by Feroz Rather
I gently lowered her down from her lofty perch and we stood at the curb in front of Gulam, who was hunched over his worktable. When I turned to greet him, I noticed that his back was bent, and his head dangled from the long, thin stalk of his neck. He was a hairy, unkempt person with a coarse and wrinkled face; he had the wizened expression of a man who was prematurely decaying. He held the wooden handle of the hammer in his hand, its iron head on the anvil.
Fatima was in her uniform, a blue silk frock, black stockings and shoes. Undaunted by the heat, she smiled. She held her small lunch-box in her hands while I carried her heavy schoolbag.
‘Uncle, that soldier doesn’t look like us,’ Fatima remarked, looking across the highway.
‘He doesn’t belong here,’ I replied.
‘What is he doing here?’
‘He is trying to catch Ninja Hathode.’
‘Did he catch Ninja?’
I raised my eyebrow, not knowing how to respond. She frowned, closely scrutinizing the grim-faced soldier. She hugged her little lunch-box.
‘Poor thing. Why doesn’t he go home? Doesn’t he miss his Mama?’ she asked.
‘He goes home when he is on vacation. When he misses his Mama, he plays with Ninja.’
Fatima smiled at him. The soldier crossed the road to the cobbler. In the mirage of heat rising from the tarmac, his shoulders sagged under the weight of his Kalashnikov and the grenades in his two bulging breast pouches.
As he moved towards Fatima, Gulam tightened his grip on the handle, hammering down on the anvil.
Fatima extended her hand to the soldier, but he walked past her and stopped in front of me. At close range, his grimness was more pronounced, with hues of tattered apathy.
I stepped past the soldier, towing Fatima along. When the soldier walked away, Gulam stopped pounding the anvil.
After I dropped Fatima at school in Khanbal, I stood hot and crammed in the aisle of an overcrowded bus. It was time for the convoy to leave the cantonment and the bus had halted near the gates. Through the glass pane, I saw a tall, erect, concrete wall, covered in a tangled mesh of dark-green wire. The army vehicles passed by close to the bus, filling its interior with their groaning and acrid fumes.
When I reached Mir Bazar, I saw Gulam again. He sat behind his crumbling worktable, his head hanging in reticence and depression. I walked up to him and held his arm. He pushed my hand away irritably.
‘Please tell me what happened to Rosy,’ I whispered.
He darted a malevolent glance at me and turned away, shaking his head. Then he walked up the staircase into the small room that served as his home.
I followed him in. The room smelt of dust, rats and shoe polish. The windows were shut and the room was dark. He had driven dozens of nails into the brick walls from which a variety of shoes were suspended. He sat down on the cot in the corner of the room without inviting me to sit as well. I could still see him, so I did not ask him to open the window. I instinctively knew that the beams of light would snatch something precious from him and shatter his fragile, private world. In the course of our conversation, he revealed that that something was a memory from his past that over the years he had clung to fiercely. Paradoxically, the need to preserve the memory emerged from his necessity to shield himself from it.
‘Look around,’ he said. This was all that remained of that fateful night. That pair he pointed to over there, those soft brown loafers, they were his son’s shoes, yes, they belonged to Jamshid. That one black loafer, that was Syed Anzar Shah’s. Those yellow shoes with hard soles and square heals, they shod Nadim’s humongous feet. He had collected them outside the camp where he had searched in vain for Jamshid’s dead body. Although most of the other bodies were found and buried, only Jamshid’s body was not found on the highway outside the camp. Even the blood had been washed away by the rain that fell that afternoon soon after the Friday prayers, and all that remained were the shoes, abandoned and scattered. He did not see even a single corpse then, not one out of fifty-six.
He had visited Misreh at noon. She was caressing his hair when they heard the gunshots and stampeding crowds. He wanted to go out and see what the matter was but Misreh held him back, saying it was not safe. She latched the door to her house from inside and they sat quietly until it became quiet and the downpour started. He was filled with a dark fear because across the road, the entire town of Bijbyor had begun to wail. When the rainfall grew torrential it drowned out the sounds of the laments.
