I sat in the dark with all sorts of dark thoughts flooding my mind. I had no idea about the time as it was impossible for me to see the time on my watch in the total darkness that filled the room. I don't know how long it was before the door opened again.. The first thing I noticed was the light outside. Some of it filtered into the room. A soldier walked in, i could not see his face, the thing I observed was that he was another of those tall ones. He put a plate in front of me and left. He didn't say a word and I was also not in a mood to say anything. I was in a state of complete desperation. The torture I had been terrified of , had not taken place, at least so far, nobody had asked me anything, as a matter of fact, nobody had talked to me at all. They had brought me here for questioning, or that is what they said, The whole day had passed and I had not been asked one single question. What then was the purpose of bringing me here? I had been in Kashmir for over a fortnight now, why pick me up on the very day I had been going to meet Anita? Was the army in some kind of a conspiracy with Anita's father? Were they acting on the instructions of that senior officer of theirs? A lot of questions and no answers. Suddenly i thought of the plate in front of me. By now I had become accustomed to the dark so I could see the plate full of rice and there was some gravy on top of the rice, wasn't able to see what it was. By now, my hunger had become uncontrollable. I was unable to control myself. My despair took a back seat and my craving for food overtook everything else. I looked at my hand, which I had not washed since the morning,. I never ate without washing my hands thoroughly, but this OCD of mine took leave of me at that time and i pounced upon the rice.
The moment I put the first handful of rice into my mouth, I realised iit was mutton, not the Kashmiri rogan josh but, what we called, the Punjabi rogan josh, with lots of onions, garlic and tomatoes. The taste hardly mattered, what mattered was that I was having rice for the first time that day. I finished the entire meal in no time. I noticed a glass of water by the side of the plate, I washed my hand with it , using the plate as the washing bowl, which, we Kashmiris, were quite used to.
Now started the night vigil. I had it in my mind, that tortures took place in the night only so now I knew they would come in any time. It had started becoming chilly. After all, autumn was slipping by and winter was about to set in. In Kashmir, the autumn could be quite cold, particularly in the night. I was wearing just a shirt and no sweater. It had promised to be a sunny day so i had not felt the need of wearing anything warm over the shirt. Whether the day, had turned out to be a sunny one or not, it was difficult for me to say, confined as i had been inside the house the whole day, one thing was very clear, for me, it had been dark cloudy day.I had lost the sense of time completely so I have no idea what time the door opened and two men entered. They lifted me up , holding me by the arms.
" Time to go buddy", one of them said, in a surprisingly pleasant tone. Go where, I wondered but I did not ask.
They took me downstairs, out through the main door and then out of the main gate. Where were they taking me? They must be having a secret torture chamber somewhere. That is where I was headed for, This time there was no Jeep but an armoured truck. They bundled me into it , thankfully in the front, I would have found it difficult to get into the back. One of the men sat by my side and the other took the wheels. We drove off, I had no idea where we were going. There were no street lights. I could not make out the route the driver was taking. All I could manage to see were shadows of tall houses on both ides of the road and the shapes of tall popular trees,
Just a few minutes must have passed, when the truck came to a stop. So the inquisition was about to start. We had reached the hellish chamber. This time I was not dragged out, I was asked to get off, that too very politely. I got down, and to my utter surprise, i saw that I was standing right in front of my house. The truck drove off, the men did not even say a good bye, not that I would have wanted them to. I was happy to be home, happy to have been saved the pain I was afraid I would be subjected to. At the same time, the whole thing appeared to be one big mystery. they pick me up in the morning, accusing me being in cohorts with militants, they keep me confined the whole day, do not ask me a single question, and then they bring me back. If this was all they had to do, why do it at all? Why had they taken me away for no reason at all?The conspiracy theory started doing the rounds of my mind again.
