For the children of my village who can’t help but steal apricots from our garden.
Go ahead, you little thugs, take them.
(I)
A little girl pulled at her pheran,¹ dragged it over her knees, and secured it under her numb feet. She brought her cold hands before her lips and started blowing warm air on them, but nothing seemed to ward off Chilai Kalan’s² piercing cold from her body. Defeated, she looked at her mother and asked for a kaangir.³
Nargis, her mother, stood before the kitchen sink, and upon hearing her daughter’s request, she turned around. Assessing her daughter’s shivering form, she placed a hand on her left hip and scolded, “This is what happens when you roam and play all day in Chilai Kalan, Azra ji. Just wait, soon you will get shooh⁴ too!”
Shooh. The single word circled Azra’s mind and in fright, she nuzzled her head into her pheran’s collar and wished for it to swallow her. To come and save her from the clutches of Kashmir’s winter and the notorious shooh. But her desperate pleas were cut short by her father’s voice, calling her. She raised her head and beamed after she saw what her father’s hands held.
A little kaangir. For little Azra.
Her father placed the kaangir on the carpet, and as she approached it, her heart began to beat like a tumbakhnaer⁵ and warmth spread all over her body. Before her wide brown eyes stood her kaangir. Not Father’s, not Mother’s, but hers. The one that would perfectly fit within the woollen embrace of her pheran; the one that would defeat Kashmir’s harsh winters and declare her victorious.
She sat down and, with care, took it in her hands. Her kaangir was beautiful. The cream-coloured wicker that held the small earthen pot was painted with red and green brush strokes. Her small hands touched the wicker-laden surface of the kaangir in sheer wonder, and she found herself obsessed, absolutely whipped.
Shakeel looked at his daughter’s lit-up face and shared a smile with Nargis. He sat beside Azra, placed his head on hers, and chaffed, “Did my zuw⁶ like the kaangir? If you didn’t, we can give it to Saba.” And almost as quick as a heartbeat, Azra placed the kaangir on her crossed legs, hugged it to her chest, and shook her head in refusal. Shakeel laughed at his daughter’s little act and stood up. He walked up to his wife and started singing. And while her father sang romantically to her mother, Azra could feel love brewing in her chest too.
She was experiencing her first love. She was growing up.
____________________
¹ A Kashmiri traditional robe-length garment, typically worn in winters.
² A forty-day period (21 December to 29 January) of harsh winters in Kashmir.
³ An earthen pot, held in a wicker-woven body, filled with ignited coal to keep oneself warm during Kashmir’s winters.
⁴ Chilblains.
⁵ A Kashmiri elongated drum-like musical instrument.
⁶ A Kashmiri term of endearment meaning ‘life’.
(II)
At night, as Azra dined, she gripped one handle of the kaangir with her left hand and glanced at it now and then. “Azra, it will not run away. Eat your dinner first,” Nargis told her, and started complaining to Shakeel about their daughter’s Chilai Kalan adventures. To which he simply nodded and caressed Azra’s head, not willing to upset either of his moons.
‘Mouj⁷ is such a tattle-tale,’ Azra thought to herself. Why couldn’t she let her play freely? What if she didn’t go out one day and her friends found something magical? Some distant world where she could run through grass fields, play sazzi,⁸ and eat apricots all day until her belly was happy and full. A place where she could take her kaangir and live a life free of cold, her mother’s strict winter rules, and of course, shooh. She felt called to that place, for which she must go out and continue her search.
She peered down and saw a small nadur⁹ in her kaenz.¹⁰ She quickly popped it into her mouth, ran towards the sink, opened the tap and washed her hands. She returned, picked up her kaangir, and placed it near her sleeping place.
____________________
⁷ Mother.
⁸ Hopscotch.
⁹ Lotus stem.
¹⁰ Bowl, an eating pot.
(III)
As Azra lay between her parents, she peeked at her kaangir for the last time and closed her eyes. She felt a kiss on her forehead, and soon she was out like a light. But after a while of peaceful slumber, she felt something prickling her arms, back, and legs. She opened her eyes and a bright sunny sky greeted her. In a trice, she sat up and couldn’t help but gape at the sight that welcomed her: a field, a grass field with small hills occupying its apparent ends. On the hill mounds, Azra could see a lot of apricot trees and even from a distance, she could see their ready and ripe blend of peach and orange-coloured fruits.
She stood to move towards the hills but stopped, thinking about her kaangir. She looked around to search for it but it was not there. ‘Why would it be here,’ she pondered. ‘On a warm, sunny day like this, a kaangir has no use for her.’ Still, she rechecked her surroundings and when she couldn’t find it, she decided to move forward without it.
Azra ran. No, her movements were of a naag gaad,¹¹ swimming, as if gliding effortlessly through the waves of lush grass. The wind touching her face didn’t numb her nose, cheeks, and ear-tops. It was gentle, and upon passing, it caressed her face, and her skin pulsated with a feeling of freedom, love, and hunger for more. She was tired, yet she didn’t allow her feet to halt. She desired, craved those tempting apricots. And soon, she rejoiced, how she would feast on them.
