In my work, I often write how the house of the past is perceived to be more beautiful than the house of the present - one filled with longing and memory. It is not unusual to come across interviewees who physically inhabit this belief. This is a thread on a house of the past 1/ 
Exactly four years ago, I witnessed something that sprouted in my heart an unavoidable and insatiable yearning to be able to physically move someone from India and take them to their childhood home in what was known as Mintgumri (now Sahiwal) in Pakistan. 2/
Stories about the past -particularly a traumatic one dealing with the 1947 Partition - begin either in indifference, silence, nostalgia or sadness. This began in tears. So suddenly and quietly in a way that nor I, or anyone sitting around us could do anything. 3/
Upon asking about his childhood home, the 76 year old man became the7 year old boy who had been forced to leave his ancestral haveli in 1947. Along with his family members, he'd buried their valuables in the ground, certain Partition would be temporary and they would return 4/
In that moment, I had wanted to reach out and comfort him about all that had been lost, but I couldn't because 1947 had changed the course of everything. The past is the past - concrete, unchangeable - yet remembrance is particular and personal and non-transferable. 5/
So I did the next best thing. I handed him my notebook and told him to show me the house, draw it out, lay out each wall that had been impressed into his memory like an anthem, each room that lingered in his mind, each alcove and garden from his life in Mintgumri 6/
He grasped the pen tightly and drew, confident, without a second thought, without a single pause, as if truly the blueprint of his childhood home of the past was clearer and more imaginable than anything in this present. 7/7
