Wali – SakiNama

Walli – Mothing Around His Own Fire

That year was hard for him. It took him by his soul and shattered his existence. That year made him realize that he had lived all his life in lies. Lying in lies. Washing in lies. Sleeping in lies. Even his collar was a lie. Intact and clean lie.

He started to believe he was unlucky.

He thought, if he had to suffer, why change the tormentors? If the previous tormentor was as cruel as the next one, why did he move on? And who on earth moves on with one tormentor to another? Walli does. But he isn’t a stupid being, mind you.

That was all fine though. Suffering is a way to excellence. To Prophethood. He believed he was Nietzsche’s’ Übermensch already. And he believed he should proclaim prophethood. Soon. A Prophet who will denounce all religions. ‘O my dear villagers! I hereby decree myself the Prophet of none. To undo. All your beliefs. I hereby order you all, to fire the townhall, and roam around it, until you are all exhausted, and are ready to jump in the fire, so that no one – no Prophet – in times to come may come to give you warnings of hellfire.”

Would that proclamation be enough for the whole village to save it from hellfire? He guessed. He always guessed.

However, there was one among the whole village he never wanted to suffer. Here or hereafter or whatever is after that. He knew sufferings are irrationally divided and they cannot be imported or exported but he wanted to inhale all her sufferings. He wished he could. Inhale. Her. Sufferings.

He knew, she would suffer with all her sufferings she brought from skies for herself. He thought, why not burn down the whole village under a direct command of a new Prophet? The finality of sufferings must be in suffering. In fire. In hellfire.

But he missed the point. He always misses the point. He was her suffering. Enhancing the domain of suffering of the Prophethood to the entire village was based on a wrong analogy. Only he needed to be burned alive. He. Was. Her. Suffering.

The only dot constant in his life was her. And he, like a moth, was roaming around her. Without seeing her. Without meeting her. Without talking to her. He was her suffering, and she was the fire he was circling around.

So, he must die. Like a moth. Wandering. Tired. Exhausted to death. Happily.

The point is, there was no point. Wrong decisions to ignite a chain reaction of suffering. And see, here is he. As restless as ever. As alone as the first betrayal. Punished without the original sin.

Or maybe, He was the villain of his own story. Or the story of the entire village.

The fire was ready. Townhall was ready to be destroyed. He bent down and looked in the fire. The reflection of fire in his eyes was the reflection of fire outside and the universe was in a dilemma about the real fire. Herein. Within.

Up till now you thought this was in the imagination of Walli. No. He proclaimed.

“O’ Spectators of all the sins and all the evils and all the pains and sufferings! Remember that I happened to be Prophet with the shortest time period. Because she happened to be my story. And if I am a failure, a villain, I denounce the prophethood, and I give myself to this fire.”

For the utmost love. To the unity. In another life of Walli’s journey.

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 – 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 – The 6th Transaction

Pain resides over love. Love breeds around it.

Like a vine; wrapping itself round the massive and un-yielding tree of pain. Twisting, covering, inch by inch – hiding the tree itself.

And the people passing by fully enjoy the breathtaking view of the vine. Experiencing it. Smelling it. Touching it. Without knowing what it encloses. Without seeing what lies beneath.

The last breath is never easy just like the first breath; however, for Wali, the trauma of breaths has been different. His first breaths were as conscious as the last ones. Always. He always knew the purpose, the journey, the struggle; yet failure was destined for him. The pursuit remained not for a decade or a life but for lives along with echoes of requests in parallel universe.

Yet here he is again at the Gate of Transactions with God, with the same request and the same vehemence in his eyes, to ask to pass the same journey again. Just like a moth to a flame, he has to burn. He has to die. It is his destiny. And perhaps the purpose too.

The Gate of Transactions is unlike any of the other gates. It is a combination of the physical and metaphysical dimensions. Time exists in the physical dimension and there is no limit to the time you can traverse. However, contact remains elusive; bound by a silent command. The command of ‘Kun’

This is Walli’s 6th transaction with the hope that it will be the last one. He may not have had any eminence in his four lives in the world, yet he has the royalty to be here for a conversation.

God loves to give chances. He loves to give hope. He will easily grant you another life. But He will sternly refuse any assistance. He will not reply to the old-wretched-soul of Walli. He won’t look. He doesn’t need to look.

He knows. Everything.

“Here I am again, at the mercy of You and Your creations of time and life and hope.”

God knows.

“I need to go back again. I need to start again. I need another chance. Another life. Like Adam.”

God knows.

“O Dear Lord! Grant me another chance. Send me back. Forgive me but I don’t want the eternity of heaven. I need the life of the world.”

God knows.

“I have failed but my failure is not mine alone. I am limited. I am restricted. I am confined. In a body. In a soul. I deserve another chance.”

God has always known.

Time continues to race. At the edge of chance, his heart – barely able to beat – slows down. He looks up at God, silently imploring with his eyes as words fail him.

“Please!”

The Guardian of the Gate approaches Walli to escort him. He has had his chance. He has had his meeting. He has had his failure. It was meant to fail. Requests, pleadings and lives are turned to ash like that.

Un-Kun-ed.

“The vine is nothing without the tree. It lives, breeds and produces because of the strength of the tree. Pain and love go hand-in-hand like your parallel lives.” Pointing to the gate, he says, “Please leave.”

The gate closes behind his back with a clang.

Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned.

“Is this it,” he wonders.

This is it.

“KUN!” comes the Commandment and the universe echoes it for the sixth time.

… follows a conscious gasp somewhere near a small hut near a cold river passing through a cold desert.