Whose martyr is this?

“And the CM prays for his jannah” reads the last line of the press communiqué. That is the official elegy for the three-year old Burhan, who was killed in his father’s lap the other day in a village near Sopore. I, quite frankly, had pledged to tear myself away from whatever keeps happening in our neck of woods on a day-to-day basis and instead keep my focus entirely on some creative endeavors that I am undertaking but the senselessness of it drags you right back in. There is no escaping this.

By now I’m utterly convinced that we inhabit a very broken world. Those who perhaps took a call to bump off the kid’s father might not have anticipated the new situation but the wickedness of Kashmir’s dirty wars is such that anything goes. There would be condemnations and the press will run a few stories and then it is back to square one. The debate on beef shall resume.

Here is the catch though: As a society we fail to understand that something profound is happening to us. We think, Oh! As long as we are in our comfort zones — in our big brick-and-glass-homes, as long as it is some poor kid in the countryside, it is perhaps OK. Can’t happen to us, for sure. The problem with this sort of logic is profounder than what we might even anticipate. Our complacency clearly points to something deeper. At an emotional level we have ceased to be tender, to be human.

It does not require telling but we need to do more than express cynicism. Yes, life must go on but what we must not fail to remember is that empathy is the most essential characteristic of a civilization. The silk carpets in our homes, our shiny new roofs or our new-found fascination for full-length beards don’t necessarily make us cultured. We must instead ask ourselves why is this happening to us, to our future?

Most of this talk around ‘unidentified’ and ‘identified’ is bunkum. We are politically intelligent enough to understand who pulls the trigger. The slaughter and hard knocks have gone on for too long. And it has taken the shape of what wise people call reductio ad absurdum. How can we allow this to be carried on to such an absurd extreme? How can toddlers be allowed to become casualties in some senseless agency warfare?

And then we have the gall to wish everyone ‘heaven’. Let’s not blame the CM or our pro-freedom ideologues but honestly this entire concept of martyrs at pearly gates and paradise’s milky streams has gotten a little daffy. Life is precious, especially if it is a three-year old’s and does not deserve to be snuffed out anywhere — neither on a Turkish beach nor in a Kashmiri village. Burhan must have been allowed to live and wonder. He must have been allowed to see the world, explore and make his own mark. His killing — any innocent’s killing — is not normal. It must make everyone — our political class across the board, our citizenry, everyone — intellectually and morally uncomfortable.

That discomfort is humanity. Let’s not lose it.

Sameer

Toon: Suhail

When Nature strikes

Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates.
~Marquis de Sade, French thinker

Something is really the matter with our world these days. Heavens are refusing to let up. There is water everywhere in Kashmir. April used to be an utterly pleasant time, as far as I can remember, but not anymore. These days everyone and his uncle is watching over the flood gauge at Ram Munshi Bagh. Sure, there used to be rain earlier too but fear seldom prefixed Jhelum.

Carrying their big black umbrellas, people used go about work gingerly in Duckback shoes in those years. You would still find laborers, with inverted burlaps on their heads, waiting to be picked up in Lal Chowk. Women would usually make razma at home, which somehow, almost magically, tasted better with hot rice and pickle, during rains. Not anymore. Looks like the idea of a romantically wet spring is lost.

These days with the first hint of rainfall, everything goes under. Water has replaced CRPF men -- with twirled moustaches -- in our nightmares. May it be that we have entered into a phase of collective fear-psychosis, exacerbated by social media? Sadly one of the downers of living in information age is that bad news travels fast. Good news is like that tortoise in Aesop's Fable. Rumors run like hare in Kashmir.

Unfortunately there is no Omar Abdullah to blame this time. The new dispensation stays away from social media as if it were plague. One has to make do with the good old Radio Kashmir for its calm and sedate updates about the unfolding flood situation. Apart from putting out reliable information, they play good music too. It is only during political broadcasts that something happens to them. Suddenly they become government parrots.

Jokes apart, this is about serious stuff. Forget about finding faults with the government. With hardly enough money to pay salaries to its employees, where is the money to upgrade the infrastructure? Authorities do have responsibilities, loads of them, but people need to soul-search. Temperamentally we are a knee-jerk nation. In a super panic-mode right now, a month down the line, when the rains stop and situation stabilizes, everything will be conveniently forgotten.

The focus -- to upgrade our disaster management system and fix the shaky infrastructure -- is likely to waver. Everyone will basically continue with making new homes, railway tracks would be cut through natural barriers, flood channels would be encroached upon, wetlands will keep shrinking, pilgrims will ride in hundreds of thousands to glaciers and sewage will continue to fill up Dal. This shall continue till it rains again and suddenly we would be jolted into thinking that we might all sink. Over again.

How long shall we keep fooling ourselves? Every time I fly to Kashmir, the widespread disfiguration of its landscape astonishes me. It is a shame that hillocks in Srinagar should be blasted away to make way for more quarry sites and concrete structures should come up on ridges in the countryside. When we fell trees indiscriminately, crazily, the soil is bound to slip some day. And lo and behold, it is slipping now.

Nature, for which we often pat ourselves in Kashmir, has destructive powers. The same Jhelum, our lifeline since ages, can carry away structures poorly equipped to withstand its might. Bridges, houses, trees, and cars can wash away like detritus in its ferocious waters. The erosive force can easily drag dirt from under shaky foundations. Our homes, along with our greed, can quite easily take a tumble.

We must wrap our heads around the fact that we cannot afford to screw with nature because if we do that nature often has a very strong comeback. Disasters, lets not forget, are divine interventions in disguise. We, the people, are both the cause and the remedy.

Lets fix us.

Sameer

Arnoub, Alam and other Amusements

It appears that Arnoub Goswami, India’s insulter-in-chief, is getting more converts than poor Mother Teresa could ever dream of. Every single night, day after day, this outgrown schoolboy invites guests to his high-decibel show, only to put them out of countenance.

One wonders if there is wisdom in accepting an invite from a somewhat bizarre host, if you know that he might spit in your coffee. Still people flock to him. Whoever said that ‘sensation’ is intoxicating must be bestowed an Order of the Night Hour.

Not surprisingly, the very mention of the word Kashmir sends Arnoub on a hallucinatory trip, as if he was a grumpy farmer and Kashmiris, collectively, have stolen his cow. So this past week the insulter-in-chief was besides himself, delirious with rage, because Masrat Alam, a Kashmiri separatist leader happened to complete his jail term.

Along with his flunkey, a very sad-looking gentleman called Maroof, the anchor drowned his guests, as usual, in tons of pure nonsense. They got a hasgtag #ProPakCM trending on Twitter India. In the end the only take-away was this: If Arnoub has verbal diarrhea, Maroof has got mental diarrhea.

Since Kashmiris have forever romanticized anything that exhibits a degree of nuisance value, his show is a hit in the valley. Recently on a press trip to the island of Cyprus, I instinctively asked the concierge if they get Times Now in the hotel. ‘What is that, sir? A monthly magazine on watches.’

I smiled at the chap, who perhaps grew up around the Mediterranean Sea, and imagined him in front of India’s judge, jury and executioner – all rolled into one. “What? You don’t know Times Now. Isn’t that an insult to 1.2 billion Indians and viewers in 57 countries? You shameless little bugger. The nation demands that you should be lynched. Right away.”

Everyone watched in amusement as the anchor grilled, first a somewhat uneasy Zafar Mehraj of the PDP, and then Haseeb Drabu, J&K’s Fin Min, the next day. Both gentlemen tried to reason, unsuccessfully, with a man who has built an edifice of bullshit and who regularly talks down to people from its putrid balconies.

It is almost comical how he pontificates unsuspecting people not to get ‘worked up’ after launching a tirade against them. It is akin to someone dragging the ‘freedom of expression’ by its pigtails to the attic and molesting both freedom and expression, while a highly aroused audience watches on. Like reality TV on Viagra. Only that the host himself is a dick here.

As if we didn’t have a million worries already, now we have an ex-top cop, known for his notorious policing ways, saying that he was asked to ‘bump off’ Masrat way back in 2010. Strangely, the busy handle that just doesn’t stop tweeting, has fallen silent since yesterday. Let’s just hope, for the sake of Dastageer, that the Nuisance Merchant at Times Now doesn’t speak before our ex-CM does.

