by Shadab Zeest Hashmi

What they did not understand at the PTV station was that it's in my nature to be elsewhere, nodding attentively one minute, gone the next. I didn't understand it either, the tendency to let myself be stolen into another world, switching between here and there like flashes of moon jellies, now lit, now dim. I was six and always behind by a few moments or hours even in the sleepy town of Peshawar with its gray mountain-scape, chinar trees and flaxen afternoons; its rhythms defined less by blasting horns of public buses, or noise of plaza construction, more by the Mochi, the tap-tapping cobbler who could sew together anything from a ripped shoe buckle to a suitcase, the churning of the dyer with smoke rising from his boiling dyes and moist dupatta scarves in solids or tie-dye bellowing joyfully on a grid of ropes, or the radio playing commentary in cricket season, the sudden bursts and crescendos of the cheering crowds.

I don't recall the color or contours of the PTV building but I remember vividly my obsession with skipping across large square tiles, instead of walking normally from the make-up room to the studio. The make-up artist was a friendly lady, who, it seemed, could not do her work without chewing gum. She smelled like hairspray, lipstick and moist base; the smells I loved in this surreal, mirrored room, make-up being my favorite of all forbidden things in my regular life.

In the producer's room Marie biscuits and blue-rimmed teacups with thick chai were in constant supply. I would get mesmerized by the upside down reflection of Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah's photo on the glass top of the desk, dizzied as I'd get by the reflected motion of the ceiling fan—all the while trying to memorize lines. The props were another distraction: how could I not tinker with larger than life butterflies and flowers? I once ate all the sweet choori meant for the parrot that was to appear on my show. When I was told they had designed a door in a large apple for me to make an entry from, I couldn't keep it a secret and told everyone I knew, weeks before the actual episode. Those were the days before video games and the Internet, and emerging out of an apple was terribly newsworthy.

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