That Day In Kashmir, I Lost The Plot

By Hirra Sultan

It was one of those rare winter days when everything looks perfect. The sun was high, the sky was brilliantly blue, and snow from the day before still blanketed the earth in blinding white.

After being stuck indoors, I was finally stepping out, hoping to soak up the warmth of the sun and the cold of the snow at once. I was unusually cheerful.

I wasn't the only one. Near the Dal Lake, people had poured out like spring after a long frost. Tourists posed for photos, kids threw snowballs, and couples sipped kehwa. Even the famously lazy locals had made an exception for the weather.

The mountains in the distance looked dipped in white. The evergreens had been gently dusted, and black clouds hovered above them, threatening more snow.

I was there to meet a friend for a driving lesson. Learning to drive had been on my list for a while, mostly because I've always liked wandering, and driving felt like freedom. I imagined myself behind the wheel, taking off into the unknown, chasing roads without maps.

After a few warm-up rounds-clutch here, brake there-I finally hit a stretch of empty road. It felt like mine. I gently pressed the accelerator, aiming just to glide forward. But instead, I was suddenly somewhere else.

It was morning again. I was in a car, next to Kemal Bey. We were driving out of Fatih, headed toward Europe. I was dizzy from too much wine, the weight of betrayal, and a string of broken dreams. Then I rammed the car into a tree. No hesitation. Just pain.

The vision startled me so much I had to pull over. I took deep breaths, trying to remember where I really was. Who I really was. I told my instructor I wasn't feeling well and would continue later. Then I walked away, shaken.

Once alone, I wondered if I was losing it. Was I slipping into someone else's story? Did Fusun, did Kemal Bey-characters I hadn't thought of in years-just hijack my thoughts? Was fiction bleeding into my reality?

I've been a bookworm all my life. Before I could even borrow books from the school library, I would spend recess buried in them. When the librarian finally let me take books home, I felt like I'd won a lottery. Even the new librarians who quizzed me couldn't quite figure out how or why I read so much. My father once said novels weren't good for me. I'd shrugged it off.

Now I wasn't so sure.

The snow started again. Light, soft, and steady. I thought of Snow, of K wandering Kars. And then, sitting by the lake, I felt like Ella-calm on the outside, chaos rippling within.

Was I still me?

Sometimes I'm Salaar's lover. Sometimes I'm waiting for Santiago. Or hoping for a magic mirror to reach Wonderland. I see Pip, Mitch, Anna, Anne Frank, Havisham. I see them all. I feel their pain, their joy, their longings. These stories aren't just things I've read. They've stayed. They've shaped me.

The world always shrunk for me, and books became my only real escape. But somewhere along the way, they stopped being escapes. They became parts of me.

On my way back, coffee in hand, I wondered if this was madness or magic. Maybe it's both. Maybe being a bibliophile means you don't just read stories. You live them. Carry them. And sometimes, you lose yourself in them.

• The writer is a Srinagar-based techie

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