When he eventually tore himself away from Misreh and came out, a hush had fallen on the highway. The smell of blood was supplanted by the smell of the earth awash with the rain. He walked towards the mosque. How did he know that his son was dead and that he was looking for Jamshid’s body? It was not a mere premonition or a wish he had buried over the years after his alienation from his son. He had deduced it from the manner in which Major S had told him to send Jamshid to the military camp. Looking into Major S’s eyes at the time, he had seen vengeance and sensed danger. He had felt a pang of joy at the possibility of his son’s murder; the son whose presence diminished him and, at the same time, filled him with pride.
On the highway, outside the camp and the bridge where the bodies had fallen, he desperately searched for his son’s body. He knew he would no longer have to bear Jamshid’s eloquent voice or his extraordinarily luminous face. That night – and every night after that – when he returned to the cramped darkness of his room he confronted the fact of Jamshid’s demise. Peering into the dark cavern of death’s mouth as it swallowed his head, leaving his neck stuck between its jagged, white fangs, he became fearless. He forgot that he was a watul and became oblivious to the distinction between the Syeds and the Sheikhs. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he shouted out loud. He wanted to find Syed Anzar Shah’s body and Syed Aslam Shah’s body, because he wanted to give them a decent funeral. He wanted to mourn for Nadim and call him by his beautiful name, Nadimo, Nadimo, Nadimo, the way his mother called him, even though Nadim had been mean to Gulam. Heckler though he was and Misreh’s only child, Gulam never wanted to call him by the demeaning nickname of ‘Pasture’. But now all of them, all the boys and men whose shoes he had polished, were gone. What was left were the shoes. As long as Gulam lived, he would guard them and polish them religiously.
Outside, as night fell, the road emptied of vehicles, the shops closed and the market became mute. I could barely see Gulam. He had collapsed in the corner and the terrifying thought darted through my mind that perhaps he was dead as well.
I stood frozen for a while until I heard the sound of teeth grinding. I saw Gulam’s silhouette sit up against the wall.
Fifteen years ago in 1993, he began in his rasping voice, on the evening of 28 April, Major S smeared shoe polish on his face. He went so far as to dip his fingertips into the box of polish and insert his fingers into Gulam’s mouth. It was an act of pure misanthropy and sadism that defied comprehension and nearly drove Gulam insane. But Misreh, that kind woman, saved him again. She had seen him through the window of her house, seen how his mouth was desecrated. She cursed Major S as she hurried across the street to Gulam. She took him home and kept him with her until she left him five years later, succumbing to typhoid. He left Bijbyor that very day and went to Mir Bazar because he could not bear to live in the street where she no longer lived. He loved her because she had washed his mouth clean of the polish and had given him a tumbler of milk. When Nadim returned home that evening, she told him straightaway that Gulam was going to live with her and that he was as good as her husband and that she would no longer consider herself a widow. Her son was taken aback by this unexpected announcement. Nadim flung his mother’s pots and pans on the kitchen floor and flounced out of the house in a dudgeon. Had she known that her son had so little time left in this world, Misreh would never have berated or cursed him that day. Nadim joined the protest outside the camp. Shafiq Galwan, a survivor from Kanelwan, had testified that when Jamshid led the crowd to the bridge, Nadim flung his bod
y across Jamshid’s, absorbing the first hail of bullets. He sacrificed his life for his friend.
Gulam never found Jamshid’s body. When he arrived at the highway outside the camp that evening, it was still drizzling. The tarmac, clean of the blood, was covered with glass splinters. He assumed that the soldiers had stopped some passenger trucks and broken their windshields and rear-view mirrors. But somehow it seemed that this was something more than just that. He looked around, at the mosque across the lawn. All fifteen windows in the front had been smashed. He went into the mosque. It was gloomy and dark inside. He stepped over the piles of broken glass and made his way towards the huge wooden minaret in the middle. This was the first time that he had been inside the mosque when it was completely empty. He was frightened. The windows, the light fixtures including the massive chandelier and even the stoppered vials of rosewater were all smashed to smithereens. He remembered the hypnotic eloquence and grandeur of Jamshid’s voice. In the spectacle of destruction around him, the abandonment and silence became intolerable. A wave of sorrow coursed through him. He faced Mecca and begged Allah for strength. He lowered his head and wept, giving the summons for prayer.
He walked past the veranda of the mosque through the long lawns to the edge of the highway. The slivers of glass pierced the sides of his feet that weren’t protected by his footwear, making them bleed. Imagine the force of the blows delivered to the windows from inside that had sent the shards flying across through the night. He crept into the camp, but the mansion was deserted now. The soldiers, fearing an attack from the natives, had left. He went to the bridge and stood in the middle and saw nothing but the whimpering, wet dog limping towards him.