I walked up to the main gate, knowing it would be bolted from inside, it always was during the night. It was pitch dark, I could barely see anything. I knew it must be quite late, but it was not possible for me to see what time it was. What would Babi Ji and Amma be thinking? I was sure they must be awake. How could they sleep when their beloved Bittu ji had gone missing and everyone knew what it meant to go missing in Kashmir. One might be in the hands of the militants, or in the clutches of the army, in either case, expecting a return was like looking forward to a miracle.
As I was about to bang at the gate, the sound of a knock would not have reached inside, I noticed that the gate was a little ajar. That was very surprising indeed. How come the gate was open? Maybe, Abdul Sahib must be inside. He would have been with Babu Ji at such a distressful time. I pushed open the gate and walked inside, closing and bolting the gate behind me, as had been my habit since childhood. I looked up at the windows, they were all dark. In any case, the rooms whose windows opened towards the front were all unoccupied. the inmates had long left Kashmir. Babu Ji's room was on the other side, not visible from the gate. The windows of the small baithak were to my left, I was walking past them, but nobody sat there any longer. the windows of the big baithak could not be seen from where I was standing. I climbed up the steps of the verandah, about six of them, very very slowly. Somehow, I didn't want to make any sound. Two doors opened out on to the verandah, one was the main entrance door and the other was one of the two doors of the big baithak. The lights in the room seemed to be on, which meant they were sitting there and hoping I would make a miraculous appearance. I knocked at main door. We had no call bells, never felt the need or nobody really thought of having one. Being a big family, a lot of relatives and friends would keep streaming in the whole day, from morning to evening. If the door had been bolted, one would have to get up every second minute to answer the bell so it was kept open the whole day.
I lifted up my right hand and knocked at the main door. I knocked hard as I was sure everyone would be asleep and it would take some real noise to wake them up. Then I realised, it was not possible for them to sleep, how could they when they must be worried about what had happened to me. My first knock produced no result. I knocked again and the door opened. Khalid was standing in front of me. He gave me big warm smile and a warm hug. We, Kashmiris, are very fond of hugging. We feel love cannot be expressed fully without giving the other person a good tight hug,
" Bittu Ji, Wunkenas kithken, yoota cheer?" ( How come you have come so late) He walked in front of me and l followed him to the living room. Babu Ji and Amma were busy putting morsels of rice into their mouths, they were eating as if nothing had happened. It was a normal everyday scene. How could they be normal, so calm and composed when their Bittu Ji had gone missing?
" Bittu Ji, how come you are here and that too at this time?" It was Babu Ji, with a slight look of surprise on his face but no expression of joy at my return. It appeared I had gone out somewhere in the neighbourhood and I was not expected to come back at that time.
" You were supposed to stay there for the night, why did you come now? Moreover, this is hardly the time to be moving around. You know, it is already past ten and with what the conditions are like, nobody goes out at this time/ Were you not stopped by the police or the army? How did come here ? It is impossible to get a conveyance at this time. Why didn't you stay for the night as planned ?" Babu Ji went on speaking without giving me a chance to speak. His words baffled me. Where was i supposed to stay for the night? Did they know I was at the army camp and had expected me to be kept under detention the whole night? That could not be. In that case, they would have been tense to the core, they would not have been eating so normally and peacefully/ Where was I supposed to have stayed for the night?
" Babu Ji, where do you think I was?' I finally managed to ask.
" At the hotel, of course, with Prakash and Anita." Babu Ji answered. The answer confounded me. How on earth did they assume I was at the hotel? And If they had thought I had really gone to the hotel, what made them think I would not be coming back the same day? As planned, Babu Ji had said. Planned by whom?
"Babu Ji, do you think I was at the hotel?'
" Of course, where else would you be? That is where you had gone" Babu Ji, said in a matter of fact tone.
" And who planned that I would be spending the night there and not coming back today?"
" You did. You have always done what you wanted to. You didn't bother to even ask, you just informed us" A slight note of irritation had crept into Babu JI's voice.
" I informed you? When did I talk to you?" I asked, completely stupefied.
