There was a problem. He was sure what to write but he was not sure how.
Should he write about her as M.? He talked about her as M.
With time, and with a never-ending state of separation, he started to talk about her a little openly. Daughter. His daughter.
And then, with the continuation of the separation, he talked a little more. Revealed a little more.
MARYAM. Maryam.
His M. His daughter. His Maryam.
Even before she was born, there was a connection. There was a strong connection through dreams. Through light. Through beautifully alone sleepless nights.
But of course there were some prerequisites to be fulfilled to meet her in reality. A marriage. A marriage destined to be doomed from the beginning.
Anyway,
She arrived on a beautiful sunny day. On April 9th 2014. Lahore.
That was the day he realized why the Prophet Muhammad SAW used to stand up for His daughter. With utmost love and respect.
Like the trials of all the philosophies before they were theorized by the great scholars of different times, this story was to be trialed as well.
He had to drink the poisonous water like Socrates.
He had to be insulted in the city like Mansur Al Haj.
He had to bear the crumbling pain in his brain-eating-itself like Nietzsche.
He had to witness the strange eyes of his own people like Hussain.
He had to be killed again and again so as to be given life every time to rise through the stages of suffering until the final resurrection.
Like the Divine Comedy of Dante. From inferno to purgatory to heaven…
However, the inferno isn’t ending since forever. The tunnel ahead looks dark up to infinity.
But even in the inferno, dreams are not forbidden. You can call them nightmares but they are the only meeting points for him and his daughter.
August 6th 2014 was the day of separation. December 14th 2015 was the re-union day. 496 days. In the Family Court.
These 496 days were the longest time period that he had had to survive. And he survived. With dreams. With nightmares. With hope. With struggle. The court allowed him 4 hours twice a month. A total of 8 hours a month. This was considered as a big relief as every lawyer told him.
Women must have been victims of patriarchy outside the court. But inside the court, particularly in family courts, men are the biggest victims you can imagine. Fathers have to struggle for months and years for the first glimpse of their kids. Thousands of Rupees are spent monthly to make the meetings possible. Bribery and begging is compulsory as well. Sometimes, fathers are beaten up too and there is no one to rescue them.
His meetings, visitations to be precise, continued for 6 months. Then the same old story was repeated and he was deprived of that too.
The story of separation started in the same tunnel of darkness.
He heard a lot of love stories. He saw them. People waiting hours to get a glimpse of their loved ones. People waiting to meet. People waiting to be united. Waiting and waiting and waiting. He never faced such waits all his life. Maybe he was needed to be taught how to wait for a loved one.
He is waiting. And he is doing it pretty well.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. This shall end too. He will see. We shall see.
While drinking the poisoned hemlock, Socrates saw his face in the reflection of the water for one last time. The dark incurious eyes. The face without any expression of sorrow or joy. The clean forehead with some wrinkles. His uncombed hair. His last reflection. Just before sipping the hemlock, his lips smiled a little. Everyone around who hurt him all his life were going to die and be forgotten in the ashes of history while he was going to live forever. Just before sipping the eternal grief and pain of his life, he was relieved of all his pains.
And that is when the tunnel is going to take a dangerous and darkest turn towards the perpetual happiness.