The Kashmiri Girl

 

 

I read a pastoral poetry,

Among hills, of elysian delight;

Light’s incidental rays when

versified moment that,

A little queen burst into view,

Eyes were mesmerized by

that youthful hill girl.

 

Our eyes met for the first time,

Mine from the plains,

Vehicled, wind-screened, speeding,

And hers from the mountains;

Alluring gaiety of hills and pastures,

One which saw so few;

Forests, snow, pastures, goats,

apple orchards, pines, sheep,

And jovial looks of course at

the vehicles bound for the holy cave.

 

The other but fed up with

brain-sauced, levelled up intricacies,

And when they butted upon,

Tensioned smiles surfaced,

Some grudges, some complaints,

Fear, excitement and adventure,

Mine for the fee-faw going on,

Hers for their sufferings.

 

Symbolized it two plates,

The Indian and the Eurasian,

Rubbing into each other,

Earthquakes, landslides, killings;

The tale of two religions,

Two geographies also.

 

She looked coyly,

The deflorating valley hurtled while

a craggy voice around,

Kashmiri girl! Child you were not

to shout for toffee, biscuit from the pilgrims,

Like the small ones doing the same.

 

A long road the yatris travelled,

Mature too you were not,

To snub at the pilgrim’s gifts,

From the jovial 14- or 15-stepped podium,

Thou smiled with full brace;

Nature’s smile, unchecked and pure!

Made then a V-sign with fingers,

Its meaning you may not even know:

A win for which side?

 

O floret! Still it was a welcome,

Also a signal to get some gift

from the pilgrims to the holy cave,

Some returning to the plains,

Perhaps never to return again.

 

Stupefied, I leaned forward,

To accept welcome from the houri,

Crowning the celestial beauty around,

Dollishly you smiled again,

Alas, thou were welcoming

a fleeting acardiac tin box,

Sped off which by your side,

Thy fingers somewhat shaking,

Curling to show dejection,

Under your breath

a deflorating smile surfaced,

It was laced with a sweet request,

The excitement in your beautiful eyes

touched peak as the vehicle crossed over,

That emeraldine face blushed,

I was but the poorest man,

Not to possess anything to offer

to that welcoming symbol of love,

Something strung and awakened the self

like the morning song of birds;

The ditty which the heart

just danced to beatific rhythm,

Turned it now the verse

defective at the beginning,

Yes! Fugitive and guilty—

Escaping with the heartless machine,

While that velvety cord,

Connected which many Twos,

Was on the verge of snapping,

Moving was I with lolling time;

Chhee, a passive journey

from here to the place called home.

 

Past it was becoming from the present,

Dirt cheap celerity was taking a toll,

A few seconds ago

the feminine Goddess smiled like full moon,

Chiding Abba was now turning it demi-lune,

That soft, juicy, jovial, ripening

bird of love and peace was branched alone.

 

In that moment of versification

forgot this mortal to symbolize

its ecstasy in any way,

The distance was increasing now

to the farness of hills from the plains,

Like a misbecomed soul,

I convulsed and turned to look back,

And there you shone like a little star,

Bright enough to make time reflow

by the road and your little hamlet nearby,

Crowning the path like

a milestone reached by someone, somewhere,

Missy, thou as rare as a perfect lunar rainbow!

Me lucky to spot one!

I waved at you,

A gesture of defeat, bliss, apologetic and may more,

Good bye perhaps to that

monticule moonet waving back,

Oh, what purity!

Welcoming and forgiving,

Brisking away the netherworld bursting around.

 

Girl, I looked back till

you turned a faint image

to these eyes,

kept on which hope for the peep-o’-day,

To see the orchid again,

Alas, you but were sheer rarity;

An elusive dreamy appearance,

Which like a fictitious love-tale

painted the heart for a while,

And then you were gone,

For seconds nine or ten

waved when you at the vehicle,

Chiselled in the heart an ogive,

Fade which will not with time,

That small ray emanating

from that montane onyx,

Will always keep travelling

to deep fathoms in my heart.

 

Tears were of course there,

For that smiling forgiveness,

I gave you nothing,

But the novelette poured

such tomes of wordings in my heart;

That wave of hand,

As rattled on the clatter-hearted pilgrim,

Created big tremors inside,

Enough to break the glaciers

crowning the peaks above,

With suffering peals of thunder inside,

Driven was I forward on the gutted path.

 

O girl from the mountains!

You smiled for Kashmir whole,

The smile which was part-coloured;

Anguish, fear, communalism, violence

got mixed in an all-pervading whiteness;

That olive branch to a visitor,

Offering the nature’s indiscriminating boons around,

Negating all that repressing force

subdues which the free-ways of liberated hearts,

You thus appeared a little saint,

Preaching love, compassion and humanity,

Oneness of nature, humanity and God.

