Chasing the Shadows

It was the last hour of night and the first of morning, a time when the opposites collide and cast their spell on the fading sky, an enigma reveals and disappears before an ungrateful world, fast asleep.

I was sitting on balcony floor with Jahan, staring at the depths of the abyss before me. We were silent, as silent as the only beholders of infinite beauty can be, watching the darkness and the light, merge and separate, a kiss of waves to the shore but their return another day, another world apart. My eyes shifted to Jahan, he was lining the cigarette butts in perfect alignment, all twelve ‘corpses’ from last night.

The call for Morning Prayer from a nearby mosque broke the silence. A man dressed in white shalwar kameez and a white cap appeared in the street before us. His beard reminded me of Jesus in a weird way, he was probably going to the mosque to offer prayer but then he just looked up at us, sitting in the balcony and all of a sudden the hour transformed from magical to ‘odd hour’. Jahan was closely watching my expressions change, he asked me “does it bother you what he might think of your presence here, sitting with me?”

I smiled “No, not at all. And it is not because I am arrogant or because I think I am right. It is just that I completely understand that Right and Wrong are only as right and as wrong as their varying definitions from person to person. I respect his point of view even if I don’t agree with it. His definition will possibly be limited to his knowledge of facts and so is mine.”

“I envy you Naz” he laughed “I wish I could tolerate the society the way you do. I feel like walking to every single person and …. and preach. May be I should” He hesitated “I often think maybe I should meet people, try and get closer to them and know them but then I just shake these thoughts off. All I can see is ugliness, so I keep my eyes closed and my ears too”. He was staring at the horizon, where fire and ice were flowing layers into layers and the sun gradually floating up.  

“It reminds me of Khalil Gibran” at the mention of his name, Jahan had all his attention directed to me again. “In his book ‘The Prophet’ he says that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you So, the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you. I mean I am ugly and I am beautiful too. So is each of us. The more I meet different people, the more I agree with him”.

“How do you do that Naz? Interact but not judge? Can you possibly do that; can you stop thinking about them and their relations and roles and greed?” I sensed the heat of his boiling emotions pouring out in every word.

“Jahan, I do not know if what I say to you will make any sense but I am …. I have become Maya”. I revealed to him what I hide from myself.

“Do you mean the concept of Maya in Hinduism?” Jahan said.

“Yes. I mean the Maya. Maya that is water, it has no color, it has no odor and it has no shape. It takes the shape of the container it is poured in but retains its density. When I meet people I do not feel I am above them or below them but at their level and I do not carry with me any color or any assumptions as you may say. I open myself to their scents instead. Yet I remain who I am.” I explained to him, he nodded.

“It is feminity indeed and I do not mean it in any degrading way. I mean the existence of feminity is necessary to balance the masculinity. One is the other half of the other. Feminity, has strong roots in Sufism as well. It is what allows you to feel beyond experience and to experience beyond feelings, is masculinity. God himself is the balance of both, the creativity and the power”.

“Strange… you know Jahan, I recently read in Quran a verse that says: ‘It is He Who created you from a single person, and made his mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her in love’ (7:189) and I wondered why it said ‘a single person’….it all makes sense now. It is perhaps a division of the feminity and the masculinity that are meant to exist or have existed in the same person. Perhaps it is the reason why one finds rest with the other or remains in quest”. I listened to my own words. I found the answer to the question that haunted me for weeks.

“I recognize that”. Jahan smiled. “And love will not be satisfied until it finds beauty”.

“Well said. Is this a quote?” I asked.  

“It’s from a story actually. Once a girl was standing in the window and combing her hair. She was very beautiful. Her house was close to a mosque and at that time the people were going for prayer. Among them was a Sufi too. The girl’s mother looked at her and shouted ‘you are shameless. Go inside to comb your hair’. The Sufi heard her mother and while standing in the mosque he said ‘do not tell beauty to hide, for love will not be satisfied until it finds beauty’. People thought he was insane but two people there were so moved by his saying that they became his disciples”. Jahan narrated the story fluently. “Try convincing our Mullah’s nowadays about something like this, you will be dead” He said sarcastically.

