We walk down the bund with what I sense is a little bit of discretion. I follow Mudasir-Ali closely like a small child who realizes that there is something both imminent and important one should be silently respectful of. As I try to keep pace along the bund I almost run straight into the lagoon of mud that stretches before us. The way over is remarkably simple, the bricks are set strategically, making me grateful to be in a culture where there men are on average my height. I use the wall to balance myself as we skip along until we hit the second to last brick, or should I say the space where the penultimate brick should lie. Nothing less than genius prompts Muda and I to turn around simultaneously, grab the last brick, hand it up in line, and place it between us and the final step. Prideful and dry we hop to land on the the other side.
Crossing the bridge I watch the women selling fish chatter with each other hovered over their kandris one hand occupied by steaming chai the other gesticulating the merits of her catch. Piles of guts sit between their legs. Every once in awhile they thrust a handful over the edge, explaining why I see the remarkable cloud of eagles circling overhead.
At this point all I know is that we are heading towards food with authority unlike I have ever seen a male muster, especially a Kashmiri male. The boys that I see do nothing day in and day during this season have passed along a secret like a magnolia or a handkerchief given as a clandestine for action to the sercret society below ground.
After a right, a left and another two rights we are down an arbitrary alley with an arbitrary door around which men are clustered to get inside. After a slow trickle leaks some bodies from the space Muda and I slip past. Inside it takes some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they do I take in the scene.
An wrinkled slender man sits atop a wide iron platform thrusting its girth across half the room. This leaves a hallway through which to enter and a small wood floored space in the rear that now remains empty. I can't help but confirm that the man sitting cross legged upon his platform is a real life version of the multi-armed fire-tender at the bathhouse in Miyazaki's brilliant creation, Spirited Away. His five-fingered tentacles coordinate themselves with impressive fluidity as they reach for bread above his head, to the side for salt, to the other for a smattering of pig's stomach and below into the pit of his blackened furnace. His outstretched limb disappears into its depth arising with the treasure for which everyone gathers.
Opposite him in the narrow passageway men seem as though they are stuffed into a betting hall or dressed down for the New York Stock Exchange. Each holds a bill, sometimes 2, in his hand waving it at the man with the limber and eloquent armed chef. As the men lick their thin lips, their dark skin fading into the darkness of the room, the assembly finally begins. He sets out copper plates, as many as can fit the platter. A plop of grey glutenous matter retrieved from the bowels of the iron oven slides onto each plate. From a bucket behind he scoops a dollop of sheep's stomach to toss onto the heap. The man now reaches above, dexterously flicking the oil can from above into his hand. He pours the liquid into the pan at his side and flame instantly licks up the side of the pan and wall lighting up the room for an instant. He lifts the wok and pours the iron tinged oil upon each plate. It runs across the meaty pudding forming a glistening transparent blanket reminding me of the smooth drops of oil bespeckling Frasca's Avocado Soup with Rock Shrimp Boulder's summer sunset.
The men, knowing that the preparation has come to a close, toss their ten rupee bills in the plate sitting next to the cheg. They make rapid fire demands of his "sous," a fast-working boy with a pile of dishes to deal with. Dry but sturdy Kashmiri bread gets handed out for scooping the muddy mix. Within moments the dishes are cleared leaving some grumpy hopefuls to await the next round. The lucky resign to the unoccupied corner crouching over their hot plates with lusty pleasure.
Mudasir and I do something few can afford. We get an entire bowl of the madness assembled for us and Muda's family (my offering, as it were). When the compartment returns to my hands, grease trickling down the sides and muttony mush squeezing out the top as if in greeting, I am instructed to put it under my ferhen. I can't believe the boy is serious as I know that his ferhen is kept preciously clean and does not lend well to any sort of mistreatment. He reconfirms that that's where the mess should go, as once we emerge from the dark den "people will start asking."
