Silvia Arazi

Apr 4, 2024 | wordswithoutborders.org | Kalpana Raina |Silvia Arazi |Tobias Carroll |Susan Harris

As the plane landed in Srinagar, my fellow passengers craned their necks to see the snow-clad mountains that wrapped around the city. I sat still, contemplating and planning the next few days of my trip. I was coming back to my ancestral home and the city of my birth after forty-eight years, but not as a tourist. My only agenda was to visit downtown Srinagar and locate the house that my mother and uncle grew up in.

Dec 4, 2023 | wordswithoutborders.org | Silvia Arazi |Leyla Shukurova |Ruth Kemp |Alexander Aguayo

It’s a calm, sunny midday toward the end of January, and the city seems to stand still. I arrive at my sister’s house for a family lunch. It could be just another gathering, siblings getting together on any ordinary day. But it isn’t. It’s the first time we’re seeing each other since my mother’s funeral. Our mother’s funeral. I ring the doorbell. My sister comes to open the entrance gate. She’s wearing denim shorts and white sneakers, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.