The one thing that I always was jealous of my parents was that they got to live in a loving , close-knitted community. Both my parents were from villages, they were raised there, by the whole village. Almost the whole village was our family, we loved and cared for each other my mum used to say.

"My neighbours used to have lunch at mine and me at theirs at times."

"We only had two TV sets in the whole village one at my home.The villagers used to watch the India Pakistan match at our house."

"I used to play in the nearby forest with the neighbouhood kids and my sisters."

This is something I could never experience living in a city like Srinagar. With people always busy with something not caring enough to even smile at you.And if I passed a smile to person walking on street it seemed to surprise them.

Like my mum I didn't go to my neighbour's house and have my dinner there, the local shop was not my spot to hangout with my friends, infact I didn't have any friends in the neighbourhood to hangout with.I wasn't greeted by the local shopowner and asked how my family is.

I wanted to go out play on the street with small things like a tire or mud.I didn't ask for latest toys and expensive cycles. The kids on the streets of my mum's village had something far more valuable than the toys ever will be.

When I used to go to my mother's hometown and her village which was almost every alternate weekend. I used to see this whole other world. I wasn't a stranger on the streets.Though I never actually lived there, yet everyone knew me somehow.I was Tasleema's daughter or Mohd. Ahsan's grand daughter.

When I used to go to the village market.I was showered with greetings and kisses on my forehead.I loved to say "Asalamualaikum!" ( way of greeting ) knowing that I will be responded happily. My heart used to be filled with joy when I was in that "backward area" as the city people call it. I loved the cheap coconut candies or the sugar sticks which I couldnt find in cities.I loved the beautiful mustard feilds and the night sky full of stars and watching my mother milking our cow.I loved to go to the apple orchards and few times fall in a pit. It didnt have 24x7 electricity or departmental stores where I could get anything but it had so much more to offer.

Though I wasnt born there or raised there, I always used to say in the school that I am from a village in Anantanag. It was queer because being from a village was something to be ashamed of in the city. The term villager was used to mock people.

This was something that confused me.How could people not like a place like that is filled with so much love and joy.Probably because they never got to experience how full of love a community could be.But I was a villager! . My happiest place was that village ,my mother's hometown where my whole family lived.

I got to experience those little joys when I lived in my mother's hometown Anantanag for 3yrs.Those three years were something I barely remember considering I was very young. Yet anything I did remember was worth remembering.Every memory was worth being cherised.

I had the best neighbours, my cousins.We used to run around the high school park in front of our flats.It was the time when I was scolded for climbing to the top of a metador ( a local bus) with the neighbourhood boys or for playing in mud for hours.The time when we had fun in the small stream infront my grandparents for hours.

That was my happy place.My most beautiful yet blurry memories come from that time. I had my childhood in those three years.

We returned to the city afterwards. I went to a school considered to be among the best.I had classmates from posh and elite backgrounds.It had better facilities. The city had everything but nothing that I needed. What I desired was back home with my family and cousins, in that small town.

But this was to be my life from now on away from the people I loved in a supposedly "advanced place".