MUSINGS

He was not alone, but there was no communication among the nearly fifty people in the dimly lit hall. There was stillness in the air. It was still pitch dark outside on the chilly November night and that meant nearly no sound of moving traffic. An occasional cough or a new person entering would be heard and a slight fidgeting movement observed. But there was no silence either. The continuous intonation going on in the background touched his ears often but the meaning of all of it was obscure. His eyes shifted from the vivid designs on the mat on which he was standing to empty void and his mind wandered into aimless random musings…

‘When no amount of remorse helps... When repentance is overwhelmed by sin… Wow! What a thought. Wonder how many people go through that? Many may be. Well isn't it obvious, every body’s life has loopholes somewhere or the other. It’s so difficult to see a perfect human being, whatever that means. Or perhaps it is capricious to imagine such a possibility. Capricious? Is that the right usage? It means wishful thinking though. The country does not run on wishful thinking but that is what the bloody politicians are trying to do all the time. The only thing that can free the people from their leaders’ evil and avaricious bondage is a good education. And a good education is hard to find. In fact the entire education system is going down the drains.

But what great have well educated societies achieved? One thing they have probably learned is to challenge everything around them. And this way they have produced people who challenged even the good things, taking the entire value system for a ride. Adultery is fine as long as it involves two consenting partners. Whoa! Where is the world going to? Human rights are important only when it comes to dealing with the guilty. Wait a minute. May be a little change in the pattern of thinking is required. More important is not what people act or do or think. Whether they are right or wrong is inconsequential. More important to me is me, I! ‘Khudi mein doob kar pa ja surag e zindagi; Tu agar mera nahi banta na ban apna to ban!’ Iqbal. That guy was great.

While reading about a lady called Ismat Chughtai, described as a path breaking novelist in Urdu fiction writing, I learned that she achieved instant success. I should have guessed why? Her writing is way ahead of its time. Can you believe it? At a time when Urdu itself seems to be sinking, there is this lady here who has fans even in the western literary circles. And why should that be. Oh yes! One of her novels deals with female sexuality and lesbianism in a seemingly conservative society like the Indian sub-continent. Easy isn’t it.

More often it has been the introverted creative humans who tend to break the norms. That’s the reason why artists or poets become famous for their bold and custom defying take on issues. M.F Hussain? Deepa Mehta? Isn’t it the same with the lovers?The best love today is when the lover commits shirk towards the object of his affection. One of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s most famous song has lyrics like, ‘tera naam loon zubaan pe, tere aage sar jhuka doon; mera ishq keh raha hai, mein tujhe khuda bana doon’. Straight shirk!

But what is more important is the spirit. Take for instance a man praying. What is the use if his prayer becomes a mere physical one and there is no spirit behind it? If he is not able to alienate himself from the world around him and control his mind, as if he is in communication with God? That is more important rather than the monotonous exercise of an explicitly physical prayer. People get fiercely agitated if for example someone desecrates the Quran. But they have never understood what the Quran really wants to say in the first place! Isn’t that a bigger blasphemy of the book? A sin in itself?

Reminds me of Se7en. People should watch that movie. The seven deadly sins! The allegory to Dante’s ‘the Divine Comedy’ is excellent. I don’t know if the use of the word allegory here is correct. I will have to check on that. The seven deadly sins, Gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath! What do I suffer from? Lust? Man. I should have kissed Salma that day. What an opportunity. I will never know if she would have agreed. But I know she kind of liked me. She was a different girl. Nobody could ever guess her. But may be me. May be I understood her. I think had a chance. She was not beautiful but she had something in her that made her a whole lot attractive. Why am I thinking about her now? Whenever I remember her I don’t miss musing, ‘did I save myself committing a sin?’

Robin Sharma was right. Nobody ever regrets ever having done a good thing when one is lying on his death bed. And the contrary? Having committed a wrong thing, a sin? Yes. May be a lot too. But I have no idea how much that matters. May be it does. May be I should start trying to become a good person. What does it take to do that?Remorse? Repentance? Whatever. What lies in my future? The only thing certain is death! Everything else looks so bleak, and so ambiguous.

That story about the two sisters was great. One of them got really close to this guy she met on the internet and was contemplating meeting him…’

‘Allah-u-akbar’, he heard the imam and the congregation went into ruku.