‘Farther afield’

I  was young when I left home. But then, that's the way this kind of thing goes – no matter what age you are when you finally fly the nest, you're young right until that point. It's like an eggshell that needs to be broken, a window shade that needs to be lifted – like getting out from underneath a heavy wool blanket on a winter morning, seeking sun and tea and the start of the day. Before leaving home, we remain in an endless grey dawn, in an endlessly big bed, unable to imagine the warmth of the coming sun.

And I went all a-ramblin round. Having made the decision, in which direction do you head when leaving the gate? And where do you go at the end of the lane? Those with experience lose this opportunity, becoming rigid in their experience – the moon traverses the same bit of sky; the mountains rise and then fall; the river moves so quickly, so assuredly, in one direction, yet so tentatively in any other. Indeed, when those with experience move too spontaneously – catastrophe. But the chick leaving the nest? One day it has a single choice: stay or fall. The next day: endless possibility.

And I never wrote a letter to my home. 'Home' – which home? You know exactly which home I mean.

~ This image is by Shishir Bhattacharjee, a Dhaka-based artist, and is part of Himal's commentary on artwork from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Dhaka

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