Sameer
@Mini blogs

Love in the times of swine flu

These days nothing much happens to the liking of Kashmiris. There is swine flu in Srinagar and no one has a clue why. If that is not a worry big enough, those juvenile Pakistani cricketers are not helping with their lousy performance Down Under. Anxiety levels are up. For the first time ever – since Kalhana wrote Rajtarangni – more people are buying tobacco than mutton. This is bloody alarming.

Disappointment comes to Kashmir like Omar Abdullah’s tweets. Those thousands upon thousands who defied old boy Geelani, the padre of resistance, and came out in droves to vote during pre-winter assembly elections, were faced with a big downer aka fractured mandate. In a major what-the-hell scenario, they were to soon learn that Mufti Mohammad Sayed, the ageing groom from Bijbehara, is to take Narendra Damodardas Modi of Vadnagar, in a political marriage.

No, Modi’s sense of fashion didn’t steal any hearts here (he scores self-goals on that count anyway by wearing silly pinstriped dresses); it was the months-long courtship that surprised everyone. While everyone tried to discourage Mufti and Co from wooing the wrong set of people and notwithstanding some serious trolling by Omar, nothing could stop the inevitable. The wedlock has happened. In a few days we will have the PDP walking down the aisle with BJP.

In a comical anticlimax of sorts, the same mademoiselle, who was supposed bring bad luck to the household, became the bride. Kashmiris, by and large, are witnessing the celebrations with a ring of consternation and amusement. When I asked a senior PDP neta over phone the main reason for this liaison, pat came the reply: ‘Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy’. One cannot completely disagree with the wisdom, at least figuratively.

True the two creatures – PDP and BJP -- have very little in common (South Pole and North Pole, confesses the groom). While the former peddles a mild strain of soft-separatism in Kashmir, the latter has a pan-India presence, thanks largely due to a very shrill form of nationalism that is somewhat antithetical to all things Hum Kya Chatey. It would be interesting to see how, and by what alchemy, will Mufti Sayed manage this alliance. After all persuading Kashmiris to dip the nib of their collective fate in saffron ink (incidentally in a green inkpot) is no mean feat.

Coming back to the wedding, ofcourse like all weddings in the subcontinent there is an exchange of dowry, give-aways and largess involved in this one too. In plain speak it is called quid pro quo. Basically both the bride and the groom have agreed to behave and shall not bitch about each other (and the in-laws) on complicated stuff like Article 370, AFSPA and the like. Self-rule and other such romantic talk will be considered kid stuff henceforth.

The famous Kashmiri custom of flattery is expected to kick in any day now. Muzzafar Baig, who once unsuccessfully attempted to save Maqbool Bhat from the gallows, has already started quoting Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of Jan Sangh. Who would have thought that those promising us autonomy and self-rule would one day deliver sermons in the name of those who would deny us those very freedoms?

Meanwhile having perfected the art of not speaking out of turn, unlike his detractors who talk nineteen to a dozen, Mufti will –- in all probability -- try to recreate that Midas touch, variously called healing touch, that he is famed for. Now that he has trucked with an incredibly influential set of people, one should expect some of the dowry to be used in our neighborhoods.

Known to throw lavish wazwans, where local journalists are also invited, Mufti has finally ascended the throne that evaded him all along. Even as guests struggle to dichotomize tabakmaz at his grand feast, the wizard of Bijbehara will have little respite. He shall constantly be on the look, cautiously tiptoeing the jungle, making sure that the witches and werewolves on prowl don’t mix his drinks.

If Amit Shah be the djinn, Mufti is the peer.

Sameer

Elegy for a bridge

It has been 25 years since the massacre on Srinagar’s Gaw Kadal, one of Kashmir’s worst human rights violations

You are an afternoon,
a memory that hangs together, 
a half-eaten pear, a winter, 
a chopped off arm 
and a healthy stray dog chomping off that arm. 
Nobody can eat winter like a pear. 
Nobody can live inside a pear like winter. 
You are a dying voice drowned by a shout “Don’t waste your bullet. I’ve pumped enough rounds into his body. He’ll die on his own”.

Gaw Kadal is a small bridge that leads you to the fashionable Residency Road in the heart of Srinagar. A small strait from Jhelum flows beneath it. Street vendors sell dry fish on the bridge during winters. Shikaras, laden with collards or haak, Kashmir’s staple diet, can be seen anchored below the bridge as people and auto rickshaws scurry past. There used to be an old world feel to Gaw Kadal’s balustrades, trusses and curbs. Although much water has flown between its decrepit pillars, the memories of what happened on this bridge -- this day -- on a cold winter morning, 25 years ago, refuse to go away. Memories, like wood, seldom sink.

Sure quarter of a century is a long time. Democracies are usually good at wearing make up and going about town in the hope that people disremember. It would be a shame if we fail to bear witness to what happened to our neighbours, our friends and those who perished at Gaw Kadal. For the dead and the living, we must bear witness, the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, whom the Nobel committee called ‘a messenger to mankind’, once said.

Why did the Indian paramilitary forces kill those innocent people on the small bridge that cold January morning? Fifty people, all civilians, wearing pherans and holding kangris, innocent. Killed at point blank by the CRPF. There could be many answers. The cop version, the CRPF version and the standard government press note (I often wonder the press note guy must keep his heart with devil for safekeeping while he peddles all those lies). The issue with truth, however, is that it shines through all interpretations.

Early that morning people had been anxious about reports of nighttime raids conducted by the CRPF in several areas of Srinagar on the preceding night (January 20, 1990). Close to 300 ordinary people were detained in these operations, most of them innocent. In areas like Chota Bazar, reports came that the paramilitary forces misbehaved with women in some homes. There was a pattern to it. The harassment and intimidation appeared part of a new government policy to break the spirit of Kashmiris.

The newly elected governor of J&K, Jagmohan, a well-known communal character, had recently been dispatched to Srinagar to break the uprising that enjoyed popular support. Soon an atmosphere of fear was introduced, which started with humiliating crackdown operations and ended in a systematic brutalisation of an entire population. Those poor men, who marched to Gaw Kadal that afternoon, protesting against house-to-house searches in Chota Bazar and adjoining areas, had no idea what was to befall them. No efforts were made to stop the march until it reached Gaw Kadal. Once they got to the bridge, bullets swiftly cut them down.

The historian William Dalrymple, who visited Srinagar the next day wrote about the horror thus: “When I got to Srinagar the following day, I went straight to the city hospital. Every bed there was occupied and the overflow lined the corridors. One man, an educated and urbane city engineer named Farooq Ahmed, described how after the firing, the CRPF walked slowly forward across the bridge, finishing off those who were lying wounded on the ground. When the shooting began, Ahmed had fallen flat on his face and managed to escape completely unhurt. “Just as I was about to get up,” he told me, “I saw soldiers coming forward, shooting anyone who was injured. Someone pointed at me and shouted, ‘that man is alive,’ and a soldier began firing at me with a machine gun. I was hit four times in the back and twice in the arms.” Seeing that he was still alive, another soldier raised his gun, but the officer told him not to waste ammunition. “The man said I would anyway die soon.”

The engineer lived to tell the tale. There were several other eyewitnesses to the massacre who recounted the brutality and horror of what happened on the bridge. Through psychological bruises, they spoke of the torment, of having to recall what could have been their end. Suddenly Gaw Kadal stopped being a wooden bridge. In the mental landscape of countless, it transformed into a memorial. It became a totem of the occupation. It began to be identified with everything that India represented in Kashmir.

The incident sent shockwaves across the valley. In the wicked sense of humor that Kashmiris are famous for, Jagmohan quickly became ‘Jage-Khor’ (the baldie), an ugly cartoonish caricature in big, thick glasses, who wanted to punish the entire classroom because a few kids in the back said boo. Of course he couldn’t break the spirit of people, forget about taming it. The resolve may appear weary after all these years but aspirations have been known to outlive cartoons and bridges.

“How many bridges do you have in Srinagar?” a friend asked me in London recently. It used to be the city of several bridges, I replied, while walking with him on the Millennium Bridge that links Bankside with the City of London. There used to be seven or perhaps nine bridges that connected the Srinagar city of our childhood. Unsure of which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn, they marked some with ugly sand bunkers and others with the red of our blood. The Londoner thought I was being philosophical. The truth is that the recent history of our bridges (and rivers) is full of unspeakable crimes.

