Praznath: An Excerpt
Photo: Max Tcvetkova on Unsplash
Fiction: ‘I caught no more reflections. Soon enough, I smelled cattle. The truck moved away from Praznath. In my rush, I had carried the old T-shirt, carrying with it the dust of my home.’
by the gates of the Villa of Peace,
our hands blossoming into fists
till the soldiers return the keys
and disappear. Again we’ll enter
our last world, the first that vanished
in our absence from the broken city.
— Agha Shahid Ali
January 1990, Kashmir
The smoke rose from somewhere afar. Maybe another house had been burnt. I thought. We packed whatever was in sight that seemed to be necessary to sustain our lives. Whatever added value to life had to be pocketed and taken. Rations of food were the topmost priority, after money and jewellery. Thank God for our prevailing poverty that we didn’t have much, for how much could one fill in a truck bound to some strange land, far from home?
We knew what we could take would be lesser than what we wouldn’t.
We had to fill our lives inside that truck, which was bound to arrive soon. Six of us, with live cattle as a masquerading ground to execute our escape. No truck could ever be as big as to take it all; none could be big enough to move along Praznath, our two-storey house.
What is in a home? Most of it is filled with furniture that occupies space; and inside of this space, we fill objects of our times. We took the clothes and jewellery from the cupboard, but couldn’t take cupboard itself. The ancestral jewellery was not only valuable, but also an heirloom from the past. The cupboard that it was kept in was even older. But I guess wood is a lot easier to forget than gold.
I pulled those leather-bound journals out and passed a faint hand over their covers. It felt like passing a hand over lost time. I picked and opened one amongst the lot of them. It was from that one year that I felt I had been better than the rest.
The truck would arrive around 2 am. The trunks were further loaded with belongings. Pulses, rice, wheat, oil, whatnot. We decided not to take the dry fruits. Just as my mother announced this decision, I saw my younger sister collect some pistachios and walnuts. My father almost picked the small glass box containing kesar into the front of his shirt pocket, before deciding against it and substituting it with a pen instead.
This was the pen that he had possessed for years, the one his father had bestowed upon him when he cleared his matriculation. My grandfather now watched the scene unfold, hanging garlanded and dead on the opposite wall. He would stay dead and hung here long after we left. I never saw his face alive, and would soon forget that portrait, too.
The dog barked outside, like he did every day. My mother told my sister to give him his milk. She instructed her to give him more than usual, and to free him from his leash after he had finished gulping it down. My sister went out with a big bowl, and the dog grew quiet soon after.
My mother fainted while she was packing the utensils. She had been working hard and crying relentlessly. When I poured her water, I mistakenly did so in one of those glasses we reserved for our guests. She reprimanded me for this mistake. Those glasses would be left behind.
It was past 2, and we had almost all the necessities packed. We were as ready as we could possibly be. My mother wiped the dishes that would remain; but for whom, I wondered?
Then she reminded me that I hadn’t dusted my room today. Go dust away! I climbed the steps of my Praznath. The stairs creaked, reminding me of the nights when the sounds used to scare me. Oh, how I would miss this creaking! In my bedroom were two decades’ worth of journals that I couldn’t take. I opened the door and saw the teddy bear from my childhood, sleeping on my bed. I would never sleep on this bed again, but the teddy might lie here forever. He, too, wanted to be taken along, but I never looked back at him.
I picked up an old T-shirt with which to wipe my cupboard mirror. I registered no reflection gazing back at me. I opened the cupboard door and began to beat on the inside of it with my dusting cloth. I looked at the corner on the right where the journals were kept. What a waste of habit that took years, I wondered. Emotion and words! I decided I would never write in a diary ever again.
I pulled those leather-bound journals out and passed a faint hand over their covers. It felt like passing a hand over lost time. I picked and opened one amongst the lot of them. It was from that one year that I felt I had been better than the rest. In-between the pages of that diary, I found the photo of the boy I would leave behind.
I put my journals beside my teddy. Then I passed my fingers over the photo, over the boy’s face, his hair, his—
Two faint horns sounded from outside. My mother shouted for me to come quickly.
I headed down with rapid steps, barely able to register my movement, like I could hardly envision the reflections in the cupboard mirror. I stepped outside Praznath’s door, and yet, I kept thinking of that boy left behind.
I caught no more reflections. Soon enough, I smelled cattle. The truck moved away from Praznath. In my rush, I had carried the old T-shirt, carrying with it the dust of my home.
Tearfully, my mother asked my sister if she had unleashed the dog. My sister’s eyes widened in shock.
I almost heard a bark from this distance. Maybe, I will return someday to pour more milk for him.
***
Sarthak Sharma curates experiences for a living and believes his curation to be an intersection of all that he has ever loved. You can find him on Instagram: @sarthak.vosh.
