Destiny in the dock

The fog was thickening with the setting of the sun. The bridge was blanketed with a cloud of hazy smoke, that seemed to be simmering from the river below. Only a faint murmur of mingled surprise and suspicion reverberated in the silence. “Why must thus we part with everything we hold dear?” a childish whisper whiled away in the wilderness. No voice ventured to reply. “Did God divine the gravity of His genius by devising the pangs of poverty and subjecting to it a whole lot of multitudes merely by an accident of birth?” This time the line was not lost on the invisible interlocutor. “When God elects to bless a man, retorted a sonorous sound, “he bestows him with the trappings of thought. Few pangs manage to conspire such profound lucidity of thought than the pangs of penury. We are chosen to be trained in a tougher school, out of the ordinary.” “But brother which school you are referring to? As far as I believe, we have no money wherewith to enjoy such a privilege.” Dismounting the ragged sack, jumbled and jostled with a wide gamut of refuse, rejects, and junk, Abdul Wali, the source of that sonorous voice paused and turned to produce a weightier effect. “The school of suffering” he exclaimed in response. A sobering silence ensued. The little one stole a secret glance at his threadbare shoes and sighed in acquiescence. A silent tumult, a forlorn tempest that erupted, flowed, and funnelled inside his little world was drowned immediately in a vast sea of resignation. Poverty knows the art of taming such tumults.

Meanwhile, the dinner comprising a cluster of high-ranking officials concluded in the customary fashion in a mansion, not far from the bridge. Smoke, cigars, and a casual display of concern for the subject serenaded thereof. These architects of atrocities appeared to be under some tenuous spell of torpor after marvelling the artefact they had just rendered to perfection with their pens and papers. Seemingly, the fate of a slum, situated in the heart of the city, was sealed. A day after tomorrow, it would cease to smart the city with its presence, its life. As part of beautification drive, as it transpired, it was deemed essential to dispense with such dens of depravity. A sprawling citadel of cement would be a rather healthy substitute, they surmised. The slum had only a few breaths remaining under its belt.

The dinner, in the mansion of Zafarullah Kareem, the principal centre of power in city administration, had been cautiously concluded but a whole cascade of curiosities greeted him afoot. His son, Wadood Kareem, a gifted poet, a roving revolutionary, was chafed at what had proceeded under his nose, under his roof. He had often hinted his displeasure, not without a touch of temper, on the systematic slaying of poor, at the genius of which invariably rested the heels of his father’s hand. The sentence of the slum was decidedly the final straw. After all, cushioning a sympathizing corner for penury amidst all the paraphernalia of power was no lesser than a sin. Sympathy for the poor, compassion crouched in concealment, and dreams bordering on madness these were all his heroics which secured for him the second stamp of sedition. Love had conferred on him the first of such titles of treason. That he cushioned a corner of sympathy for the poor was still grudgingly tolerable, but love, a love reserving no respect for reason and regality of class, it was inadmissible on any given day, any given setting under the sun! So, there he stood, our Wadood, wallowing on the brink of a rebellion. The door produced a resounding bang. He, the scion of powerful parents, had succumbed before a surfeit of inextinguishable compassion.

Outside it was fog and impenetrable darkness, arresting the atmosphere. Silent slashes of tormenting cold wafted from every direction. Wadood, his hands tucked inside the pockets of his coat, wandered in the direction of the bridge. With every proceeding step, an entire surge of pent-up emotion ebbed and flowed inside. Lacerations on the vicinity of soul seek no sleight of language for their expression. Pain is an inexplicable emotion. The melodies of tears, drawing on the music of heart, have this strange ability to rhapsodize, as it were, the state of our suffering.

