Memoirs of a Veteran

In the year 1964, I was born in the village; Barjah, in the Samahni Valley of Kashmir. At that time, the village was a modest settlement spread along both sides of the stream that ran through the middle of the valley. Samahni Valley is surrounded by green mountains. Small spring-water channels flow down from these mountains and merge into a  larger stream, which the locals call , Kass.

 In those days, the only means of travelling to Barjah was a dirt-road connecting Bhimber and Mirpur. Three old Bedford buses operated on this dirt – road. The residents of the village could recognize each bus and even its driver by the sound of its horn. During the rainy season, the buses were either taken off the road or  bogged down in the mud. When that happened, passengers travelling to Mirpur would walk 10 miles West along the mountainous route to Kakra Town. From there, they would ride a local bus and resume their journey  on a metaled road to Mirpur. Similarly, if someone needed to go to Bhimber, rain could turn the journey into an arduous trek. They  would walk 12 miles East to Samahni, and from there  a bus would take them  to Bhimber on a paved road.

Most of the houses in our village were built of stone and mud mortar. Their roofs consisted of wooden beams, planks and pine reeds, which were then coated with a layer of mud. These roofs kept the houses warm in winter and cool in summer. The courtyards of my village houses were as spacious as the hearts of my people. They had open space in front, small vegetable gardens and the fields of wheat or corn. Toilets were almost nonexistent. The people of the village used darkness of the night and crop fields to excrete. Similarly, they often went to stream for bathing and washing clothes.

At the age of 2 or 3 when I became aware of my surroundings, I found myself surrounded with  many loving people. They were; my father, whom everyone affectionately called Babu Ji; my mother; my maternal aunts; my paternal aunts; and my four paternal uncles. My father also had a younger brother, whom I called Chacha Ji. He was unmarried at the time and lived with us in our three-room house. Chacha Ji loved me very much and would often let me sleep beside him. He used Tibet Talcum Powder, which came in a beautiful, round, light-blue container. By turning the white knob on top, small holes arranged on the lid would appear allowing the powder to be sprinkled over the body. I remember that the powder container carried the picture of a beautiful woman. Even when I grew older, I continued using Tibet Talcum Powder for quite some time because its fragrance reminded me of my Chacha Ji. I can also feel the warmth of the village elders’ regardless of their relation to me. ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ – felt true in my case.

When I was yet very young, one day, I saw some women  gathered around me. They sang the songs of happiness. I was later told that they were my paternal aunts  celebrating my 3rd birthday. My one paternal – aunt was married in Padri. Padri is a village two  miles North of our home, situated in a semi-mountainous area surrounded by dense trees. From time to time, she would take me with her to her home at  Padri. Her kids and in-laws also loved me a lot.

My other paternal- aunt lived in Kasgumma. It lay to the Southwest of our village, beyond a difficult and rugged line of hills. When I was five or six years old, I went to Kasgumma for the first time. I was accompanied by my cousin Mushtaq Ahmad and my eldest paternal uncle Muhammad Yusuf. Kasgumma folks , too, loved me immensely. I remember eating millet bread with Lassi (milk drink)  and Chutney (green chilli and mango sauce) in Kasgumma, bathing in the Kass with Mushtaq Ahmad and my aunt’s sons, and being invited to one relative’s home after another, where we would feast to our hearts’ content.

My maternal relatives lived close by. I remember my maternal grandfather and maternal uncles ploughing our  fields with the of help a pair of oxen.  It seems like only yesterday that I would go and stay at my grandparents’ home. I also remember that he had a light-green radio. When its round tuning knob was turned, a needle on its dial would slide  slowly from side to side. Different radio stations were identified by numbers on the dial. Around the number 700, Radio Jalandhar(Eastern Punjab)  could be heard. In the evenings, it broadcast Punjabi songs. One song from that radio station still echoes in my ears:

Kala doria kundey naal uria ae, oye
Chhota deora bhabhi naal laria ae, oye

[Just like a woven  black- thread is entangled with a door peg,

The younger brother-in-law (husband’s brother),  

picked up a fight with his sister-in-law (brother’s wife)]

There was also a gramophone in my maternal grandfather’s house, along with dozens of records. Each round black disc carried the image of a dog. When my maternal grand father was in good mood in the evening, a hookah (smoking pipe) was prepared, people gathered around him to listen to Ramta Jogi (Punjabi song) and other Punjabi duets on the gramophone. Then, at the beginning of the 1970s, when young people of the village went  to United Arab Emirates for labour jobs, one  of my maternal uncles brought home a tape recorder from Dubai. It used reels of tape, on which twenty or thirty songs could be recorded. I remember that on one occasion, an uncle brought me a Panasonic radio from Dubai. It had a cover made of dark-brown leather.

I also had two maternal aunts, Zareena Begum and Zahra Khatoon. They too loved me a lot.  Aunt Zareena lived in a village situated on a hill to the South of our village, surrounded by a pine forest. She rarely visited our home. However, Aunt Zahra lived close by and visited us frequently. In my early childhood, my aunt  Zahra used to recite a lullaby to me, that I still remember:

“Naeem Ashraf, bano afsar,
Likho chithiyan, jao daftar”

 (Naeem Ashraf, you become an officer

Go to office and write letters)

I think there are some moments in time whose grip some people never escape for the rest of their lives. Throughout my life, neither the office nor the responsibilities of being an officer ever really left me. I have always liked writing letters, too. I do not know how my aunt, when I was only at the beginning of my childhood, somehow knew that I would become an officer. It is possible that my aunt’s lullaby settled somewhere deep in my subconscious and, later in life, inclined me towards becoming an officer. In any case, it remains one of the mysteries of time that are beyond my understanding. But because I am not a superstitious person, I would simply call it a beautiful coincidence. When I eventually became an officer, my aunt Zahra Khatoon was overjoyed. In her happiness, she went around the entire village distributing sweets. Even today, whenever I visit my ancestral village, she makes a point of coming to see me. She always brings me a gift—something she has cooked with her own hands, a delicious curry or  a dessert . Aunt Zahra Khatoon has now grown old. She has grandchildren and great-grandchildren, yet her love for me remains as young and warm as ever.

I am the first child of my parents. The entire family loved my father very much, perhaps which is why I received an especially great deal of affection from my paternal relatives during my childhood. My older paternal cousins, who were themselves older than me, loved me dearly. Fifteen  years older than myself, my sister cousins ; Sugra Bibi and Nasreen Akhtar would often pick me up and take me to the Kass when they went there to wash the load of garments. While they did the laundry, I would play quietly along the riverbank making little houses out of sand. Then they would bathe me in a shallow part of the stream and teach me how to swim.

(To be continued…)

About the Author: Born in 1964 – Samahni Valley of  Kashmir, Naeem Ashraf went to the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore and the Virtual University (VU) of Pakistan. He served in the Pakistan Army for 28 years, retiring as a Colonel. Following his military career, he dedicated himself to his lifelong passion for literature, focusing on fiction translation. Over the past decade, he has translated nine fiction and non-fiction books between English and Urdu. His work has been published by Sang-e-Meel Publications – Lahore and is also available via Amazon in the US and Canada. Ashraf also co-authored another  book Literary Love Letters besides regularly contributing his Urdu articles on E-magazine ; Humsub.com.pk. Naeem Ashraf  lives in Alberta.