Aamir’s Letter Home
A Journey of Longing and Resilience
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Two notable characteristics of Aamir, a slim young man with dark and penetrating eyes, are his profoundly intense desire for an improvement of his quality of life and the fact that he works every day in a devastatingly hot and dusty textile factory somewhere in the vicinity of Karachi. The banging of the machinery and the disgusting odor of dyed cloth was something astonishingly different from what he was used to in his home village where the fresh breeze and blossoms were always around.
Every single working hour, whenever Aamir is sewing together the fabric, he feels as if he is unconsciously taken back to his childhood's humorously green meadows and naively colored world. With a soft but tight grip on his hand, small but steady footsteps lagging behind his father, he remembers it all: the joyful laughter of his siblings in the background, the soothing fragrance of his grandmother's cooking, and his mother lightheartedly stroking his forehead.
As Eid is coming closer, Aamir's chest feels tight since he misses the happy moments shared by families. He doesn’t listen to the other workers around him, but he accidentally “hears” his colleagues making plans to visit their families by seeing the looks on their faces, covered with pleasure. However, in the case of Aamir, the journey is neither toward rightful acknowledgment nor toward welcoming loved ones. Rather, time only gets tougher with demoralizingly hard work and painful solitude.
It is during the nighttime when all the machines have stopped running, and the workers have left that Aamir is suddenly all alone in the room and he is sitting on a chair that has been placed in the dark room with only a few lamps. Pens on the table — he starts to write them with shaky hands.
"Dear Nani," As Aamir recalls his growing years through the medium of his words, his thoughts are a melange of sinewy strands of desire and reminiscence. It is through these small pleasures that he can relive the innocent and beautiful memories from his childhood — such as tasting a ripe yellow mango, listening to a cricket chirp beneath a moonless sky, or the comforting feel of the earth beneath the soles of his bare feet. Still reminded of that, Aamir's heart keeps on blooming like a flower, though it is only a few words, and it releases the flowing feelings he has repressed all this time.
Using his tears and twitches when the pen scratches the paper Aamir unleashes his feelings of hope and regret; checks and hopes. He goes on to confess his problems in the metropolis, the loneliness that slowly eats at his spirits, and the nostalgia for his homeland. He feels that he will never come back because he does not know how to.
When the golden rays of the sun at the breaking of the day reach through the dusty windows and seal the letter with a purified kiss, the words Aamir whispered in the void of silence are a silent and untold prayer. He buries himself in the letter, memorizing every part of it, trying to ward off the cruelties of his times while taking it that a stay of death every time is better than nothing.
Days pass, and the routine of the assembly line machine is unchanging. However, Aamir's expectation is not spilling over; rather it is the first drops of a small reservoir whose water has been doused by nostalgia for his home country and the hope of a more beautiful future.
Then, on a certain day, a letter arrives — a little old envelope bearing the friendly and well-known handwriting of his grandmother. Aamir silently tears the envelope open and his heart skips a beat as he awaits the results.
From the moment he starts reading the heartwarming lines written by his most beloved Nani, Aamir´s eyes are filled with sympathetic tears of happiness, and his heart is delighted. In her gentle, amiable voice, she tosses her love and pieces of encouragement, a lifeline thrown across the distance between them.
The triumph in Aamir's return to work and his heart now greatly lightened indicate hope that he will be fully charged in a short time. His family, who to him is distant, and yet still radiantly loving and giving him what feels like a lighthouse burning throughout the darkest hours.
With times going by swiftly and the change in seasons, Aamir is consoled with the conviction that life may be a gamble but he will always have a place to go home to; a place that is filled with love, acceptance, and belonging.
