Destiny - مقدر

13 - Life In Skardu - سکردو میں زندگی

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family." - Mother Theresa 

A YEAR LATER 

I lived in Skardu for a exactly a year. It was all sorts of magical and blissful. An experience I knew I wouldn't be forgetting any time soon. I knew I could really call it home, my second home. Daniyal was right, I could find a home here. I really could. It was like an ideal life-style, one I would never tire of living. One of the best years of my life. I felt bad for enjoying it so much, but it was just extraordinary. 

Every Tuesday after Hazeema had finished home-schooling me, I would help Mahmood with his farm. Mahmood was the friendly farmer that had allowed Daniyal and I to take a shortcut through his farm the day we arrived in Skardu. I would herd sheep back into their pen, milk cows, collect eggs from the chickens. It was great, being active out in the fresh air. Back in Kashmir, the most active thing I would do would be to run to the market when we ran out of atta. Mahmood and I would then sit in his tiny home drinking Ganne Ka juice, or whatever else he'd learnt to create within the week we hadn't seen each other. He's a very creative man, once he even told me that he aspired to be a cook, but his father told him that cooking was only for women. I'm sure he would've been a great cook, too. Mahmood and I had become close friends, he was incredibly friendly and easy to talk to. I remember once whilst milking his cows, he ran out of the chicken's coop being chased by a manic chicken, feathers flying everywhere. It was hilarious and to this day I've never forgotten it. 

Hazeema homeschooled me because she didn't want me falling behind on my education when I returned. I knew that wouldn't happen, with her teaching I had no doubt in my mind that I would be ahead of the rest. Hazeema was a very patient teacher, she was understanding and incredibly helpful. Unlike back in Kashmir, she focused only on me, she didn't get irritated when I didn't know anything. Definitely an upgrade from Mrs Khan. I learnt Urdu and English on Mondays, Maths on Tuesdays, History on Wednesdays, Geography on Thursdays and Science on Fridays. On the weekends I would be free to do whatever I wanted, it helped to clear my mind before we started learning again. I loved the structure of it all. I'd never realised back home, but I actually enjoyed studying and learning. 

As well as the house, it was fantastical. The scent of lavender, the delicate blooms in one of Hazeema's old jam jars. The perfume brings out the delicate purple hue to the walls, the very same shade that is the colour of spring forget-me-nots in the morning light. I never aspired to a large home, preferring cozy and friendly. It was the perfect space for my needs and many of my wants. It was my cottage in the sky, furnished with everything rustic, the old being a stage for my new creations, new paintings daubed on perfect squares zof canvas. A space is just space until you bring your own personality to it, make your mark, express what is sacred to you.

Hazeema bought me all sorts of things for my room. She didn't want me to be seen as simply a 'guest'. She wanted me to be part of the house, part of her family. She binned the old orange covers and sewed a new blanket out of my favourite colour, emerald green. We struggled to paint the walls and ended up using wallpaper, of a lovely turquoise colour with swirls and stripes of blue and green. Mahmood built me lovely white shelves and a wardrobe from wood of his old barn and paint. Hazeema bought me lovely little things to put on them. Books, stationary, photo-frames and figurines. I never realised how interesting books actually were till I found the right ones. I'd entered a whole new world of fascination and imagination with these books. Hazeema even let me keep some of them for when I returned to Kashmir. I knew I'd find great peace within them. The first few days here Daniyal sent me the photo we had taken on the journey here. It's pinned to my bedside table, tattered and ripped with the amount of times I've picked it up and looked at it. I kept up the baby photos of Daniyal, though a few of the other photos had been changed to photos of me, Hazeema and Mahmood.