Violet vipers

COVER STORY

Yusuf spent the morning aimlessly, sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper and talking to chachi jaan. Jaleelah had left for university before he had showered and come down for breakfast and her father had departed after the meal for his morning walk that lasted for most of the morning.

After a quiet lunch, punctuated regularly with chachi’s small talk about his father and mother, Yusuf left the house for a jog wondering why his father had sent him here, and when he could bid his chichi goodbye with an acceptable excuse without offending her.

Yusuf returned to the house late in the evening, sweaty and breathless. Seeing a large Nissan parked plumb in front of the front door, he deduced (correctly) that there were guests in the house and (incorrectly) that his presence would not be required. He made a beeline for his room, wondering whether Jaleelah had returned from university yet.

“Yusuf beta!” he had barely taken a couple of stairs when he had to turn at chachi’s voice. She stood at the kitchen door, clutching a large kettle.

“Ji, chachi?” Chachi was the only person in Makan taintees who was just like she had been ten years ago; generally quiet, easily excitable, rotund, fair and nervous.

“Beta, I need your help.”

Yusuf came towards her, took the kettle from her hands and entered the kitchen uninvited. “Hukum?”

The kitchen was stuffy with large, looming shelves filled with masalas and cutlery and piles upon piles of plastic bowls and boxes. Placing the kettle on the large round table that stood in the middle of the room, he turned to Chachi with a smile. “What can I cook for you?”

“Cook?” Chachi had blinked. “No, no. Not cooking, beta. It’s something else.” She picked up the kettle from where he had placed it and deftly poured the tea into a pair of teacups set out on a dainty little silver tray. “Jaleelah isn’t home yet.” She said when she had finished pouring it. “After you hand this tea to your chacha in the drawing room, could you go look for her?”

Yusuf picked up the tea tray hesitantly. “Chachi jaan, I’ll go gladly but I don’t where to look.”

“Arey, beta. I know where she is. I just need somebody to go there and drag her back home by her braid.” Yusuf couldn’t imagine anybody dragging the young woman he had met in the morning by her braid. “She’s at that magazine thing, you see. Just take a taxi and tell them to go to the Awaz office.”

Nodding, he withdrew from the kitchen with the pretty little tray in his hands, leaving chachi to fidget some more with the now empty kettle.

After knocking lightly on the door, he entered the drawing room to find chacha jaan sitting on the divan, hands folded on chest, an unnaturally wide grin on his face.

In front of chacha jaan sat a tall, dark, uniformed man with a handlebar moustache on the large lime green sofa, looking very pleased with himself. Yusuf faltered. The uniform was easily recognizable. He had seen it in dozens of photos throughout his life. Chacha’s guest was an officer of the Indian army.

“Yusuf beta!” for some unfathomable reason, chacha jaan had not liked Yusuf’s entering the room. “Why did you bother? I was about to come out for the tea myself!”

“Not a problem, chacha jaan.” Yusuf had smiled a tight-lipped smile, placing the tea tray on the coffee table between the military man and his uncle, the latter half-standing in welcome. “How much sugar?”

“Major sahib takes half a spoon.” His uncle told him, cast an anxious glace the other man’s way. “Only when he is at my house. Very diet conscious.”

“How much sugar for you, uncle?”

For the first time in his two days at Chinkral, Yusuf felt a sting of the revulsion his father had been harbouring for chacha jaan for the past ten years.

“I won’t take sugar, beta,” chacha jaan realized Yusuf did not intend to serve tea to the Army major and chacha jaan was the last person in the room to realize that. The major had been the first.

Yusuf placed the sugar-free teacup near the divan, which his uncle had abandoned to scuttle round the table to the tea-tray. As Yusuf sat down on a smaller sofa near the door, his uncle mixed a carefully measured half-teaspoon of sugar into the second teacup and handed it to his Major sahib.

“That is my nephew, Major sahib.” Chacha jaan told the major.

“Your elder brother’s son?” Major sahib took a deep drink from the cup before asking. “I thought you weren’t on talking terms.”

