By Pankaj Kaul
Finger in a bowl of ice:
Dr SR Anand stitched the stump of his finger and advised him to throw the cut remnant of the finger away. “I have been doing plastic surgery for decades. The graft will never take, and you will be left with a useless, painful and infected appendage”. This was sensible advice and, had I been there, I would probably have said the same.
Sanjoo thanked him and left Jammu and took his severed finger in its ice-bowl to Christian Medical College, Ludhiana after a drive of many hours, accompanied by a devoted friend. The finger was reattached, and after many months, recovered its functionality and appearance.
This never say die attitude has been the essence of Sandeep Chattoo’s personality. I call him Sanjoo, most of the times, except when he gets too big for his boots, when I provoke him by calling him Sylvester (after Stallone).
Nani:
Although the grandson of a widely respected teacher, Principal, Gogji Bagh School and Educationist of Kashmir, Sanjoo spent a large portion of his childhood in the warm sanctuary of his parents and their close friend, Dr Syed Nazir Ahmad Andrabi, a doctor by profession, but, in addition, one of life’s good people.
Dr Andrabi was widely read, and loved poetry, philosophy, literature, Pakistani dramas, movies, music, cooking, gardening. Dr Andrabi, who had no children of his own then, brought Sanjoo up as his own. Sanjoo called Dr Andrabi, Nani. Dr Andrabi made a wicked mutton Biryani. Sanjoo liked it, perhaps too much, but Dr Sahib could not bear anyone looking at him eat it, and even shielded him from even Sanjoo’s father’s gaze while he was eating it, by standing between his father and Sanjoo’s plate (pananyan haenz nazar).
Dr Andrabi suggested to the five or six year old Sanjoo that it was no fun playing with toys. One had to open the toys to see how they worked. That led Sanjoo to try and dissemble and reassemble all the toys that came his way, leading many to despair of presenting him with any toys.
In year 7, Sanjoo designed a model in Burnhall School to lift logs using a pully and motor. He won the first prize in the science competition for his design.
Dehydrating hops, capsicum, mushrooms:
In 1986, Sanju’s father, Mr Pyare Lal Chattoo, resigned his job as the Chief Administrative Officer of United Breweries, in Kashmir. He used to be incharge of the unit in Shilwat that would dehydrate hops, which would be used to provide the characteristic flavour and bitterness of the world-famous King Fisher beer, owned by Vittal Mallya.
Mr Pyare Lal Chattoo and Dr Nazir Andrabi then together set up a capsicum and mushroom dehydrating unit at Shilwat, which was the first of its kind in Kashmir.
When Kashmir self-destructed in 1988, the Shilwat unit collapsed, and was shifted to Chattursingh Gardens, Jammu, where Sanjoo, freshly back from his engineering stint in Bangalore, designed the entire dehydration unit himself. The Chattursingh Gardens unit started supplying dehydrated capsicum, mushroom, peas, carrots and cauliflower to Nestle India, Limited.
Bhiwadi:
Chattursingh Gardens factory was getting too small and needed expansion. Sanjoo bought land in Bhiwadi, in collaboration with his late uncle Mr BM Labroo. He established a factory, designed a plant, and had it manufactured in Ahmedabad and transported to Bhiwadi. He was the first to use conveyer belt technology and hydroflow technology for dehydrated vegetables in India. Tons of dehydrated vegetables were supplied to Nestle India from the Bhiwadi plant. Bhiwadi exports met all the markers of food-processing excellence: rehydration ratio, flavour and colour retention, enzymatic essay, microbiological sterility, etc.
Sanjoo had to close the Bhiwadi plant owing to difficulty in managing day to day operations single-handedly without effective support and moved back to Jammu.
He set up a single conveyor belt dehydration unit in Chattursingh Gardens, Jammu, which was rated as the best unit for dehydration by Nestlé. It was one of its kind dehydration units in India, where, in addition to vegetables, even cocoons were dehydrated for the sericulture department. The yield increased by 30 percent because of excellent drying technology.
JK Bank illegally reclaimed the loan, which had been forwarded towards Sanjoo’s Jammu plant, prematurely and under political pressure, leading to precipitate closure of a flourishing business, and loss of a large amount of capital to Sanjoo and his parents.
Sanjoo fought JK bank with respect to its discriminatory and motivated decision -making and eventually won all his cases against the bank, in the supreme court, after a period of 10 years.
Sanjoo had exhausted his finances after the wilful destruction of his business by the premature reclaiming of loan by the bank. In 1989, in the wake of Kashmiri Pandit expulsion, and all the depredations and evil that led to it, all the liquor stores in Kashmir had been blasted away.
Liquor shop:
In 2000, Sanjoo established a liquor shop in Sonwar, with the help of his devoted band of followers and friends, and started selling liquor, often sitting and dispensing on the counter himself. There were threats, attempts at his life, but Sanjoo, who had sent his family away to Jammu, had a simple dictum: I am a Kashmiri. No matter how much any one tries, they cannot make me run. If that means sleeping with a pistol under my pillow, so be it.
