crossed the Line of Control. On the twenty-eight day of August, Indian troops captured the Haji Pir Pass, eight kilometres into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
On that very day, on 28 August 1965, Fattu Masi was making mutton roast and Beji was boiling black chickpeas for
ghuggni
when the news arrived—eleven Indian soldiers had attained martyrdom at the LoC. Amongst them was one Major Kulwant Singh.
Over
Bujharat Singh had got so used to talking over the wireless radio that he would suffix all his conversations with ‘Over’. We were standing just next to him and he said, ‘Why don’t you pull that charpoy and sit? Over!’
We pulled up the charpoy and sat. Gopi whispered into my ears, ‘Bujharat Singh! Now, what kind of a name is that?’
I shrugged my shoulders, ‘It is, so it is. So leave it be.’
Bujharat Singh had been speaking for quite some time now over a wireless radio, ‘Put four–five beefy burly men on his back and make the bugger run … he will automatically fall in line. Over!’
The wireless set cackled. Bujharat Singh lit up his beedi and puffed in the smoke. The party on the other side said something and Bujharat Singh snapped, ‘Rope his legstogether … then chase him with a stick … make him run … a kos at least. Over!’
He breached his talk to listen and then picked up the wireless radio and barked into it, ‘Arre, you will get nothing by starving him. He will die, uselessly. You also, no, talk like a stupid man sometimes. Over!’
He was doling out advice to somebody in another camp on how to rein in a crazed camel. A lantern lit his face amidst the darkness gathering in the sand dunes. Gopi and I sat patiently on the other side of the lantern. We were at a desert outpost, about forty kilometres from Pochina.
Pochina is situated at the India–Pakistan border. We were here on a film shoot. You could not really call Pochina a village. It was more like a outpost flung out in the desert, a pastiche of houses huddled together—but quite picturesque, like houses drawn in crayon in a children’s drawing book. The garrison quarters too was not a pukka building, but a framework of bricks plastered with mud. There were two rooms—barrack-like—and a square alcove cut into one wall. A soldier in full military regalia stood in the alcove leaning on his gun—quite pointlessly—while the rest of his garrison romped about in their undershirts and
gamchas
doing squats or massaging each other bare-bodied, slathering mustard oil onto their rippling muscles. Poor men! With the arrival of our heroine, they had to comb their hair and strain themselves into proper clothes.
And what a location our director had dug up! Scenic! There were ridges upon ridges of desert sand whereveryou looked, as far as the eye could see. Undulating in the wind—now a crease here, now a crescent there.
About two furlongs from this outpost was a cement milestone. ‘Bharat’ was written on one side of the stone and ‘Pakistan’ on the other. Such milestones are hammered into the sandy earth along the border at an interval of two furlongs. Between the two milestones the land lies barren—just a patchy growth of puny scrub which sheep and camels keep scratching at. These animals roam about with full freedom on either side of the border, unburdened by religion, unfettered by boundaries of nation-states. You cannot make out the religion or the nationality of their owners either.
We had a permit to be there for three days. And we also had the permission to pitch our own tents. But we had a small problem on our hands. The men would crouch behind the dunes for their morning ablutions. But what would the women in our troupe do? We found a makeshift toilet sort of thing, though, but it had no doors, not even a make-do one.
‘Who bothers with a door, Sahibji? This is the desert … we go behind the dunes and make do. The sand comes in handy. Where in this desert will you find enough water to work a flush?’
‘Then
On that very day, on 28 August 1965, Fattu Masi was making mutton roast and Beji was boiling black chickpeas for
ghuggni
when the news arrived—eleven Indian soldiers had attained martyrdom at the LoC. Amongst them was one Major Kulwant Singh.
Over
Bujharat Singh had got so used to talking over the wireless radio that he would suffix all his conversations with ‘Over’. We were standing just next to him and he said, ‘Why don’t you pull that charpoy and sit? Over!’
We pulled up the charpoy and sat. Gopi whispered into my ears, ‘Bujharat Singh! Now, what kind of a name is that?’
I shrugged my shoulders, ‘It is, so it is. So leave it be.’
Bujharat Singh had been speaking for quite some time now over a wireless radio, ‘Put four–five beefy burly men on his back and make the bugger run … he will automatically fall in line. Over!’
The wireless set cackled. Bujharat Singh lit up his beedi and puffed in the smoke. The party on the other side said something and Bujharat Singh snapped, ‘Rope his legstogether … then chase him with a stick … make him run … a kos at least. Over!’
He breached his talk to listen and then picked up the wireless radio and barked into it, ‘Arre, you will get nothing by starving him. He will die, uselessly. You also, no, talk like a stupid man sometimes. Over!’
He was doling out advice to somebody in another camp on how to rein in a crazed camel. A lantern lit his face amidst the darkness gathering in the sand dunes. Gopi and I sat patiently on the other side of the lantern. We were at a desert outpost, about forty kilometres from Pochina.
Pochina is situated at the India–Pakistan border. We were here on a film shoot. You could not really call Pochina a village. It was more like a outpost flung out in the desert, a pastiche of houses huddled together—but quite picturesque, like houses drawn in crayon in a children’s drawing book. The garrison quarters too was not a pukka building, but a framework of bricks plastered with mud. There were two rooms—barrack-like—and a square alcove cut into one wall. A soldier in full military regalia stood in the alcove leaning on his gun—quite pointlessly—while the rest of his garrison romped about in their undershirts and
gamchas
doing squats or massaging each other bare-bodied, slathering mustard oil onto their rippling muscles. Poor men! With the arrival of our heroine, they had to comb their hair and strain themselves into proper clothes.
And what a location our director had dug up! Scenic! There were ridges upon ridges of desert sand whereveryou looked, as far as the eye could see. Undulating in the wind—now a crease here, now a crescent there.
About two furlongs from this outpost was a cement milestone. ‘Bharat’ was written on one side of the stone and ‘Pakistan’ on the other. Such milestones are hammered into the sandy earth along the border at an interval of two furlongs. Between the two milestones the land lies barren—just a patchy growth of puny scrub which sheep and camels keep scratching at. These animals roam about with full freedom on either side of the border, unburdened by religion, unfettered by boundaries of nation-states. You cannot make out the religion or the nationality of their owners either.
We had a permit to be there for three days. And we also had the permission to pitch our own tents. But we had a small problem on our hands. The men would crouch behind the dunes for their morning ablutions. But what would the women in our troupe do? We found a makeshift toilet sort of thing, though, but it had no doors, not even a make-do one.
‘Who bothers with a door, Sahibji? This is the desert … we go behind the dunes and make do. The sand comes in handy. Where in this desert will you find enough water to work a flush?’
‘Then
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