The Toy That Taught Me Time

A Kashmiri teacher revisits a handmade toy of his childhood and finds in its spinning wings a lesson on time, memory, and the tender brevity of life.

- Bashir Ahmad Dar

Someone once said that autumn belongs less to nature and more to the soul. I believe this every time the first cold breeze brushes the orchards of Kashmir and the leaves begin their slow descent.

Autumn holds its breath between the exhale of summer and the inhale of winter. A single leaf on the ground carries the weight of a departure. A chill in the air recalls the cooling of once-warm feelings. Short days, long nights, and the fading light urge the body to rest and the mind to look inward. A decaying branch stands like a reminder of endings. Even the sound of a sickle moving through a paddy field seems to reopen old wounds and refresh forgotten hurts.

Yet autumn does more than stir sorrow. It insists that we face the harvest of our efforts, and it rewards the courage to let go.

The light of this season, what poets call liquid gold, touches every surface with a slow radiance. It turns the ordinary, like dusty lanes, slanting rooftops, and heaps of dry leaves, into something both epic and intimate.

Inside me lives a long collection of autumn memories, each one a small jewel kept safe in a private box of time.