The Country With a Burnt Post Office

Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir is the unforgettable account of Farah Bashir’s adolescence spent in Srinagar in the 1990s. As Indian troops and militants battle across the cityscape and violence becomes the new normal, a young schoolgirl finds that ordinary tasks – studying for exams, walking to the bus stop, combing her hair, falling asleep – are riddled with anxiety and fear.

With haunting simplicity, Farah Bashir captures moments of vitality and resilience from her girlhood amidst the increasing trauma and turmoil of passing years – secretly dancing to pop songs on banned radio stations; writing her first love letter; going to the cinema for the first time.

The following is an excerpt from the book.

Mother collected the shroud, a green embroidered with Quranic verses, a box of incense sticks, and a cloth packed bar of soap that would be needed the next day for burial.

‘Can you help me put these back in the cupboard?’ She asked me to fold the chadors and some unstitched pieces of cloth that she’d taken out of various bags.

It was common practice for Father to bring reams of fabric from the shop for Mother. However, she didn’t always get a all of them stitched. Instead, she kept some aside or gave away some as gifts to relatives. That cupboard was her treasure trove.

She and Father rushed downstairs.

I sat alone in the antechamber of their bedroom, folding the pieces of fabric and arranging them on the almirah shelves. The pieces I was trying to fold were puffed up. I had to refold them, match the original creases, put them into bags, and then readjust the bags so the shelves wouldn’t spill over. It made my task more time-consuming and my arms felt fatigued. While arranging the cloth and bags, I stumbled upon a soft leather bag full of LPs, old Urdu magazines, and an old blazer which was part of my school uniform at some point. I looked at the LP covers, and then, out of curiosity, checked the pockets of the green blazer. I was surprised to find an old letter that I had written to Vaseem in 1993. I hadn’t expected that unsent love letter to spring out from an unlikely corner of the house…

Also read | Growing up in a conflict-stricken territory: Interview with Farah Bashir

Most break-ups are painful. Some are acrimonious. Mine was neither. I lost my first love to a burnt post-office. It was a romance that was cut short by fire. A romance that had blossomed on the balcony of Baji, my maternal aunt, and ended up in smoke.

Three years after Tehreek began, I was to finally graduate from high school. The annual exams at the end of 1992 worried Mother more than me. As soon as the schedule of the pre boards was out, Mother solemnly declared the weeks to follow to be the most crucial’. She decided to send me to her sister Razia’s house in Raj Bagh. I fondly called that aunt of mine, Baji.

Baji lived near my school, and that would give me more time to revise and less time to be anxious about the commute. I was expected to return home after the final paper, which would be held in two weeks’ time.

Baji’s large house was tucked away in a small and quiet neighbourhood, far away from the madness of the city. Though calm prevailed outside in their neighbourhood, their joint family ensured that there was none inside the house. With about twelve family members, their house was always noisy and full of pleasant distractions. The men – her sons, husband, brother-in law and his son – owned two shops and a small motel near the restive Maisuma Bazar. Since the area was under constant siege – because that is where Yasin Malik, one of the four founders of JKLF (Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front), lived – they usually stayed home.

With a tight exam schedule, and hardly a day in between papers, I had no luxury to dawdle. During the daytime, as there was rarely a quiet moment indoors, I turned the balcony outside Baji’s bedroom into my study. The balcony overlooked her manicured rose garden. Weeping willows lined the tranquil alleyway. It made a pleasing canopy that kept the afternoon sun at bay. The breeze rustled the leaves, creating a soothing and understated symphony that made it more conducive to napping than studying.

Baji would join me for nun chai at four o’clock on the balcony. One such afternoon, she walked in with the tea, and the date sheet that had been published in a newspaper was on the tray too. The sight of newspaper made me nervous.

‘It’s so peaceful here. We can’t even imagine this calm in the tense downtown of ours. It used to be one of the busiest streets, but it’s so scary now. Something or the other keeps happening there. You can’t study in peace anymore. I miss sitting on the windowsill with Bobeh. We rarely get to open the windows. I wish our home was as cocooned as yours,’ I said.

Baji raised both her eyebrows, as if in disbelief. A sudden fear came over her face. ‘Kyah tchakh vanaan? Don’t you remember most of the dead on Gaw Kadal were from here? From around this area? Right there across the bund is where most of them lived: in Mahjoor Nagar, Radio Colony, Ikhraaj pur…’ She then stared at the staircase leading to the bund.