 

A pilgrim to the valley,

Aching was isolation:

Not of tough clime and testing terrain,

But of hearts rapidly forgetting love,

Kashmir! The crown of India,

The diadem of culture and history,

With man-nature bonhomie,

And cradled heaven on highest terrain,

The seat for spirituality of the great Lord,

And many legends of religion mine,

Meditations in the snowy peaks,

Vales, glaciers, pastures and clouds,

The cheering spectators for truth’s delight.

 

Now the same peaks isolated,

Bombs and bullets yell macabre,

Only suffering cries reach His door,

From these lofty peaks under His chin

guns rattle and bombs create bloody din,

But for whom?

Ishwar or Allah?

Devastated by such a loss,

Hung midair like legendary Trishanku,

Between two extremes,

Trapped in a paradox,

With numbed senses,

Unable to think and feel,

I crossed your roadside hamlet,

And there you were,

Ready to enliven this dazed puppet

with a gold thread having silver core.

 

That girlish look of eagerness and curiosity,

Excitedly standing on the toes, chin high,

Neck firm like a goddess:

Seemed it a salad-days gyration:

That V-sign,

That smile,

and the wave of hand,

Byeing and good-byeing the visitor,

Hill girl, you stood for the nature around,

Sang a little song of lovely nightingale,

With the scented message that

I am above the things you think,

Waving on the road

you were thus left behind,

Rattled as I along the road,

Knew the authority of ‘moving on’—

‘Accept not welcome such’,

Many uncertainties of the stoppage:

Of Hinduism, Islam and a pilgrim,

Of a Kashmiri Muslim adolescent girl

waving at an Indian Hindu,

And thus helplessly I moved on,

Surrendered to fate and destiny,

Caught in the forces of an orbit,

Mechanised like all the parts

of the vehicle around me,

And then the curve in the orbit

took me out of sight

from that small raylet,

Which was left lost there.

 

A huge nostalgia piling up already:

Tears in my eyes;

Tears for the curved inevitability,

Tears for a glorious spectacle,

which the fate provided to a stranger;

Fear for the turmoiled smoke

ready to engulf her and her tiny hamlet,

And the Ws about her—

What, when, why, where, whom.

 

Moisture in the eyes,

Feeling of pain about the damsel,

Who an instant back

poured nature’s shower upon me,

And with such an open heart!

With such unselfishness!

A gift for the miser from the plains,

The glorious gift of the hill girl,

From the daughter of clouds,

From the sister of serpentine ravines,

From the playmate of wild breeze,

From the princess of that golden silence.

 

O bather in the brooks,

Catcher of early sunrays,

O snowy beauty of winters,

Or the flowery one of springs,

I don’t know whether

I will see you again or not,

But you will always remind that

nature once stood before me,

versified as a slender hill girl,

looked and waved at me,

That nature once let me read her,

Not the chapter usual

of forest, peaks, snow and brooks,

But a new chapter

in her human version,

Where a sweet swifty angel

chanced across me;

That nature from its abditory

produced a juvenile accretion,

With gaiety, mirth, hilarity;

A page from the Elysium epoch,

With words of unqualified love and smile.

 

The rugged topography around

saw a goddess in the ripening face,

Those fishy lips moving to fullness,

Those oval eyes acquiring hazel depth,

That nose eager to snatch female coquetry,

Those cheeks eager to be apple-hued,

That forehead proud to recently hear the call of puberty,

That chin with a naughty twitch,

All these depicted the desire and dreams

of the unconquered nature around,

Earlier it lost its smile

in the generality pervading around,

Mother nature, voice whose

came through birds, brooks and sighing mountain winds,

All these and more realized their worth

around your lips,

Whispered as you some sweet word with a smile,

These ears are most unfortunate,

Not to catch that soft whiff,

Which nature tried to voice.

 

Kashmiri girl!

Mother nature again hid you in its folds,

As suddenly as you appeared,

Lost are you in your small world,

I recollect the sinews now,

Scattered in my soul,

That glimpse sparkled too heavenly,

Melting pains and sparkling ecstasies,

Ever evolving and diversifying,

And me with a birdie hurry

try to relive the same picture again,

Alas, now but I only fail,

Depersonified nature I face now—

Huge mountains, forests, snow

and a large vacant pool of silence,

A wave of pain surfaces from inside,

It goes to the soul’s deep well,

And echoes from that cosmic experience

travel far into the distances.

֍♠֎