Nostalgic Whispers of Autumn
By: Peer Mohammad Amir Qureshi
This year, autumn arrived as though carried on swift wings—too soon, too sudden—like yesterday’s memory slipping through the fragile neck of an hourglass. Time itself seems to dissolve into golden dust, leaving behind only the ache of what was once lived, now irretrievably lost.
Along the hushed village path, cicadas tuned their tremulous orchestra, a shrill yet sacred chorus heralding the equinox. There is something almost mystical about autumn—trees undressing their emerald silks into crimson tatters, whispering that even beauty, no matter how radiant, is only a guest in this world.
I wandered past paddy fields where once the stream sparkled like molten glass. Now, burdened with plastic wounds, it moaned like a tired vein of the earth. Yet, even in its lament, the air smelled of rain’s promise, cool and pure, while the willows stood like solemn sentinels beneath a pale sky. Their leaves fell one by one—soft farewells stitched into the wind.
High above, cicadas sang with stubborn devotion, their wings trembling like miniature violins. Some sang freely, as though intoxicated with the moment, while others hushed themselves into secrecy, guarding mysteries only trees might understand. I lifted my phone to capture it—a futile attempt to freeze eternity in a single frame.
Perhaps it was nostalgia that tugged at me. For in childhood, these creatures were my playmates. I had chased them with the innocent conviction that Allah’s name was etched into their fragile backs. My friends and I cupped them gently in our palms, only to yelp in surprise when they baptized us with sudden sprays of their strange “cicada rain.” Then, with a defiant buzz, they would vault into the sky, leaving us laughing, chastened, and strangely reverent.
Those small wonders stitched something into us—threads of awe that no schooling could replicate. Even now, their chorus binds me to that tender boy I once was, to the unbroken rhythm of seasons that turn, return, and fade.
Eternal Echoes of Cicadas
We once believed those creatures wept in sorrow when caught—their sudden downpour a tearful plea for freedom. Age, however, brought clarity: in my journey through entomology, I learned it was not grief but the simple aftermath of their feast on xylem sap. Yet, knowing the science never diminished the wonder—it only deepened it, like discovering the gears of a clock and still marveling at the time it tells.
Their empty shells fascinated us too—papery husks clinging to willow bark like tiny reliquaries. We imagined them as sleeping bodies, waiting to wake. Patiently, we’d place them in sunlit spots, hoping to witness a miracle. But the miracle had already happened. What we held were trophies of transformation, evidence that even the smallest lives carry the grandeur of metamorphosis.
Today, when cicadas sing, science and memory converge. Knowledge does not cancel wonder; it consecrates it.
Harvest Days and Grasshopper Races
As I drifted from the stream toward my errands, I glimpsed laborers bent in the fields, their sickles whispering through golden stalks. The sight unfolded the old cinema of my childhood.
I remembered the grasshoppers—emerald acrobats that clung to my trousers as if choosing me for companionship. My brother and I, joined by a wild parade of friends, turned the fields into arenas. We captured grasshoppers, hid them in pockets or bottles, and crowned them as tiny gladiators of our childhood kingdom.
On golden evenings, we raided my father’s old cassette bag, transforming glossy reels into kite-tails for our insect athletes. Grasshoppers would leap skyward, ribbons trailing like black comets, while we cheered them on. Yet the skies were treacherous—mynas and nightingales swooped like bandits, forcing us to defend our champions with desperate valor.
A World Without Money
Sundays carried another ritual, born of harvest. After farmers threshed the fields, grains of paddy shimmered like scattered jewels in the dust. With polythene bags, we combed the stubble, gathering our treasure. Mothers winnowed them with timeless grace, separating grain from grit like priestesses presiding over ancient altars.
Then came the chestnut sellers—nomads of joy with baskets brimming with crisp promise. Sometimes they bartered chestnuts for our collected paddy; other times, they offered clay pots in exchange. I can still taste those chestnuts—sweet, earthy, sharp with freshness. No fruit today, no matter how carefully cultivated, can awaken that same magic. Those flavors belonged to a world without money, where barter was not just trade but communion.
The Kite That Carried My Heart
When the fields lay bare after harvest, childhood crowned a new season—the reign of kites.
I still see Aijaz Bhaya, the boy who ruled our skies. His kites were not kites but creatures—parrot-colored wings soaring higher than dreams dared. I watched from afar, envy braided with awe, until one day I begged my mother for one. He gifted me one; the memory is a haze of longing and miracle.
But my kite refused to fly. The sky turned its face away, as if waiting for me to earn its blessing. So I learned to build my own from scraps of newspaper, stitching headlines into wings.
And then, at last, my kite rose. It caught the wind as though it had been waiting its whole life to ascend. I ran beneath it, breathless, a procession of children trailing behind me. Together we launched not paper, but fragments of our souls into the wide, astonished sky.
Crows shrieked, eagles wheeled, the heavens themselves seemed alive with rivalry. But we knew: it was not battle—it was freedom.
Now, when I stand in those fields, silence presses in. No laughter, no strings caught in poplars, no scraps of paper tangled in hedges. Only wind, empty and unclaimed.
Where did that autumn go?
Where did the sky lose its song?
Epilogue : Time has marched on. The willow trees still stand, though their shadows fall on sullied waters. The cicadas still sing, though fewer stop to listen. Children still roam the fields—but perhaps without tape reels and sacred dreams hidden in insect wings. The sky feels wider now—but not freer. No children run beneath it with wild eyes. No kites sail across it like flags of forgotten kingdoms
And somewhere between the rustle of dry leaves and the murmur of an old stream I’m still searching that boy —the one who believed in magic etched on chitin, who found divinity in tree bark, who raced grasshoppers to the sky and tasted joy in muddy handfuls of paddy. And every time autumn returns, so does the nostalgia But ,
Where did it all go? Where did that autumn go?
(The author is a writer and columnist based in Ganderbal)
