A Winter Day from My childhood

Life moves so fast that we hardly get time to look back at our lives of few years ago. Today I feel like missing my childhood winters. Those were some nice days: peaceful, lovely and memorable. I have mostly spent my childhood in the valley of Chitral. It is a cold place, and in winters the white sky falls on it. We used to get 1-2 feet of snow. My day would start by listening to BBC news on radio which my dad always listened to. We were lucky enough to not have a TV at that time. I would be lying under the blanket and may be teasing my elder brother Wajid who never like to get up early. I would wait till my dad call “Khan, get up!! Enough of sleeping”. I would behave if I just woke up and would stretch myself out. I hated taking bath so I would just take hot water in ewer from above the stove and throw water on my face to get fresh. My dad was regular in morning prayers, but he never asked us to go to Jamat Khana for Morning Prayer because no dad would like his kids to get frozen. After calling thousand times, Wajid would get up.

My sister and mom would bring us breakfast. Our usual breakfast would be tea, chapati, egg, shoshp/sanabachi or any other traditional stuff. After breakfast, I loved spending time in the small room sitting around stove and keep feeding that with Mirghinch wood. I had to read or at least pretend to be reading some book because my dad would read some books sitting in the same room. Wajid had the skill of escaping the room and I, the poor young kid, was supposed to be in the room so that dad doesn’t feel that we are not interested in our studies.

I also had my good times when it would be time for my dad to take a nap. As soon as dad would start snoring, it was time for me to get out of the room. My dad would not allow me because he did not want me to get sick in the cold. Wajid and I loved cleaning the pathway and hit each other with snow. I still remember that each of us had our Shoqa, a thick over coat made of wool, and plastic moozas. Going sledding with my friends and cousins to a steep place near our house was one of my favorite activities. Each of us would have a slingshot to hunt the birds. Now I feel how cruel we were, but it was a lot of fun to shoot a bird and then cut its neck with sharp stone meanwhile reading some Quranic verses, bring it home and burn its feather in fire and put it in the stove till it get cooked. By the time we would get home, my clothes would be all wet and the short day would be over as well. I would rush to the kitchen to dry myself off before my dad would see me. I did not mind scolding of my mom because I would just get up and hug her and she would burst into laughter.

Then mom, dad, I and Wajid would go to Jamat Khana for prayer. I do not know why, but I would slip and fall the most. I could see Wajid giggling back there and I would hardly control my anger. After coming from prayer, my sister and cousins would have made the dinner and shapik on a steel “TAAV”. I was crazy for rice. The day we had rice for dinner, everyone would say “ It is Eid for Wahid”. There would have always been something delicious on the dastarkhan. We usually had meat of LASHTI, a goat/ox which is well fed all the time and is slaughtered in winter so that long winter spends eating meat. After dinner, we would listen to radio, chattering with cousins (Wasim, Salim etc). We would laugh, dance and then pretend to be studying till we all go to sleep.

Those were the good old days! I look back, take a deep breath and wish I could just rewind it all, but Alas! Past is passed. It has been three years since I have spent a winter with my family in Chitral, and I miss my dad (R.I.P) when I memorize these days. I listen to the song “aj raat chandni hae or Jugnuo se bhar le aanchal” and my eyes get numb. Oh, how I miss my childhood winters. It is truly said that in childhood everyone is a king.