Letter to Quetta.

Dear Quetta,

Where do I start? There is so much I want to say to you and it has been a very long time that I last met you. I miss you. I saw you the day I opened my eyes, and I fell in love with you. How can someone not love a city where they were born? You are the reason I love mountains so much, the reason that I am who I am. I’ve spent my childhood and teenage with you. I’ve learnt to be a better person from you. Words cannot describe how much you mean to me.

I remember the day I had to leave you. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made, and believe me after that I wasn’t afraid of losing anything. You taught me how to let go off things you love, for my own betterment. I moved to a city where I would see buildings all around me, instead of mountains. Only then I realised how much you meant to me, how much I love to be around mountains. It’s true that you realise the importance of things when they are gone. I miss you everyday, I think about you everyday and I guess I can’t ever love a city more than I love you. You were my first love and you’ll always be. If I have to tell you what’s my most favourite part about you? I’ll say the winters. Oh your winters, the fog that would fill the streets and playing in snow, I miss it all. I love your harsh weather, it is the most beautiful part about you, please remain the same. I want to see you as it as when I get back to you. You are perfect in every way, it bothers me a little when people make fun of you and you people, don’t worry you’ll be fine, your people would be fine, I came out fine so will other people. The thing that worries me the most is that how the bigger cities think less of you, but you have so much hidden inside of you, so much beauty, such beautiful people. I love you the way you are; you are perfect in every way. Here is Photo letter for you, to tell you about the things I love and miss about you…

I love the seasons and colours you are surrounded by

                      

I love how quite you are, and I guess that is the reason why I love solitude. You taught me how to enjoy silence; you are away from big cities and crowd. Living peacefully.

 

Hanna Lake has been my favorite picnic spot since childhood, it was my favorite escape. And this was the place where I fell in love with mountains. I loved looking at how your lake would change with every season.

And how light falls on you

 

I love how your lake can be filled with water in summers and it goes dry in winters, so dry that we would walk on the lakebed.

Your broken windows and doors show a world of their own.

                                         

Where one can sit quietly for hours and stare at you

                         

Your scent is extraordinary and it’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. The freshness in your air, the fog in winters, the starry nights, the freezing hands in winters where we would go up to heater and warm our selves up just to hold a pen to write in our notebooks. All these little things make you special.

 

One of my other favorite thing about you is your tea, your afghani tea is what everyone should taste. I loved having tea with you and the morning naan and makhan.

The tiny huts that you have, where people go and eat roosh, your most famous winter food.

 

The way you blossom even though how people think you are barren

 

Your roads and the way they carry all this weight. All the weight that people have given you. There are very fewer people who actually know you, I’m sorry for all that you have to go through. Just remember, many people love you, just like I do.

Your landscape is something to die for. Fewer people explore you, but the ones who are lucky enough to know you; they instantly fall in love with you.

Every road and every view is different when it comes to you; I never get tired of exploring you. The more I do, the more I fall in love with you. In these past few years, when I’ve grown up as an artist, now when I come visit you, it’s magical. You are magic, and I wonder how come such a beautiful city is less explored?

Your sunsets are something not everyone gets a chance to see, the way sun peaks out of the clouds even in summers and lit the mountains; make me wonder how you can carry so much inside you.

Looking outside of my car and wondering what did I do to be able to know you so closely. Thank you for being my first love and being there when I opened my eyes.

 

 

You hide some beautiful lakes and dams behind your massive mountains

 

Places near you are as beautiful as you are, my favorite is, Ziarat.

       This year when I came to visit you and went to ziarat, it was still covered in snow, and I fell in love with it this time more than any other time.

Maybe because this time I was going with memories, some good some bad, but I was overwhelmed. Ziarat reminded me of people I have lost in the past few years. I remember listening to the news of this place on fire and I was heartbroken because of what happened to Quaid-e-Azam’s residency. And here after just a few years it was standing there as it is. Like I first saw it. It gave me hope that things can be repaired. I first came to Ziarat when I was 8 years old and then here I was 23 years old, looking at this building with every step reminding me of the first time I saw it. It was beautiful, heartbreaking and overwhelming at the same time. I had mixed feelings, I was unsure of how to feel. I just sat there in the balcony staring at the mountains and remembering my childhood. I never missed my childhood so much before.

