The Soldier In Kashmir

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I have just crossed Ramban - the northernmost I have ever been in this country and I am about to enter the famed Jawahar tunnel. Just about at the entrance a soldier stops me. He asks me for an id and then lets me go. Inside the tunnel, I am filled with excitement. On the other side of this 2.5 Km tunnel is the Kashmir valley. I exit the tunnel and pretty soon a yellow Border Roads Organization board tells you in bold letters "FIRST VIEW OF KASHMIR VALLEY. HAVE A BREAK. VIEW POINT"

I take a break and have a look. The first view of the Kashmir valley justifies the hype surrounding Kashmir and something tells you it is going to get better and better. Whatever they had said about Kashmir was pretty much true. Having soaked in the first view of the Kashmir valley, I decide it is time to move forward. I have a final look at the board that says "TITANIC VIEW POINT". It beats me as to why anyone would name a view point "TITANIC". But there is a dark answer in my head. Well what they said about the Kashmir valley was pretty much true and maybe like the Titanic - the Kashmir valley is one ship that is bound to sink.

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I ride down the road and soon the sight of a gun wielding soldier guarding the highway greets you. Every 500 m or so there happens to be soldier guarding the highway. A man holding a gun is appealing only when you completely trust him. I trust him completely. My father was in the Army and I knew if anything goes wrong for me, I can count on the Army to help me out. Moreover I am a tourist on a motorcycle. Motorcycles have a very romantic appeal to them which cuts across barriers of religion, caste, nationalities. Sometimes it even cuts across the barrier of looks. Even though the soldier over there doesn't know me, I believe he trusts me too. But when dark thoughts have entered your mind, it is difficult to get rid of them. I want to stop and click a picture but I don't. I want to stop and smoke a cigarette but I don't. What if the soldier calls me out and my response fails to amuse him and he pulls the trigger ? What if he is suspicious of me and pulls the trigger ? What if the soldier is just momentarily scared and pulls the trigger ? But then how can a soldier be scared. Soldiers are heroes and aren't heroes supposed to be fearless ? Still I decide that the smoking could wait. Smoking is not a habit I am proud of. It kills but I tend to take my chances with it because it kills you over time. Bullets are different. From what I have heard they tend to kill you immediately. I would rather not take a chance.

Touring on a motorcycle is a lot of things. Perhaps the most important of it is the expression of your freedom. Often in our everyday lives we feel shackled. On the road, in lands unknown to you, riding a motorcycle gets you rid of these shackles one by one. The sight of the gun however unsettled me. The ones holding the gun were my own people. I have been raised in Army cantonments. I can pass gun wielding soldiers without batting an eyelid. It's those dark thoughts that have entered my mind. I am not able to get rid of them. I carry on. I am not a local Kashmiri who has to live his whole life under the shadow of the gun. I am just a tourist and in a few days I'll be out of the valley.

Dusk is about to set in and Srinagar is still some 80 odd Kms to go. I need to hurry a bit. Why the hell are cricket bats hanging on both sides of the road ? Kashmir willow, it suddenly dawns on me. The shops on both sides of the road are selling cricket bats. There are posters of cricket stars outside those shops. I can spot one Sachin Tendulkar, one M S Dhoni. The rest are all Saeed Anwar, Inzam ul haq, Shahid Afridi. Pakistani cricketers on the wall. It does not shock me. If there was an Imran Nazir or an Ijaz Ahmed poster I would definitely be shocked. But questions arise. Are they genuine fans of these Pakistani cricketers or are they trying to send out some political message ? It unsettles me a bit. Should I be hiding the dependent card in my wallet that can reveal the Army background into some obscure corner in my luggage pack ? I carry on. After all I am just a tourist and I'll be out of the valley in a few days.

It is almost 8 p.m when I reach my hotel in Srinagar that a friend had arranged. The hotel staff is pretty intrigued. A man on a motorcycle strapped with luggage is an intriguing sight and I carry a lot of luggage. I am on a 7 month motorcycle trip and my whole world is traveling along with me. The seven pieces of luggage on my motorcycle reflects that. One of the hotel staff Tanvir, a handsome chap in his mid twenties is very excited. One of the perks of traveling in a motorcycle is the kind of awe you inspire in a lot of people you happen to meet. It is good for your ego and in hotels and restaurants service standards tend to improve a bit for you. He rushes to help me untie the luggage from my bike and carry it to my room and I settle in.

I come down for dinner and there I see the manager of the hotel with a few of his friends. They are interested in my story. They ask me questions and I answer them politely and honestly. Then they ask me "What does your father do". Thoughts race in my head. Should I tell them that he was an Army officer and now retired ? In most other places in the country, I mention my Army roots at the drop of a hat. Here I was in contemplation. These are extremely nice people but then the manager did try his luck to sell me the room at a higher rent. They seem to speak in a conspiring manner among themselves after every answer that I give them. But then it could just be the way Kashmiri sounds and one of them does look like he has a hard time understanding Hindi. Maybe they are just making fun of my looks in a language I don't understand. This thought enrages me. If I had a gun, I would kill them all right now.

