‘I didn’t mean to tear apart his earlobe!’ I said to my cousin.
‘Oh comeon! You continuously hit him right on his ear!’ He said, reminding me that it was me who was in trouble, yet again.
‘So, what do we do now?’ I asked my cousin who was equally terrified.
‘Let’s go to Nowshera I say, without telling anyone. There would be no way for them to know we are there. Dada doesn’t have a telephone at his home’, he said.
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Many stories begin when we decide to pay attention towards something that is awkward and out of the normal. This one is no different. This is the story of a girl. Or perhaps I should say this is the story of a father. I tend to change my stance because we are, at birth, equal halves of both of our parents. With time, the one parent who inspires us more, takes over the other half part, carves our identity and makes us a certain person for the rest of our lives. The same happened with the girl whose story I am going to tell you now. Her father used to tell her everyday that she is beautiful. Some of the days she believed him. The other days, she was unable to trust the soothing words and wouldn’t react at the love his father poured at her. During those sad days, when nothing could cheer her up, she felt a darkness growing around her. A darkness. Constantly. Growing. Continue reading →
Continued from The Leaf Plucker
Before I decided to pick up my father’s axe and become a woodcutter, I was a shepherd. My family possessed multiple herds of cattle. It included sheep, goats and buffaloes. We lived among many other families and moved places after every few months. The main reason for such nomadic lifestyle was to keep our cattle alive and be able to feed it. When the number of animals grew more than we could handle, we would sell them. The money helped us relocate. It would take months before we decided to settle in on a new location. It irritated me to leave our place of living every year and find a new one. My father told me it was not necessary, but it was a tradition. Our ancestors had been traveling all around the country. It was not in our blood to settle down at one location and be able to raise our families in normal human social structure. I always found it difficult to understand. So, when my father died, I decided to break off. I took my share of cattle and set out to find a new place for myself, where I could settle down for the rest of my life. Continue reading →
Last night was a heavy night. I found myself in a place where I hadn’t been from a very long time. I was moving away from it because I have always believed that life is in movement. But even when I was always moving away from it, my past hadn’t moved much. It clung to me like a weed, sucking its life from my every breath. Paying attention to it was bad, even thinking about it was bad. My past appears to me like a hot oven, one touch and I draw my hand back from it. I have been hopelessly trying to protect myself from my past. Fear of getting face to face with it stopped my energy to move ahead. Fear is nothing but a shrinking. When I am happy, I expand and engulf everybody in my happiness. When I am afraid, I shrink, I hide in my own shell. I shrink in everyway – in love, in relationships, in every way. I am afraid to go out, I become a turtle. Continue reading →