I am now at a stage when everything around me—people, events, stories and incidents—reminds me of the camp days and of Udhampur, as if Udhampur were not just a place but a person with whom I spent half my life.
Our part of the story has not ended—not yet, at least. It must never end. Tomorrow, you might hear about us once again. And you will once again ask the same questions: Why does it keep happening? When will it end? When will we get to return?
I don’t want to stop. This is not the end. This must not be the end. I dream of a tomorrow when we won’t be written about in the past tense—that we once were . . .
A day will come when someone’s diary entry will read: ‘Today, I am back home, where my parents and grandparents once lived. And it is going to be the longest day ever, with so much to do and so much to remember . . .’
But this time, it won’t be a dream.
Remember the comet I told you about? The comet I saw while sitting in the attic of our house when I was a kid. We’d waited for days for it to appear in the night sky. It is going to be back, but it will take years. It must be out there on its finite passage from one galaxy to another. Someday, it will pass by the home we call Earth again and we will wish for our last wish to come true. Until then, we will continue to divide our time between a real and an imagined home. I close my eyes…
It is evening. But the light is neither glowing nor fading. It is just still, unlike any light I have ever seen.
How will I return the love you bestowed upon me when I had nothing left to live for?
And one day, I will be gone, just like that, never to return the way I returned, day after day, night after night, mistaking dream for reality, reality for dream. I will be gone, just like that, leaving everything behind. It will feel like the kiss of the autumn breeze.
Do you think the long season of ashes will end that day?
I am within striking distance of everything I’ve ever lost. One day, years after she was gone, Babi said to me, ‘Close your eyes and count to ten. When you open your eyes, you will find me sitting in front of you.’
This isn’t the end. I am going to close my eyes and count to ten. Slowly, very slowly. When I open my eyes, I will find my home in Kashmir before me.
(Excerpted from A Long Season of Ashes, with permission from Penguin Random House)
(This appeared in the print as "Isn't It The End...")
