Talya Salman - An Eye
An Eye
It looks like an eye,
The eye of a concealed spirit,
congealing your blood.
She was petrified, scared,
In a four-cornered room of the lake,
20 inches on a ruler,
Frighteningly eyeing in its depth of night-time horror,
I screamed, ‘I don’t want to stay here’
Mama’s experiences were invariably apart from mine, places she deemed scorchingly deserted and appalling turned to be peaceful and pleasingly silent to me; a tickle of pleasant nature, snow capped mountains, glittering white glaciers, and the high splashing knife of sunlight.
“We went to Pyala Lake while crossing Babusar Top. I don’t remember the precise location, but it was lonely, deserted, and hauntingly silent; without a sigh of a man.” Mama said, “I saw a tiny lodging of a weary, scraggy Pathan and asked how he lived here, he responded, he only lived here for four months and then left for a facilitating place in snowy months, November till May. He also said life was difficult, the beauty of nature had nothing fulfilling to offer, and ‘what does one have to do with the beauty when you don’t have food to eat?’”
“Mama, your anecdotes are depressing, after listening to these I would never want to go over there”, I confessed solemnly.
As we looked down at the maze from Babusar Top, 13700 ft high, to the ground underneath we had come from, it looked like a mushy surface with barren, unrocky green hues splattered a few steps away, it looked ghastly and nonchalant, melancholic even. Straight ahead, adjacent to our position was a stunning layer of snow surfacing the mountain top, a glacier it was, maybe, and it looked clean, and tidy, likeable, the way Southern residents imagine snow, unlike the untidy, garish, and deceiving glaciers we had passed earlier. From afar I could distinguish a small lake located above a little hazy maze going further into the land, “I think that’s Pyala Lake”, I sparked. Pyala, meaning a bowl. I was beyond excited to see the shape of the lake.
After having a few fritters for breakfast, we sat in the car and revived our journey. It was indeed Pyala Lake. The shape of an eye, with a small peephole located just in the highest point of the mountain to allude people into believing the source of the water. The colour was beautiful, unlike any colour I had seen, differently intensified that I felt in love with emerald and inky blue. We continued travelling to Jalkhad and the bafflingly scorching heat of Chilas. I had forgotten the icy cold nibbling into my bones at Babusar Top.
From the Press:
What stands out in An Eye is the tension between perception and inheritance—between what Salman sees and what they're taught to fear. The piece moves with a familiar restlessness typical of writing while traveling, but the emotional center is much more intimate. We witness the daughter trying to reconcile her mother's history with her own emerging sense of the world.
Instead of idealizing the landscape, Talya keeps an unsettling tone. Through vivid imagery, the lake is transformed into an all-seeing eye—revealing that beauty becomes both invitation and warning. Even the mother's recollections carry an undertone of survival over wonder. This piece shows how two people can stand in the exact same place yet inhabit completely different realities.
What I most enjoyed about this piece, was how it whisks you off into a land unknown through her narration. As you are reading, you find yourself traversing Pakistan and into the Kaghan—the quick shift from icy elevation to the warmth of Chilas.
What this piece ultimately suggests is that awe is never neutral. The landscape reflects back the stories we bring to it. In Talya's hands, the lake is not just a lake—it is memory, fear, privilege, beauty, and the negotiation between generations.
About the Author:
Talya Salman grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. She received her BS in English Language and Literature from the University of Lahore. Her work has appeared in Handwritten & Co. and Spillwords Press. She writes about memory, travel, and the quiet intersections of the ordinary and the extraordinary.
