Salar began to weep uncontrollably; he was crying with his hands clasped. Sikandar and Tayyaba were taken aback. For the first time, they were seeing him cry and that too with his hands clasped, as if pleading. What was he doing? What did he want? What was he saying? Sikandar Usman stood absolutely still; Tayyaba sat next to him on the bed and embracing him, tried to pat his back in consolation; and he, like a child, clung to her. Sikandar Usman, standing at the foot of the bed, suddenly felt that, perhaps, this time he was not lying, that indeed something might have happened to him. Clinging to Tayyaba, he was crying uncontrollably like a little child. Tayyaba, trying to console him, herself started to cry. Let alone small things, he had not shed tears over big issues too—so what had happened that his tears did not cease that day?
Standing there, Sikandar Usman had a change of heart. 'What if he was really tied up there all night ?'
He had been up all night waiting for Salar and fuming at him. He thought that he had again gone off gallivanting in the car to Lahore or some place else. He was getting anxious but he knew Salar's behavior and, so, was more angry than worried. He had gone to bed at about three in the morning when he was informed on the phone by the police.
Sikander Usman had gone to the hospital and found him in a very serious condition, but he was not prepared to believe that he was a victim of some incident. He knew that he would, from to time, inflict pain on himself. For a person who would cut his wrists, plunge his bike into oncoming traffic on a one-way street, take an overdose of sleeping pills, or tie himself up and jump backwards into the water, it was not difficult for him to get himself into such a state.
His body was swollen where the insects had bitten him. In places, his skin had turned purple. His feet were also badly injured. Similar was the state of his wrists, neck and back; and there were wounds on his jaws. In spite of all this, Sikander Usman was certain that this was his own doing.
Perhaps, even if Salar had been able to speak and convince him, he would never have been moved, but seeing him weep uncontrollably he had begun to believe that he was telling the truth.
He came out of the room and contacted the police on his mobile. An hour later, he came to know that a red sports car had been found and the two boys driving it had been taken into custody. This happened during a routine check for the car's papers and the police, suspecting at the boys' nervousness, nabbed them. They did not say from whom the car had been snatched; they had insisted that they found the car abandoned and took it for a joy ride. Since no FIR had been registered for the car, it was difficult to verify the boys' statement.
But shortly after filing the FIR, Sikander Usman had learnt about the recovery of the car, and now he was in real anxiety about Salar
Sikander and Tayyaba did not bring Salar home that night. He stayed at the hospital; by the next day, his body ache and swelling had considerably lessened. Around 11 in the morning, his parents came to take him home. Before that, two policemen had come and taken a long written statement from Salar about the events that befell him in Margalla.
Entering his room with his parents, Salar was embarrassed—for the first time—about the life-size posters of nude models plastered all over his windows. Tayyaba and Sikander had come into his room many times and the sight of those posters was neither new nor objectionable for them.
'Now rest. I have had fruit and juices kept in the fridge for you. Help yourself if you feel hungry or send for the servant—he'll serve you,' said Tayyaba.
Salar was on his bed. His parents stayed with him awhile and then drawing the window curtains shut, asked him to sleep and left the room. As soon as they had gone, Salar sat up. Then he locked the bedroom door and drew the curtains open. Swiftly, he began to pull down the posters, pictures, cut-outs, all that adorned his windows and walls. He piled them up and put them in the bath tub. When he switched on the bathroom light, he caught sight of his face in the mirror—swollen and bruised as he had expected it to be. He went back to the room where several pornographic magazines also lay around. He gathered them all up and dumped the lot in the bath tub. Then, one by one, he took the videos from the racks and began to pull out their tapes. In no time, his carpet was covered by a mangled heap of video tapes. He trashed the cases and scooping up the heap of tapes threw them into the bath tub too. Then picking up a lighter, he set the tapes alight. As the sparks turned into flames, the bathroom was filled with acrid smoke. He turned on the exhaust fan and opened the bathroom windows to clear the air. He was burning this heap of pornographic trash because he wanted safety from the flames of Hell that would embrace him. The fire was consuming the paper and plastic as though it had been created for the flames.
He stood watching the fire without even blinking as though he stood on the edge of hell. A night ago he had stood on the hill watching the lights of Islamabad below and thinking that it was the last night of his life and he would never see the Islamabad lights again. In that hysterical condition, he had been shouting at the top of his voice, 'Once more, just once more, give me a chance! Just one chance and I promise that I will turn away from sin and never look back again.'
He had been given the chance and now it was time for him to live up to his promise. The fire had reduced everything to ashes; as it smoldered and died down, Salar washed away all traces with the hosepipe.
As he turned towards the washbasin, Salar noted that though the gold chain around his neck had been snatched away, the platinum and diamond stud in his ear lobe was intact—they had not paid attention to that probably because his long hair had concealed it, or even if they had seen it they might have thought it worthless.