" Why would you talk to us? Why would you even bother? You are so besotted by that Punjabi girl, what is her name, yes, Anita, that you didn't even have the courtesy to inform us that you had reached the hotel. You knew, we would be worried but meeting that girl made you forget us, as if we didn't exist." Babu Ji had started getting a little angry, but why, what had I done?
" If I didn't talk to you, then who told you I would be staying the night at the hotel?"
" Your friend, Prakash, who else? He rang up and told us if we would allow you to stay at the hotel for the night as a sudden curfew had been imposed in the area and it would not be possible for you to come. Couldn't you have talked to us yourself?" Now this was a little too much for me to take. I realised I was still standing. I took off my shoes and sat down beside Amma. She had not said a word so far. Was she also annoyed with me. But no. she put her free hand around my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead.
Clouds seemed to be lifting a little bit but at the same time things were getting curiouser and curiouser. Prakash had rung them up. He had not said a word about my not having reached the hotel. On the contrary, he had told them I would be spending the night at the hotel. No, the clouds had not lifted, they had become thicker and darker.darker. Prakssh knew very well I had not reached the hotel. If he had called, he would have called to find out why I had not come, as promised. Instead, he talked to Babuji and told him a bundle of lies/
. Why would he do that? Why would Prakash tell lies? What reason did he have to do that? When I had not arrived at the hotel as planned, Praksh and Anita would have felt concerned. They would have waited for sometime and the the only thing they would have done was to call me and gind out why I had not come, what had delayed me? After all, they were supposed to be all packed and ready to come to my place. I had told Prakash to check out and wait at the reception. He might have waited till nine but after that he would have taken the only course open to him. He would have rung up my place.
And ring up he did, didn't he? But why didn't he tell Babu Ji about my non appearance at the hotel? Why did he say, I was with him and would be staying for the night? Suddenly, another thought struck me. Prakash knew I was coming to pick them up. I did not turn up. He waited and then rang up my home. What would have been his normal question, what would he have wanted to know? Obviously, he would have asked Babu Ji, why I had not come? Had I left home or not? Why was I held up? These are things he would have wanted to know. But what does he do. He rings up to say that because of a sudden curfew having been clamped down in the area, I would not be able to come home. How did he presume that I had left my home? He had no way of knowing whether I was at home or not, yet he talked to Babu Ji, fully aware of the fact that I had left for the hotel.
" What time did Prakash call?" I asked with impatience.
" Around one, I think, we were having our lunch at that time."
Praksh was expecting me at the hotel at 8.30. He would have waited till 9 or 9.30 and then called but no, he didn't do that. He rang up at 1 and did not say a word about my not having reached the hotel. Something was terribly wrong, terribly terribly wrong.
The moment I put the first handful of rice into my mouth, I realised iit was mutton, not the Kashmiri rogan josh but, what we called, the Punjabi rogan josh, with lots of onions, garlic and tomatoes. The taste hardly mattered, what mattered was that I was having rice for the first time that day. I finished the entire meal in no time. I noticed a glass of water by the side of the plate, I washed my hand with it , using the plate as the washing bowl, which, we Kashmiris, were quite used to.
Now started the night vigil. I had it in my mind, that tortures took place in the night only so now I knew they would come in any time. It had started becoming chilly. After all, autumn was slipping by and winter was about to set in. In Kashmir, the autumn could be quite cold, particularly in the night. I was wearing just a shirt and no sweater. It had promised to be a sunny day so i had not felt the need of wearing anything warm over the shirt. Whether the day, had turned out to be a sunny one or not, it was difficult for me to say, confined as i had been inside the house the whole day, one thing was very clear, for me, it had been dark cloudy day.I had lost the sense of time completely so I have no idea what time the door opened and two men entered. They lifted me up , holding me by the arms.
" Time to go buddy", one of them said, in a surprisingly pleasant tone. Go where, I wondered but I did not ask.
