The familiar crunch of powered granite beneath my feet brings back memories sliding down like sand on a loose sieve. The sloping lane sprinkled with shadows of short trees, green with young leaves of Spring. The hospital wall, long and almost never-ending, the sun shining down in its morning whiteness.
There was a tree that had fascinated me when I first began walking down this lane. It was on the other side of a compound wall, with it's lower half hidden. I don't know what tree it was and I don't know what mysterious fruit it used to bear. But it was tall, like a palm and had long, scarlet, upright leaves growing from the top. At times I imagined that I saw dark, large flowers growing from the base of the leaves, but I could never quite see them well with the sun in my eyes. Moreover, being caught standing at some inconsequential wall, squinting at a tree would not bring me good reputation at work!
The lane grows narrower towards it's sloping end and almost ends in a cozy corner tucked between trees, flowering with dark pink bloom. When one walks down to this end, it seems like the end of path until the gaze wanders to the left where the corner suddenly opens out into a huge open space where the Oxford Chambers loom in its glass n granite glory.
Those were sunny days. Days when the quality of sunlight was different altogether. I would walk down the grey, narrowing path to work, looking at the juicy leaves, the sun on my face, smelling the thick scent of flowers that fell during a heavy night wind. The quiet, carpeted office, the stone building outside the tinted window. I remember the young plant that was growing from one of the cracks in the stone and how I would open the window and stand alone, looking at some part of the world that one cannot see from any of the roads. Resorting to silence in the room so I could write a good line.
Today, I walk down the lane and the sunlight in this part of the world still has a different quality altogether. The sand, the grass, the hospital wall and leaves still smell and look the same. But I am not the same. The people I knew are not the same. Some have gone away and some have become comfortable, permanent parts of my life.
I stop half-way down the path. I don't want to check if the mysterious tree still grows tall and red behind the wall. I don't want to see if it still bears the dark flowers. Now, I don't mind being caught standing on a narrow lane staring at a tree far away, squinting at the sun. But I won't go because I don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose the stone building in my memory, the plant growing from the tiny crack, the tinted windows, the golden sunlight, the crunch of powered granite and the quiet smells in the breeze.
One day, Poocha, when I'm ready to get suffocated by memories, let's walk down Rustam Bagh lane.
