CHINAR SHADE : MY POEM : " THE HOUSE THAT WAITED"

(The House That Waited )

For many days the cows stood chained,

Garlands rotting on their necks.¹

Waiting for Gonn-dedh with grass in her arms,²

Waiting for water,

For a voice that knew their names:

Lil.

Goner.

Chooni.

And the calf, Lassa.

The rope slackened.

No one came to cut it.

The marigolds fell to dust.

For many days the birds screamed

for food that never came to the Kaawa-paett.³

They beat the kitchen window

where Kamlashori,

the daughter-in-law,

for thirty years

had put out food at dawn.

The hearth was ash now.

The cups were cold.

The birds broke themselves

against silence.

For many days the dog came

and howled till his throat bled.

He wagged his tail at wood.

At air.

At ghosts.

Hunger drove him away.

He returned.

Habit is crueller than grief.

For many days the cat hunted

the kitchen floor

for bones,

for scraps,

for a hand.

She slipped through the broken window.

Rang the pots like empty bells.

Found dust.

Licked it.

Left.

Came back.

Again.

Affection is sought everywhere,

even by those who do not know human language.

For many days the sparrows fell

into the stoned courtyard

for seed that was never scattered.

They pecked till their beaks bled.

The body does not know how to stop hoping.

The animals did not know.

The birds did not know.

That the house had stopped breathing.

That the names they loved

had been torn from the air.

The wind walked through every room alone.

Lifted curtains no one would draw.

Touched photographs with no one to look back.

The rains came and washed the courtyard clean.

Washed away footprints.

Washed the timber for the hearth.

Washed the walls.

And never asked what was inside.

No smoke rose.

No lamp burned.

No prayer rose from the wall niche.

Spring came with perfume.

Summer baked the garlands into the earth.

Snow buried the gate.

Melted.

Buried it again.

Autumn stripped the willow bare.

The seasons did not ask

where Gonn-dedh had gone.

Did not ask

why the lock was on the outside.

Then came some cruel hands .

They cut the ropes.

Drove the cows away.

The dog followed the lorry

till the road ended.

The birds found other roofs.

And everything remained.

The cup with a lip-print.

The cold kettle.

The smell of Kahwa in the walls.

The house held its breath.

Held the shape of those forced to leave.⁴

Then came some merciless people .

They stripped the house .

Tore the photographs.

Smashed the cups.

Carried off the manuscripts, the idols,

the gas cylinder,

the bicycle,

the cradle of Gonn-dedh’s grandson.

Pried off doors and windows.

Sold them at Baba Demb.

Sold the bones of a home

in a market that traded in grief.⁵

Then came the broker.

With ledgers and lies.

He found the names in camps:

Jammu.

Udhampur.

Delhi.

Offered fifteen thousand

for a house worth fifteen lakhs.

He bought memory.

We surrendered.

To pay school fee.

To buy a new gas cylinder.

To buy books.

To buy medicines.

That was when the house died.

Not in 1990, when we left.

But on the day what waited

was sold and forgotten.

Then the new owner came.

Pulled the walls down.

Put tiles where prayers were said.

Built a wall that killed the willow.

The willow too was cut and sold.

No witness left

to say who lived here.

Now nothing stands.

Not the door.

Not the name on it.

Not the voice that called the cows.

Not the woman who fed the dog,

the birds, the sparrows.

Alas.

No one knows the marigolds ever rotted here.

The house does not wait anymore.

And the keys?

Still in a drawer.

Or rusting in the palm of an old man

who wakes and reaches for a door

that is no longer there.

( Avtar Mota )

Footnotes

1. Garlanding the cows

In 1990, rural and semi-urban Kashmir witnessed something painful. In many Kashmiri Pandit homes, when the family was forced to leave their home , they performed a final Bidai ( farewell) for their cattle Cows and calves were garlanded with marigold flowers. Vermillion Tilaks were done on their head . They were fed, and were left with enough water around them. In this emotional farewell, the animals were kissed, hugged and the house owners touched their feet seeking forgiveness for their inability to take them along. The garlands in their necks became the last act of care before exile.

2. Gonn-Dedh

Gonn- Dedh used to be the name of elderly Kashmiri Pandit woman. This elderly woman often fed the cattle, drew water, and kept the rhythm of the house.

3. Kaawa-paett

Kaawa-paett means the place in the kitchen where fresh prepared food was kept for birds early in the morning .When the house was abandoned, the Kaawa-paett went cold and the birds that came for crumbs found nothing. Further, apart from the Puja room , in many Kashmiri Pandit homes there used to be a small shelf or recess in the wall called a Taaq_or wall niche. That’s where they kept the diya, incense, prayer books, small idol.Every morning and evening a lamp would be lit there. A prayer would be said there.

4 Plunder of deserted houses

In the years that followed 1990, thousands of abandoned Pandit homes were broken into and plundered by miscreants. Furniture, utensils, books, photographs, Puja items, doors frames, windows and even roof beams were taken away. What the exodus did not destroy, neglect and greed did. For many families, the house was emptied twice : first by fear, then by plunder.

5 Baba Demb Market

Baba Demb in Srinagar became known as a place where salvaged material like utensils , gas cylinders , Sharda and Sanskrit manuscripts, , miniature paintings from Puja rooms, idols, and anything marketable that was looted from abandoned Pandit houses was traded. Doors, windows, wooden panels, and fixtures were removed from Pandit homes, reshaped, and sold. A market built on the dismantling of other people’s lives , a trade in grief.