Image credit – depositphotos.com

I would be lying if I claimed that I didn’t bring myself to the salt desert of Kutch on this mystical full moon evening to catch a glimpse of the dancing hoor-paris or fairies. Little pigtailed Chutki couldn’t stop talking about them during the two times that I met her. I believed her. How could I not? My mother is a witch and magic should course through my veins.

The deep December injects a chill into the evening and forces me to tighten the cashmere wrapped around my frame. A faint piquant scent in the air leaves its mild salty imprint inside my mouth. I want to touch the jagged crystalline salt floor but I do not; something about it seems awfully sticky and I hate that feeling on my fingers. A full moon rests on the Eastern sky overlooking the salt desert, and I think of magic again, for the third time this evening as I become immersed in their celestial liaison.

The first time I thought of magic was when I bent over to examine the embroideries at the stall set up by Chutki’s father in an obscure corner of the Rann Utsav fairgrounds. Pink threads stitched with expertise cradled square glass sequins in geometric patterns on blue fabric, and that was just on one koti jacket. I longed to trace my fingers along the rich and heavy thread work but I was afraid of ruining it with the oil and dirt from them.

When I pulled myself away from the details to capture the big picture imagery, I saw it again; but instead of being on any one piece of clothing like it was two nights ago, the designs came together to make one big kaleidoscope sitting atop the exhibit, hiding effortlessly in plain sight. It radiated pure unadulterated magic that could put the Sorcars to shame, crumble the wizard man of Oz, and send Hermione Granger scuttling back to flying feathers with a swish and a flick.

The second time I thought of magic was when Chutki revealed that she downloaded ideas for the embroideries from the hoor-paris. I wanted to interrogate her indelicate thick-fingered father, shake him, flick his moustache, and make him tell me why Chutki’s mother couldn’t callous her own nimble fingertips instead. But I didn’t. What if she was a runaway witch too like mine was? Instead, I picked the words ‘but what about school’ and shot them at him in a voice dripping with moral superiority.

He clicked his tongue and chortled like I had asked something obnoxiously naive and ridiculous. “Madam, in our community if a girl cannot sew, she’s not accepted. School is secondary; this craft is our bread and butter.” I had rarely heard such a rehearsed response before unless it was from a customer care service of some large faceless company. “We don’t want to be shunned by everyone we know.”

I thought I saw a pinch of melancholia weave itself into his dark brown eyes. Was he talking down to me or lamenting over his perils? Perhaps, it was both. Either way, there was magic in that moment and it was of a darker kind; the kind that ripped through worlds and drove wedges into those rips, much like that table full of fabric and colored thread that separated my world and Chukti’s; worlds that looked similar on the outside but are stationed at two ends of a spectrum; worlds we all know exist but are afraid to acknowledge anyway. But of course, that was not the first time Chutki told me about the hoor-paris.

Two evenings ago I met Chutki at the fairgrounds; her wide-set almond eyes fixated on the pink and purple unicorns printed on my repurposed tote. “Funny horses,” she had declared, etching the introduction in my mind.

“They’re unicorns.” I corrected her through a mouthful of sweet and grainy mawa.

“What’s that?”

“Unicorns are magical creatures responsible for making rainbows and glitter.” I was probably way off about unicorns, stereotyping them through and through, but at least it was unheard of for unicorns to be offended. But then again, they might have been had I not omitted the nitty-gritty details of how the unicorns are rumoured to make the rainbow and the glitter — through their pearly bottoms. I imagined myself cowering and begging for forgiveness as they smashed their marble hooves against my shins in a glorious display of fury. And I wondered what Chutki would make of her brand new knowledge on unicorns.

I expected to witness her eyes widening and her mouth falling open in slow motion as her tiny little brain failed to contain the multitude of possibilities. But she looked at me like a judging and mostly toothy experienced grandmother living on the outside of magic. She was unfazed, unamused, and unperturbed by it all, or so I thought until she spoke again.

“Hmm. So, they are like hoor-paris but different,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Ah, so you’ve heard of hoor-paris.”

“I saw them. Some others in the village say they did too, but Baba is not one of them. He says they are just make-believe tales Dadis tell children to put them to sleep. Baba is a little foolish! If he believed, he could see them too.” She belted out the words in a single breath as she played around with the folds of her skirt, a rather unusual skirt with colourful kaleidoscope embroideries. It was the same pattern I had been seeing in my dreams over the years and would be seeing two evenings later at her father’s stall.

I had hoped for a longer conversation about the hoor-paris but Chutki ran off abruptly as if she was a human yo-yo that completed its stretch and bounced back into its original position, wherever that was. And I thought that was the last I’d seen of her. I tossed the foam bowl and the plastic spoon into the bin by the stall of the mawa seller and went back to exploring the cacophony of the fairgrounds. It was mostly blurry voices, distinct touches of laughter, and unidentified chimes and clinks and clatters. Often a melody or two graced my ears and sometimes the evening simply went soft but never died down entirely. The childlike travel blogger in me hunted for magical stories to be pumped out over the next few months while the unmagical grown-up part of me would waste away in a cubicle staring at numbers and sheets.