No one was ever punished for the Gaw Kadal massacre. Twenty-five years on, no one has been charged. No CRPF walla, none of the authorities who issued the orders, not the top cop Allah Baksh (who passed away a few years ago) and of course, not Jagmohan, the venal governor, whiling his time away in comfort, perhaps content at 90 to initiate a policy that sent 15-year olds to graves.

Gaw Kadal stands as a silent testament to the depravation of Kashmir’s brutal oppression.

@Sameer

How to avenge a cartoon?

You can’t possibly avenge a cartoon. You can’t take vengeance at visual art. That is because no one can physically fight an idea, however ugly, however profane, and however sacrilegious.

Yes, we do feel offended. Humans are programmed that way. But here in lies the rub. The moment you feel provoked, you allow all the crazy, provocative arguments to make sense. That is any rabble rouser’s dream come true.

Islam is a faith that straddles the entire planet. It requires no character certificates from anyone. On TV or Twitter. If some nutcase Muslim or a section of them continue to behave like psychopaths -- with blood on their minds – the stereotype only gets emboldened.

Should your faith be so frail that a cartoonist’s curved lines must shake it? Should the great God of Adam and Moses and Jesus and Muhammad want you to draw first blood because a little known, trashy, weekly mag, somewhere in Paris lampoons the divine? That would be a very narrow, fragile understanding of faith itself.

The truth is that we inhabit a crazy world. Freedom is like a hooker that is not available to all. Ideally there should be reasonable limits to what passes as freedom but since nothing is deemed sacred anymore, we need not fret or blow ourselves up. There is a virtue called tolerance. Quran talks about it quite a bit.

It is an incredible tool because not only does it insulate us from ignorance, tolerance often leads to real emancipation. It allows us to fight ideas with counter ideas, greater ideas, and greater art. If you are tolerant, you will -- in all probability -- not get multiple orgasms at these calls of baying for blood.

Killing someone because you dislike his or her version of the story, however gross, however repugnant, is a moral defeat of our own viewpoint. We must debate and express our opinions, vociferously. The right to feel irate is all too human. We must outrage when we feel slandered and offended but the answer should never be sword. It must always be the pen.

History, and the course of it, is always about ideas.

Peace

Sameer

There is a new Pasha on Fairview

Who would have thought that the BJP, known to most Kashmiris as Jan Sanghis before the advent of satellite TV, would one day come to form the government in Srinagar? It would seem beyond question that the same BJP, called by the PDP as ‘foreigners’ in TV debates (perhaps to score quick brownies) during election time has now transformed into a lovely bride, wearing saffron earrings. PDP, ofcourse being the prospective groom.

God knows Muzzi Beg, Drabu and Co could be gearing up for dastar poshi, as we get ready for the big fat Kashmiri wedding. Don’t be surprised if a certain Mevlana Gun Joo Rumi, who used to teach philosophy in another age, is seen dancing in the wedding party. Politics, especially the flighty variety practiced in Kashmir, can be nutty as fruitcake.

If Syed Ali Geelani is the big Peer of the freedom-loving generation, Mufti Sayed is no little Peer. In his 80s, the prodigal from Bijbehara is all set to be anointed as the valley’s new majesty. All his active life – in various political avatars and combinations – the elusive high chair played hide and seek with him. No more. It is time to glue him to it.

In between Mufti did manage to crown himself for three brief years, which was never going to be enough. For a man of his ambition, who is always well-turned out, wearing immaculate Sacoor suits even in Chillay Kalan and someone who spent a lifetime doing maths of getting to the top, three years is loose change. Kashmir needs a new healing touch and Mufti is the Midas.

For years old boy Geelani taunted the mainstreamers, calling them ‘daily wagers’ of New Delhi. While it hurt them in private, publicly they put up a brave face, attempting to reverse-mock Geelani, calling him an agent of Islamabad.The mainstreamers were however left with little excuse when Geelani began blasting Pakistan too, not too long ago, accusing it of over-passing the Kashmir cause.

It was in this context that pro-India parties began flirting with the idea of soft-separatism. While they would never enunciate the Azadi word in TV debates, occasional mouth-honor would be accorded to issues like AFSPA et al. When a certain General (now a federal minister) let the cat out of the bag last year, saying the mainstreamers in Kashmir are on army’s payrolls, everyone cried foul but no one had the balls to impeach him. So much for tokenism!

In the winter of 2015, the mighty National Conference of Sheri-Kashmir is discombobulated. Down to 15 seats, it is all but finished in large parts. The most Omar Abdullah, the erstwhile Czar of Gupkar, can do to salvage his honor is to taunt the Pasha of Fairview on Twitter. While it may have irked the PDP spokesperson somewhat, expect Mufti to stay unruffled and calm, holding cards close to his chest. Amit Shah or Saifuddin Soz, you never know how the Pasha will play his hand!

At the appointed hour, when soothsayers and Peers say that time is ripe and the stars are in perfect alignment, the groom shall wear one of his smart suits and a tie (done in Windsor knot to rub it in Abdullahs, proper).

Barkha Butt will be air dropped on a shikara at night, somewhere near Dal, where she will hold fort with nothing but a solitary Kangri and Nazir Masoodi's smirk. Her guests will be hauled from their hammams and a midnight debate shall ensue.

Mufti Mohamad Sayed would step out of Fairview to be the 9th CM of J&K.

Till then, lets just eat Harisa and stay calm.

@Sameer

Lay thy finger thus

Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed
—Othello, Act 2, Scene 1
William Shakespeare

The die has been cast. Inked fingers are fashionable in Kashmir now. Another matter it feels like we are fingering our own memories, which unfortunately are short-lived.

So the high priestess of Indian TV, Madame Barkha Dutt, has declared the elections a success. In the television mumbo-jumbo that TV anchors are usually good at, she called it ‘a thaw in the winter chill’ or some related smart crack. Squatting on a dastar-khawan with a few copper tramis laden with wazwan, there was a celebratory ring to her show. It had an artsy feel, complete with vapours rising from the food. Nazir Masoodi's self-control on such occasions must be appreciated.

The participants included Karan Singh’s son, with all the silk in his family heirloom, bound around his neck, and stuffed in his pockets and a KP film-maker (God knows what he has made) in an ill-fitting jacket and huge shirt collars. There was an elegant professor also. PDP’s spokesperson, draped in a black shawl, looked like a wise sage, who knows that success is near. Ofcourse the NC spokesperson, an old pal of mine, tried to sound intuitive but came across as a sailor who knows the storm is fierce and his ship is doomed.

In another space, another channel (I watch them in clutches on Youtube when I have a moment) the rabid Arnoub had assembled (as usual) a dozen people, none of whom he allowed to speak. Going a step further than Barkha, he announced the total rejection of separatism, now that Bandipora has voted 75% and the dawn of a new era in Kashmir. God knows where he wriggled the old fogey Hashim Qureshi from. Since the host has institutionalized the idea of being seriously a joke and a farce at the same time, he easily wasted another 60 minutes of the nation. In an ideal world they would put him in a rehab.

As the season of absurd continues, the vote frenzy has climaxed. Kashmir is very cold around this time and usually boring. Elections, the spectacle that it is, infuse some life into these drab settings. With the BJP rocking the show in the centre, Madison Square Garden and elsewhere, it appears that Modi’s star is on the ascendency. Flush with victory after another victory, he has already announced that India is where stem cell gyaan originated. Taking a clue, his minions are now saying Vedic India (1750–1000 BCE) had helicopters. Obviously by that logic Kashmir straight away belongs to Mohan Bhagwat’s RSS.

I reckon Kashmiris, being politically sharp if somewhat humbug, decided to spoil the party for the BJP. The generic political wisdom is that Jammu and its sphere of influence is under a spell of Modi and his jinn, the crazy as fox, Amit Shah, so lets join ranks and make sure that the saffron ghouls don’t come here in their Vedic drones. The overwhelming sentiment after Round 1, journalist friends inform, is that this indiscretion in the winter chill is not seen as disrespect to old boy Geelani. No way! If he wrote a book of calligraphy, tomorrow, and called it The Delicate Art of Defiance, by God, it will sell like hot cakes. But today people are simply in a mood to vote.

