Eastern Vagabond

Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.

Tag: inspiration

  • Oh Nostalgia!

    I saw a fleshy little insect on my study table today – an animate, miniature Sarcosuchus with a glittering tail full of scales or maybe i am imagining things. Couldn’t shake it off my head for a long time. It reminded me of how I once had a strange fascination for insects. When i was little, i would tirelessly sit through quiet, hot afternoons of our desert town in the living room without even turning on the fan, silently observing the ants as they slowly marched by. I often wondered why they moved in a single line and why they wouldn’t give way to another ant coming the opposite way without bumping into it first. I remember doing a running commentary on their funny “accidents”, sitting on the cool marble floor and my giggles reverberating in the living room. Laughter wasn’t an option back then because everybody else in the family was sane enough to sleep through the burning desert siestas and if i were caught laughing, Ami would get up to tuck me in the bed next to her, and a beautiful afternoon would be wasted.

    Back then, i was free to wonder and theorize anything and everything i saw or hear. There was nobody to tell me ‘hey, you have to have a PhD to have a say in that matter’ [which becomes more of a cliche as you get to the university]. I remembered how i loved to be a scientist. But unlike all the scientists, i had a deep fascination for fairy tales and mythologies. No wonder that of all the nursery rhymes, Dadi amma kehti hain, chand p paryan rehti hain was my favorite. The night-sky always triggered a spirit of unearthing the worldly secrets in me. I’d look at the planets, imagining how the life there’d be like and all sorts of imaginary alien life from abominable monsters to cute little rabbits would spin in my head like socks in a dryer until i’d sink into a tranquil sleep.

    Back then, life was serene. A gift to be treasured. An excitement that must not be lost. Though each day was placidly same, it would always unearth new mysteries and consequent thrills. There was no such thing as ‘boredom’ in life. Every summer we had that strange craze of inventing something. So we would set off with a bottle of Vicks and fill it with everything we could lay our hands on after much thought and determining the right proportions pretending to be some damn serious scientists at work. I remember one time when my bottle filled up to the brim, i brought it to my study table and pulled it open to see what the new invention was. The kids surrounded the table in excitement and anticipation. After a long analysis that included spilling it in the garden (to see if some unheard-of vegetation sprouts up), smelling and even tasting it (yuck!) when i couldn’t make out what it actually was, i declared it to be a perfume (FYI, the thing smelled like shit). My younger siblings made a whoopey and painted the town red with their noisy, innocent celebrations. I was a bit let down when Ami, like always, was too busy to feign any interest in my invention. But for as long as i was the star-performer among my siblings, there was little heed i paid to the rest.

  • A Weekend Out Of My Little Universe

    It’s not just everyday that you get to spend your weekend in so much peace away from the babbling about the upcoming assignments and the looming OHTs or the nerds ranting how smart they were to not fall for the glitch in the last quiz in spite of all the odds stacked against them, and the Gilgiti roommates just down my corridor who would never let go of those same gut-churning traditional tunes that have been flying about the corridors of the hostel for the last two years; perhaps they feel good pretending to be the last surviving comrades of an almost extinct civilization.

    The workshop was held in Quba Mosque, Humak Town. As soon as you step in the mosque, you enter some sort of parallel universe which defies all the theories of this physical world. Time seems to have slowed down. Some branches of a tree in the yard creep up to the old-fashioned window-sills and you can see the setting sun through the rusty grills that weave through it (and that makes me nostalgic for some reason). That window perhaps serves as a calendar and a clock because neither of the two did i find in there. The leaves can tell the season and sun, the hour and that is actually more precise of a time than the people there will ever need to know. Time goes by as slowly as does the sun and the concept of quantification of time fades away as does the tick-ticking of the clock. And so in a little niche of the modern world, time still exists as an infinite entity. The building seems to hold a peculiar medieval academic air, which almost magically vivifies the scholar in oneself emanating a yearning for knowledge. There was so much tranquility all over the place and on the faces of Mudarrisoon that i have never wanted more to quit everything else in the world for that.

  • My Long Run

    A rare picture of Kashmir Highway under-construction.
    A rare picture of Kashmir Highway under-construction.

    I have just begun. The road outside the campus gate is so steep, I can imagine it still running through those ancient mountains now been flattened to make room for the city skyline. Though it’s not prudent to do a long run against the clock, that’s the only option I’m left with when in a rush to get somewhere before it’s dark. Once I get past those initial steep miles, the run is predominantly steady-state. So you don’t have to do much except glide along on the windy highway. While gliding past the honking cars, traffic jams, slums and naked children with running noses, my mind slowly drifts off to a semiconscious neutral state and some of the most amazing things happen in there: weird ideas and secret jokes once shared between my old school-fellows which never got old enough through the ebb and flow of life descend my numbing mind in a strange harmony in an almost mystic fashion. A subtle smile creeps across my face. I look at the bewildered faces of the pedestrians passing by who see me running almost daily and yet can’t resist their impulse to find some furious, man-eating abomination chasing me every time I rush past them: they will never be able to make themselves comfortable with a lone guy running madly on the highway, I think, amused.

    The white fluffs of clouds dance playfully as the sky puts up a lovely show of colors. What a perfect adieu, I think while running placidly through the dusty orange glow of the setting sun. Soon the dusk will fall and the darkness will gradually envelop me. And I have always loved that for it always conceals my agony so comfortingly that I no longer need to pull up a nice face for anyone. The darkness is burgeoning swiftly. It’s late, I think and pick up the pace, and a sudden feeling of utter loneliness presses at my heart like an abandoned child waking up to realize that he may not make it back home ever. Racing the crawling cars and rickshaws and dodging the cyclists, off I kick through the final miles until the destination arrives. I look down at my watch. The sticky thing wrapped around my wrist, now dripping with sweat, tells me I have been all my myself for more than an hour.

    The suffering is immense but then that’s what being human is all about, I recall her saying and smile wearily. I might never run out of reasons to run.

  • The Childhood’s December

    Yes, I remember

    that childhood’s December.

    When in shivering setting evenings,

    sunshine would crawl down the back-yard wall.

    The aroma of burning coal,

    and on my rashed cheeks

    the frozen tear-drops making lines.

    Seeing the freezing fog of clouds

    Mother would call us standing in the door

    and we would all rush to our homes,

    carrying those dirty marbles.

    I’d look at the night sky

    and secretly pray for the snowfall,

    and in the early morning

    pick up the starry flakes of falling snow in the yard,

    gazing the snow-pouring sky

    and imagining to be flying with those flakes.

    Then you came…and the childhood’s December passed.

    Then for hours under that crawling cold sunshine,

    in those shivering setting evenings,

    i kept decorating myself

    with silvery snow tumbling from the sky

    to catch your single glimpse,

    and on that white sheet of Earth

    all my foot-marks

    came to your door.

    Then that December passed too.

    And look…i am still standing at the same corner of the street.

    Shivering setting evening is there too

    but golden sunlight doesn’t slither down.

    Time seems to have stopped.

    The snow flakes in my hair,

    though pouring silver

    can’t make them wet.

    What a strange snowy evening this is

    whose frost can’t freeze my tears.

    The smoke of that burning coal

    tickles eyes,

    but has lost its aroma.

    And look, the door of my home stands open but

    Mother’s call is lost somewhere.

    Why are all the roads to your house

    so desolate?

    How different this snowy evening is from my childhood’s december!

    Hashim Nadeem

    (Hashim Nadeem’s “Bachpan ka December” translated by me)