My village, Mithri, nestled in the sandy dunes of Kot Diji, is both unique and quintessentially Pakistani.

It wakes at dawn to roosters and the crackle of eggs sizzling in oil; at night, its sky blazes with stars unseen in any city. Located in Khairpur in Sindh, Mithri — meaning ‘sweet’ — moves at its own sweet pace. As someone who moved out at a young age, returning to the village sometimes feels like going back in time.

Don’t get me wrong, Mithri has access to all the necessities: electricity, WiFi, gas, schools, roadside eateries, solar panels and even air conditioning in some households. But what truly powers the village is its tradition and culture. Generations of both are stacked like the bricks of its sun-dried houses, each one holding up the next and carrying the weight of what came before. In December 2005, when I was three years old, I shifted one of these bricks.

A PALIMPSEST OF MEMORIES

Photographs tell me that the sun shone that day despite the bitter cold, its golden shafts casting light on the villagers. The women were wrapped in colourful shawls, sporting sparkly bangles and their hair open. The men were in well-pressed kurta shalwars and their best coats.

In a village in Sindh, a family broke a centuries-old custom by letting their daughter undergo a ritual hitherto reserved for boys. Twenty years later, she returns as a young woman to see if the knot of patriarchy has loosened…

In the distance, you could see a group of men stirring a large wok. The smell of rice wafted in the air, another sliver of warmth in the biting chill. In one of the photos, you could see the crowd forming a circle around me, my legs tied with rope and the biggest smile on my face.

Whenever he sees that photograph, my father beams. He likes to tell me that I’ve been a feminist since I began to learn to walk. And although he’s a man of many stories, it feels like this is his favourite one to tell.

There’s a tribal........

© Dawn (Magazines)