Pursh was constantly looking at the awfully bare wall of his small cubicle. I watched him helplessly. We are half-brothers. It was after ages that I was allowed to see him in Diwan Giddumal Mental Asylum. He appeared weak and consumed. I think I sat there for hours in unbearable silence. I felt choked. I turned in my seat, and asked, “Pursh, my brother, what do you see in that wall?”
“I am not looking at the wall.” Without casting away his eyes from the wall, Pursh replied, “I am looking at the world outside through the window in the wall.”
Surprised, I said, “But, I see no window in the wall!”
“Like numerous walls without windows, there are abundant windows without walls!” Pursh said, “From the window without a wall, we perceive what you otherwise do not see from the window in a wall.”
“What do you see now through the invisible window?” I asked.
He calmly replied, “Nothingness.”
“Nothingness!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, at times nothingness.” Pursh, without being distracted, said. “But, what I saw yesterday through the invisible window was a spectacle.”
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Brandishing lethal weapons, and shouting at the top of their voice, I saw fanatics chasing Adam with fearful frenzy of haunted hounds,” Pursh said. “Gasping for breath, terror-stricken Adam was desperately running for his miserable life. I, like the bronze burst of a long-departed jurist, watched the fearsome spectacle of life and death with cold detachment of a metal.”
“Were you moved?” I asked.
“I was not moved.” Pursh asked, “Brother, haven’t we watched nonchalantly such holocausts in history before?”
Surge in sanity often brings us on the brink of insanity. I felt sorry for my half-brother Pursh. When in university, he was a brilliant student of history and social sciences. His teachers once had pinned high hopes on him for bringing about social revolution in the country. He has ended up in a mental asylum on his way to the gallows.
Pursh suddenly asked, “Brother, how old am I?”
I replied, “I have no idea.”
“Like a fossil I am a deaf, dumb and a blind witness to the death and dying of Adam.” Pursh said, “Man is born to kill, and gets killed in the process. He is more interested in the long-boots than treading the earth barefoot in search of the Everlasting Truth. He puts on a helmet on a head without vision, and feels secure.”
Pursh suddenly receded into silence. His eyebrows twined and he looked at the wall fixedly. I felt uncomfortable. His gaze at the wall was intense.
Pursh abruptly broke his silence and asked, “Brother, has anything changed since man invented the catapult, and then went on to develop nuclear weapons?”
“Nothing has changed, brother.” I sighed, and said, “Man continues to suffer from his incurable malady, his incessant desire to kill!”
I have no idea how often Pursh and I have witnessed the assassination of Adam since the creation of the earth, sun, moon, and the stars. During each social and political upheaval in history, we half-brothers have seen Adam die a violent death. As compared to Pursh, I am a dullard. He queries the faiths, canons and laws men have enacted from times immemorial, and conveniently killed each other without remorse. Pursh was incarcerated. I, a meek, have survived throughout the turmoil in history. To fulfil the legalities in dispensing justice, they have kept him in a mental asylum to regain his sanity. As soon as the surge in Pursh’s sanity that rendered him insane subsides, and he regains sanity, he will be executed on proven charges of blasphemy.
I felt restless. I moved closer to Pursh and asked, “What happened to Adam?”
“Adam was in a disarray.” Without looking at me Pursh replied, “The savage assassins were at his heels. They were possessed with the frantic desire to kill him.”
“Did they catch him?” I asked.
“They couldn’t.”
“Then what happened to Adam?” I asked.
“Running at his fastest, Adam leaped into my room through the invisible window.” Pursh said, “His cold-blooded assassins, too, entered my room from the back door.”
“What did they do to him?” I asked.
“They swamped him with queries, are you Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or Jew?” Pursh said, “They hung him upside down and kept asking, tell us who are you?”
“What did he tell them?”
“He told them, I am Sufi. From the day the earth, sky, oceans, sun, moon and stars came into being, I am trying to find out who I am, and who is the Khaliq, the Creator of the innumerable universes.”
“Did his assassins comprehend his reply?”
“No.”
“What did they do to Adam then?”
“They sat in judgment upon his faith, and pronounced their verdict.”
“What was their verdict?” I asked.
Pursh raised his head and arms towards heavens, and said, “They incarcerated him in the mental asylum to regain sanity, and then to die at the gallows. Adam is my next-door neighbour.”