Salar took off the stud and put it on the counter. Then taking a pair of clippers from his shaving kit, he began to chop off his hair—mercilessly, heartlessly. The water from the running tap was draining away the cut hair. Then he began to shave his face. It was as if he wanted to remove all signs of his former self. Then he took off his clothes and unwrapped the bandages on his arms. He stepped under the shower—for one whole hour he washed every part of his body, reciting the kalima as he did so... as if he had been brought into the circle of Islam for the first time...as if he had become a Muslim for the first time.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he opened the fridge and took out an apple. Having eaten it he lay down to sleep. He awoke when the alarm he had set before sleeping rang out. It was two in the afternoon.
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'My God, Salar! What have you done to your hair?' Looking at him, Tayyaba forgot for a moment that he could not speak up. Salar pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and put it before her. It said 'I want to go to the market.'
'What do you need?' Tayyaba looked at in surprise. 'It's been a few hours since you got home from the hospital and you've not even recovered completely....and now you want to go roaming about again.' She reprimanded him gently.
'I want to go and buy some books. I'm not going gallivanting.' He wrote and passed the paper to her.
Tayyaba looked at him and replied, 'Very well; go with the driver.'
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It was past sunset when he stepped out into the market. The lights had come on, creating an ambience of color and life all around. He saw young people moving about, dressed in Western clothes, carefree, laughing, enjoying themselves. Among them, he felt—most unusually—the same sense of fear that he had experienced 48 hours ago in the Margallas. He too was one of these youngsters—laughing, joking, teasing girls, passing unsavory remarks. Head bowed and without caring to look anywhere, he entered the bookshop that lay ahead.
He took out the paper listing the books he wanted and put it before the shopkeeper. He wanted a copy of the Quran's translation and some books about prayers. The shopkeeper, who knew him well, looked at him in amazement. Salar used to go there to buy pornographic magazines and the latest novels of Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins, and the like. Salar had understood the man's surprise. Instead of looking him in the eye, Salar kept l
ooking at the counter.
The shopkeeper, after instructing a salesman, turned to Salar.
'You've come after a long time. Were you away somewhere?'
Salar shook his head and scribbled 'Was out for studies' on a piece of paper.
'And what's wrong with your throat?'
'Nothing much, just sore.' He scribbled again.
The salesman returned with the translation of the Quran and the other books Salar wanted.
'Oh yes! There's quite a trend these days for reading up on Islam. It's a good thing too, especially if you're abroad,' the shopkeeper stated with a smile, in a businesslike way.
Salar was unresponsive; he began to skim through the books placed before him. a few moments later, to the right of the Quran, he saw a pile of pornographic magazines. He looked up in surprise.
These have just come in—I thought I'd show them to you. Perhaps, you might want to buy them.'
Salar looked at the translation of the Quran and then those magazines, lying a few inches away and a wave of fury coursed through him. Why? He didn't know. With his left hand he picked up that pile and flung it as far as he could across the shop. For a few moments there was complete silence. The salesman stood aghast.
'Bill!' Salar scrawled and held it to the salesman's face. The man, without a word, began to calculate the amount for the books Salar had selected. Salar paid up and was out of the shop with his books.
'Idiot!' He heard someone say as he stepped out. It was a girl, and Salar did not bother to see who it was: he knew that he was the object of the remark.
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His voice was restored two weeks later; although it was still quite hoarse, at least he could speak. In these two weeks he had been on a soul-searching journey—something he was doing for the first time in all his years. Perhaps it was the first time that he had realized that there was such a thing as the soul and if there was a problem with one's soul.... He had entered a phase of silence: not to speak but only to listen. And listening was, at times, more important it dawned on him for the first time.
He had never been afraid of the night before but after this incident he was terrified of the dark. He slept with the light switched on. He had recognized those two boys in police custody, but he had refused to accompany them to that place where they had left him trussed up. He did not want to go through any mental torment again. He had never experienced so many sleepless nights as he did now and was compelled to take sleeping pills. Sometimes when he didn't take sedatives, he'd spent the entire night wide awake. In New Haven too there had been times like this, painful and tortuous, but then it was more of confusion and restlessness, and maybe, remorse. But now he was going through a third state—fear. He could not determine what fear had overcome him that night in the hills: was it the fear of death, or the grave or hell?
Imama had said that after ecstasy comes pain: death was pain. She said that after pain was nothingness: the grave was nothingness. She said that after nothingness would come hell. He did not want to reach that stage. He wanted to be saved from that ecstasy that would lead him from pain to hell.
'If I didn't know about these things, how come Imama did? She's about the same age as me and comes from a similar background, then how did she have the answers to all these questions?' he would think, astonished. 'She had the same luxuries as I did, so what made us different?' What was the school of thought she belonged to and why did she not want to be part of it? He read about them now and it added to his confusion. Was the Prophet's (PBUH) finality such an important issue that a girl should want to leave home forever?
