Short Stories by Haider Qureshi

Short Story: The Pain of The Petrifying Person

2007-03-09T03:29:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

The Pain of The Petrifying Person

The days of meeting are

All scattered;

And the night of loneliness

Now resides in the eyes!

after reading the book ‘The games of Magic!’ I take some tablets of musk camphor from my dad’s box to try out a game that was mentioned in the book. But a neighbor’s girl arrives to play. Her eyes are very beautiful. I tell her that I am going to set water on fire. She looks at me in a way that tells me that she was not taking me seriously. But when I ignite the camphor tablets and throw them in water they continue to burn and she looks very much surprised. Her beautiful eyes are full of wonder and they are lit up with a strange emotion. I, opening my eyes to the reality, note that she is more interested in me than my magic game, I find the shadows of love lurking behind her wonderful eyes. The magical shadows of love!

* * *

I haven’t been able to come out of her nascent spell of love. I know that as soon as I come out of it the magic of her youth will petrify me. And no magic book or knowledge or recitation of ‘Abracadabra’ will be able to convert me into a living human being from stone again.

She is talking incessantly over a variety of topics and I am just saying ‘yeah, yeah’, avoiding her eyes and instead, looking at the table before me intently. The summer has arrived and perhaps that is the reason a lot of moths were hovering around the glaring light bulb fitted in the ceiling. A lot of them have also fallen on my table. They are so small that a soft blow can make them fly. I rub a moth with my pencil without exerting any pressure. Obviously it has succumbed to the rub. But to my astonishment it begins to move again after sometime. Turning her attention to it I tell her, with my eyes still lowered that the moth is moving despite having died. She looks at it intently for a while and then lets out a tinkling laugh. I raise my head to look at her but nervously look down again, I want to remain bound under the spell of her child hood charm. I know the magic of her youth will turn me into a stone. And if once it happens then no magic book or knowledge or recitation of ‘Abracadabra’ will be able to convert me into a living being again. The echo of her tinkling laugh is still in the air. Her voice comes rustling through it. “It is the air from the ceiling fan that’s making you think that the moth is alive and moving otherwise the poor thing is very much dead!” I breathe easily and look at the dead moth that seemed moving due to the air. She speaks again, ‘The moths you haven’t rubbed off are also dead. All these moths are dead’, she waves at them, ‘They look alive due to the air!’ All these things are either illusory or quirks of fate. We, who look alive, are rather dead. Aren’t we?

‘You are right, we are dead moths looking alive under the magical fan of the fate (--- and no magic book or knowledge or recitation of Abracadabra will be able to convert me into a living being again). And, afraid of getting petrified, I cover my eyes with my hand too.

She softly removes my hand from my eyes and suddenly our eyes meet. Her gazelle eyes brighten up. I don’t petrify, instead I begin melting and a fragrance surrounds me. A savory sense fills me up. I was afraid of her unnecessarily. I look into her eyes deeply and unflinchingly and the lights and fragrances from her eyes and body invade my being and begin a dance of sorts within. I feel lost in the flavor of this newfound moment. I begin to feel alive.

She too looks happy but a strange sense of disenchantment is also peeping through her eyes.

‘We are not dead insects or worms. We bear witness to life! At least you and me!’

She becomes more disenchanted after hearing this.
The sound of pipers playing pipes is making my whole body numb. Except my face my whole body has turned into a stone. At my right is standing the moment when we had played the game of fire and water. She is still looking at me with wonder, after seeing water, catching fire.

At my left is standing the moment when lights and fragrances had traveled from her eyes and body into my being and begun a dance of sorts within.

Her palanquin is about to leave and I negate my own statement. She was right. We are all dead moths and worms looking alive under the magical fan of the fate! I now know the secret of the strange disenchantment that had crept up into her eyes after seeing me pleased and happy.

My face too has begun to turn into stone but before it is over the fragrances from her body turn camphor in my breath and get set in the form of tablets in my eyes.

The lights that had emanated from her gazelle eyes are now igniting those tablets. They caught fire and are floating on the water in my eyes. I begin to try hard to save myself from drowning in the water or getting immolated by the fire. I don’t want to turn into stone fully.

It is only to let life’s reputation be…!

* * * * *

Short Story: Some In complete Pages of a Wayward Life

2007-03-09T03:13:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

Some In complete Pages of A Wayward Life

The factory that produced sugar

To my misfortune;

Kept poisoning my heart

Ever and ever!

the story begins from the strange moment when my doubts about the fate had started taking a concrete shape. I was about to declare fate as a force that was being highlighted by the capitalists to exploit woebegone people when an unknown hand froze that moment into inactivity and I felt myself hanging in a limbo between doubt and faith.

* * * *

The change of power in the country brought changes in the basic policies too. The unnecessary leeway that was given to the laborers earlier had now changed into the unwanted pulls and pressures on them. It went to the extent that I, who was a much maligned and shunned laborer in the days of the enjoyable leeway, was forced to become an active member of the union. It was not a case of my self-interests or collective interests of the laborers. It was due to the deaths of hundreds of laborers who were shot at under the pretext of a very insignificant policy. And it was a practical warning by the quest of the time to fall in line and tow the government’s boat. The laborers, instead of getting intimidated, turned hostile and aggressive. The capitalists and their agents too dug their heels more firmly and a systematic controversy began to take shape. The chief of our union had to bite dust on many occasions when I challenged him many a time on issues confronting us. My extra ordinary wins further convinced me that the red herring of fate was the invention of capitalists and other exploitative powers. A ray of hope was cast upon me when I was in limbo between doubt and conviction. The ray helped me see a lot of sides of fate. But when it tried to tell me convincingly, that each and every edible grain and each and every drinkable drop of liquid is pre-inscribed with the name of its eater or drinker. I vehemently opposed it. The ray then showed me a drop of water on which, according to it, my name was inscribed. Along with the information I was also given power to identify the drop and be able to tell it by its taste. While returning back I was told by the ray. “You shall have full freedom to erase your name from this drop!”

* * * *

The industrial fraternity is in jeopardy. The mill’s administration is at loggerheads with its employees. On the other hand our streak of success has raised our morale considerably. But the bottom line of all this is that there is not even a remote possibility of an amicable settlement. My chief is fed up with me. Many carrots have been dangled before me to wean me away to other side as per their logic. But I am not interested and being true to my followers I am boldly marching towards my goal, the goal of deliverance from the masters’ tyranny. But an untoward incident left me shaken and shocked. One day the General Manger of our mill called upon me. All the board members too were present. The G.M. holding me responsible for the poor showing in the field of production and output by the mill gave me a dressing down for the first time and used a very foul language full of expletives and filth. Although I was not on my duty I still restrained myself and kept up my calm and dignity. I could have paid back in the same coin but I didn’t. But I somehow felt that I didn’t prove to be up to the mark because it was the first full-scale show down.

* * * *

The in-charge of the Mill’s baging house sympathized with me. He himself was an active member of the union. He offered tea and began discussing about our future strategy. As soon as I picked up my cup I smiled, knowingly. The drop of liquid that was bearing my name was in it. I looked at it keenly, thought for a while and then emptied my cup on a sugar full bag. The bag absorbed the drop, along with the rest of the liquid. My co-laborer looked at me wide eyed. This was, perhaps, my first success against the fate!

* * * *

Many important incidents took place one after another in the mill. The attitude of the Mill’s administration was so rude that the laborers thrashed four or five officers’ one day. But unfortunately the General Manager was not among them. He escaped unhurt. The police arrived and the arrests were made. Eventually the matter was settled on an agreement that fifteen laborers would have to resign forth with. My chief especially phoned me diplomatically and inquired after me. I tasted defeat again but consoled myself by recalling the literal dressing down of the officers given by the laborers, although they had done it knowing fully well that they would have to face stringent punishment and imprisonment. That they got away with this by tendering their resignations was a different story. But I still felt slighted, because I was not able to forget the dressing down the General Manger had given me. I was even ready to go to the extent of suing him to avenge my insult. I was even ready to face my fate!

* * * *

It was a holiday and nearly all the staff decided to go on a picnic. The party turned out to be full of amusement. But when I opened a bottle of a soft drink I knew that the drop bearing my name was in it. I emptied the whole bottle into the river that was flowing by with disdain and smiled triumphantly. It was my second triumph against the fate.

* * * *

My chief stepped up his vindictive activities against me. It looked he was bent on discrediting me totally. But one day it came to be known that the death had discredited him totally. He died after drowning in the river, although all the administrative board of the Mill was on its bank. A short while after this incident the administrative board of a soft drink company informed the govt. that a large part of the sugar it had bought for itself through black marketing was from our sugar mill. The ambit of inquiry began expanding.

* * * *

I had to go to Karachi for a few days to attend the marriage of a kin. A sea-viewing program too was chalked out there. I sat watching the tidal waves rising and falling, gamboling and dancing. Then I too started wading through them. I loved their way of first swirling and then going up to the beach in a rush to return again in a mischievous way. I remained lost in them for a while, then opening my mouth and curling my lips in the form of an ‘O’ I waited for an onrushing wave to fill my mouth with some of its water. But I suddenly felt jolted and shaken up from a deep slumber. The wave coming straight at my mouth was special. I could see the drop in it on which my name was written. I shut my lips tightly and when the drop approached me I shoved it away by striking at it sharply with my hand. It was perhaps my third triumph against the fate.

* * * *

The excesses by the Mill’s administration knew no bounds. It was not only brushing aside my skills and academic achievements it started adopting a hostile and aggressive attitude against me. Trampling upon our basic and just rights encouraged the rebel in me. I had by now begun to look the fate down upon. But I had to review my opinion regarding the mysterious ways of Nature when, instead of the general Manager, the officer who was responsible for getting a laborer arrested and thrashed by the police, during a raid, by foul means, was proved guilty by the court later. He had even got the laborer dismissed. All this prompted me to revise my opinion regarding the Nature’s ‘modus operandi’.

* * * *

When I picked up a glass of water to drink. My eyes began to shine. The drop bearing my name was in it. I put it down, filled up another and toasted it with the first one in the form of drinkers and drank. I then picked up the first one and saying ‘to the health of the fate’ threw its contents high up in the air. The water fell down on the earth and got absorbed. I felt like walking on cloud nine and very sure of myself that I could take on any kind of exploitative power because it was my fourth triumph against the fate.

* * * *

The investigations in sugar black marketing scandal were still incomplete but the rumors had it that the warrants had been issued against the managing director, the General Manager and some officers. The officers were said to be absconding but I inwardly prayed for a shameful end of the G.M’s era!

* * * *

When I went to see a friend of mine who lived in the sub-urban areas the dark clouds suddenly covered the sky. I should have made a hasty return but the weather was so pleasing and poetic that I remained there enjoying it for a long time. When it started drizzling I opened mouth and turned my face upward to collect some drops. My eyelids were bathing more quickly due to the raindrops falling. Suddenly I saw the drop bearing my name coming straight at my mouth. I shut it up and saw the drop fall on the ground. I began pitying on its helplessness. I had succeeded in defeating the fate through land, sea and now through the air. I marveled at my own greatness.

