Zanzibar Dreams….

I remember it happened to me some time back, I was traveling a lot back then, and one day I woke up unable to remember which country I am waking up into, the hotel rooms all look the same after a while. Took me some time to figure out I was in a west-african country with noisy Atlantic ocean. But that was nothing compared to what happened to me this time when i woke up.

 I was visiting Zanzibar islands and for a change stayed in the old town, in a 500 year old building converted into a hotel, with colored glasses and extended Jharokay (جھروکے balconies)  made of  wood, and all the preserved past.

Zanzibar dreams,,, zangi(زنگی ) rusty dreams…for how could it be possible dreaming of  Novalis’s blue flower for long, one has to wake up but how about finding the flower right at my bedside in such a time worn old place like this. Was I really awake or was I dreaming. I must be dreaming in this land of rusted time, in this age old hotel, where time seems to be trapped in every thing…Perhaps the ghosts of the past 500 years were trying to remember the romance of their lives….. But the blue flower!!,, and talking to me you Ertyaas!,  appearing out of nowhere, like a blue flower… that cannot be true… Whatever it was, Zanzibari dreams or me waking up in another world, or me just being schizophrenic; i was pleasantly surprised and  happy to see her.  Throwing her bag on the side of my room she said,
“Acute sadness sometimes gives birth to extreme happiness, my dear ” having his ussual sublime smile dancing on her lips, and eyes focused somewhere in the unknown…..

I had been to Zanzibar couple of times before but it was not at all the same island this time and from then onwards. It was glowing with her smells and smiles, her talks and laughter, her deep statements and her beautiful eyes…. We walked and walked and walked in the narrow alleys the first day, loosing our orientations in the narrow alleys, in between the people sitting on the stairs staring at the us travelers,leaving behind all our sadness of life in between these giggling school girls running through these alleys and making faces on us, in between these time broken windows, in between these old buildings still inhabited and still shouting of their age of authenticity.

I found myself playing with this hourglass in an antique shop when she asked, ” do u think these people who made these sand filled hourglass thought of it as the most beautiful creation or the most cruel one”
I replied showing my taunting sadness for her,” definitely cruel, imprisoning time in this little world , time was never free after that”
And she said, ” well I found it very beautiful, and very symbolic, don’t you see every object here is a time filled hour glass, these old buildings, these narrow alleys of the town, this you and me,  though we all moving towards our own deaths, yet living every moment, so humbling reminding everyone watching them of our existence and life, what a beautiful creation, an act of genius,  that can symbolize every goddammit thing in our lives. What a great symbolic simplicity of life.  Don’t you see even these words i am saying for you are like time particles flying like butterflies from my part of the glass to your part of the hourglass, carrying so many stories, so many memories, all that I ever felt of or dreamed of or wished for, its all there in this hourglass, all in-front of me, and time seems to be never ending….don’t you find this simplicity beautiful? “

She got me again..I wonder how she sees happiness and beauty in the most saddest of things. She was right. Everything here in this town was a sand-filled hourglass, where time was passing slowly and seems to be never ending.  She was sad though of seeing the cell phone tower on top of this 500 years old hotel we were living, and i was abit embarrassed of it, of me being a part of it being there remotely.

The next day we went to the beach in the north. She was excited of seeing such turquoise colored waters of Zanzibar. The hotel owner made perfect doodh patti chai(tea made with milk and local spices) for us without charging a penny, it was off season and very few people were visiting this remote beach in the middle of nowhere. Drinking Chai from her cup I told Ertyaas of the verses my mother used to tell us when we were young. It was something about a calm sea telling a noisy river about the meaning of silence, though i had hard time explaining her what is the meaning of ‘ZARF’
 کہے رھا ہے شور دریا سے سمندر کا سکوت
 ، جتنا جسکا ظرف ہے اتنا ہی وہ خاموش ہے

So by that time, I had already accepted my altered state of existence of dreaming rusty in this old town where anything can happen. So i was not surprised of finding the beyond-perfect place for Dinner. Ertyaas was always interested in the traditional stuff, she had a liberal childhood in a capitalistic tradition free world which she despised now and wanted to enjoy all the traditions in the world as if they are hers own. She said once that traditions can be enjoyed only if you conform to them purely out of love and not out of obligation. She found out this place and got a reservation. So we were the paying guest in this Zanzibari house turned restaurant serving authentic Zanzibari food, and the owner was equally interested apart from the food about Zanzibar history, revolutions and changing times. The house turned restaurant was owned by an old guy named Saleem and which can itself be qualified as a museum in its own right. I was almost smiling with every bit of the multi-course dinner we had with all the intense flavors of Zanzibari spices. I was happy after a long time. We ate a lot, even stole some fennel/cardamon fused bread for later eating, and I ate alot of her brains out as well, we were after all meeting after alot of time and I felt it my right to grab each and every word she was saying, before she disappears . The dreamy world was still around and I did not wanted to come back to my solitary world of nuisance living.

But I had to wake up and she had to disappear like always… and always with hasty goodbyes, she left. She had to, like always, without promising anything… but silently giving the hint of of meeting again very soon in the most loveliest of places and in the most loveliest times and perhaps in the most lovely dreamy way.
  

Time to stop writing, its getting 2am in the morning. Am back in Dar-es Salam. Where the dreaming ended and reality started or where the reality ended and dreaming started, I cannot say. I hope
somewhere someday she will read what I wrote in these lines and in between these lines and we will both laugh on
our crazy way of living lives….