Our tea got cold. I didn’t know what to say to my aunt who had not only gone silent but also had a faraway look in her eyes. Was she still thinking about the firing at Gaw Kadal in 1990? I picked up the newspaper. Both her silence and daze were broken by a greeting. She was responding to Vaseem, her sister-in-law’s son, who lived nearby.

Vaseem was older than me by four years. I had seen him cycle past their house sometimes. He’d smile at me. I noticed that he didn’t have an aquiline nose or bony features like the rest of us. His cheeks had somehow still retained their redness. He looked more Ladakhi than Kashmiri, I thought. Same, nonetheless.

On the day of my second exam, I was walking back from school when I spotted a racer bike approaching me. It was him. He braked swiftly and boldly struck up a conversation with me. Most of the boys I had known then would usually hatch a complicated plan with their friends if they wanted to talk to a girl. It felt mildly awkward speaking to a known stranger. He was very confident. I didn’t resist. I noticed that he had a thin line of very fine lashes, which were only visible when his smile crinkled his eyes.

‘Salaam… Aren’t you Baji’s niece from Zaene Kadal?’

‘Yes.’

‘I am Vaseem. Qazi sa’ab’s son. I am studying outside Kashmir. How was your paper today?’

‘I think it went off well. Thanks.’

When is your next paper?’

‘Day after. Okay, Baji must be waiting. Bye.’

‘Bye.’

As I walked away, he whispered, ‘I think your eyes are beautiful.’

I didn’t respond, but I believe it was then that I fell in love with him.

As my exams neared their end, the frequency of Vaseem riding past Baji’s house increased. And of course, our exchanging glances didn’t escape the eyes of Baji’s curious neighbours. But as luck would have it, I left for home right after my exams, and soon after, Vaseem left for his college in Bangalore. Thankfully, there was no full-fledged neighbourhood gossip.

After the exams, we returned to school for the last few months. One afternoon, as I was about to board the school bus for home, the security guard at the gate came running towards the bus. I panicked thinking that he had probably some bad news. Should I duck in case he heard gunshots that come bearing we may have missed? Should we run to seek refuge in the library because the search operations had begun? I stood frozen as these scenarios rushed through my head and couldn’t move while he rushed towards me, panting.

‘Your relative is here. He has an urgent packet for you.’ Relative? Who? Perplexed, I tried to recognize the unexpected and unannounced relation of mine from a distance. Much to my surprise, I found out it was Farooq Bhaiya. I felt a strange knot in my belly.

Farooq Bhaiya was a friend of one of Baji’s sons. He was also friends with Vaseem and his elder brother. My heart sank at the anticipation of receiving news about Vaseem. But Farooq Bhaiya had brought a letter. I received it with slight hesitation but was eager to know its contents. I did not open it immediately. I held on to the letter all through the bus ride, and after reaching home, sneaked into the bathroom before Bobeh could feed me lunch. My stomach churned as I tore the envelope open. I felt a warm sensation spread all over me as I read the first few lines and realized that there was no bad news. Stuck on the letter, there were cute Archies’ stickers, which, if it were bad news, wouldn’t have been there. Phew! Thereafter, I read the letter a few times a day for several days. Each time, I felt the same way.

Vaseem had found a way to reach me while he was away, but for me the challenge was to send replies. I could keep one ready when he sent a missive, but I wanted to find an alternate way. Even though the big building of the General Post Office was visible from our school, across river Jhelum, it was impossible to leave school to go there, post a letter and come back in time to catch the school bus. There were serious restrictions over leaving school before time. I thought through several solutions before bribing Nadia, a friend of mine, who lived close to the post office. I’d give her colourful gel stickers that we used to embellish our notebooks with. I begged her to drop the envelope at the counter inside as I had little faith in the defunct, little, red box outside our school. I’d never seen anyone pick mail from it or drop any into it.

Eventually, a routine was set. Vaseem and I wrote to each other nearly for a year. We developed a keen friendship through letters but within a few weeks, the conversations began to feel more intimate. We quoted poems and sent each other birthday cards. He mentioned short trips he would take with his friends around his college while I wrote about my studies and sleeplessness. He confessed to missing me and expressed that there were times when he wished he didn’t have to leave home to find a life elsewhere. I began to envision our relationship blossoming into the distant but definitive reality of marriage and children.

