Hashmaat
When the world is slowly burning, would you choose guns or a pen?
Everything changed in twenty years, except the tone of her fair skin and the dent of his smile. And, yes their religion. He cringed a bit when she took out a cigarette from her purse. The memories of making sand castles faintly glowing in their heads like December embers. Making sand castles was their favourite game except the occasional downpours and the threats from her mother. She wanted to profess her love in Urdu but she knew the consequences. The word “Mazhab”, constantly echoing in the back of her head.
Today she was going to meet him, her oldest friend. When she was four, he was six. Flashes kept crossing her mind like projection slides, making her happy and anxious at the same time. What also did not leave her, were the thoughts of a man who was killed that week because of marrying a Hindu woman in broad daylight. The video went viral saying, this was an act of a true patriot.
They lived in two bedroom government quarters in a small industrial town. Hers’ was the eleventh quarter and his was the sixth of the same street. Their house separated by a humungous drain which looked even more enormous because they were small at the time. As she stood in front of the coffee shop, waiting for him to arrive, she wondered what could have possibly changed. The old violet cycle that she adored was replaced with the royal blue Bullet, he was now a businessman expanding his father’s business and what else? She glanced at her watch, thought of calling him but left another message instead. It was still too soon to hear his voice.
The most eccentric yet conspicuous part of living in an industrial town is that you get to see exact identical houses with the same architecture and painted either in blue or yellow. The only thing that differentiated one from the other was the number. But in her street his house was differentiated because of more than one reason. It was five in the evening; she was trying hard to learn that the alphabet ‘F’ came with two horizontal bars and ‘E’ with three. She heard the sound of the cycle bell passing her house once and then again almost after a minute. This was a sign which they figured long time back so as to differentiate him from other passers-by.
Going out to play every evening was a protest for her. A protest to something she was too young to comprehend. Her mother said words which she did not understand or try to. She observed that on special occasions like ‘Eid’ how her mother threw the meat and let her have the sweets. When she was invited on his birthday, her mother reminded her to avoid the mutton. She loved the mutton. On worst days, her mother would stop her from going out saying a convent educated girl should choose what friends she makes. There was a false vanity in her mother’s words which she shrugged off till she could, till she was walloped. As he called her name, her mother told him that she was too sick to go out and play.
Her house had an open turf where they played cricket or badminton every evening. She was rather good at playing cricket. Often the ball would fall in the drain. The drain had two openings, and as the ball dropped into one, they ran towards the other at the end of the street because the force of the water carried the ball following the gradient. She helped him get down the slippery drain and retrieve the ball. Every time the ball was retrieved they were quietly proud of their duo, a duo unapproved by their parents or whoever saw it.
She was fidgeting with her phone when he passed by her and parked his bike. She did not have the pluck to look up, not yet. She was not meeting her beloved after two decades, that sort was too clichéd. As her palms were sweating profusely in the chilly winter evening, she heard him say “How are you doing?” She looked up, shook hands. She realised everything had changed in twenty years but the dent of his smile and the tone of her fair skin. As he gestured her towards the cafe, she knew there was a world that she had missed after all.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you” – Rumi.