 

I love how the residency’s architecture also reflects backs upon nature

Thank you for making me who I am today. You will always be my first love and I will keep coming back to you no matter how far I might go. And don’t worry you’ll be fine, your people will come out fine, I did, so will everyone else.

Can’t wait to see you again. Goodbye until next time.

Love,

Feroza

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Letter to Hunza

I decided to write letters to every city I’ve been to because they are all special in one way or the other. My first letter would be for a place that changed me in so many ways that after I left, I felt like a better person. So, here it is…

Dear Hunza,

I remember I was asleep when I first saw you, I usually don’t sleep while I’m travelling but this time I did, and I’m glad. When I opened my eyes you were breathtaking, and I instantly fell in love with you. I’ve been dreaming about you since the past 10 years, I wanted to see you, wanted to feel you. and yet when I saw you, I had a mixture of feelings, I was nervous and excited for what I had signed up for, away from family on my own, new people, new language and new city.  You taught me no matter how bad things are, I’ll always find a way to deal with it. I’ve never traveled on my own, it has always been friends or family, but this time when I did travel alone, you made me much more independent and tolerant. Here is a thank you letter in the form of photographs for you.

The first time I saw Karakoram Highway and it led me to you.

I kept looking at how beautiful your roads were until I saw Attabad lake, and I was speechless after looking at how breathtaking this lake was and how you’ve kept it even after what it did to you.

There have been many times I’ve traveled and experienced the darkness of tunnels, but what you gave me was more than an experience. I remember when the Attabad Lake tunnel was about to end, I saw the light with trees and a portion of Attabad lake, I knew it was different from the tunnels I’ve seen before.

The magnificent mountains that you are surrounded by, that gave me a feeling of how tiny human beings are.

I loved visiting your small villages and towns while exploring you, but Sost was one of my favourite escape.

 The more I traveled on your roads the more I fell in love with you and this was the road that led me to my final destination, which was Chipursan Valley.

Finally when I saw a herd of sheep, I knew I was closer to my destination to where I would spend a month with you.

Finally you made a dream come true and now I had to do something for you in return. What led me to you was a small initiative called IEI Pakistan that works for betterment of education in small villages of Pakistan.

This was the Inside of a traditional house in Kirmin, your village where I lived for a month. These houses are made with one window on the roof that spreads light in the entire room, with five to seven layers of wood, that are earthquake resistant. You made me look at houses in a new perspective

Hunza, it was time to give something back to you, and I did that in a form that I love the most, which is Art. I led three main activities in Kirmin. The First activity (upper left) was for the students to mark their heights on the trees and personalise them afterwords. In this way they would be able to come back to these trees after years and see what they did and what their height was at that time.

The second activity (upper right and bottom left) was to collect materials from their surroundings except for natural materials. It was for them to learn about recycling and how to use materials that we are surrounded by to produce art. They made sculptures out of the waste materials and converted their old Kirmin school into an industry made with waste material.

The third activity was to paint pebbles and rocks without moving them from their actual place and transforming the space into a colourful area surrounded with stones. For the last class they were asked to draw these three activities on paper and explain their experience with drawing.

One of my friend Minal used to take story reading classes after school in different villages called Noorabad and Alliabad, closer to Kirmin. This was the time when I used to spend more time in your villages.

Hunza, you made me see the beauty within you from the top of the mountains where we reached after six-hours of trekking and stayed for another day in our camps.

You made me choose my favourite spots, this specific spot in this yellow and blue tent was my most favourite because it was placed perfectly to see sunset everyday.

You made me witness shooting stars and galaxies for the first time, and I will forever be grateful to you for doing that.

You made me see this beautiful bridge, Hussaini suspension bridge, which was frightening yet thrilling.

And when I thought I’ve seen all of you, you led me to Babusar pass on my way back home. I never knew that I’ll be able to see it because it opens for a very limited period of time due to monsoon and winters, but I guess you wanted me to see more, and you showed that there is never-ending beauty that you are surrounded by.

Lastly, I would like to thank you for everything you did for me. This goodbye has been the hardest, but it’s more comforting when I think of coming back to you. A piece of me will always be with you.

   Goodbye, until next time.

   Feroza.