Khud Muktar Tailors
Early 2000's.
Probably the first time I heard of Muktar ( Khan ). The son of an accomplished tailor in the village, a tailor himself, he had the grave misfortune of being known as khud-muktaar. Muktaar-himself. Otherwise, ironically, it also translates into independent in English. It was around the same time the India Army built the humongous barracks on a knoll overlooking our village. Like other men, Khud Muktar was also taken for forced labor by the 28 battalion of RR. All day long, he carried sacks filled with coal on his back. It was not coincidental that fortnight later after the Indian Army laid a crackdown ( the first crackdown after their arrival) on the village Khud Muktar felt an urgency to rename his modest one room tailor shop from hip A-One Tailors to Khud- Muktar Kashmir Tailors in protest against the long drawn out crackdown in which, father recalls, his nephew was taken away. The mention of Kashmir attracted attention. Immediate attention. The testimony provided by the Muktar's apprentice: one of the first customer's we had after the name change was on the intervening night of 12th August. The local boys. Wastaad threw caution to wind. He tasked the two of us, Nazir and me, to cut out and stitch sabz parcham, from a green cloth the boys had brought with them. It was for the eve of 14th August. The independence day of Pakistan. We also made them black flags for the eve of 15 th August. The independence day of India. ( Addendum : In the postmodern reading of the history of Kashmir's struggle for independence, a khud muktari tailor stitching a sabz parcham is plaintively dismissed as a digression. On the contrary, black flags that are unfurled on the 15th August assume a reverent meaning of symbolic protest against Indian occupation . ) On 14th August, one of the boys was caught by the army patrol nailing the miniature staff of the sabz parcham to the wooden electricity pole. The brief investigation led them to the khud Muktar Kashmir Tailors. Muktar was bundled into one of those hunting green army jeeps and offered a tour of the newly constructed torture chamber in the barracks.
The entire village fell silent. We were in mourning. A week later. He was released on a precondition: he'd change the name of his tailor shop to bharat mahaan tailors. He resented to it. The Major M proposed a deal ( that was later enforced, on gunpoint, throughout the Kashmir ). Make a tricolor and nail it on the nameplate of your shop as long as you are alive. In the years to come, readymade business flourished in the valley. Soon enough, Muktar went out of business. However, he relished in the fact that the humiliating deal he entered in with Major M stands nullified. He had finally gotten rid of the Indian flag even if it came at a heavy price which was at the same time redemptive and liberating.
At the age of 57, he breathed his last. Yesterday. Like most of those people we remember fondly who have died little early because of the vulgar torture and humiliation they have underwent in the barracks .
( Note : This is a work of fiction. )