They took me downstairs, out through the main door and then out of the main gate. Where were they taking me? They must be having a secret torture chamber somewhere. That is where I was headed for, This time there was no Jeep but an armoured truck. They bundled me into it , thankfully in the front, I would have found it difficult to get into the back. One of the men sat by my side and the other took the wheels. We drove off, I had no idea where we were going. There were no street lights. I could not make out the route the driver was taking. All I could manage to see were shadows of tall houses on both ides of the road and the shapes of tall popular trees,
Just a few minutes must have passed, when the truck came to a stop. So the inquisition was about to start. We had reached the hellish chamber. This time I was not dragged out, I was asked to get off, that too very politely. I got down, and to my utter surprise, i saw that I was standing right in front of my house. The truck drove off, the men did not even say a good bye, not that I would have wanted them to. I was happy to be home, happy to have been saved the pain I was afraid I would be subjected to. At the same time, the whole thing appeared to be one big mystery. they pick me up in the morning, accusing me being in cohorts with militants, they keep me confined the whole day, do not ask me a single question, and then they bring me back. If this was all they had to do, why do it at all? Why had they taken me away for no reason at all?The conspiracy theory started doing the rounds of my mind again.
I walked up to the main gate, knowing it would be bolted from inside, it always was during the night. It was pitch dark, I could barely see anything. I knew it must be quite late, but it was not possible for me to see what time it was. What would Babi Ji and Amma be thinking? I was sure they must be awake. How could they sleep when their beloved Bittu ji had gone missing and everyone knew what it meant to go missing in Kashmir. One might be in the hands of the militants, or in the clutches of the army, in either case, expecting a return was like looking forward to a miracle.
As I was about to bang at the gate, the sound of a knock would not have reached inside, I noticed that the gate was a little ajar. That was very surprising indeed. How come the gate was open? Maybe, Abdul Sahib must be inside. He would have been with Babu Ji at such a distressful time. I pushed open the gate and walked inside, closing and bolting the gate behind me, as had been my habit since childhood. I looked up at the windows, they were all dark. In any case, the rooms whose windows opened towards the front were all unoccupied. the inmates had long left Kashmir. Babu Ji's room was on the other side, not visible from the gate. The windows of the small baithak were to my left, I was walking past them, but nobody sat there any longer. the windows of the big baithak could not be seen from where I was standing. I climbed up the steps of the verandah, about six of them, very very slowly. Somehow, I didn't want to make any sound. Two doors opened out on to the verandah, one was the main entrance door and the other was one of the two doors of the big baithak. The lights in the room seemed to be on, which meant they were sitting there and hoping I would make a miraculous appearance. I knocked at main door. We had no call bells, never felt the need or nobody really thought of having one. Being a big family, a lot of relatives and friends would keep streaming in the whole day, from morning to evening. If the door had been bolted, one would have to get up every second minute to answer the bell so it was kept open the whole day.
I lifted up my right hand and knocked at the main door. I knocked hard as I was sure everyone would be asleep and it would take some real noise to wake them up. Then I realised, it was not possible for them to sleep, how could they when they must be worried about what had happened to me. My first knock produced no result. I knocked again and the door opened. Khalid was standing in front of me. He gave me big warm smile and a warm hug. We, Kashmiris, are very fond of hugging. We feel love cannot be expressed fully without giving the other person a good tight hug,
" Bittu Ji, Wunkenas kithken, yoota cheer?" ( How come you have come so late) He walked in front of me and l followed him to the living room. Babu Ji and Amma were busy putting morsels of rice into their mouths, they were eating as if nothing had happened. It was a normal everyday scene. How could they be normal, so calm and composed when their Bittu Ji had gone missing?
" Bittu Ji, how come you are here and that too at this time?" It was Babu Ji, with a slight look of surprise on his face but no expression of joy at my return. It appeared I had gone out somewhere in the neighbourhood and I was not expected to come back at that time.
