Part
35
Babuji and Amma were waiting at the door of the house. It
was obvious Khalid had told them about my encounter with the army but they
couldn’t have known about the slaps, had they known, Amma would have been
howling. She hugged me; Babuji patted me gently on the back. This was the first
time he had touched me since I had come, this meant a lot.
“Don’t you worry, whenever these people see a new face, they
do ask questions” Amma said, trying to sound as normal as possible. Babuji
didn’t say anything, he looked at me thoughtfully, with a
slight worried expression on his face.
“Come let’s sit in the baithak” ,Babuji said. The drawing
room was referred to as the baithak.”Khalid, get us some tea, will you?” We
walked into the baithak. Babuji occupied
his chair and I sat down on the floor. Babuji was giving me an intense look. I
could still feel a burning sensation on the cheeks. They had hit me so hard
that it was a distinct possibility that the marks of their fingers were
visible. In any case, my face must have looked red. The slaps had not hurt me
physically, I didn’t feel any pain at all but they had wounded and bruised me badly
inside. My ego had been hurt, my self-respect had been shattered. No one had
ever slapped me. Babuji had never ever lifted even a finger to hit me. Amma
had, many a time, stopped Babuji from hitting me. The question of Lalaji or
Bahuji beating me or hitting me just did not arise, they were too scared of
Babuji and Amma to even think of doing anything to hurt me. And now these
insensitive sons of b…..s were the ones
to make me realize what it felt like being physically hit. Anger welled up
inside me. I wished I had hit back, I felt like going out again and beating up
both those bloody soldiers black and blue. They were not soldiers, they were
cowards. Beating up unarmed and innocent people for no reason at all was a
crime. They should be hanged.
“They hit you, didn’t they?” Babuji must have surely guessed
everything from my looks.
“Yes, they slapped me”.
“Bittuji, I had told you this is not a place for you to
stay, I wanted you to leave with Bhaisahab, I knew such an incident would take
place one day or the other and I wanted to save you from all this but you
didn’t listen”.
“Babuji, does that mean this place is not safe and if you
know it is not safe, why didn’t you agree to come with us?”
“We have been living here since the trouble started, we know
what to expect. You have no idea of anything. All this is totally alien to you,
it is natural for you to feel shocked, and you have never known this present
Kashmir before”.
“You agree then that things are not normal here?”
“I never said they were normal, what I said was that we did
not have anything to fear”.
“If you do not have anything to fear, why should I be
afraid, what is different for me?”
‘Bittuji, you are too young to understand all this, this is
not the age for you to face all this”, Babuji was talking to me as if I were a
kid. He seemed to have forgotten that I was in my twenties.
“Aren’t there any young men living in Kashmir or have they
all left?’ I asked in a slightly sarcastic tone.
“You know very well that almost all the Kashmiri Pundits
have left and that includes young men as well” Babuji was getting a little
irritated.
“I am not talking only about Kashmiri Pundits, Babuji. Has the Muslim youth also run away?”
“You are asking too many questions, Bittuji and I don’t have
to answer you. Here comes the tea, it will help you to relax”. Khalid offered
us the tea. I was not particularly keen to have tea but I started sipping
anyway.
“I want know the answers, Babuji, I want to know why a
peaceful Kashmir has turned into a warzone?”
“Why did Punjab turn into a battlefield? Wasn’t Punjab a
peaceful place? You were there and you should know the answers, shouldn’t you?”
“You are trying to change the topic. Punjab was a different
case altogether. You tell me about Kashmir”
“Well, since you are going to be here for some time now, you
will see things for yourself. Whatever I tell you will be my point of view, I
don’t want you to be influenced by my opinion, I want you to see the situation
for yourself and have an independent view of your own” This sounded very
reasonable to me. I also did not want to go by what others thought. The
morning’s incident had taught me something, if not much, it had become clear to
me that the security personnel did not like the Muslims.
“Khalid, when you went to the market in the morning for
buying meat etc, there was no curfew, was there?” Babuji asked.
“No Babuji, at that time everything was normal, people were
moving around freely”
“What must have happened to make them impose the curfew?”
“Babuji, I just met
Hamid Sahab” Abdul Hamid was our next door neighbor and his had been the
only Mulim family in our vicinity. “He
said many people were killed in Lal Chowk. People were taking out a procession
shouting slogans of Aazadi when they were fired upon. Hamid Sahab had no idea
about how many lost their lives but he said the number was quite large. There
is great anger among the people, Babuji” Khalid said, his own voice reflecting
that anger.
“What the hell is wrong with the Indian army and this stupid
government? When will they learn to face the truth? When will the army get to
know that firing on innocent, unarmed people is cruel and inhuman? Why don’t they understand that they are only aggravating
the problem by their mindless acts?” Babuji sounded angry as well as disturbed.
“Babuji, do you favour this demand for Aazadi? Isn’t Kashmir
a part of India?”
‘’No, it isn’t, ”Babuji almost shouted. “When was Kashmir a
part of India? Read history, Bittu and you will come to know the real facts.”
These words of Babuji took me by surprise. I had always considered Kashmir to be
an important state of the country. Why was Babuji saying that Kashmir had never
been a part of India? I was beginning to think that old age had begun to have
its effect on Babuji’s mind. As I was wondering whether Babuji had gone senile,
an army officer walked into the room without even having the courtesy of
announcing himself, at least, by knocking at the door. I had a look at the
lapels on the shoulder of his uniform. He was a captain of the Indian army.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Raj Nath. Is Khalid at home?”
“Hello, captain, why do you want to see Khalid?” It was
obvious that these two had met before. They seemed to be familiar with each
other.
“Khalid broke the curfew rules and he also tried to attack
one of our jawans. We have to take him away for interrogation”.
“What the hell do you think you are doing? Khalid did
nothing of that sort. If anyone has to be arrested, it should be those two Jawans
who beat up my innocent son’’
Babuji had got up
from his chair and he was furious.
“Calm down, Sir, I am only doing my duty. We have
information that Khalid is part of a terrorist group, responsible for the
killing of many Pundits”.
“You are fully aware that what you are saying is a bundle of
lies. What has happened to you people? Have you sold off your soul to the
devil, where is your conscience? Why don’t you simply come to the point and
admit that your job is to eliminate all the Muslims of Kashmir? You have gone
mad and so has your Indian government. You
can arrest me for this statement for being a traitor but I care two hoots. You
can arrest Khalid but over my dead body” .Babuji had now run amuck, even if I
had tried I could not have stopped him.
The selfish man that I was, I could think of only one person
and that was Anita. I had not told Babuji that Anita was going to come to
Srinagar. After what I had seen today and what I was seeing at that time how
would Babuji react to Anita’s coming to this place? For the first time I wished
that Anita would cancel her trip to Srinagar, I did not think of what Khalid
might have to face, it was Anita and only Anita that occupied my mind!
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