Tee – tar tee- tar said the francolin outside, its fledglings were scurrying after it, while their mother foraged for grub. Two lapwings were exchanging some hot, local avian gossip on a cold January day.
Kids were getting ready to fly kites. Sankranti [14 January] was just around the corner, and the vendor who had made some amount of money selling Santa caps during Christmas was now selling kites, which would perhaps fill four empty stomachs of his family for at least a fortnight. I bought a dozen lantern kites from him and distributed them amongst the half-clad kids of the construction site workers. They pounced on them with shrieks of delight, while the kite-seller smiled indulgently.
Would their delighted shrieks ward off their cold – or, maybe their jumping and hopping would? Night came and I drifted into sleep, these images clinging to my mind.
I suddenly got up, my nose felt cold to the touch. It was six-degree centigrade, and the clock showed 2 am. I shuddered.
It became colder. Soon the owl took over, the francolin was fast asleep, I guessed. Only owls and writers are awake at such an unearthly hour.
Hoot – hoot. It kept hooting in bold defiance. I waited for it to get tired and stop, but it kept hooting. How could I sleep with all that cacophony?
It was at that moment, that my memory box flew open and chunks of memories, started swirling before me. Shards and slivers about my home: Kashmir.
Ah, those winter snacks with steaming hot cups of kehwa, a lukewarm presence in my life now. Skidding over snow and gorging on water chestnuts. I recalled how the cold vanished as granny hid us in her capacious pheran, and handed her kangri to us.
“Your nose is all red.”
“And where are your mittens?” Granny’s reprimand.
The horses of my imagination flew away at a canter;
stopped, ears pricked, listening to juvenile banter.
Was I dreaming? Was it really Grand Uncle beaming, holding something in his hands?
“Here this is for you”, he said.
Ah, was I to be fed at night?
Eyes bright, I saw he had a packet of nadur monjh * in his hands, and that perennial twinkle in his eyes.
The cold night was suddenly filled with warmth.
Half an eye fixed on the black-cloaked, night, I peered through the curtains.
In the all-enveloping darkness, I heard a voice- my mother’s.
“I knitted so many caps, for you, why don’t you wear them?”
Yes, I remembered, I did have many woolen caps knitted by her. I quickly got up, rummaged in the drawers of my closet, and found a black one, with red stripes, and quickly placed it on my head. The cold vanished.
I could feel my thoughts, my verses, and my dreams leaving me and galloping away through the window into the dark expanse.
Suddenly there was a crescendo of happy shouts coming from outside. The sky was lit with lantern kites. I counted them, they were twelve of them, and twelve half-clad tiny tots watching the lit lanterns with staccato yells of triumph.
Would the light from the twelve lantern kites give them happiness for twelve months of a year? What weird thoughts can strike one at night!
I have no idea when the surreal and real merged and I found myself opening the door and heading outside, to hand the packet of nadur maunj to the twelve kids.
I could feel expectant glows on their faces.
‘Nadur Mounjh’ lotus stem fritters. Very popular snacks in Kashmir.
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