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Story-telling to keep away from turning icicles
Come
peak winter phiran-clad souls begin to warm up for hours of
story-telling. Imtiyaz Bakshi
on a reverie trip.
The
pleasures of outdoor life are plenty in Kashmir but the denizens
of this tradition-rich place are no aliens to indoor culture.
Come Chillei Kalan (40 days of peak winter starting
from December 21), Kashmiris are ready for long sessions of
story-telling and indoor games. The idea is to keep away from
turning icicles.
The
present-day Kashmiri is armed with television, VCR, cable
and other modern-day luxuries to entertain them when forced
in the confines of four walls by the chill outside, but story-telling
formed the best form of room entertainment for men, women
and children in the days of yore.
The
list of stories was quite long. Saam Naame or the adventures
of legendary wrestler Saam; love stories on Himaal Nagrai,
Shireen Farhad, Laila Majnoon, Gul Bakaoli, the treasure
hunt of Ali Baba and Chaalis Chor, the good deeds of
Sindbad and tales of Alladin and his Magic Lamp. If
the vast reservoir of fables and fairy tales never really
exhausted for the parents and elders, the children also excelled
in their show of patience.
The
room settings is made conveniently warm for long sessions
of story-telling. Heat radiated underground from the kitchen
oven to the adjacent hamam while the bedrooms were
kept warm by the bukhari fire. Children, clad in knee-long
traditional Kashmiri phiran with Kangri (earthen
firepot with willow-wicker insulation) tucked inside, would
sit around the narrator and implore him to unwind story after
story.
He
would begin with the romancing couple Shireen and Farhad and
go on telling how Farhad went about burrowing a tunnel in
a North Kashmir mountain of Haramukh as a pre-condition to
earning the hand of his lady love Shirren in marriage.
Then
there is Himaal Nagrai, a local fairy tale of love
between the Prince of Cobras (Nag), who lived seven
earths below, and stunningly beautiful, all-human Himaal.
The story tells how Nagrai would often abandon his kingdom
to visit the mother Earth. It was during one such visit that
he met Himaal and was dazed by her beauty and clarity of mind
and soul. Nagrai fell in love and did not mind ditching the
maidens of his kingdom. But there was a condition attached.
The Prince would remain on the earth as long as he was not
drowned in a tub of milk. It was here that the snubbed maidens
hatched a conspiracy to ensure his return to his kingdom.
They befriended the innocent Himaal and made her prepare a
tub of milk. Nagrai drowned and vanished.
"Khul
ja sim sim, band ja sim sim" opened and closed treasures
for Ali Baba and Chalis Chor. Sindbad would humble demons
with his intelligence and heavenly prowess. Gagar Lache
or tales of rats are told to an assembly of children, where
all the participants thrust their hands inside the phiran
of a player, who, in turn, puts a pebble in one of the eager
hands. The others then have to decipher the hand carrying
the precious pebble. It is here that the participants' will
power and control over emotions comes into play as curious
eyes look for changed expression on the faces. A smile or
blushness on the visage of the one carrying the booty would
often let him down.
(Expressindia
welcomes suggestion and feedback from its readers on its endeavour
to reconstruct the fading charm of the Valley and to present
before them a slice of Kashmiri life beyond the booming guns.)
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