Walli – In the Name of M. (Part-III)

Walli’s timeline of resurrections is as smooth as a tragedy. A tragedy that lives inside a being forever.

Remember that story of Musa asking the shepherd to pray properly as directed by God and not commit blasphemy? The shepherd stopped talking and loving God the way he did. He adopted Musa’s directions of praying as defined by the religion. But God didn’t like it and told Musa that He liked the unorthodox way of the shepherd; which Musa ruined.

O’ Musa! What have you done?

Musa went back and found the shepherd after a long struggle and told the shepherd about what God had said. The shepherd smiled, and left. There was no way to go back.

A smile. A smirk. It has always been like that.

And long after Musa, Walli realized how Musa did him wrong, and not only disrupted his one life, but the whole timeline of resurrections… as smooth as one tragedy that lives inside. Like cancer. It runs through your body like blood. Hurting your heart. With every beat. Thump. Thump.

A gradual painful death but not death. You wish for death and when you get it, you are born again to pass through the same corridors of hell.

O’ Musa! What have you done?

Do you even know what hell is? It is here. It is now.

O’ Musa! That was not blasphemy. It was loved by God. Dwell deep down and you will find that there is no ONE WAY. There are ways. Even preaching (tableegh) is not allowed the way you think. If preaching was allowed, then why did God disapprove of your preaching to the shepherd?

I am the shepherd. That shepherd.

I am the wanderer who was loved by God when he was not following God’s path.

I am the being who was approved and the Prophet was disapproved.

I am the blasphemy. That sweet blasphemy that was endorsed by the Creator.

I am Walli. That Walli.

She’s eight years old today. The last time they met was on 30th June, 2016 in Family Court of Lahore.

2,110 days. 5 years, 9 months, 11 days. 69 months, 11 days. 50,640 hours. Whatever. Does counting even matter? Does preaching matter? Does blasphemy matter?

I matter. You matter. Pain matters.

With a smile. A smirk.

Any guilt? No. Anger, yes; but no guilt. This pain and this distance has been nurtured to evolve into an übermensch of pain. How can one opt for devolution?

From Socrates’ drinking of poisoned water with a smirk.

From Mansur Al Haj’s blasphemous death with a laugh.

From Neitzsche’s brain eating amoeba with ecstasy.

From Hussain’s sacrifice for every single blood drop of the family against fascism with a cool breeze blowing from the heaven.

From that shepherd’s love who was blessed by blasphemy and ruined by religion.

To Walli. To here and now. This. Feel this. Today. Never-ending today and the pain which ignites blasphemy, an approved blasphemy by God.

People die. Men die. History vanishes. But pain remains. It’s not Walli’s body but his pain that resurrects again and again.

And again.

Till it’s all over with the Judgement Day. And that Day will be a deliverance for all except those who created pain. You shall see. The day that has been promised. You shall see.

And who created pain in the first place? That’s where it ends. That’s where it starts. That’s where Walli commits blasphemy and a Prophet comes to ruin his life. One life at a time.

That moment of life is stuck. Handing M. over to her mother, never to happen in reverse. To wait for 496 days to meet again. And then with episodes of meetings in the visiting room of the Court for 6 months, the waiting was initiated again. 2,110 days and counting.

Come down dear Lord! Come down for a day. Live in pain for a day. Feel the thumps of a dying heart for a day. Come down and wait for someone you love. Experience what waiting feels like. Come down and wander across the timelines of people who have lost their kids – for a day or forever – and feel this and then let the heavens fall for the Judgement Day. Let this be the end.

Or the beginning of blasphemy. Send someone – a Prophet – again and legalize blasphemy. In the next resurrection of Walli, let it be the century of blasphemy so that pain can be given its due words.

With a smile. A smirk.

You shall see!

Letter for M.

