A few years ago on a cold, snowy New Year’s eve, I was lying on a mattress on the floor in Phuphee’s kitchen, struggling to fall asleep. As a little girl, when I was anxious and unable to sleep, Phuphee would scoop me up in her arms and bring me into the kitchen where I would fall into a deep slumber. I was meant to travel back to England that week, but the continuous snow had made flying impossible. So, I left Srinagar and went to stay with Phuphee.
Since we were right in the middle of chillai kalaan (a period of extreme cold weather), the daan wasn’t allowed to go out. Phuphee would come in, often in the middle of the night, and feed it kindling or bits of wood. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard her footsteps.
‘Shoang myoan gaash [sleep, light of my eyes],’ she says, almost in a whisper. Though I cannot see her, I hear her light the kindling and then, a few moments later, I hear her praying. I try again to sleep, but nothing works. I find myself recalling how this whole year has been like this. I have carried this unnamed despair with me, but I have been unable to figure out what is causing it. I pull the covers off and sit up in surrender. I see Phuphee finish her prayers, and then she walks towards me and sits down.
‘Kya daleel myoan jaan, nyinder koat gayii? [What is the matter, my life? Where has your sleep gone?]’, she asks.
I rub my eyes and try to explain the unease that has rooted itself inside me. As I start talking, in a rare moment of clarity, it dawns on me — the exact thing that has been troubling me. It is the unkindness of this world, which I have seen unfold every single day, and how it has become normalised. For the first time I am able to verbalise my predicament and ask Phuphee ‘How do I carry on in an unkind world? How do I come away unchanged from it?’
Phuphee sits listening, quietly. From her pheran pocket she takes a small parcel. She puts it on the mattress, opens it and pushes it gently in my direction. There are a handful of roasted gaer goji (water chestnuts) wrapped in a bit of newspaper. I haven’t seen these in years. I pop one into my mouth and it feels like I am six again, when the world seemed like a kind place.
Phuphee watches me as I polish off all the gaer goji, with a little smile playing on her lips.
‘What you see around you in the world today, myoan jaan, it is not new. Cruelty and unkindness have always existed. There was a time in my life when, like you, I felt troubled by the unkindness of the world around me. I didn’t know how to make it better for others or myself. I went to see Aapa [maternal grandmother] and she said, ‘Tahira, the opposite of despair is not just hope, it is two things: hope and kindness. When faced with despair or hopelessness, it isn’t enough to sit and hope, you must get up and do something. If you only sit and hope, a feeling of powerlessness will seep into your heart. It will spread to your entire body and strip you of that hope. Kindness Tahira, no matter how small, in your own little world, is the key. Every day, keep putting one kindness in front of another.’”
Phuphee put her hand gently on my head and continued, ‘I listened to Aapa that day because I was drowning in despair with no clue about how to come out of it but once I did what she had prescribed, I realised that in the face of unkindness, I was not completely powerless. I had something, something I could try and that saved me. As Aapa said, you put one kindness in front of another and keep going. As for coming away unchanged from it, that isn’t possible. The world changes everyone, myoan zuv [my soul].’ She kissed my hair and left.
What Phuphee had said made sense but I felt angry. I had wanted something groundbreaking, something extreme, a spell or a taaveez that could bring back dead children, but Phuphee’s solutions were rarely as dramatic as I wished them to be. And so, the new year came, the world carried on.
One day, when despair took over, I remembered her advice and I put it into practice. I tried in my own way to put one kindness in front of another — a smile, a dish cooked for a friend who was exhausted, let someone have my seat on the bus, persevered with a plant to keep it alive and the list went on. None of these saved a life, or cured an illness, the world remained cruel, but, the trail of crumbs I had left behind, helped me find my way back and I realised that I was not as lost as I thought I was, and that was truly something.
Saba Mahjoor, a Kashmiri living in England, spends her scant free time contemplating life’s vagaries.
Published – January 22, 2026 12:42 pm IST
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