Sameer

Mehboob Ki Mehndi

Last night Mehboob Beg abandoned the ship. Perhaps hindsight is a good thing but Mirza Afzal Beg’s son didn’t wait for hindsight to dawn on him. Instead he dumped Omar. Like he had dumped Dr Farooq in the past to put Gul Shah on the throne. Then mysteriously he made up with doctor sahib and was politically rehabilitated.

His father, the legendary Mirza Afzal Beg, was Shiekh Abdullah’s lieutenant for decades, and was often hailed as Fakhr-e-Kashmir. He presided over the Plebiscite Front (Ah, how many times have we flirted with this darned Azadi business!) and was the legal brain behind the famous Indira-Sheikh accord.

Beg senior was sent to jail along with Sher-i-Kashmir in the infamous Kashmir conspiracy case. When the Sheikh was allowed to perform Hajj in 1965, he took two people along -- his wife, Begum Abdullah and Afzal Beg. Well all that is history now. In a hurriedly-called press conference yesterday, the NC called Beg junior a chameleon. Politics, they say, is colorful business. People change affiliations like a baby’s diapers.

Here is a clutch of Gupkar conversation from last night that we managed to pick up from our palace sources. It had to be brief because some BSF walla, stationed outside Omar’s villa, went mad this morning and started shooting at ducks in the compound.

A big black rotary dial telephone, without lettering on the finger wheel, comes alive. Sheikh Abdullah used it once to make calls to Nehru. It has become fashionable to abuse Nehru in Delhi these days. Sheikh’s grave needs to be protected in Srinagar by men in uniform with carbines.

The phone rings. Omar, a cross between looking glum and tickled, takes the call.

OA: Yes, dad, it is true. What do you mean how true?

Doc: Faan ha karov atey saersi.

OA: Talk in English or Urdu, dad. What is Faan?

Doc: Kihi na. It is the Muftis, I know.

OA: Why blame them? It is our deadwood.

Doc: Haya potra if we lose men at this rate, soon it will be you and Nasir alone left in the party.

OA: Mehboob wanted to be a hero.

Doc: Hero, my foot! What is happening in Beeroh (Beerwah). Put a pheran on and visit Beeroh daily, booztha.

OA: I tweet daily, dad.

Doc: Haya only journalists read your tweets.

OA: Mehboob was bad-mouthing them till Saturday.

Doc: Beg calls Mufti a ‘visionary’. Jigar ha dodum. It was like a dagger in the bosom.

OA: We are the only and the oldest nationalistic party. They can’t possibly take us on.

Doc: Haya Sheikh Ghulam Rasool tya nivok. Kuni na rood na kah.

OA: You know dad I was joking with Devender last night that they have Ashiq and Mehboob both.

Doc: You think it is funny! That Devender’s brother is BJP’s CM aspirant.

OA: You trusted Karan Singh’s son Ajatshatru. He is also supping with the devil.

Doc: Hay kus tavan.

OA: Electoral politics, dad. PDP's time perhaps.

Doc: It should be Al-bain always.

OA: Let Mufti yield the broom.

Doc: Kursi is important.

OA: Now what?

Doc: Make sure no one takes the leader of the opposition kursi from you.

@Sameer

Haider: Shakespeare in Srinagar

Haider suffers from a fundamental flaw. It attempts to marry the Kashmir narrative to Hamlet, a famous play by William Shakespeare. The Bard’s play (written between 1599-1602) is about ‘revenge’ while Kashmir, any dispassionate observer will tell you, is essentially about ‘aspiration’. Whilst it is sincere, even daring, of Vishal Bhardwaj to make a very different film, I reckon he may have ended up confounding it. Hamlet is a revenge saga. Haider has revenge as a recurring theme running for most parts. Kashmiris seek no retribution. Ask any random Kashmiri. It was and always has been about aspirations.

I had a lump in my throat when they showed naked men being brutally tortured in Srinagar’s infamous incarceration centers. Waves of young men have been through that torment; those godawful times when spelling out the word ‘Freedom’ meant you had to undergo third-degree. Democracy has its moods, you see. Times have changed. Kashmiris are now writing furious books. The problem is that audiences in India do not consume much literature. They consume movies. That is why Haider becomes important. It rewinds us back to the dark 90s and the political intrigue at play during those days.

Given that Bollywood usually ends up making trashy films around Kashmir, Haider indeed sets the bar a notch higher. It has its strong points and a number of weaknesses. The story drags at times but captivates you in equal parts. Dreary skies and a silent snowfall, captured almost poetically, transports you smack to countryside Kashmir. Watch it for lovely cinematography; watch it for the Kashmiri accented Urdu and English words (deliberate, beautifully delivered) and some powerful acting.

Kashmiri peculiarities, like our accents and the way a majority of us speak English and even Hindi/Urdu has been nicely outlined. Vishal has captured the oddity that a lot of non-Kashmiris may not notice – our emphasis on Vs and Ds for instance -- when talking in the Queen’s language. Shraddha Kapoor, playing Shahid’s love interest, effectively conveys this when she says lo-V-ed (with an emphasis on V), much to the delight of her lover and the Kashmiri audiences. This requires a keen ear. Her unearthly crooning of a Kashmiri folk song in the snow, towards the end, is equally poignant.

Tabu is a class apart. She reprises the role of Gertrude powerfully. The turbulent relationship with her son Haider, who resents her for falling for his uncle Khurram (Kay Kay in a career best performance) after he conspired to have his Tehreek- loving brother ‘disappear’ has been beautifully handled. There is an undertone of Oedipus complex and a subtle erotic tension between the mother and son, which surely is part of Hamlet, but could have been easily done away while dealing with a sensitive topic like half-widows.

Not a masterpiece by any stretch of imagination but a sincere effort. Never before has a film of such intensity been attempted on Kashmir by Bollywood, so this is definitely a first. As long as the medium of movies – in this case Haider -- initiates a dialogue about the dark secrets of democracy – custodial killings, disappearances, half-widows – I am all for it. There indeed is a danger of compartmentalizing the tragedy of Kashmir into neat boxes of human rights abuse and harsh laws like AFSPA. In some scenes the film adds nothing new with its standard Bollywood-style pontification to the gumrah natives.

There are several compelling moments in the film though. Haider’s thoughtful conversation in a single-shot frame with his mother leaves you shifty; there is a hauntingly surreal scene at the clock tower in Lal Chowk, Srinagar’s focal point. A power-packed dialogue – at once philosophical and abstract -- in which Haider weighs the moral ramifications of living and dying is insanely real. Comparing death to sleep, he talks about the end to suffering and uncertainty it might bring, paraphrasing the iconic Shakespearean adage: To be, or not to be: that is the question.

Curiously the protagonist uses the word chutzpah at key points in Haider. Vishal – or Basharat may be – has smartly inserted the Hebrew word to reflect a double entendre – or a double-edged sword – depending upon how you see it. Chutzpah rhymes with both AFSPA and a common Hindi profanity. Since Kashmir is often likened to a paradox, wedged dangerously between two nuclear-armed nations, the film-maker appears to draw attention to the tomfoolery of it all. Ironically they get it wrong. Chutzpah is pronounced Khutz-pah with K.

The confusion prevails. No pièce de résistance this. A very good film.

@Sameer

PS: You can safely ignore the cynics and morally f*** up Twitter nationalists.

Four boys on a beach

A sea has no roof
whither warning bombs knock

Just fisherfolk digging happiness
upon sands of time

Beaches of Gaza
with no Iron Domes

Only shore-fulls of sea shell
with sea secrets in them

Merging point of waves
and four little boys

Running on spindly legs
after a soft white ball

Upon small smooth pebbles
carried by the tide

Near a stubborn sea
where fishing is a crime

Leaning against sky
toes deep in sand

Whisper whisping
chasing a tattered ball

Birds, like bumble bees
chirruping on their breath

Suddenly a sea storm
and drumfire from hell

Like sea burnt wood
legs bent at odd angles

Pirates drawn by laughter
horridly asphyxiating happiness

The ball and the beach exist
only the boys don't

Sameer


Tribute to Mohammed 9, Ahed 10, Zakaria 10, and Mohammed Bakr 11, the four boys killed on the beach in Gaza on July 16, 2014.