* * * *

The General Manager was spotted in the mill today morning. I thought he was on bail. But in the evening it came to be known that the police, after surrounding his house, entering it from behind by breaking the glasses of a window, had arrested him. I felt a strange sense of happiness.

* * * *

Still savoring that sense I went to the cane-carrier. Many trucks, trolleys and bullock-carts were stationed there loaded with sugarcanes. I picked up a juicy and freshly harvested cane and pealed it with my teeth. My first attempt at chewing and sucking the mouthful told me that the drop bearing my name had reached my tongue. The power of telling it by its taste that was vested in me confirmed my realization. The drop had completely mingled with my saliva in my mouth. I first tried to spit it out but changing my mind swallowed it deliberately. As soon as the drop went down a glow of light filled me from within. It brushed all the dust of pride off my ego and my ego too started glowing. I saw all my future clearly in that light and my face too began to radiate the light of contentment.

And that was when the frozen moment melted. The moment that had begun the story!

* * * * *

Short Story: The Torment of My Revealing Art

2007-03-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

By:Haider Qureshi

The Torment of My Revealing Art

All the ways were lost;

By the time I knew them.

I have come back bearing

The biers of my destinations!

i am an artist, a painter. When I went through the infinitesimal quest of self and savored the pleasure of its acquaintance, its revelation surprised me no end. I tried to imbibe its touch into my being but strangely, though I was drenched in its intoxication, I was unable to touch it myself.
What kind of a revelation or disclosure it is! What type of knowledge or learning could it be? I asked my self.
“The outside world too should be able to comprehend this revelation up on you!” “Help it comprehend!” A holy voice sounds and ceases. I am an artist, a king of the world of colors. Colors that exude brightness, that turn into the towers of greatness when they take shape of words! They reveal all the secrets of life when they splash on stars. From, whence the springs of art issue. Then I, having faith in my artistic caliber, decided to paint a magnum opus on the canvas of my imagination. In the first phase I painted it with the red color of words. Crimson, red, pink and purplish.
I was deeply engrossed in painting and when the first phase was over I was astounded. All the redness of the painting was gradually turning into white. I had heard of the Urdu idiom “blood turning white” that means a nearest relative turning foe, it may not apply here though, but how about this color! And how about blood turning white. Blood is always red. If it is not red then it is not blood!
All the redness of the colors has become white and I feel, though idiomatically, that my own blood has turned white. I want to run away from within my body but find myself cloistered by its walls. Scared, I look back at myself. Then the very moment of my art’s revelation comes to life in me again. The revelation is the same, its touch is also the same but with a new taste, savor and intoxication. And perhaps, riding the waves of this new sensation I again begin transferring my skill on the canvas of my imagination. Though the colors of the earlier painting have all turned white, still there is some fragrance of them lingering. Some fading, pale but still red dots remain. Now I am painting the canvas with the greenness of words. Dark bottle green, eye-pleasing farm green and its innumerable shades that encompass all the beautiful, enchanting and venerable sights on this venerable earth. I continue to paint with a renewed zeal and zest, feeling a deep pleasantness and well being.
“But what is this!” I close my eyes with fear. But it invades my inner eyes and through them seeps into me. Helplessly I open my eyes again and it again comes out of me and spreads itself on the canvas. I can’t believe my eyes. I check the tube with its color tag. ‘Green’ is printed on it boldly. Then how about this yellowness instead of green! I ask myself. I pick up the same color tube again and squeeze it a bit. A lot of color oozes out with a spurt and dribbles down on the floor. I nearly cry out with fright. The tube contains only yellow color! Yellow color from a green tube. But the red tube had contained red. How then it changed into white on the canvas? I want to include the outside world into my unique experience of the revelation of my art upon me but the colors are playing truant. I am feeling a strange sort of helplessness.
This disability and a strange sense of disappointment have begun a dance of death around me. It looks as if they have succeeded in killing the artist in me and I find myself standing on a huge mound of sand at one side of which is a chain of huge mountains difficult to trek and at another side a vast and in-navigable sea. From one side I can hear terrible hissing of hundreds of serpents and devilish creatures coming and from other side the howling cries of marine spirits and witches. I want to traverse the path of self-identity, I want to call out myself for help but the din of the blood curdling sounds turns my shout into a whimper. I empty all the tubes of color in to a bowl, violet, indigo, brown, green, yellow, and red. I make an amalgam of all the main colors and begin to paint the canvas wildly with my fingers dipped into the amalgam. I go at it coarsely and devilishly and when my boiling anger subsides, an another bout of surprise takes me over. The canvas is now displaying my intended magnum opus.
I try hard to find the meaning of this meaningless happening and it was when the revelation of my art upon me concludes its manifestation. And the manifestation is so revolting and repulsive that I no longer wish to tell anybody about it. This manifestation includes not only me but it includes us all.
And perhaps that is the reason that holy voice is not rising from within, the holy voice that had commanded me once by saying:
“The outside world too should be able to comprehend this revelation upon you. Help it comprehend!”

* * * * *

Short Story:In Search of The Eve

2007-03-09T02:36:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

A short Story having the "post nuclear war" Background,according to Relegious Books.

written in urdu in 1980 and published in February 1981.

In Search of The Eve

Your dating me caused roses to bloom

In my body; What kind of an unseasonable nesting it is?

By the birds of dreams in my eyes I wonder!

i can’t believe that I am in Hades! Hades, the world of the dead, (Prior to the final transfer to Hell or Paradise, on the Day of the Judgement.)

I can’t believe that I am now in that world. Am I dreaming? Am I in the world of dreams? Or am I in the world of reality? It is most likely that I am in the world of reality. The conviction takes over me in the form of a whim and I sit up and remain so for sometime and then I get up.

My right palm, in the form of my fate lines, always contained my future and my left my past. I always flowed like a river in the present by reading those lines of my future and my past.

But today when I tried to read the right hand lines I couldn’t see any thing except a blur, a foggy in-distinction. I looked at the left and here too I was confronted by smoky air pollution. Helplessly when I tried to have an over view of my present I found all the fog of my future and all the smoke of my past engulfing me and dancing around me. And in that tragic hour I couldn’t even recall and say those prayers that were taught by my mother in my childhood. But I didn’t get disheartened. The dance of the smoke began slowing down and a ray of light emerged and started getting brighter and brighter.

“Alam Tara Kaifa Fa’ala Rabboka Bi Ashaa-Bil Feel…!” (A Quranic Verse)[Didn’t you see what God did with the people of Elephants]The fog started getting disbursed and the smoke began thinning. I recalled the tragic fate of the people of Elephants, as depicted in the holy Quran, They were so destroyed that their bodies looked like Chewed husk.I looked at the aftermath of the nuclear destruction and began envying the fate of the people of elephants as against this terrible fall out. They only looked like chewed husk. The nuclear-world-war has ended and I don’t know how and why I remained alive. The darkness of the horrific war is all around me. I need light to get out of this darkness. And the power, that had saved me from getting burnt to cinders, suddenly began endowing me with light. The light that had initially emerged as a ray had now transformed into a halo and seemed to be dawning upon me step by step.

“You don’t know ‘Hatam’ (the Atom). It is in fact an enormously built up fire by Allah (God) that would cinch hearts from within and cause blubbering!”

"An unimaginable misfortune is going to befall this world and you don’t know O addressee what kind of a misfortune it would be! This great misfortune would scatter people all over like dead moths and the mountains would become carded wool.”

"The earth would be shaken so that it would disgorge all its hidden contents and the people would wonder as to what had happened to the Earth!"

I recall that I was staying in a hilly terrain when the nuclear war had begun without notice and at its end I hadn’t been able to find an intact mountain. I had myself tried out as to what had happened to the earth and had thus involuntarily testified to the divine foreboding.

I can now recall that the two so-called-powers had fought over the oil-rich middle East, the bone of contention. They fought presumptuously under the banners of their cardinal virtues. But what eventually happened? I don’t know exactly but the light has begun dawning upon me step by step, ray after ray. The halo has its own diction.

“There will be a day, God says, addressing the fire of His wrath and solemnity, when the land of Israel will quake and the denizens of land, water and air will shudder with fright before me. It will storm with hail, fire and sulfur and thus I will make the heathen nations acknowledge my supremacy!”

"The Doom’s Day of its kind shall take place and the rulers will wage war against each other and a worldwide chaos and destruction will take place. And the center of all this upheaval and bloodshed will be Syria!”

"O Europe, Asia and the inhabitants of the islands, you too are not safe and n false god is going to save you. I can see the cities burning and the localities getting deserted."

I acknowledge the greatness and the holiness of God with all humility and I acknowledge my humility with utmost humbleness. The rays from the halo are spreading on my body but they are not reaching my heart. Perhaps that is why I have been able only to read about my past. Either the language of the future has changed or I have lost my ability to read it.

As the nuclear war has annihilated the progeny of Adam, except me perhaps, it is now my bounden duty to keep his race growing on this earth. Perhaps I am the Adam of the new era! I keep thinking, yes I am the Adam of this New World. But what should I do about the Eve?In the name and in praise of God I begin my quest of the new Eve. I witness the heart wrenching scenes of destruction on my way. The halo of light is with me and it is still shedding its rays on my being one after another. My clueless journey, in the quest of my Eve lacks a fixed course but continues. I come across a place where, it seemed, a cluster of bombs had been dropped over at one go. I get terrified and try to hide from the scene by closing my eyes but at the very moment the showering rays from the halo open them.

"Didn’t they walk the earth and witness the shameful end of their predecessors who were more powerful and more in number than they were. Their fine arts and the art of architecture far surpassed than their own. But the attributes of their predecessors didn’t help them because when the prophets of their time revealed themselves with their telling signs they ignored them and took pride in their little knowledge. They tried to laugh away the foreboding of their Prophets regarding the impending disasters and my wrath but the fate overtook them. But when they saw my wrath manifest they cried out that they never denied the oneness of Allah and always rejected polytheism. But it was too late because my wrath had already begun manifesting itself and this is my Modus Operandi that never changes and this is what my creatures have been witnessing since the Day One!”

I, hence, solemnly decide that the offspring of me, the new Adam, shall be trained strictly by the Book under my own supervision and my progeny will never be prone to the deceitful trick of Satan. The thought of training the offspring again started motivating me to look for a life partner. Nights and days have lost their meaning in my eyes because the halo of light is the only thing that helps me differentiate between darkness and brilliance. Whenever I feel tired I stop, rest, nap or doze. I try to keep clear of such terrible scenes of mayhem either due to their scariness or because of an inner urge to look for a life partner.When I come out of that area of catastrophe, I, for the first time in many days of travel and wandering, remember that I hadn’t eaten or drunk for that many days. The thought of hunger can’t simply be wished away. It started making me feel drained and exhausted, I even felt my soul dragging.I walk but the act seems laborious and in acknowledgement of God’s greatness and total might I begin to chant his praises. The halo of light above me suddenly sends a very bright ray upon me and I again start feeling panicky.

“Doesn’t Man know that I had created him from an insignificant drop!”

“And he, forgetting his lowliness becomes warring and egotist and starts talking loosely about me and my being…!”

