prayers lost

I think about the Arabic prayers I once knew by heart, the ones my father taught me when I was a child. I would recite them with ease, the words flowing from my tongue like a river. But now, as I sit here trying to recall them, I realize I've forgotten most of them. It's as if the words have vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a faint memory of their presence. I remember the sound of the azan, the call to prayer, from the mosque near our home in Hyderabad. The way the words seemed to dance on my tongue, the rhythm and the melody. But now, when I try to recall them, I'm left with only fragments. I don't know why this is, why I've forgotten something that was once so deeply ingrained in me. Maybe it's because I've been away from home for so long, away from the familiar rhythms and sounds of my childhood. Or maybe it's just the natural process of forgetting, the way our memories fade with time. I think about my father, and how he would recite the prayers with such ease and conviction. I wish I could ask him to teach me again, but I'm not sure I'm ready to learn. I'm not sure I'm ready to confront the gap between my memories and my current self. The streets of Hyderabad are still familiar to me, the smell of biryani from the food carts, the sound of the traffic on the Charminar road. But the prayers, the words that once flowed so easily from my tongue, are lost to me now. I'm left with only the memory of their presence, a bittersweet reminder of what I've forgotten.