The art work is by Jerusalem-based Amir Schiby who has generously allowed me to use the image.

Twelve hours in Bombay: A photo feature

                                                       (Click on the picture to enlarge)

Café Moshe’s

With its mauve sunshade, Café Moshe’s in Juhu has a snuggled down feel to it. Founded by Moshe Shek, a Bombay-based Jew, in 2004, the café has a distinct European feel to it. With big glass windows, dark furniture, wooden flooring, patio and a high ceiling, you could be forgiven for thinking that you have hopped into a little Parisian coffee shop. The whole bakery smells scrumptious but the thing to die for is Moshe's baked Philadelphia cheesecake. Yes, it is a million calories. It is decadent too but your taste buds will enjoy this sweet orgy. No Jewish conspiracy here.

Menu of the day:
Muffin
Egg to order
Croissant
Pancakes
Toasties
Sandwiches
Beverages (Hot & Cold)

                                                                          ***

 St Joseph’s connection

Aamir Khan and Rahul Gandhi vie for billboard space in South Bombay. While the latter has got nothing but his dimples to fight Modi, the former is weeping copious tears these days on his hit-on-social-conscience show Satyamev Jayate. If you perchance missed the inconspicuous St. Jospeh’s High School sign in the billboard litter, that is the oldest school in Juhu. Founded in 1905, the institution shares its origins with St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School, Baramulla (founded 1905). Both schools have their own churches and graveyards. Faith takes death seriously.

                                                                       ***

Hole in the wall

Bombay has a million hole-in-the wall mini shops. This one sells everything from beedi to cigarettes and betel leaves (Paan) in a tony part of the city. If you wish to make a phone call and do not have a phone, look no further than the quintessential next door cubby hole. You will also get a free tip on how to do a quick jugaad to balance your rickety plastic chair.


                                                                          ***

The very important syndrome

Last summer when I was in London I saw the British PM David Cameroon arrive at the Westminster on a silver and black Scott bicycle. A few days back while driving to work I instantly noticed the G63 AMG Mercedes-Benz in front of me had a unique license plate number: 1. Over here everyone knows that’s the ruler of Dubai. Out of curiosity I changed track and sped up to see who was in the driver’s seat. Indeed it was His Highness, driving all alone. No paraphernalia. The electronic reminder to the hoi polloi in Bombay however said it all: VVIP Visit Today, Traffic Regulated. Inspite of its Kejriwals India’s boorish VIP culture in public governance refuses to go away.

                                                                           ***

Back rubs, anyone

One quick gimmick that marketers have correctly learnt in recent years is that modern life is quite stressful. Working on this knowledge, a plethora of massage centers have sprung up all over Bombay. Like mushrooms. You come across signposts on run-down buses, disfigured walls, tree-trunks and corrugated tin-fences offering relaxing, natural, authentic, Thai, Tantric and a motley other massages. There is a phone number provided. Note: It has a shady ring to it, if you know what I mean.

                                                                          ***

The Don’s den

Amitabh Bachchan is the single biggest cultural export of India. Singlehandedly he epitomises the country’s soft power status. Naturally his home is a shrine to millions. If you are new to Bombay and the cabbie detects that, he will most likely point out the magnificent Bachchan villa on the Juhu Tara Road to you. Called ‘Jalsa’ (roughly meeting/gathering in Urdu but I was told it means fun and pleasure also), the 10,000 sq ft property has attained the status of a Bombay icon. Every Sunday, the guards told me, hundreds of people stand outside the gate to catch a glimpse of their superstar, who makes it a point to step out for a while to wave at the gathering. Now it begins to make sense, Jalsa: gathering. Only Bachchan knows the meaning but one dare not ask him on Twitter. His tweets often come laced with strange numbers and humdrum.

                                                                            ***

Boot polish

There was a time when films with protagonists working as shoe-shiners  were big hits. Raj Kapoor-produced Boot-polish in 1954 won acclaim at Cannes and the Filmfare Awards but the era of 'lived-happily-ever-after'  is over. Frankly the existence of shoe-shiners had lapsed in my mind (blame it on my overseas years) until I stumbled across one. Clad in a loose-fitting collar-less shirt, the shoe-shiner went about his job in the most diligent manner possible, unruffled by the din around him. I thought of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (ex President of Brazil), Alejandro Toledo (former Peruvian President) and Malcolm X (famed human rights activist). All of them had been shoe-shine boys.

                                                                        ***

Pomfret by the beach

You risk the chance of being branded a bummer if you go on the sea shore and come back without having seafood. Perched on the Juhu beach, Mahesh Lunch Home is the most authentic Manglorean seafood eatery in Mumbai. It serves the most delicious crabs, prawn gassi and black promfret curries in town. The USP is home-style food. However if you are into star-gazing (which I am not), you might bump into one of the film-stars. The Kapoors and Bachchans (who live nearby) are regulars. Brightly lit, Mahesh Lunch Home has a relaxed feel and attentive staff. They have something called Clams Kashmir also. I reckon, clams are non-Kosher/non-Halal, though I am not entirely sure.


                                                                           ***

Filmi connection

The Maximum city has a very strong connect with the film industry. Although Mumbai’s train of thought criss-crosses through planet Bollywood, there is little comparison between the teeming masses and the industry's perfumed gaggle. Bollywood is essentially ruled by a gang of two dozen or more people. They are super-rich and comprise of the A-list of actors, producers, musicians, directors et al. Rest are the sub-cast, the also-rans. As a journalist I often get to go and meet up the best film folk. Yes, they smell fragrant and look beautiful and talk in a cultured, clipped manner but you don’t have to even look hard to detect that there is no soul in this enchanted world. Glamour, I daresay, is spurious.
Never meet your heroes, guys.

Sameer

An ode to 2013

As December limps its way to oblivion, the timber of our deeds doesn’t smell all that great. The year has been a mixed bag. Just two months into the new year India hanged Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri prisoner languishing in Delhi’s notorious Tihar jail for 12 long years thereby satisfying the collective conscience of the nation, variously defined by sociologists as a massive bout of jingoistic orgy. Many thought the incumbent Congress government took the surprising step to dent the BJP’s blood baying calls and reap electoral gains in the run up to elections. While it did perhaps subside the Hindu right wing’s din of ‘Kill him, Kill him’, the electoral benefits that the ruling dispensation were seeking didn’t come. In fact the Congress party got reduced to rubble, mostly because of their own incompetence. The dead can jinx you from inside the tomb. Can’t they?

Come summer, Afzal was conveniently forgotten and it was time for music. There were heated arguments and much commentary on whether Kashmir was ready for an orchestra when the issue of mass graves and other serious matters like AFSPA were still unresolved. However Messrs Omar Abdullah and his golfer-turned-gobar-gas-minister-turned-Beethoven-lover dad Dr Farooq would have none of it. Along with a rather obdurate German ambassador Michael Steiner, displaying amazing skills of diplomatic over-reach, the concert was made possible on the same day the CRPF killed four people in Shopian. Zubin Mehta later sheepishly told a TV channel that he was sorry that people felt agitated because some of them were not allowed into the Shalimar garden. Next time, he vowed, it will be in a stadium and ‘mufat, mufat’ (Free, free) for all. No one told poor Zubin uncle that we didn’t bury a hundred thousand people to gate-crash at his concert ‘mufat’.

As autumn leaves began to fall, in strode Narendra Modi, the Hindu Hriday Samrath, grey beard perfectly clipped, hair transplanted and waxed in a halo, neat enough to hide a little pogrom in it. Looking keen in rimless glasses that his spin doctors insist he should wear at all times to give him that educated look, which he badly lacks, Modi set the cat among the pigeons with his talk on article 370. This singular article in the constitution of India has been a tiny mousetrap taken out every now and then by politicians to scare poor Kashmiris. It followed that regular hum on how important the statute is and all that jazz. In reality, notwithstanding the history of Article 370’s socio-economic utility, it has been politically defanged and reduced to a paper tiger. Modi was merely stringing the ruling establishment in J&K, as he has become wont to these days wherever he goes, and not surprisingly everyone took the bait.

