The secret was just about to reveal. Everything would become clear. Everything would get settled, at least for me, when Mama lifted the curtains, pulled my blanket and I woke up with a start. Longing to fall asleep again and reach the same dimension where I had been just a moment ago, talking to Halatine.

Halatine - A grotesquely romanticized entity. It’s gender, color, religion, or simply put, it’s measures of identity as defined by us, not known to me or anyone else. The only thing I am sure about Halatine is that it is typically overpowering. It can gather the attention of my brain and occupy the core of my heart. It bears the ability to bring me out of any activity or conversation and then make me listen to its stories. Stories that I hardly understand. Wonderfully metaphorical stories. It is important to mention here that Halatine is neither a hallucination nor a real character. It is “something” uncommonly common among people surrounding me. But we never converse about it. Maybe Halatine also overpowers their thoughts. Maybe not.

One fine day, ‘fine’ because it had rained the whole night bringing respite from the high temperature that Kashmiris are not used to. High readings on the temperature scale and exceeding vapors in the air have become issues of international concern and even though the difficulties are expected to increase with time, I don’t understand the point in showing tantrums about it. We ourselves degrade resources and then become puzzled when asked about who is responsible. So on this fine day, on a very pleasant morning, I met Halatine. I had just gotten into a bus and after struggling a little to have a seat, I started observing Kashmir through the window. The toughened glass was laid with tough watermarks. The window would have been dust-laden and the rain the previous night failed to clean it properly. Today, four years later, I wonder whether it was the stained window or my myopic vision that made the world outside look blurred, faded, and dull. Green bathed Poplars, Willows, Locusts, etc, men and women doing their daily chores, children happily off to schools, everything was racing backward. For the first time, Halatine appeared- in my mind, in front of my eyes. It's advent, I pretty much remember. But its form, I don’t. Maybe because it is too complicatedly diverse to remember. Anyway, that is how I met Halatine – unexpected, destined, and sudden.

Having failed to get back to the meeting time and place, I slid out of bed, and looking out of the window, I could see a uniform white blanket of snow covering each little speck on the earth’s surface. The much-awaited snowfall of the season had finally started. Feathery light flakes that could form heaps upon coming together were dancing while approaching the earth, at the same time in an effort to delay encounter with the surface. The first flakes get compressed by the weight of those on the top and thus mix up with soil forming slush. Therefore, every flake was in this effort of staying at the top and living a little longer. Competitive survival, after all. Getting ready for the daily chores and simultaneously framing the day’s To-Do schedule in my mind, I put on my Pheran- something without which a Kashmiri is incomplete, identity-wise as well as comfort-wise. Joining the rest of the family for meals is one of a lot of routines that I truly adore and cherish about Kashmiri families, although this culture also has lately started succumbing to Westernization. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the taste of every Lawasa bite and Noon-Chai sip gets enhanced manifold when a family eats together. Whenever the four of us (my family) sit for meals, we discuss a multitude of topics, from changing food habits to the evolving education system to politics. This time also, a much repeated yet interesting story was being narrated by Papa when Halatine reappeared!! With a sudden realization, I found her exactly next to my ears beginning to narrate her part of the story. ‘Her’ because this time it had taken up a feminine form.

She had been married for one year when she had her first child, her son. Big eyes with dark black pupils, completely in contrast to the clear white complexion. He had winked at her when she first saw him while she was still recovering her nerves from the intense labor that had drained her of every bit of energy. The wink was probably a reflection of her own happiness of having given birth to a lifelong partner. The dual feeling of motherhood and of having achieved a backbone support in the form of a son, filled her with such satisfaction that she didn’t even realize that she had already fallen asleep. A baby’s sleep- of satisfaction and of content- on that creeking hospital bed. Exactly after nineteen years and seven months she was woken up to feed her starving body. This time lying on the floor surrounded by women of neighborhood and two daughters who had completed the sculpture of her motherhood after her first and only son. Son! She had lost him. Was he dead. She didn’t know. After a moment’s breakdown, she quickly stood straight and regained her resolve to look normal. But finding it difficult to further contain herself, she vanished!

