Segment Humane!
M S Nazki
The radio that would be heard no more since the listener fell silent after he got to the age of 91 years in Harni, Mendhar!
This is a story of an ordinary man who never liked the materialistic life, his only companion was his wife because they never had any children!
* Thus the animals in forms of goats, sheep and dogs which they tamed became their only close ones! Not yet another nomad but a special of his and of her own kind!
* No one knew as to what mettle he was made up of, but he was a strong Gujjar who in his younger days wondered about along with his wife and flock as the wandering nomads do.
* But after 91 years of age he fell silent as everyone of has to, leaving his wife at 63 years of age desolate and silent.
* The place is in the shadows of pines, somber, calm and cool. It always was still till the man Quttubuddin S/o Sain Miran, R/o Bandia Chechian Poonch did not switch on his radio. The people of Harni always said that this man does not seem to get old. But just four days back he vanished to nowhere leaving little or no legacy behind! That’s what life of a nomads is. Agree or disagree that is the truth.
In no way I/m writing a tragedy, ode or an elegy or some deft tear jerking prose. It’s just something about the people who keep moving about in the mountains and hills rearing up sheep and goats (male ones) so that our stomachs pining in for flesh are fulfilled. This man from Chechian (Poonch) too was in the same segment of nomadic professionals. No wrong or harm but when he definitely decided to settle down in Harni in a small flat space he still did not know why he loved the place because till death he never moved out elsewhere. Accompanying him was his wife Lal Jaan. Trust me the nomads too have a fascinating love story which was spiritual in nature till one of them departed. It is always is the story of every man/woman or preferably I would put it across as history of mankind!
No one in Harni would have even noticed the death because everything was silent four days back. The sheep goats were not bleating or scowling and the famous the (the loveable but dangerous dogs of his) who were the guards of a tent house were not barking. Neither was the radio buzzing. For years together Lal Jan and Sain (as Qutubuddin was called as) had a routine well known to the people. The dogs as always hungry used to wake up and the flock began bleating to release them off the shackles of their canine friends because without them they had no protection to graze around although they were born free and of course Sain switching on his favorite radio full pitch. What he heard no one knew but some Gojri programs on what we call as Radio Kashmir Jammu, All India Radio he always tuned into. In Covid-19 Times he used to be over expressive, wanted to speak his heart but never got a chance. But with men like Pradeep Khanna in Poonch his wife may well! She has plenty to share because she does not have a child. But before that, I have an incident to quote:
Lal Jan knew that Quttubddin had breasted the tape since age cannot be limitless as far humans go even if they do not ever fall sick in their entire life. Her husband had never. She also knew that they did not have the paper money, so necessary to survive. They had grown up on the flock of animals they had reared up and sold. But now they had given up on that also because Sain had gone spiritual. Lal Jan distinctly told me, ‘why carry them as babies, rear them and then sell them for human consumption’? I was befuddled and then I retraced my steps back but when I heard the story going around it was a shocker for me, ‘ Sain had no relatives of his but Lal Jaan has. Her relatives told her to sell her stock off so that money for sustenance can be made and deposited’. She refused and responded, ‘I have nothing of my own, what I had has gone, buried under the soil, the animals are my children and I will rear many more as they arrive and two of them (lambs) are just too small’. This moved me no end but the about dogs left me crest fallen because Lal Jaan had this to say, ‘he used to go once in a week to Mendhar to collect chicken internals for the dogs. The shop owners would give it free of cost. He would come back, spend most part of the evening cleaning up and then boiling them up to serve his pets. They loved it. But it’s me who would have to do it now and that I will do ’! That is why they say the dogs brought by Nomads are favorites with anyone perhaps a step ahead of the pedigreed ones or maybe they are of a different type altogether!
But one thing I realized in Mendhar. The people love each other. Thousands have already the visited the tent sight where this family of a very different kind lived for so many years and is still. The people always did help the desolate couple and now also after the death of Quttubudin they have organized a massive food distribution point (Langar). People from all over the places are coming in and paying tributes not because he was great but because he was humane. This is exactly what India has preached to the world. For me as I walked away from the silent tent from where the radio used to blare and now only the sounds of silence would be heard. The slim, trim but now bent from the spine (as we all will once in future) Sain is destined to be seen no more. He did teach brotherhood of man for sure and that is why I wrote this story of yet another unknown nomad! But I feel sorry for 63 year old Lal Jaan. No doubt people will help her out but if the administration, even has a peep into her whole story and consider her worth helping, it would be a great super turner for those who consider that the Government does not know the ground realities and does! May be the tent gets converted into an institution of love between all the living beings on planet earth! Trust me it can be done! And mind you it is being done elsewhere in the Nation!