I have been writing a letter for the last few days, so was away. A letter for M. After failing – inside and outside the court – I tried again to make a way for M but obviously, there are hurdles. There are villains. It’s a family. Pretending to be Corleons but not. One is a law-man (a DSP), yet not a law abiding citizen at all. He once used his position against the court orders. I could make it hard for him but I didn’t. Because this is personal. Strictly personal and hence strictly fair. There cannot be a foul play from my side. There never was. Not before, not during, and not after. But I am at the explaining-end because I am the alienated-parent. I started writing and it went on. 11 pages. Single spacing. 11 font size. I could still go on and on and on to make my point but the point is you cannot make a point at all. When everyone on the other side has their eyes closed and their ears shut, you cannot make a point. So, I was threatened. Again. With death threats. With people following me and stuff. Pretty bogus. It’s been 8 years and no one has laid a hand on me and it is very very disappointing. Anyway, I have completed the letter. It’s harsh at places and polite at other times. M is my daughter. But it’s not like that. She has created me in fact. She was born and I was reborn. She has made me, me. She has given me words. She has given me blood to bleed. She has given me pain to nurture. And she has told me how to wait and how to embrace. While I was writing the letter and avoiding the state; women were bleeding. Women were being shot. Being beheaded. Being killed. Being raped. Being humiliated to the extent one cannot even imagine. At one point is an urge to see my daughter. I remember the meetup in court in 2014 after 16 months of pleading – inside and outside the court. Finally, I was able to meet M and she was unable to recognize me. Imagine this. The person who means the most to you, doesn’t recognize you. Anyway. The letter is written. For the purpose of making a point. Points. And for a purpose to be on the record. For her. For them. For everyone.

Walli – In the Name of M. (Part-II)

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. 

Walli – An Old Conversation

“I will kill you,” said the voice on the phone. “I will kill your whole family. I don’t care about a single fucking thing. I will fucking kill you all.”

“Okay. But talk to me with respect,” Walli replied calmly.

“You don’t know me. I have abused lots of people in my time. I was known for my terror,” said the voice again.

“I know. I don’t care and I am not afraid of anything,” Walli replied with the same steady tone, while a storm was beginning to brew.

“Nothing will be left for you. I will pay 15 lac 20 lac and all will be done,” the voice threatened.

“I am not afraid of death,” Walli’s voice rose a little, “I am more afraid of life perhaps. And to die in the pursuit of my daughter would be an honor. You do what you can do and then I will do what I can.”

“What do you want?” The voice finally quieted down.

“My daughter.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“You don’t deserve your daughter,” said the voice, causing the winds to blow more angrily.

“Well a person who knows nothing but lies will say that,” replied Walli in an unusually loud tone. “I am not going to justify myself. My Lord will do that as He has promised me. What I promise you is that I am not going to back down. I am not going to be silent. I am not going to be blamed again. I sacrificed everything that I had. I gave up my name. My reputation. My money. My honor. But now it is my daughter. I am not going to give up my daughter. It may cost me my life. So be it.”

In the ancient times of Walli, it hadn’t been like that. Back in the times of Great Africa, everything was normal. Parents were not denied of their children. During the Caliphate, parenthood was respected.

Now times had become tough. All those centuries, Walli travelled to see his daughter. And just when he saw her, she was taken away from him by her mother. By a conspiracy. By a series of events.

Walli never thought that lies consistently told for months ultimately become the truth. He himself was a victim of blame games and horrible lies and half-truths.

Now Walli doesn’t mind. He answers when you ask. He won’t answer when you won’t ask.

But his daughter is not a person for him to compromise. His daughter is not a tool of revenge for him. He has been abused. He has been tortured. But he hasn’t ceased to smile as soon as he sees her. Even in his dreams.

Walli never realized that life is threatening until he got death threats. Life has more to mourn. Death has a charm. He was here for a purpose. For an eternal mission. Death was a holiday for him till he was born again and came back.

“I repeat,” Walli continued in the same high tone, “You have done a lot of damage for years. I remained silent. I’m not silent anymore. I am going to courts. I am going to police stations. I am doing it the just way. I can do all these things the other way too. But I won’t. Because it is a matter of a future generation. It is a matter of my daughter for whom I have given everything already. Next time when you address me, you talk to me with respect. Otherwise I will wipe the slate clean.”

The voice on the other end started to shudder. The threatening tone became threatened. The sun started to rise from the dark clouds of this age.

Yet the storm continues to brew.

