Saffron.

by Bupinder Bali (India)

A leap into the unknown India

‘The more I run from this place the more I find myself coming back to it. I still wake up to the nightmares of it. It keeps haunting me, ’ said Harpal. At 78, he could walk faster than me. His long flowing white beard was in complete contrast with his colourful personality. He was arranged as my contact person by a close friend for this specific tour. I was to travel 70 kms towards the North Kashmir, into a picturesque village, surrounded by the thick conifers on three sides and in the background, the distant image of mighty Himalayas added to its beauty. It was the last village on the route, fading into the wilderness that went all the way to Pakistan on the other side. Only separated by an imaginary line drawn virtually on a map between the two counties. I had insisted on taking a public transport system while my guide advised against it. It was 8 in the morning. The weather was cold. The most common outfit you see on a Kashmiri is a phiran; a plus-size long-sleeved, full-body woollen outfit resembling raincoat. Most of the people had retracted their arms within to hold the Kangri; a fire-pot, filled with burning charcoal to keep them warm while their sleeves hung lifeless. The 52-seater bus, took over a 100 people, dropping and picking several more on the way. The people hanging on the door and windows cluttered my view of the outside. The scent of tobacco mixed with burning charcoal along with a hint of bittersweet fragrance of sweat made me a little uneasy in my seat. In winter, people will take bath once a week, usually on Sundays, so they can sit inside their houses in the warmth of Bukharies. The reason of my visit was the annual commemoration festival hosted by the local Sikh community to pay respect to over 6000 Sikhs, killed during the Kabali raid in 1947. Harpal was a survivor. ‘I was 15, I was the only one from my village who got out alive.’ He had told me earlier. ‘You see these forests, if you walk by foot across this you will reach the next village in around 40 minutes. It's uphill first, and then down for at-least 2 kilometres and then up again to Gohina.’ He said pointing towards the dense jungle. ‘In winters everywhere-here is covered in snow, I’ve seen snow leopards come out to hunt cattle, dogs and sometime humans. We keep inside post-dark in winters.’ I could hear faint sounds of Kirtan, the Sikh prayers using harmonium and tabla. One kilometre down, the cold wind drained me out, thinning oxygen made me gasp for breath. Harpal on the other hand was full of energy. He was born and raised in the mountains. This was easier than his more vigorous morning stroll. The single-storey mud-and-wood houses with sloping tin-roofs lined the path to the village centre. We were headed towards the centre of the village which hosted a large playground and the Gurudwara; the Sikh place of worship and our destination for the day. The village spread out from the centre like the spider-web and merged immediately with the jungle on two sides, step-farming land cleared out by cutting trees on the third, and the entry from where we were coming. A huge number of Sikhs with their colourful turbans; red, blue, violet, black and more ornated the pathway while they walked to the gurudwara. Harpal was wearing saffron turban that day. ‘Our house used to be here, ’ he pointed to an empty space and stood there contemplating. ‘After it was burned down, we made the new house near the gurudwara.’ ‘I was inside, hiding on the kaini(storage space under the tin roof). They had killed every single men and raped women. Then they dragged the bodies in our house and the houses next to ours, and burned them down. I jumped from the kaini and ran into the jungle’ We reached the gurudwara in 10 minutes. I was exhausted; physically from journey and the walk, mentally and emotionally from Harpal’s ordeal. The kirtan soothed my nerves. We sat down, closed our eyes and listened to it for hours.