‘Lahore’

July 2018

Sleep crept out of my eyes slowly. Yawning, I turned over and buried my head into the pillow – the coolness of the embroidered cloth met my face. It felt nice. My eyes fluttered open. The sun was up apparently; a gust of cool breeze from last night’s rain mingled with the bright but soothing sunlight and washed over the bed taking my drowsiness with it. The rich aroma of wet brick and soil filled me, inviting, and lingered uncertainly as I heaved myself up and shuffled towards the open window overlooking the small garden. It was a pretty morning. The serene songs of a flock of bulbuls hung in the air, and accompanying it swelled the notes of a distant harmonium – Dada ji’s gramophone. Mehdi Hassan’s voice swelled and outdoing the bulbuls, crooned softly a couplet from Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s ghazal,

Gulon main rang bhare

Baad-e-naubahar chale

(Colours in the flowers bloom

The breeze of a new Spring arrives)

A smile pinpricked across my face. Yes, spring was here at last, bringing with it the long hours of summer with friends. Running amok in the streets with a small gang of children I had befriended at school was something almost synonymous to summer for me. The day had started off on a good note.

Ammi and Abbu were up too, it seemed, as my eyes sought the open door across my room. Sameer’s bedroom door adjoining my room was shut. I wondered if he was still there behind it, sleeping perhaps. It wasn’t that late, I thought. Abbu must have gotten up a few hours ago, and as per his daily routine left for work. It wasn’t far but he did have to drive into the city to his office at the High Court, and it was always a good idea to do so before the city awoke, even though in truth the city never slept. Ammi on the other hand had delicious breakfast to prepare, and household chores to take care of. She never seemed to tire, never seemed to fuss. She would wake me up every morning, but I suppose it really was early today. I took a whiff – the smell of her parathas made my mouth water. I was hungry.

I trudged out into the courtyard. Our house had been constructed in an age past. Dada ji had told me he had seen his Grandfather live here and he had probably seen his own do the same. No one knew how far the history of the house – more of a homestead – stretched; no one was that well versed with how long the roots of the family tree extended. Dada ji could traverse to some extent but there was always some sahib he struggled to remember who it was that he succeeded. Nadir Manzil was what it was called, named after an ancestor who set the foundations of the towering walls; probably when Lahore was young, if it ever had been – at least the style of the structure suggested as well. The large oak doors opened to an expansive square-shaped open courtyard, bordered by a two storied structure that housed the various rooms. A large veranda jutted out before the doors and into the street, and the doors seldom closed during the day.

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I know not whether it was the pothole or the sharp turn in the road, but hitting top acceleration, the bike careened and my hands clenched around the brakes, yet the force shook me off the seat and sent me stumbling into what I expected to be stone but turned out a thick hedge; surprisingly hollow inside. Freeing myself from the enclosed branches, I suddenly found myself face to face with a tiny door just about my height adorned with Persian and Urdu writings in a calligraphy suspiciously of Mughal origin. For a moment, I thought I heard a solitary koel’s sweet sound pour over my ears like honey and the distant warble of a fountain just beyond the solid banyan wood. My palm almost rose to push – “Ahmad! Are you alright? Come on let’s go!” Junaid and the others had seen my tumble, and stood waiting at quite some distance; they couldn’t see me.

I quickly tore back through the hedge. My entry and exit, neither had left any marks. I reseated myself on the bicycle and took one last confused look at a gold lining in the door winking at me, and pushed on the pedal.

For a moment, I thought I heard a solitary koel call out after me.