What piqued a biting pronouncement from the little scholar of the school of suffering was essentially the pinching of his prized shoe. The nagging force hewed out a hole and the shoe seemed to be withering away. He looked dispiritingly at his shoe. Weather-beaten and weary they looked. Wali assured the little one of getting them repaired at earliest. Being elder and having himself experienced and braved the agonies of privation alone, he reckoned the necessity of consoling. He hunched and being to wipe away the beads of tears from the little one’s face. The two ragpickers, these gusty gladiators battling life on every front, felt the need to clasp each other in arms. They had the fortune in their favour today, reassured Wali while hinting at the brimful sack of junk. Out of nowhere, a muffled cry of despair reached within their earshot. Someone sobbing in a suppressed fashion in the dense of fog, in the cold darkness of night. The two were spurred to alertness. Marching cautiously ahead and penetrating the labyrinth of smoke that was perfumed everywhere, they saw a man; lean and lanky draped in a woollen coat, hands resting on the bannister of the bridge, sobbing with misty eyes that seemed to be groping for something far away in the unknown, yet undiscovered latitudes of darkness. No shade of privation evidenced itself about him; from tip to toe, he was a paragon of privilege. It was our Wadood, unmistakably. The little one tucked the back of his brother’s shirt tightly and hid behind him in anticipation. Where the pangs of poverty had invoked in him the power to philosophize, the sight of love lost in the wilderness of despair, fluttering in agony to find the place of beloved produced a strange unknown kind of fright in him. He was yet to fathom the vast cabinet of curiosities, the wide array of arsenal God had engineered and designed beside the pangs of poverty to make men wonder the genius of their invention in the first place. His lips were as yet too limited in scope to savour the anguish authored by love and loneliness. A fright thus was inescapable. To behold privilege floundering and failing to achieve something, something that rested beyond the unattainable reach of its power is no mean sight. Love, sadly, is not a feeling to be bartered or bargained; it grows of its own accord.

Wali was once again called by life to reckon the necessity of consoling. He need not be hunched this time. But clasp and cushion he should. Because a titan had fallen, shipwrecked in midst of a saddening sea. It is the chief power of penury that it makes one gather, in great sharpness, the hidden melodies of tears, the faint imperceptible figments of sadness, and the ever-lurking sense of loss assailing our lives. For it is a curious aspect of this cruelty of privation that despite the want of bread and butter, it always leaves strengthening one’s spine. Thus, with a spine sharp like steel with the bruises of times, Wali, well-schooled in the various shades of suffering, proceeded with a princely tread ahead. “Can I assist you in soothing your sorrows?” A haggard face essayed him from head to heels. Wadood was visibly flustered. What he saw was a ragpicker, half his height, in threadbare clothes, torn and patched in various pockets; deprivation made itself felt from the whole demeanour of Wali. And, to Wadood’s consternation, he had condescended to alleviate his sorrows. The extremity of this poverty lodged inside him like a dagger. Here again, silence ensued, just like the silence of previous consolation crafted by Wadood. Again, a silent tumult, a forlorn tempest erupted and was flowing and funnelling inside. Let us agree in passing that care and compassion have this inherent ability to reach the most tormenting recesses of our soul; and, under the influence of some healing elixir, they transfigure them into an eternal wellspring of happiness. A great force of restraint possessed Wadood. He was awed by the magnanimity on display. He saw his rebellion reasoning before his eyes. His sympathy for the poor, compassion crouched in concealment and dreams bordering on madness was not without meaning, after all. “No; thank you, little one. It was just a touch of trepidation for the unknown, for the unheard and nothing more.” In the sanctuary of suffering no sleight of emotions, no semblance of stability can help conceal the hidden play of pain. Wali could picture the play vividly. The dejection of not having wiped some beads of tears and not having clasped was not lost on him. He interposed. “I hail from the slum situated in the heart of the city. And, whenever life gets down hard on you, just reach my residence.” O the regality of penury! the splendour of human suffering! Wali headed back with the same princely tread, leaving the member of his sanctuary in utter stupefaction. He folded the sack, and the little one perched it in a cosmic balance on his brother’s back. They disappeared in the vast ocean of obscurity from whence they came. In a profound moment of lucidity, Wali had ventured to cushion and console Wadood, offered an invitation, in short, justified his admission in the school of suffering. Yet, he lacked, or could not at least sense that touch of trepidation for the unknown, the unheard, for when he stepped with his little one in the impenetrable darkness, they both were unaware that, in fact, they were venturing into their vagrancy. How far Wali stood from attaining this second gift of profound lucidity, of perceiving the future with prior caution and apprehension? Just a day after tomorrow.

To be continued.