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The Girl In The Meadow
The girl in the meadow
By Prof Ghulam Mohyudddin Wani
INTRODUCTION
This is a story of a girl, who lived in deep hills of Kashmir. She was in total confirmatory mode with nature. She wore a tent to save from the climatic extrems.She never cut trees for her luxury huts but used worn out departed twigs of the old fallen trees for making fires to warm ,cook or frighten away some of the attacking wild animals. She reared cows and buffaloes for milk and made excellent drinks, breavrages and products out of it. She was happy living as meadow girl until she met a city dewellor, who changed her life. Now we see her no more meadows .This story is an imaginative true story of that girl and the change in her. Her name was Mir Jan. She lived in the deep forests of the Malangam in district Bandipure, near my little township already described under these pages as koel. She lived in the upper reaches of the mountains just near the beeline. They had a small herd of few Buffaloes, cowas, sheep, goats, mules, horses, poultry and dogs.
THE WANDING GYSIES
They Were jepseies.Moving to highland pastures during summer (May-october) along with animals and all belongings bundled in hair made ropes, chaders and bags? They used to pack their belongings on their horse-mule back and climb up the mountains to reach a meadow called NAGMARG.The Nag means serpent and Margi means meadow.Mirjon was the eldest daughter of her father who posed to be a spiritual priest of a tribal community called Jug airs. NAGA BAJEE Part of the valley now called as Azad Kashmir. He was called as nag bajee.Naga means naked and Bajee means a man devoted to God. All the people in the vicinity of this mountainous range respected him for his wise and noble advice. He had many wives and all bore children and settled in this mountainous range by deforesting I and constructing huge but humble house of wood.Mirjon was the elder daughter of his son who had only one wife and had separated from his father in the early days and made his own empire in this mountainous region. By then with the kashmir valley being broken into two Jammu and kashmir and Azad kashmir ,this family of Nga bajees had assumed a political significance because of a large section of the Guars and bakarwalls respecting the Naga bajee as they spiritual leader NAGA BAJEES LUNGER They used to carry wood, grains, animals and cash as offerings .As these Jogger and bakarwals move with their focks of sheep, goats, mules, horses, and dogs every year from Kashmir (summer) to Jammu (WINTER).
BAJEES LUNGER
During their movement they will visit the bajee along with their offerings. The Nanga bajee by the 1950 has established a free lunger.Here all shall be offered free bread and milk twice a day. This usual simple practice was later changed to selfish tea and a bandore roti (breed).Now rice and meat or vegetables have replaced the lunger routine but the visitors are less and the open free lunge has also changed to specialized preferential treatments. If nobles or the political people visit now they will bow treated differently than the rest poor devotees. Nevertheless the system of lunger continues .It persisted because of the foresight of the Naga baje commonly called as Bajee sahib. During land reforms in the state he purchased a big chunk of land from some pundit landlord .He the bajee had a Kashmiri Muslim as Munshi,who belonged to a nearby village called onagam.The mushy visited his house daily after his routine job of collecting the offering and caring for the necessities of the luger and the family. The bajees have by that time created a huge infrastructure and house for living and housing the animal's .The Munshi used to ride a spotless white horse and travelled every day from Onagam to Malangam on the horse back. Sometimes a few horse loads of goods shall follow him from the grosser shop of Baca's of BANDIPORE who were the big business tycoons of the town now a district headquater.The bajee had assumed the spiritual and political significance of ate area tribes head man. All disputes used to be settled by him especially among jugars and bakarwalls. Some neighbouring Kashmir never gave them much importance but the spiritual significance persisted sometimes across the society.
DEATH OF BAJEE
Bajees death I was a small child. It was raining cats and dogs with showers of snow. A few people were announcing the death of the NAGA BAJEE NAGA BAJEES DEATH AND POLITICS OF THE AREA I too remember the day and it occurred to my innocent mind of 5or 6 years old as why it rained and snowed so heavily on this occasion .Had he been a saint ,close to God and many such silly questions came to my mind. I do not remember the exact dates, but it was after the 1953 episode of sheer-e Kashmir arrest and unrest among the people. As my mother was from the family of Numberdars and her mother from sheiks, I had access to discussions at the highest level in the village or area happenings. The two men were very significant in my awareness stride. One Mr AFZAL SHIEK a true national conference worker till death and a village noble. He was maternal uncle of my mother and I being always a topper in the school was much loved in my mother's family especially with this uncle and her brother the Mohammad Mir. My maternal uncle. They used to have a big hall in their respective houses where people will assemble to settle their disputes. The children, women folk were not allowed to these discussions for fear of leakages. Even servants and sons of the two were at times refrained to join these discussions, however I was an exception. The doors were never closed on me .Some times with my little suggestions on some matters the people will be amused .I remember the notables of the village QUIL then were SUBHAN CHOPAN from Chopin mohlla,Ahad JOO from Wani Mohlla,Mohmad Mir from MUKDOM MOHLAAH,Ahmad chokidar from AQAL MIR MOHLLA(This mohlla was not considered as respectable mollahla like those of Mukhdams )Afzal sheikh from SHIEK mullah and WALI Bhat from BHAT Mohlla (Angrez,their fore father used to be cook to englih people as such were nick named as Angrez).Wali Bhat a crippled on by bath with his two legs joined perhaps due to polio had to be carried by some on his back. Due to this disability later he was forcibly replaced by a gonad type singer, who was hated by the notables as he used to clandestinely perpetuate wrong conspiracies in the village. Initially he was an out casted singer used to have a boy with women clothes and singing on marriages and fuctions.