“So true, they scare people from the wrath of the Almighty. It seems as if they have forgotten that it is not the fear of wrath, destruction or the fear of power that is required for obedience. It is not the greed of heaven or the sanctuary from hell.  The worshipper is like a lover, all he fears is losing the one he loves, he fears annoying him and he refrains from anything that might hurt the one he holds dear”. I said and as always I confused love and I confused worship. I still don’t know how to separate the two.

"The bond between a creator and a creation is that of mother and a child". Jahan added to the point I made.

"You know I think we are all immortals. I mean open any book of religion, the widely followed ones and you will find a concept of afterlife. Hence, if there is afterlife than death is nothing more than a transition. We die and go back to where we came from, retaining the memories though and the report card. Life is the name of going full circle, completing the round, like orbits".

"I recognize this too". Jahan said. "But life comes with responsibility towards others. This is where I always get stuck. The Society".

"Interestingly and fortunately 'Society' itself is a theory. I mean the existence of society is theoretical and not a universal law". What I said pretty much shocked Jahan.

"What you mean is that you do not believe in societies? He was surprized.

"I do not deny the social structures or systems but I also disagree about how powerful they are portrayed to be and how powerful they actually are.  I mean yes, there are abundant researches on mob behaviors, about social dynamics and all but 'individualism' has always been the key change factor in all societies. Track any revolution back and you will find one individual standing at the end of it. Or take the example of any Prophet, all were one man shows who triggered humongous changes in the society. And I always think like that one individual behind". I said the last line jokingly and it made him laugh.

"When I was a kid I read a story. A father gives his son a puzzle, it was a picture of the world, the globe. When the father returned, he found that his five year old has already completed the picture. Surprised he asked him, son this was a complex puzzle how did you manage to do it so fast? His son turned the puzzle upside down and told him that dad, at the back of the puzzle was a picture of a man, all I did was fixed the man and the world was fixed it self". Jahan's brief story took me back in my childhood. 

The sun spread its wings over the sky and the night was concealed. The chirping of birds was interrupted by the loud roaring vehicles. The sleeping giants finally woke up; the meteors grew tiny, close to disappearance, a reduction into nothingness.

“Again, we have been up all night with no food or water”. Jahan stood up from the marble floor of the balcony. “Should I get you something?” He asked me.

“There is water over there at the table behind you. Please pass it on”. I said.

He picked up the bottle, held it close to his face looking at it. “Wow, this has gotten really warm. I will get you some from the fridge”.

“No, this is okay”. I took the bottle from him.

“How can you drink such hot water? I don’t understand how anyone can drink hot water. It is a good 40 degrees out here. This is boiling”. Jahan watched me as I poured the water in glass.

“I am blessed” I said smilingly “I can drink hot water, sleep on the floors, eat leftovers and also I can eat at a seven star hotel with perfect manners. The thing is I have realized it does not change anything”. I took a few sips of water and Jahan kept looking at me.

He said "Something tells me that I will need to know a lot more about you".

“Well, I have no explanation for my past and may not have one for my future but I am humbly grateful to him who raised me, brought me up and fed me as he feeds an insect under a stone. I know of the suffering and I know that soil needs to be ploughed to yield and also, that it is only a fertile land that is chosen to plough and cultivate. So I am blessed. I value pain and I respect suffering”.  

“You speak of the three virtues, Naz”. Jahan’s eyes sparkled, as if reading everything in my head. “Do you know the three fundamental virtues?”

I shook my head “no”.

“It begins with Humility, humility is acceptance of what you are given, it is the opposite of pride. what you just said is humility. The second is Veracity which is truth, obedience and acceptance, like the worship of God out of love not fear. And the third is Charity. Charity, although, is not just the name of giving money away, it is when you let the beauty shine from inside out and share it”. Jahan said and went inside the house to get water.

My eyes followed him as far as they could. It struck me how I got it all wrong, I thought I was there for him but he was there for me. Since the time when I first saw him, his shadow in the window, he was peeping out and his room was completely dark. I knew he was making sure that no one should be outside before he comes out of his room; he was trying to avoid any conversation, any contact and any words spoken or heard. It was when I asked the old lady, ‘who is he?’ It was when I chased the shadow.

I travel miles and miles, I move from planet to planet and yet somehow, I find them all circling the same star. May be, the seekers of the same destination are meant to cross paths.