Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown

She was wrong. Abdullah Noman the sarpanch spoke first, followed by Pyarelal, and the other three members of the panchayat, Big Man Misri the carpenter, Sharga the singer, and the frail old dancing master Habib Joo, also made brief remarks, and their verdict was unanimous. The lovers were their children and must be supported. Their behavior was worthy of the strongest censure-it had been licentious and rash and filled with improprieties that were a disappointment to their parents-but they were good children, as everybody knew. Abdullah then mentioned Kashmiriyat, Kashmiriness, the belief that at the heart of Kashmiri culture there was a common bond that transcended all other differences. Most bhand villages were Muslim but Pachigam was a mixture, with families of pandit background, the Kauls, the Misris, and the baritone singer’s long-nosed kin -sharga being a local nickname for the nasally elongated-and even one family of dancing Jews. “So we have not only Kashmiriness to protect but Pachigaminess as well. We are all brothers and sisters here,” said Abdullah. “There is no Hindu-Muslim issue. Two Kashmiri-two Pachigami-youngsters wish to marry, that’s all. A love match is acceptable to both families and so a marriage there will be; both Hindu and Muslim customs will be observed.” Pyarelal added, when his turn came, “To defend their love is to defend what is finest in ourselves.” The crowd cheered and Shalimar the clown broke out into a broad smile of disbelieving joy. Firdaus went up to Abdullah and whispered, “If you had made any other decision I would have kicked you out of my bed.” (Later that night, when they lay in that bed in the dark, she was in a more reflective mood. “The times are changing,” she said softly. “Our children aren’t like us. In our generation we were straightforward folk, both hands on the table in plain view at all times. But these youngsters are trickier types, there are shadows on the surface and secrets underneath, and they are not always as they seem, maybe not always even what they think they are. I guess that’s how it has to be, because they will live through times more deceptive than any we have known.”)

Two panchayat members, Misri the carpenter and Sharga the baritone, the two largest and, along with the sarpanch, strongest men in Pachigam, were dispatched to the riverside to throw Gopinath Razdan out of town-Abdullah the sarpanch, fearing excessive violence, forbade his enraged sons to have anything to do with the ejection-but by the time the posse of two reached the Muskadoon the spy had already slipped away, and he was never seen in Pachigam again. Six months later, after a period of professional disgrace, he was assigned new duties in the village of Pahalgam, and was found dead one morning in the nearby mountain meadow of Baisaran. His legs had been blown off by some sort of homemade bomb and his head had been severed from his body by a single slash of a blade. The murder was never solved, nor did any clues lead back to anyone in the actors’ village. Eventually the investigation ran out of steam and the official case file was closed. Colonel H. S. Kachhwaha had his strong suspicions, however, and his frustration grew. Not only had he been insulted by Boonyi Kaul, but the failure of his spy’s mission had given him no shred of a pretext for the “descent in force” that he had planned for Pachigam. The colors of his world continued to darken, and he made a note that the village of actors was still earmarked for special attention, a decision whose medium- and long-term consequences would be grave.

For a time after the departure of the spy, however, the mood in Pachigam was celebratory. Pandit Pyarelal Kaul agreed to resume his teaching duties, to shoulder the dual burdens of education and gastronomy as long as his strength lasted; and preparations for the nuptials of Boonyi and Shalimar the clown began. However, snags soon started cropping up. The detailed wedding arrangements proved more problematic than Abdullah, with his plan for an idealistic, multifaith ceremony, had foreseen. This was because of the arrival of the families. From Poonch, from Baramulla, from Sonamarg, from Tangmarg, from Chhamb, from Aru, from Uri, from Udhampur, from Kishtwar, from Riasi, from Jammu, the two clans gathered; aunts, cousins, uncles, more cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, nephews, nieces, yet more cousins and in-laws descended on Pachigam until all the village’s houses were badly overcrowded and many minor relatives had to sleep under the fruit trees and trust to luck regarding rain and snakes. Almost all the new arrivals had strong ideas and expectations about the proceedings, and many of them were openly scornful of the sarpanch’s ecumenical scheme. “What, she won’t convert to Islam?” the doubters from the groom’s side demanded, and the bride’s people retorted, “What, there will be meat served at the feast?” All over the village and in the surrounding fields and pastures the arguments raged. The only thing generally agreed was that the traditional Muslim Thap ceremony, when the young couple meet in a public place to decide if they want to go ahead with the match, was unnecessary. “They have thapped each other long ago,” said a wicked aunt’s tongue, and there was laughter from wicked uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles, further cousins and so on.

Then came the argument over the Livun ceremonies of the Hindus, when, the Kauls insisted, the two families’ houses should be ritually cleansed. “Let the Kauls cleanse their idolatrous home if they need to,” said a hard-line old Muslim granny, “but our people’s place is already perfectly clean.” Nobody objected to frequent wazwaan banquets, naturally, and the veg/nonveg disputes were relatively easily resolved when Pandit Pyarelal Kaul, in spite of his abiding love for meat, agreed to banish all trace of it from his kitchen, while the Nomans, who had built a new brick-and-mud wuri oven in their backyard, offered daily menus that were carnivore’s delights. At the actual wedding, it was agreed after much haggling, separate groups of chefs would prepare both cuisines, chicken to the left, lotus to the right, goat meat on one side, goat cheese on the other. Music, too, was agreed on without too much dispute. The santoor, the sarangi, the rabab, the harmonium were nonsectarian instruments, after all. Professional bachkot singers and musicians were hired and ordered to alternate Hindu bhajans and Sufi hymns.

The question of the bride’s clothes was far thornier. “Obviously,” said the groom’s side, “when the yenvool, the wedding procession, comes to the bride’s house, we will expect to be welcomed by a girl in a red lehenga, and later, after she is bathed by her family women, she will don a shalwar-kameez. ”-“Absurd,” retorted the Kauls. “She will wear a phiran just like all our brides, embroidered at the neck and cuffs. On her head will be the starched and papery tarang headgear, and the wide haligandun belt will be round her waist.” This standoff lasted three days until Abdullah and Pyarelal decreed that the bride would indeed wear her traditional garb, but so would Shalimar the clown. No tweed phiran for him! No peacock-feathered turban! He would wear an elegant sherwani and a karakuli topi on his head and that was that. Once the clothes issue had been resolved, the mehndi ceremony, a joint custom, was quickly settled. Then came the matter of the wedding itself and at that point the entire entente cordiale came close to collapse. To many Muslim ears, the other side’s suggestions were appalling. Blow a conch shell if you will, cried the Islamic aunts and great-aunts and cousins and so on, exchange all the gifts of nutmeg you desire, but a purohit, a priest, performing puja before idols? Sacred fire, sacred thread? The newlyweds to be treated as Shiva and Parvati and worshipped as such? Hai-hai. Such superstition would never do. The Kauls retreated in high dudgeon. All dialogue between the two households ceased. “Families,” sighed Firdaus Noman in despair, “are the narrow-minded, low-grade cause of all the discontent on earth.”