I bend my knees before his majesty. I am unable to recall any prayer but my eyes begin to shed the beads of tears one after another as if a rosary of tears had snapped. These tears are the silent acknowledgement of my helplessness and God’s omnipotence. I remain prone in supplication before God for long and when I feel my heart a little lighter then I get up. The desire for food has died down considerably. I set out on my journey again and after walking for sometime I spot some greenery. I head towards that patch promptly.It is like an oasis. There are fields green with heaps of fresh harvest and there is a beautiful well kept garden at the center of which there is a wonderful spring of water. I don’t feel tired any longer but hunger has again returned. By seeing fish in the pool of the spring water I stop short. I wonder how this came to happen after such a great calamity thanks to which all the greenery had vanished or become poisonous and due to which all the living beings had to face extinction.The halo of light is still showering its rays on me, I am in two minds. If I eat the fruit that hang from the branches I could get poisoned and die. If I don’t then again due to the hunger and weakness I would have to die. I decide to eat. It is better to die on a full stomach than on an empty one! I have begun to engorge the fruit as much as I can. I don’t know how much I have gobbled up. I come to my senses only when I drink the poisonous spring-water to my fill. Now I am waiting for my death contentedly.But strangely I am feeling rejuvenated and vigorous. The halo of light too has begun showering more and more rays on me.

“He sends rains from above when we find ourselves at the tether end of our patience. He thus showers us with his mercy!”

“Come back to your God O sedated soul, heralding your return as an event of a destined meet of two admirers!”

I fall prone again before God. I now realize that the radio active elements that had invaded my body are now working as antidotes to the poison that had reached my stomach through fruit and water. They are now standing surety for my life and survival. And perhaps this is the reason why I successfully came out of those worst hit areas and why I am feeling strong and vigorous despite walking hundreds of miles non stop.

“And how many boons of God would you (dare to) ignore?"

I am now at rest regarding my food problem. I think of the two so-called superpowers and their pitiable end. Both were at times jumps ahead of each other in cunning and deceit. The halo of light descends closer to me and begins to alight upon me ray after ray. And suddenly I feel it fully resting on my being.“A great flame of fire shall be directed against you and the copper too shall be dropped from above upon you two on which you two will have no control. And now tell me how many boons of God would you (dare to) ignore…?” The halo of light goes back to its earlier place and begins to shower ray after ray upon me again, and I am now convinced of the total destruction of the two great powers.

The thought of questing for the life partner again alerts me and I again set out on my journey to find her with a zest and sense of sacred responsibility.I find a city intact not far from the oasis but the death ruled there too. The shops are open but the people are lying on the ground dead. Some seemed to be resting against walls and some shop owners looked sleeping with heads resting on the counters. But they were all very much dead. I recall a story I had heard in my childhood in which a prince enters a city and finds everybody petrified. I feel I am that prince. But the prince of the story could revive everybody by dispelling the magic of the magician. This case is quite different because it is a catastrophic consequence of a man working diabolically against another man.Like a tired and disappointed prince I half-heartedly enter a departmental store but suddenly step back in panic. There was disheveled and wretched man standing. But I stop stepping back, when I realize that it was I in a man-sized mirror.Is it.. is it me..! I refuse to acknowledge that but the reality makes itself felt and for the first time I become aware of my nakedness. And at that very moment another disheveled and wretched image appears in the mirror. It was a woman’s image. I turn hurriedly. Her face, despite its decomposed and panic-stricken features, tells me that she is a Westerner. Her eyes too are full of wonder and inquisitiveness. She is looking at me as if she is trying to identify me. She could be, perhaps, looking for her father, her brother and her son!

Suddenly her eyes brighten up as if she had finally succeeded in recognizing me and then running towards me she hugs me tightly and begins to cry. I don’t know in what capacity she is hugging me. As my daughter, my sister, my mother or someone else, but I am fully satisfied now that the progeny of Adam shall not cease to exist. The lines of my past and future are standing on my both sides respectfully and my naked present is hugging my naked body and washing away all the hatred and jealousies of the East and the West by its tears.The halo of light suddenly descends upon both of us and seeping through our bodies begins to enlighten our souls. And a very beautiful voice rises from within us.

“Now tell me how many boons of God would you (dare to) ignore?”

* * * * *

Short Story: The Sightless Light

2007-03-09T02:26:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

THE SIGHTLESS LIGHT

For how long this sightless light will prevail

And for how long O Haider
The torments of darkness
Are to be endured!

the glare of light has blinded me for a moment. There is a flood of light everywhere. The life-size mirrors that are hung on the walls are enhancing the intensity of the glare. As if scared I hold her hand tightly. I start feeling like a blind man in that moment. Have I really become blind? I know my eyesight is quite O.K. but it is natural to feel blind if your sight is failing you. Still I wonder why I am feeling it so forcefully.

She has pulled a chair and sat down. She is also urging me to sit. I can see my chair but the sense of blindness still lingers. I have sat down on my chair and looking at everything wide eyed. A sudden blare of music has sounded. And though it is in no way pleasing, the hall has responded to it energetically.

She looks at me and then rising, nearly drags me along to the center of the hall. There are other pairs too dancing to the tune of music. I am also dancing now but I am dancing to her tune. But am I really dancing? I think I am still sitting on my chair, holding its hand-rests tightly. I thing if I leave them I will fly. Or I will go and disappear in a crowd. Perhaps I am an inhabitant of darkness and perhaps that is the reason I am dipping into this flood of light. I have lost my wits and I am feeling suffocated. My chair too is taking dips into the flood of light along with me as if to show that it was incapable of saving me from getting drowned. A cluster of circles, semicircles and parabolas of light is dancing around me. The music is at the peak of its crescendo. The dance of light has become maddening but my blindness too has increased. I feel as if I am running in a dark alley and all the evil spirits are in my pursuit. I suddenly stumble over something.

“Please be careful and don’t make me a laughing stock!” Her voice has startled me and I am back again in the hall from that dark alley and now I am dancing very carefully. But to be realistic I am still sitting on my chair. Then who is her dance partner? To be realistic again he is I! The ‘I’ sitting on the chair has stood up. He is calling me! “Come back, come back and don’t repeat the story of the forbidden tree. You were expelled from the paradise and exiled to the Earth. There wouldn’t be any place to exile you again. Leave that eve and come back!” Involuntarily I step in the direction of the ‘I’ on the chair. The ‘I’ on the chair has stood up again. We embrace each other and he disappears in me and becomes one. The jarring note of music continues with the dance. She must have found a new dance partner by now, I think and glance in her direction on the dance floor. But she is not there. She is sitting in front of me. She looks irritated but helpless.

I was expelled from the paradise due to you and now I don’t intend to be expelled from the earth!” I say.

“Due to me…?” Her eyes are full of surprise.

“You were responsible for enticing me to the Forbidden Tree!”

“Me!”

“Yes, and the Tree was responsible for the expulsion!”

“The Forbidden Tree, you mean wheat…?”

“Yes, wheat perhaps!”

“Does wheat sprout on trees?”

Neither I know Arabic nor I claim to be a commentator of the Holy Book. It might have been sprouting on trees in Paradise!

“You are afraid of light. That’s what you are!” Her tone is acerbic.

“Your ridicules as this had prompted me to sin!”

“I hadn’t fed you wheat!” She nearly shouts.

“I don’t want to go into it.”

“Then why did you level this allegation against me?”

“Because I don’t want to be deceived again.”

“You are talking of deception and you fully well know that you can’t live without a woman.” She is fulminating now.

“Man is a symbol of lewdness and voluptuary. He always cares for himself and always holds woman responsible for his sins and short comings!”

“But wheat…!”

“Listen to me”, she shouts. “Pay heed to the appearance of wheat and pay heed to your weakness for the thing the grain ofwheat resembles and without which you can’t live. A lot of renowned and confirmed bachelors fell for it one day or the other.”

“Don’t bare yourself by your obscenity.”

“A bare truth is a bare truth and that is why it sometimes looks obscene.” The sharp edge of her sarcastic tone is laced withpoison. I again feel the sense of blindness seep into me.

“Why don’t you speak O inhabitant of darkness!” She is still taunting. All the lights have suddenly gone and I feel as if my sight is restored and that I can see now. She has edged closer to me in darkness. “Let the magic of the artificial light, whose inhabitant you are, fade and then see what happens.” I want to say this to her but cannot because the lights are back and with them my blindness. Now a stranger has joined us at our table. But his strangeness is not that overpowering. It is rather familiar and generating intimacy. “May I help you reach a logical conclusion in your unending debate.” His tone is sincere.

“The topic of our discussion is wheat that is responsible for our exile from Paradise.” I clarify.

“Are you sure that wheat was the cause of your expulsion!”

“I think it was!” I say and try to recall more clearly.

“Our scholars too interpret it that way or comment on it as they were told to!” She too supports my clarification.

“Instead of what, I think, you ate its husk!”

We laugh idiotically on his gaffe. “Try to remember…!” He continues. “The wheat you ate, was it red by any chance?” He too laughs aloud and disappears along with the fading sound of his laugh. We find ourselves woken up from a deep slumber.

“Do you know what red wheat means?” I ask her.

“Oh, yes, yes, now I know. He perhaps meant American wheat!”

“The bastard sounded a Commy!”

“I too think so.”

* * * * *

All the morning newspapers have heralded this news to the nation today that in apprehension of an imminent draught the government has signed a deal with a friendly state to procure thousands of metric tons of wheat on a long term debt repayment basis.

The ‘I’ in me has died before the rising of the sun!

* * * * *

I have again come to see my eve. Again there are the same lights and again there is the same music and dance. But my chair is lying vacant. These lights have started agreeing with my mood now and my blindness has disappeared.

I am not dancing now on her bidding. Instead I am making her dance on mine. But what is this? The dead body of ‘I’ in my being is clearly reflected in the life-sized mirror hanging on the wall. It is not shrouded and staring at me! Afraid, I turn my face the other side and there too I find the fearful sight in the mirror and a lot of dead bodies are scattered in that frame. They all are of ‘I’ that lived within me. I have begun thinking again.

‘If only my blindness could return’.

The music is at its rise.

Our dance too is gathering its momentum.

But the land from beneath of our feet has slid. We are now land-less and unearthly. We are dancing over our corpses. The lights have become brighter. The music has become louder and the dance faster. Faster and faster and faster!

Lights, music and dance.

The dance of the land-less over their own corpses!

* * * * *

Short Story: The Maternal Love

2007-03-09T02:11:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

THE MATERNAL LOVE

All this light emanates
From my mother’s face;
Where can you find this earthen radiance?
In the sun and the moon!

