It is a hot July morning. We have a few days off from school, and I have been sent to my aunt’s house. When I’m with her, she always lets me sleep next to her because she knows I’m scared to sleep alone. Fufi’s room has two sets of windows, both on the same side. Even when it is light outside, only half of his room is illuminated, with the other half basking in dim light. The glasses on the windows are made of different shades of yellow, green, red and blue. When light streams through them, it results in a riot of colors as if millions of rainbows come alive at the same time. She always leaves the windows open during summer and it amazes me that mosquitoes invade every part of the house except her room. She always used to tease my uncle that why there are so many mosquitoes in his room.
“What type of equivalent [spiritual doctor] Would you?” she would tell him. “Your patients must first rid themselves of malaria and then work on their souls!” he would boil over.
This morning, as I lay on the bed on the floor, I could hear my aunt saying her morning Namaz, After a while, I heard him telling Quran, so I get up and go outside. She is sitting under a walnut tree with a shawl over her shoulder. As I approach, without looking up, she lifts her left arm above her shoulder, making room for me. I clung to her and listened to her talk, inhaling the deep scent of cardamom, cinnamon and flour. When her work is done, she prays for me and strokes my face and chest and asks God to watch over me. But suddenly something distracts his attention. She looks up at the sky and whispers, “They’re coming.”
“who’s coming?” i ask.
,the ones [come],’ she says, giving no explanation.
We walk into the kitchen, which is starting to get busy. There is my eldest cousin. Fufi picks up a big copper diche and declares, “I will make Tahr [turmeric rice] Today’.
As soon as she says this, all the other members are busy working on different things. Some start with breakfast and some with lunch. Next to his kitchen garden is a huge apple orchard, with a small patch of grass in the middle. She lays a small carpet on one side and takes out her big carpet samovarwho will keep coffee [tea made from cardamom, cinnamon and saffron] warm. When it is ready, she cooks the rice with turmeric and salt by lighting a fire on the side. When it’s cooked, she puts it in a large metal bucket and adds golden fried onions and a little hot oil. she puts it next to samovar With a jar of hot mustard oil. A few minutes later, I saw a group of women coming towards us. Most of them are from Fufi’s village whom I know, but some I don’t. I wonder why they are here.
They greet him and then sit down on the grass. a woman takes charge of the service coffee and another Tahr, They are all talking amongst themselves, when one of the women, who is in her 70s, starts singing. Everyone calls him Aapa. She sings the poetry of Kashmiri poetess Habba Khatoon. As she sings, the others join in. Some shed tears and some sigh. She describes how sweet and gentle her parents were when they were alive, how loved and safe she felt with them, and how everything changed when she got married.
‘Only women understand that unexpressed longing becomes a canker and is difficult to heal’. Photo Credit: Illustration: Sonali Zohra
Her lips are trembling, her eyes cast down to the ground and she describes how she still longs to see them, even now that she is a grandmother herself. she slowly takes a bite Tahr And she puts it in her mouth, crying softly, her tears rolling down the lines of her face. Another woman gets up and sits behind Aapa, opens her dupatta and slowly starts applying hot mustard oil on his head. You see a wave of relief on Aapa’s face and it is an image I will never forget.
Another woman, recently married to a village coppersmith, sings about her husband’s lack of affection and wants him to pay as much attention to her as he does to the copper utensils he makes . Auntie gave her a cup of hot sweets coffee And takes hold of her hand.
A young woman expresses her wish using the words of a dead poet. She sings of unrequited love. To which an elderly woman replies,allah taala dinai tar [may God take you across this river],
Each of the women present sings and talks about what’s troubling her and what she wants. Though their troubles are as personal as theirs, a common thread links them together – longing. Longing is present in the hearts of these women who spend their whole days and nights taking care of family, home and fields but hardly get a second for themselves.
That day I came to know that these women from the village and sometimes from other villages used to gather at my aunt’s house. They never tell her in advance, but whenever they come, she’s always ready Tahr, coffee And heat mustard oil. They sit together the whole day talking, narrating, consoling each other. they eat Tahrdrink soul warming coffee And massage mustard oil into each other’s hair, trying to weigh down the longings they hold in their hearts. These longings which have become a part of their existence but cannot be mentioned to others, because women do not talk about longings or desires.
Later that evening, as she was smoking her two cigarettes, I asked my aunt why they had these gatherings and why they Tahr,
“I think it represents longing and healing, a prayer and the answer to that prayer. We gather because one woman needs another woman, Bahnapa. Only women understand that unexpressed longing becomes a canker and is difficult to cure.
saba mahjoorA Kashmiri living in England, spends her little free time contemplating the uncertainties of life.