Winter exposed our dark secrets. The high-profile chairman of the J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examinations turned out to be a garden-variety thug. The darling of the ruling cabal was given so many extensions, despite early-warning signals of his corrupt reputation, that he though it is fair game to sell the all-important common entrance test (CET) papers to the highest bidder. In the process he is reported to have offered some lower rung exam papers for a deg of 10kg fish gifted to him. God knows how many bush-league doctors and engineers must have trained, thanks to the corpulent Peer. Let's hope when he is old and out of jail, one of those terrible doctors treats him for greed.

Kashmiri firms also continued to do us proud in an infamous way. Someone discovered that our ‘world-famous’ spices were, well, ‘impure’, saddening a whole lot of Wazwan lovers from Anantnag to Uri. Carrying the motto of ‘Honest Spice’ and being awarded the Prime Minister's MSME Award for Excellence in 2009 didn’t deter the local firm from using colouring agents like Carmoisine and Tartrazine that can cause cancer, according to the Srinagar Municipal Corporation. Even our milk, that essential nutrient of life, we learnt, was substandard, misbranded and unsafe. The packaged milk, marketed as ‘Purity of Kashmir’ contained washing powder in it. With Jewish conspiracy safely ruled out, it looked like a clear case of Et Tu Brutus.

For much of 2013 poor boy Geelani was incarcerated in his Hyperpora house. The alibi given by the government was the age-old communist era trope: His release will incite violence. In the end they did let him out and boy, what a showstopper this 80-something man is. Mobbed and showered with flowers everywhere he went, people clambered upon walls to hear him speak, greatly embarrassing Omar and his viziers, who thought the only and the most effectively democratic way to fight this ailing, feeble man was to do what they are best at: Lock him up again. Lo and behold, Geelani was promptly house-arrested again. Democracy was saved again in 2013.

At the onset of 2014, the food we eat is adulterated, the milk we drink is contaminated and the air we breathe is still unfree. The only beautiful bit is the snowfall on New Year’s eve. The poetry of the earth, they say, is never dead.

Happy New Year, folks.

© Sameer

 
Follow @sameerft

Picture credits: Aehsan

On the wine route

When you step out of the quaint Larnaka International airport, the first sight you catch is that of deep blue seas meeting the bright sandy beaches under an incomparably brilliant sky. Heading out of the city towards Limassol (Lemesos to the locals), you first chance across the enchanting little village of Lefkara. Like Lenonardo Da Vinci, five centuries ago, you can’t help feel seduced by the exquisite handmade lace they make in Lefkara. It is hard not to buy some. Back in your car (and Cyprus is a place best explored by car) you marvel at the extraordinary landscape of the Mediterranean island, reminiscent of Plato’s God geometrizing: Low hills, almost perfect cones with leveled tops, valleys tapestried with fat tailed sheep, plots of verdure and a strange mixture of flavours – Biblical, Anatolian and Greek.

                                                         Wild mouflon, Cyprus

By lunchtime I was in Limassol, one of the most beautiful beach resorts positioned on the southern coast of the lush island. It only gladdened my heart that my accommodation -- Hotel Four Seasons -- was perched right on the gorgeous Amathus beach and for some highfalutin reason my room opened to the Mediterranean Sea. The pathway of the famous beachfront, also known as the Cypriot Riviera, was visible from the balcony. Stretching for more than 10 miles, the beach is mottled with some of the most interesting cultural attractions in Europe. After a quick mental math, I decided to spend as little time in my room -- no matter how vainglorious it made me feel -- as possible.

                                                  Four Seasons Hotel, Cyprus

Limassol has a population of less than 200,000. Stepping out on a pleasant November evening, I walked for more than seven miles until I got to the old town. The rhythm of life slows down here and suddenly you feel there is time for another cup of coffee, which you never find in London or Dubai. A mix of old and contemporary restaurants and pubs dot the marketplace. Cypriots love their Keo, a popular light straw-colored lager. Diners sat in the open air to nibble on their meze, small plates of flame-grilled, delicately spiced meats, and amazing cheese including halloumi (semi-hard, unripened brined cheese made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk). I had an ofto kleftiko, which is a Cypriot specialty, foil-wrapped lamb, baked with secret herbs in a sealed oven. Nearby a musician in blue suit strummed his Spanish guitar. A few domestic cats wagged their tails as mellifluous music flowed. 

                                                                Cat country

There are cats everywhere you look in Cyprus. Legend has it, and this a very well-versed Cypriot woman told me, that St Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine the Great imported hundreds of cats to Cyprus in the fourth century to rid her monastery (Monastery of St Nicholas) and the country of snakes that had infested it. Looks like the feline experiment was a success. The monastery – with lots of cats in it -- exists to the day. Cypriot cats were later immortalized by the Greek Nobel Laureate, Giorgos Seferis, in his poem The Cats of St Nicholas. I saw cats in solids and smokes, torties, patched tabbies, orange, marmalade and ginger colors. Cyprus is an island of cats and crystal clear waters.

It is also the land of fine wines with a tradition in wine-making that goes back centuries. Cyprus grows two main grape varieties – Mavro and Xynisteri – which are combined to produce the highly acclaimed sweet Commandaria, one of the world’s finest wines. I criss-crossed the piddly, idyllic Commadaria villages on the famous Cyprus wine route. The driver pulled over at some spots along the rolling hills covered with amazing vineyards that are harvested as early as July. By law Commandaria is aged for two years in oak barrels because of its distinction as the world’s oldest named wine still in production. Locals told me that an Ottoman sultan invaded the island just to acquire Commandaria.

                                                         
                                                        Commadaria wine route

There are around fourteen villages on the ancient Commadaria wine route dating back to 1192 AD. (Around the same time when the third Crusade ended with Richard I of England and Saladin agreeing to terms for pilgrims visiting Jerusalem). I drove along the route from Limassol to Pafos to the Kolossi castle. Constructed in the 13^th century, the fort is the only extant fortification belonging to the Frankish period. The impressive, square building, comprising of three floors was built by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitallers) as the seat of the Supreme military commandment (Grande Commanderie). The castle was briefly occupied by Knights Templars, the most wealthy and powerful of the Western Christian military orders and the most skilled fighting units during the Crusades. The castle was later destroyed during the raids of the Mameluke tribes in 1525-26.

                                                              Kolossi castle

From Kolossi we stepped on gas to plantations where oranges, lemons and kiwi fruit grew. Cypriot farmers grow their citrus trees in long orderly lines protected by avenues of eucalyptus and fir. On higher ground where there is no shelter, the grapes on the vines are burnt brown by the sun. Limassol is surrounded by an abundance of citrus plantations filled with lemon, orange and grapefruit trees. I could smell the orange fragrance in the car long after we moved on. In the evening I walked on the beach, alone, for long hours after the sun was swallowed by the Mediterranean Sea, at a place where the waters first turned crimson and then a deep shade of scarlet. It is no secret that Cypriot beaches are not only beautiful; they are certified as among the cleanest in the world.

                                                     
                                                            Sundown, Limassol

From the pine clad Troodos Mountains, where wild mouflons roam and cedars grow to the gem-like churches competing with stunning Byzantine frescoes, Cyprus has a sun-kissed spirit that is truly out of the ordinary.

Watch this space for more wanderings through the lovely land.

Sameer

London: Where the pulse of Europe erupts

Travel blog Part 1

I arrived to a cold Heathrow afternoon. Not sure if one must call it pure indolence or plain carelessness, which has become my hallmark now, I forgot to pack anything warm for my British sojourn. Not surprisingly the hair on my arm stood up as soon as I exited the airport’s air-conditioning environs into a chilly day in London. In the parking lot, while my notoriously carefree cousin revved up the engine of his subcompact Volkswagen Golf, the English poet laureate Betjeman’s words swirled in my head: And marbled clouds go scudding by/The many-steepled London sky. And here I was: Poorly clad but eyes wide open in the city of dreams.

                                       
                                         Welcome to London

I stayed in the London Borough of Southwark, very close to River Thames. It forms part of Inner London and falls under zone 1, which is the central zone where travel on an Underground is typically more expensive than journey of similar length in other parts of the city. The aesthetically beautiful historic core of London and several major attractions like the Westminster, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, British Museum etc fall in this zone. I, however, had a completely different reason to feel elated. My stay was close to a treasure trove: Bankside, London. Running from east of the Blackfriars Bridge to just a little distance before the London Bridge, it is a cultural minefield.

