Reminiscing by Riverside

I was naturalized as a Lahori by birth, and I have never really thought of myself as anything else. Eight months in one of the most adventure filled cities has hardly changed me and I continue to close my eyes and recall images of springtime flowers, large steel machines crushing sugarcane into delicious pulpy juice, the emanating smell from a large black wok full to the brim with oil that fries twisted orange pretzels, the sound of rubber slippers touching asphalt, the flowing same-colour shalwar kameez donned by men, the seeping warmth at entering the local bakery, the sight of motorcycle milkmen...the list is possibly endless. There are many like me, who leave their country, travel miles and start living in a new place with new aspirations. They don't always find it as hard to forget as I do. And slowly, I am beginning to feel that I may never forget. Or that I do not want to forget.

And now, more than ever, I want to keep those images, that vocabulary, those sounds, smells and feelings alive because I have to pass them on to another. I feel that if I owe my country my service, I also owe it the love and loyalty of a new future. The task that lies ahead of me, the task of letting my new one know how much Pakistan and how much Lahore is home to me, is often frightening. I am not sure how much they will be interested in me as a mother. Would they even care that I have such emotional ties to a land that I had to leave, a land which is apparently plagued by so many difficulties that return seems foolish? Perhaps they may never even want to visit my home. And yet, I know that as someone who has Lahore, who has Pakistan, emblazoned all over my body, it will be hard for them to escape my reality. And if, by chance or fate, they do physically escape it, I would want them to know how much their mother missed her country even as she was comfortably settled in another. 

It takes me less than a moment to transport myself back into the orangey brown front terrace. The glimmering golden marble reflects the clear sunshine and throws abstract patterns in the air; patterns that have by now been etched into the soles of my feet from too much slipper-less wandering. The solid green chairs invitingly beckon, where I have sat numerous times, doing schoolwork, reading paperbacks, and more recently, checking exams. There are circular marks on the glass-top tables where many a time my tea-mug sat proudly, always accompanied with a couple of almond-butter biscuits. This was the place where I played cricket with my brothers, spent hours languishing in the winter sun, peeled deliciously juicy kinoos and tried learning tennis against a wall. I cut birthday cakes under the star-lit ceiling, rotated barbecue skewers on sweltering coals, listened to the most soothing music and even twirled a dance-step or two. 

Those were my days of utter freedom. This is not to say that I am no longer free, but freedom if defined as a lack of responsibility and worry, as a sheltered existence where there are no mental shackles, and an absence of having to exercise propriety, is certainly no longer a luxury that I enjoy. At the brink of motherhood, I feel even more starkly the change that is to greet me very soon. Perhaps stability is also a form of freedom, one that we too often confuse for boredom. The monotonous play of things is also a luxury and routine is a much-sought after comfort. 

And at the risk of deviating, I also realize that routine is not a self-imposed reality. Routine is a strategic equilibrium that can only be sustained if it is indeed the best option for everyone. Unfortunately, that is not true in every household. Or maybe, for some, fortunately, it is not the only equilibrium. But I miss having a bedtime, having a curfew, having meals at a pre-decided hour and then struggling to keep that routine. Ah! What pleasure it was to meet a deadline, to join my parents at lunch hour, to know that if I reached home at 2 p.m., they would just be starting to eat. The joys of predictability! 

Once my eyes are closed and home reawakens itself in my senses, it is almost impossible to tear myself away. But just like it is important for me to not only maintain, but strengthen my link with the past, it is also important to keep moving forward. There is much that I still need to do before I can justify my links with a city that has produced great intellectuals, poets, philosophers...great people. But Lahore, this I owe to you: for all the Ijaz babies to follow, I will paint you through my words just as I have always felt you and held you in my heart.

Diyaar-e-ghayr mai mehram agar nahin koi,
Tau Faiz zikr-e-watan apnay roo-ba-roo hee sahih.