I am standing on the lawn watching the plane take off. My mother is bound for Switzerland by this plane to spend the summer there. Daddy has gone to the airport to see her off. Zabie and Rubie too are going with Mummy. The plane is out of the focus now. I re-enter the mansion feeling tired and flop on a sofa in the drawing room. I suddenly see a beautiful plane flying in the mirror. I look more closely. My God! The soul of my mother is flying by this plane. Am I…. Am I dreaming? Mummy….! I suddenly call out. ‘You had never boarded a plane all your life, then why this journey by a plane after death? But there is silence in reply.I leave the drawing room and now I am in the Dadder sanitarium. Mummy is being given many injections. All her sons and her daughter, i.e., me, are standing around her bed and daddy…. no not daddy, I mean to say Abbu (the word daddy seems to agree only with the word Mummy and the word Abbu only with Ammy) too is also there with anguish writ large over his face. I want to suddenly hug and comfort him. But I restrain myself. I never could ask for anything directly to him, I was so overawed by his towering personality. Whenever I had to ask for anything I did it via Ammy or through a hand-written chit. How could I venture now? Flustered I look back at Ammy. When our eyes meet, her dull eyes make my eyes glow with light.I am back in my drawing room from the sanitarium. That beautiful plane is not flying in the mirror now. Abbu… no not Abbu… Daddy is also back from the airport.
I have not yet written to Ritu’s Abbu regarding our safe arrival in Lahore. I sit down and start writing the letter.Zabie’s letter from Switzerland has arrived. They are enjoying their summer vacation there immensely. Mummy too has sent her love in lots. Daddy is also planning to join them for a week now. He has left, and my Abbu has taken his place. Let’s go daughter, your Ammy must be waiting for you. I look at the Dadder valley with all its loveliness and the river Sarran with its clear blue aqua-pura… no scenic beauty of Switzerland’s valley can surpass it. But Abbu, unmindful of all this, is hurrying towards the sanitarium, holding my hand tightly. I stumble over the way a couple of times but Abbu’s grip is strong. We enter Ammy’s word. All my siblings are there except Zabie. ‘Where is Zabie?’ I want to say ‘Zabie has gone to Switzerland’ but I can’t because Zabie, being the youngest, suddenly appears from behind looming large. I feel suffocated when I look at the oxygen cylinder lying near Ammy’s bed. Abbu goes out with the doctor and I am again back in Daddy’s drawing room.
Here rRitu’s Abbu is waiting for me.‘Where have all the people gone?’
Mummy, Zabie and Rubie have gone to Switzerland for two months and Daddy for a week.
‘Why didn’t they take you along!’ His tone is a bit acerbic,
firstly because Switzerland is not a satellite town of Lahore, secondly because somebody had to be behind here!
‘Shit!” had your real mother been alive, would she have gone on a pleasure trip leaving you behind like this?’
‘Please you do not provoke me against my Mummy. She is a very good lady. She always cares about us. It is like sowing a seed of hatred about her in my heart.’
‘I am only saying this to make you wiser!’
‘Man always misleads a woman and then conveniently holds her responsible for all his errors and the poor woman – she, due to her naivete, pleads guilty even of the sins she didn’t commit. The history is witness to this replication since Adam and Eve till this day.’ The heat of the moment would have carried me away further but the sound of a pen falling startles me. I pick it up again and begin to write a letter to Ritu’s Abbu. But a look at the just-begun letter startles me again. What exactly had I been scribbling? ‘Abbu – Abbu – Ammy – Abbu – daddy – Ammy – Mummy – Daddy -!’Embarrassed, I begin to write afresh.Daddy is back from Switzerland after spending a week there, and I have made up my mind to ask him point blank why at first he remained my Abbu for a long time even after the death of my Ammy and then became a Daddy after marrying Mummy? Why can’t he be my Abbu again? But I also know that I, who hadn’t ever spoken so boldly to Abbu, would never ever speak in this fashion to Daddy. Perhaps only Ammy could answer my questions! And again I am bound for the sanitarium. Abbu is still consulting the doctor. I enter Ammy’s ward. Ammy is now sitting. She is just a skeleton. I envision Mahatma Budh. My inquisitive eyes meet hers. Ammy is weaving her fingers into my brother’s hair. My brother’s eyes are watery. She is now patting Razia’s head. Razia too has become weepy. It is now Zabie’s turn, but Zabie’s eyes are full of an emotion of wonderment. Lastly Ammy beckons me, caresses my head and fondles me lovingly. I find a couple of tears sparkling in her sunken eyes, they look like embers smoldering under the ash.Ammy-!
‘I give myself up to her. I feel the ashes charging. What could it be other than the maternal warmth! I wonder. Abbu is through with his consultation.Your Ammy is now O.K. She is to be taken home dears.Ammy is O.K.!Ammy is O.K.!
I have heard about a lot of miracles. Is it also one?A special wagon has been ordered to shift her. She is made to lie on a couch in the wagon. I rest her head in my lap. All the rest too board the wagon that is now meandering through the steep hilly terrain of Dadder scaling its highs and touching its lows. We get severely jolted once and I suppress my cries and limit them to whimpers. The hope for miracles has died out. I straighten the limp neck of my mother.‘Your Mummy has sent these presents for you’. Daddy gives two beautiful packets to me. Ritu has woken up. I prepare milk for him. After giving him milk I unwrap the packets. One consists of valuable garments for me and for other siblings. The other is full of toys for the children. Among the toys there was a surprise. A toy plane. A plane exactly like the plane I had seen flying in the mirror with my Ammy in it, or her soul rather. I become speechless.
I again sit on the sofa in the position from which I had spotted the plane flying in the mirror. But there is nothing now. I stand upright before the mirror. My God! There is my Ammy instead of me smiling through the mirror. Not a consumptive and weak Ammy, but a young, healthy and beautiful Ammy an Ammy of the age when I was only six. I again want to be six years old, a naughty, mischievous six-year old. I again want to be scolded and beaten on my girlish vehemence. I also recall that I was six when I had completed the full recitation of the holy Quran. My mother had held her head high that day pointing out my tender age as against the accomplishment. The day of my saying ‘Amen!’ (to denote the completion of the recitation) was a day of kisses and hugging by my mother. She even recited some holy verses and blew them over my face to ward off an evil eye. Ammy used to call Abbu ‘Baauji’. I, too, had once called Ritu’s Father ‘Baauji’ but I had then broken down and started crying. How much water has flowed down the bridge since then. A very weak and emaciated image of Ammy is now peeping through the mirror. But this image too is smiling.‘Ammy you stood by Abbu solidly through his thick and thin but why have you backed off in his happy days?’My Ammy smiles weakly. ‘It has to do with my fate daughter!’‘Ammy, if you call it fate then what is tyranny on oneself?’‘Nobody’s writ runs against fate my tiny tot!’ she replies in a tired voice.‘I’ll blind the eyes of such a frightful fate!’ I cry out and feeling too tired and worn off myself I fall limply on a couch. Ammy comes out from the mirror, caresses me and kissing me on my forehead goes back to her mirrored niche. I turn over on the couch. I can still feel the warmth of her kiss on my forehead alive. Ritu is playing with the toys, sent by Mummy, on the floor. He is particularly interested in the toy-plane she has sent. The sounds of Rufi and Nuzhi, my other children, playing carom in the adjoining room are obvious. I sit up when Daddy enters my room and talk about the future plans of Ritu’s father. He exits after some time. I can still feel the warmth of my Ammy’s kiss on my forehead. I set out for the cemetery, where my Ammy is resting, to call on her.
I look for Abbu here and there when I reach her burial ground, presuming that Abbu has to be there as an attendant at Ammy’s shrine. I call out. ‘Abbu – Abbu!’
the sound of my crying dashes against the surrounding hills and rebounds Abbu-u-u- Abbuuun!
I shout again. And again the echo reverberates. ‘Abbu please hold me I am falling!’“Abbu pleaeeese-!’
it looks I am no longer shouting for my Abbu. Instead it looks I am hitting my head against the hills. It looks I am bent on breaking those hills to smithereens by hitting my head against them.Abbu-Abbu-Abbuuu-Abbuuuu-! I am now broken into pieces myself and the hills are standing unfazed as ever. Ammy you are right, you are right saying that nobody’s writ runs against the fate. Ammy, Abbu, I am all broken and scattered.
Suddenly I feel that somebody is collecting my pieces and setting them again in order. He has again set me as ME and now he is carrying me in his powerful arms out of the cemetery. I think my ‘Abbu’ has arrived and he is the one who is carrying me. I open my eyes and look at him. My goodness! He is not Abbu. He is Ritu’s father.
I am suffering from high fever. Daddy had to attend an important official meeting, so he has left. I am lying in my bed in a semi conscious position. I don’t know if it is delirium or what but I find my Mummy sitting at the head of my bedstead. She has my head in her lap and is pressing it very lovingly. I am feeling quite embarrassed over my way of thinking. I am trying to collect my words to say something, to recompense love for hatred.
I say; Mummy--you are- Mummy – a good one-! ‘But I miserably fail in my effort.
A couple of hot tears fall on my face (Mummy is weeping too). I have succeeded in collecting my senses.I don’t wish to open my eyes fully because I know my tiny tot Nuzhi is sitting at my head and not my Mummy.
I still try to be coherent.
‘Mymmy-my good Mummy – Please forgive me -!’

*****

Short Story: The Enlightenment

2007-03-09T01:29:00.000-08:00

By : Haider Qureshi

The Enlightenment

The tides of the History Turn;
When ascetics, in their Fancy, Speak!

THE LUNATIC FELL SILENT AND LOOKED AT THE AUDIENCE THEY. TOO, WERE SILENT AND GAZED AT HIM in AMAZEMENT. THEN THE LUNATIC DASHED THE LAMP AGAINST THE FLOOR and it BROKE INTO PIECES AND ITS FLaMe DIED. THE LUNATIC DECLARED, ‘I AM BORN FAR AHEAD OF THE TIME, I BELONG TO THE FUTURE. THIS DREADFUL INCIDENT iS STILL IN THE PROCESS OF COVERING THE DISTANCES!
(an extract from one of Neitze’s similes)

