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.