I tell them "He was in the government service but now retired and settled in Kerala". I smile in my head. It was a masterstroke. I do not lie but I hide my Army roots too. Then I look at them. These people do not seem to be connected to insurgents in any way and my Army roots just wouldn't have mattered to them. Call it the dark thoughts in my head, I still am not able to trust them. I excuse myself and search for Tanvir. I find him standing near the kitchen. I ask him if there is a place nearby from where I could get some rum. He tells me to not bother, he will get it for me. He then asks if he could take my motorcycle to the market to get me my rum. I am reluctant. What if he gets into an accident or something ? I have the whole country to cover after this. I look at him. He is very excited and looks with a lot of expectation. I give him the keys and tell him to get a bottle of coke too. After all, everyone talks about the need for the Army to build bridges of trust with the local Kashmiri population. I am not in the Army but I'll just take the liberty of being one by way of association. Maybe this gesture could become one of the bricks in that bridge.

I finish my dinner and walk near the gate waiting for Tanvir to get back. I hear the sound of my motorcycle approaching and I can see the slight discomfort Tanvir is in. The coke bottle doesn't fit his pockets so he is carrying it in his mouth. It is quite a funny sight. I take the rum and the motorcycle keys and head off to my room and pour myself a drink. I sip my drink and I think of the day gone by. I think of the gun wielding soldier in the highway, I think of the sports shop adorned with posters of Pakistani cricketers. Guns may or may not kill people but it can definitely kill the trust in them. It doesn't matter whether you are holding the gun or whether you are living under its shadow. My thoughts are interrupted by a knock in the door. Tanvir stands outside.

I got up to open the door with another set of thoughts racing through my head. Maybe they came to know my Army roots and Tanvir stands outside holding a gun, ready to spray me with bullets. I gulp down my drink. If I am going to meet my maker tonight, I should be able to tell him that I finished my drink. I open the door. Tanvir is there and he mutters something. I don't understand. I ask him what happened and listen more attentively this time. He tells me that he hurt the inner part of his lips while carrying the coke in his mouth. Then he pulls out his lips from his fingers and shows it to me. I really can't see anything and I don't understand his point of telling me all this. Maybe he expected more gratitude from me. I guess that one thank you I said at that time was not enough. I try to figure out what he wants. Was he hoping that I kiss him ? He is a handsome man no doubt but I am not into men like that. Suddenly the thought of being sprayed by bullets seemed a much better option.

We stand there in silence for a brief moment. Tanvir then breaks the silence and asks "Can I have some alcohol ?" I heave a sigh of relief. I smile and say "sure". I pour him a drink. A large peg. He pours some more rum in it, adds maybe 10ml of water and gulps it down in one shot. I hadn't even taken the first sip from the drink that I had poured for myself. I thought I'll have a conversation with him and build some bridges of trust. I ask him if he needs another drink. He declines. He gets up and leaves saying he has some work to attend to but he will be back with his cousin Tariq in a while. He asks me not to sleep and he goes out. I keep sipping my rum and wait for them. In about 15 minutes they both come to my room. I pour extra large pegs for both of them. Tanvir adds 10ml of water to it. Tariq fills up the remaining glass with coke. They both gulp it down. Maybe its a Kashmiri thing. Tariq isn't really blessed in the looks department. Compared to Tanvir who is strikingly handsome, Tariq is pretty plain looking. He is pretty plain looking even if you compare him to a rock. What he lacks in looks, he makes up in speech. Older and more sensible, he tells me about the places I should be checking out the next morning. Shankaracharya Mandir, Nishat Garden, Shalimar Garden and then the Hazrat bal. I make a mental note. Tariq & Tanvir leave now but before leaving we have made plans for a party in my room after dinner the next day. I'll be getting the alcohol and they will be getting some weed. I look forward to the next day. More so for the night. Maybe I will be able to build those bridges.

The next morning, I visit all the touristy places Tariq had mentioned. I leave my Army dependent card in my room. I am being safe. One could say a scared too. The Army is not really very popular in these parts. Am I being a little paranoid here ? The chances of finding that person who hates the Army so much so as to harm me - someone who is just a son of a retired Army officer is minuscule. Even more minuscule is the chance that he would happen to glance through my wallet to find out my Army roots. Still I won't take that chance. In places where guns are a common sight, trust becomes the first casualty. I spend the whole day roaming around in my motorcycle and stopping around to see places. Srinagar is a beautiful city. I have spent the whole day admiring it. The Dal lake, the Mughal road along the Dal lake, the gardens, the mountains in the background. It is the kind of beauty that makes you say a small prayer for peace. It is almost dark and I head back to my hotel. I make a stop at the liquor shop and pick up a bottle of rum. A bigger bottle tonight. After all there is a party in my room.

