When I came back, fresh from the trip, I had to speak a lot about the place. I said it was beautiful, that the autumn gave the place a surreal beauty. Or something about the cold climate and the warmth of the people. Yet other times, I could talk endlessly about the pain and the tragedy each person had to go through, living through the trauma.
But now, as I sit down to jot down for myself my memories about the trip, none of those matter. What I wish to say is a feeling that is beyond words, and this I say, not for the drama, but for real. I do not know how to put in words the state of mind I was in when I was there. This is why they say communication is the greatest curse to the transfer of ideas.
Peace. Tranquility. Silence.
Na. These words constrict the meaning, not express it. Kashmir felt like a time warp. Some glitch in the fabric of time. Took me back to my innocence. A childhood in a small town, which I thought was the world - a town full of nature, nice people, Maruti 800s and unsaid rules that weren't rules.
No one felt the need to rebel then. Everything was fine. The system was good. It could keep us happy. We were moral, without feeling it binding. And the lack of opportunities outside the home, made us all social. We made our worlds within the home. Cooking and cleaning weren't chores. They were a part of life. An early morning gave us endless possibilities to spend the day. We talked to our neighbors ' children. We played with them, and we made them good memories they cherish till their memory serves them.
Srinagar's little town with invisible high walls could bring me closer to myself. Once outside the din of the Cities, I could listen to my heart. It was like I closed my eyes under the sheet and made the world far far away. Disappeared.
The discovery I made wasn't huge. It wasn't even philosophical. I didn't realise God, or feel a mystic vibration. No, what changed in me wasn't all that substantial.
I just remembered how innocence felt.
I just remembered how my childhood felt.
There was no sense of right or wrong. There was no fear of death or life. I just knew that somewhere within, there is a reason for me to smile and be happy. Life was about happiness. Not pleasure. Sheer happiness. If there is one thing that can make you smile free, uncomplicated and without any pulls, it is that innocent happiness.
That is what Kashmir gave me. It gave me instances from my childhood.
Forever indebted.
