Kañijung-Kañijung

August 25, 2019

Dull sunny afternoon

Kashmir

I was barely making it through the 20th day of curfew when a riotous noise in my neighborhood dragged me to the rear window of my room this morning. I saw a cheerful group of 10-12 children, shouting and screaming a plot to each other and I settled myself by the sill and cupped my face in my hands. They were carrying sticks and handkerchiefs in their tiny hands and I could easily comprehend the nature of the upcoming theatrics. After all, what else could the childhood of conflict ridden children look like, even if it unfolds itself in the poetic countryside set up!

Freckled, light-haired members of one sub-group held their ‘pellet-guns’, they had beforehand crafted out of aged sun-dried sticks, with a great deal of expertise in their hands and equally freckled and light-haired children of the other sub-group hastily tied their handkerchiefs around their faces. The speed at which all of them prepared themselves was a hint enough to the fact that, ‘Kañijung-Kañijung’ game was the one played regularly. All set for the face-off, the masked mini men, blowing their lungs out, started shouting;

Hum kya chahtey, Aazadi

Chheen k leingay, Aazadi

Nalayyy [SIC] takbeel [SIC], Allah u Akbal [SIC]

From the distance I was at, I figured out that the children were hardly of the age group 5-6 and, not even a quarter of a year more than that. However, the enthusiasm with which they were into it came forth as ageless!

Retaliating to Aazadi slogans, children carrying guns started mumbling aggressively and in their broken dialectal urdu/hindi, they asked the other group to back off. The masked mini men responded with equal aggression and they started pelting stones, pebbles rather, in every possible direction. There was childlike chaos in the back alleys of our neighborhood and I had a constant smile on my face till a boy, ready to pull the trigger of his pellet-gun, started teasing another and shouted ; 

‘Heyyy, idhal [SIC] aa , hum tumko gun say maaL [SIC] dheingay’.

Sigh!

All through the act, these children made serious efforts to hold in the spontaneous puffs of laughter and they effectively managed to look aggressive. Towards the end, however, they pulled off some absurd maneuvering on the ground and held each other by their collars. This was followed by a minute or two of fake ‘dishuums’ and some heroic shouts of victory over one another. I may have also heard a couple of abusive words but, totally harmless and forgivable. 

As an audience, how would you respond to this theatre?

I struggled to applaud the artistry on display as the fact that, games like this were an option to the innocent ill-fated children of Kashmir, disturbed me immensely. Consequent to which, my childhood of tsu:ri rozun, sazü lõg, kho-kho, tsyol etc. conjured up in front of my eyes and brought along with it both, nostalgia as well as sorrow. There was a quick reminiscence of, how I and cousins would, relentlessly run amid paddy fields, trying to keep up with the flock of birds, before the first gunshots were heard in the neighboring orchard. 

I lost my line to my childhood when a woman from a neighboring house interrupted these children and asked them to shut up as this ‘stupid’ game of theirs could put the whole neighborhood in trouble. Both the groups gave up immediately and in unison, all of them burst into a laughter; the kind that should be regular in normal childhood. Also, embarrassed of being caught in the act, their cheeks, the objects of national envy, turned redder as they hinted something to each other and then, all of them ran a few yards away.

I heard children shouting, ‘Nalayyy Takbeel’ all through the morning but, from a distance.

Impressionable Childhood?