“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.’’
The signboard that brought out collective sighs failed to bother me. The valley had learnt to glorify its pain.
But the shoes caught my attention.
Dainty. Angelic white. Delicately crocheted.
Something drew me to them.
Examining them closely, I saw faint pink stains on them.
“ Baba, you claim they haven’t been worn, but there are stains on them,” I told the elderly man selling them.
“ The crochetwork in my shop is hers. Ask her !” he muttered, pointing towards a girl sitting with her back to me.
“ Cherries. My mother didn’t realise her hands were stained with cherry juice while making them,” the girl answered without turning around.
“Ha ha, you expect me to believe that?” I chided.
My friends laughed.
She turned around. Our eyes met.
Mashallah, those eyes!
Hazel. Kohl-rimmed. Fiery.
She pulled the pink hijab that covered her head over her mouth and nose in haste.
But she didn’t glance away.
A pair of mesmerising eyes bore into me with an enticing familiarity. And an aloofness that was equally exciting.
Happy to have a day away from work, I had been idling around with my friends at the local fair. Little did I know that that day would change everything for me.
Yes, it was love at first sight.
Those eyes; They beckoned me. Lured me. Seduced me.
And before I knew it, they had trapped me.
I was at her khala’s house the next evening. As I had guessed, she was new to our hamlet. She had recently shifted from a remote village.
As is common in small places, her khala was known to my friend’s ammi. And it wasn’t difficult finding a seat around their dastarkhaan.
She seemed surprised to see me there. She stared at me coldly.
“Kashish, can you help serve the kahwa?” her khala said.
As she handed me the steaming cup of kahwa, my fingers touched hers.
“ Kashish,” I mumbled softly. “So apt. Maybe that is why I am attracted to you in an unexplainable way.”
Her gaze softened.
The colour of her cheeks gave her away.
Furtive glances soon blossomed into a whirlwind romance.
The magic of her eyes bewitched me, and I dived in.
Work commitments suffered. I was dangerously distracted.
The boss got a whiff.
“Get married,” he suggested.
So I sent my parents to her khala’s place.
“Her khala is her only blood-relative alive?” Ammi asked on returning.
I nodded.
“ Well, she seems glad to get her married off,” Abbu said.
The nikah was a small affair.
But my fascination with her wasn’t.
Those eyes.
Hazel. Kohl-rimmed.
Placid like the waters of the Dal lake during the day.
Smouldering like the embers of the Kangri at night.
“We hardly see you,” my friends mocked.
“Your son’s been enslaved,” Ammi complained to Abbu.
The boss was silent.
I kept refusing assignments that required me to travel.
Work took a back seat. The distraction gave way to an attraction which tethered me.
To her. To home. To family.
“I am pregnant!” she announced.
And I was ecstatic.
I strutted down the streets of our village like a peacock which had just grown its plumes.
I doted on my beloved wife. Took care of her. Didn’t miss any check-ups.
It was blissful.
Until that cold December evening, which ushered in the seventh month of her pregnancy.
I brought home expensive baby stuff that had been smuggled across the border.
Excited, I showed it all to her – clothes, toys, shoes.
She pushed the shoes away.
Then she went into the kitchen and brought a different pair.
Dainty. White. Delicately crocheted.
With old pink stains.
“The baby was to wear these,” she insisted.
“Kashish jaan, I know your mother made them. But they have a tragic past, don’t they? What if they are a bad omen?”
“I am the bad omen!” she stated, a glint in her eyes.
I frowned.
“I made these with love, for my unborn child,” she declared,
“But…”
“Five years back,” she added.
I froze.
Those eyes.
Hazel. Kohl-rimmed.
Fiery and cold at the same time.
Unnervingly familiar. Disturbingly aloof.
“You killed my unborn baby,” she cried, “And I will kill yours.”
Before I could react, she slit her wrist with the shrakapuch in her hand.
Kashish swayed and fell.
I ran and held her.
“ I want you to be in as much pain as you caused me,” she mumbled, with her last breath.
The cut was precise.
Droplets of red everywhere.
On the rug .On her phiran.
And on the unused crocheted baby shoes she had been holding.
Splattered blotches of crimson on white.
Not dainty. Not angelic. But horrifyingly familiar.
I stared at them in shock.
And I understood.
Another winter night.
A lustrum back.
Military personnel chased us.
The heavy snow made it impossible for us to run.
Lights from a hut.
We barged in.Our AK-47s reigned.
But the man resisted.
I pointed the gun at his head.
His veiled wife, heavily pregnant, tried to stop me.
Hazel eyes. Kohl-rimmed.
Pleading.
I pushed her hard. She fell on her belly, writhing in pain.
He lunged at me.
I shot him.
Blood.
Droplets of red everywhere.
On the rug. On his phiran.
On a pair of crocheted shoes near him.
“Hurry, let’s leave,” the boss commanded
My eyes rested on the shoes before leaving.
Splattered blotches of crimson on white!
*****
GLOSSARY:-
Baba – (here) a term of respect to address an elderly man
Mashallah – an Arabic phrase meaning “what God has willed”
Khala – aunt
Ammi – mother
Dastarkhan – a tablecloth or a dining spread
Kashish – attraction; allure
Kahwa – traditional aromatic green tea preparation native to Kashmir.
Abbu – father
Kangri – Traditional portable fire-pot used in Kashmir
Jaan – (here) romantic term of endearment meaning life/soul
Shrakapuch – traditional folding knife used in Kashmiri cuisine
Phiran – traditional long, loose fitting tunic native to kashmir, worn by both men and women
