The Green Sari

April 1988, Fatehkadal, Srinagar, Kashmir

Spring

On the third bridge across the river Jhelum, downtown Fatehkadal was brimming with activity. At Gani Bhat’s shop, Raj Begum was belting out ‘valay az vyasiye’ (come along, friends) in her emphatic tongue on Radio Kashmir. A cacophony of voices informed you that the baker was soon going to run out of stock. A school boy had slipped on the muck on one of the kaccha roads. Matadors were blaring honks, barely managing to drop off passengers. The horses – far and few now- were in forever neigh mode, annoyed with the 4 p.m. activity surge. Amid the smell of freshly baked bread, horse poop, and unseasonal snow, you could close your eyes and smell spring. The sun felt warmer, and the Kangri was shortly going to breathe its last burst of stale winter air. Kashmir Valley was about to come alive again.

Holding a small wicker basket to thresh a new sack of rice, Baabi was on a mission to finish spring cleaning and get her spice rack stocked.

“Baabi, have you checked out new horoscopes?” Gani Bhat asked, in his typical high pitch.

Baabi had been avoiding this conversation and threw in a vague response. “Yeli wakhat vati, teli lagi na taer,” she replied, quoting her very own mother, always waiting for the right time. 

Gani Bhat, pretending to work on his Kangri, responded instantly, “There’s a new Pandit who’s very good. Turn right two blocks after the old Radio building, near the big Chinar. He has rented the lower floor.” It wasn’t easy to stay updated with everything in the community, but he knew his business depended on the strength of his ears and making all the right connections.

“Let’s see,” Baabi muttered. She didn’t want Gani Bhat to know she was concerned. Modernity had hit the arranged marriage market. Of course, you could no longer marry girls off without having them meet the boy. Baabi always felt bad for girls who were not considered pretty by conventional standards. They could be left behind unselected in the process. In her time, women would not meet their suitors till the day of the wedding. In 1988, this overeducated modernism was not going to be beneficial to everyone. Yet, like all others, Baabi was going with the times. She was going to meet the new matchmaker. And although she was only twenty-two, Baabi decided her daughter, Tosha, needed a man in her life.

*

August 1988, Fatehkadal, Srinagar, Kashmir

Summer

Baabi sent her son to visit the boy’s dad in his office, to make sure that the answer was positive. The dad had found it hard to say no when cornered like that. So he went back home and asked his wife to prepare for the wedding. The boy’s mother, Mummy- called so by the entire neighborhood- felt cheated. She didn’t want to bring home a daughter-in-law who couldn’t come with the right kind of dowry. But talking about dowry openly was too obscene. 

The wedding happened in a rush. On the first day in the new house, around a thousand neighbors and relatives, Tosha lost a pair of earrings that Baabi had gifted her. She had an inkling that they were stolen but was too meek to say it out loud or point toward the boy’s cousin. A couple of days in, the boy gifted her a green sari. Receiving the sari was nice, but Tosha couldn’t wear it at her new home. She was afraid of Mummy’s reaction. And Mummy preferred money to be used for household expenses instead of gifts.

A few days after her wedding, as Tosha visited her mother in Fatehkadal, Baabi kept fussing over her husband’s chai. Finally, they found a moment, and Tosha promptly reached for her bag. “Keep this in your trunk,” she said, handing Baabi the green sari. There was no point in explaining why she couldn’t keep her husband’s gift. Baabi would insist that she needed to inform Mummy. 

Pressed for time, Baabi didn’t ask more. She folded the sari carefully, reworked the folds in the wintertime, and kept it in her trunk. One day, she wore it to someone’s wedding. And then, someone else’s, always folding it neatly back into her trunk. Although it looked like a well-worn piece, Baabi always thought of the folds with pride. 

*

April 1990, Jammu

Spring

“Raliv nata galiv.” Either leave your religion or be destroyed. The rising tide of hostility and threats, with isolated killings and warnings appeared on loudspeakers from different mosques. 

“Yih gayi trath,” Gani Bhat said, but he was not forced to leave home. 