But all of a sudden, she heard someone calling her, screaming for her attention. “Azra! Azra, I am here,” someone cried repeatedly. It was a desperate voice, filled with heartache and longing. Azra stopped. She frantically looked around her, scouring for the subject of the cries. Then, as the voice became painfully louder and louder, she closed her eyes, placed her hands on her ears, and screamed back in pain. The whole field rang with deafening cries and Azra’s body started shivering uncontrollably, and she dropped to the ground. She fell unconscious, but on the edge of being benumbed, she spotted her kaangir a few feet away from her, lying down like she was.
____________________
¹¹ Spring fish.
(IV)
Azra opened her eyes, but this time, no sunny sky awaited her. It was snowing. Her face was freezing, and her hands and feet were unresponsive. She tried to close her eyes and go back to sleep but her body refused. Azra never liked looking at the snowing sky because it appeared eerily magnetic to her. It felt as if it wanted to take her, pull her somewhere far: a place that was too strange and too cold for her liking.
She moved her head sideways and through her blurry vision, noticed a round-like object lying beside her. After blinking the fog away, she smiled as she saw that it was her kaangir. Just like her body, her kaangir was also beginning to collect snow. It continued to melt on their human and wicker skin alike, and slowly, a thin white layer coated their bodies.
Azra’s eyes started closing on their own, but as she was being lulled into sleep, she heard a familiar voice: “Azra, did you hear what I said? You will get shooh!”
In confusion, Azra opened her eyes and saw black. Her face was downward and somewhat submerged in what seemed like a pool of black abyss. She pushed her head back and squinted at the immediate light that hit her. A moment later, she saw a figure, her mother, standing before her. Her mother’s lips were moving but every word fell deaf to her ears. She was still disoriented, unable to make sense of the transpired events.
(V)
Realisation dawned upon Azra. She had gone nowhere. She was still sitting in the kitchen, all cold and in need of a kaangir. Her mother was still terrifying her with the tales of shooh and her father was still not home. But unable to hold back her curiosity, she peeked into her pheran’s collar to search for the traces of the worlds she departed to, but found none.
She heard the sound of the door opening and looked back up. Her father was back. He held a nader gaed¹² in one hand and a kaangir in the other. This one wholly matched the one of Azra’s imagination. Surprised, she stood up, and without waiting for her father to place the kaangir on the floor, she ran and took it from his hands. She sat down, crossed her legs, and started examining its wicker body. Every detail was the same, even the colour of its painted brush strokes. Azra touched the brim of the earthen pot and saw a little fruit, an apricot in it. She picked it up and before her parents could see it, she put it in her pheran’s pocket. Her parents were busy arguing about what to cook with nadir, so she picked up her kaangir and snuck out of the kitchen. She rushed through the corridor, opened the house’s main door, and walked out.
____________________
¹² A bundle of lotus stems.
(VI)
Outside, it was cold, but the eagerness to eat the apricot kept Azra warm. She didn’t know where it came from. Whether it was from the real world or her imaginary world, it was hers to eat. It should be a rule in Kashmir: Apricots are always for the children. They belong to them. They are to be touched and held by their small, determined hands and consumed by their voracious mouths until their childhood resembles an apricot—ripe, juicy, and colourful.
Azra sat under her grandfather’s beloved walnut tree, placed the kaangir beside her, and removed the apricot from her pocket. She brought it near her mouth and leisurely started nibbling on it. It was a perfect apricot—not too raw, not too ripe. At that moment, Chilai Kalan didn’t feel too cold to Azra. She was fine with its chilly winds as long as she ate an apricot. But not shooh. Never shooh. Even the baskets of apricots would not make her friends with it. They were enemies.
Azra ate the apricot and diligently lapped its seed clean. Then, she pushed the seed against the soil and buried it. Her mouth still held the luscious remnants of the apricot but she was far from full. She needed more. She looked into her kaangir’s pot in the hope of another apricot but found nothing in it.
A while later, Azra felt something wet on her face. She wiped it with her pheran’s sleeve and realised that it was beginning to snow. She stood up and brought her tongue out to feel and taste Chilai Kalan’s first snow. It surely didn’t taste as good as an apricot but it did have a different charm. After some time, she closed her mouth and picked up her kaangir. She held it in her hands and stretched out her arms. Gently, the snow began to fall and melt on its clay surface. It appeared as if, like Azra, her kaangir was tasting the snow too.
Then, in a jiffy, Azra was swiftly lifted off the ground. She looked down and saw her father smiling mischievously at her. She giggled and pushed the kaangir towards the sky again. Shakeel started running in circles and Azra laughed in enjoyment. Under the snowing sky, perched on her father’s shoulders, running around like their neighbourhood cats, Chilai Kalan felt warm, almost summery to her. ‘Maybe, this is the place,’ she thought happily, ‘the place she truly belongs to.’
Sabahat Ali Wani is a writer, researcher, visual artist and critic from Kashmir. She is the founder and editor of a Kashmir-based feminist literary and cultural magazine, Maaje Zevwe. Currently, with the support of FfAI, she is studying and documenting the resistance art of Kashmir from the decolonial feminist lens.