Gulam knew that during an argument with his mother, Nadim had told her that Major S was building a huge casket out of the planks of the maple he had had felled within the camp.
When Gulam mentioned this, I wondered whether Major S, wanting to fill his masterpiece with the most perfect body in Kashmir, Jamshid’s, had thrown the casket into the river in lieu of the burial for a young leader. But Gulam continued with his tale. He was perplexed at why only his son’s body had disappeared completely, if the soldiers had fired at Misreh’s and Anzar’s sons as well.
Misreh told him later that Major S had gone directly to Shah Manzil after smearing his face with boot polish. The very next day, Gulam saw Nuzhat and the inhabitants of Bijbyor fishing Rosy’s pale, waterlogged body out of the Jhelum. It barely looked like her. There were bruises all over the corpse.
Gulam was standing by a willow when he saw them bring the body up in a fisherman’s net. And there she was, his beautiful daughter-in-law, the girl for whom Jamshid had given up his father. He was curious to see Rosy. When he saw the body blued as if she had been bludgeoned to death with a saucepan, he covered his eyes with his hands.
Major S had found Syed Anzar Shah relaxing in his garden. Every police officer who had been posted in Bijbyor had invariably dropped in to pay their respects to him, so, Anzar Shah had been expecting a visit from Major S for some time now. That evening when he saw Major S and two of his bodyguards, Raman and Sunil, advancing towards him, he stood up and held out his hand in a friendly manner. Major S shook it very briefly. He sat across the patio table from Syed Anzar Shah, the impeccable host, who offered to provide refreshments and cordially asked him what he would like to have.
‘The president of the Jammu Kashmir Youth Front,’ Major S replied.
‘You would loathe him,’ Anzar Shah said with a chuckle. ‘He is too bright a kid.’ Then turning around, he called for tea. Minutes later, Rosy emerged with the tea tray.
As she leaned over the table, Major S looked at her, measuringly.
Anzar Shah told Rosy to go away and dispensed the tea himself from the steel kettle into the white, porcelain cups. He wanted Jamshid, Major S stated baldly, taking a sip of the scalding brew. Syed Anzar Shah told him that Jamshid was not there in the house.
Major S reiterated that he wanted Jamshid and rose, pouring the tea over the grass lawn. Although Syed Anzar Shah was angry, he stayed silent. Sunil and Raman aimed their guns at Syed Anzar Shah’s head.
‘Where is he?’ Major S repeated. Syed Anzar Shah remained obstinately mute. Major S grabbed his shirt collar and slapped him. Then he yanked at his beard and slapped him again. The white skullcap on Anzar Shah’s head fell down, and Major S grabbed his hair and slapped him. ‘Boys,’ he said, ‘gag him and beat him until he reveals where he has hidden Jamshid.’
Sunil sealed the old man’s mouth with Sellotape. Raman kicked him in his stomach and his face.
Major S went into the kitchen and latched the door from inside. Rosy and Hasin rose in alarm, backing away from him. He seized Hasin by her hair and hurled her against the wall. She fell down, unconscious.
Major S grabbed Rosy, who was trying to wriggle out through the window. He cupped her cheeks with one rough hand. ‘Jamshid’s bride!’ he jeered. ‘He fucks you every night. You must know where he is.’
She lowered her eyes, shaking her head. ‘Where is he?’ he bellowed. She stared at him, wordlessly. He grabbed her hand, placed it on his crotch and rubbed himself. Then he unzipped his fly, his fingers still holding her hand. With his other hand, he opened fire at the utensils, breaking the porcelain plates and sending shards flying about the room.
‘It happened in this sequence,’ Gulam said. Misreh, who had entered Shah Manzil for the very first time in her life to mourn with Hasin, had told him all this. Hasin had recited the tragic story in an elegy as the people shrouded Rosy. When Hasin had regained consciousness in the kitchen, Major S was nibbling at her daughter’s thighs.
I heard Gulam get to his feet. His entire body was trembling. I stepped nearer and hugged him. But he writhed in my embrace as though my touch irritated him and filled him with fresh spasms of internal pain. ‘Let me go, let me go,’ he protested.