'I didn't marry Asjad because he did not believe in the finality of the Prophet (PBUH); do you think I'd be ready to marry someone like you who, though he believes in the Prophet's (PBUH) station, lives a sinful life and does all that my Prophet (PBUH) has asked us to refrain from? If I do not marry one who does not believe in the Holy Prophet (PBUH), I will not marry one who flouts his instructions either.'
He remembered each word spoken by Imama Hashim and now he was pondering over their meaning.
'You will not understand this,' she had often told him: so often that it had begun to annoy him. What was she trying to prove anyway—her superiority, that she was a great scholar or that she was very pious, and he was inferior? But now he realized that she was right. He really was not capable of appreciating her thought. How can a worm that lives in the muck know what dirt is? To such a one all others seem to be in the pits. He was like that worm then.
'I loathe the look in your eyes, and your unbuttoned shirt!'
He too now began to detest these things. For a long time, this statement had echoed in his head like a buzz word every time he faced the mirror; try as he would to shake it off or lose himself in his work, it had gone on repeating itself. Now he had started buttoning up and keeping his gaze lowered. He could not even look himself in the eye in the mirror. No one had ever told him such a thing about his eyes, and certainly not a girl. Imama was the first one to do so, and it was not his eyes but the look in them that was loathsome. Imama had identified that look. He used to talk to girls who looked him in the eye and spoke candidly—he enjoyed their company. Imama did not do so—she'd look at him but not directly, and if she found him staring, she'd look away. Salar had the mistaken notion that she looked away because she found his eyes mesmerizing.
'I loathe the look in your eyes, and your unbuttoned shirt!' Hearing her say this over the phone, he had been quite shocked. Eyes are the windows of the soul: he recalled reading this somewhere. So did his eyes really reflect the sordid depths of his soul? He was not surprised—it must be so, but to recognize this filth, there must be a criterion of purity before one. Imama Hashim was that example of purity.
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'You need not explain or instruct me now. You will have no further cause for complaint,' said Salar without looking up at Sikander.
He was going back to Yale, and before his departure, Sikander—with a faint hope of change—had launched into the usual instructions and admonitions. But even before he could complete his words, Salar had assured him sincerely—for the first time—and Sikandar had faith in his son's assurance—for the first time ever.
He had been observant of the change in Salar after the incident in the hills. Salar was not the same person—his thought processes, his attitude, his appearance, his very life had changed. It was as if the flame within him had been extinguished. Whether these changes were right or wrong, good or bad, Sikandar was yet unable to comment, but he did know that there had been a major impact in Salar's life which had brought about this change. He did not realize that this was the first time that Salar had been defeated, and the first blow in life brings stalwarts to their knees—Salar was just a strip of a boy barely into his twenties.
Sometimes in our lives we do not know whether we have emerged from darkness into light or if we are entering into the dark—the direction is unknown. But one can differentiate, in any case, between the earth and the sky. When you raise your head, it is the sky above; and when you lower it, it is the earth below—whether or not it is visible. To move forward in life, you need just four points of direction—right and left, ahead and behind— the fifth is the ground under your feet. If that were not there, it would be an abyss, hell, and on arriving there one would have no need of direction.
The sixth point of direction was above and that was unattainable. That was where God was—He who was invisible to the eye but was present in every heartbeat, every pulsing flow of the blood, every breath, every morsel that went down one's throat. To Salar, his photographic memory, his 150+ IQ level were a torment now. He wanted to forget everything, all that he had been doing till now, all that he could not forget. If only someone could understand his agony.
END OF CHAPTER 5
Chapter 6
On his return to New Haven, Salar embarked on a new journey of his life. He remembered all the promises he had made, sobbing, tied to the tree th
at night in the horrendous and lonesome darkness of that jungle. He began to live in isolation from all the others, with the least contact or connection with anyone. 'I don't want to meet you.'
He had always been outspoken but none of his friends expected him to go to this extent. For a few weeks, he was the target of speculation and criticism from his group; then this changed to objections and discussion and, finally, to sarcastic remarks and distaste. Eventually, it simmered down and people got busy with their own lives. Salar Sikander was not the focus of anyone's life and nor was anyone the focus of his life. There were a few things he did when he came back to New Haven: one of these was to try and meet Jalal Ansar. He had brought Jalal's address from his family while returning from Pakistan. It was a coincidence that one of his cousins worked in the same hospital as Jalal; the rest was easy, in fact, too easy. Salar wanted to meet him once and apologize to him, to confess all the lies he had spoken to him and Imama about each other. He was ashamed of the role he had played in their relationship and wanted to atone for it. He had reached Jalal Ansar and now, through him, he wanted to reach Imama Hashim. He was with Jalal in the hospital cafeteria. Jalal looked very serious and the furrows on his brow reflected his growing displeasure. Salar had reached the hospital a while ago, and seeing him face to face left Jalal stunned. Salar asked for a few minutes of his time; Jalal obliged him after making him wait for two hours.
'First of all, I would like to know how you traced me?' he bluntly asked Salar, sitting down. 'It is not important.'
'It is very important. If you really want me to spend some time with you, I must know how you found me.'