The story that never took off

More than a year ago, I tried working on a story about a man, born in Kashmir, immediately after the land was formed out of the water body.

It went on like this:

In the beginning there was only water.

Even one’s thought could not go beyond it without getting wet. Nothing escaped it. Water overwhelmed. It shocked. Its massive tongue devoured everything.

And then, one day, the Earth woke up.

It yawned and the mountains trembled. The tremors created a massive vent, which sucked the entire water, like marrow from a bone. Someone, I do not remember now who, told me that I was born immediately afterwards.

My ancestors broke up from their group, while travelling through the mountains of Hindukush. My mother was carrying me in her womb when the breakaway group arrived in the newly-formed land.

The water had left its mark everywhere. The land was still a slush at most of the places. But something about the place stuck them so much that the group decided to settle there. And that is where I opened my eyes, escaping narrowly from being strangulated by the umbilical cord.