Letters to My Younger Self

12.

Swat Valley, Northwest Frontier Province
1963

Another hot summer. You and Saku roamed the steep slopes
looking for Saraswati, while
Mother and Ajji taught English classes.

You ate breakfast in the Mess with the students.
The kind cook packed tiffin containers with pakoras and naan for lunch,
you thanked him with smiles, not speaking Pashto.

I don't remember what you did for hydration—
no bottles then—so perhaps you drank
the white water of the Swat River?

Each day you climbed a different hill,
imagined Sikander's army storming to Odigram and Barikot,
decades before Ashoka conquered the Valley.

Two centuries later, Mahmoud of Ghazni
ended Hindu rule on Gandhara,
brought Islam to the Valley.

Proud you remembered something of lessons,
you saw everywhere the remnants of stupas,
temples, witness to that brutal history,

even before the Taliban demolished the Buddhas,
threw acid on Malala's face—
acts of barbarism yet to come, prefigured—

but you were children,
delighted with unaccustomed freedom,
relishing stony walks and cold streams—

history was something learned in textbooks,
not something that would touch
your lives—not this summer, this perfect day.