Page 1 of A Kiss in Kashmir

Prologue: 1995

Gawkadal Bridge, Srinagar, Kashmir

Vikram had never been happier. The air in Srinagar was just as he remembered it—crisp and hopeful. He looked up at the blue sky. It was the last time he would be here as a single man.

“Sometimes I wonder what I have done to deserve all this good fortune,” he would tell anyone who was willing to listen—his painting students, the woman who delivered his tiffin (lunchbox) to his small room in Jaipur, the young kid who washed his landlord’s cars, God (well, of course), and last but not the least, random tourists he met when he visited the many colorful palaces of Jaipur. At night, before closing his eyes, he often pinched himself to see if it was a dream or reality. Life had been kind and, he reminded himself on this cold October day, it was about to get remarkably more magical.

His parents in Srinagar had been upset on the phone earlier that week. “Vikram, stay in Jaipur. It isn’t safe here. The insurgents are out in full force. Beta, son, listen to us,” his mother pleaded with him over the phone.

“Ma, nothing will happen. You cannot possibly tell me to stay away from you and Baba. I have big news that I want to tell you in person.” Vikram’s voice, filled with sheer delight, eventually convinced his mother. “You will be so happy, Ma. It is all good news.”

“Beta, child, be careful. Come straight home from the station. Baba will not be able to get you this time. He isn’t leaving the house now, you know, his legs…” Ma began to sob. Her husband’s increasingly out-of-control diabetes had taken a toll on his legs.

“Fikar na karo, Ma, don’t worry.” Vikram beamed into the payphone. “The news I bring will have Baba dancing in no time. Ma, my paintings have been selling. I have made enough money now for us to get the best doctors to treat Baba. I have money now, you can rest easy. No more cooking for the world. And one more thing… Ma? Ma? Can you hear me?”

The line went dead. Vikram was thrilled to be returning home. He hadn’t been gone that long—just about eighteen months. The opportunity to teach art and painting in a small school in Jaipur had come up suddenly and by chance. His father’s childhood friend, Rashid, owned the school and needed a substitute teacher in a pinch.

“I can teach oil, watercolor, and sketching. But my specialty is oil,” Vikram had told Rashid uncle. Rashid uncle was well known and admired, and Vikram looked up to him.

Rashid had responded, “Your special talent, son, is your ability to see the beauty in this world. And that is what I am looking for in an instructor—to teach how to spot beauty. Techniques, anyone can teach them. You, however, train their soul tosee.”

It was in Vikram’s first week there that what had simply been an opportunity to teach turned into a sweet romance.

His mind floated back to the first time he saw her.

“I am told you are the best there is,” Sharmila, a member of one of the most eminent royal families of Jaipur, had said to him when they were first introduced. She showed him some of her artwork. Her amateur work showed that she clearly had talent. But more than that, she had vision.

Soon, his tiny studio filled up with a handful of students. He tried to help them all, but his focus was always on Sharmila from the very first. She laughed easily, painted with abandon, and was curious about his life and his art. He often told her that there weren’t enough hours in the day, or even a lifetime, to answer all her questions. Nevertheless, she would persist, her curiosity insatiable.

“Vikram, how does the sunrise differ in October versus January when you paint it? What does this brush do? How did you find that perfect shade of magenta?”

Of course, the questions slowly went from being about painting to him, and then to them.

“What is your dream, Vikram—for your art, I mean? Tell me about your mom. Does your brother paint? I eagerly wait for each morning to be with you, do you feel the same? Is this what love feels like? I feel so safe in your embrace, do you feel that?”

Endless questions, and each one drew him closer to her. He had many of his own.

“I worry I am not good enough for you, Sharmila. You belong to one of the richest families in the country and my family is from a small town. We are of humble means.”

She would simply smile in response. And if he insisted on worrying, she would add, “I didn’t fall in love with your bank balance, and I did not choose to be born into a royal family. Love is love. That is all that matters.”

Their love of art, of the blank canvas and its promise, brought them closer and closer.

“You must learn to think and see with your brush. Your brush should lead your hand, not the other way around.” Vikram guided her hand as she learned the intricacies of her craft. Within a short few weeks, her work had shown remarkable progress.

Vikram remembered how shocked he had been when she showed him a painting.

“Vikram, I want you to see something.” Sharmila had pulled him into one of the many gardens behind the studio. She had spent early morning hours working on a mural. On a small wall, facing a fountain behind the studio, she had painted him standing by a lake with a brush in hand and canvas in front of him.

“Oh, this is beautiful. You make me look good,” he had said, a bit shy at first.

“I did what you said. My brush guided me. This is the result.”

He had kissed her that day and she had held him close, whispering, “I think I am falling in love with you.”

Just the thought of her and her name made his smile brighter than the sun in Srinagar that morning.

But there was a stop he needed to make before heading home, right by the Gawkadal Bridge. The bridge had been the site of a massacre a few years earlier, a terrible memory. The last time Vikram had called home, his brother, Suraj, mentioned that the area was now safer, but added, “This isn’t the Kashmir of our childhood. I know you will want to see Afzal for tosha, but come home first.”

---