When I try to enlighten the people, with a clay-lamp in my hand, which itself is a proof of the rising suns in my eyes, they look at me as if I am joking. Some laugh at me and some simply look at me without understanding and pass by.
The proof of the rising suns in my eyes, the clay lamp, is still in my hand. But nobody is inclined to believe me. I, myself become skeptical. Am I born one thousand and six hundred years ahead of my time. These people look that many years behind. They will never understand me. Then I go to my mother on a cue. I tell her that the future is all lit and that the clay lamp in my hand is proof of the rising suns in my eyes. She looks at me with anguish and reciting some holy verses under her breath she blows them over my face. My younger sister looks at me, scared, and tucks herself in the mother’s side. Smiling on the plainness of my mother and the innocence of my sister I go to Mubarakah and tell her that I have been appointed by God to convey the good tidings of a radiant future, and the clay lamp is the proof of the rising suns in my eyes. But ignoring my declarations she starts updating me regarding the bills of the shop-keepers and the children’s fees. Disappointed I go to Iffat and when I tell her everything seriously and insist that the light would emanate from the rising suns in my eyes she comes closer and touching the clay lamp in my hand says, ‘are you in the mood of writing a story?’ I assure her that whatever I am saying is the truth she exhorts me to write a story a story on the subject.
I am now fully convinced that I am born one thousand six hundred years ahead of my time. It had happened once in the past too. I had found then that I was born fifty years ahead of my time and when I died and was born after fifty years I had discovered that I was then one hundred years ahead of my time. And when I was born after one hundred years it tuned out that I was two hundred years ahead. And after two hundred years it was four hundred and after four hundred it was eight hundred and after eight hundred it is now the case of one thousand and six hundred years.
I, who am the tiding of the radiant future, am getting distanced from this world. I wonder about that zero duration in which all the spans of the centuries and the ages would get shrunk and my birth would not be construed as ahead or prior to my time. The- Zero-Duration in which man would never sacrifice himself for the Fire in the process of negating the Light. I would have to wait for that period.
The period of one thousand and six hundred years would perhaps double and keep doubling ever converting that gap into millennia. I don’t know when it would happen on time and when the rising suns is my eyes would just be a stone’s throw away from above our heads. Then nobody would dare to negate my claim.
I, then, come to the square of the city, along with the burden of the past and the present ages on my soul, and declare: “By not believing in me O folk you have denied yourselves a great enlightenment!” Even before my declaration is complete people begin deriding me over my foolishness. Their insults and epithets target me from all around. I try to take them in my stride with equanimity. When people get tired of the decision I, without completing my earlier announcement, ominously warn, look O people, devoid of the luminous insight, you have slighted the radiance and the light. Only those of you, who would take shelter behind my house, would be spared. I am one thousand six hundred years of my time, though, but an inferno is your fate. Saying this I dash my lamp against the center of the square and start hurrying towards my house. The derisive laughs of the people chase me. The same derisive laughs suddenly turn into cries of pain and agony even before I reach home. The clay lamp that I had dashed against the square had caused a widespread fire. It engulfs the city in a jiffy. The rising and leaping flames from all around and the cries and shouts of the anguished people cause a terrible chaos. I go and sit in my room. My mother looks at me in surprise and then again at the leaping flames. My younger sister is still with my mother, still tucking herself into her side. She suddenly pulls my mother into my room and sitting her sits beside her.
Mubarakah and Iffat too come into the room. They are both puzzled. After a pregnant silence, Mubarakah ventures; ‘there are a lot of people outside to allegiate their loyalty to you.’
It doesn’t matter now. Those who are in the shelter of my house and its walls would however be safe. I can’t accept their allegiance now. I will now come after three thousand two hundred years and then again after six thousand and four hundred years and likewise. Mubarakah’s and Iffat’s faces reflect fright along with their faith. My younger sister gets closer to her mother. My mother tries to envision through her blank eyes the moment when she had given me birth and I begin to wait for that zero duration when the rising suns in my eyes would come down to a stone’s throw and become the proof of their own being. And when I would not have to carry a clay lamp to pontify my claim.

* * *

My mother and my younger sister are sitting in front of me on a bench. Mubarakah, checking my pulse, says “Iffat had come to inquire after you, you were asleep then. She would come again after a while.” I then begin to wonder for what zero duration I was waiting!

* * *

Short Story: A Heathen Story

2007-03-09T01:24:00.000-08:00

By : Haider Qureshi

A Heathen Story

The saints, Sadhus and mendicants
Should set out in your quest so;
That they should themselves transform into;
The way, The journey and The destination.

How distressing and tormenting it is. Whenever I offer Namaz (Prayers) and whenever I bend and bow, it looks O.K. but whenever I supplicate in acknowledgement of His greatness a stengun-toting evil faced person with his angular features and fiery eyes comes and plants himself before me. When I try to reach God in supplication he says, ‘well, I won’t allow you to reach God!’ A hedonistic thought creeps into my mind. Has God himself become incapable of dealing with this evil before me!’ I recover myself from supplication. I recall a parable in which Saint Abraham Adham reached Mecca, supplicating on every step and thus spending fourteen years, to offer prayers at the Ka’aba. But he didn’t find it in its place. A voice in the form of a divine inspiration told him. ‘The Ka’aba has gone to welcome an old lady who was coming to it to offer prayers!’
‘Who is She!’ He cried out. And he saw saint Raabiah Basari coming, leaning on her staff and the Ka’aba too was back its place. (1)
But the case is quite different with me. Whenever I supplicate before God in Namaz the same sten-gun toting evil faced person with his angular features and fiery eyes appears and I begin to run backwards to the forest and the trail goes through me. And on my way to the forest I meet an elderly person with a long and flowing beard. I tell him my problem and an angelic smile animates his face. He says ‘Look, I prayed for a hundred years and yet I considered myself a woman in menses!’ (2)
‘Am I to consider myself the same ?’ I ask and the elderly person smiles again.
And when I ask him who he is, his answer startles me.
Subhani Ma Azam-e-Saani, he reveals. (3)
Could he be the venerated saint Baayazid Busthami, I wonder and to confirm I fire four questions consecutively. Tell me what the sky is?
‘It is me!’
‘The pen and the paper?’
‘Me!’
Abraham, Moses and Mohammed (may peace be upon them), are they the servants of God?
‘Me!’
Can we the slaves of God liken ourselves to Gabriel, Michael and Ezraphael.
‘Me!’
I fall silent.
Then he says; ‘when one becomes one with the truth and as truth is what there is, then why wonder about being one or everyone!’ (4)
Thus convinced about his being the venerated saint Baayazid Busthami I take his hand and kiss it and say: ‘All those that are because of Mohammed shall assemble under the shade of his umbrella on the day of the reckoning?
He replies: ‘Mohammed (may peace be upon him) is beyond such things. All those that are because of him shall be under the shade of my umbrella!’ (5)
I hug him out of reverence and beseech him to pray for my deliverance but he suddenly disappears. I, too, find myself vanish and someone else take my place. I don’t know who he is but I am sure it is not me by all means. And whomsoever it might be I am now in the quest of knowing who I am!
I, then suddenly, find myself surpassing everybody except God and when He beckons me I find the fact further confirmed and I also realize that I am now devoid of the pleasure of reciting LABBAIK ALLAHUMA LABBAIK (here I am, O God, here I am at your service !). When I begin to count beads of the rosary and circumambulate the Ka’aba to celebrate the unity of the Creator, the Ka’aba sets it’s sight on me and makes me its cynosure. And when angles sing my praises a dazzling light appears. It was God Himself and when I go up to Him I suddenly feel dispossessed! (6)
I also see that sometimes I am his Abul Hassan (father of Hassan, i.e., Hazrath Kharaquani) and sometimes I feel he himself is Abul Hassan. It leads me to believe that when I am a nonentity I am an entity to that effect. (7)
Suddenly somebody in a shroud descends from above and declares by hitting the ground hard with his right leg.
‘I am the Junaid of the Time!’
‘I am the Shiblie of the Time!’
‘I am the Ba-Yazid of the time!’ I too join the chorus singing ‘I am the God of the Time!’ and I am the Mohammed Mustafa of the time!’ (8)
People gather around me. All of them are yearning for deliverance. I order them. ‘Go to that or that grave yard and get buried. The deliverance shall be yours.’
‘How could it be done?’ A man seeking deliverance expresses his doubt.
You don’t know what the Prophet Mohammed (mpbuh) had once said. He had said that some of the graveyards would be held from four comers and shed into the paradise without reckoning. One of them is Baquee! (9)
The deliverance seeker replies in anger, ‘he is a heathen, stone him to death.’ Another says, ‘he calls himself Bayazid !’ yet another says, ‘he poses as Abul Hassan Kharaquani !’ All the seekers of deliverance bend and pick up stones to hit me with them and thus attain deliverance. I find myself buried under those stones and discover that I, Bayazid and Owais-e-Quarani were covered under the same shroud. (10)
Then I come out of myself and now I know who I am and begin to feel the graces of those revered personalities with whom they thought I likened myself.
Now, when I fall in supplication in Namaz and when the same sten-gun toting evil faced person with his angular features and fiery eyes appears before me and says under the intoxication of his own power ‘I’ll never allow you to reach God !’ I smile over his stupidity. God has himself reached me! But why this bloody fellow is still there with his sten-gun ? I don’t know whom I have possed this question.
To myself or to God!
But I am still waiting for a final, convincing and practical reply!

*****

Note : References from 1 to 10 are based on the Book “Tazkirathul Auliyah” Compiled by Hazrath Shaik Fareeduddin Attar (r.a.). Urdu translation Published by Manzil-e-Naqushbandiya, Lahore in 1925 (a.d)

******

Short Story: I (eye) Witness

2007-03-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

By : Haider Qureshi

I (eye) Witness!

The Blackness of the Sins I didn’t commit;
Has to be sought to pen my white deeds!

My mother had woken me up that day too as usual, but her tone was not as usual. In the light of the morning stars I detected some anguish in her eyes. She was looking at the eastern horizon, which too didn’t look the usual red. It looked as if it had bathed in blood.
The whole city looked scared that day and people seemed to be engrossed in the newspapers. The headlines were as usual :
Twenty dead and thirty injured in road accident.
‘They kept raping me for twenty days’, the kidnapped girl deposes.
‘A jilted youth kills his paramour’.
Family dispute leads to murder. Father, brother and his wife killed.
The news, though usual, looked unusual that day. It looked as if every news had something to do with the blood-red-horizon.
A lot of hornets too had swarmed the city that day. Earlier the buzzing bees usually swarmed the city. I was in my pajamas and vest due to the intense heat. Going through the daily post I found a letter from a very intimate friend of the past. As soon as I went through her letter I felt a sudden stinging and burning sensation in my chest. A hornet had stung me there. When I went to my mother in that condition she touched the stung spot on my chest with an iron article and mumbled something under her breath. I felt an immediate relief in pain. I don’t know yet why it so happened. Was it due to her incantations of some choicest prayers or was it due to her as a mother! Or was it due to both.
The horizon turned crimson at dusk too the same day and the people who were already worried panicked again. All these events looked strange and abnormal only that day. The horizons turn crimson daily at dusk and at dawn. The hornets still swarm the streets often, murders, kidnapping, accidents and rapes do take place routinely but people don’t get panicked now. They have even taken the extraordinary redness of the horizons in their stride. My mother’s eyes, though, still reflect her anguish or it looks to me so I feel! It seems that she doesn’t want to worry me by her dark speculations. She often wakes up with a start during the nights and taking me as sound asleep she mumbles some holy verses under breath and blows them over my face to ward off the evils supposedly hovering over me. Once I even heard her confide her fears in my father. My father shared her worries regarding the blood-red horizons and said ominously. ‘God seems unhappy with us and it looks a great misfortune is about to befall’. Their mutual fright sometimes made me shudder. When the people had first found the extraordinary redness of the horizons alarming they were looking at it collectively and my parents too were apprehensive of a likely misfortune for the mankind. But later, when my mother started evil-proofing me during the nights. I began to view the development individually. And the redness too began to haunt me personally.