And so, we head back to Mudasir's teal two-roomed house where we will share this precious preparation of winter celebration. Somehow being trapped in Kashmir, I have discovered via the underground network as if it were booze, hashish or weaponry, the ultimate Kashmiri treasure: Harissa.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
To Pee or not to Pee
I often feel as though this entire experience could be conveyed through the lens of my bodily functions. There are so many places that I could take this hunch; however, to keep my grandmother alive and sheltered from the shock such a description would inevitably deliver I will keep this PG...13.
The bus to Jammu stops for the first time in 4 hours, not because the passengers may want to rest their cramped legs, but because we are stuck on a cliff in a traffic jam. I try to gauge whether it might be safe to skip out and duck into some bushes to relieve my flummoxed bladder. Last time Genna and I left the bus it was to check on our free-flowing packs merely plopped on top of the bus. We were nearly left upon its roof and it was only by scaling the ladder 3 rungs at a time that we jumped into the bus's moving door in time (leaving our luggage as free as a hippie girl's breasts).
So this time, needless to say, I was a little wary about hopping off the bus. Even if we were the only white girls around for miles, our fares had been paid and the bus was cramped. My body begged to differ with my careful consideration so I hopped off the bus with men who had heard the same nagging from nature for the past 3 hours.
Of all the reasons why I hate men I think at the top of my list lies this peeing while standing up phenomenon. If there is one thing that gets me really pissed OFF it's that men CAN and DO piss ON anything they damn well please to. This holds especially true for developing nations. So, while I have to scurry around the cliff's edge for a life-threatening 5 minutes, they get to pee in the middle of the road which I then have to walk across. Furthermore, my only chance for relief comes at a time when our bus has just rounded the inside nook of this mountain making my choices for privacy rather limited.
So here I stand, err, squat, above me a grid-lock of buses, hopefully in solid tetras form until my return, and across from me another long line of traffic undoubtedly gawking at my white behind dressed in fleece pajamas, a beacon of chubby hairless pale tissue, great. Finishing my business is another fun system in which I sit, as per usual, deliberating between that eternal choice: wipe with snow or shake it off. The vroom vroom of the bus makes that decision right quick for me and as I haul up my knickers squirming with the disgust of feeling those last droplets sprinkle my thighs.
Struggling up the mountain, it isn't until I hop the ladder that fences off the road from the ledge below that I realize I'm in trouble: not only has my bus moved, but there are at least 10 just like it both behind and in front of me. Brown face after brown face peer from their windows staring at me - because I belong on their bus or because I'm a lost white girl on a national highway in the middle of the mountains? Eeny meeny miny moe will have to work for this one. I pick a bus a few lengths up from where I imagine I dismounted and hop in the door. From the back seat where Genna and I are crammed in I see her relieved face smile back at me. She informs me that the bus's population did their best to calm the girl down when she jumped up for fear that I would be left behind. Lucky I didn't bring T.P. I suppose.
The next 8 hours reveal much of the mystery behind our being stuck in Srinigar these past weeks. Trucks are wedged bumper to bumper along the miles of mountain passes. Some bring water, others bring mountains of foodstuffs depleted from the city and villages alike during the snowfall. The view down the side of the switchbacks is unparalleled. Grass roofs are visible on the cliff side exhaling trickles of warmth from their small chimneys. Into the mountainside are etched steppes green with vegetation, each a massive hand crafted tier of velvet. Below weaves the strong of what I imagine to be the Jelham River. It's current brings both the Kashmir Valley and the surrounding mountains alive with a deciduous forest unrivaled by any other region.
At times Genna has to close her eyes as we wobble to and fro on the bumpy pass. Highway signs read random messages some about road safety others just basic advice like, stay clean and your friends will love you.
My next inappropriate description begins 18 hours later and yes, I'm still on a bus. In Jammu, for a reason we will never quite figure out, we let ourselves be herded from one 12 hour bus ride to the next only realizing why everyone has warned us to the contrary when we attempt to lull ourselves asleep. With an ajar window, no blankets and a road that bounces us to a height halfway up towards the ceiling there is little chance that we will do anything but suffer for the next haul of this seemingly infinite trip.