“I will take the bus in the morning,” Baabi muttered. She had mindlessly packed one bag. Like thousands of Kashmiri Pandit families, she was being forced to abandon the only life she knew. But this was not just about her religion; it was about her identity as a Kashmiri, as a part of a community that had been bound together for generations. Were they not all Kashmiri, regardless of their faith? 

“This won’t work,” Gani Bhat shared, as he helped her get out on a bus in the early morning hours. 

“Here, keep the key of the house for when we are back,” Baabi said. She hoped it wasn’t a permanent farewell. Where would she start her life again at 60?

*

August 1990, Jammu

Summer

Four months in the new city felt like a prison sentence. The walls of her shared two-room house seemed to be caving in. The oppressive Jammu heat intensified her unease. She observed a string of ants on the wall, and her mind raced to her life in Fatehkadal. Whether it was her fear of bugs or the scorching weather, something made her move. She picked up her pink knitted purse and stepped out.

Tosha’s landline rang, cutting through the mid-afternoon lull.

“An old lady with a blue sari and a pink purse is lying near the temple,” her brother informed. 

Tosha boarded a Matadoor. News had spread, and she entered a space of commotion and commentary. 

“At least her kids were settled and married.” 

“Did you hear that Laal Ji’s mother died of a snake bite?” 

“It’s good that she didn’t need to endure this summer.” 

“She was a saintly soul; she didn’t have to take this jahnum too long.” 

“It’s tough for old people. They have no feeling of hope.”  

“She could not take the heat,” her brother said to nobody in particular. 

Tosha grappled with feelings of guilt. In her survival mode, she hadn’t considered the isolation and language barriers alienating Baabi. There had been no Gani Bhat here to make daily drudgery seem less obvious in Kashmiri. Baabi’s life had come to a tragic end in a new city, far away from her home. This bitter loneliness crushed Tosha. She felt dizzy. How was this happening to them? Why was no one helping? 

“She obviously doesn’t have a will. But here are the papers to forgo future rights as her daughter,” her brother said, even as funeral arrangements were being organized.

Tosha had no interest in property. She was being forced to sign a legal document over her mother’s dead body. But she accepted it quietly as Baabi would have. Then they opened Baabi’s trunk, and Tosha’s eyes fell on the green sari. “I want this sari,” she said, without explaining. With newly signed papers and her green sari, Tosha headed home. 

Mummy saw her ashen expressions and offered attention. “Yi kos lagath chi?” she enquired about the papers in Tosha’s hand.

“Baabi’s property is owned only by my brother,” Tosha said. Despite a tricky start, the birth of her children and the migration had softened Mummy. She had shown newfound respect for Tosha’s private teaching job. Without the security of their house, gardens, and government jobs, the family needed her to make ends meet. Unlike Baabi, Mummy had also shown greater resilience. She had chosen to take the kids to baths in the Nehar at Canal Road to deal with the summer heat and decreased water supply. She was also a consummate TV viewer, which gave her a sense of control about knowing what was happening.

“Oh,” Mummy replied. “Parunoy yoot cha! They schooled girls and allowed them to go to jobs, but the men will not change. Leave it. That wasn’t your home anymore.” 

For the first time since she had been married, Mummy made Tosha a cup of chai and handed it over with sympathy. She then proceeded to take the kids over to the Nehar. Tosha was struck by the gesture. She had needed a moment, and Mummy had understood, as only another mother could. Tosha’s attention went to the bag that lay beside her. Just a few years in, she had finally managed to get the green sari home. She smiled vaguely, appreciating her mother’s folds. It occurred to her that Baabi had complained about not being able to find good apples in Jammu. Tosha walked outside the house and saw a little fruit maid selling different varieties. As she ate one, she felt the crunch take her years back to a spring conversation between Gani Bhat and Baabi that she had quietly overheard. She turned around to go back home, but the fruit maid followed her.

“Biwi Ji, bag,” the maid began. 

Taking her forgotten bag back, Tosha took out the green sari and gave it to the maid.