Kashmiris, mainly Pandits, but some Muslims and Sikhs, too, who had been expelled, under threat of violence or dishonour, or actual loss of lives of their near ones, were perfectly justified in apportioning blame to those responsible for their misfortune. This included just about everyone: the civil society of Kashmir, the state government, the civil society of India and the central government, who all either collaborated or kept quiet, out of fear, indifference or apathy.
The actual perpetrators of the heinous crimes, including the paid minions and stooges of unfriendly neighbors and their traitorous collaborators within Kashmir, roamed scot free, even boasting on live TV how they committed their crimes, with no revenge, reprisal, retribution or restitution.
Sandeep and the very few like him, however, had the more pressing and existential concerns of living through another day successfully.
Those who had to leave Kashmir would ask, in incomprehension, how India could abandon them, and forget all it owed to Kashmir.
Lalitaditya’s pan-Indian and central Asian empire, Shaivist philosophy of Vasugupta, Utpaldeva and Abhinavgupta, the Rajtaringini by Kalhana, the architecture of Martand, the scholarship and the university of Sharda Peeth, the Natyashastra, the music and dance and culture – had all this meant nothing to India?
Was India’s 1000 year history of capitulation under force going to be repeated all over again?
And the teaching and scholarship that generations of Kashmiri Pandit teachers had provided to the predominantly Muslim population in the valley? How quickly had Kashmiris forgotten this historical legacy, this intellectual bequeathement?
How easily, and tragically, had they succumbed to the false, confabulated narratives, insane promises and motivated scapegoating of Pandits?
But people like Sanjoo had to defer their incomprehension to another day and make do without any hope of outside succour. They had to live by the sheer grit of their own wherewithal, ingenuity, resourcefulness and innate will to survive against overwhelming odds.
CH2:
Sanjoo’s Sonwar shop had been bought from Mr VK Ganjoo, who owned the entire building above it, that had been occasionally used as a Guest house. Sanjoo now bought the entire guest house, in 2013, and reconverted it into a four star boutique property, in one year, doing the electrical, structural and interior designing himself. In a further six month period, the hotel was running full house.
Sanjoo had called his hotel CH2.
CH2 is the chemical formula for methylene. Methylene combines with atmospheric hydrogen to form methane, CH4; and with atmospheric oxygen to form carbon monoxide, CO and water, H2O.
But Sanjoo simply used his family surname, Chattoo, in the formulaic manner of CH2 (Chtwo), a pun suggested by his son, Samarth.
Sanjoo’s instinct of survival in an insurgency-infested hostile environment did not, however, compromise his innate sense of pride in his national identity. At a time when government offices baulked at public declarations of Indianness, when even Lal Chowk “Gantaghar” would not carry the Indian flag, Sanjoo’s CH2 would be comprehensively lit on the Independance day and Diwali.
Floods:
In 2014, the entire Srinagar city, including Sanjoo’s Sonwar hotel sank, in Jhelum floods.
This was waiting to happen, and, unfortunately, is likely to happen again to Srinagar city, unless an alternate flood channel is created, unless encroachment of wetlands or “dembs” and of Jhelum river banks is controlled, unless water storage capacity at Lidder and Kuthar Nallahs is restructured, unless Anchaar lake’s flood control is improved, and unless further flood mitigation controls both south and north of Srinagar, upto Wullar lake, are undertaken.
The state government in an act of sheer lunacy, motivated by crass populism, had destroyed a large number of water bodies and decompressing canals, in particular, and, unforgivably, Nallah Mar, over the years.
Dal lake has an inflow of 275 million cubic meter water from Telbal Nallah from Marsar Lake. After Nallah Mar was filled up with cement and stones and coal-tar and converted into a motorable road rather than dug up and resurrected as the lifeline of water transport of Kashmiris, in general, and downtown dwellers in particular, in what must count as the greatest environmental disaster brought upon by Kashmiris on themselves, the only outflow is regulated at Dalgate, to the tune of 275 million cubic meters.
Nallah Maar was a navigational canal running through the old city of Kashmir, and connected Brari Nambal lagoon to the Khushal Sar lake, in the past, and thus provided navigability between the Dal and Anchaar lakes.
One could, only one generation ago, reach Nishaat in a boat moored at Naalah Maar.
Rescue:
The Kashmir floods of 2014, completely destroyed the two lower floors of Sanjoo’s beautiful boutique hotel, in operation for less than six months. The lower two floors were under water for 10 days. An ex-finance minister of the then J&K state, and his parents, many Pakistani Golfers who had come to play and some 40 guests in total were stranded in the hotel.
After being on phone for day and night, Sanju flew into Raj Bhavan helipad in a rescue helicopter with rescue equipment, medicines and an inflatable motored boat, ordered from Mumbai. The road from Raj Bhavan to the bottom of Gupkar road was clear of water owing to the height advantage. Everything from the bottom of Gupkar Road to Sonwar was submerged. Along with two dedicated friends, he half-paddled, half-waded, half-swam from the bottom of Gupkar road to Sonwar, and was able to evacuate a large number of guests to different locations, partly using the motorised dingy, the largest number evacuated to his Ishber residence.