Somehow regardless of how parched we let ourselves become Genna and I find that we need a bathroom every 4 hours. This rarely happens. 12 hours, however, is pressing upon our sanity. So at hour number 11, when the bus finally stops to allow us some respite, the men and two little disheveled white girls erupt from the bus. Yet again, we pass the queue of pissers slide into a ditch and deal with the fact that most of the world can glimpse our gleaming behinds while we water the arid Delhi ground. At this point I would thank Krishna for so much as a hover toilet with the pitcher I have finally become accustomed to.
And so it is that we say Kuda-ha-fis to Kashmir, the land of piercing black eyes, succulent meatballs, and 16 year old minds in 25 year old bodies.
The bus to Jammu stops for the first time in 4 hours, not because the passengers may want to rest their cramped legs, but because we are stuck on a cliff in a traffic jam. I try to gauge whether it might be safe to skip out and duck into some bushes to relieve my flummoxed bladder. Last time Genna and I left the bus it was to check on our free-flowing packs merely plopped on top of the bus. We were nearly left upon its roof and it was only by scaling the ladder 3 rungs at a time that we jumped into the bus's moving door in time (leaving our luggage as free as a hippie girl's breasts).
So this time, needless to say, I was a little wary about hopping off the bus. Even if we were the only white girls around for miles, our fares had been paid and the bus was cramped. My body begged to differ with my careful consideration so I hopped off the bus with men who had heard the same nagging from nature for the past 3 hours.
Of all the reasons why I hate men I think at the top of my list lies this peeing while standing up phenomenon. If there is one thing that gets me really pissed OFF it's that men CAN and DO piss ON anything they damn well please to. This holds especially true for developing nations. So, while I have to scurry around the cliff's edge for a life-threatening 5 minutes, they get to pee in the middle of the road which I then have to walk across. Furthermore, my only chance for relief comes at a time when our bus has just rounded the inside nook of this mountain making my choices for privacy rather limited.
So here I stand, err, squat, above me a grid-lock of buses, hopefully in solid tetras form until my return, and across from me another long line of traffic undoubtedly gawking at my white behind dressed in fleece pajamas, a beacon of chubby hairless pale tissue, great. Finishing my business is another fun system in which I sit, as per usual, deliberating between that eternal choice: wipe with snow or shake it off. The vroom vroom of the bus makes that decision right quick for me and as I haul up my knickers squirming with the disgust of feeling those last droplets sprinkle my thighs.
Struggling up the mountain, it isn't until I hop the ladder that fences off the road from the ledge below that I realize I'm in trouble: not only has my bus moved, but there are at least 10 just like it both behind and in front of me. Brown face after brown face peer from their windows staring at me - because I belong on their bus or because I'm a lost white girl on a national highway in the middle of the mountains? Eeny meeny miny moe will have to work for this one. I pick a bus a few lengths up from where I imagine I dismounted and hop in the door. From the back seat where Genna and I are crammed in I see her relieved face smile back at me. She informs me that the bus's population did their best to calm the girl down when she jumped up for fear that I would be left behind. Lucky I didn't bring T.P. I suppose.
The next 8 hours reveal much of the mystery behind our being stuck in Srinigar these past weeks. Trucks are wedged bumper to bumper along the miles of mountain passes. Some bring water, others bring mountains of foodstuffs depleted from the city and villages alike during the snowfall. The view down the side of the switchbacks is unparalleled. Grass roofs are visible on the cliff side exhaling trickles of warmth from their small chimneys. Into the mountainside are etched steppes green with vegetation, each a massive hand crafted tier of velvet. Below weaves the strong of what I imagine to be the Jelham River. It's current brings both the Kashmir Valley and the surrounding mountains alive with a deciduous forest unrivaled by any other region.
At times Genna has to close her eyes as we wobble to and fro on the bumpy pass. Highway signs read random messages some about road safety others just basic advice like, stay clean and your friends will love you.
