by Chitra Padmanabhan

Conversations carried out in fleeting moments of phone connectivity have a timbre their very own. More so if they take place against a backdrop such as the recent inundation of Srinagar by a swollen Jhelum River. But if the person conversing from the other end happens to be the Srinagar-based artist Masood Hussain, renowned for the luminosity of his culturally rooted works, then the conversation is moulded by unfailing grace under pressure so typical of the gentle 61 year old and so familiar to anyone acquainted with him.

So, what starts as a flurry of phone calls to ascertain the whereabouts of Masood saheb and his family in flood-ravaged Srinagar eventually turns into a ‘serialised’ conversation. Always shy of drawing attention to himself, the artist initially speaks of the year-long work of seven paintings that he had completed barely two weeks before the flood. The paintings are based on seven unpublished couplets that were given to him by the iconic poet Agha Shahid Ali during his Srinagar visit 15 years ago.

Shortly after, Shahid returned to the US where he later succumbed to cancer. Masood vividly remembers the day Shahid handed him a couple of pages saying, “I want you to paint on the theme of these couplets whenever you have the time.” The couplets, on the seasons of Kashmir, resonate with layered meanings, says Masood who quotes their titles: ‘When It is Early Spring,’ ‘The Elements Conspire,’ ‘Autumn Refrain in Kashmir,’ ‘Early Winter,’ ‘Deep January,’ ‘At the Gates of Paradise,’ and ‘The Blossoms Return.’ He mentions Shahid’s couplet, ‘The Elements Conspire,’ in particular: They conspire so that someone, on the shores, awaits the vendor of flowers/And the other side of the earth awaits Kashmir’s sun, its message that water and fire are at peace.

The artist, whose tactile works evoke Kashmir with an intensity that matches the poet’s oeuvre, regards these large-format acrylic and oil paintings among his finest works. “So, on August 29, when I left for Tanmarg, 40 km from Srinagar, to attend a national camp for artists, I was in a lighter frame of mind than I had been for several months.”

However, he returned from the artist’s camp a day earlier, on September 3: “It just did not stop raining and I was anxious because Jawahar Nagar, where I stay, is situated between a flood channel and the Jhelum,” he explains. “In the next few days every time my wife and I looked out of the window, the Jhelum’s water level seemed to have risen, but no one knew what was happening or what to do. Nothing in our past experience had prepared us for what was coming,” says Masood.

The next thing that Masood remembers is the Jhelum River, a familiar enough presence in his canvases, turning unfamiliar, reducing lives and homes to flotsam, erasing a lifetime of landmarks and all vestiges of administration; moreover, reducing a 21st- century existence of connectivity to an enervating isolation in a state already marked by constantly high levels of anxiety.

By 1 am on September 7, nearby areas such as Lal Mandi were surrounded by water. Fearing that Jawahar Nagar would be next, at 2 am Masood and his wife drove their daughters to his sister’s house in Shalimar “which is on somewhat higher ground.” They returned another way to avoid flooded areas but when they got off at Zero Bridge to walk the distance to Jawahar Nagar they found a familiar landmark, the popular restaurant Hat Trick, standing like a forlorn island in a watery expanse. After wading through knee-deep water for 100 metres, Masood and his wife reached their house where his younger brother, Nasir, and sister-in-law were waiting for them.

The first thing that Masood did was to rush to his first floor studio, hoist the new paintings on his shoulder, each a seven-foot- long roll of canvas, and trudge to the attic on the second floor. “I wondered if they would remain safe,” he admits.

The pictures Masood took on his phone gave him a precise timeline of events. “On Sept 7, 11.34 am our ground floor was submerged and the compound wall of our neighbour Mr. AK Kaul, a famous dentist, came crashing down,” he recalls. Between 1 pm and 1.15 pm, two neighbouring houses sank to the ground. Since Masood’s house, too, was an old construction like those buildings and the water had reached the first floor, at about 1.30 pm he decided to move out. The floodwater was 18 to 20 feet high. “Luckily my brother had two inflatable boats he keeps for fishing purposes with a seating capacity of one and two people.”

