Other Half and me took a walk in the neighbourhood a few days back, an activity we undertook after many, many moons. I have become lazy and fat and Other Half (OH) not wanting to be burdened with a rotund other-half and having failed to induce me to embark upon a fitness programme on my own, decided the best way to slim me down was to partner me in a walking programme.

As we crossed the little herbal garden, he suddenly suggested, Lets go say hello to Madam S.

Oh no I protested. It's already eight. She must be at dinner.

But he turned a deaf ear to my logic (again) and dialled her.

Oh, of course. I heard her voice, welcoming over the cell phone. Please. Please do come over.

Come, OH pulled me down the slope, ignoring my rolled-up eyes. Let’s go.

Madame S lives on the first floor of a neatly kept building flanked by trimmed lawns on either side. A child’s cycle stood leaning against the iron gate. The staircase was spotless and the walls whitewashed to perfection. I admired them wistfully, thinking about the mouldy walls of the staircase of my block and the foliage growing bindaas between the steps leading up to my home.

Madame S opened the door at one ring. She was in her track-pants and Tees.

Oh, were you going for your walk? I asked, worried we had interrupted her routine.

She laughed and reassured us. Just returned. Do come in.

Her living room was full of cartons and stuff lying around. Books, albums and other things.

Packing Madame? But why?

I’ll be leaving next year. She said.

So soon? OH asked in surprise. But you’ve just come.

Madame S laughed. Dr OH, I’ll be retiring next year.

Oh, I looked at her. She didn’t at all look like someone who would be retiring soon. Tall, slim, her long hair without grey and a smooth unlined face, Madam S was very youthful.

Ek na ek din to retire karna hoga. She laughed.

Please sit.

We plonked down upon the armchairs and refused her offer of tea, coffee and juice.

So instead, she got us her home-made ginger wine. It was sharp, sweet and delicious. And a little tippling.

Soon Madame S was reminiscing:

Those were such good days, Dr OH. I had joined the service as a young nurse way back in ’88. In Srinagar. It was so beautiful then. It must be beautiful even now, she corrected herself. But those days were very different, for they were before the militancy. Life was slow and safe. You know, we girls would go picnicking on the Dal lake every Sunday. Hire a shikara and hold our birthday parties and our anniversaries on the boat.

Madam S’ eyes became dreamy behind her glasses.

We’d pack some grub and then walk; behind the hospital, past the big bungalow, out through the rear gate, around the Fairy Palace and the beautiful gardens all the way upto the lake. And the Matron wouldn’t really mind. We’d spend the mornings floating over the lake, singing antakshari songs and the afternoons, whiling away our time and money in the bazaar.

Can’t even think of doing these things now, can we? She asked, her question rhetorical. It was so different then, the valley, so different from what it is now: there were no bandhs, no gun totting soldiers, no barricades, no curfews, no gunshots, no IED blasts, no stone pelting and no fear……………....

Madam S was nodding her head sadly. It’s all gone now, finished. She said and fell silent. But the wistfulness that had been in her voice stayed, filling the silence.

It made me feel incredibly sad.

Today’s painting, you can say, is a fallout of our meeting with Madam S that evening. The thought of it had been simmering in my mind for some time, but I could finally manage to put it on paper today.

You may ask: why would I want to paint this mottled, dying chinar leaf? Wouldn’t it have been more gratifying to paint the entire tree in all it's blazing russet glory, rather than this silly, single, almost-dead leaf?

I felt that this single, soon-to-be shed old leaf was an ideogram for Kashmir: dying yet tenaciously hanging on, clinging to hope…..

(Maybe someday, Madam S can go back to this beautiful valley where she had begun her professional life and tread all those places that she had loved, without the shadow of stones and guns....)

PS: Do leave a word.