My next inappropriate description begins 18 hours later and yes, I'm still on a bus. In Jammu, for a reason we will never quite figure out, we let ourselves be herded from one 12 hour bus ride to the next only realizing why everyone has warned us to the contrary when we attempt to lull ourselves asleep. With an ajar window, no blankets and a road that bounces us to a height halfway up towards the ceiling there is little chance that we will do anything but suffer for the next haul of this seemingly infinite trip.
Somehow regardless of how parched we let ourselves become Genna and I find that we need a bathroom every 4 hours. This rarely happens. 12 hours, however, is pressing upon our sanity. So at hour number 11, when the bus finally stops to allow us some respite, the men and two little disheveled white girls erupt from the bus. Yet again, we pass the queue of pissers slide into a ditch and deal with the fact that most of the world can glimpse our gleaming behinds while we water the arid Delhi ground. At this point I would thank Krishna for so much as a hover toilet with the pitcher I have finally become accustomed to.
And so it is that we say Kuda-ha-fis to Kashmir, the land of piercing black eyes, succulent meatballs, and 16 year old minds in 25 year old bodies.
Monday, February 4, 2008
WAS WANt some more
Alright, so I think it might be day 7 or so in Kashmir. Somehow we are finding it hard to leave this place, and for so many reasons. Perhaps the greatest one of these being Was Wan (pronounced Vas Van).
The day before the "40 Day" event that marks some appropriate period after a death the feast is prepared. On the banks of the Jehlum River the the Was Was family, famed for their specific preparation of the feast, sets out no less than a dozen copper pots over smoldering logs. A man sits, crouched over a small glossy stump chopping a mountain of small red onions using an elegant cleaver that reminds me of a elf hat. The preparation occurs well into the night only to begin early the next day.
The following day the overseers of the feast, the head of the family for which it is prepared, sit around smoking hukahs which they pass among the men while the children roam around in the dirt. I watch from above as one man assembles balls of mutton for another to smooth over long steel rods. The kabobs are then placed directly over the fire and turned slowly for the perfect roast. One huge copper platter cradles the 50 some-odd balls that will be made into kabobs for the day.
I sit on the ledge above, drooling like a basset hound, until I can take it no longer. My nose drags me down into the pit to gaze over the ornately designed copperware and the rich smelling paneer, saag, 3 kinds of meatballs and racks upon racks of mutton. I go along pointing to each one, beckoning forth word after word that I struggle to pronounce and immediately forget.
As the time approaches men gather round rasing elegant tents across the dirt road known as the bund. It occurs to me that what this really is is a block party. The Kashmiri block party is one that segregates the women and the men. When the food is ready we womenfolk gather in the tent waiting to feast. Segregation occurs in this case for the most perfect reason I can think of: the men are our servants.
Genna and I are a little confused by the event and as the men arrive with pitchers for hand washing we wonder where we fit in along the jumbled and tightly knit groups of women. We make the mistake of assuming that we are invited into the fold only to find out from the confusion of the women sitting aside from us that this is an event meant for groups of families to eat together in fours. And so, with some guidance we are pushed into our own family group. This is perfect for two reasons: one, Genna and I feel like our own family on this trip, two, we have no idea what in the hell we are doing. The rice arrives for each group on large round copper platters no less than a foot and a half across. And then the flight arrives.
First comes sheep stomach with rich turmeric filled sauce, next a small rack of fried lamb ribs, next appears the rogon josh (mutton chops in another sauce I would be unable to describe), and then a flock of meatballs each in a separate sauce and interspersed with a sercing of pickled slaw and saag tasting of Dal Lake. The women dig in with their hands. We are no masters of shoveling rice and meat into our small mouths. I've been laughed at several times over the past week for my pathetic attempts. Perhaps the hardest task is meatball separation. I study the people around me trying to understand whether I am to bite the meatball as a whole or divide it into saller pieces with my fingers. Somehow when I look at the other women the meatball is present one minute and absent the next; is there any way these women take down a fist sized meatball in one bite? The mystery is partially solved when we find the women shoving meat into green plastic bags provided for the occasion. It's a block party with goody bags!
