I, KARIMA ULLAH:
ONE:
We were ten in the family
No we are fiive
Now five of us are going to get together
Not in the house where we were born...
Where we grew up...
Where we had parents
Where we studied and studied har to make something of ourselves
Where we had long conversations, arguments, fights, laughter,
A great deal of laughter...
Where we had great intimacy.
We knew everything about our house, about our parents, about our existence,
Though we weren't aware that it was called, existence...
We also knew what was putside our door...
We knew the neighbors
They were our friends. Whenever they cooked something special they would send it to us
And we did the same.
towerThe custom was that not to send the empty plates back but hold on to them till we cooked
Some thing special and send those plattle jazzy soundses back full of delicious food.
We also knew the bazars in our town and which bazar had what kind osf things.
cleWe had eight bazars around a clock tower. One would hav great fabrics, the other furniture,
One full of jewellery, glass bracelets, my favorite, exteremely colorful and made subtle jazzy
Sounds. One bazar was full of vegetables, fruit, grains, fresh spices, meats, fish, almonds, apricots.
The bazar next to the this garden of delights had all the bed covers, handmade quilts, bed sheets,
towels and a million other nick knacks.
and a million other things.
One avenue only had public buses which went to all other towns in so many different directions
And all those bazars met at one point, a great circle and in that circle were shops full of ice cream and
hlab Jamin, luddoo,rus ki -malai, all these shops weown wherete called, Mithai shops.
tAnd in the middle of this vast circle was the clock tower called ghunta ghar.
On the outskirts of those town bazars were wide tree lined roads. Some of those roads lead to public
otgardens and parks, in that town where all of us grew up.
It was a routine to go to those pearhtks for walks in the mornings and evenings with the family.
Near our house was a tandoor, (Brick oven) where we will take our dough to get nans baked, hot,
crispy, fresh nans for lunch. I used to go to tandoor after school. I loved doing that.
We ate everything which was foodf can fresh. No can food-no, not at all. We never heard of
can food.
t night in summer time we slept on our roof on jute beds covered with sparkling white matresses and
white sheets. We sang songs lying in our beds looking at the stars, thto the same housee clear sky and
beautiful blue
moon dreaming of going abroad and that's when our tragic journey began
Now I am taking a journey back but not to the same house, not to the same town.
That house is sold. Parents are dead, so are two sisters and one brother.
Five dear family memberes are gone.
Five out of ten are dead.
Only five of us are left.
Two brothers and three sisters.
Now, we will all meet in a different town, in a different house.
All of us hven't been together at the same
. time and one place for years. All five of us haven't been together at the same moment
for years, for decades actually.
Some of us have been living abroad which we dreamt about while we lay on our comfortable
beds on our beautiful roof singing songs. Now we are going from being abroad to a new town where
one of our sister lives, in a town which is...
so familiar to us, where we don't know any neighbors, where we do not know the way to any bazar.
Some one will take us whereever we want to in a car. Now every one has a car.
We used to walk to those bazars. We didn't have a car.
Walking to those bazars to buy fish, chiken, fruit, sweets, shoes, fabrics was real fun.
Every one knew us. All shop keepers were our friends. All of them. The ones who sold hand made
mango Ice cream especially. If we didn't have money by any chance on any day, we could still buy
everything we wanted and pay on another day.
But the town where we are going to gather soon, no one knows us....not a soul...
We have been living abroad too long.
But the sad irony of it all is that no one knows us here either where we have lived for decades.
We live abroad everywhere...anonymously...
No neighbors...we have neighbors but no one knows their names,no sweetshop owners, no mango
icecream man is here...and no friends...no friends at all.
AND NOW WE ARE GOING THE COUNTRY WHERE WE WERE BORN...where we grew up.
Where we studied so hard to make something of ourselves.
That house is sold.
We don't go that town where the house once stood.
Too painful...
But now I am preparing for the painful journey to a country where my ancestor's house is now sold.
tTthe town where we don't have a house of our own. I don't even have proper clothes to wear in that
country, no proper shoes either. When I land there, the unknown town, the unknown country where I
was born and once lived and prospered, I will have to buy some ready made clothes, the kind of clothes
everyone wears who live there. No one buys fabrics in that country and take it to the tailor.
They want to copy the motif of Western world's polyester,
Going to the tailor was an experience unlike any other.
We knew where the tailor's shop was...
We knew where the washerman lived...
We knew where the tandoor for nans was...
Now we will gather in a town wherego to the town where we were we will be total strangers.
The whole painful past will strike us severely.
The big mistake of leaving our home and our country would sniff and bite us like a snake.
We will be too afraid to go to the town where we were born.
There is no home of our own there....
We have no home of our own anywhere....That's the pain we will have to encounter when all five of us
will gather soon...I am always preparing for this painful journey back and forth...backhe and forth.
I can't seem to get ready.
My body have the listless heaviness of sorrow, the weight of tragedy created by myself unknowingly.
I can't seem to get up and start to pack.
We have been living in other people's countries, other people's homes for so long, for so-so-long and we
grew old without noticing that we don't really have a home of our own anywhere...
Now all five of us will meet.
We are older and different.
According to the atmosphere and circumstances of the places we have been living and not really living
for so long...
We will also look quite different and older to each other.
We won't talk of our pain.
We will just smile once in a while.
We won't talk about our past
We won't talk about our old home...far too painful.
We won't talk about our bazars.
We wo't talk about our parents for sure.
Too painful...far too painful...
We won't talk about the tremendous mistake made long time ago...
Mistake of leaving our country...
I can't et up and get ready...
Can't get ready for the journey back home
Which home?
That's the question...
Thos two words, "Back home."
Sound ominous.
There is no home.
No home there...
No home...
We are going to a country, once our country
Where we have no home...
We are going from a country where we have no home of our own either.
We have no home period.
Why am I going?
Thats another painful question...
I have so many questions which I can't seem to answer and that has exhausted me completely.
I can't get up to go home....