They rowed their wives over to a four-storeyed house of recent vintage about 200 metres away that was owned by businessman Haji Bashir Ahmed, “a stranger who put his home at our disposal with rare generosity,” remembers Masood. Then the brothers made rounds of the neighbourhood. They first rescued the Kauls whose heads were barely above water, then an aged Sikh couple and an ex-DG Police, Peer Hassan Shah in his 80s. In an even tone Masood recounts a moment of panic when one of the air chambers in the boat developed a puncture as he was ferrying the old and ailing Mrs. Qureishi but “somehow I managed.”

Those who could wade through the water and climb the staircase to Haji Bashir’s house did so. Masood ferried the others to another terrace with an external staircase 45 metres away, also belonging to the businessman. “Old Mrs. Qureishi was in a bad way, but it was the ex-DG’s guards who were whimpering because they could not swim,” recalls Masood.

It took them four hours to shepherd about 40 people to the two terraces by which time the light had started fading, says Masood. One boat was completely punctured; the other one had only one functioning air chamber. While Haji Bashir’s terrace, including Masood’s family, had access to the amenities of a running establishment such as food, water and blankets, Masood and 16 others on the smaller terrace had nothing whatsoever. A sense of shock, the clammy air and lack of blankets made the night of September 7 seem unduly long to them. “We gathered some wood lying around. Mr. Kaul’s daughter- in-law had a matchbox with which we lit a fire. There was no one to see that Pandits, Sikhs and Muslims faced the creeping cold together in a huddle of humanity.”

Next day, the artist fashioned a ropeway with steel wire between the two terraces. Soon baskets bearing food items, blankets and water were sent from the main terrace to the smaller terrace. Later, Masood risked going in the big boat to the main house. On September 9, after two nights and two days on the terrace, the artist and others were airlifted by an Indian Air Force helicopter to a camp near the airport where they stayed overnight. Masood proudly relates that his brother stayed back to rescue more people, “rowing as far as 300 metres to find people. He is 10 years younger than me and has more energy, hai na!”

Since September 10 Masood and his wife have shuttled between the homes of friends and relatives. Over fractured conversations, he patiently sketches an unnerving topography of displacement: “Two days in Wanbal, 12 kilometres from Jawahar Nagar, then in Nawpora, which is closer to Jawahar Nagar… His itinerant phase is inked in my diary as a series of numbers: ‘Masood Hussain, Masood relative one, two, Masood new…. Every conversation is about a ceaseless exploration of new routes — by car, motorcycle, boat or raft — to reach loved ones or make at least one trip to the submerged home that had been left wide open in the rush to safety. “There are roving bands of thieves,” explains Masood saheb.

September 15, 11 am: Masood mentions that there has been no contact with his daughters for a week. Moreover, he does not know if his precious series of seven is intact. “I gave my word to Shahid 15 years ago; we were co-travellers,” he says. The artist, however, is struck by a curious coincidence. “Shahid’s couplet, ‘The Elements Conspire,’ is about the earth awaiting the message that water and fire are at peace. These elements have marked my life too: once I lost everything when my studio was gutted in a fire during the militancy period; this time I wonder whether the floodwater will spare me.”

September 15, 10 pm: There is a call from Masood: “I made it to Jawahar Nagar today. From Nawpora I reached Lal Mandi where it took me four hours to design a raft that would not sink; there is still no administration in sight. We made a raft out of stray wooden planks. Underneath it we added a layer of thermocol taken from empty LCD TV cartons, and empty water bottles, tying everything up with a ragged cloth banner. It worked and I reached home. The seven paintings are safe. Tomorrow I shall go to meet my daughters.” The phone connection breaks but for once there is no irritation, only a feeling of exultation.

At 8.30 am on September 16, there is a brief text message from Masood completing the broken thread of previous night’s call: Lost everything except the seven paintings.

source: http://www.m.firstpost.com / FirstPost. / Home / by Chitra Padmanabhan / September 21st, 2014