Chalk-white dreams.

I have been collecting old photographs that my father took throughout his life. At first I thought of creating a separate blog for them, but it seems like too much of a hassle! So I've decided to share them here, as everyone knows this blog already.

This picture was taken by Daddy, probably in the late 50s or early 60s.

The Al-Khamis mosque is the oldest mosque in Bahrain, and one of the oldest in the Arab world. The original mosque was thought to be built around 692 C.E. (that's Common Era, in case you were wondering, I prefer not to use the outdated/inappropriate "A.D." which stands for Anno Domini and means "in the year of our lord"). However, an inscription found on the site suggests the foundation dates back to the 11th century.

A mihrab slab found there dates back to the 12th century. The mihrab is a slab of stone (limestone, in this case) that is placed in mosques to indicate "qibla", the direction in which Muslims face to pray, i.e. in the direction of the Ka'aba in Mecca. On the mihrab at the Al Khamis mosque is an inscription of verses 34 and 35 from chapter 21 of the Qur'an.

I have driven past this mosque many thousands of times for the first thirty-odd years of my life, but never thought of going inside. Now I wish I had. I'm not sure visitors are allowed right inside, anyway, perhaps just in the courtyard area where I believe there are also ancient gravestones.

But .. I often dream of this mosque, of climbing up a narrow rough winding staircase of limestone, and going up to the top of the minaret. Everything is chalk white and cool and still. It's one of my favourite dreams about Bahrain, and is just as good, if not better, than a memory!

The Timid Painter.

What I like best about decluttering is finding things I'd forgotten.
Which tends to be most things I find. These are my first attempts
at watercolour, from back in the 90s or maybe it was the late 80s
(I've forgotten that too). I decided to go to a class held by
a Bahraini artist. This was my first tentative attempt:

I have uploaded it as "Small" because it's hardly worth looking at,
and yes, it really was that faint and timidly painted!

From my second attempt, I realised that this is supposed to some part
of Bahrain's coastline, with seagulls flying overhead:

There they are again, those seagulls .. I think I was learning how
to do something called a wash, and getting the sky and the sea right.
I don't think I succeeded, although they are at least identifiable in this one.

My third painting rather surprised me (today, I mean. I'm not sure
if it surprised me back when I did it). I think it's painted off
a photograph I took years ago on a visit to Mysore. Somewhere
near Tipu Sultan's summer palace, if my memory serves me
correctly? Which it frequently does not. Anyhow, I like this one
so naturally I uploaded it as "Large".

Hang on. I see palm trees. Maybe this one is somewhere in Bahrain, too.

Yes. Nothing profound today. Just decluttered pictures. And
unsuccessfully-decluttered memories.

How the Tree-thing all started.

I remember very little of my childhood, which is a pity, because alongside the bad, I've missed out on the good. Much of my life, I've pretended to remember, nodding and laughing at stories I've put together from other people's anecdotes or old photographs. So I don't really remember the planting of the first tree. It was a magnolia of some sort, I think. The ones with those big waxy white flowers that smell so heavenly. In Urdu, it's called 'franjipani'. My father planted it just inside the gate of House 429 in Awali, Bahrain. It doesn't matter that I don't remember the planting of it, though, because over the years, every time we drove down to Awali, we would pass our old house, and seeing the tree that Daddy planted was a significant part of every drive. I'm sure I have a picture of it somewhere. I hope it is still growing. It must be around 40 years old now, just a bit younger than I am.

My father was a planter of trees. And so, every house that we've lived in, that had a patch of earth, would be home not just to us, but to the trees my father would plant and leave behind as a legacy. In Gufool, in the 80s, it was two 'gulmohars' (Flame of The Forest), one of which was still as glorious as ever the last time i saw it. In Adliya in the 90s, it was a lemon tree in the backyard and more gulmohars flanking the front gate.

At our first Indian home, the Awali township's namesake here in Bangalore, the trees have gone, replaced by a rather glossy commercial building that I'd ask you to please not begrudge - that building makes it possible for me to work full time on Askios (my voluntary job on CSA awareness). And now, at the new family home 'Dilmun', there are many new trees - a custard apple tree that's already borne two seasons of fruit, the 'kari-pattha' tree whose leaves I meet at lunch most days, a remarkable drumstick tree that has seen thousands of sticks distributed over the years to friends and neighbours - and that brings delightful little brown and yellow bee-eaters twittering to its flowers, a lime tree that gave up the ghosts just this year - and of course its heir Tree #1, the new lime tree planted a few days ago.

I've inherited my father's eyes and feet. His ability to make a great tomato jam. His artistic skills. His way with birds. And his tree-planting tendencies. Back in Abu Ghazaal in 2000, I turned a rubbishy old back yard into a fertile little garden and have left behind 6 ficuses growing in a row there, as well as a citrus tree and bougainvillea in the plots around the sides of my house. I often wonder how they grow (and would love it if a Bahrain-based friend who knows where I lived, could pop in and check on them for me!)

Barren spinster I may be, but I'm going to leave behind a hell of a lot of trees!