(2)

“At 2 a.m.- back door-O.K.!”
This disjointed but still meaningful sentence written on a chit sends me in a tizzy and the rising Silhouette of the beautiful girl in my mind begins to fill my whole being with fragrance. For long she had been in possession of all my senses. A very good girlfriend of mine had warned me against my growing intimacy with her. But as she had invited me today herself. I, with all my thoughts and imaginations, started feeling herded by lust. Under the pretext of not feeling well, I go to the drawing room and start pretending to be asleep.
It is 10.00 p.m. now and I turn over to the right side. I make the girl of my thoughts lie beside me. I start breathing hard and before climaxing I take her face in my hands to kiss her on her lips but the sight jolts me. I find myself holding the face of my daughter in my hands, my infant daughter who has suddenly grown up into a young girl and is lying beside me. I get scared and confused and leaving the drawing room I come out onto the street feeling suffocated.
After recovering to some extent I reenter the house. The sleepiness has now completely gone. I lie down again in the bed but this time I take a turn to the left, fearing the likely recurrence of the frightful happening. As soon as I lie down the same beautiful girl of my thoughts joins me. Though hesitatingly, I again start fondling and hugging her. We again become one in the process and I keep avoiding looking at her subconsciously, or rather consciously, This time it is she who has held my face into her hands and I reluctantly look back. I go through a shock again, but this time it is milder. The face I find myself looking at is of my wife. It is O.K. I console myself, ‘it doesn’t matter’. My wife has gone to her parents’ for a month. The absence of her being is being compensated perhaps this way, I think and hugs her tightly. But I go through a shock again. When I look at myself I find a stranger instead of me. This shock again sends me out of the house scared and nonplussed. I breathe deeply in the open and try to draw inferences from these strange happenings. Is the abnormal redness of the horizons in someway connected to the blood likely to gush as a result of deflowering that beauty. Who should be held responsible if it so happens.
My girl friend, a well wisher, had once said desperately. ‘You both are insincere. You don’t love each other. You are just deceiving each other for sexual pleasure and It could be termed as a fraud’. But to be truthful and factual I have seen a lot of good and sincere friends turn mean and base when it comes to profit. This, my girl friend, herself proved to be one such person. She did to me what this lovable girl with a rendezvous hasn’t yet done to me.

(3)

The classical stories of romance are full of nocturnal roaming of lovers in pursuit of their beloved but this was my first experience to slip out of the house secretly. The chances of getting caught in such a dark night are remote. I knock on her door slowly but a very bright light suddenly comes on in response and I start feeling spotlighted and viewed by everybody in that locality. It was like getting caught pants down. I look here and there in panic but there was nothing but darkness. Then where was this light coming from? Is it turned on in myself? Was it emanating from my inner self? Could this inner self be my pedigree?
She has opened the door and I enter without answering to my questions. There is only a cot and a chair in the room. Avoiding the chair I sit beside her on the couch. She leans against me and I pull her nearer by holding her through her waist. But the strange thing happens again during our necking. I suddenly find my wife and my daughter standing on my both sides. Both of them hold me by my hands and my girl friend, the well-wisher, appears in front of me, but her face is averted. With a rude jolt I move towards the door. Puzzled, the beautiful girl looks at me.
I return home and look at the clock. It was past three. As soon as I flop on the bed I fall asleep.
It is with some effort I open my eyes when my mother wakes me up as usual at the dawn. She looks distressed and worried. ‘The sky looks redder than before today’, she says in a husky voice. I come out in the open to confirm and when I do not find anything corresponding to her statement I stare at her in surprise.
‘There is nothing even remotely red. The sky is clear blue !’ I say.
Mother looks at me with concern and begins to mumble some verses of the Quran in an undertone. She then blows them on my face when I return to my room and look at my image in the mirror. I find my blood red eyes scary. It looks all the redness of the horizons has seeped into them. I feel I have succeeded in unrevealing the mystery of redness through my individual point of view. The hurt expressions of my mother tell me that she knows everything about my nocturnal jaunt but not wishing to shame me she is silent. When she goes out I get up to perform wudu (a cleansing of hands and feet before the prayers) to offer prayers. I spot a hornet sitting on a book and picking up another I hit it and crush it along with its sting. Then I think of my good friend, my well-wisher whose sudden intervention has hurt me.
It is likely that she too is ashamed of her behavior and it is possible that the shame may fill her eyes too with the redness. She too may not find the sky red in the evening today and she too may discover the secret behind the extra red appearance of the horizons and she too may kill a hornet along with its sting.
I wish to think about the young beauty and dwell on it for some time. I take a considered decision not to go through the newspaper today. Murders, kidnaps, abductions, rapes and accidents are a daily fare. I’ll rather go through the letter again which was written to me by my good friend and with whom I am unhappy. I’ll go through that letter again.
The same letter during whose perusal a hornet had stung me on my chest!.

*****

Short Story: A Journey Through Fog

2007-03-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

By :Haider Qureshi

A JOURNEY THROUGH FOG

When someone’s lie is held
As truth today;
Then my truth is automatically
Treated to the contrary!
OOO

‘Pull the chain to stop the train’.
‘A fine of rupees fifty will be charged for pulling the chain without any reason’. I read both, the instruction and the warning with wonder. I also wonder how a huge train running with such a speed could be stopped by pulling such a tiny chain.
Aapi is sitting on her seat and swinging her legs. Billo looks at the female co-travelers eating this and that; and turning to her mother says. ‘Mommy… heehaw… heehaw… heehaw…! Mother looks at her sternly but how could she understand her state. She was just two and a half-year. Mother has taken out some grub from her large sack and gives it to Billo and Aapi. Aapi brings to me my share.
Two years back when we were four and three years old our paternal uncle had come to stay with us. When he went out after sometime and did not return soon, we jointly decided that he had lost his way. We then planned to trace him and bring him back home. So we quietly slipped out. We went so far as the Bazaar nearby but then we started losing our own way. And when we did not either find the uncle or the way we stopped on the footpath and started crying.A shopkeeper who seemed to be a good Samaritan sat us at his shop and put a lot of sweets before us. We continued to cry and eat sweets unless our daddy and the uncle did appear looking for us. And then we forgot to even eat sweets in our happiness.
‘Do take your share brother, wont you’, Aapi’s irritated tone brings me out of my reverie.
‘Huh, ah’, I take my share and then show her the chain and the writing underneath. She too looks surprised and then runs away back to her mother leaving the impression behind that her presence there under the chain can cause it pulled and that would stop the train. Billo again looks at the women beside her who were still eating non-stop. She had grubbed her share. She again looks at her mother and begins her chant: ‘Mommy… heehaw… heehaw… heehaw…!’ Mother again dips her hand into her large sack. I look at those women. One of them stares back at me intently. I feel uncomfortable. She is very beautiful. Her glance makes me feel as if a lot of sunshine was poured over me. I begin turning into a youth. From five to ten, ten to fifteen, fifteen to twenty and from twenty to twenty-five year’s youth. But the scene of the compartment too has metamorphosed. It is now a compartment for men. It is overcrowded and crammed with people and luggage. I have no seat of mine. I am squatting on the floor and the floor too is so taken up that I can’t even shift my position. The train stops at a small station but a large number of people barge in. So many people from such a small station, I wonder. It might be a marriage convoy. The train moves again and the people begin to breathe easily. A passenger uses a four-letter word to address the ticket inspector and I feel startled beyond belief. A score of others too join him with their-own epithets. It then comes to light that they were all sitting on the floor of the first class compartment before getting dragged out and crammed here by the Ticket Inspector who after extracting rupees ten from each of them as fine didn’t even bother to give a receipt. The four-letter words gain currency and after getting attributed to a score of railway officials they start getting hurled at its chairman and its minister. Everyone starts airing his views. A one eyed bearded fogey sitting next to me calls a name even to the father of the nation, grinding his teeth, to show his disgust.
I feel stunned. Nobody admonishes him on his foul tongue and I feel we are all sinking into a quagmire and we are already down up to our necks. The five-year boy in me has stepped out of my being and is standing under the chain and looking at me for a signal. I give a dressing down to the one-eyed monster: ‘how the Father of the Nation stands guilty? Was it his sin to have fought for the freedom for you…?’ I continue to lecture him but the one-eyed bearded old fogey patiently hears all this out and then repeats the same unspeakable and unprintable four-letter word against the revered figure. With utmost disgust I signal the five-year boy standing under the chain to pull it. But suddenly his eyes meet with the eyes of that young and beautiful lady and he begins turning into a youth.
First he looks at the chain with wonder and then he looks at the beautiful lady with amazement. I myself step forward making my way to the chain and pull it. ‘I’ll get this rascal arrested. How dare he is to call the father of the nation such names in his own land. Bloody fellow’. I fume. The train has stopped. The Railway guard, the Ticket Inspector and some policemen have arrived. I tell them what kind of irreverence this bloody fool has shown against the Father of the Nation. But they look incapable of comprehending my outburst. The guard and the Ticket Inspector appear irritated and the Ticket Inspector thrusts a fine-receipt at me for pulling the chain for such a trivial thing. While paying the fine the same four-letter word comes shooting to the tip of my tongue but I restrain it from getting hurled at the guard and the Ticket Inspector. I don’t know why. Perhaps in deference to the father of the nation or for fear of those policemen accompanying the officials. But the reactionary forces within me have made me go through a metamorphosis again and I start getting reduced into a nonentity. The five-year old ME is again standing under the chain looking at it with wonder.
‘To stop the train, pull the chain!’
‘A penalty of Rs. 50/- will be levied for pulling the chain without any reason!’
Billo is saying ‘Mommy… heehaw… heehaw… heehaw…!’ Aapi is again fetching me my share but I intentionally avoid looking at Aapi because I know if I turn towards Aapi my next glance will automatically be at the beautiful young lady who is continuously staring at me intently. I close my eyes shut in fear and begin to read the lines with closed eyes:
To stop the train, pull the chain!’
A penalty of Rs. 50/- will be levied for pulling the chain without any reason!’.

oOoOoOo

Short Story: The Poor King

2007-03-09T00:57:00.000-08:00

By : Haider Qureshi

THE POOR KING

O Haider! How can you hope
to receive her;
Who parted from you even
before seeing you!
OOO

“TUSAN BAADSHAH HO ASAN KUN GHAREEBI…!”
(When some one like you is a king then who will be poorer than you). The way the frail and weak beggar recited this line touched me deeply. He was bent in supplication before God, drenched in perspiration under the scorching sun and dressed only in a wrap-around under the waist. He was praying with raised hands, palms-up, towards the sky and repeating the line with all its connotations. I have stopped and I am looking with wonder at that frail figure. Dipping my hand into my pocket I take out a note of bigger denominations and stick it between both his raised hands. Maah Rukh looked at my generosity in astonishment, but she has not said anything. Her nearness makes me feel like a real king.

***

‘Whenever I come to this city something or the other impresses me or shakes me up;
‘For instance…?’
For instance… when I first came on a commercial trip representing my company I not only met you I got swayed by your forth rightness and we became so intimate as if we were friends since the beginning of the world!
‘Right… but what about this time?’
‘This time – this chanting beggar’s words have jolted me out of my senses’.
‘Are you really that impressed?’
‘Believe me, I am feeling a strange and an altogether new type of sensation. You can call it a sort of intoxication, a unique one!’
‘I think you like folk-songs a lot!’
‘It may be a reason – but …’
‘I’ll get you a C.D. of such songs but there must be a justifiable reason for such fanaticism!’
I look at Maah Rukh who was eagerly waiting for an answer. ‘The reason too is strange: Once I went to see a friend to Bhattawahan. There I learnt that Sassy was born there. She was the daughter of the king of Bhattawahan. You know Sassy and Pannu, the Romeo and the Juliet of Punjab!