" You were supposed to stay there for the night, why did you come now? Moreover, this is hardly the time to be moving around. You know, it is already past ten and with what the conditions are like, nobody goes out at this time/ Were you not stopped by the police or the army? How did come here ? It is impossible to get a conveyance at this time. Why didn't you stay for the night as planned ?" Babu Ji went on speaking without giving me a chance to speak. His words baffled me. Where was i supposed to stay for the night? Did they know I was at the army camp and had expected me to be kept under detention the whole night? That could not be. In that case, they would have been tense to the core, they would not have been eating so normally and peacefully/ Where was I supposed to have stayed for the night?
" Babu Ji, where do you think I was?' I finally managed to ask.
" At the hotel, of course, with Prakash and Anita." Babu Ji answered. The answer confounded me. How on earth did they assume I was at the hotel? And If they had thought I had really gone to the hotel, what made them think I would not be coming back the same day? As planned, Babu Ji had said. Planned by whom?
"Babu Ji, do you think I was at the hotel?'
" Of course, where else would you be? That is where you had gone" Babu Ji, said in a matter of fact tone.
" And who planned that I would be spending the night there and not coming back today?"
" You did. You have always done what you wanted to. You didn't bother to even ask, you just informed us" A slight note of irritation had crept into Babu JI's voice.
" I informed you? When did I talk to you?" I asked, completely stupefied.
" Why would you talk to us? Why would you even bother? You are so besotted by that Punjabi girl, what is her name, yes, Anita, that you didn't even have the courtesy to inform us that you had reached the hotel. You knew, we would be worried but meeting that girl made you forget us, as if we didn't exist." Babu Ji had started getting a little angry, but why, what had I done?
" If I didn't talk to you, then who told you I would be staying the night at the hotel?"
" Your friend, Prakash, who else? He rang up and told us if we would allow you to stay at the hotel for the night as a sudden curfew had been imposed in the area and it would not be possible for you to come. Couldn't you have talked to us yourself?" Now this was a little too much for me to take. I realised I was still standing. I took off my shoes and sat down beside Amma. She had not said a word so far. Was she also annoyed with me. But no. she put her free hand around my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead.
Clouds seemed to be lifting a little bit but at the same time things were getting curiouser and curiouser. Prakash had rung them up. He had not said a word about my not having reached the hotel. On the contrary, he had told them I would be spending the night at the hotel. No, the clouds had not lifted, they had become thicker and darker.darker. Prakssh knew very well I had not reached the hotel. If he had called, he would have called to find out why I had not come, as promised. Instead, he talked to Babuji and told him a bundle of lies/
. Why would he do that? Why would Prakash tell lies? What reason did he have to do that? When I had not arrived at the hotel as planned, Praksh and Anita would have felt concerned. They would have waited for sometime and the the only thing they would have done was to call me and gind out why I had not come, what had delayed me? After all, they were supposed to be all packed and ready to come to my place. I had told Prakash to check out and wait at the reception. He might have waited till nine but after that he would have taken the only course open to him. He would have rung up my place.
And ring up he did, didn't he? But why didn't he tell Babu Ji about my non appearance at the hotel? Why did he say, I was with him and would be staying for the night? Suddenly, another thought struck me. Prakash knew I was coming to pick them up. I did not turn up. He waited and then rang up my home. What would have been his normal question, what would he have wanted to know? Obviously, he would have asked Babu Ji, why I had not come? Had I left home or not? Why was I held up? These are things he would have wanted to know. But what does he do. He rings up to say that because of a sudden curfew having been clamped down in the area, I would not be able to come home. How did he presume that I had left my home? He had no way of knowing whether I was at home or not, yet he talked to Babu Ji, fully aware of the fact that I had left for the hotel.
" What time did Prakash call?" I asked with impatience.
" Around one, I think, we were having our lunch at that time."
Praksh was expecting me at the hotel at 8.30. He would have waited till 9 or 9.30 and then called but no, he didn't do that. He rang up at 1 and did not say a word about my not having reached the hotel. Something was terribly wrong, terribly terribly wrong.
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