A broken birdsong
by Maryam Arshad
There’s a valley, a small bridge and then gates that unwelcome the welcome. It’s no longer there, that place, but it’s found its way among lost words and long phrases. O bara chitee kaar si1. Chitee2 walls, open courtyard, and a veranda that gave shade in the heat and solace in the monsoon baarish3. “Tusaa dada4 lives there”. Who was a grandfather in the memories of a three-year olds cautious mind? The silver pot warmed against the morning fire and the hands of age nurtured its contents. Fresh bread sat on the bricks every morning. Flipping coloured crumpled pages of the Urdu Kaida5 and settling on the etched lines of the familiar feathers.
Bulbul ka bacha peeta tha paani6 and something about the seeds.
The bulbul soars and the paani7 flows in open fields of green and song and rhymes that filled my childhood. Green hills and sooa phool8 and straw-like grass. Itne khubsoorat9 landscapes enclosing valleys and falling water until water falls. Tusaa ki yaad ni?10 No. I know the veranda sat there and the bhakree11 found his corner and the roof felt the thrashing rain. As words lost their place on the tongue of the young and the home lost its place in the thoughts of the old.
That’s what it was like, right? Can different memories of one place collide or do they never meet? Maari ammi12 had been a long while back but the place resided somewhere else when she thought about it.The house was different. Likin utte see13?
The silver of the motorcycle glinted in the garmee14. Was the journey on the back delighted by the breeze or unbearable in the dusty heat? Cucumber ditti see15. The woman we visited was wrapped in her shawl, a small delicate woman. The silver of the plate glinted in the garmee. Was I there? What did I see? Ke ahi see?16 Koyni patta.17 Is she still there, as delicate as shewas? Are the cucumbers cold or is the kaar sat still and khaali18?
The bird flitted across the chatt19 and the snakes emerged at raati20. The slanted roof with ridges, the warm blue settling around it. Baar21 we slept on the woven beds of sooa and green. Itni garmee and starry.
The valley curved and the mountains walked. Solace and smooth gray lines carved around the kaar. And the Bulbul carried on. Kashmir is found where the slopes meet the flora. It is a distant memory only found on the tongue and zabaan22 of its bache23. We are the children. Does my younger recall the rugged terrain on the journey? Does the terrain smooth out in her mind? Maari mind flutters like the bulbul who doesn’t return.
Kashmir jaso24? My grandfather's hands wound the cotton. Mine are between the pages. Maari kaar kuthe25? Uthe26? With the birds and the vegetables? In the valley and the grasses? Among the green and the white cotton? In the glistening night and heavy rains? What was it again, those rhymes? How does it go?
That bird song, a birds song.
--
The language here is predominantly Mirpuri, a dialect spoken by people from Mirpur (Mipur, Azad Kashmir, Fathers homeland). The languages include Mirpuri, Urdu and English. The Mirpuri and Urdu words are woven in with the English, the words sometimes complete and sometimes do not complete the sentence as a whole, merely adding additional meaning. Sometimes the Mirpuri and Urdu words are written incorrectly (grammar, sentence structure, word order etc.) to reflect the disconnect between memories, languages and places. The language embodies the place, sometimes whole and vivid and sometimes broken and forgotten. Much of the Mirpuri, and even Urdu, language are now made up of a significant number of English words which have embedded themselves comfortably, a product of colonisation by the British. They seem to be a natural part of the spoken language, and often lead to difficulty in remembering the words which they have replaced. The effect of broken, missed and imbalanced connections between places, languages and memories.1 it was a white big house
2 white
3 rain
4 grandfather
5 workbook used to learn Urdu (used mainly with children to help them learn the language)
6 Bulbul baby drinks water -this is a line from ‘Bulbul ka bacha’, which is a well-known Urdu poem. The poem is about a young child who befriends a Bulbul (Baby nightingale), the Bulbul eventually flies away and does not return. Learning this poem (as part of learning the Urdu language) is a vivid memory from my childhood.
7 water
8 red flowers
9 such/so beautiful
10 Do you not remember?
11 cow/bull
12 my mum
13 But was it there?
14 warmth/heat (weather)
15 she gave
16 what did she say?
17 don't know
18 empty
19 roof
20 night
21 outside
22 speech/words
23 children
24 go?
25 where
26 there
Maryam Arshad is a visual storyteller, photographer and researcher with works fusing concepts on the environment with its encompassing elements. She is the founder and Editor in Chief of FLORESTA Magazine, a collective and platform at the intersection between art, design & the environment.