Living history...

Last night I met a wonderful woman who carried the aura of a bygone age. Her grey hair was gracefully coiled in a bun at the nape of her neck while a single gold bangle glittered on her fragile wrist. Draped in an elegant cotton sari, she told me stories about her childhood in Calcutta. A sheen of nostalgia glimmered in her eyes as she unveiled a monsoon memory, of how she and her cousins used to gather around the family table, playing an improvised tabla and singing until their voices were hoarse. After the drumming session, they would send someone down to the nearby khoka* for some hot, steaming tea and delicious jalebis* soaked in syrup sweeter than honey. "Those were the good times", she said. I marveled at their capacity for 'having fun' in an age when indispensable modern entertainers such as television and computers were absent. And then the realization hit me- we were the ones who had forgotten.

We are the ones who are lost in a digital world, drowning in meaningless images arrested in random motion, pointless, going nowhere. Just a part of a society of spectacles, as Debord prophesied.

She talked about the bloody partition of India and the ideological paradox in her own family. Her grandfather was strongly opposed to it whereas her father was in favor of an independent Pakistan. It personifies the dichotomy which has taken root in the minds of thousands of people as they watch this country being swallowed by corruption and poverty. Her voice was strained with a deep sadness as she talked about present day Pakistan. She wondered whether all the slaughter and mass migration in 1947 was worth it. She was mourning the death of dreams so artfully erased that they are not even a part of my generation's memory.

I enjoyed listening to her. It was as if I had stepped into a different world. I like learning history as it was actually lived by people who were right there, caught in the midst of great events that have decided our course for us. Because, you see, having been influenced by the powerful legacy of Edward Said, I do not trust the oriental narratives laid out in intimidating tomes compiled thousands of miles away from a given culture. To me, they are just so many anemic words marked by a long list of credentials and a lifetime spent sniffing dust in the hallways of colonial academia.

Zaina Anwar 2010

Khoka: a road side stand selling tea and snacks

Jalebi: a type of sweetmeat popular in South Asia.