A few stray thoughts, a few point of views and few observations, not all my own after my recent Amroha visit. Of course I’m back today !
You know your hometown intimately, and it knows you well.
But there is always the fear. As the date of leaving approaches, you begin to realize just how much of you is based on this town, these people, the familiar streets you walked over and over without ever checking a map. The slangs, the cobbler, the neighborhood uncle with a horse. the references of the shops, the shopkeepers, rickshaw-wallas, tangewalla, the sweepers and the goldsmith, the sweet-maker and the washer-man, your near and dear ones, all those who had been with you some time or other, a set that can never be perfectly reproduced elsewhere — these are all things that crafted your history and, more importantly, what you expect out of life. There is a certain comfort to knowing one’s surroundings intimately, a certainty that lends confidence to whoever experiences it. It’s hard not to feel like the master of some kind of domain when there is not a single nook of your territory you haven’t explored.
But, as the time curls fast and the people you knew in your childhood disappeared for ever or almost in the process of disappearing, a visit to the home town in no more a pleasure but a nightmare. Very few know you now by name. Those who could have remembered are already suffering from the losses of memory and vision. Now no more Nemat Ullah uncle on his horse back to welcome you when your carriage would take a turn to the lane that leads to your house.
A heavy load of sweet-bitter memories and no one to share.
Waqt kisi ka intizar naheen karta aour mera watan Amroha koi exception naheen hai !