That night I dreamt of flute, surando, dholak, and damru making music by themselves, gathered around a bonfire in the middle of the salt desert that looked like an endless carpet of white quartz crystals sparkling in the moonlight. The tune was oddly familiar. Ethereal figures made of white light and dense fog danced to the hypnotic beat of the dholak and the damru. As they became more than light and fog, I caught their sequined zari dupattas swirling to the bowing of the surando and the cooing of the flute. And there were the kaleidoscopes in rainbow colours etched into the night sky.

I woke up the next morning to a little girl who once desired to tame seven-headed serpents and fly to the rings of Saturn before I stuffed her inside a box and threw away its key in a world where nobody believed in magic, all because I was a sell-out and needed money from that world. I recalled the tune from my dream as I massaged my scalp in the shower.

It was a lullaby my mother used to sing and it should go something like this — ‘Khoka ghumalo, para juralo, Borgi elo deshe! Bulbuli-te dhan kheyeche, khajna debo kishe? Dhan furalo, pan furalo, khajnar upay ki? Ar kota din sobur koro, roshun bunechi!’ — ‘When the children fall asleep, and silence sets in, the Bargis come to our lands; Bulbuls have eaten the grains, how shall I pay the tax? Grains have depleted, betel leaves have depleted, what am I to do about the tax? Please wait a few more days; I have planted garlic to harvest.’ The 18th-century horrors of Bargis — the Maratha Empire cavalry that habitually plundered Bengal from 1741 to 1751 — and taxes neatly gift-wrapped into a lullaby, used by generations of mothers and grandmothers to lull unsuspecting infants to sleep.

The salt desert indeed looks like an endless carpet of white quartz crystals sparkling in the moonlight. Hordes of travellers, tourists, and locals have ridden into the crunchy salt basin in camel-pulled carts and desert patrol vehicles; some on foot, and some overcrowding motorbike pillions. I tear myself away from the noises, gazing into the horizon where the salt meets the sky on the fringes of Pakistan. Time seems inconsequential in these lands, and I stand frozen in its folds. What am I waiting for?

“The hoor-paris will dance tonight because it is the full moon,” said Chutki while her father packed the two koti jackets I had purchased, meticulously folding them and wrapping them in newspaper before securing the package with twine. She hopped off her chair and scurried up to me in a manner of grave urgency. “I can prove it; I can show you the hoor-paris,” she said, hoping to hook me to her logline.

Her father immediately turned beetroot red. He slapped the back of her head, and said, “Don’t mind her! She just wants to go to the Rann!” Her eyes pleaded with me, sought to manipulate me into coaxing her father to let her accompany me so she could be my guide for the hoor-pari tour. I wanted to let her but disappointing little children is half the gig of adulthood.

“You know, as much as I would like for you to come with me and show me the hoor-paris, I’d rather have you stay here with your Baba,” I said, breaking her little heart. But it was impossible to linger after that show of brutality; it would be like staying rooted at one’s place of crime like a part-stupid and part-daring novice killer. My exploits safely tucked away in my unicorn-printed tote, I exited the stall in swift steps and headed for the tents. A few hours from then, here I am searching for hoor-paris without a guide. And I don’t know what I am waiting for.

There’s that tune again, from the lullaby about Bargis and taxes, and the acoustics are… unearthly. It is quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard; deep melodic whispers that make me want to fall asleep in my mother’s arms. My aunt told a six-year-old me that my mother was a runaway witch, and my grandmother nodded in agreement as she crushed betel nuts.

“It is good that she is gone,” my aunt said when I went looking for her. “She made you and your father ill. Don’t worry; your new mother is better.”

But she wasn’t better; she didn’t promise me that one day I could tame any number of seven-headed serpents I wanted to, and also fly to the rings of Saturn; and when I asked her to sing me the lullaby my mother used to sing, she rolled her eyes and left my bedside. I wanted my real mother even if she was a witch who made me and my father ill, but she never returned. Pained by her prolonged betrayal, I let go but tonight, I want my mother again, I want to place my head in her lap and make up for all the sleep I ever lost. So, I look up at the stars and I make a wish to the hoor-paris who might be listening.

Wisps of white light appear before my eyes and they dance in familiar psychedelic kaleidoscopes. They dance until I hear a woman, a woman I think I’ve heard many moons ago. She sings a lullaby in loops, but she doesn’t sing of Bargis and taxes.

Instead, she sings, “Shona ghumalo, para juralo, borer kutum elo dore; kotu roge shob niyeche, jotuk debo kishe? Ma haralo, baba haralo, jotuker upay ki? Ar kota din sobur koro, rin cheyechi.” — ‘When my child falls asleep, and silence sets in, my husband’s relatives come to my doors; bad diseases have taken all, how shall I pay the dowries? Mother is lost, father is lost, what am I to do about the dowry? Please wait a few more days, I have sought loans.’

s

I’m surrounded by flutes and surandos that join the rising beats of dholaks and damrus, beats that have begun to shake the salt-covered earth beneath my feet. The lullaby grows louder until the words begin to bounce off the walls on the inside of my vessel, echoing and rebelling. On the outside the words have begun to bite into my skin releasing venom, threatening everything I hold dear. And I realize I must go looking for my runaway witch mother.