My intent in stating this here is that the watals you know are the watals I know too. Their lifestyle, manner, demeanor, and behavior with each other is very different from those of other people and, in the eyes of “respectable” people, is quite contemptible.
When I was young and studying in primary school, one of my class fellows was Jumma Watal’s son Samad Sheikh. I was the monitor in fourth grade, the reason being that the Form Master took special care of me. Every Eid he gave me eight annas as Eidi and on Saed Saeb’s festival, I would get him a dish of cheese and rice. So it was no surprise that he appointed me the monitor. My reign therefore extended over all the children in this class, but my tyranny and oppression were especially directed at Jumma Watal’s son Samad Sheikh.
Samad Sheikh was broad of shoulder and well-built but a real wuss. He was never known to make a noise in class. He was not even known to play with others. He was pale and had big, bulging eyes as hollow as nutshells. It was as though he was watching but not observing; as though the eyes, even if wide open, had a strange shadow cast over them.
It is only now I realize that he was like this because he was the lone student from the watal mohalla and evidently, the first of the boys to attend school with the ashraaf children of the area. Who knows how many generations of pushing and shoving, how many ages of being trampled over and memories of the history of his community lived as dark clouds on the skies of this boy’s mind—a dark cloud that threw lightning bolts of fear and trepidation?
One could suspect that every evening his father would tell him, ‘“Gobra, don’t you ever turn your face away from Gaffar Haji’s son! Look, they are big people. We’re not even good enough to be their servants.” But then again, he would not be speaking in this tone, would he? He would say this with a cuss or two and a smack to go with it. “Kola bastard! Needs a new pair of slippers? Trying to compete with the khoja kids! Living off their crumbs and sitting next to them in competition.” This or probably some similar case was the reason Samad had become so timid. In our childish games, he stood away in a sulk; an outsider, an alien. As a result, he was the only target of my tyranny and oppression.
Child is the biggest tyrant in the world. No Changez or Halaku can compete with the tyranny of a child. When one faces defeat in childish games, the other children tease the loser relentlessly, like an army of crows descending upon a poor owl. Such was the condition of Samad Sheikh among us.
To save himself from my persecution he would bribe me with toys and trinkets. Wherever he had half a paisa, or two, he would save it and keep it for me. One day he got me some tools. He stole them from his father who used these to fix people’s old shoes and sandals and presented them to me. I wonder what I did to those tools, but I do remember this: I took them from Samad Sheikh and ran home during recess to keep them somewhere safe.
Sometimes I would make my way to Jumma Watal’s home to supervise Samad Sheikh. Upon seeing me, Jumma Watal’s and his wife Khorshi’s faces would light up as if the sun had just risen. They would have wanted to prepare tea and kahva for me, but did not dare do that! For what if they feed this ashraf boy at home and later, he goes and tells his parents who are infuriated that he has been defiled and polluted. I would stay at Jumma Watal’s for a bit. Sometimes I would sit at the window, sometimes test Samad Sheikh on his books, and sometimes advise him. Whether I myself knew anything or not was a different matter but Jumma Watal and Khorshi thought I was quite brilliant and rather well-read. Maybe they thought that, “Indeed, providence has made khoja kids most deserving of admiration.”
They had a neighbor called Gulla Doomb. His lunatic daughter would sit on the open road all day and cradle herself singing lullabies. She would talk to herself, “Aapai, bappa! Aapai, bappa!” She would sit there all day, repeating this and salivating. A torn piece of headwear sat on her head—like a lid on a head full of lice—and a black rag of a pheran hung around her neck. And she would sit there muttering nonsense to herself.
Gulla Doomb himself was actually a robber—with his furled mustache, cropped hair, and an admirable piece of flesh on his neck. It is said that soon after nightfall he would oil himself into action, swing his stick, and go out to rob. I was afraid of him. And why would I not be? His moustache stared at me, coiffed like the crest of a duck. It was as if the oil he had rubbed on it at night would still be oozing out in the day. I would never lift my eyes to meet his gaze just in case he took that as an excuse to climb up the walls of our house. His menace was accentuated when he would swagger along on the open road, and Jumma Watal would come close to my ear and very quietly cuss at him. “Scoundrel!” he would say, “who knows when they will hang him?”
