in them, or else the fire that flamed in them must have been extinguished …
… A procession of all the villagers – a silent, grim procession. Women ahead of the men and Za’frani leading them all. She was still wearing her bridal dress and, in her eyes, was the same flaming fire … And the crowd walking across the ploughed-up fields towards the road where the soldiers’ khakhi lorry stood – exactly on the spot where your mother stands now.
… Dark-skinned, khakhi-clad soldiers with fierce moustaches. And the muzzles of their guns that stared steadily at that procession, at all those women, at Za’frani…
… But the fire in Za’frani’s eyes was infinitely more dangerous and frightening than the cold fire in the blind eyes of those guns that aimed at her. That’s why she was not afraid and, looking straight ahead, kept steadily advancing…
… A shot – ten, twelve, fifteen shots! … Every one ran helter-skelter. In this very field, her hand at her breast, Za’frani fell on the soft earth – like a child falling in the lap of her mother! … I ran to her, but before I could reach her, a spurt of blood was streaming out of her breast and being sucked into the thirsty earth … A woman’s breast! And, instead of milk, blood was flowing from it! … Blood fertilizing the earth! … And my daughter was dying in my lap! But up to her last breath, there was a smile on her lips and I don’t know why she looked at me and murmured, ‘This is my wedding day, Ma!’ And she died … Yes, right here in this field where you see saffron blossoms that are as red as lilies…
This is my story, son … But where are you? … So you did go away! Didn’t I tell you that in a little while your car would be repaired and you would be gone and my story would remain unfinished? Cars are always passing by on this road … one, two, ten, twenty, a hundred. Even if they stop for a moment or two, they are gone again, trailing clouds of dust. But this saffron crop will remain standing in this field till it is time to pick the flowers and these red blossoms that are like drops of blood will be dried and sent to the four corners of the world. And no one knows in what strange cities, and on whose dinner tables, food will be served enriched with their fragrance. And like you, there will be many who will ask: ‘Why is this saffron red – like blood?’ … But no one will be able to tell them … For no one knows the reason. No one but me…