J&K floods: The contagion of pain

Pain is contagious. Empathy can be the most ruthless form of agony. When we hear others vent, we don't just empathise but also weep for our own deceased moments from the past that beg for a burial. Last week, we met Afaq, a friend from Kashmir, who was back from the flooded valley and overwhelmed by a sense of loss - more emotional than material. The flood has claimed both the family shops in Polo View - the street that clearly has the distinction of being the most buzzing shopping destination in Kashmir.

"When I saw the condition of the shops, I felt numb because I had spent a large part of my childhood there, being fed by the attendants while I played with excusive papier-mâché pieces, every afternoon. My childhood flashed past my eyes as I saw bits of it float in the floodwater inside the shop - pictures, frames, favourite pieces of furniture, certificates. You can't even start to imagine what it feels like to have the playground of your childhood erased," he confessed.

I gulped down the lump in my throat with the juice in hand because that was Afaq's moment of venting and it would be inappropriate to draw any similes at that point. But I know exactly what he must have felt like. His pain had already infected me.

The Polo View shops owned by his dad were to Afaq what Little Sons & Co in the heart of Regal Chowk, was to dad and me. I remember 15 years ago when we revisited the deserted petrol pump in the heart of Srinagar, Subhana - the only surviving attendant - held him in a clasp and they wept without a single word being uttered between them. Standing at the periphery of history, my mom and I wept too for this pain was infectious too.

I wandered into the compound, the backyard of the petrol pump where my paternal aunt had lived for decades. Just like Subhana's receded hairline, everything had changed within the compound, including the mighty Chinar that once had the looks of a haughty suitor with a stiff upper lip. Now it stood there like a crestfallen widower, with drooping shoulders, living a season-less and a reason-less existence.

When I look back with baby eyes, I see the afternoons, where perched on one of the many strong shoulders serving the pump, I would be taken to the fruit vendor next door. I would point my tiny finger to the object of affection for the day. The fruit would be neatly packed in a brown paper bag and handed over for me to partake at will. I was the princess of all I surveyed.

In fact, such was the influence the little Masterani (a.k.a me) wielded over the staff that one day, my dad had to come out of the office and intervene since I was not permitting any of the attendants to leave my class and service the vehicles queuing up for fuel. Nearly four decades down the line, when we met again, the only word that Subhana uttered when he saw me was "Masterani"!

Yes he remembered, just as I remembered the huge kangri - the size of a mother's lap - that they used to circle around for heat on cold afternoons and the huge potato that was baked in it, in my honour, every time I wished.

Pain is contagious but thankfully so is hope - so what I left with Afaq the other day was hope.