A merrymakers’ group took me along to an ideal spot on the creek for watching last sunset of the year 2003. It was close to the abstruse Clifton pagal khana
I LEANED against the huge wall of the Clifton pagal khana, and watched through the thick leaves of a massive Bunyan tree the tired sun depart. The Clifton pagal khana is one of the few abstruse mental asylums in Karachi. Not all sane persons are required to know the exact location of the pagal khana. The sun was slowly and painfully heading for the last sunset of the year 2003. It kindled the horizon with mysterious glow.
Suddenly, I heard someone laugh. I looked around. No one was visible in close proximity. I clearly heard the laughter again. It apparently came from the heavens. I looked heavenward, and caught sight of a lunatic perched comfortably at the top of the 20-foot high wall of the pagal khana.
“Charya!” He waved at me, and asked, “Do you think the year 2003 won’t depart if you did not bid farewell to it?”
“Well!” I scratched my head, and said, “I do not know.”
“The sun doesn’t give a damn about silly people like you.” He said, “The year 2003 would depart in any case. It would shorten your lifespan by one year.”
Meanwhile, the sun vanished, leaving behind the ocean ablaze in flames! The mysterious twilight immersed the earth. The leader of the group, a middle-aged bald intellectual by the name of Mr Manchala, turned round and spoke to me from the shore, and commanded, “Faqir, aray baba sing.”
I instantly launched into a full-throated rendition of a famous national song, “Tu bhi Pakistan hai, mein bhi Pakistan hoon, Yeh bhi Pakistan hai, Woh bhi Pakistan hai.”
Singing and playing Sarangi at Clifton beach is one of the few part-time jobs I undertake to survive in Karachi. A gaudy group of persons, male and female, who seemingly had stirred utmost merry moment from life, had hired me to sing a national song while they watched the last sunset of 2003 from a secluded place close to the Clifton pagal khana. Thus, I sang for them, Tu bhi Pakistan hai, mein bhi Pakistan hoon.
I am not an ardent watcher of sunsets. However, I have often wandered in Makli alone among the dead and their dilapidated monuments and canopies during the last night of the departing years. Makli is not a haunted place, but I have distinctly heard the dead converse in whispers, in a language beyond my comprehension. If it happens to be a moonlit night, then the splendid calligraphy and the motifs engraved on the sandstone graves appear more weird and unearthly than ever before.
At times, I instinctively spend the night between December 31 and January 1 in the ruins of Moenjodaro. I go there in search of the ancient dancing damsel. After reading Rider Haggard’s She long ago, I felt obsessed with the theme of the novel. Since then, I believe it would be during the night between December 31 and January 1 that ‘She’ would come back to me from the celestial world beyond this one.
This year, too, I had all the intention of leaving either for Moenjodaro or for Makli when the merrymakers’ group engaged me on a lucrative remuneration to sing a few national songs for them while they watched the sun slowly vanish for the last time in the year 2003. The group of enlightened persons appeared realistic to me. They had planned to bid goodbye to the year 2003 from Clifton creek in the vicinity of the pagal khana, or mental asylum.
The merrymakers’ group took me along to an ideal spot on the creek for watching last sunset of the year 2003. The ideal spot was close to the abstruse Clifton pagal khana. I leaned against the wall of pagal khana, and waited for the sun to set for the last time in 2003 AD. It was then that I heard a senior lunatic laugh distinctly, and I conversed with him.
The sun disappeared. The group celebrated the departure of the parting year with great fanfare. They ate, drank, sang and danced in ecstasy. Mr Manchala, the coordinator of the group, walked up to me and asked, “Were you talking to someone, Faqir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who was he?”
“He was a senior lunatic.” I pointed at the huge wall of the pagal khana, and said, “He talked to me from atop the wall.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He told me each passing year shortens your life span by one year.”
Mr Manchala looked at the wall in surprise, and asked, “What else did he tell you?”
I said, “He told me that the sun doesn’t give a damn about the merrymakers. It departs because it is preordained to depart.”
Suddenly, Mr Manchala stared at me, and asked, “”What makes you think he was a lunatic?”
“I have lived in a mental asylum among the wise for more than a thousand years.” I replied.
He stepped aback, and looked at me suspiciously. He asked, “How come they set you at liberty from the asylum?”
I said, “When they found out I had grown unwise, they set me at liberty.”
