Today namda is in the process of getting a GI tag but namda can’t get its due if its marketing teams don’t understand what it does in adding festivity to winter homes in Jammu and Kashmir.
As I spread the beautiful “namda” on the floor this winter in my Delhi home, a flood of childhood memories brought forth an immense joy. Winters in Nanaji’s (maternal grandfather’s) home in old Jammu city meant: sitting on the namda, sipping desi chai and eating Kashmiri roti.
Namda or the felted Kashmiri woollen rug was a part of our winter lifestyle for it was taken out only during winters. Nanaji, whom we called Baji, had a namda decorated with the most beautiful azureous big flowers and the view of him and nani sitting on it, sipping desi chai and beaming big smiles is etched in my cultural makeup.
In other words, namda became synonymous with warmth, winters and the many cuddles that my grandparents would give the little-me. As I grew up I went looking for the namda in the old market around the Raghunath bazar but could never find the one like in Baji’s home.
Recreating that winter scene of my grandparents’ old Jammu home also became impossible with travel and work. However, a few years ago while visiting Srinagar, I visited the Kashmir Government Arts Emporium housed in the historical British Residency building and bought an eye-catching namda. It allowed me to relive a winter’s custom of grandparents.
Today when I took it out from the storage—just the sight and the feel of its warm texture and bright colours transported me to Baji’s home and their smiles exalted my breath to childhood joys.
Today namda is in the process of getting a GI tag but around the winter lands in India and the Christmas homes abroad, namda can’t get its due if its marketing teams don’t understand what it does in adding festivity to winter homes in Jammu and Kashmir. It just brightens up the interiors of the home and the interiors of the human hearts who spread it.
KASHMIRI ROTI AND DESI CHAI
We can’t understand the evolution of culinary culture across Himalayas if we don’t understand Jammu’s desi chai. It’s a part of every winter household in Jammu who suddenly stops consuming refined-boxed teas available in the market with the onset of winters.
It’s something like the Tibetan or Ladakhi butter tea or the Kashmiri nun chai, but with a Dogri twist. It doesn’t contain butter like Ladakhi tea and it contrasts nun chai because it contains sugar and added spices and it’s thicker. We just call it desi chai.
It’s available in Jammu’s booming new age supermarkets, however, if you are a connoisseur of traditional teas, you would visit shops in Pacca Danga market or shops down the Raghunath bazar road near the Gumat street. Each of these locations is laced with the history of Gulab Singh establishing the downtown Jammu on the hillock, on the bank of the river Tawi. Gumat was the entrance to his city from Tawi while Pacca Danga was the last bazar before his palaces in Mubarak Mandi complex.
The desi tea is often paired with Kashmiri roti from the many Kashmiri bakeries spread across the old city. In childhood, Baji would give me one rupee and it would buy four rotis. Today it costs five rupees each. Nani would add a spoon of Amul butter on it and in her customary cups hand us the breakfast. Sometimes the butter would be homemade from the milk the Gujjars (Himalayan pastoral nomads) ferried to the old city every day.
The Kashmiri bakeries would turn into the most frequented places in downtown Jammu in winters. The desi chai and Kashmiri roti every morning would save much trouble for mothers. Moreover, it was also an amazing cultural and culinary connection between Jammu and Kashmir because these seasonal bakeries would provide employment to Kashmiri labour—some of whom we would see opening business only in winters.
It was likely also because in winters, the government secretariat would move from Kashmir to Jammu and all Kashmiri employees would move to Jammu for work. Downtown Jammu would turn into a crowded place and its Kashmiri bakeries would turn crowded too. I would stand by its hot oven, intently watching the bakers do their work—while the fire from the oven would keep adding light and shade to their figures.
BAJI’S KASHMIRI TENANT
Grandparents’ home was very small but it was right at the entrance to the old city, in the heart of a bustling bazaar. It had a special charm because many of the old city’s stories ranging from its cows, to dogs, to food, bazaars, royalty, politics and people started from here. Decades ago before Jammu’s expansion started, anybody coming to the city from Kashmir landed only here.
In those days of everyone knowing everyone much like some inherent, genetic-algorithm of our cultural supercomputer—this place was unknowingly my Disneyland as well as the best history museum. I’m sure it had its harsh realities but for an innocent child with loving grandparents the world is a paradise and this was mine.
Every summer during his service with the Jammu and Kashmir Police’s Accounts Department, Baji would relocate to Srinagar and every winter his Kashmiri friend whom we called “Ajja” would relocate to Jammu. Nani tells that Ajja and his wife would insist on staying with my grandparents in Jammu.
Our home was small and congested but the adamant Ajja rented my grandparents’ store room where his wife cooked and where they even slept. I wonder if my grandparents learned the namda-charm from them, but a heavy influence of Kashmiri food and pickles on Dogri culture could be attributed to people like Ajja.
In those happy days, before the onset of terrorism, once in Srinagar, my parents visited Ajja in downtown Srinagar and took me along. I remember climbing the wooden stairs of a home to see old, bedridden Ajja whose eyes beamed with happiness through his heavily wrinkled, white-Kashmiri face with sharp features.
That was my last trip as a child to Srinagar. Next in 2014 for a journalism assignment I visited downtown Srinagar again and the streets made me nostalgic about Ajja but much was long gone including him. All I could then recollect and juxtapose were wooden homes, narrow timber stairs and shallow, open drains. With Baji and Ajja gone—I’m grateful that I have inherited the namda-charm to preserve their connection. It has warmed my heart all this while despite much violence, distrust and politics.
Dear Jammu and Kashmir, Happy New Year from my world of grandfather’s tales from Gulab Singh’s city. Preserve your namda or search for a new one to create warmth and love.