Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir. Basharat Peer
clothes and good shoes for a potential trek through snowy mountains, but most of all, we needed a guerrilla commander who didn’t know our families and would let us join a group leaving for the border.
One day we were interrupted in geometry class by a knock. The teacher went out and returned to tell me that my uncle was here. A bank manager in his early thirties, Bashir was a fashion icon for my brother and me. I admired his baggy jeans and checked shirts and slicked-back hair, like John Travolta’s in Grease, and the mysterious accent of his English, which he had picked up from some German friends.
I shouted a loud greeting, and we hugged. He was carrying a bag, and I promptly volunteered to carry it. “That is our lunch! Your mother made chicken for us.” He threw an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go to your room and eat.” The thought of home-cooked chicken after the bland lentils and rice that dominated our hostel menu filled me with great joy.
My room was small, bare except for two beds, two small bookshelves, and two closets for clothes. I laid out a cotton sheet on my bed, and we began eating. Uncle stopped between morsels to watch me devour the pieces of chicken.
I shrugged. “I am hungry.”
He laughed, but something seemed wrong.
“Everything fine at home?” I asked.
“Yes. All is well.”
We continued eating, and I asked, “Why didn’t you go to the bank today?”
“Nothing! I was talking to your father last night, and then I thought I should come and save you from the lentils.”
After lunch we walked about the campus and sat near a rose bed. We talked about my studies. He said my father dreamed of seeing me in the civil service. “Your father struggled very hard to get where he is. He has great hopes for you. I know you will do us proud,” he said. “I met your school principal and he had great things to say about you.” I shook my head.
Uncle stared at the school buildings for a long time. “You will be done here in two years.” “Yes, 1993.”
“You know what? You must go to Delhi.” He went on to paint a romantic picture of the colleges and universities in New Delhi. “You would have a great time there. Your father and I were talking about it last night.”
I shook my head. Yes. Maybe. “How is Baba?” I asked of Grandfather.
“He is getting older by the day. And he misses you a lot. You should come home for a few days. He will be happy.”
I quickly packed my bags, and soon we were walking to the nearest bus stop. A scrawl of graffiti on the wall of a nearby house read: WAR TILL VICTORY—JKLF. “So that is the group you want to join,” my uncle said, smiling.
“JKLF? Me?” I denied everything.
He shook his head slowly. “We know all about it,” and he told me about the meeting waiting for me at home.
The bus passed a few villages separated by empty paddies and conical haystacks, almost golden in the autumn sun. We crossed an old bridge over a stream rushing toward my village. I saw the familiar peaks of the village mountain and a medieval canal running alongside. Before moving to my school, I rarely left the village except for occasional visits to Anantnag or Srinagar. When I went away even for a day, on my return I would be impatient for the sighting of a landmark: an old shingle-roofed hut on the slope of the village mountain. I saw it again.
The bus stopped in the village square. Uncle continued his journey to the next village, where he lived. I grew a bit stiff, dreading the encounter at home. Standing by the bus stop, I took in my house—the one with the green windows stacked with five others in a row on the right side of the road. Abu, the cricket-obsessed butcher, was chopping pieces of lamb; Amin, the short and wiry chemist who always wore an Irish cap, stood outside his shop; Kaisar, the tailor who regaled the village boys with ribaldries, was bent over his sewing machine; Hasan, the baker famed for his wisecracks, sat behind a stack of sesame-seed bagel-like chochevaer; old Saifuddin, my grandmother’s cousin who noted every new presence and kept a severe eye on the goings-on in the neighborhood from his grocery, was watching people alight from the bus; a group of boys I used to play cricket with hung around the stationery store next to the grocery; and a few older men sat at an empty storefront next to Amin’s pharmacy, talking.
It felt like standing on a familiar stage, facing a familiar audience. I shouted greetings at people on the far side of the road and shook hands along the storefronts on our side. Anxious about the encounter at home, I made my greetings a little more elaborate at every stop: the baker, the pharmacy, the butcher, the tailor, and finally, a hop across the road to hug Saifuddin, and repeat the same litany:
“Assalamualikum! How are you?”
“Valikumsalam! I am happy. I am well. How are you?”
“I am happy. I am well.”
“You just arrived?”
“Yes, I just got off the bus.”
“How is school?”
“School is good.”
“Are you working hard?”
“Yes, very much.”
“You must work very hard. You are the future.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“How is business?”
“Thank God! It is all right.”
“How is everyone at home?”
“They are well. You should come for tea.”
When I arrived home, Grandfather made me sit beside him. Father was on his way back home from work in Srinagar. Uncle, Grandmother, and mother formed a semicircle around us. I was silent, unsure what to say. “May I have a cup of tea, please?” I tried. Mother had already poured me one from the samovar. I traced the pinkish flowers embossed on the white porcelain cup in between sips. Grandfather turned to Mother. “Hama, you remember his first day of school.”
She looked up with a forced smile. “Yes! I had dressed him in a white shirt and gray shorts and his red necktie. And then you took him along.”
Grandfather seemed to stare into a distant time for a long moment, and then he laughed a bit and said to me, “I dropped you at your school and went to teach at my school. You had cried and shouted so much that an hour later, your teacher brought you to my office.”
“Most children cry,” I said.
Then he repeated the oft-told story of how, inspired by my Superman comics, I once jumped from the first-floor window. My younger brother helped me tie my pheran like a cape. I broke my right arm. This buildup to the real question was irritating me. I was thinking of walking out. They could see it.
Mother looked at me and said nothing. Grandfather fixed his watery green eyes on me. “How do you think this old man can deal with your death?” he said. His words hit me like rain on a winter morning.
I had nothing to say and stared at the carpet. I imagined myself lying dead on a wooden board on our lawn, surrounded by our neighbors and relatives. My mother had fainted, and someone was throwing water on her face. Father was holding the board, his head was buried in his arms, and his shoulders were shaking.
“You don’t live long in a war, son.” Grandfather’s words brought me back. He had tears in his eyes.
A muezzin’s voice came from the mosque loudspeaker, calling the faithful to afternoon prayers. Mother adjusted her casually worn head scarf, and Grandfather rose to leave for the prayers. “Think about your father! He is coming all the way from Srinagar only because he is worried about you. God knows what will happen on the way,” Mother said.
“I will keep an eye on the buses,” I said, and walked out.
I had been talking to a few neighborhood men for an hour when Father got off a bus, wearing