The Forgotten Bunkers of Rural Kashmir

PHERAN DIARIES – 1

By: Dr Sanjay Parva

The scent of ripened walnuts and damp earth filled the crisp autumn air as dad surveyed the front yard, his keen eyes searching for the perfect spot. Our back yard had walnut trees. “Remember”, he would say, “wherever you have a walnut tree, do not attempt for something else to be there”. “This is it,” he would murmur, pressing the tip of his spade into the soil with a practiced touch. I watched, wide-eyed, as he began the slow, deliberate work of digging, which appeared too meticulous to me. Whenever I would try my hand on the spade, “Inn khores laggi – lest you hurt your feet”, pat would come the advice. I never hurt my feet, despite being a gamuk shur.

The earth, still warm from summer’s retreat, crumbled easily under his spade, releasing a scent that carried generations of wisdom. Most of that wisdom had come from my grandfather, whom I had not ever seen. Dad had lost him when he must have been my age.

This was our Khevv, the underground bunker where our winter’s sustenance would sleep beneath the snow, untouched by frost, untouched by time. It was a practice as old as Kashmir’s seasons, passed down in quiet reverence, a ritual that bound us to the land.

As the last harvest of the season was gathered, the entire family became part of the process. Mom, with her sharp eyes and hands rough from years of tending to her house, took on the responsibility of sorting the vegetables. Only the best made it to the Khevv – flawless turnips (goagje), crisp carrots (gajar), thick radishes (mujje), and fresh collard greens (haakh).

She would inspect each one, turning it over in her hands, as if searching for the slightest imperfection. “No cuts, no bruises,” she would murmur, setting aside those unfit for burial. In-between the inspection, she would sing – Shameema Dev Azad, Raj Begum, and Vijay Malla being her all-time favorites.

I watched in fascination, as much as I heard her with passion. In a quiet village as Malmoh, she was my star, my best friend, and the realization had dawned early in my childhood that it were not mere vegetables which she was sorting; it were treasures, entrusted to the earth for safekeeping.

The trench, two to three feet deep, was carefully lined with dry straw, forming a soft bed where the vegetables would rest. Each layer was arranged accurately, separated by another sheet of straw, ensuring they would remain fresh through the long winter. A final covering of dried leaves and soil sealed them in, forming an invisible vault beneath our feet. To mark the spot, a flat stone was placed at the edge – our silent promise that we would return when the season changed.

Snow soon blanketed Malmoh, turning the village into a world of white silence. The trees stood bare, their branches bending under the slightest weight of snow. The fields, once alive with the chatter of farmers, now lay frozen in stillness. You could see the village as far as your eyes could go. But beneath the snow-covered ground, our Khevv kept its quiet vigil, guarding the flavors of a forgotten autumn. Sometimes I would have this strong urge to break into the bunker and see how vegetables were doing with each other. But, childhood, those days, would not muster this much mischief.

Then came spring, a slow awakening of the valley. As the sun stretched its fingers over the poplar-lined paths, we returned to our hidden bunker. Dad would sink his hands into the cold earth, digging past the dried leaves and straw. My heart would race with anticipation – what if the vegetables had rotted? What if the winter had stolen them? What if….

And then, the miracle. Out came carrots as crisp as the day they were buried, their orange skin gleaming in the soft sunlight. The radishes still snapped when broken, and the turnips, washed in fresh spring water, carried the scent of damp earth. It was as if time had never touched them.

Mom would rinse the greens, shaking off the last traces of soil, and soon the kitchen would be filled with the aroma of slow-cooked haakh and turnips simmering over a wood fire on a dhaan. The first meal from the Khevv tasted different – richer, fuller, laced with the patience of winter and the promise of spring.

One wonderful spring, an elder uncle arrived from Delhi and he informed this practice was also prevalent elsewhere across the world. In Scandinavia, he informed, root cellars still preserved potatoes and carrots through the unforgiving winters, and Mongolian herders stored dairy underground, keeping it fresh without refrigeration. Similarly, in Siberia, villagers used earthen bunkers to shield vegetables and smoked fish from the cold, and the Inuit people of the Arctic had perfected the art of preserving meat in permafrost, allowing them to survive in extreme conditions.

With so much information rolling over his tongue, we thought uncle was the only genius in our lives, and there was a sudden elation running through the veins. Except Siberia, the word that we had come across in the books, all the rest seemed out of syllabus.

Just as out of syllabus as is Khevv now for today’s kids. The knowledge that sustained us has already faded with time for them. And Kashmir, that in itself provided the perfect storage system, has been lost to the hum of refrigerators and plastic-wrapped vegetables.

An author, a communications strategist, Dr Sanjay Parva was a debut Assembly election contestant in J&K in 2024. Can be emailed at [email protected]