It took 2 months to empty water with the pressurised pumps, and to wash away the mud. All electronic equipment was irreparably damaged. But by May 2016, the hotel, with an additional floor and a banquet hall was ready and was running to full capacity.
Sanjoo used his motorised pumps to clear the adjoining areas of the hotel of water and dispose off the animal carcasses that were rotting away before the Srinagar municipality could get a look in. He also distributed disinfectants and other medicines that he had managed to bring with him amongst the local population.
RKFC:
Sandeep along with his friend Shamim Mehraj got together in post-flood broken and bruised Srinagar to distribute footballs to local lads who were whiling away their time with nothing to do.
Out of this emerged the kernel of a team, Real Kashmir Football Club (RKFC), which was initially owned by Sandeep and Shameem, and now by Sandeep solely. RKFC won the I-League 2nd Division, in 2017-18 season, without losing a single game.
In 2018-19, it created history by becoming the first club from J&K to qualify for the I-league 1st division, beating the defending champions, and securing the third spot, defeating Mohan Bagan and Chennai along the way, after having been unable to play two matches in Srinagar.
In 2020, RKFC won the 123rd IFA Shield. Real Kashmir also hosted the state’s first indigenous and largest national tournament, in 2020, the Real Kashmir Cup.
In 2021, The RKFC won its second consecutive IFA Shield title.
RKFC boasts of the A Team, the Reserve Team, the Women’s Team, the U-18 Team, the U-15 Team, the U-13 Team and has a loved grassroot programme to provide a platform for the valley youth to showcase their talent, taking local players to various countries and competing in top leagues across the country.
Vijay Dhar:
During the self-destructive strikes and curfews and absence of a worthwhile government-provided training facility for the RKFC players, it was Mr Vijay Dhar who provided the Delhi Public School grounds for RKFC players to train.
Vijay Dhar is the illustrious son of the illustrious late Mr DP Dhar, Advisor to Indira Gandhi, Ambassador to USSR, state and central minister, and believed to be the chief architect of India’s intervention in the 1971 War of Independence of Bangladesh.
Vijay Dhar was one of the few Pandits who eschewed bitterness and returned to the valley at great risk to himself, in 1992, and established Delhi Public School, in Srinagar, in 2003, which served as a beacon of hope for Kashmiri children after a wasted decade, from 1990-2003. He also opened the first multiplex cinema with three halls and 520 seat capacity, in Sept 2022, in Sonwar, in collaboration with INOX, after an interval of 32 years, discounting the disastrous 1999 attempt which was bombed out by terrorists.
Scottish BAFTA:
RKFC hit television screens around the world when BBC Scotland’s documentary titled, Real Kashmir FC, won the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA), Scotland award for 2019. David Robertson, the RKFC coach from Aberdeen, and himself a celebrated premier league football player in the UK, was also honoured with the British Empire Medal for his services to the Kashmiri people and strengthening the UK-India relations.
This was sweet revenge against fate for the Scottish coach, David Robertson, whose glittering career as a professional footballer was tragically cut short by injuries. David had his own demons to contend with and chiselled RKFC into a fighting unit who never give up. 20,000 people turned up to watch the home matches in Srinagar when local politicians would struggle to gather 100 people.
Lack of government and industry support:
The government and industry support for RKFC remained miniscule and uncertain and Sanjoo invested a large percentage of his earnings from his hotel business into RKFC, single-handedly self-financing his passion and labour’s love, that many said he could ill-afford. Undoubtedly, as a business decision, this was impetuous, naive and sentimental, rather than rational, prudent or reasonable. But difficult things are done by people who have the capacity to do difficult things.
Sanju’s ambition for RKFC was to top the league, of course, but even more importantly, to provide an inspiring, a heart-warming experience for his club, players, coaches and, mostly Kashmiri spectators, who had been paralyzed by strikes and curfews for decades, starved of entertainment, fun and the simple pleasure of celebrating a sporting event, and of having a day out with family and friends.
Kashmiriat:
So, here is a question with respect to “Kashmiriat” doublespeak, which has assumed Orwellian sinisterness in public discourse, currently.
If Kashmiriat is taken to mean upholding the centuries old indigenous tradition of communal harmony and religious syncretism, who has exemplified it best?
The majority of civil society, state government and politicians of Kashmir, who failed to protect a 1% religious minority living amongst them peacefully, respectfully, providing teachers, lawyers, doctors, clerks and other public servants to the society?
Or people like Sandeep Chattoo and Vijay Dhar, who despite appalling cruelties visited on their community, still elected to forgive and forget, and, at great personal cost to themselves and their families, and unmindful of their personal safety, are extending sterling services in business, sports, education, entertainment to the entire Kashmiri society, without distinction?
Author: Pankaj Kaul
