The Clocktower of Lal Chowk
There is a sepia picture of Nehru addressing the people of Kashmir after the 1947 tribesmen attack. It shows Nehru on a makeshift stage, erected specially to enable him to deliver his speech. This is the historical Lal Chowk square with a clocktower in the middle.
During the first thirteen years of my life, this clock never showed correct time. Probably it didn't need to. Its sheer presence felt as if some old member of the family was watching you. You could never do anything wrong before its eyes. I remember, as a school boy, watching a college student extinguishing his cigarette and then, as he passed away from the clocktower, he told his friends, "Somehow, I cannot smoke in front of this ghantaghar. It reminds me of my grandfather."
The clocktower always reminded me of a lighthouse, which I had seen in one of the books in the Sher-e-Kashmir library. Guiding ships to safety. Their passengers to safety.
Then something changed in the fourteenth year, my last year in Kashmir. The clocktower began to display correct time. But by that time, the thread had worn out. Young men, the age of that college student, would be seen raising fists in the air. Some would later throw acid on young girls and some would fire from their newly acquired Ak-47's.
The lighthouse was still there. But the passengers had gone berserk. They would eventually destroy their own ships.
rahul pandita
During the first thirteen years of my life, this clock never showed correct time. Probably it didn't need to. Its sheer presence felt as if some old member of the family was watching you. You could never do anything wrong before its eyes. I remember, as a school boy, watching a college student extinguishing his cigarette and then, as he passed away from the clocktower, he told his friends, "Somehow, I cannot smoke in front of this ghantaghar. It reminds me of my grandfather."
The clocktower always reminded me of a lighthouse, which I had seen in one of the books in the Sher-e-Kashmir library. Guiding ships to safety. Their passengers to safety.
Then something changed in the fourteenth year, my last year in Kashmir. The clocktower began to display correct time. But by that time, the thread had worn out. Young men, the age of that college student, would be seen raising fists in the air. Some would later throw acid on young girls and some would fire from their newly acquired Ak-47's.
The lighthouse was still there. But the passengers had gone berserk. They would eventually destroy their own ships.
rahul pandita
posted by Lal Chowk at 2:02 AM
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