ZARA’s
OTHERWISE
Zara Zafar
How do you paint with that? You can’t. How do you understand that? You do other things, like poetry, that allow you to be incoherent. So, with the perfect liberty that poems provide, I say “Father-less! Mother-less! Love-less!” in bold, dramatic verses.
But everything I am and everything I do is proof that I am made of something. I laugh and frown like my mother. I do. I learnt how to make tea from my sister. I have my father’s nose, and I say, “Tsk, Yaar,” when I’m annoyed, like him. My grandmother’s affection for insects—fireflies, which she called ‘Jugnu’, and grasshoppers—has made me fond of them. I say my Rs and Ts like my class teacher from 6th grade. My first Studio Ghibli film was a friend’s recommendation. My first sci-fi novel, Frank Herbert’s Dune, was an immediate favourite, owing to a friend’s insistent demand that I read it. The tattoo of an orange on my wrist is my cousin’s favourite poem, Oranges by Jean Little. I know so much about Mumbai because a friend lived there and sent me pictures of everything every day; the black and yellow taxis, the beaches, the roads, the apartments, the malls.
I think about everyone who has been a friend, a companion, a hand to hold, someone to sit with, and I think for a second that maybe that’s family enough. But I want to stick to Otherwise. It sounds appropriate.
When I say family, I'm trying to say a million things. Joy without hesitation. Conversation without meticulous calculation. Comfort, empathy, kindness and safety. I'm saying "Freshly mowed grass!" and "Well-fed birds!" and "Neatly folded newspaper!" but, above all, structure. And stability. Yes. Brick and mortar. Family should be an immediate answer, like one’s name and address. One’s infallible identity. One’s unalterable anatomy. People or a place you can point your finger towards and say, “Them. There.”
Mine is a fleeting ship sailing ever-changing waters, sinking and rising and sinking again. It is erratic. Different every day. The waters change colour, odour, temperature, and physics. The ship adjusts, and re- adjusts; and it’s what it does best. Impermanence can make one feel a void, and yet, for something so short-lived and hasty and brief, it is always occupied by something. Trees and birds, poems, kind gestures from strangers. Friends found and lost, loved nevertheless, and their eccentricities. Memories of my school, my teachers, my 7th grade English textbook, the summer camps, and the idea of home; Kashmir, its rivers and mountains, and the snow.
I should stick to ‘Otherwise.’ It is fugitive, half-alive and full of accidents. Open windows. Three hands, one eye. Without family, and full of what family can be.
I think this is an ode to the absence of a family but the presence of its odour nevertheless. The proof of it is in how I talk and sit and speak, how I think, how I feel, how I love and, do quite sometimes, feel loved.
Family is a free-floating agent, a transient medium. I like the Otherwise. I am made of it.
Concept Note:
Family has always been a sour subject for me. I don't write about it because I try to forget it. But, of course, it would be foolish to say that I am without one. When love doesn't start from home, you try, in desperate ways, to get it elsewhere. And elsewhere becomes your substitute for family. By elsewhere, I mean everything. Anything. School, college, friendships, poems, stories, music, a hobby, a park, a memory, or your own personal made- up version of God and other things. You melt into everything you touch, trees and stones and people, trying to belong to something. The outside becomes the inside, and inevitably, vice versa.
For this theme, Family: Found and Otherwise, the word Otherwise felt appropriate, and Family felt foreign. I've written this article, in all honesty, in the span of 3 hours on the day of the deadline. It took me two weeks, trying to give words to 'family', trying to sound optimistic, trying not to be rude about it. But with each attempt, I realised I had very odd theories for ‘family.’ For instance, I wasn’t close to my grandmothers growing up. I didn’t have the chance to be. But I’ve acquired my paternal grandmother’s strange affection for insects and am now fond of grasshoppers, fireflies, and snails myself. My mother and I barely speak, but I have her laughter. I have love, and I feel loved by friends and other miscellaneous day-to-day events, but how do I categorise that as family?
I decided, in the end, that it would be best to be honest, as peculiar as it may sound.
Family is a free-floating concept. A transient medium. I like the Otherwise. I am made of it.
Bio:Zara is a third-year student at SSMRV, pursuing a BBA in finance and marketing. Though her academic background is purely commerce, her interests and hobbies are all art - literature, photography, film and music. Her favourite writers are Arundhati Roy, Max Porter, Joe Dunthorne and Toni Morrison. Her favourite bands are the Arctic Monkeys and Peter Cat Recording Co. She spends most of her time wallowing in books, enjoying an early morning swim, taking the metro to her favourite place in the city; Blossoms Book House, and of course, re-watching episodes of a brilliant, perfect show (undebatable in her opinion) Sharp Objects.