Part 18 (1/2)

'No Problem,' he says.

'This might work,' I say, handing him the bottle of acid I normally use to polish the sink.

'Good,' he says and picks up an old rag and starts work on the nozzle.

His presence makes me uneasy. He keeps muttering poetry while polis.h.i.+ng.

'Now you may leave,' I say.

'No Problem,' he says.

He does not leave.

'Do you have a minute?' he asks.

'It has to be quick,' I say.

'Why did you remove your turban?' he asks.

'Yes,' I say. 'My hair is short now.'

'What will your father say?'

'He is dead, Agha. He is buried in the glacier.'

The gardener stops polis.h.i.+ng.

'Fathers never die,' he says.

I lift my hand to my face. The beard is gone now, my cheeks are smooth. The turban is no longer on my head, but I sense its weight. It was a big part of me and I removed it. I look at my hands. All the muscles of my hands. The pores of my skin. The tips of my thumb and middle finger. The whorls, the roughness, the cuts. My hands are freezing. They start shaking. I strike a match. It doesn't work. Agha helps me light up the stove.

'Do you still have a minute?' he asks.

He has no patience.

'Please be quick,' I say.

'No Problem,' he says.

'Yes, yes, be quick.'

'My son disappeared two days ago.'

'He will come back,' I say.

'No,' he says.

'Did he become a militant?' I ask.

'He simply disappeared.'

'Sorry, I must get back to work.'

The nozzle is s.h.i.+ning now, reflecting Agha's face.

'No Problem,' he says and walks slowly to his old shoes and shuts the door behind him. A cold draft hits my cheeks.

Later in the evening when I am done with the dinner I spot him sitting by the marigolds in the garden, smoking a hookah. His breath stinks of nicotine.

'No Problem,' he says.

He looks more dead than alive.

'What do you mean?' I say. 'Your son.'

'He is gone.'

'No, no. But how do you really feel? Not just about your son, but the situation in Kashmir?'

'Bad things are expected during the turmoil turmoil,' he says. 'Why should the most beautiful place on earth be spared bad things? People are turning mad here. This place is becoming a pagal-khana, a lunatic asylum.'

'Where do you suspect your son is?'

'They should stop stop torturing our boys,' he says. torturing our boys,' he says.

'They?'

'Military,' he says.

'Where?'

'In the hotels,' he says.

'You are a joker, Agha,' I say.

'No Problem,' he says.

His words disturbed me a lot. I found it difficult to cook. Difficult to sleep. It was true. Our army had occupied many hotels in Srinagar. But they were the new residences for our officers and jawans, I had not imagined them as sites of torture. I decided to visit. Part of me wanted to disprove Agha. Barring a few bad apples our army was basically good. The only way it was possible for me to access the hotels was by taking extra initiative. General Sahib was pleased by my proposal, and he granted me the permission to inspect kitchens in all the army-occupied hotels. I became a part-time inspector of kitchens.

Hotel Athena. Hotel Duke. Hotel Nedou. Oberoi Palace. More than thirty-six hotels now belonged to the army. Before inspection, I would read the tourism department's write-up for that particular site, then a special vehicle would take me to the hotel (cycling was no longer safe) and I would arrive unannounced just before meals and taste the food and inspect the kitchen hygiene, and then excuse myself for a few minutes, and during that brief time I would hurriedly check the rooms.

Agha was wrong.

Our army was out shooting films. Everything was being done in the open, there was nothing to hide, the rooms were clean, certain scenes were being shot inside the hotels, others outdoors. Light. The most important ingredient in cinema is light. One needs the right kind of light to screen a film, just like one needs the right kind of light to shoot a film. (I remember, in Grade 3, I watched a film shot in Kashmir. The hero fought the villains first in the Mughal garden, then in the colonial-style hotel with red s.h.i.+ngles. There was something magical about the quality of light in Kashmir.) Because of the new a.s.signment I witnessed the shootings of many films. I was able to understand the connections between light and cinema. I was also able to compare the art of filmmaking with the art of cooking. A dish does not last more than a meal, but a film is for ever. Some people give up eating meat after watching the slaughter of a goat. But no one gives up the movies after witnessing a shooting.

If I were asked to give a collective t.i.tle to all the films our army was shooting in the hotels, it will be called Masters of Light Masters of Light or or Colonel Madhok's Diary of a Bad Year Colonel Madhok's Diary of a Bad Year. There was a scene which involved a man tied with a rope to an iron pillar. A captain shoved a cricket bat up the man's a.n.u.s. Light was warm and soft in the room. There was a boy crawling like an infant in a pool of his own s.h.i.+t and urine. There were naked men in the semi-darkness of sparkling Diwali lights. Two or three German shepherds snarled at their privates, men's p.e.n.i.ses squirming. In Hotel Nedou I discovered men standing under light so harsh and bright it burned their skin, and a machine kept emitting sounds like ping, ping, ping ping, ping, ping while giving shocks to the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of a Kashmiri tied to a wet mattress. In Hotel Athena I found hair and nipples and electrodes in cold outdoor light. Downstairs, close-up of a detached hand in underexposed light. Blackout. Pigs. Blood. s.e.m.e.n. In Oberoi Palace four male nurses were force-feeding two men in the fading light of the evening. There were tubes stuck up their noses and into their throats. But, I was not looking for men. while giving shocks to the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of a Kashmiri tied to a wet mattress. In Hotel Athena I found hair and nipples and electrodes in cold outdoor light. Downstairs, close-up of a detached hand in underexposed light. Blackout. Pigs. Blood. s.e.m.e.n. In Oberoi Palace four male nurses were force-feeding two men in the fading light of the evening. There were tubes stuck up their noses and into their throats. But, I was not looking for men.

Only one person.

Irem.