“and now the times have changed. Education system has transformed, partly for the better and partly for the worse” concluded Papa and Mama who always had this unique complying and agreeing ability. A sign of successful marriages, may be. Having gathered the Dastarkhwan and having done the dishes, I quickly rushed towards the study. Exam schedule was already out. For me it is a routine to quickly start studying after breakfast especially in winters. This is so because I find winter afternoons too cozy to resume studying that too when an aromatically sizzling meal fills up the stomach and the Kangri warmth enters every fold of the innermost thermal wear. All these reasons put together glue me to the Juglans panelled lounge and don’t let go of me till late evening, which is not too late on the clock. Actually, days in winter are shorter!

Winter afternoons on alternate days, those days, were characterized by a vegetable vendor who would stay in the colony for about an hour continuously chanting --- Sabzi, Sabzi…..Haakh, Mujih, Tamatar, Phoolgoopi….hatas cxor kilo……and all such offers that would tempt the residents to come out and spend few hundreds to fill the storing section of their refrigerators or storerooms, depending on how grocery was preserved in a given household. The sloganeering- tone and pitch, was as a result quite familiar to me, at least. But today there was a change. The pitch- technically the ‘frequency’, was too high. Eager to see the cause of this change, I raced towards the window leaving aside the chapter on “Selection of Provenances”. Lifting the curtains I saw the vendor was accompanied by a child- a son, or a nephew. Definitely someone related given the similarity in facial features. The boy was being given lessons on correct sloganeering- appropriate tone and time to be spent in each Mohalla. Nepotism is cruel.

“ …. I was very good at Math. Alphas, betas and everything else fascinated me. Given the questions I solved and the sums I simplified, I myself did believe that I was truly gifted. But. Nepotism is cruel. I had to join a Mason’s group to make both the ends meet. This was obligatory as I being the oldest son had to take up the responsibility of earning. Lucky are those who have choices to make in life. Being able to choose is the real wealth! Why couldn’t I choose the life I aspired?...” asked Halatine few days ago while I rode a bus driven by a child similar to the one being trained for vending vegetables. This question I recollected the moment that boy looked into my eyes through the glass pane. Same question with the same intensity, the same longing and the same disappointment.

Evenings are plainly nostalgic. One more day passes and we hardly notice. Day after day we come close to the reality of life - the Death, but don’t even realize. Or are reluctant. As I read somewhere recently- people may deny anything; even the presence of God; but none can deny Death!! These were the thoughts on my mind while watching a thickly clouded sky- the snowfall wasn’t proper during the day so loaded clouds were still floating in search of a suitable note to start the song of snowing again. Then it would continue for the whole night. People would be inside, dreaming about their aspirations, fears, or just wild imaginations and the world outside would wholly belong to the flakes falling without the worry of being trampled and dying too soon, as happens during the day. Amidst the preparatory drill, one huge cloud, as I could clearly see from beneath, was about to engulf a smaller one. Smaller one ignorant of the propaganda was busy with the drill- swishing and swirling freely, enjoying its light weight. In a jiffy, the larger cloud with all of its might and aggression came too close to it and with one of its limbs engulfed whole of the smaller one. The small cloud was too small to be noticed and rest of the population didn’t even realize the absence of one entity. The ‘evil cloud’, now behaving normally began showing off one of its moves - spreading out a limb, then undertaking a powerful impulsive swirl. This made the snowflakes land on earth with pride and fulfilment. Soon others also started rehearsing the move but only few of them could do it with same effectiveness. The reason behind this was something of which the novices had no idea. These learned clouds also had, secretly of course, spread out their limbs earlier to engulf poor small cloudlets. With a strange commonness in the techniques all the bigger clouds started showing off the move in greater detail to others. Innocent and ignorant smaller ones kept wondering about such a quick learning ability. While they pondered, “masters of the trick” continued rehearsing while others were too awed to practice.

Not interested in watching the silent death of poor small clouds, I sneaked inside and giving it the name of the stark reality of life, I got up to return inside carrying with myself the Kangri that had been placed outside for the smoke to vanish.”…..Mama shall I lock the gate. Is papa and bhai inside....”

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