Commitment is an act, not a word.
—Jean-Paul Sartre
It is a concrete building, the size of a normal village house. Built from sudden charity-like funds sanctioned under an educational scheme after a random visit from the zonal education officer, it stands on cattle-grazing land, disputed over by several local farmers: Muhammad Sultan Beigh, Ghulam Nabi Rather, Ghulam Hasan Dar and many others.
The classrooms are unplastered even on the inside and the upper-primary and middle divisions are still windowless. But the whole structure has a brand-new, shiny TATA-tinned roofing; so bright that it could lure a hovering aeroplane down from the heavens. The tin sheets run over a truss of fresh poplar rafters. The truss is naked on the inside and doesn’t have a ceiling. It is due to the shade provided by the surrounding walnut trees that the tin doesn’t become infernally hot during the summer.
Haji Nissar, the principal and an aspiring zonal education officer, a former core member of the local unit of Jama’at-e-Islami, has promised to return in the late afternoon, once he sorts out the trouble at his paddy field. Stray cattle are giving him a tough time, and then there is also this nuisance of sparrows that peck out the grains before they have taken any form on the crop. He wants two teachers to help him with the scarecrows and fencing. The teachers are supposed to stroll back to the school, their bitter willow miswaaks tucked deep into their cheeks, by late afternoon.
Mr. Manzoor Peer, the head master of the school, comes from Srinagar and has to burn litres and litres of expensive petrol in his 800 CC car (the students call it the ‘matchbox’). This costs him half his monthly salary, and he seldom reaches on time. This doesn’t even include the cost of maintenance for his car, especially for the torture the wheels undergo on the rutted, pitted road.
After he got the car washed at a workshop, someone cracked raw walnuts on its bumper while he was busy giving the principal and the village teachers lessons on how to run the school the city way.
In fact, Mr. Manzoor Peer has demanded a few days off—not any casual leave, though he has enough of them, unexhausted, in his account—and wants his attendance to be adjusted accordingly. Principal Nissar understands that Peer needs some time to get his newly built house tiled in Srinagar. Mr. Manzoor has recently broken off from his joint family. Haji Nissar has been pleased enough to grant the adjustment and has even offered to arrange for pure cedar wood, at a cheap rate, for the windows of Mr. Peer’s new house.
So the command of the noisy class eight students passes to the self-designated head boy of the school. The head boy’s face is scarred, suggesting how often he has fallen from walnut trees, and the stubborn brown dye of raw walnuts is yet to fade from his palms.
‘Capital of Pakistan is?’ he shouts at the confused class.
‘India,’ the voices respond in chorus, boys looking at each other for assurance of the correctness of their answer.
‘Right! And Iran?’
‘Am-rica,’ the chorus roars.
It goes on like that till Captain Manohar Sumer of 122 Battalion Sadbhavna Rifles arrives, as usual, and overhears the class outside the shut door. And because he has arrived with a platoon of his AK-47-weilding men, the news of his arrival spreads through the village. The sarpanch—who doubles as a senior working member of the ruling party in the state—walks meekly into the vast compound of the school. He has a humped back. His hands are locked over his loins.
Captain, putting the flat palms of his hands together in respect, half rises at the sight of Sarpanch.
‘I am so grateful for the rope-bridge,’ Sarpanch says, still walking towards Sumer. ‘The panch of the village across this dangerous stream is also very happy with it. He wanted me to convey his thanks to you.’
‘Pleasure,’ says Sumer, ‘all my pleasure.’
‘And, of course, the free eye camp was also very impressive. Jaana can see now. It’s like Taaja’s cataract didn’t exist at all. And we have just begun praying in the new mosque.’
‘Thank you,’ Sumer feels overwhelmed.
‘Yes, yes, and the radio sets are too good. Right from my childhood, I have been told that Philips is a quality brand. I say that any damn thing from the Army canteen supply is bloody good. Bloody original. Everything.’
‘You are always welcome,’ Sumer says.
The country-capital exercise chorus of class eight finally reaches their ears.
‘They seem to believe every country’s capital is either India or Am-rica. Bloody morons. They have to learn,’ Sarpanch, embarrassed by the students, tries to please Sumer when he looks in the direction the voices are coming from.
When the two-kilo iron hammer pounds on the thick round plate of iron, and the principal and teachers have returned to join Sarpanch and Captain Sumer, an uncontrollable flood of young boys comes spilling out of different holes. They wear rubber flip-flops or black plastic winter shoes or torn canvas shoes or unpolished black leather school shoes, and are uniformed in cobalt blue pants and sky blue shirts.
‘Basically, I have come with a new proposal,’ says Sumer, after all the boys have rushed past. ‘We want the sixth and seventh grades spared for Bharat Darshan, All India tour.’