Walli – Vicious Cycle

There is pain. Then there is spiritual pain. The one you nurture so you may live spiritually. At least.

Walli’s life may be a physical tragedy, but his pain was purely spiritual. Without a doubt.

While sitting with Buddha on the hills, Walli gave him the secret. It wasn’t the hunger or abandoning your family. These are physical pains which lead to nothing spiritual.

Well, Buddha achieved enlightenment – nirvana – afterwards. Walli didn’t. Or maybe he did too, but he didn’t tell anyone. Because his was a personal journey, which was yet to be finished.

Centuries later, Walli narrated the same secret to Christ. While waiting in the death chamber, Walli revealed that physical death is temporary. Spiritual death is the real tragedy.

Walli told him to ask God for heavenly permission. In return, Walli died on the cross. No one knows it was Walli who died that day. Only to be resurrected again and again and again.

But who is Walli?

We don’t know for sure. All we know is that he had some unfinished business. In his original life, he went on to a useless war enforced by the emperor. He left his pregnant wife behind and promised her that he would return soon.

He didn’t.

His wife gave birth to a girl, while Walli got buried in an unidentified grave outside Mesopotamia after the victorious war for the emperor.

Since then, he has been helping people to complete their journeys while he himself is wandering for the reunion with his daughter.

While his journey remains incomplete, he was sure to complete the miraculous reunions of Buddha and Christ.

Anyway, can you imagine Walli being the emperor himself? From an unknown soldier to the emperor of all faiths? Well, that’s another tragedy. He had to conquer the Holy Land to complete a prediction.

That war wasn’t holy. It was personal. As he perished for his emperor back then, he too got crowned himself while thousands perished for his war. And history, which he wrote himself, calls him Commander of all Faiths.

Anyway.

These are bits of his journeys from here and there. We don’t have a complete story. But we do know the essence.

From the power of the great emperor to the powerless life of a small farmer, Wali lived through it all. He died on the battlefield without a name and had a whole kingdom named after him in his time. In all the powerful and powerless journeys, his essence remained the same.

He once lived a dervesh life too. He left his home and went far away to a small village where he lived like a hippie. He did poetry and his poetry was against the crowd. He targeted all those with power because he knew how useless this power is. The power only keeps you busy, that’s all. Useless.

He died in his late 70s. People built a tomb in his name. The tomb became a symbol of sufism for generations.

And in another later journey, Walli was singing and dancing to his own poetry in the verandah of his own tomb. Like a madman who never bathed and never prayed.

That is Walli’s cycle of life. That is everyone’s cycle of life too. Vicious. Like a snake. Eating its own tail. Forever and ever.

Walli – In The Name of M.

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.

 

In the Name of Zainabs – Our Daughters

There was a Zainab before. A blind girl.

In the times of Zia.

She was raped. Gang-raped.

But as she was blind and couldn’t identify the culprits, she was stoned.

Stoned to death for adultery.

The so-called “sharia” by Zia was imposed.

Just walk through the corridors of government or private organizations and you will find corruption at every corner of this country. Employees at lower grades are as corrupt as employees at top hierarchy.

Clerks are the ones that keep the pain alive. Employees in the field are the ones keeping the bribe system blooming. Shopkeepers, section officers, businessmen… almost everyone is corrupt. We have to verify a zillion times before making any purchase in this country.

Our kids, our generation, the innocent beings, are also not safe from our corruption. We feed them with impure milk. We raise them with bigotry and complexes. We trust strangers for their development. We send them to unsafe madrassahs and schools. We use them for our gains.

Most of the people, when asked about their kids, reply that they will help them in old age. That is it. Selfishness.

Lower the income bracket, higher the number of pregnancies. The only flourishing indicator of this country. And then they are left to face the miseries of life. Which is why they get into the wrong hands.
A Basic Health Unit (BHU) is given a minimum target of 60 deliveries per month. If less, an inquiry is held. Such is the ugly state of our “population control”.

Anyway, there is a question. Questions. What to do? How to keep our kids safe? Apparently the best solution is to take contraceptives. Let the kids stay in the heavens. But our selfish nature will not allow us to do that. Then what to do?