The leader of this mohalla was Rajab Hakur Mulla. With his white beard, shaggy brows, and a pleasant smile, he was a jolly old man. Jumma Watal would say he too was a thief back in the day, but not now. Now he had become a dervish. He would quietly cut and file his own nails and eat his rice with greens in bales. These days he had a case in the courts—a dispute with his wife. It was said that he had married recently for the fourth time and his wife was young. On the day the marriage had to be consummated, he had to urgently leave for some village on work. He came back after roaming for six days. As per custom, on the seventh day the girl had to go back to her parents’ house. Now, this would have been the night he entered the bridal chamber but the wife locked the door from the inside and did not open it until the morning. They say that at first he pleaded a lot. Then he scolded and reprimanded her. When she did not budge, he gathered the whole mohalla. In the pitch darkness of the night a panchayat sat in the courtyard and finally came to a decision—the door was to be broken and Rajab Hakur was to be allowed to be with his wife. Hearing of this, the bride screamed from the window saying that as soon as they open the door, she would jump out and kill herself. And so the night was spent. It was only when dawn broke that she opened the door. Biting down her scarf between her teeth, lest it fly off, she ran in one long leap to go to her parents’ house. Rajab Hakur filed a case against her and her father. And to win this case he prayed to God at all five times of the day, weeping and begging for victory.
Aeshim from Musra Taw was another witch in this area. Her job, from morning until night, was to catch chicken-thieves and teach them a lesson by swearing at them. There was no moment and no time when there was not a cuss on her mouth and a foul word on her lips. Armed with a foul mouth, she would, for no apparent rhyme or reason, pick fights and latch on to an argument without letting go.
Ah, one does not always remember childhood stories but whatever little fragments remain, one cannot make sense of or understand them the same way one did as a child. Today in hindsight, I am adding the tinted lens of my maturity to my childhood stories. I add some bits and let others go. However, whatever little sentiment about this watal world remains securely preserved in my mind. And yet, I somehow find it difficult to express what I know in words.
Samad Sheikh did not study for long. Maybe fifth or sixth grade is when he left the school and soon after probably started sweeping the streets. I went on ahead and forgot whatever was in my past—the watal world was left behind. What business did I have with them anyway? If ever I had to walk by the open road, thinking myself an ashraf, I would politely keep my head down and walk forth. And if it so happened that someone greeted me, I would reply of course, but with my head firmly lowered.
My uncle, may God grant him heaven, was a grocer. The mohalla of watals was next door to his store. He would loan them supplies for up to a month. Then at the end of the month when the accounts were settled, we would know of one or the other watal—who paid and who was bad at keeping his word. That is how I would keep hearing of the watals, here and there, and the more I heard the more my heart filled with disdain.
Anyway, it was 1955 and I was in Jammu. This is the time when my fame as an Urdu short story writer spread beyond Kashmir to Hindustan as well. It was the early days of February and a theme had been growing as a tale in my head. I was happy; happy like the two-souled woman about to give birth with the certainty that her child would be a son. One evening I sat down, and with my pen and paper in bed wrote down the Urdu tale, gadh. But a woman’s delight of giving birth and that too to a son, that I should have experienced, did not transpire. An artist also feels the same way about their creation—they are passionate about what they make and therefore I find no shame in comparing myself to a woman. But I did not feel particularly happy after writing this Urdu tale. In my mind, many other topics had taken the shape of stories. However, they were in Kashmiri and I was worried about writing in it. I wondered, would the Kashmiri language be able to bear the weight of my emotions? This was making me fearful and a bit hopeless, but the tale was ready in my head in Kashmiri.
“Suddenly, Bresta Watul stood up and laid a few slaps on Aeshim’s head with his sandal. And then grabbing on to her mop of hair, dragged her all the way across the room.”As soon as I wrote this sentence, it was as if a door had opened and a flood of memories and childhood emotions from the watal mohalla engulfed me at once.
The whole map was sketched in my mind—Jumma Watal; his wife; their room; the shop at one end of the room; the dark black lamp on the windowsill; and the whole world’s worth of old footwear hanging on the door. I remembered Gulla Doomb’s moustache, and how it shone like the crown of a duck in the day because of the oil he applied on it at night. I remembered Aeshim. I remembered Khorshi, Gulla Doomb’s mad daughter, and also Rajab Hakur. Along with all of them, I recalled my dear uncle too—may he be blessed in the afterlife. It was payday and my uncle had gotten to the committee books to recover his debts.
