Yesterdays’s sky was the most blue.
It was a perfect Sunday. However, I had to leave to meet a friend, Faiz. I met him before I left for Delhi; there was never a right time to meet him after I came back. I have been going to college for three weeks now and I’m already tired; as the college schedule is restoring itself and allowing us to build our lives around it once again, it’s hectic and tiring for me to travel all the way back and forth locally. But all things considered it is worth it, not because the college is doing remarkably well; recently our admission block was burnt to a crisp in a fire accident and therefore most of us are record less. Aside from the fact that it has been collectively remarked that it was rather convenient for something of that scale to pass soon after renovating the whole block but only and only for the friends that I have made over time, am I fond of it.
Today isn’t about college; it is about the undeniable peace of the bund and I. The small road that is adjacent to Jhelum, the serene calm it beholds, the symphony of the quiet graveyards that it entombs, the houseboats and the post offices that we so finally have. There are light gusts from this part of the city; most of them rise from the hem of the Jhelum that runs parallel to it. You can feel the crisp quality of air affecting you; it’s like being cleansed, like your body is being filled with scared incense burning in the mosques.
I cut through the small link road that connects us to the bund side of Lal Chowk near its famous clock tower; it is also where the oldest missionary school is located in Kashmir and right next to it you will find a Christian graveyard with this inscribed on its gate:
“Jesus is the resurrection and life” and a small metal flower has been added to it at the end.
I was standing at the Footbridge which connects the two sides separated by the river. This is where Faiz met me and together we crossed over to the bund side of Lal Chowk.
“I called the Collector; he is on his way here.” He said.
It hadn’t crossed my mind to call him, but I was glad he was coming. We walked along, talking about Delhi and people of mutual interests. Just enough that it didn’t feel like small talk, we talked about writing and a beloved couplet by him:
“They have infused
My eyes with molten lead,
My wait has become
Urgent and heavy;
Like an ambulance.”
Everything passed us like a faint wind, everything rushed and cut close corners with us and brushed its fingers unknowingly around us. The Wall of Kindness came on to us as wanting and forgotten. The clothes hung like corpses, as if a soul had shed its skin and had forgotten the remains. Everything cut close corners with us but my friend seemed oblivious.
The Collector’s favorite joint is a tea vendor, who has fixed his existence in front of a post office without concrete and has become a landmark in itself. This is where we waited for him, talking about things and our feet slightly dangling off the table of an uneven edginess. I called him but he didn’t pickup, and then I saw him walking towards us, I could tell tht he had woken up early today by the way he wore his face like a mask of purgatory; as if in a hurry he had forgot to leave all his baggage at home.
We greet each other properly, hunger in my stomach settles in and the by noon the temperature started rose, gradually making us aware of an approaching summer. The Collector takes us to the weekly Sunday Market that begins from Polo View and there, right there is a book stall I never thought I’d see here, selling books at a fixed price. He owes him money he says and somehow it did not surprise me. In the middle, we learn about the history of a guy I couldn’t being myself to like but hearing his side of story from the Collector made me feel like our burdens, our complaints were nothing but a ripple in his.
“That’s why he’s so fucked up.” Collector says.
We shuffle through a lot of books and the heat starts digging into my backpack. The sun is at its zenith was only getting brighter every minute. People throng at such markets and for a while I didn’t have the urge to run, I shuffled through bools like both of them did. I was happy and I was discovering things, new things that had been breathing secretly in this place of imposition. The shadows started to gain height again and an hour passed without any of us realizing.
Announcing that I was hungry, the Collector received a call from Blackbeard. He was around he said. So three of us decided to go eat at a Tibetan restaurant before we made our way back to the tea vendor and I felt completely transported to a different place altogether as I entered, this too was something I hadn’t seen while living and breathing here for so long. Unfortunately they were out of any and all rice dishes, so we went to another Tibetan place and ate there; engrossed in different conversations and all so trivial.
I haven’t quite introduced you to my friend, Collector or the one that I met. Collector is a friend I came to know when we wanted to begin a new tide in Kashmiri narratives/ art/ poetry while also dispelling the harmfully trending Instagram writing and much like him; Faiz was a part of it too. It didn’t quite start; instead we were pulled into the same thing we were fighting against and all of us hit lowest of the low in our lives.
We made it back to the place we started from and there were a bunch of us, each sipping on a glass cup of hot Lipton tea. Blackbeard looked miserable and later I came to know that he’d been having consistent nightmares. He hasn’t been to college either and I never asked him why, even though he promises to make it when he can. He is growing immensely old everyday, his lips conceal the sadness he never speaks of to me and the Collector kept finishing cigarette after cigarette meanwhile. As I looked around the others, a little hopelesss, Blackbeard included, I was the only non-smoker.
It’s too hard for me to remember conversations or what we talked about, it must have been something about books and writing, or just something out of our raggedly disturbed lives. For what it’s worth, the only thing I remember clearly is that the bund side is being monitored under section 144, in which groups of more than three people could be apprehended. Collector says “if it comes to that I don’t know any of you and you guys don’t know me.” “That’s fair.” I reply.
In hindsight, Faiz seemed a little out of place in the end and I couldn’t really place a finger on it. His head is thick with hair and his beard is dark, his glasses are messy and his bag is full of books. I have known him for several years and hardly have I ever had the chance to describe him, but now that the opportunity has presented itself I can’t help but think of him as another jilted lover. I guess he felt out of place, or something.
Across the other side from where we sat, a bell tolled. It came from the convent school that stood in our line of sight, across the Jhelum, the water is rust colored and spoiled, and the bell tolled on various times only to conclude that it was the time of Muslim prayers. It packed the air with echoes and raised alarms in my head. I recite Agha Shahid Ali’s couplets into the thin air but no one heard me saying them:
“In the heart’s veined temple, all statues have been smashed,
No priest in saffron’s left to toll its knell tonight.
The hunt is over, and I hear the call to prayer
Fade into that of the wounded gazelle tonight.”
“I can’t roam around without a book in my bag.” Faiz said. Collector seemed to take everything to heart; for once I suppose he was happy too. “There are so many people out there with the same stories as us.” He chided in, and we all looked within ourselves and wondered what went south. Later Faiz and I left together. It was around five in the evening and I am always on edge at this time because it gets really late if I leave after. On our way, we passed a group of mute people talking in sign language and my reaction to them was to be one of them. To me it was poetic to live in a world of absolute silence, where raising your voice would fizzle out and become a joke in its own. I left him at the same bridge; I’m realizing now that we haven’t really ever had serious discussions or ever really inclined to tell anything about our lives to each other. It’s like you know a person in a certain ensemble and as he changes colors, you’re chasing their shadows.
For the rest of the road I was on my own, it didn’t feel lonely and it was serene like that. The wind did not die down, the sun wasn’t too hot and it was in my hair, and in my heart that I could feel the need of walking along with the one I love. There was nothing soliciting or lonesome about this moment and walking as I went, the houseboats docked on the banks shined in their old ways, people walked carelessly. All of them oblivious, all of them ignorant and all of them brimming with sadness. A song in the background, rustled through the trees and fiercely formed tiny waves, all this canvassed to form in me a certain sense of repose that I may or may not ever be able to desrcibe at length.
“Everything about the bund is replete with poetry and beauty.” I call her and tell her. I walk along to her silence and mine included.