Chillai Kalan. The harshest of the three chillay’s in Kashmir the others being Chillai Bacch and Chillai Khurd!
By: M S Nazki
But the best part of the whole affair is that each of these three small little periods leave several of the winters leaving great memories behind!
I heard it a long time ago ‘A Warrior that speaks truth cuts sharper than winter cold’!
-‘I will take you to a couple of the past memories and one of the present that just happened a few days back. All three are of joy because even in the harshest of winters if people are good at heart and thus joy will come in gushes and rushes to their hearts All the three stories did happen and the time almost the same, the middle and the ending days of winter when Christmas is approaching, the hands start freezing, one cannot write and under the quilt is the best place to be in or perhaps near a fireplace or with a fire pot in hand ‘Kangri in other words’!
-‘I have been lucky that way because the most amazing thing about the winters in Kashmir is that even a frozen world may be perceived as a heaven! I will put this more appropriate with conditions that prevail in South Kashmir because everything comes to stand still as the snowflakes descending upon the tinned roods putter-putter on the houses, on trees, on fields on roads do give a great look but it’s better to be within the vicinity of a fireplace and saying that I am fine with Kehawa in the coldest night; I don’t need wine to make the dark more romantic’.
-‘ Honestly speaking I have been an eternal romantic and that is why at this hour of the night somewhere sitting in Jammu I’m rolling my fingers on the keyboards trying to construct a story from Shopian (Batpura stadium to be precise) on the Chillai Kalan annual festival that was held there obviously conducted by Indian Army and from the picture sent to me I could make out that the festivities would have been the warmest! They had to be! In Shopian to be frank the world looks like something God had just imagined for his own pleasure, doesn’t it? Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath–pouffe! I’m so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you?’ If in Chillay Kalan period if you are in this part of the planet will say to themselves what I just said!’
-‘The annual Chillay Kalan Festival was organised by Chinar Corps at Batpura Stadium, Shopian. The event was dedicated to late Gen Bipin Rawat and I know the biggest romantic of all General DP Pandey was there. You need not be surprised as to why I called him so? One of the many reasons is that he was walking in the market and the gait was as always majestic, a bit nonchalant, that great smile and needless to mention the forthright intent that could be felt ‘you guys are ours because we are all Indians’!
-‘In the harshest period of the winters also he was perhaps saying something like this, a warm house on a cold winter night is another name for paradise! And thus this was the first big story out of the three I promised that I would relate in the piece! Because there was a subtle message in the show put across. Last year also it was the same and this year also similar but the underlying message was, there is something strange in the silence of a winter view: Something seems to happen, but nothing happens, as if all reality is frozen but a smile spreads warmth and that is what the Indian Army tries to do! They did it this year too and as usual it was with the typical grace, charm and panache!
-‘Fighting with snowballs used to be the favourite sport among youth in Chillai Kalan. Two rival parties would make snow bunkers and frontline warriors would make snowballs to be hurled with full force at the opposing camp till one party would completely destroy the bunker of the rival team.’ But those were the good old days but trust me they would be back!
In summer he was a different person, sprightly and alert, and people took him for a man a decade younger than his years; but in winter he sank as the skies darkened, and by December he was always tired. When he went to bed, he drowned in sleep; when he was awakened from it, dragged from the depths , he was somehow always unrefreshed. But he was special. In summers he helped everyone but in winters he was not the same. The people of Nehama called him ‘Cuckoo’. He could not speak fluently as that is what I remember but he was a lovely loveable character. The locals loved him and till he lived it was the brotherhood of man that was lightening the spirit here in at that time a village and now a sprawling township on The Mughal Road. He was a Jamwal Rajput but the locals in Nehama considered him their own. Mind you all his relatives stayed in Jammu but he stayed there. For what I could never know but one thing was certain that he loved the winters there and one wintry night after a prolonged illness he died? The village mourned for three days and the next incoming summer was not the same as the house did stand there but the man who helped everyone was not there. The children never went to the apple trees from where Cuckoo gave them apples but then some good men did arrive to relive the great ‘Dervish’ as the people called him! This incidentally was the second story because coincidentally the great winter wanderer was always the happiest as and when the Chillay Kalan began and probably the funniest. The warmth was in his language though the looks darkened with the falling of the white flakes from the heavens. The language he spoke with his wobbly tongue since that was something which Gods had given him but the locals understood it perfectly! It was the brotherhood of man that mattered in those times! I think this festival is trying to recreate the past aura and trust me those times will come back!
Over 2000 locals from Shopian and Pulwama districts witnessed a music and cultural extravaganza at the stadium. Though the silence of the sounds of the winters had descended upon Kashmir, Shopian was on a rock and roll mode. The winter smiled with foggy clouds, and the atmosphere exploded as the young came on the stage set and presented a show that was loved by all! Music is in the heart, mind and soul of every Kashmiri kid’s soul and here was a mesmerising anda dazzling presentation of the same! This year’s show did prove one thing that the show has to go on and this one was yet another episode of the same and the showmen had to be the Awaam along with the Jawaan! The script was clear, ‘This year is going, some more steps we have climbed, so let us keep doing so because the ladder is infinite but every step is glorious since we get taller and Kashmir bigger’!
I promised you three stories and here is the third. We were both in Class ten, Tabbu was a bit of a crack nut. She was extremely beautiful and cute but that evening she was to fall sick and she looked frail and dark. It was biting cold and there was no one in her home because the parents had not arrived as the snow had held them up somewhere near the legendary Jawahar Tunnel ! We used to stay in their house, MES (Military Engineering Services) hired, ground floor and my Dad was in Kupwara. She came down almost fainting and my mom was the most worried creature on earth that time. All the warmth was provided and the biggest was two tablespoons of brandy with mild hot water. The little beast of a girl dozed off with my mother and sister alongside her! In the morning it was still snowing but the little beast was all fine and smiling and telling me, ‘when you love the winter in Kashmir, winter goes off warmer! I did not understand it at that time but now I do! But I did tell her, ‘little snow white you were looking a dumb dark dwarf the night last!’ We are still the best of friends but is that nasty Tabbu (as I call her even now) who told me as to what Chillay Kalan was all about! By the way, that night was Christmas and my mom was her Santa Claus! Love of humanity does spread during Chillay Kalan in Kashmir! It has always done so!
