An Ode to Kashmir

It was April 2021. I was in Srinagar, Kashmir. She called me home through my dreams as I curled up beneath the makhmal Rezai graciously provided to me by my hosts. Kali spoke to me through the Goddess's body, the fertile valley being the grail. The void had collapsed onto itself, spinning out of control it seemed, as destruction hacked into the remnants of creative wisdom in the once-enlightened valley. There was a rage I felt, a palpable and repressed feminine anger seeping out here and there in wisps like hot geysers – She was baying for blood!

I saw her in an underground cave, towering and growing larger every day. She appeared to me in livid dreams. Her spirit roved, snarling and baring its fangs like a prowling presence on the move. I heard her every day skirting my room. She knew her daughter - from the moment I had touched down in the valley. The conflict rattled her, upsetting her natural cycle of death and rebirth. The void was getting deeper – it could soon suck the light out completely and leave no space for anything! Narratives rose to add to the clamour and din – distracting everyone. She responded with floods and avalanches, earthquakes and unnatural storms, deaths – more bloodshed. The Jhelum had become a channel of endless tears as her body bled on – thirty-four years and counting now since the conflict/ insurgency erupted in the late 1980s. Beneath the glassy calm of the lakes, her energy bristled restlessly in ripples. Where were her devotees? Why were they turning their back on the Mother? When would she get her due?

As it rained outside and the world turned cold; sheets of chill carried with it ‘sighs’ and sometimes her hiss. I remember asking my colleagues, “Can you hear the silencing?” Women don’t speak here. They merely gaze – penetrating into your soul and sharing the silence behind carefully curated and rehearsed hospitality over steaming samovars with sweets and flatbread. “It is very safe here for women Sohini.” They would say. Interestingly, it was the men who articulated a sense of safety for women. Did they think I was asking them if they felt “they kept their women safe?” I don’t know. The silenced and shrinking space for women and their self-expression clawed at me. I was waiting for the women to speak.

“Yaha zyada bolte nahi hain beta. Soch samajhke bolna. Aap aurat ho. Apko log galat samjhenge.” My hostess cautioned me as she took me under her wing. “Koi kisi ka dost nahi yaha. Baki sab Allah jaane.” [Don’t speak much here my child. Think before you speak. People will misunderstand you and judge you. No one is a friend here. The rest only Allah knows.”]

The veil drew me in while I was in Kashmir. It was woven with mistrust, doctored silence and an almost inherited sense of threat. Threat from what? I wondered. I felt it but didn’t know it. I hailed from Bengal after all where the Mother was the matriarch and ruled with a heavy hand. Our women created the sacred hearth space at home which remains the fulcrum of every ritual – mundane or essential. In Kashmir, the veil hid the women – despite their bustling role in homes to keep the warmth and the household running, I sensed their inner flame flickering. The wind still bore harsh memories of fear and predicted tragedies even today in self-fulfilling prophecied cycles. With their strange inner knowing, the women practised fortitude to literally “fortify” and silently guard their homes. But what about Kali and her daughter? Would they let her in?

“Aap bohat cute ho.” My new Kashmiri mother complimented me as I returned from the bathroom, wiping my face and hands in preparation for dinner. I smiled. She gently touched my cheeks with two fingers. “Aap 22 saal ki bhi nahi lagti beta. Yaha ki ladkiyan jaldi badi ho jati hain. Umar yaha jaldi beet jati hain – pata hi nahi chalta.” [“You are very cute. You don’t even look 22 years of age. Here girls grow up early. Age proceeds very fast – faster than you realize.” Feminine wisdom was peeking through, seeking to express. I could sense her reaching out – inviting me into the veiled world the women inhabited. I took a dab of my night cream and put it on her cheek with a smile. “Aap bhi bohat cute ho aunty.” [ “You are very cute too aunty.”]

The younger women, Farhat, Tahira, Gulshan, Mehru, Anu, Zubaida and so many others gradually emerged to welcome me into their worlds over the following weeks and months. Everywhere I went, I sensed their curiosity, the instinctive pull they felt to this wild child of the Dark Goddess from “Bangal”. They observed my darker skin, the essence of jasmine-marigold and sandalwood that I brought with me to mark my presence. I was the tropical child who knew how to weave the rain into sensory memory like lingering impressions of love-making that only women know how to carry in their bodies – fuelling the same through poetry to shape their rich and colourful inner worlds. When we danced together sometimes in private chambers, just for fun – I spotted Kali peeking in through the curtains and flashing a smile. I would wink at her and enjoy my Kashmiri sisters stealing a few moments of non-judgemental fun and frolic. “Didi your moves! Wow!” they would comment. “You should be an actress.” We would double over giggling. Evenings would sometimes be about Zubaida practising her art of mehendi while she hummed her songs from her carefree childhood days. “Aap ki shaadi mein main mehendi laga dungi aapko didi. Aap Bangal mein bulaoge na mujhe?” She looked at me hopefully, her big brown eyes brimming with excitement as she tried to envision what a Bengali wedding would look like. “ Of course!” I responded. [“I will put mehendi on your hands during your wedding didi. You will call me to your wedding in Bangal right?”]. The veil slipped a little from the lives of these girls as they took my hand and came out to play, just a little bit. Beneath the lowered gazes, silent shuffling and bustling chores, my sisters were waking up to their tidal emotions – learning to recognize them and finally reaching out to express connection.

I arrived in Kashmir first time in October 2020. As Devi Durga set out to enter her home in Bengal, I prepared to enter Kashmir. I had wondered what kind of strange new homecoming it would be. It was a strange journey of welcome and departure. My entry into Kashmir was soon marked when in a week’s time, the Mother carried away my amma(grandmother) with her on Bijaya Dashami to the world of eternal love and longing as she(my grandma) would describe. Grandmother-less suddenly, after being mother-less for about 11 years, I found myself tasting tears and snow from the void inside while sitting in Kashmir, the void of the matriarch leaving in order to make space for the emergence of a new one! Interestingly it was the women behind Kashmir’s veil who held the space for me during these days. They became my teachers, counsellors, healers and protectors during this most vulnerable phase of my life. They were the midwives to my transition as a young woman coming onto her own finally! Witnesses to my many silent emotional upheavals, connecting instinctively only like they can – Kashmir’s women taught me to trust the wilderness, conflict and pain inside and practice silence. Experienced for decades now, they had become the Mothering force beckoning me forward on my next phase – my next walk with the Goddesses!