‘Nothing like that, Sir. Whenever,’ responds Sarpanch.
‘Bilkul bilkul!’ the submissive voices of the principal and other two teachers follow even before Sarpanch has finished expressing his consent.
‘Put all the cedar into the Volvo, the same one we’re using to take the kids,’ Sumer instructs his men. ‘Its belly is big enough to carry more than a hundred pieces. And put the kids’ luggage and other things over them.’
The long aerials of the jammer on the vehicle wag in the air as the Rakshak tries to whiz away on the rutted track. A doll-like pink Sai Baba sits in the middle of the dashboard with his tiny hand raised, blessing all.
‘And if these adamant Bakarwaals raise queries or try to arm-twist us about the stumps in the forest, blame this on the bastard detained in the south camp barrack. Say that besides others things, he was a smuggler too. And, in addition, ask if these are the ethics behind the so-called “movement”,’ the captain continues and laughs.
Sarpanch wears a new white Khansuit and his farmer’s cap looks washed clean, except for an odd grease stain. He has been given a green flag to wave at the Volvo full of shrieking excited boys who have hardly ever been to Srinagar, let alone on a Bharat Darshan.
Sarpanch waves the flag and a loud clap follows as the Volvo begins to chug.
Mr. Manzoor Peer surfs channels on his colour TV until he reaches the government news channel.
He glares at the close-up of a boy in a navy blue tracksuit and a matching cap that says:
Sadbhavna Force
122 Bn
In the background, there is a big cherry-red plush bus whose flat-faced bonnet is covered in a banner that boasts:
Watan Ki Sair
Aman Ki Yatra
(A journey around the nation
A journey of peace)
‘… Ummm … we were very happy … are happy … We are very happy indeed to … ummm … thankful to Army’s 122 battalion … that … ummm … that has provided us with this opportunity to see our country …’ says a student in a sound bite.
‘Haraamzaada! Shabeer Najaar of sixth grade. Beggars for crumbs,’ Mr. Manzoor Peer cusses under his breath.
‘We had never seen Taj Mahal, Qutab Minar and Red Fort … We are very thankful to Captain Sahab who brought us here to see these beautiful things …’ continues Shabeer Najaar, narrating it all in the same way he narrates mugged-up lessons at school.
‘Captain Manohar Sumer. Say the full name, saalay!’ yells Sumer, lying sozzled in his bed, swilling the last pint as he watches it all on his wall-mounted LCD in the Army camp.
‘We also saw the Parliament. We had earlier seen it only on the fifty-rupee notes our fathers used to pay the seed sellers in the village. We took a ride on the metro. There are long green buses everywhere and plain wide roads. Something we don’t have in the village …’
‘Waah! Sarpanch’s class seventh grandson too. Haraamzaada once broke the side mirror … Enough is enough! I cannot work in this school of collaborators and traitors!’ Mr. Manzoor Peer thinks, chewing on an expletive.
Mr. Manzoor Peer’s family surrounds him in the room. His wife sits cross-legged in a corner, doing strawberry pink embroidery along the border of a white shawl, her biannual devotional present to Mirwaiz Molvi Umar, a separatist leader. Her golden-rimmed glasses are slipping down to the tip of her nose. She curses the Social Welfare Department for withholding her salary for the last three months. She moves her lips as if muttering holy words.
Peer’s children, a boy and a girl who study in the local missionary school, write chits to each other about something while pretending to do their homework. A large part of the floor is littered with their textbooks, notebooks, schoolbags, chewed rubber-topped pencils and items from their geometry boxes. The boy stealthily pricks his sister with the compass over a silent joke and sets her screaming. Disturbed and disgusted, Mr. Manzoor Peer glares at them.
When the boys return from Bharat Darshan, the school is already open.
The boys have an air about them now. They find it hard to relate to their village and its people.
The sarpanch and the principal have stationed some boys with garlands in the school compound for the reception of the returning students. There is a special garland for the captain too.
‘Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!’ says the sarpanch, approaching the captain with a wide smile.
The pleasantries and greetings are exchanged. Parents hug their sons as if they have returned from Haj.
‘Welcome! Now, one more thing …’ Sarpanch says, smiling widely, putting the garland around Sumer’s thick, dusky, oily military neck. ‘Please keep in mind the coming panchayat elections.’
‘Of course! Of course!’
The principal has returned to his office, but Sumer and Sarpanch are still deep in conversation out in the compound. Meanwhile the class eight students’ chorus has begun reiterating the country-capital exercise.
‘Capital of Jammu and Kashmir?’ screams the head boy.
‘India!’ the chorus confidently responds.