FROZEN IMAGES OF MIND

"Old pictures can be an assault on the senses, poignant, painful mind-blowing frozen images of mind and frozen images on photo-paper. A huge old door to the past swung open, a powerful gust of the past blowing in and a powerful vacuum from past sucking us in. Old smiles, faces, shyness, old style clothes etc. Suddenly hurled into the PAST from present."

The above is a quote I stole from my niece Shabana (Koonj) without her knowledge or permission. She writes so beautifully and powerfully, I had to write it down for myself to quote it when needed.
I am not talking about pictures today but only the "frozen images of mind"
After spending my early childhood in Saugor (Sagar), my family (my mother's decision) came back to a village in Panjab. This turned out to be convenient for us as we did not have to go through that much of trauma of Partition.
Sagar was a small city in northern part of Central Province(CP), strategically located for the British to build a small Airport (for emergency purposes) during the second WW. The city for a child like me was limited to my schools, Jamia Masjid and a couple of Mohallahs (sections). The only thing well-known of this city was "Sitara chhaap Bidi". We had two main (High) schools, one primary school for girls, main bazar (Katra) one cinema house, one small dispensary with a doctor, one Railway station and a bus stand. May be one or two cars in the whole town,
and a large body of water (a lake) which was the reason for the city's name, we called it "talaao" (a child's abbreviation for "Taalaab"). The village we came to live in (Panjab) was a small one with two "mohallahs", two masajid, one mandir, no gurduara, one bazar, lot of small narrow streets and lot of open fields for us to play.
Marked differences in culture (in addition to language) that I felt. Panajbi language I felt was a cruder modification of Urdu and I learnt within 3 to six months (Villagers Panjabi is even cruder than city dwellers) We (children) looked down upon city dweller's accent (Just as they looked down upon our cruder language and less sophisticated manners)
For example
"Kay aakkhiya ee" in the city would be "Key aakhiya ee (or jay)" (what did you say?)
I was admitted in the seventh class (had finished sixth in Sagar) and found myself at the top of the class specailly in English. I was barely 10-11 yrs and most of my classmates were from 12-15 yrs old, big burly youths who could easily intimidate me. I started out speaking Urdu so only those would speak to me who could speak some "Panjabified Urdu". For the next four years in the school I continued to speak Urdu although I could speak and understand Panjabi of those villages within a couple of months. I found that helpful and somewhat protective for me.
I was to adapt myself to two things, one was the change from city with metalled roads etc. to village with no roads and second no electricity in the village (I am talking about 1944-45).
Food was all organic and original. I learnt that I was a "Kashmiri" by origin and "zat" was anything like "Butt" or "Mir" (it was not specified because my father was opposed to "zat-pat") Later, however, my older brother took up "Butt" as his last name.
Most utensils in Sagar were "tam-chini" or "Muradabadi" but in the villages most were clay pots. China dishes were used (especailly with guests) in our house because we had been "city dwellers" after all.
There was a distinct scent in the air in Panjab different from CP, that I cant describe. My school was a mile from our village in another village. It was a U-shaped structure with a small ground in front where we would collect in the morning for "Prayer". It was different from Sagar school's where there were two prayers, one Hinhu's (banday maatram) and one Muslim's (Saray jahan say achha...) IN Kakrali school it was "kon-o makan main dekhi jalwa numai tairee"
School rememberances are many and I shall relate the "friends" and acquaintances now.