In the landscape of memories

In my landscape of memories there is a blurring of boundaries. It is a topography as no other, for it is hard to tell where the river ends and grows into a mountain, or when the soil changes into a galaxy of stars. It is endless, it is continuous, it is an ocean, it is a forest.

In this space, are people, some real, some real-like. Very often you would meet a person as they were and also the same person, but as I had imagined them to be, or what I had wished for, both walking hand in hand, inseparable. A boy who once told me that he is fond of me, and him as a man, standing under the night sky, watching shooting stars and snow, thinking of me. I wasn’t there, but in my memories is this image of his that took birth over a long phone call, on a rainy night. I remember the fragrance of wet soil, it is the fragrance of his memory.

In this space reside friends and laughter, kindness and fear, anger and affection, caresses and pain. In this space are found dogs with wet noses, cows with gentle eyes, langurs with mannerisms and donkeys that once roamed the streets close to home.

In this space are relationships that are only mine. Also those that are shared. The childhood in the hills was not Ruskin Bond’s alone, I too have had “friends in strange places”; the contours on a wrinkled face described in a poem, are memories that my fingers can vouch for; the mourners in a painting by P.N. Mago, I heard them cry, I saw the Partition, I know the loss, I wasn’t there, but I was. Some borrowed memories, imagined memories, they are also mine.

And in this space resides Zoya, my daughter, yet to be a part of my lived experience, she already is a part of my memories. All that I have imagined her to be co-exists with Zoya, a character from Dhoop Kinarey, Pakistani Drama. And they both walk together on a path where the past and the future meet, in the realm of memories. I have watched Zoya on screen through a video cassette, a CD and eventually online. Her childlike mannerisms yet her intrinsic wisdom exist as memories of a cherished friend. Her love for children is a memory that seems to be mine, her relationship with her father, baba resonates with mine. When I go deeper into this landscape, this deep sea, her baba is as much a part of my childhood as any member of family. So when I lived far away, in another land, and the winters froze all warmth, I was able to relive my childhood, through Dhoop Kinarey. Finding home in familiarity and tea. In my memories is home, home is a memory, memories are home.

I’ll choose an abrupt pause…