Genna and I, in an attempt to cover up our pathetic attempts to finish our food, ask for a goody bag ourselves and being to shovel our uneaten food in. Horrified looks cross the faces next to us. We're mortified. What have we done wrong? Slowly, I raise the bag and my hand and then the bag in an effort to understand our mistake. As I go to put one more handful of rice the horror reappears. Rice, is not for saving, meat is for saving.
And so, with a few mistakes, Genna and I make our ugly American way through the 40 day feast. Lip smackin' good.
The day before the "40 Day" event that marks some appropriate period after a death the feast is prepared. On the banks of the Jehlum River the the Was Was family, famed for their specific preparation of the feast, sets out no less than a dozen copper pots over smoldering logs. A man sits, crouched over a small glossy stump chopping a mountain of small red onions using an elegant cleaver that reminds me of a elf hat. The preparation occurs well into the night only to begin early the next day.
The following day the overseers of the feast, the head of the family for which it is prepared, sit around smoking hukahs which they pass among the men while the children roam around in the dirt. I watch from above as one man assembles balls of mutton for another to smooth over long steel rods. The kabobs are then placed directly over the fire and turned slowly for the perfect roast. One huge copper platter cradles the 50 some-odd balls that will be made into kabobs for the day.
I sit on the ledge above, drooling like a basset hound, until I can take it no longer. My nose drags me down into the pit to gaze over the ornately designed copperware and the rich smelling paneer, saag, 3 kinds of meatballs and racks upon racks of mutton. I go along pointing to each one, beckoning forth word after word that I struggle to pronounce and immediately forget.
As the time approaches men gather round rasing elegant tents across the dirt road known as the bund. It occurs to me that what this really is is a block party. The Kashmiri block party is one that segregates the women and the men. When the food is ready we womenfolk gather in the tent waiting to feast. Segregation occurs in this case for the most perfect reason I can think of: the men are our servants.
Genna and I are a little confused by the event and as the men arrive with pitchers for hand washing we wonder where we fit in along the jumbled and tightly knit groups of women. We make the mistake of assuming that we are invited into the fold only to find out from the confusion of the women sitting aside from us that this is an event meant for groups of families to eat together in fours. And so, with some guidance we are pushed into our own family group. This is perfect for two reasons: one, Genna and I feel like our own family on this trip, two, we have no idea what in the hell we are doing. The rice arrives for each group on large round copper platters no less than a foot and a half across. And then the flight arrives.
First comes sheep stomach with rich turmeric filled sauce, next a small rack of fried lamb ribs, next appears the rogon josh (mutton chops in another sauce I would be unable to describe), and then a flock of meatballs each in a separate sauce and interspersed with a sercing of pickled slaw and saag tasting of Dal Lake. The women dig in with their hands. We are no masters of shoveling rice and meat into our small mouths. I've been laughed at several times over the past week for my pathetic attempts. Perhaps the hardest task is meatball separation. I study the people around me trying to understand whether I am to bite the meatball as a whole or divide it into saller pieces with my fingers. Somehow when I look at the other women the meatball is present one minute and absent the next; is there any way these women take down a fist sized meatball in one bite? The mystery is partially solved when we find the women shoving meat into green plastic bags provided for the occasion. It's a block party with goody bags!
Genna and I, in an attempt to cover up our pathetic attempts to finish our food, ask for a goody bag ourselves and being to shovel our uneaten food in. Horrified looks cross the faces next to us. We're mortified. What have we done wrong? Slowly, I raise the bag and my hand and then the bag in an effort to understand our mistake. As I go to put one more handful of rice the horror reappears. Rice, is not for saving, meat is for saving.
And so, with a few mistakes, Genna and I make our ugly American way through the 40 day feast. Lip smackin' good.
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