                                          Blackfriars Bridge

Although a well-to-do friend who lives in the posh St John’s Wood – nearest Underground stations are St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage --- calls Borough ‘a rough neighbourhood’, I must say that I feel quite at home near the Thames. I like it in the bustle. How does it matter to me if Sir Richard Branson and Imran Khan have quiet homes in St John’s Wood? Southwark is vibrant. It has a rich literary tradition with many novelists like Charles Dickens making it a setting for their works. The site of The Tabard inn (featured in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), The White Hart inn and The George Inn (which still survives) are all located in Southwark.

                                       
                                          The George Inn, London, UK

Borough’s market is a gourmet’s heaven. As one of the oldest food markets in London, the wholesale market opens at 2am in the morning and closes at 8am. The retail market then opens at 11am and closes at 5pm. I got chatty with some local shopkeepers and gleaned a few interesting details. The present day market, an avuncular gentleman told me, was originally located near the London Bridge before it moved to the Southwark Street and Borough High Street just south of Southwark Cathedral. The market has been in existence since 1014. A thousand years later hawkers still sell fresh fruit, organic vegetables, artisan cheese, meat, game, freshly baked bread and pastries. I think Northfield Farm is the best for rare-breed meat, Furness for fish and game, Elsey & Bent for fruit and veg, and Flour Power City Bakery for organic loaves.  Curiously a magic scene in the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was shot near a fruit shop in the market some years ago. I bought two real pears and ate them by the Thames.

                                                     A shoppe in Borough market

A few streets from my cousin’s home in Isaac Way is the Red Cross Way. From a distance it appears like a Kashmiri astaan with a million threads and ribbons in multiple colours tied to its gate but as you go closer and peek inside you are met with the strangest of sights. The Cross Bones is an ancient burial ground that was once used as a graveyard for prostitutes. During those days sex workers were called Winchester Geese locally because they were licensed by the Bishop of Winchester to work outside the jurisdiction of the City of London. By 1769, the homeless, paupers and those on the margins of the society began to be buried at the site. The practice was stopped in 1853. Cross Bones graveyard has now assumed a mystical importance and when it is evening tide -- on the 23rd of each month -- a small group of people come and hold a vigil. It is London’s tribute to its outcast dead.

                                            Cross Bones graveyard, Borough, London 

David Bailey, one of England’s best photographers, once remarked, if you're curious, London's an amazing place. Watch this space.

Sameer

Orgasmic at 19,000 feet

The unthinkable has just happened. Bayerisches Staatsorchester, or the Bavarian State Orchestra, has performed at the Shalimar gardens. The Orchestra was founded in 1523, almost a century before Nur-ud-din Mohammad Salim, known by his imperial name Jahangir, got the Mughal gardens made around 1620. It was iconic in a sense.

There was music. And turbulence.

Since last night both Ali Sagar and Akbar Lone, two of the special attendees who sat in the immediate rows behind their boss Omar Abdullah and Ambassador Steiner of Germany, are strung out. Reliable sources reveal that Sagar had difficulty sleeping at night in Khanyar and kept asking why Zubin Sahib didn’t sing a single song. Akbar Lone, meanwhile, was heard asking if the maestro would be interested in selling his conducting baton (Khabar haz kaeh di yi tuj). Known to conduct the state assembly in a polite fashion, who knows what a yawning Lone had in mind!

So here we had an acclaimed group from Munich, the musicians of which have been conducted by the great Mozart in the past, playing their brass, woodwind and percussion instruments under the mighty Chinars by the Dal. The ingredients were all there: A world-class ensemble. A posh crowd in attendance. Zubin Mehta, the great maestro, himself. And the famed Dal backdrop. Yash Chopra would have given up his entire stake in the Yash Raj Studios to be here.

It seems that the initial hullabaloo over the concert and how it would give out a wrong image of the Kashmir conflict to the world was quickly overshadowed by melody. This was it: Peace, clean and perfumed, like Gul Panag and Dr Farooq –- the dimpled-mademoiselle from Bollywood and the original disco-dancer from Gupkar. What does Geelani, that sour old man who refuses to shut his mouth even in house-arrest, know about the beauty of Beethoven? Pray, what?

Omar, the local emperor, looked classy in his ultramarine Khan dress. Ever since GQ put him on their cover, he has fallen in love with himself. So his hair is now silver-muted and the eyewear is chic. With the silk handkerchief firmly in the upper pocket of his Raghavendra Rathore Nehru jacket, he threw open the show with a soliloquy on 'new tomorrow'. (There is curfew in large parts of South Kashmir today)

Since no Bombay film is congruous without a villain, so the first set of baddies emerged from among the audiences itself. Most of Omar’s cabinet was caught gaping as if they were brought before a grumpy judge on charges of contempt of the court. Most of the attendees wore an expression that looked like a cross between listlessness and comatose. Whether the list of invitees mistakenly went to the cucumber growers association of J&K remains to be seen?

Oh and there was the dandy crowd from Delhi and Bombay too. They had been airlifted to the valley and included bored rich wives of industrialists in Jacques O sunglasses and second cousins of noted bureaucrats. The top brass of the army and police were also present. It was indeed a sight: Beethoven for the Bourgeoisie, of the Bourgeoisie and by the Bourgeoisie.

May be the highly anticipated peace concert was incomplete without Zubin uncle’s magical revelation, which has become a fashion statement now: I am a Kashmiri. Indeed. So is Rahul Gandhi and Nawaz Sharif. Nehru too was a Kashmiri. SRK too. Heck, everyone is a Kashmiri, even Deve Gowda and Ambassador Steiner. I’m sure Mustafa Kamal, who looked like he was water-boarded at the concert, must expect us to thank Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah for Article 370, which says that only state subjects can own land in Kashmir. Imagine if Mukesh Ambani’s wife, in her super-expensive gown, suddenly decided to be a Kashmiri.

Musicality of the Germans and Zubin’s conducting brilliance apart, there is a reason why so many ordinary Kashmiris voiced their opposition to Beethoven and Wagner in Srinagar. The simple fact is that when the state guns down a few Kashmiris in the afternoon, isn’t it a trifle insensitive for Dr Farooq and the crowd to tap their feet a few hours later? Notes of Haydn and Tchaikovsky in Srinagar cannot cloak the wailing of a mother in Shopian. Can it?

Excuse us for the impertinence of holding a parallel event. It was but a tiny attempt to tell the emperor that he has no clothes on. Give us Zarif Ahmed Zarif and ZGM slouched on grass at the Municipal Park any day over the fake pheran of Bollywood's dimpled-mademoiselle in Shalimar.

© Sameer

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Guardian of language

The poet Seamus Heaney is dead. Globally known for the lyrical beauty and ethical depth of his words, the affable Irish hopped gentle into that goodnight, this week. The thing with writers and poets and people of literature is that they effortlessly place their beautiful voices deep inside our heads without our knowledge sometimes, leading us to mistake those thoughts as our own. Such intricately beatific relationships often last till the end of time.

Posterity will remember Seamus and his works. My children and their children and people a hundred years hence will read his poems, which are always full of finds. Seamus’ poems on peat bogs, an emblematic feature of the Irish conflict, shall stay etched on the canvas of time. His writings about the Irish violence included elegies for people who perished in the conflict. As they say art cannot ensconce itself in the attic if your roof is on fire.

However the real beauty of Seamus came out most vividly in his recollection of the Irish landscape and his boyhood days in the countryside full of farms and small towns, where things were old-world, nice and sunny; where Protestants and Catholics got along well before the world turned upside down and bombings began.

Often hailed as the most important Irish poet since Yeats, Seamus remained a country boy at heart, yearning for that pastoral simplicity. The author of such gems like 'Digging,' 'Mid-term Break' he was linguistically dazzling but minus any affectation. At the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm in 1995, Seamus walked gingerly onto the stage and recited this lovely stanza:

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

I hope there is oodles of honey in the celestial jars of paradise.

Godspeed, Seamus.

Seamus Heaney
April 13, 1939 – August 30, 2013
Poet. Playwright. Nobel laureate

Sameer

Gool's blood

Ramadan is a particularly reflective time for Muslims around the globe. For more than 1.6 billion faithful it holds a deep spiritual dimension of compassion, consideration, forgiveness and obedience to the wishes of God. Kashmir is no different. It is atonement time in the valley also. When I was young, I remember vividly naats and daroods reverberating from the mosques around the Ramadan time. There was a beautiful melancholy and meaning to it -- simple folks, singing hymns to God at dawn.

