No matter which era, mothers’ dreams for their sons are identical. During the weaving of those dreams, knots of prayers start to appear, and bits of hope materialize. But often, all dreams are washed away through the black lines of the kohl. Because perhaps history fancied one color only. The color red.
One.
These three letters have many faces.
The one we want all our lives,
the one we never want.
The one who stays with us,
the one we never get,
the one with whom we always stay upset,
and the one that has his own opinion.
Wait.
Childhood’s wait for toys.
The wait for rain after the prayers.
Wait, keeps on going and searching for a name, keeps painting pictures at the street corner, keeps being stuck in the door lock. If the wait ended, wouldn’t the eyes look away and close themselves? Waiting is inevitable, but halting of the wait is not?
The ways strung to our feet are uncountable.
Life, clutching the finger of necessity, keeps on running. No sound, no tranquility, no promise, can stop it. The roar of desires mutes the voice, while the age of necessity keeps growing. Life. No, life never stops.
One day I met a man on the street. He had in his hands two similar faces.
I asked, “What do the two faces mean?”
He said, “One is myself, the other, the world.”
I asked, “Which one are you?”
He said, “I have forgotten.”
I asked again, “What is the benefit?”
He said, “I have gotten accustomed to benefiting from misfortune.”
Far away from there, a few words written on a plaque smiled, and both of us picked up each of our faces.
Original in Urdu, “Kia Naam Doon”, by Sajjad Ali (from the audio album Chahar Balish)