This One’s for the Men in Blue

But cricket is not the only activ-ity that’s keeping these villagers busy at the camp. Many of them are hud-dled around Dhawan and updating him on their lives since the killer quake. Indeed, the comfort level and sense of mutual understanding between the villagers and the Indian army is remarkable. Unlike other parts of Kashmir where the Republic Day and Independence Day celebra-tions are greeted with general strikes and militant attacks, India lives here on this uneasy border. Most villagers in the area share a bond with the Indian defence forces that is seldom seen anywhere else in the interiors. Still, the sense of fear on these wrinkled, rugged faces is unmistak-able.

Bitter memories of that killer earthquake are still fresh in their minds and the helping hand of the Indian defence forces has been the only salve on their wounds. It all came back just a few days ago, when the earth shook violently once again and the villagers started fleeing their homes. “We thought it had started all over again. It seemed like the end of our lives,” says an elderly Sulaiman Khan, the numberdar of Urusa. Adds another elderly villager: “When the earth shakes, these hills seem to acquire a life of their own, ready to swallow all of us. See what hap-pened to the hill in front. It simply broke off right in front of our eyes and fell in a mighty heap into the river below. It brought down with it a number of Indian posts and army personnel. Nobody knows the exact number of casualties of Indian secu-rity forces on that dark day.”

But the IAF’s presence among them has given a reason for the men and women of Urusa to look forward in life, in spite of living on a weak earth. Says Dhawan: “Our presence here is important not just materially. It is a huge emotional support as well. Every time the earth shakes, these villagers come running to us.” The men huddled around him nod in agreement. The people of these villages, who don’t know what opening a bank account means, who have no idea of what life is like beyond their immediate surroundings, now cheer heartily every time an aircraft lands in their village. Even the Air-Officer-Commanding in Chief of the Western Command, Air Marshal A.K. Singh has paid them visits.

“Their horizon has expanded. After living in a remote and unheard of frontier in India, they now feel a part of the mainstream,” says Dhawan, who has developed a remarkable rapport with the vil-lagers in the short two weeks since he came to the village. His doctor, Flt Lt Abdur Raheem, is however more popular in the village because he is here on his second posting: Raheem was the first doctor to arrive in the area on October 25. “I celebrated both my Ids here,” says Raheem. On Id-ul-Fitr, he spent his day high up on the ridge, attending to a woman in labour; and on this Id, the long queue of patients out-side his tented clinic kept him busy till evening. “For me, this is a god-sent. It is Karma Sidhanta. Do good for good’s sake,” says Raheem.

The IAF’s adoption, say the vil-lagers, is the second best thing to happen to them in a long time. The first was, of course, the ceasefire two years ago. “If it was not for the ceasefire, this relief work would not have been possible,” says Sulaiman, his face an eloquent expression of gratitude. “Let alone relief, it would not have been possible for the vil-lagers to even walk freely around their houses.” He points to a Pakistani post high on a ridge in front to drive home his point. “Our village is directly in the line of fire.

In the past, every time cross-border shelling started, we used to be the first targets,” Sulaiman says and recounts a horrible history of deaths and injuries in Urusa due to Pakistani shelling. But this village of 450 people is “tied by blood” to the neighbouring country. “All of us have our families divided between the two countries.

But we have no contact since Partition,” says Muhammad Farooq whose maternal uncle, Abdul Kareem, lives in PoK. His family is, however, fortunate that his brother and mother got a chance to visit PoK in the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus before the earthquake snapped the link. “We have no news whether they survived the quake or not.” However, for most, the pre-Partition blood link with PoK is a dis-tant memory, a nostalgic tic by the impossibility of reunion. They have bigger, everyday worries to confront.

Their political awareness centres on the advantages of ceasefire and con-fidence building measures between India and Pakistan. Ask Sulaiman for a solution to the Kashmir dispute, he is quick with the reply: “For us, the ceasefire is everything. We are not bothered about anything else India and Pakistan do to resolve the Kashmir problem.”