Bresta Watal did not have any money to purchase a pheran for his daughter.
In the tale, Bresta Watal’s daughter was actually Gulla Doomb’s lunatic daughter as she sat on the end of the open street with torn clothes, and wearing a dirty black pheran rag, naked for the most part. On her head was a torn piece of headwear, as if a lid on a head full of lice. Bresta Watal’s daughter from the tale is an allegory of Jumma Watal’s son Samad Sheikh because from the beginning, his whole personality was in shreds and he had wanted something new and something lasting. That is why Aeshim, his mother in the tale, was making demands and receiving shoe-slaps on her forehead in return.
“You have scarcity only when it comes to us.” She would hide her head behind her arm, “you just want enough for your gambling. Get up! Sabit Tanda has come.”In my head, Sabit Tanda is Bresta Watal’s Johnny Walker, Dilip Kumar, Raj Begum, Amar Shah, Nadim or me. Sabit Tanda is that who in delicate moments of indecision, leads Bresta Watal to gamble and makes him forget the struggles of the world, supplying him with the rush of easy leisure. This sentence and this name are of no real use in this tale.
The whole neighborhood came running. Salam Doomb came. Noor Kamal showed up. Together with the neighborhood’s children and elderly, Khorsi Phyear too came beating her breast.
Brestha Watal’s Aeshim is not Jumma Watal’s wife and Samad Sheikh’s mother. She is the foulmouthed Aeshim from Musr Taw who from morning to night caught and cussed chicken thieves and picked fights for no rhyme or reason. The actual Aeshim and Jumma Watal would never get along, but in the story, I made them man and wife. And Jumma Watal’s wife Khorshi became Khorshi, the fool, who was kind and compassionate.
That is why when Bresta hit Aeshim with his slippers on her head and dragged her by her hair across the whole room, Khorshi the fool of the story came running, beating her breast and crying,
“Hata Brestha, what happened to you? Look what you did—you drew blood! Do you not even have a shred of empathy in you?”
Samad Sheikh’s mother was never modestly clothed. She had a shabby way of putting her breast on display but like a mother she was very kindhearted and generous. That is probably why in the tale she came out beating her breast.
Gula Badmash is the Gulla Doomb from the mohalla.
Gulla Badmash got up, caressing his moustache.
He was probably standing, and from the windowsill dipping his fingers into the lamp and deftly oiling his moustache and twirling it at the same time. Yes, he was probably doing just that.
In childhood, I was afraid of Gulla Doomb’s moustache. Yet, in the story, I really am fond of it. The act of dipping his fingers into the lamp to oil them and rubbing it on his moustache and twirling it—the performance of it gives me such joy, and prompts such laughter, that it is only comparable to the joy the mother gets hearing her first born son’s first broken words.
Noor Kamal said, “But my friend, what is the matter?” He broached the subject tactfully. “Are you going to tell us anything or not? Aeshim, stop crying now.”
This careful questioner was none other than Rajab Hakar Mulla, the same one whose wife did not let him enter the room. For this fight he would be the appropriate mediator, and suitably tactful. At last, what had happened to him? His wife had run away but what was his fault in this? The fault lay with the arrogance that places beauty at the top of all wealth, the same arrogance that made Himal force Nagrai down a bucket of milk to show his tribe. If Rajab Hakar Mulla had to go to the village, he could have gone seven days before or seven days after the day of the marriage. Why did he have to go in these days? When did beauty put up with the fact that love is careless with matters related to it?
When I finally finished writing this tale, I truly felt the happiness of a woman who, after having gone to ten shrines and tied wish threads for children, finally gives birth to them. The Gulla Badmash, Bresta Watul and Asheim, Khorshi and Noor Kamal of this tale have erased all the hatred I had during my childhood—of being ashraf and all the arrogant contempt that came from my uncle owning a grocery store.
These characters are my own kin, and that is why each of their words and each of their acts is tied to an essential part of my being. Their sadness and hopelessness is like the sadness of my own soul.
