story

When I was finally ushered in, I found her standing, draped in chiffon (that lovely elegance), by the golden sunlight, still pale against her.
Maybe other eyes disagreed, her life had worn her down, but to me, she was as full of magical exuberance as when I had first seen her...so, so long ago.
Her voice arose, shattering the silence and my nerves.
'I do so love a good story...and hate a poor ending.'
Pause.
'What about endings you spend years toying with, but never quite find out about?'
'Well, those are just the absolute worst, aren't they?' She said, finally turning to face me.

Even in that millisecond, I knew that I still hated her, I could still hate her. After so long, I had envisioned her leaping to turn towards me at the creak of the door, the fall of my footstep or perhaps, perhaps composed herself just until the first syllable left my lips.

She had still resisted.
Even now, she wouldn't grant me the comfort of this small victory.

 

................................

 

 

yellow wilting petals between hurried feet, the swish of a red pallu. white marble tiles and blue sky.
there was golden sunlight playing with the green in her eyes, i recall. she was smiling at me. fiesty, always so.

no, not feisty, tempestuous.she was the summer storm in all its glory, twirling and twirling amid red chiffon and yelloworange marigolds, threading themselves feebly through her toes in an effort to
become the Joy that was her.

.............

i play images like a disc on repeat, images like a vintage song of old. and almost magically, almost out of lovelorn nostalgia,...i can still smell the summer sticky heat, and the crushed marigolds of the gardens.
i keep playing.... looking for that infinitesimal moment somewhere between us that has lead to this; me, clawing at wispy memories, swishes of an uncontrollable breeze.

i smile wryly, thinking...how could it be that i grasp that moment?
it is, after all, impossible to capture the storm in an outstretched palm.

And then, to capture her?

.........
Such an exercise in futility..

story

she stood in the New York winter cold, looking at the dewy haziness shining off the metallic towers and thought instantly of Mordor, but also(and now chuckling to herself), of Karachi. Those early winter mornings bundled in blue cardigan over coffee colored uniform, walking across the long fields hazy with dew settling on the grass in her convent school. It reminded her also of Dubai, but the haze was golden bristling sand in the sun, masquerading around twisted metal and steel sculptures.

One of the other side-effects of diaspora she thought. Not only did it never really leave your genes, but also, you found a little bit of one place in ever other place you ever went. Or maybe, you were so busy trying to make one place less foreign and more like everything else you had ever known, that its own uniqueness was completely lost to you. Unless that is, you moved again, and then the nostalgia would re-shape every dusty mote into a gleaming gold memory you would now long for.

.............

Nomads never really stop longing, do they?

....................

Razia bano spread her gharara over the divan, tucking her legs gently under her and conscious as she did so that Bai peeped at her from behind the wooden jalli, sniffing her dis-approval. Maybe it was all in her head, Razia thought. It was winter after all, the season for the common cold and Bai Ama was old. Bai had been around for generations, almost as long as the neem tree in the verandah of their house, which ... had told her, had watched over the five Khan-nawab generations and the Single Heirs.

Razia wondered if Bai had ever known about the story of the lost son, and resolved to ask her when Bai wasn't sniffing at her, cold or disapproval.

'Raz, my jaan' ..... sauntered over and seated himself on the Divan, creasing her perfectly fanned out gharara. 'There is much hubub on the street today. You should thank my lucky palmlines I made it back alive'

'And which of your lines should I thank for forgetting my paan, again?' she asked, absent-mindedly taking his hair off his eyes.

The many years at Oxford had done nothing to dull ....'s casual elegance that came so easy to the Nawabs. He sat cross-legged at ease in his kurta and still looked suave despite his goofy smile.

'What do you say Raz? Could you ever leave this? (motioning towards the open verandah in front of them) for an unknown in another land?'

'Depends. We are so comfortable here and the violence seems so far away. But then there's this'

..............................

Bai Amma, or Asifa,