Schools are not safe. Madrassahs are not safe. Streets are not safe. Even relatives are not safe. What to do? There is no answer. There is only selfishness and misery. And misery will prevail for long. Because we see, we shout, and we become normal. Until we are jolted again.

Young Zainab’s father said that the head of JIT should be a Muslim. His consciousness is amazing. The rapist and killer of his daughter would most probably be a Muslim. The men behind child sexual abuse scandal of (2006-2014) were also Muslims. The state should be rid of this religion card by now. Our security, our existence, and our future is as stake; but we keep this card alive for personal benefits.

People are angry. There are episodes of anger.
Political parties are playing their political card.
Religious parties are playing their game.
The father of the unfortunate Zainab is also speaking in favour of the religious card.
Everyone is playing except those who are beyond the tags of conservative, liberal, Muslim, and non-Muslim “clichés”.

Mothers

Away from all these conspiracy theories reside our mothers.

The mothers who send their kids to schools even when they know they aren’t as safe as they were once.

Over a hundred mothers saw their little kids for the last time when they went to school on 16th December 2014.

There are mothers who are embracing the dead bodies of their young sons; in police uniform, military uniform, and also in no uniform; on a daily basis.

There are mothers who see their sons and daughters dying daily in the desperation of meeting the basics.

There are mothers who see their daughters suffering because of society, culture, misogyny, and patriarchy.

These mother get hurt daily.

Yet they never ceased the process of reproduction.

They cook hope in the breakfast and clean wounds at the dinner.

Perhaps they inherited this from our fearless mother Fatima Jinnah.

Why mothers in Palestine never stopped having kids? They are suffering since forever, yet they are populated as ever.

Because it is not about death.

It is about life.

A Man, A Woman, & A Daughter

He saw the sleeping woman along with her daughter.

12 noon. June. Ugly weather.

Like others, he moved ahead. But that voice, the inner voice, that echoes in his brain like shrieks, didn’t let him move.

He had to come back from a mile.

He stopped his car.

Embarrassed.

Who is looking at him?

He called the woman. Why is she here? Why not at home?

The typical questions people with homes ask people without homes.

She told a typical story. A story such people usually tell. Liars. Lazy.

He gave her money and requested her to go where she lives. Then more money. He requested her to not do that to her daughter. She asked for a lift to a nearby stop.

All this happened because of a three year old daughter of hers. Or his.

That little girl. Playing around her sleeping mother. Clenched his heart. His moves. His time. His whole day.

His whole life.

And during all this, he didn’t dare look at the young girl. He couldn’t. He tried to look in the rearview mirror, but he was not that brave. He was a coward after all.

He remembers the whole episode. The words. The scene. The area. The temperature. The embarrassment. The time.

He remembers the feeling of being well-off equalizing the feeling of a sinner.

He remembers when the two worlds collide.

But he doesn’t remember the face of the protagonist of this episode. He couldn’t.

He is a coward.

He was afraid of seeing “her” instead of “her”.

Her. Who?

Truth & Lies

Lie

Lie another time

and again,

your lie will become the truth;

misshapen into grotesque images

of an alternate reality,

believed by some

and swallowed by all

as the lies you spin

spiral out of control

How long do

you think

this charade will last?

One day soon, the dominoes will fall

The threads that

hold your lies together

will

b-r-e-a-k

s

p

i

l

l

i

n

g

an unbridled ocean of

facts,

dissolving the concoction

of your woven deceit.

The control will shatter

and with it,

your mind

Your own tongue will

string together

words

to articulate the truth,

emerging from the grave,

rising from a coffin

the façade will be broken,

and it will be easy to see

beyond the smoke and mirrors.

You will burn in the

fire

you kindled

dwelling there and

eating your own tail

forever and ever,

till you are charred

beyond recognition.

You will die

and live

a thousand times

till the trumpet sounds

for the final time.

And truth

shall prevail,

as it does.

In this world

and the next,

when all is said and done

truth will triumph,

for truth is God.

It may be obscured,

yet it cannot be

erased.

father-and-daughter-2

(Edited by: F.H.M)