by Majid Maqbool
On days when I’m alone at home some vivid images and memories of my childhood rush back. They arrange themselves in disturbing ways, unsettling previous memories. Sometimes these memories write themselves in solitude. Sometimes they are forgotten, only to return later from the oblivion: in the middle of some conversation, for example, while travelling, or at night, in the dreams. Sometimes it’s too painful to write down compelling memories. Sometimes remembering them is the only way of making peace with them. And all these memories are unforgettable, lingering in some corner of mind, waiting to be summoned.
I write because I remember. Because what I remember makes me who I am.
I remember, for example, those military crackdowns that loomed large over my childhood like black clouds: people ordered out of their homes early in the morning by the Indian troops, and assembled in open fields and playgrounds. And then that fearful wait for the next order of the troops. The troops lining up people, one frightened person after another, in front of that dreaded army gypsy. And whenever a masked mukbir (informer) seated inside the guarded army vehicle made a particularly shrill signal or a coded gesture, the person paraded in front of him was immediately frisked away by the troops. Often, he never returned home.
In my school days I remember the Indian army convoys driving past our school bus made us to wait till all the army trucks drove ahead, first, always. Often that meant waiting for hours, and getting late for school. To pass those uneasy hours, I remember counting the army trucks that made up that long and uninterrupted line of that dreaded army convoy. I remember the games we would play in the school bus: How many military trucks went past us today? 50? 100? 150, 200….? We would often challenge each other with the count. I remember the small bets we had kept for successfully predicting the number of army trucks that drove past our school bus. Quite often, I lost count of them…