So last night in a tiny nondescript hilly village called Gool in J&K there was some unpropitious exchange between the villagers and Indian soldiers. Media reports suggest that the BSF men objected to late night buzz around the mosque and roughed up the local Imam. Nothing much. Various monstrosities, from regular army to irregular task forces, have beaten up scores of Imams and devotees during those tough militancy years. This was surely no exception.

However the poor people of Gool decided to protest this bullying, these random acts of putting the locals through wringer and interfering in their religious duties. While they sure didn’t have Article 25 in the Constitution of India on their mind, which says that all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess and practise their religion, people nonetheless gathered to vent out their grievances.

We already know what happened next. The BSF went on rampage and a massacre unfolded. Innocent, unarmed and fasting village folk were mowed down by the foot soldiers of the world’s largest democracy. There are conflicting reports of eight to nine people dead. More than 42 people are injured. Why, one ponders, this excessive use of force? Why this mad bloodbath on hapless, simple, religious people? Is democracy a vampire that must drink blood to get an orgasm?

Oh, and there may be probes. By a retired or serving justice. That is a given. Shinde, India’s smiling home minister, may have already ordered one. God knows in the last 25 years not one man in uniform was touched by a bargepole. Since public memory is short-lived, by the time it is Eid, the authorities would estimate the people to more or less forget about it. Sad indeed it will be were we to obliterate from mind –- these adversities -- in our quest to justice.

I don’t know why we bother to wait for condemnation from Omar or his dad or Soz or some such. How does it even matter? Within the superstructure of occupation anything is acceptable: A boy plucked from his cowshed and killed in cold blood or an indiscriminate act of shooting on unarmed protestors. When Sonia ji throws an Iftar party with Dr Farooq and his son, Azad and Soz and Mufti and other compradors, falling over each other, sampling doner kebabs, the red sherbet won’t remind them of Gool’s blood. Rest assured.

© Sameer

You are in China

The Chinese are here. They came quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. And there isn’t much you can do once the dragon skates its way into your lair. Newspapers say that they have camping gear with them and that there is little the Indians can do but watch them from a distance. Imagine an entire 14 Corps, who knows, perhaps 40,000 soldiers, forced to watch the ignominy of 30 odd Chinese troopers having baked beans with their little Xuéyuán, or officer cadet, in canned tins.

The politicians in Delhi are clueless. Nineteen kilometers is a long distance. If Kashmir University was where the Chinese are actually supposed to be, then Pampore is where they have gotten. That is Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO). Nineteen frigging kilometers deep into J&K and the netas are busy talking about coal shit. The CBI director, who looks like a broke pahalvan, was doing some abracadabra with TV chaps yesterday. No urgency about the incursion, it appears. Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and good with ketchup.

So as things stand we now have a situation in Kashmir. There is a fourth claimant. It used to be the Indians, Pakistanis and Kashmiris. Looks like the Chinese woke up a bit late to suggest: What about us? Is it going to go four-fold from tripartite? Omar Abdullah, the viscount of Gupkar, wants India to send a clear message to China. Anyhow the security and policy mandarins in Delhi are in no tearing hurry. They whisper, “but it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them.”

Meanwhile at an altitude of 17,000 feet the fellows from PLA have erected a little signage in DBO. “You are in Chinese side,” it reads. Masters of irritating arithmetic, the idea is to provoke the Indians. Kashmiris meanwhile watch keenly, looking at the irony of it all. It must indeed be amusing to see the two creatures, in an eye-ball-to-eyeball situation trying to leave their scent marking and territorial claims on a landmass, which is clearly disputed in the first place.

As Chinese choppers violate the border with impunity and hideous Molosser dogs give some canine company to the PLA, the Indians continue to grow anger beards. There is an old Chinese saying ‘May you live in interesting times’. It appears that these indeed are interesting times, of course with a dash of fuckwittage thrown in!

Sameer

PS: Since Pakistan bashing is flavour of the season, must one reason that jingoism was perhaps manufactured to poison our humanity. 

Barefoot in Bombay

It is Earth Day and I am in Bombay. I have just stepped out of the UTV boss Siddhartha Roy Kapoor’s office after a candid chat with the guy, better known as actress Vidya Balan’s husband. Outside everyone is honking with mad abandon, perhaps in a quaint Mumbaya way to demonstrate a total, tone-deaf support for environmental protection.

Bombay is quirky. Has always been. A small wayward girl, in soiled clothes, is hanging dangerously onto a scooter. The rider, of course, has no knowledge that a naughty child is making a temporary swing of his Bajaj scooter in the traffic jam. A migrant woman, sooty and stout, with a frown on her is stringing a clothesline on the sidewalk, as if it were her personal space. Autowallas ride barefeet. Bombay is fascinatingly free for all.

Karan Johar is sipping his Starbucks Refresher. From the way he is quaffing from the transparent tumbler one feels he is 14 and not 40. There is a mischievous grin in between his slurps. He is silver-tongued and his answers are savvy. His secretary tells me that they have ordered Biryani from some posh place and he would like me to have some. I refuse politely. Biryani, sort of, dulls your nondiscriminatory flair.

**

I flew in to Bombay from Bhopal. It was my fourth flight in two days. The city has a distinct Islamic heritage, notwithstanding the current BJP government. There are old-world minarets and domes everywhere you look. It used to be a state before it was taken by the Union of India in 1949. Till 1929 the Bhopal state was ruled by a series of Begums, the last of whom Jahan Begum Sultan reigned for 25 long years.

The last queen abdicated in favour of her son, Hamidullah Khan, who made a lovely little palace for his daughter atop a hill overlooking the tranquil Lake Bhopal. His girl Begum Abida Sultan called it Noor-us-Saba. It is now a heritage hotel. Amitabh Bachchan was staying in one of its suites. I had a room of my own, overlooking a lush well-manicured garden. Lake Bhopal sparkled if you looked a little ahead. The central cascade courtyard took you back in time to a charming Nawabi evening. I must confess I felt a tad vain.

**

I was a little panicky when I boarded the little ATR 72, a twin-engine turboprop Jet Konnect flight. Never before had I taken one of those mini-flying things, that six-bladed propeller flight which makes a constant buzzing sound. Thirty odd passengers, including some foreigners, took the early morning plane with me. It was an expectedly bumpy, knobby, choppy journey but the excitement to finally interview Amitabh Bachchan, one-on-one, in his vanity van cancelled out my fear.

After he completed his scenes and changed into a Reebok Track Suit in his van, I was ushered in with two caveats. No political questions and please finish it in 15 minutes flat. Only if he likes a journalist or his questions, does Mr Bachchan extend the allotted time given. I was a tad nervous but pretended not to. I clambered onto the luxury van. There he was: Tall, regal and elegant. The Amitabh Bachchan of our childhood. The man himself. Graceful as the willow-bough over the streamlet weeping.

Big B stood up to greet me. He has been in the industry for 45 long years. He is considered an icon. People jostle to get photographed with his wax statute at Madame Tussauds in London. The BBC calls him the greatest star of stage or screen in the millennium. I slumped into a sofa next to him. Shall we start Sir? I said to break the ice. By all means, my boy, he chorused in his legendary baritone voice.

The interview went on for an hour and fifteen minutes. The megastar must have liked me.

**

When I landed in Delhi the previous evening I knew it was going to be a sleepless few nights in India. Consequently my seven-hour stay in the city of djinns was spent awake. Delhi has become a chaotic city of weirdos and perverts where gang rapes are commonplace and loutish behaviour is not uncommon. How did Ghalib’s Dilli become so lowbred, I wondered? Aabid, my alter ego in Delhi, was tied up somewhere. Even in the familiar there can be wonder sometimes, I thought.

**

Three days later, after a grueling schedule, the sight of Dubai’s dazzling city lights from the plane’s windowpane had a tranquilizing effect. It is home, away from home. I’ve perhaps gotten used to its tidiness, the sparkle, the Joie de vivre. The only thing that bothers me is my editor breathing down my neck, demanding the Bollywood stories, one after the other.

Sameer