![\"images-1\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/files\/2016\/03\/images-1-300x144.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe mango tree faded many shadows ago, its fruit became stones and the branches became a skeleton. Yet, the\u00a0roots remained, and they embrace the soil in the womb of the earth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This was the cradle of my family’s birth.<\/p>\n
Now, blood is watering Lahore’s gardens.<\/p>\n
In sorrow, I remembered these words given to me a few days ago by my father.<\/p>\n
\u00a0‘Lahore is an illusion, Lahore is everywhere’<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I wondered about them for sometime afterwards and I did not realise the gift that these words were to become.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Zmaka is a Pashtu word for ‘land’, and its meaning implies by virtue of the land, there is a connection to it. But what does this connection mean for us, especially when our journeys in life become travelling journeys?<\/p>\n I have\u00a0listened to the stories of those around me, and I have heard the tragedy and pain of\u00a0grieving for lands that are\u00a0wounded by our divisions, and\u00a0bleeding from the cries of the dead.<\/p>\n For Lahore, I tried to think of the poems and the prayers that my ancestors carried as they walked the land, and eventually, became the land.<\/p>\n I tried to imagine the forgotten soils, and the memories they remembered.<\/p>\n I wondered if blood and soil are interchangeable, can we become our land, and our land become us?<\/p>\n And now, now is tonight, when the land is turned into a grave and the violence against humanity is raw, imagine, just imagine, the world where borders, not peoplke, fall to the ground.<\/p>\n Then our lands will be released from our wars fighting for what can never be ours.<\/p>\n Then our lands will be free.<\/p>\n Then our lands will be home.<\/p>\n This is freedom.<\/p>\n This is connectedness.<\/p>\n This is humanity.<\/p>\n