Even after decades of friendship with Faqeer, I do not know who he is and from wherehe has come. He speaks Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi and English. How he knows English is a mystery
I was sitting at the brink of a stinking nullah or drainage brook along with Faqeer Mohammed alias Faqeer, watching models appear and then disappear on the catwalk. Actually, I had no business to be there. Faqeer Mohammed Faqeer is my friend. On his insistence, I had accompanied him to the contest. A headache for the organizers was to find the most suitable woman for the coveted crown of Miss Kagal Colony. In Faqeer, the organisers of the contest perceived the required expertise to be the judge, as well as to preside over the occasion and crown the winner of the contest. The organizers approached him with the request. He reluctantly obliged them, and promised to be at Kangal Colony at least half-an-hour before the commencement of the contest.
Faqeer Mohammed is a genuine Faqeer, but not in the sense of a beggar. Most of his life he has spent at dargahs, the shrines of the Sufi poets and saints of Sindh. He remains attired in a torn saffron gown. A begging bowl always dangles by his side. While roaming from place to place, he recites the mystic verses of the Sufi poets. From him I have learnt that craving for more stuffs us with incurable restlessness. He had once asked me, “Do you know what lies beyond every truth?”
Upon my expression of ignorance, he had said, “Beyond every truth rests a higher truth.”
How we became friends is an amazing incident of my life. I do not remember precisely when, but I think it was many years ago at Bhitshah that I encountered Faqeer for the first time in my life. The occasion was the concluding day of the annual Urs, anniversary of mystic poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai. I was relishing a huge plate of pakoray (deep-fried gram flour paste with onion and green chillies) with bread at one of the numerous cheap-food outlets strewn all over the place. A lean vagabond in a tattered saffron gown came along and sat by my side on the make-shift wooden bench. He watched me intently as I kept gulping from the plate of fresh, fried pakoray. I, a city dweller, felt uncomfortable. I offered him to have pakoray with me. He smiled and politely refused to take even a broken bit of pakora from the plate.
“Would you take a cup of tea?” I asked.
He again smiled, and said, “Yes, I would.”
I gestured the vendor for a cup of tea. It was promptly served. He sipped from the cup, and said, “What we eat eats us from within.”
Startled, I turned round and looked at him. He said, “What we consume consumes us in return.”
I felt surprised.
He bewildered me when he said, “What we grab ultimately grabs us. What we usurp gradually usurps us. You can’t sow pebbles and reap the harvest of pearls.”
He was Faqeer Mohammed alias Faqeer. We became friends. Let me confess that even after decades of friendship with him, I do not know who he is and wherefrom he has come. He speaks Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi and English. How come he knows English is an enigma.
Once, travelling in a train from Lahore to Karachi, we came across a person in the compartment who was constantly talking. Faqeer whispered in my ear and said, “He who speaks ceaselessly betrays his emptiness from within.”
“Why does he talk when no one is listening to him?” I asked.
“He is victim of his own self-deceit.” Faqeer said, “He doesn’t know that constant talking empties us, and silence fills us from within.”
I have often wondered, has Faqeer Mohammed ever attended a college or a university? What gives him contentment and confidence, and a deep understanding of events? Once, I had taken him to a seminar on Purpose and Motives Behind Wars. Among the participants were professors, writers, scholars, academicians, and social scientists. At the end of the seminar, the participants jointly declared that people from times immemorial have fought and killed each other mostly in the name of religion.”
Suddenly, Faqeer rose to his feet, addressed the chairman and said, “Sir, am I permitted to speak a few words?”
I pulled him by his saffron gown and whispered to him, “We are merely observers, Faqeer. We are not supposed to talk.”
The chairman said, “Please, do speak.”
“Thank you, sir.” Faqeer said, “Desire for usurping other peoples’ lands and properties, conveniently called the economics of war, remains the most powerful motivating factor behind each war fought in the name of religion.”
With the passage of time, I have realized that it is better not to know him. I am happy that we are friends. It is enough for me. I take him along to high-brow seminars, workshops and conferences on subjects such as human rights, poverty, literacy and adult education, free trade, deficit financing, morals and morality. Faqeer too takes me along to the places he frequently visits, the shrines of the mystic poets, saints, and sufis. In his company, I have lived with drug addicts, wayward, vagrants, rebels and slum-dwellers. Last week, when he asked me to accompany him to a pageant contest to identify Miss Kangal Colony, I had no reason to refuse him.
