Kashmiri Folktales

K N Kaul  

Historical events of catastrophic magnitude give birth to historical folktales in which the fictional characters are made contemporaries with the historical personages of the times. The former are supposed to be eyewitnesses to the events and so lend credibility to the narrative. In tales such as these, the reader can feel the pulse of the bruised soul of these times and uncover the raw and bleeding wounds on its body buried deep under the debris of different garbled versions of chroniclers Fiction, paradoxically, observes and records faithfully the truth at the grassroot level which History, in its overlooks. It is correctly remarked that nothing is true in History except names and dates, but everything is true in fiction except names and dates.

This fanciful tale centres round one of the illustrious kings of Kashmir, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1423-1474 A.D.) fondly named 'Badshah, the great king, by his loving subjects and remembered with love and reverence by the posterity even to this day. His benign reign spread over half a century ushered in peace and prosperity and provided a special healing touch to his Hindu subjects who had suffered everything that hell possessed during the preceding one hundred years. A proud and highly civilised race had been vanquished, dispossessed, humbled and disgraced and finally all but exterminated systematically. Those left alive, had, over the years drawn themselves inwards into a protective shell of make-believe, prejudices and imbecile morality. It was here in this shell that this folktale was born and nursed and then given to the people as an opiate. Since mind and not the body registers feelings, it has to be drugged with fanciful and wishful anecdotes so as to allow the body and mind to resuscitate. This folktale of ours is an apt illustration to this fact

What happened during those one hundred years or so before Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin appeared on the scene is a tragic saga of Evil perpetrated upon the people of the kingdom, who were first let down by their rulers and then forsaken by their luck. Starting with the prolonged rape of the entire length and breadth of the valley by Dulacha or Dulcha, a Tartar chief from Turkistan in 1319 A.D. who laid waste the land, and another by Achala, another Turkish leader soon after a year or so ruined its people entirely. What little was left to complete the picture of death and destruction was taken over by Sultan Sikander (1389-1412 A.D.) hatefully known as 'Sikander But-shikan' (the iconoclast), father of Zain-ul-Abidin. Assisted by Suha Bhatt, his Prime Minister, a neo-convert to Islam, assuming the name of Saif Ud-Din, the king in mad frenzy of skewed religious fanaticism and bigotry surpassed even the greatest tyrants of History. Putting hundreds and thousands of his Hindu subjects, mostly Brahmins, to sword, desecrating, plundering and destroying all the famous temples and libraries, forcibly converting some to Islam, inflicting all possible cruelties upon them, the king stopped short at nothing. His equally ruthless soldiers tired of wielding their swords dragged their hapless victims to the Dal Lake and drowned them in it at a place which is still known by the name of 'Bhatta Mazar' meaning the graveyard of the Hindus. Those who yielded, got converted; those who could, escaped to the subcontinent; but those who resisted, perished.

To these people it must have been impossible to believe that a Muslim king and the son of an arch tyrant (Sultan Sikander) at that, could be so generous, so kind-hearted, secular and large-hearted. as to allow them the same freedom and privileges as his Muslim subjects enjoyed. The only explanation for this incredible phenomenon that could readily occur to them must have been the intervention of some divine or supernatural power affecting the thinking and psyche of the king. This tale that has mystified its hero, has come down to us in the shape of this folktale. Here it is:

A KING'S METAMORPHOSIS

Place: Somewhere in Srinagar, Kashmir.

Time: Some time in the early twenties of the 15th century.

The day was sullen as before. Sable grey clouds behaved like unwelcome guests having come to stay. Late winter seemed to linger on in the valley adding to the woes of the people. The morning brought no let up in the weather. Pandit Shri Bhatt, a local Vaid (physician) sitting in the ground room of his house which served as his clinic, was pulling hard at his Hookah (hubble-bubble) while feeling the pulse of one of his patients. The charcoal in the Chillum (the small earthen pot atop the Hookah) refused to ignite, in disgust he threw down the long wooden pipe and hurriedly scribbled a prescription for the patient. His face was anxious and worried. Apparently he had something on his mind. He had received