However, staying in touch was proving to be a challenge. The post was largely undependable and phone lines were frequently dead. One of his letters reached me twenty-two days after he had posted it, almost a week after his arrival at home for his short vacation around the holidays in March. Luckily, it was the time for unit tests, and I succeeded in convincing Mother that I needed to stay at Baji’s house and study.

I wanted to welcome Vaseem with a present. But with my meagre pocket money, a gift other than a cheap soft toy was ruled out. Would he even like it? I decided on flowers instead. If I were to pluck some red poppy from Baji’s garden, she’d come to know. I was sure that she counted her flowers. So, I gathered some hollyhocks and irises which grew over the walls of her neighbour’s garden. I made a bouquet and sent it to Vaseem through my youngest cousin, Raafi. I had to bribe him with twenty rupees to maintain secrecy.

I expected Vaseem to ‘accidentally’ run into me on the way to or from school. But we couldn’t meet. A curfew was imposed in the city the day after I arrived at Baji’s place. A number of people had come out on to the streets to commemorate the civilian killings in Tengpur. Vaseem spent a few days under curfew at home and had to leave without seeing me. I was annoyed. Angry, even. Fucking curfews! An unending cycle of curfews! Why couldn’t we protest? Aren’t people allowed to mourn when their loved ones die? Must more people get killed while mourning?

Vaseem and I continued to write to each other for a few more months until that dreamy world of letters between us also ended up in smoke. One night, a fire broke out in the main post office building, burning with it the only means of our communication. There was no rush to restore or repair it. That wasn’t surprising, because living in a conflict zone had taught us that the broken stayed broken for a long time. The post office became functional after over a year, but we didn’t resume writing.

I had tucked away all of Vaseem’s letters in the storeroom with a stack of old newspapers and magazines. Somehow, one incomplete letter was left behind in the uniform blazer.

Salaam V

‘Gates of memory never close, how much I miss you nobody knows’

Remember, you had written to me about how you imagine me on these streets? I don’t know what you imagine It’s not the same anymore. The bustle created at the shops of gold and coppersmiths, the dancing dresses as you’d call the flowy, shimmering, sequined cloth hanging from shops are gone.

It used to be so lively here as you might remember when you visited Khankah-i-Maula. Every evening was like a celebration. Now that bustle is replaced by sadness. People look worrisome. Nobody speaks loudly like we used to. Is curfew controlling our vocal cords too? The only loud sound we hear is shopkeepers rolling their shutters down when the ‘relaxation’ is over. There is hush on the streets and even a slight sound brings with it an echo of fear.

There is rush at the time of announcement that declares the thirty-five-minute-long relaxation in the curfew in the evenings. Can you imagine? Half an hour out of twenty four hours is not enough. Streets are full of people out to buy basics. Not everyone is lucky enough to get all the things that they need. You know, Mother sent Ramzan Kaak to buy toothpaste for two days in a row. He came back and said, “There were more urgent things that people needed to buy for their children.’ But on the third day, Mother told him strictly that he must push his way inside the shop or else we will never get what we need. Her fear was the shopkeeper might soon run out of basic hygiene items.

Stationery shops rarely open anymore. My notebooks are half-filled, some of which I use now to write these letters to you. I am sorry, I am out of letter-pads. I do not know when we will get them again. I also miss sketching. I draw and make patterns on the borders of old newspapers. The patterns that brides have on their hennaed hands. I make those on the newspapers. Newspapers make everyone so sad. Especially Bobeh. Sheets full of endless, countless funerals. Everyone has been inside their homes for weeks now. What becomes of homes that have their doors bolted, windows tightly shut, and curtains drawn during the daytime with the families they house inside them desolate? Should we not call them prisons? We should!

I don’t know when I will post these letters to you. I might have to hand these over when you are back and if we meet when you are home. I’ll tell you about the rest when we meet, if we meet. What if they impose curfew again when you are home? Will we meet? I hate curfews. I want to pick the petals of a flower. It’s so sad that we do not have a garden like yours or Baji’s. I could pick petals and play that stupid game they show in films – he loves me, he loves me not. I could change that to will they impose curfew: Maybe, Maybe not. –

Dec 1992

This is an excerpt from Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir written by Farah Bashir and published by Harper Collins. Republished here with permission from the publisher.

Farah Bashir was born and raised in Kashmir. She was a former photojournalist with Reuters and currently works as a communications consultant. Rumours of Spring is her first book.