“No, no, sir. My brother was never as – eh – practical as me, you know.” Chacha jaan took a jumpy little sip of tea. “Bss, Yusuf’s mother – fairly recently – died and my wife asked my brother to send him here, change of environment, you see. Women, you know.”

The major smiled at Yusuf.

“What do you do, Yusuf sahib?”

“He writes.” Chacha jaan had answered. “Children can be so emotional, amiright? Hah! Hah!”

“Pardon me, Yusuf sahib.” The major stood up, the serene smile still on his face, still not reaching his eyes. “I never did introduce myself properly. I’m Major Amit Khatri, of the Rashtriya Rifles. And you are?”

With a visible jolt, Yusuf remembered where he had seen the major before. On that fateful night ten years ago when he had been a lieutenant … when nobody had been repulsed by chacha Jaan. It appeared, like all the other things that had happened in Makan Taintees that night, the Indian soldier had also remained there ever since.

Upon realizing that it was now expected of him to introduce himself, he inclined his head and – upon a dark glower from his uncle – stood up, too. “Yusuf Shaheer Malik.”

“Yusuf Shaheer Malik?!” the Major’s eyebrows travelled into a hairy forehead. “Your nephew, Taheer Sahib, is Yusuf Shaheer Malik from Islamabad?!”

Chacha jaan let out a titter that sounded too much like a choke. “He doesn’t write here, major sahib! You have nothing to worry!”

“Worry!” Major sahib echoed, crossing the room to grab Yusuf by the shoulder familiarly. “Arey! No worries! I cannot believe I am finally meeting Mister Yusuf Shaheer Malik in person!”

Easing his shoulder out of the brown paw’s terse grip that did not match the jovial grin on its owner’s face, Yusuf tried to smile and failed. “Do you know me?”

“What? Do you think I am uncultured or a biased reader?!” the hand snaked back onto his arm; the grip harder than before. “I have read every single one of your articles, jan-nab.”

“I don’t write articles.” Something hard crept into Yusuf’s voice as he tried to free his shoulder from the vice-like grip and failed. Major Khatri’s eyes glittered dangerously and his smile broadened.

“Don’t be afraid, Yusuf sahib. Fear is acceptable only in old men and cowards.” (a half-glance out of the corner of his eyes at Yusuf’s uncle, who was sitting hunched over his tea on the divan, determinedly ignoring their conversation) “Write at your pleasure in Kashmir just like you did in Islamabad.” The hand released his shoulder and clapped his back. “Someday, I’ll take you to my office, introduce you to some colleagues. We’ll all give you the Lal Salam, Yusuf Sahib.”

Yusuf took a step backwards.

“Whenever you summon me, I’ll be at your office, Khatri sahib.” The major’s eyes narrowed at the mode of address. “For now, you must excuse me. I hope you enjoy the tea. My chachi jaan is a wonderful cook.”

“I am well-aware of that. Ten years is long enough time to judge a woman’s expertise at making tea, you know, Yusuf Sahib.” The sentence had followed Yusuf out of the room before he could bang the door shut behind him. In the darkness of the entrance hall, he looked at the line of light under the kitchen door and wondered why chachi jaan hadn’t left this house that night, when a drowsy Yusuf had been bundled out of this very front door between two fuming parents.

Buzdil. His father had turned the word over and over in his mouth, feeling it become sharp and spiky, before hurling it at his younger brother. Then he had left Makan Taintees, Gali number Sola, Chinkral Mohalla, Srinagar to never return.

Chapter 2

Lost Fireflies

A man rushed into the room filled with uniformed men, out of breath, his hat askew, the screen of the phone in his hand blinking madly.

“Oye, oye,” he was stopped by a colleague grabbing his arm. “Where to?”

“Major Khatri?” the man said. “Where is he?”

“At the Tin Kashmiri’s house.” A soldier answered. “It’s the only house where we are fed fried chicken with tea.”

The soldiers laughed. “Why? What do you want with the major?”

“Remember, the major gave orders for Yusuf Shaheer Malik to enter Srinagar a day or two ago?”

“What about it?”