***

I glance at Sassy. She is totally engrossed in her own story.
The palace in which you were born there can still be seen through its ruins. When I went there my eyes welled-up. A ray of enlightenment sped through me and I knew that I was the Pannu who went to the ruins looking for you. The ray of enlightenment that blazed through me had now become a pool of light that made me luminous and it dawned upon me that I was the Pannu and I was the Majnu, the Farhaad, the Raanjha, the Krishn and the Mahindra… I was looking for you in all the forms and you too were, my dear Maah Rukh, the Sassy, the Laila, the Sheereen, the Raadha and the Mumil. You and me were all in one and one in all and we were looking for each other – for ages and getting fragmented during the process. And our every fragment is getting its share of tragedy, its share of a tragic story…!’

***

‘Hell! Where were you? We were waiting for you for ages. Your meal is getting cold; the chirping of Maah Rukh pulls me out of my deep reverie. I look at her with a weak smile and head towards the dining room. During the dinner when Maah Rukh’s daddy broached the subject of boosting the power of productivity of industries Maah Rukh said:
‘For this the labourers ought to be taken into confidence, the capacity to enhance production cannot be boosted unless the labourers are made to realize the importance of their coordination and joint interest’.
‘The mesmerism of the socialism takes hold of the brains of the literate youth. They breathe fire before attaining maturity. But if you look at the reality, you can find the nature of the labourers stark. You put dough in their right hands and they’ll extend their left hands for more. If you fill them too they’ll again stretch their right ones. And as soon as you stop filling them they will start raising slogans of injustice and tyranny: The import of Maah Rukh’s daddy clearly reflected the wizardry of a time tested industrialist. ‘I think’, he added, ‘the gulf between the owners and the labourers widens because of the inability of the union-leaders to look into the bleak future. The policies formulated by the trade-union leaders too prove divisive. A colleague of my own corporation is convinced of the view that a labourer needs a dressing down once too often and that keeps him where he belongs’.
‘How base and mean!’ Maah Rukh shrieked. She looked more like a trade-union leader than the daughter of a corporate. ‘The history of our sub-continent…; But before the debate on labourer’s rights and industrialists’ upper handedness could take an ugly turn Maah Rukh’s daddy rose with an apologetic grin and the talk of the history of the sub-continent turned to the Indian culture and civilization.
‘The ancient culture is still with us in one form or the other. We can’t hide from this fact behind emotional sloganeering. From birth to betrothal and from betrothal to death this ancient Indian culture has left so deep an impact on us that we can’t erase it fully even by scratching’.
‘Well, it is right, but the impression of our own civilization has also begun deepening and the color of our civilization is brighter and more beautiful’.
Our civilization too is not totally free of the ancient Indian culture’s influence. A culture doesn’t simply vanish, it reappears in a slightly different shape or form; she said.
‘Silly, what is so unique of a culture in it. It is the uniqueness of the land, its geography, its soil, its rivers, mountains, woods and fields and its atmosphere. They contributed to the formation of the ancient Indian culture and the same components are again at it in the designing of our new culture and our history too seems to have joined hands with the geography. And the debate concluded on a mutual consent that a video-film would be seen on a particular topic ‘Wedding Tradition’ related to the ancient Indian culture.

***

There is a vast opening in the midst of a dense forest. The night is dark. At the head of the clearing sits the chieftain of the tribe on a raised platform with his tribal pomp and grandeur. On both his sides, a step behind, stand his guards equipped with bows and arrows, alert and attentive. In the center of the clearing rages a huge bonfire and the people are thronging the area in a circular way from the throne of the chieftain to the other end of the opening. They have oiled their faces to make them glisten. The drumbeats vibrate through the air and continue to do so. And then a musical note spirals up along with the drumbeats. A strange musical note. It seems to me that I had heard this note somewhere. It looks familiar but I find myself unable to recollect. At one time it touches the depths of my soul and at another it scares me out of my senses. It seems to be able to create a conflict between pleasure and fright. Suddenly the voice of the chieftain reverberated over the din and the sounds of drums and singing automatically decrease a little. Although it was not clear what the chieftain had said, a young girl appears with a garland of pearls. She looks shy and hesitant. The chieftain has again said something and two youngsters step forward and stand still. The sound of drumbeats and the lyrical note rise. The red tongues of the leaping flames in the bonfire too have lengthened. The young girl slowly proceeds towards the duo. She comes to a standstill before them. Both the lads seem to be dumb founded. The sounds of the drumbeats and the familiar lyrical note further rise. And the girl has suddenly garlanded one of the two. I don’t know why but I quickly got up and turned the v.c.r. off.
‘What’s this – ?’ Maah Rukh asks, perplexed.
‘Enough! I can’t bear to see the defeated youth’s pitiable condition. Poor chap!’
What is so pitiable in it? In the more ancient times all the aspirants used to fight it out. They fought to kill each other and the sole victorious thus used to stake his claim on the bride. This one is a story of a far more civilized culture.

***

My work connected with the factory of Maah Rukh’s father is over and I intend to return today itself. But I also wish to have a talk about the marriage with Maah Rukh. The speed with which our friendship has bloomed demands it to be settled at the earliest. Besides, Maah Rukh too looks at her best today. The proposal may make her more joyous and romantic.
Do you know I celebrate others’ festivals too with the same zeal and reverence. Christmas, Baisakhi, Divali …! ‘It is really commendable; I said happily. ‘If people of all the faiths cultivate such esteem for each other’s religions there’ll never be this ethnic violence. ‘Yes’. And today has brought two-fold pleasure for me. The first one is that it is a festival day today and the second one is that we are going to join in a hallowed bond in earnest.
(My heart skipped a beat when I heard her saying ‘hallowed bond’… I felt ecstatic. Hearts have their own ways to other hearts. I myself had decided to propose to her today but she certainly took a lead over me.)
‘I have seen and met a lot of guys but not even one of them proved to be up to my expectations. You are the first and I dare say that your eyes never lie, they truly mirror what you really feel!’
(I am about to burst with pleasure)
‘I just talked to daddy and he too is pleased with my decision’.
(The pleasure and the joy have begun spilling over.)
‘Give me your right hand; she demands. I extend it and close my eyes. I am now drenched all over with joy and happiness.
‘Today is the day of RAAKHI BANDHAN when Hindu girls and women tie Raakhis (a flower bedecked wrist band) around the wrists of their brothers. I never had any brother around whose wrist I could tie a Raakhi. But I think that void is going to fill for good today’.
I suddenly feel numb and senseless all over. I feel as if a cluster of nuclear bombs has been dropped on my being in one go. She has tied herself with me in a Raakhi bond, and I feel my eyes and eyesight are bombed too.
I feel a dense forest has suddenly grown up in me and in the center of that forest (right in the middle of my chest) a huge bonfire is lit. The whole tribe is present. The drumbeats have risen and the familiar melodic note has also gone up, the note that touches the base of my soul at one time and at another scares me out of my senses. I have now come to recognize this note. The girl has garlanded another youth and I do not wish to witness my own defeat. But I am unable to find the switch of the VCR to turn it off and escape from the visionary agony. I find the scenes of my defeat everywhere within and without me. Maah Rukh was right when she said ‘--- A culture doesn’t simply vanish, it reappears in a slightly different form!’.

***

Drenched in perspiration under the scorching sun, dressed only in a wrap-around under the waist, the frail and emaciated beggar was still praying, bent in supplication before God, with raised hands, palms-up, towards the sky. He was repeating the same line of Punjabi poetry: “TUSAN BAADSHAH HO ASAN KUN GHAREEBI ---!’ He was singing the line with all its connotations.
Saving only the return ticket fare I have emptied my purse fully on his up-turned palms.
‘What is this---!’ Maah Rukh asks me in astonishment.
“I still have the return fare’.
“Tusan baadshah ho asan kun ghareebi”.

A new dimension of this saintly line has now dawned upon me.

I still feel like a king in the proximity of Maah Rukh

but – a poor king ---!.

oOoOoOo

Short Story: The Story of The Rose Prince

2007-03-09T00:47:00.000-08:00

By : Haider Qureshi

Second Story By Haider Qureshi on the subject of Nuclear War.
First published in April 1982.

THE STORY OF THE ROSE PRINCE

When his masterpiece was complete:

He was found drenched in his own blood!

OOO

When a good part of the night went by and they still could not sleep in that unending desert, all the four ascetics sat up. The first ascetic proposed that each one of them should relate a story of his own life to while away the night. All the three agreed and asked the initiator to make a beginning himself. The first ascetic with long tresses of hair bent forwards and began thus:

‘My story is the story of a Rose-Prince. You know the pink color. The color of the blood is red. If you add some white color in red, it becomes pink like the color of a pink rose. The blood too becomes pink if you add white thinner to it. But when the blood spills and is left untouched it turns black. I think I got strayed. What I meant to say was my story was the story of a Rose-Prince. But I will have to practically demonstrate something first before proceeding ahead’.

Thus speaking he took out a rose-plant-cutting from his sack and planted it in the sand! ‘The remaining part of my story will take a recess till it sprouts!’ He declared. ‘And hence it would be better if you told your stories by turn meanwhile’. ‘I shall complete my story at the end’. On hearing this, the second ascetic began his story.

‘My store is not an extraordinary one. By the spell of her magnetic eyes and by the magic of her lips, my wife converted me into an ass and I began and continued to carry her load for centuries. Then I, one day, got a word, a Noun of substance and I again became a man and then by the power of that noun I converted my wife into a mare’.

Both, the third and the fourth ascetics, were listening to him attentively and with interest, ‘while the first continued to look at the rose sapling which had now begun to slowly grow. A slow protrusion of bristly thorn-heads had come into being. Its slow growth had begun. I don’t, quite clearly, remember now if I tagged her to a tonga or made her a race-horse or simply kept her running head over heels. I don’t remember if she kept running on her own sweet will. But she did keep running’.

‘Then what happened?’ The third and the fourth ascetic asked eagerly. The first one was still busy looking at the growing rose-sapling.

‘Then –! The second one thought for a while’. When she brought home her first salary, her face was aglow with pleasure. She divided her salary in two parts. Half of her salary she spent on the daily needs and the rest she invested in a bank for her children’s future. And this became a routine. Our salaries together made our home quite prosperous. But there was one thing. She always kept singing the praises of her boss. She always reminded me that he cared for her a lot. But...! His narration suddenly stopped when his eyes fell on the rose-sapling, which had by now grown twice the size and tiny leaves had also appeared. He felt as if the whole sapling along with its bristly thorns had been thrust into his throat. He shivered and cried out inadvertently. ‘Water…!’ The first ascetic quickly provided him with water in a small earthen bowl. The rose-sapling had become greener and a red colored leaf too had suddenly appeared. The second ascetic looked at this scene wide eyed and simply expired. The remaining three ascetics felt that the unending desert had wound itself up to a large extent. Another good part of the night had passed.

