"A Bride's Pajamas" by Akhtar Mohiuddin (1992) A Kashmir Short Story

       

The writer who addressed the history of the crisis in 1990s Kashmir most directly in his work is Akhtar Mohiuddin. His collections of short stories published posthumously reveals a mind constantly grappling with violent transformations in Kashmiri society. Mohiuddin had himself lost a son and son-in-law in the violence of the 1990s. In early 1990s, he joined the Hurriyat Conference, a separatist political formation in Kashmir. For a man who had been a socialist and was awarded with the Padma Shree, this was a difficult intellectual journey. 

Akhtar Mohiuddin was born on 17 April, 1928 in Srinagar. He lived in Lal Bazar, Srinagar until his death in 2001. We get a glimpse into the imaginative world of Akhtar Mohiuddin in his books of short stories, Seven One Nine Seven Nine, an incredible collection. Akhtar Mohiudeen had written more than forty radio plays and six collections of short stories. He had also published a novel, Daud Dag (Disease and Pain) and Zuv ti Zulan (Precarious Life). Akhtar Mohiuddin had translated extensively into Kashmiri and also edited many collections of Kashmiri short stories.

There are two collections of short stories which appeared just after his death in 2001, both of which he prepared before he died.  

"A Bride's Pajamas" was written Kasmire but it could just have easily been written in Manila, Paris in the 18 th century, or Dublin in 1959.  It is not a political story even though it was written in a place of great turmoil, with Nuclear powers contending for control.  It is a wonderful very poignant story about a couple married many decades who still have a passion for each other.   They have had ten children, two daughters were the only ones to live to adulthood.  The wife thinks "even my son-in-law is an old man now".  The man repairs clothes.   One day the wife is cleaning out some old clothes and she funds the red pajamas she wore in her wedding night. Her husband persuades her to put them on only she tells him, "don't be silly, old man".  Just as she puts them on and her husband embraces her with the passion of decades ago, their son in law walks into the house.  

Mel u