In Kashmir, ears are tuned to the grapevine

The elusive man, they say, travels by car through the hills around Srinagar, going from village to village in search of his prized quarry: an owl. It must be in perfect shape, he tells people, and must weigh at least 6 pounds, 10 ounces. For that owl, he’s willing to pay $68,000.

Who is this man? What is his name? No one knows, and, in this conflict-weary patch of northern India, no one can be found who has met the mysterious stranger. Experts say no Indian owl weighs that much. The story, it seems, is just that -- a tall tale.

Such tales abound the world over, from weeping statues of Mary to Satan’s face in the smoke over the wrecked World Trade Center. But in conflict-racked Kashmir, where little in life is considered certain, rumor seems woven into the fabric of the culture. “The News From Zainakadal,” they call it, after the crowded neighborhood in Srinagar, the region’s main city, that is the hub of the rumor mill.

“The wilder the rumor, the better it’s received,” says Zareef Ahmed Zareef, a renowned Kashmiri poet.

“Strange rumors regularly spread through the Kashmir hinterland,” he says. “As death and destruction lurk from every nook and corner in beleaguered Kashmir, people keep their eyes and ears open for news. That’s what gives every wild rumor an instant and free carriage.”

Two decades of separatist violence have laid waste to the beautiful Himalayan region, India’s only Muslim majority state, leaving nearly 70,000 people dead. Government informants are thought to be everywhere; politicians are regularly killed; Islamic militant groups wage war on the government, fighting for an independent Kashmir or one tied to Muslim Pakistan. No wonder rumors abound.

When Saddam Hussein was hanged, word spread that his image had appeared on the moon with a hangman’s noose around his neck. Thousands went into the night cold hoping for a glimpse.

In 2001, the 50-paisa coin, worth one U.S. cent, became a hot commodity because the grapevine said the coins were actually made of gold.

The stories go back years. In the 1940s, during the bloodshed that followed India’s independence from Britain, rumors spread that the name of Sheik Mohammed Abdullah, a revered Kashmiri political leader, could be seen in the veins of a Himalayan tree. The rumors made him appear divinely anointed and helped cement his position as one of the region’s powerful men.

And the owl story? Spread through the rumor mill, it has spawned a frantic months-long hunt. In dozens of villages, men with nets can be found searching nightly for the birds.

Gulzar Ahmed, a 27-year-old shepherd from Kangan, a village 25 miles north of Srinagar, has been searching for weeks. He caught one owl, but released it because it weighed little more than 2 pounds.

He acknowledges the story may not be true -- but is willing to try his luck.

“Let me get the bird of the right weight; only then can the truth of the rumor be verified,” he said.

The stories have even fed sub-rumors -- that the owl hunt is actually a CIA search for Osama bin Laden, or perhaps a secret foreign-funded research project.

Wildlife experts scoff.

No Indian owl weighs 6 pounds, 10 ounces, said Rashid Naqash, an official with Kashmir’s Wildlife Department. It’s unclear how many birds have been caught, he said, but there have been no reports of owl deaths.

Naqash added that wildlife experts are relieved that the rumors include the warning that the birds must be caught alive.

To people who must separate rumor from fact, the owl hysteria isn’t surprising.

Abdul Qayoom, a journalist in Kashmir for a quarter-century, remembers the spate of rumors of Pakistani military incursions into Indian-controlled Kashmir in the late 1990s. After weeks of denials, Indian officials suddenly admitted the rumors were true, and a series of brief but bloody battles ensued.

“News has always been hard to come by ... because of the political uncertainties in Kashmir,” Qayoom said. “One has often to sift through rumors to find out if they were triggered by some grain of truth.”