Wake up at Fajr Namaz or sometimes even earlier to knead piles of dough for the large joint family.
As soon as the dough is done, roll the rotis and cook them. There is a reason to do it super early. Cooking would mostly be done on subsidised cook stoves called heaters in the local parlance. These heaters have replaced the chulhas (mud ovens) and kerosene stoves. As the subsidised electricity ran erratically, cooking whenever electricity was available, often in the wee hours of the night, was necessary. Most of the time, lunch would also be cooked and wrapped in thick layers of old tweed pherans.
Though there are bakers in the city who bake bread for breakfast, how would an ayaldar (someone with a big family) afford the baker’s bread? The quantity of bread needed for the vast family would surpass the budget, so the women decided to make rotis at home. Besides, there is a lot of Barkat in making bread at home. In Kashmir, Barkat entails abundance, deriving more from a lesser monetary value.
Clean and mop the house and wash clothes manually daily.
So much so that the weathered hands looked like crumpled tissue paper; one would go on washing the patios and other adjoining areas with absolute reverence.
Never care about the calluses and corns on your feet because they are not to be cared for.
You look at them each month and want to do something about them, but you don’t. Because time spent on self-care is something unheard of. Panas waatun (self-care) entails buying a home bleach kit or Afghan snow fairness cream once or twice in marriage season. As it lightens the facial hair, it gives an instant fair glow. Remember, being fair is essential.
Enjoy sweet tea and biscuits at 10 am with lively banter.
Everything stops at this moment. If one was conscious about appearances, one would take the time to comb one’s hair, but would eventually give in and work. Sometimes, chaff off the rice or grind other condiments for the kitchen, like chillies, turmeric, ginger and fennel. In between, attend to numerous guests who came with their demands, like asking for kehva. No guest was offended and offered whatever they desired. The guests ranged from relatives to beggars to matchmakers.
The arrival of autumn also meant preparing the coal and sawdust for winter kangris. The winter temperatures prevented one from leaving this job for later. Quintals of rice were also stored in seed bins for the upcoming winters.
Seasonal acquaintances also came visiting and had to be attended to, like the kangri seller who came in late autumn or the plum and apricot seller who came in mid-summer. One would have to find time to listen to their stories and what went on with them since they last met because otherwise, they might be offended.
As the day progresses and lunchtime arrives, fill copper vessels with mounds of rice and thin curry.
It is understood that rich people could enjoy thick curries while the poor would have to do with thin ones. Gurbat (poverty) decided its menu. The men, the old, and the guests were given soft, fluffy rice, while the women had leftovers from the night before or crusty rice left at the bottom of the cooking vessel. On occasional days when there was meat on the menu, guests got the choicest cuts, followed by men of the family, and then eventually women. However, such days were rare. Later, industrial poultry production increased the number of days that chicken was served.
Enjoy a siesta after lunch and wash dishes, or jump to spinning yarn, knitting, aari embroidery, or tile work.
This exercise was income-generating, so it had to be taken seriously. Many women finished household chores as early as possible and spent the rest of the day doing this.
Go for occasional visits to relatives, walking to and fro most of the time.
The city was small, so making these journeys on foot was possible. On reaching the household of relatives, enjoy the salted tea with homemade rotis or a knot of baker’s bread or, if lucky, maybe a bakery item. Tea back at home would also be served with homemade rotis or Soet, a kind of dry roasted flour made of maize or rice and soaked in salted tea till it swelled. It is usually filling and gives a thick texture to the watery tea. Poverty decides its menu, as I wrote earlier. But if you are a guest, thicker tea with cream would be served.
Visit shrines in the city, offering obeisance and tying knots for wishes which could not be spelt out to someone else.
There is a strange connection to the shrine where one could cry out and confide in the saint. Then there are shrine friendships, developed and nurtured within shrines, going a long way sometimes. The beauty of these friendships is the organic connection, without any forceful reciprocity or the burden of taking these friendships outside the shrine.
Attend occasional weddings, wear good clothes, not fineries, join the camaraderie, help open brides’ plaits and sing collectively in laughter and joy.
The happiness is nicely curated and goes back to one’s world. To join the wazwan feast, pack all the meat and chicken items in polythene bags. Four people share a large plate during the feast, but with women, one hardly sees them enjoying the meats other than the starter spreads like methi maaz, chutneys or curries. They enjoy morsels of food with different curries, which fills them nicely. They often chuckle around, loosening their trouser cords because they feel so full.
Collect fine items but do not use them.
If unmarried, keep them for later when one is married, and if married, keep them for your daughters – collecting hard-earned money from spinning yarn or other handicraft work and fetching fine items from far off. If someone were visiting Ladakh, he would be given money to bring velvet. Similarly, if someone were going to Hajj, the person would be asked to get fabric from there. These fabrics were safely kept in trunks with naphthalene balls till the movement of marriage arrived.
Young girls blushed at the sight of these fineries, imagining how beautiful they would look and how they would garner appreciation from their husbands. Sometimes, the makeup collected would expire before the wedding arrived, but it did not matter.
One wore the fineries only at a wedding to save them for their unborn daughters. The fineries were meant to live in trunks until cloth moths tore them apart. It often fuelled a storm in the family when it had to be decided whom the (jadaad) jewellery should be kept with and how it should be used later. Sometimes, it was saved for children but used primarily for familial needs, such as for a sister-in-law’s wedding or making a new house. Women always thought they owned jadaad, but did they own it? I wonder.
Wear the most uncomfortable footwear because the concept of comfortable footwear never reached you, or perhaps sometimes indulge in ugly Bata flats.
Kill your desires every day when you see people around you dressed fancily but choose a printed cheap material for your clothes and wear it irrespective of what is in fashion.
Get it stitched by a tailor who charges less but is not versatile with his cuts and creases. Despite knowing that 180 meters away, an array of tailors are known for their crafts, but because they charge more, you don’t spend on yourself.
Live without personal space all your life and share rooms with siblings/cousins or other women of the household before marriage.
The rooms they share with their husbands after marriage are the first time they get rooms to themselves. But culturally, one is supposed to spend time in the living areas in the day and go to bedrooms only at night. One is supposed to spend waking hours in the presence of everyone from the household. Sometimes, to escape the crackdown of eyes, move to the kaeni (roof attics) for spinning yarn, knitting, embroidering, or to enjoy a personal moment.
Pray to revered saints and Sufis for health, safety, security and good times to come.
Excerpted with permission from ‘What does it mean to be an ordinary working-class woman from the city?’, Nairu Naqsh in Yaadgah: Memories of Srinagar, edited by Arshi Javaid, Yoda Press.
