Category: Father and Daughter

It is about the pain which gave his words meaning. It is about Walli who writes in red ink. He writes and bleeds. He humanizes his pain, to decorate your bookshelves, which you put in the history section. 

It is about the pain which kills your organs gradually inside you, like cancer, but cancer is nothing; comparatively speaking. 

It is about cancer inside itself. Cancer has a chance. And cancer is inside you and is yours. You own it. It grows inside you like a child in a womb. 

How do you suffer chronologically? 

There is no chronology to Walli’s life. Lives actually. I have narrated fragments of his life in different eras. 

He drank the poisoned hemlock to be Socrates. 

He went astray once – not actually – and shouted Ana al-Haq to be Mansur. 

He rebelled once and his rebellion was so harsh that his own brain ate himself. He declared ‘God is dead’ to be Nietzsche. 

The world is Walli’s stage. An ugly stage, for experimental purposes. Sometimes a million die because of a bad experiment. 

And there is no chronology. How can a story be narrated when it has neither a beginning nor an end? 

For example, in the year 2014, on this very same day, the sun was embracing his skin like a usual April sunshine. She arrived around Zuhr and the journey of separation started. 

In the year 2015, it was exactly 246 days of separation between the two. 

In the year 2016, her 2nd birthday was celebrated in a family court. 

Since then, it’s a journey in a black hole. 

Is there a deadline?

The life, as we know it, is an illusion. The pains, the gains, the rewards, consequences; everything is an illusion. Tangible illusions. Perhaps your dreams, when you sleep, are the reality. You only wake up to sleep again. You work hard to sleep better. You get your health checked to have uninterrupted slumber. Sleep is the cause and dreams are the reward. Simple.  

But Walli hasn’t slept in ages. During his first birth around 470 BC, he was conscious before coming out to the world. He was ready to be delivered to the world of pain. A world with questions and no answers. Hence, experiments. Bad ones mostly, causing terror and havoc. 

What is love?

What if I tell you that your soul-mate – apparently – has said “I love you” to his/her ex more times than you? Will this objective information be useful? What if you haven’t heard “I love you” not even half the times of the ex? Does it matter? 

Where does your existence fall exactly?

And what if you have never said “I love you” to the person you love the most? 

Love is an illusion too. Delusion, to be accurate. Walli didn’t say “I love you” to the person he loved the most. He didn’t. Yet he is travelling. Coming again and again, in different shapes, in different times, to die, again and again. 

Drinking the poisoned hemlock. Rebelling to be killed. Writing to be blasphemous. Fighting with his own self. Getting defeated every time, to be resurrected again and again as victorious. 

One time, in 1974, he chose another path of rebellion. He wanted to take the kings by the collars to hang them. He roamed around with his sword to kill the rulers. The hunger he has always cherished. He went so far that he became incorruptible. The incorruptible Maximilien de Robespierre. And in standing corrected, he got executed. He was executing to get executed. He did. People don’t see that. They see history. Walli writes that. He sees the other way. 

Who is Walli actually?

Imagine a big war – like World War II – where bombs are being dropped from planes and you are lying in a field with an injured leg. And you look in the sky and think about the war and your potential death. You think about the person – who you have never met – for whom you have sacrificed your life. Your life. Your family.  Your children. For what? For a land which is going to bury you. That’s all.

So, where are you actually? One among the million dead soldiers. One of the soldiers lying in the field. Looking at the sky and absorbing the color blue, while painting the field red with his wounds. A no one. Mr. nobody. This is the part of history which no one writes. And this is Walli; but no one knows. 

And like Socrates, who smiled before taking the final sip, because he knew everything – before and after – was nothing more than a piece of crap. 

And like Nietzsche, who proclaimed that God – God forbid! – is not anymore, and you are Übermensch. Like Walli. 

Let the drums beat. Let the sand of the desert shiver with the coming army of Saladin. Let the hearts burst with fear. Let the swords rise high in the air to dissect. Dissect arms. Dissect bodies. Kill at will. For the Promised Land. But that doesn’t matter. Who wants to get into the Promised Land to die? The bar has two sides. Richard’s side and Saladin’s side. But it is exactly the same bar. And Walli doesn’t want to die in the field, looking at the sky, thinking of nothing. That will happen after 8 centuries. 

Here lies the final question for us. Why is he roaming around times and creating havoc everywhere? Because he has a reason. He was torn apart once. The system, the world, the people, the dots, the plays, the characters; everyone took from him his most valuable presence. His part. To whom he never said “I love you”. 

So, let it burn. Let the world burn. Turn everything into ashes. Because nothing exists; and what exists doesn’t matter.

For him, she is the world.

This is the part of history no one writes about.

But Walli is history himself. 

And that is all in the name of M. In the name of Maryam.

For him, the Promised Land has no promise and nothing to offer. Not to him at least. So, he has been enjoying. While sitting in the desert, he watched the giant approaching army. Drums were making a beautiful rhythm. A little rustle in the wind. A little vibration in the sand. With a chilled Coke can and a Dunhill, he has been having his time of rest. 

Now you must be wondering that there wasn’t Coke and Dunhill in 1187. Right. Doesn’t make sense. But you should be asking whether he was Saladin or Richard at that time. Well, none. He was sitting in the desert. With a Coke can. And a Dunhill. 

Makes sense? Doesn’t matter. 

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.