THE TURMIOL
This type of people not respected in the society were encouraged by the congress in the centre to undue SHERE-E –KASHMIRS cry for self determination. The band was encouraged during Bhakshi rule in Kashmir. These bands were also the popular singers at the functions of bajee. The village quill was always divided into the right and wrong sections of the society. The sheiks, chopans, Joos (WANIS), Mukhdams represented the right and the rest a few represented the others. The rights were more than the wrong doers. In short the whole area at the time of death of the Nanga bajee was thrown into a worst tussle between the right verses wrong. The time proved this rift continued even after the death of the Bajee. He used to be a binding force in the hour of need and was respected by all quarers.After her death the throne of bajee was bestowed to his son who was not his eldest but younger to few. He could not carry the sagacity of the Bajees but tried to side with the ruling politicians who so ever came to power .This made him a worldly man more than Godly saint. I knew him well and was always good and friendly to me. My encounter with the meadow girl. I became a vegetarian and was posted as a veterinary surgeon in the then Tehsil hospital, Bandipure.One fine morning when I was in the hospital a man resembling bajees came to me and at the first glance I recognised him as one from Bajees. He introduced himself as Mr MATOO BAJEE.I had heard of him living on the outskirts of Mangham Balla, a far off place in the foothills near to the dense forests of the area. His dog had a strike and he wanted me to visit him at his residence. After knowing I belong to JOOS of koel he was thrilled as he knew my father. As the case was not of an urgent nature, the stroke was few weeks or days old we decided to visit his house on the next day. As it was not possible to travel by cab, we decided he will bring a horse early in the morning to my home in the morning at koel. He came exactly at 8 AM along with a horse properly saddled and charming. We reached His place around noon and on examination of the dogma treated him with vitamins and massage along with some exercise. The treatment continued for few weeks and the dog showed recovery. After few days when I examined the dog in my clinic, he had perfectly recovered .The treatment was discontinued and dog lives for years thereafter.
VETERINERY PRACTICE IN A VILLAGE
This send messages to the whole Bajee family and now cases started pouring one by one and I assumed the family veterinarian status of the Bajees. This gave a new hope among their followers the gujarrs to bring their animals to veterinary hospital, as when their peer treated their animals at the hospital, certainly the doctor should be a blessed one and thus whenever they went to the peer babe for some treatment to their animals he directed them to me. We have by then developed a close friendship with the peer, called by now an aka bajee. Meadow girl As the meadow girl was one of the best girls in the family of the bajee dynasty rearing and caring animals. She used to have battery of servants to care for his herds and flocks described and she used to move from winter shelters in Malangam to summer shelters at NAGMARG during summers. SUNDAY ROUTINE One fine Sunday when I returned from the hospital. I used to follow rules perfectly. The routine in the Govt Veterinary hospital of Band pure was to open the hospital on Sundays too for a half day. I used to observe the routine religiously much to the discomfort of my colleagues and even friends who used to mock at me. I remember a friend a human doctor posted in the medical hospital, Bandipure.We both hailed from the adjacent villages. He would often relax on Sunday and will never examine an ailing patient at our bus staff of Kemah where we had to wait some times for hours to board a bus to our respective hospitals. In the mean time if some ailing animals is nearby I shall not hesitate to examine and prescribe the treatment, but the other friends of mine will not. Even my respected dear brother who was a medical assistant hesitated to a night call, while I as a vet was ready to respond to all calls throughout. Hardly few calls used to be there for such emergencies. It may be a call a month. I do remember a call from the village midwife, under whose hands I was born in the dead of night As was told to me by my mother. I attended the call at 2 PM in the night. She had a blind son .
ZEENAT MOSEE THE MIDWIFE
The name of the midwife was zennat.She used to be called as ZANAT MOSE in the village. His blind son named Ahead shiek was the only son residing WI the at that time. The bull was their important asset of ploughing. He was suffering from tympany and I got him relieved through a trchor and they were all in praise and prayers for me.To my dismay my elder brother was sour at the home as I had broken his sleep to lock the doors of the house. He was initially critical of my selfless service but later when he too suffered from cancer had adopted a patient friendly atEFtitude. COMING BACK TO MEADOW GIRL Once these days a poor jogger came to me, asking me to accompany him to examine his ailing cows. The cow has recently part rated and developed post parturient dyspepsia. The cow was cure and the economic situation of the poor man was so desperate that I had to shun a few pennies out of pocket to save the cow.Truely, I felt robbed at that time .However this helped me to gain popularity and a day came when the meadow girl send me a messenger with a horse to treat her animals. She paid fee and cared well for her animals. Since first few treatments of her animals the area started treating their animals and new a new ray of cross breeding came into existence. Till then these so called peers used to tell their followers that the Jersey cows are the descendents of the pigs. On many occasions I discussed with AKA sahib and convinced him.However, it was difficult to convince the meadow girl and her father. Thank God They too were convinced and a whole new devotion of cross breeding resulted due to sincere efforts of many, like dry Teli.wali mohmad,attaullah and others.TO BE CONTINED
About the Author
Ph.D (Animal Reproduction / Gynaecology), Dr. Med. Vet (Animal Reproduction/ Production)
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