The third ascetic took a deep breath and began his story. ‘As you know history and geography interest me a lot and I am also connected with archeology…! After the birth of the third child my wife advised me to practice family planning. So I started using balloons. As my house is quite small it so happened that many a times I threw the used balloons behind a big table that was set in a corner of my room. They remained there for quite some time till my notice and then I used to collect them along with a lot of trash from under the table and throw them into a drain outside’. The fourth ascetic looked at him incredulously.

‘Once it so happened that I was called by the department of archeology to study a human skull, which was dug out from some old ruins and which was also dated to thousands of years of the yore. When I returned home after studying the skull and when I was looking for something under my table I found an old and crumpled used balloon among the trash. It was dry but I kept looking at it. I felt that the skull after whose study I had just returned was there in that balloon and it was of my own son’s’. The first ascetic was continuously looking at the rose sapling that had now begun branching out. ‘The contents of the balloon scared me shit’, the third ascetic continued. I felt as if I had killed my own son and converted his head into just a skull. When I related this morbid fear to my wife she started protesting’.

‘No, no!’ she said vehemently. ‘I won’t allow the family planning to end’. ‘What about my health? It will be ruined again!’ But eventually my morbid fear subdued her vehemence. And when she told me the good news after sometime I felt that I was about to get back the fortune I had lost a long time back in the History!’ The third ascetic’s eyes fell on the rose-sapling suddenly. It had now become a small plant in itself. He felt the plant was in him and somebody was pulling it out through his throat.

‘Water!’ He cried in panic. The first ascetic quickly held the small earthen bowl against his lips. The plant seemed to have grown further and a second red leaf too had appeared. The third ascetic looked at this development wide-eyed and simply expired. The two ascetics who now remained looked at the vast expanse of the unending desert, which seemed to have wound itself, up half-way. A good third part of the night too had passed.

The fourth ascetic looked suspiciously at the first one and began his story self consciously: ‘This story is not mine, it is actually a friend’s story and I will tell it through his own mouth’. The fourth ascetic moved his tongue over his parched lips and began: My brother was sleeping soundly and I was doing some work in his room. Suddenly I noticed that a bee came out of his nose. There was a tub full of water nearby in which a small piece of wood was floating. Some child perhaps threw it in. The bee flew and sat over that wooden block. It again flew and entered into the nose of my brother. I was looking at this strange happening with wonder’.

‘I see, carry on…?’ The grin of the first ascetic was quite merciless. He was still looking at the rose-plant, which was continuously growing and vegetating. ‘Then, then…!’ The fourth ascetic started looking here and there. He was very scared. Then my brother woke up and told me a dream he had just seen. It was a very strange dream. He said that he was standing near a river. He saw that a very large plank of wood had come floating near him. He boarded it. When that plank took him to the other side he saw that the place was full of treasures. He thought he alone could not carry those treasures. So he came back to take his friends along’.

‘Wonderful, wonderful!’ The first ascetic said wolfishly. He was still staring at the rose-plant whose leaves and branches were now swaying majestically. The fourth ascetic said in bewilderment. The comprehension of my brother’s dream dawned on me. I killed him and dug up the place where the tub was, and on whose little floating wooden block, the honeybee had been taking rides. And indeed there were treasures… but … but…!’.

‘But what?’ The first ascetic asked with a pale shadow of vexation looming over his query. The fourth ascetic’s eyes fell on the large swaying branches of the rose-plant. And then there was the same recurrence of the situation. ‘Water…!’ The first ascetic quickly held the small earthen bowl against his lips as he had done with the second and the third. But the fourth ascetic took hold of the bowl himself and drank. Then he saw the third red leaf appear on the rose plant. He shivered in fear. ‘But what?’ The first ascetic shook him. ‘But this story is not of my friend. It is my story… my own…!’ And then he too simply expired. The whole desert was now wound up completely and had laid itself at the feet of the first ascetic. The last good part of the night had passed. The day was dawning. The wild, uncontrollable guffaws of the first ascetic started reverberating through the desert. Hee-haw… hee-haw!’ ‘The whole oil-wealth of the desert is now mine!’ I am the only master and the sole owner of this whole fortune. And all those who have survived the nuclear war are my subjects. I am the ruler of this new age. A supreme ruler!’ ‘Hee-haw… hee-haw!’ But suddenly he felt an intense thirst. He looked into the earthen bowl. But it was empty. He panicked and started running here and there in search of water. He ran and ran and ran and the great ball of the wound up desert began to unfold. It kept unfolding continuously till it was the mid-day. Before him were the oil wells overflowing everywhere. And the streams of oil did galore. But water? Where was it? And the thirst! Its intensity! And the sapping tiredness! And more than anything the continuous unfolding of the desert. He, then, bent over a stream of oil to quench his thirst!

OoOoOoO

Half of his body lay outside. His head was completely in the water of the stream. His widespread hands were in the stream up to his biceps and his long tresses and locks of hair were dancing with the rippling waves of the stream of WATER. His dead eyes too were taking the stream of water as a stream of oil.

A huge rose had appeared now on the plant. The color of this rose was extraordinary black! The story of the Rose-Prince was now complete. But there was nobody to tell it and – There was nobody to hear it –!

oOoOoOo

Short Story: And I wait!

2007-03-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

By: Haider Qureshi

And I Wait

I may be autumnal, but if I so wish;
I can make the spring sprout whereupon I cast a glance!
OOO

I keep passing through the torments of the passions of my step-relations as I have to complete my journey. I writhe, in a desert, with the intensity of the thirst. And my mother wanders in vain, here and there, in search of water out of her matron love.
I seem to have fallen in a dark bottomless well. And my brothers seem to be trading me over my head with the merchants who would later pull me out of the well and take me along after enslaving me to sell. And it also looks like the Banishment of Lord Ram to the woods for 12 years, which I have to go through. My wife asks me to go deer-hunting, I hesitate, as I know its consequences, but I walk out to honor her wish.

***

I am the target of the passions of my step-relations. A part of my historical journey is complete. Stepping out of the famed LACHMAN REKHA, the ethical circle drawn by Lachman, brother of Lord Ram, around Sita, wife of Sri Ram, prohibiting her from free movement, has thus started another part of my historical journey. And I am waiting for the divine help.
I have been pulled out of the bottomless well. But I feel, I am still in that well, which now looks more like a well-of-sin, being chased by Julia, and I am in a constant quest for a way out. The intensity of my thirst has further increased. And my mother, who is now out of breath, is still running in search of water with dry layers of thirst on her own lips. But there is no caravan in sight. People do not see my innocence and my righteousness and I am facing a storm of allegations. It hurts me deeply that my mother is still looking for water for my sake. Though she is a princess, but my stepbrothers call her a maid and me the son of a maid! It also hurts me deeply that the wife of the ruler, who herself has a loose character, recommends for me a stiff punishment. And, as a result, I am in the prison. The allegation against me is lewdness. I feel my chest tighten because my righteous wife too is facing the allegation of a loose character. The levelers of all such false allegations are those who themselves are evil doers and who are my stepbrothers. They are amassing all this trash of false allegations around me only to set me alight with the flames of their hatred and convert me into cinders. I pray to God to save me from this fire and from its flames because I am very weak and fragile.

***

I am the one for whom the chaste and the virgins had been waiting for millennia. And I am the one before whom the sun and the moon and the stars bend in acknowledgement. And I am the one who is the legitimate heir to the throne of my father.
But I am the target of the evil passions of my step-relations. I think; what kind of trials, tests and tribulations I am going through? Who will vouch-safe for my innocent wife as I am confronted by those who, to hide their own evils, level allegations against others. And I am sure, that if I prepare myself to commit the sin against the woman, an allegation leveled against me, the same woman will come forward and withdraw the allegation, thus absolving me of the alleged and fabricated crime. The same woman due to whose false allegations I am going through this hell. And my mother, the princess, who can’t tolerate my impatience and for whose restlessness, on my agony, cuts my heart to shreds, further prompts me to writhe in pain. For how long she will keep running between the hills in search of water?

***

The trash of false and fabricated allegations has been so much amassed around me that it looks like a ring of hills. The desert in which I am writhing in thirst and where my mother is running looking for water, the bottomless well in which I was pushed and the prison in which I presently am, and the woods to which I was banished to serve my sentence. The huge mounds of this trash have encircled all of them. And on the other side of these mounds my step-relations are celebrating my misery, slighting me, laughing on me more and more as the hour of lighting the trash nears. When they will ignite it with the sparks of their hatred. And the fire will engulf each and everything along with my innocence and my righteousness. And nothing will remain to prove their falsehood and their tyranny. And then my step-relations will write a new history at their will. They will write without qualm: He was a sinner and his wife too was a sinner and his mother was a maid. But – but his father……!

***

I have again started thinking:
I, who am writhing in thirst in the desert, am the son of Abraham! And I, who am serving his sentence in the prison for innocence, am the grand son of Abraham! And I, who am banished to the woods, am one of the progeny of Abraham because all the righteous and the tolerant of the tyranny are the original progeny of Abraham. I am the one for whom the chaste and the virgins had been waiting for the millennia. And I am the one before whom the sun, the moon and the stars will bend in acknowledgement. And I am the one who is the rightly heir to the throne of his father. I am the target of the evil passions of my step-relations. However much my step-relations distort the history, how can they erase the name of my father. Then they themselves will get obliterated.
I am the son of Abraham.
I am the grandson of Abraham.
And I am of the progeny of Abraham too!
How can the fire that had turned into a meadow, harm me.
“Do not scare us of fire because it is our slave, rather, it is a slave of our slaves!”
This divine assertion ensures that my writhing in thirst and the rubbing of my soles in pain against the sand will make a spring of water sprout from the earth and its water will come to my help. The bottomless well, into which I was pushed, will overflow with the water that will rain into it so much that the Indian Ocean itself will become a tsunami. The evil passions of the step-relations and the false allegations that continue to rage will all be extinguished along with the fire of hatred.

***

My step-relations have succeeded in building a huge fire of hatred and its flames are licking the skies. A fire is all around me – a fire of evil passions of my step-relations. But I see: that the days of my banishment to woods are over and I have got back my legitimate place, my throne and the history itself is vouch-saving for the righteousness and innocence of my wife. I see: that the sentence of my imprisonment is served and I have been given an esteemed and honorable office to Lord over, that the sun and the moon and the stars have bent their heads before me in acknowledgement and subordination. That a stream has erupted from under my soles in the cinching desert and my mother’s face is glowing with pleasure and happiness. She, who longingly looked for the help of a caravan, is now helping a multitude of caravans and the princess has found a new queen-dom. And I see that the chaste and the virgins are all singing in unison the songs of my welcome with garlands in their hands. And I further see that the tumultuous Indian Ocean filled and overflowed the bottomless well and the water from the stream that had erupted from under my soles… all of them have invaded my eyes. The fire of hatred that was lit by the evil passions and intentions is slowly getting extinguished and all my step-relations standing beyond are watching this phenomenon dumb founded.
I wait for the total extinguishing of the fire.
I wait for the hour when all my step-relations will appear before me as criminals. And before the ticking of that hour I begin to write my sentence: “La tasreeba alaikumul yom” (Today is the Day when you will be asked nothing)!

OOO