Tariq sees me carrying the bottle of rum up my room. He smiles. I smile. I have done my part of the deal. He says "We will come in the night". Something about the way he said it, I knew he had done his part of the deal. There is going to be a party tonight. I freshen up, wile away some time and head down for dinner. After dinner I head up to my room and wait for them. It takes a while but they show up. Tariq bought along some sort of a green salad with him. Sweet on his part but I really don't give a damn. What I give a damn about is the other green stuff which was his part of the deal. He takes out the weed and keeps it on the table. I smile in my head. This is going to be fun.

We start drinking. They gulp down their drinks while I tend to hold it longer but refills are done at the same time. We smoke a joint. We drink some more. The conversations which started with lame, cliched questions and the lame responses to it has now moved on to more interesting and intellectual stuff. Women, Our love life or the lack of it in our lives. Tariq looks like a man who has never been with a woman and has resigned to that fate. Tanvir has that mix of rage and sadness in short bursts that a jilted lover experiences. He rants on and on about the girl he loves and how her father is opposed to the union because he is poor and the girl is rich. Tariq and me have that mix of amusement and concern in short bursts that a friend of a jilted lover experiences. I try to slip in a conversation about the insurgency situation in Kashmir. They give me one or two sentences on how it was bad earlier but now things are better. Then they again start talking about women. I am relieved. When twenty something men are more interested in talking about women than politics you know that the world is a better place. However it can also be that they don't trust me enough. It was a crazy night. We drank. We smoked. I learnt some Kashmiri swear words. We tried to fix a light bulb standing on a plastic chair and we failed. We managed to break the chair though. Somewhere in this camaraderie I thought of slipping in my Army roots to them. I don't. I guess even I didn't trust them enough.

I am up early morning and fixing up my luggage on the motorcycle when Tariq is ready with the toast and butter as promised by him last night. It was complimentary as the manager would only arrive by 8 in the morning and he did not have to know. Tanvir just about manages to wake up in time to see me off. By 7 I am off. I ride through the Mughal road on the side of the Dal Lake. It is beautiful. I say a small prayer for peace. Kargil my next stop is some 200 odd Kms away. I was finally going to get out of the valley. The gun wielding soldier, the skepticism of my interactions with people in Srinagar - everything is slowly fading away. I am out of Srinagar, I have crossed Ganderbal and I am on my to Sonamarg. Just when I thought everything was fading away, I see a gun wielding soldier standing guard in a small tea shop along the highway a little ahead. I decide to stop for some tea, cigarettes and possibly a conversation with him.

The soldier is a soft spoken guy from Bihar. He has a wife and two children residing in Bihar. He and the tea shop owner share a chemistry bought upon by a need for humans to interact with each other who have been put together by some order of fate. I wonder how much they trust each other. I have my tea and I am smoking a cigarette. I offer him one. He doesn't smoke. We are talking about the weather and the road conditions and the distances and the time I would take to reach certain places on the way. My mind wanders to other thoughts.

Our nation is a nation bereft of heroes. The forces are one of the few institutions which we look up to every single time when we need to feel good about ourselves. They are our heroes. In our quest to proclaim them as heroes, we often forget they are human. They have fears. The soldier standing there does not hide his identity. He can be recognized from a mile away. He wears his uniform with pride. The locals view him with skepticism. They do not see his fear. The terrorist has the advantage of surprise. He looks like any other local guy. He can be in a salwar or he can be wearing jeans. He can be a 15 year old kid or he can be a 40 year old man. He may come in a motorcycle or he may come in a car. The soldier has to be alert every time someone passes by. He is doing a job that ideally has to be done by the local police force. The political situation in the valley won't allow it. It is not that he fears the enemy. He is trained for that. What he fears is the fact that the enemy is unknown. Maybe this is a discourse that needs to be initiated in the Army's Sadbhavana missions trying to win the trust of the local population. Who says heroes need to be fearless ? The fear can remain. Heroes just need to overcome them.

I bid him farewell and head towards Sonamarg. A dark thought enters my head as I leave. What if he gets killed in an attack ? Nobody might even come to know. If it gets some media attention, a wily politician might get some votes. Maybe his wife will get a gas station too. The internet patriots will raise a war cry on social networks.

I remember the words my father told me during the Kargil war. We were watching a news telecast at home where people high on emotions and patriotic fervour on camera were going "We are all behind the Indian Army. Teach them a lesson". My father just smiled and remarked "Why behind. Please stand in front"

"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war - Douglas MacArthur"

The grieving family of the soldier at the end of it all will take solace from the fact that the man who was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a friend - he died a hero. As for me I am not a soldier. I am just a tourist and in a few hours, I will be out of the Kashmir valley.

Srinagar picture album from this trip

About Me:

A 7 month motorcycle ride that took me to every state in India, parts of Nepal and Bhutan and one town in Burma. These blog entries are inspired by this trip. Stories about people I met, stories about places I saw. Things that intrigued me, things that amused me. They say traveling changes you, they say traveling inspires you and they say a lot of other stuff. I don't know. I think a gun on the head is a better way to change people. I just hope that my travel stories entertain you

Right now I am in the process of writing a book based on this trip and figuring out the difference between a writer's block and procrastination.

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