Poem - 17 September 2017, 14:14

Budding Dreams

Twinkling within brimming eyes
chaste as sparkling oceans
saline and lukewarm are
a few simple budding dreams.

The little chinaar in the garden,
to watch it grow into a lush tree.
In that green walled kitchen,
learn to brew the kahwa from my mom.
My uncle’s shikara of flowers,
to row it all by myself on the Dal.
That tiny window of my room,
to sew curtains for them myself.
With Ashraf and Salma from our neighbourhood,
to celebrate many more Diwalis and Eids.
Sitting on the verandah alongside grandpa,
to make kaangdis for everyone.
And once grown up,
to drive my father’s jeep all round the town.

Standing barefeet on the moist earth of our garden
I kept looking unwaveringly at our home
as all these dreams flashed past my mind’s eye
like a warm and happy montage in some film.

Father says-
The town’s no longer ours.
He says-
The town's no longer anyone’s.
Its only residents are explosions,
screams, laments and shivers.
I don’t understand these grown up talks.
But I have noticed-
my father smiles no more.
Mom too, barely speaks.
They say we are leaving this town.
We are leaving, our home.

Clenching absent mindedly
at the soft earth with my toes
I thought to myself- Ashraf and Salma left.
Everyone’s leaving, leaving everything.
Now me too?
My chinar, our garden, the shikara,
the kahva, those Diwalis, those Eids,
those kaangdis, my little window,
even father’s jeep; all my budding dreams,
just because of some grown up stuff,
I have to leave them back here?

I scooped up the lump of toe-clenched earth
in my fists, took a pinch each from the
now settling dust upon my dreams and
carefully bundled it all up in my handkerchief.

Years later today, I sit here under a tree
in a faraway distant city,
with that handkerchief unbundled in my lap,
still holding my old budding dreams
interred in that fistful of toe-clenched earth
from that garden of my childhood.
Overwhelmed, a single teardrop
escapes my eye and trickles down
upon that earth from years ago.
In the rising petrichor,
I still smell my true home;
I can still smell
the rush of all my budding dreams.

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Chinaar- Kashmiri/Indian name for the poplar tree.
Kahwa- a traditional green tea preparation of Kashmir
Shikara- a multipurpose wooden boat iconic to Kashmir
Dal- a picturesque lake in Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir, India
Kaangdi- a Kashmiri clay fire pot insulated with willow rushes. Filled with smoldering coal it is carried under the ‘phiran’, a Kashmiri long winter gown, to keep warm during the winters.

One of my closest friends is from Kashmir, which has been steeped in territorial disputes with our neighboring nation since our independence from the British. Bomb blasts, gun fights, mass killings, abductions etc are quite commonplace there. She was a little girl when she left Kashmir for Delhi with her family. Before she left, as a token of remembrance, she took with her a fistful of earth from her garden which she still has with her. I was deeply moved by the mature innocence of it. This poem is my attempt at poetic-fiction built around this one fact.

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