I left him and made my way to the riverbank. A thin layer of clouds covered the sky. The light of the lanterns inside the houses was vague and dim. All I could think of now was Fatima. In my mind, her face was superimposed on Nuzhat’s which was superimposed in turn on Rosy’s. I shook my head hard to throw off this conjured image.
The lanterns in the windows were extinguished. I rose, groping blindly in the pitch dark. I stumbled into a willow and scraped my elbow. I walked home, nursing my bleeding elbow.
I wondered whether my encounter with Gulam was real, or if I had merely imagined his apparition and his voice.
As I pushed the entrance door open, Fatima darted out of the kitchen into the corridor. Betrayed. I had broken my promise to take her for a walk before nightfall. Her eyes were swollen. I leaned forward and enfolded her in my arms. She furiously shoved my head away, hitting my face with her little hands. One moment, she was defiant and angry. The next, she was holding my neck in her arms, melting me in her embrace.
Acknowledgments
W
riting this book has been a long, transformative journey. Without my family and my friends, I do not think I could have come so far.
I am grateful to my mother Hajira, my father, Ismaiel, my brothers Showkat and Ajaz, my sisters, Nusrat and Gulshan, Nargis Didi, Sumaya, Ajeh, and all the younger Rathers.
Basharat Peer for his unfailing faith, and Wajahat Ahmad for his compassion. Idris Hassan Bhat, Sohail Mir, Sajad Sheikh, Asgar Qadri, Yael Plitmann, Saiba Varma, Adil Bhat and Abid Rather for their wonderful friendship.
Gaiutra Bahadur for being a superb first reader, Mirza Waheed for his enthusiasm, and Siddhartha Deb for his wise words. Irfan Bukhari and Suviad Yasin for their companionship. Sameer Mohammad and Mohammad Junaid and Melissa for opening the doors of their houses in New York to me.
Almost the entire book was written in Tallahassee, from the fall of 2015 to the summer of 2017. At Florida State University where I am pursuing a doctorate in Creative Writing, I am indebted to my teachers from whose workshops and seminars I benefitted immensely: Skip Horack, Robert Olen Butler, El
izabeth-Stuckey French, Bob Shacochis, Lisa Wakamiya, Diane Roberts, Anne Coldiron and John Mac Kilgore. I am also thankful to Professor Andrew Epstein for running such a fabulous programme.
Graduate school has its own challenges but my colleagues and friends kept me going. I can’t name them all but the ones I must are Whitney Gilchrist, S.J. Sindhu, C.J. Houser, Misha Rai, Karen Tucker, Zack Strait, Iheoma Nwachukwu, Obioma Calvin Umeozor, Lee Paterson, Theodor, Mat, Munib, Clancy, Paige, Colleen, Jenny, Reema Barakat, Huma Sheikh, Amanda Furiasse and Sher Khan.
My gratitude is due to Zahid Rafiq who stood by me at a very depressing time in my life. I am also thankful to Muzamil Jaleel and Majid Maqbool for sharing with me their stories about Kashmir.
At HarperCollins India, I want to thank my editor, Rea Mukherjee. Her brilliance infused the text with a new life.
At Sangam House, I want to thank Arshia Sattar for giving me space to write what would become the Bijbyor stories placed towards the end of the book.
Finally, I want to thank Hera Naguib: Your presence is a sacred music undulating beneath these lines.
About the Book
‘A haunting and mesmerizing debut that announces the arrival of a major new talent.’
– SIDDHARTHA DEB
Over the last three decades, Kashmir has been ravaged by insurgency. While reams have been written on it – in human rights documents, academic theses, non-fiction accounts of the turmoil, and government and military reports – the effects of the violence on its inhabitants have rarely been rendered in fiction.
Feroz Rather’s The Night of Broken Glass corrects that anomaly. Through a series of interconnected stories, within which the same characters move in and out, the author weaves a tapestry of the horror Kashmir has come to represent. His visceral imagery explores the psychological impact of the turmoil on its natives – Showkat, who is made to wipe off graffiti on the wall of his shop with his tongue; Rosy, a progressive, jeans-wearing ‘upper-caste’ girl who is in love with ‘lower-caste’ Jamshid; Jamshid’s father Gulam, a cobbler by profession who never finds his son’s bullet-riddled body; the ineffectual Nadim ‘Pasture’, who proclaims himself a full-fledged rebel; even the barbaric and tyrannical Major S, who has to contend with his own nightmares.
