Violet vipers

STORY

In the evening, he went for a jog down Chinkral, stopping at Fateh Deen’s to inquire after his gout (the phakki, miraculously, had worked really well) and then pausing near Imam Deen’s taxi to inquire after the state of Srinagar’s curfew.

“They are relaxing it at four every day for an hour, Yusuf Sahib.” Imam Deen had informed him, scratching his chin through a scraggly beard. “Everything is closed otherwise. Nobody is getting out; nobody is going in.”

“Kyun, yaar?” Yusuf had leaned against the car. “Why are they doing this?”

“Why do they ever do this, ji?” Imam Deen had smiled an odd smile. “We’ve been trapped in a burning pot for 69 years. Every now and then, we have to come to a boil so they can stir their big black booted spoons in our pot.”

His jog was very short today because what usually punctuated it; errands for Chachi Jaan, people stopping to praise his articles or Jaleelah’s Awaz; him stopping to ask after various names that had started coming back to him from the shelves he had put them away in 10 years ago, there was none of that today.

Even though there were no big, black, booted spoons of Imam Deen’s in Chinkral, their stirring had seeped into the little Mohalla all the way from the main city.

Upon returning to the house, he found Chacha Jaan standing in the doorway, rubbing his hands, creating an annoying pelch pelch sound that fibbed on the sweat that was covering his palms.

“Yusuf – beta!” the second word had been added as an afterthought. “A jeep is waiting for you at Chinkral bridge. You know where that is?”

He could recall it vaguely from his journey from the airport, he answered.

“Good. You should go there immediately.” Chacha Jaan patted his shoulder and if it hadn’t been for his shifty eyes (or the sweat on his hand that seeped through Yusuf’s thin polo shirt), Yusuf wouldn’t have known he was nervous. “Major Khatri wants to talk to you.”

Overhead, dark, angry clouds had been gathering for some minutes now and by the time Yusuf had reached the bridge, they were raining lightly. He didn’t turn back for an umbrella.

The jeep stood at the edge of the bridge like a large crouched cat waiting for its prey. When Yusuf walked up to it, a uniformed man slid out and held the door to the passenger seat open for him.

He got inside and the driver, uniformed, started the car without a word.

Through the steadily darkening Srinagar they drove in complete silence, Yusuf looking outside, wishing he could see where they were going.

It was when the jeep purred to a stop in front of what looked like an officers’ mess and he got out that he realized their jeep had been joined by three more jeeps at some point on the road. The drivers of the jeeps behind the one he had been riding remained seated and he could see their eyes glinting behind the windscreens.

“Yusuf sahib!” Amit Khatri, dressed in a tight-fitting cotton kameez and jeans, was walking towards him with wide arms and a large, welcoming smile. “How I’ve been dying to see you.”

The two men embraced and Amit led Yusuf off to a stylish little wooden shelter with vines draped around the columns that supported the intricately carved wooden roof.

He sat down on the bench beneath, watching, with growing disquiet, Amit order a young waiter to get them some coffee.

“So!” the major said, settling down beside him and turning around so that he faced Yusuf. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“I heard about the beating.” Amit laid a hand on Yusuf’s shoulder, looking genuinely sorry. “I told the two men off, it won’t happen again, and don’t think we were involved in any way.” He cast a rueful glance at the building of the Officers’ mess. “These bloody sepoys. They don’t know their place.”

Yusuf shrugged.

“I am waiting for your new article, you know, Yusuf sahib.” The major had moved his hand away. “Can’t wait to see what you cook up.”

He gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I can’t wait to see it either, Khatri sahib.”

“You know, Yusuf, you’re not open – frank – like your uncle. This attitude of yours, it’s costly.” The man’s countenance was guileless but there was something inherently wrong with the mechanism of Major Khatri’s face. None of his feelings seemed to touch his sharp, dead eyes.

“I know.” Yusuf shrugged again. “I’ve paid the cost now, what’s the point in changing?”

“The beating?” Amit threw back his head and laughed with candid amusement. His moustache bristled. “That wasn’t the cost. It wasn’t even the prologue of the cost.” The hand had returned to Yusuf’s shoulder. “The cost will come, though, Yusuf. And men like you, men of pens and papers, they can’t pay these costs.”

“Men of pens and papers.” Yusuf repeated the major’s words, pronouncing each one distinctly. “You’re underestimating pens and papers, janab. Don’t you think?”

“Slogans and articles don’t win wars, Yusuf sahib.”

“But they fuel revolutions, don’t they?”

“There is no revolution to fuel here, boy.” The hand’s grip had tightened, the smile on the major’s face had widened.

“The one thing your aimpoints can’t show you, Major Khatri,” Yusuf placed his hand upon the Major’s brown wrist and pulled his hand roughly away from his shoulder. “is the revolution prowling the streets of Srinagar.”

He stood up. “You’re wrong, you know. I know the cost and I know that I must pay it in Lal Salams and vipers and the thing is, Major sahib, that I think I’m not afraid of that anymore.”

Khatri’s dark eyes shone beneath a pair of heavy eyebrows. “Soch liya phir larkey ney?”

“Soch liya phir larkey ney.”

Yusuf strode to the jeep in which the driver still sat, his hands at 10 and two on the steering wheel. Wordlessly, Yusuf got in and wordlessly, the man drove the car to Chinkral bridge. The rain that had been pleasantly light earlier had become a downpour. When Yusuf started to get out of the car, the young soldier who had been driving held out a black raincoat. Yusuf unfolded it. A plain envelope dropped into his lap.

With surprisingly steady hands, he ripped it open and pulled out, as expected, a folded plain white page. He opened it.

“Bhagwaan aap ki rakhsha karey.”

In one swift motion, he crumpled the paper and tossed it into the driver’s face. Without looking at the man to see his reaction, he threw the raincoat onto the floor of the car, got out, slammed the door as hard as he could and started walking down the road into Chinkral.

When Chachi jaan asked him where he’d been, he told her he’d been out hunting violet vipers. She had looked confused, Chacha jaan suspicious. Jaleelah had started, caught his eye then smiled. He had smiled back before returning his attention to the rice in his plate.

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Chapter 5

10 years earlier

The next few days passed pleasantly enough for them. There were times when they would forget entirely that there was a curfew in place at all; the mornings they would spend on the terrace, Jaleelah translating poetry, Yusuf reading the articles that he had oddly started regarding as his own, noons on the kitchen table with the fan whirring above them, the two of them playing Ludo with Chachi jaan or reminiscing about the old days when Yusuf, through the ages two to 13, had arrived promptly every first of June with his parents and had left (been dragged away) on every August twentieth, The nights he spent in his room, always lying in bed, always recalling one memory that sat curled up on the kitchen table every noon and that they all carefully tiptoed around, until sleep came to chase away the furry black memory.