“Do you know where that mongrel is staying?”

“Where?” the question was raised by various voices around the room.

“At the Tin Kashmiri’s!” The man shouted. “He’s that bloody doctor’s nephew, ji!”

“Nahi! You mean to tell me that the Yusuf Shaheer Malik who’s been pinching our darling major with his sad little stories for years now,” a delighted clap, “is the nephew of Khatri ji’s favourite ghaddar?”

The man nodded vehemently. “And he could–” the ghost of a smile had started to appear on his face as he realized how needless his worry had been and how enjoyable the whole situation really was. “He could very well be having tea with Yusuf Malik right now.”

His last words were drowned in a storm of raucous laughter.

********

The taxi purred to a stop in front of a shop that could have easily been taken to be abandoned were it not for the yellow lights flickering in one of the upstairs windows.

“Awaz Press, sir.” The driver had muttered.

“Wait here. I’ll be back in 10 minutes.”

Yusuf knocked sharply on the tin shutter of the shop that had been lowered to keep visitors out. After a few moments, he heard footfalls.

“Kon?”

“Yusuf Shaheer Malik.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Kon?!”

“Yusuf Malik. I need to see Jaleelah Taheer.”

The shutter was pulled up by a wiry young man with rimmed glasses and a shock of brown hair. “Yusuf Shaheer Malik!” he had grabbed Yusuf’s hand without warning. “I cannot believe I am finally meeting you! So glad, sir! So glad!”

With great difficulty, Yusuf pulled his hand away and firmly slipping it into the pocket of his jeans, he said to the young man, “please call Jaleelah. I’m in a hurry.” He was in no mood to dig into the reason behind the young man’s unwarranted enthusiasm just then.

“You’ll have to come up to her office, sir. Please,” he had regained some composure by now. “This way,” he gestured.

Inside the shop, he could hear a deep, dull, repetitive thunk that got louder and louder the farther they climbed up the staircase. On the topmost stair, the source came into view; an old-fashioned wooden printing press beside which stood a girl barely older than twenty, pulling the large ligneous lever.

“That’s Sameena,” the young man pointed at the girl, who waved a sweaty wave, and returned her attention to the large lever. “And that is Bertha.” The young man now touched the printing press affectionately. “And this is Awaz.” He picked up a stray copy of a magazine that looked like everything from its font to its paper had been inspired from a 1950’s National Geographic, from the floor and handed it to Yusuf. “Your Awaz. I’ve been to jail four times because of it – you.” A wink. “Thank God, Jaleelah ji has the money to bail me out. Her father’s black money is the best thing about him.”

“Sameer!” a familiar voice called from a room to their left. “Who in the whole world are you talking to now?”

“Your favourite author, Jaleelah baji!” Sameer, the young man beside Yusuf, answered excitedly. “Yusuf Shaheer Malik is here!”

The girl at the printing press gasped and there was a sudden flurry in the office before a head looked out into the room with the printing press.

“Yusuf Shaheer Malik?” It echoed before the attached body came out into the room with the printing press. Another girl, once again looking like she was being dragged by time against her consent into her twenties.

Yusuf, by now sufficiently disoriented and completely unsure as to why his name seemed to have such an odd effect upon the general Kashmiri populace, involuntarily took a step backward.

“Dekhein–” he began and was cut short by Jaleelah following the second girl out into the printing room.

“Kon aaya hei , Sameer?” she demanded, caught sight of her cousin standing with both hands raised defensively near the staircase and a heavy scowl settled on her face.

“Why did you come here?” she said, and the girl who had exited her office a few moments ago, clad in a college uniform with short cropped hair, turned to her before Yusuf could answer, saying, “He came to see us! I can’t believe YSM was here and you weren’t going to tell us!”

“Kher, I don’t blame her.” The girl by the now silent press said with an impish grin. “If I had a cousin this handsome, I’d make him wear a veil outside the house.”

“Not that,” Sameer rolled his eyes. “The security risk, bhai. Can you imagine her brining Yusuf Shaheer Malik to Awaz press in broad daylight?”

To be continued...