Placed Between Land and Sea

The smell of roses reminds you of funerals.

You have this thought again as you stand over your father’s grave on a recent trip to Karachi. As is the tradition here, you purchased a bag of rose petals to scatter over his grave. The clear plastic bag it is handed to you in is nondescript; the same kind of bag you would be handed at a grocery store as you buy toothpaste or any other household item. And yet here it is, holding petals for a grave. You dip your hand into the damp petals and release them. They flutter gently onto the grass.

This may sound sad, but it’s not. After 25 years, it’s more of an observation. It was certainly sad at one point—the saddest when the grave was fresh—but it’s no longer that time. You visit your father’s grave every time you visit Karachi. It’s a soothing ritual. One tinged with melancholy on the edges, the way a white cloth dipped in color picks up a hue on the fringes. You suppose, after a moment, it still is a little sad.

Returning to Karachi feels like being dropped head-first into a large body of water. It is a change in the very material of the atmosphere. You struggle to breathe for a moment as your senses accustom themselves to the change in the density of matter. Eventually, your body relaxes, your tongue loosens and remembers its native tongue, and you gratefully breathe into what was moments ago, an environment not sustainable for life. Now, you realize, you’re amphibious. You have the ability to breathe in two places. Crossing this threshold happens, in some way, every time you return. Some trips it takes a couple of days to adjust. In the most recent ones, which are less far apart, the adjustment is almost instantaneous. But it always happens.

There are many reasons for this. It’s not, as one might expect, the culture shock or the visual and mechanical contrasts of your two worlds. It’s the very material of this part of the world. It’s different and it puts into sharp focus that you are standing on a dusty road breathing in the sea air and not on a sidewalk being jostled by New Yorkers late for whatever urgent matter is calling life’s attention at this point.

Here, the houses are built of cinder blocks and cement, often sand-colored or grey. The streets are the same dusty hue, mirroring the houses. Even trees in Karachi have a softer, more muted green about them. Unless it is monsoon season, the rain granting a momentary jewel richness to the surroundings. People wear color with a certain casualness—as if it is a given rather than a personal statement. From the laborer sitting by the side of the road with his tools to the elite aunty having coffee at a high-end store, you’ll see an abundance of teal, crimson, gold. The way the colors live comfortably side-by-side and on top of one another feels true to the experience of being in Karachi.

Family gatherings tend to be large. If you have any family in Pakistan, you soon realize you have hundreds of family members stitched together by stories. Stories that they will remember down to the detail. Stories you’ll have to ask forgiveness for forgetting—or feign familiarity with. And here, familiarity abounds. You may not have seen your third cousin for twenty years but they will greet you with a warmth that surprises you and an admonishment for not having come to visit sooner that will make you laugh. Years ago, it would have upset you to be met after so long with this demand of your time given the two of you are no longer well acquainted. But time and distance has managed to soften that perspective. A palpable undercurrent of affection runs through the encounter. One which you end with an apology for the oversight and a warm genuine hug. Then, you duck out of the conversation to meet an elder in your family who is holding court on the other side of the garden.

There are so many more things like that but none are the reason why you feel a material change in the atmosphere when you exit Karachi airport. You were a young adult when you left to study in New York. Coming back to your family house—your mother’s house—always feels like time travel. It’s a slight reversion, at least in the beginning, to the dynamics of being a daughter in your parents’ house. Especially with a parent who has waited the entire year for you to come home. Who has planted flowers timed to bloom with your arrival. Who, from her bedroom right next to yours, looks to see when your light turns on in the morning so you can spend time together. And who has spent a month in advance making sure everything is perfect for your arrival—flowers in your room, fresh bed covers, your favorite sweets in airtight jars and a flask of water by your bedside, a face wash she’s seen in your New York bathroom. Your every need preempted. When you sit together for a morning cup of tea and you shift your position, she worries you are leaving the room. Nobody, you feel with certainty, will love you quite as your mother does. Her yearning is a bated breath and makes it hard for you to breathe for a few moments.

The last few years, particularly the last few trips, have felt different. Ten years ago, every trip started with the feeling of a deep plunge into sub zero water, the body eventually acclimatizing and reminding itself of how much it enjoys that temperature. The moments of transition into the water during these last few trips have felt easier, less cold, even seamless. You realize a lot of it has to do with time, growing up, boundaries, love and acceptance on both sides. It feels so simple but you know how much hard work and growth went to get you to the point you are now.

The surprising thing that happens once a slightly different relationship is established with the place that was once your only home is that you realize that this water is deeper than you originally thought and once you allow yourself stillness, you can experience life in this ocean in ways you had not expected. Previous trips had been rushed comings and goings that left you slightly shell-shocked, filled with half-forgotten memories of simple things like where your clothes were, did you have something here or there, which friends saw you duck in and out. In a bracing against the yearning these trips inspired, you decided to visit twice a year—a decision that has changes things in a subtle but discernible way.

A shorter time between trips allows you to ease into them quicker. The layered complexities of where you grew up do not feel as all-encompassing. Your native tongue, which you worried was getting locked inside you for lack of use, flows easily once you are immersed in its usage. Relationships are quicker to pick back up as you say “I’ll be back soon.” You meet some family, you meet many friends, you perch on the edge of a balcony looking out at the school where you spent formative years of your life and the sea that rests like a blanket beyond its walls, you give a talk there. You eat pakoras and laugh with your mother as you try to organize and digitize 50 years of photo albums. You place a gentle hand on her shoulder when she tries very hard not to cry at the sight of all those she loved and lost. You take her out to shop with you and you see her quietly taking you in and perhaps even pretending for a few moments that you live here and you are running errands together—and you do not bring up the fact that you do not. You dive into large family gatherings filled with people; some who have known you since you were a child, some who have known you for less time and some, who like you, are feigning remembrance. You sit with your dearest friend at a cafe you always visit and laugh and cry over cups of coffee and a breakfast that stretches into brunch, even as the boundary of lunch looms. You take nightly walks in a loop that you hold dear. You remember what a gift it is to call two places home, two places where you blend into the streets. albeit for different reasons. New York brims with difference and so you blend in so easily amongst people, outfits and outlooks. Karachi welcomes you as a part of a collective where coming home means being absorbed into a community where you look and sound like many others.

And then it is time to go. But you’ll be back—and you mean it.