My Sufi friend Sarang is not dumb. After experiencing a soul-shattering incident 34 years ago, Sarang had receded into perpetual silence. He doesn’t talk. Some people call him khamosh, silent.
The horrible happening took place during the cold and cruel winter of 1972. The month was December. It occurred in a small town by the name of Kandhakot, Province Sindh, Pakistan. An armed group of frenzied followers of a religion, who happen to be in absolute majority, invaded a cluster of houses belonging to the followers of one of the other religions practiced in Pakistan. They are in minority.
While police abstained from appearing on the scene of occurrence of the crime, the invaders indulged in vandalism for hours. They looted valuables, devastated artistic furniture, and played havoc with the artefacts and priceless paintings of the saints, sufis and the deities. It was not all. They beat up the male folk, and either tied them up or locked them in different rooms. During the scuffle they killed three or four young men who put up stern resistance. The children were slapped and kicked. Most of the invaders molested and dishonoured women. And while they indulged in ungodly acts, they raised slogans in the praise of God!
Sarang was beaten with reinforced clubs and was tied to a window of a room on the first floor overlooking the dalan, veranda where women were being dishonoured. He was half-blinded with blood oozing from a nasty gash on his forehead. What he witnessed from the window devastated his soul. He looked heavenward, bit lips, and murmured, “Why in your name? Why?”
“He doesn’t let anyone kill or dishonour in His name.” Sarang realized he was not alone in the room. He turned his head. Someone with his hands and feet tied with a rope was lying on the floor. He was profusely bleeding from his mouth, nostrils and head injuries. Sarang tried to figure him out, but couldn’t. His face was covered with blood.
“Then, are they converting our women to their faith?” Sarang bitterly asked.
“Man is a stupid animal.” The bleeding man said, “An orgy that pleases him he thinks pleases Him. Man remains ignorant all his life.”
Sarang murmured in a chocked voice, “Ignorant or no ignorant, nothing could change his vice in a virtue.”
“Men have devastated each other in multitude in the name of their insignificant gods.” The bleeding man said, “It is mortal men’s sadistic indulgence from the times not recorded in history.”
Sarang helplessly curled and cried. He looked skyward and spoke to the Unseen, “Why with us? Why?”
The bleeding man turned over and looked at Sarang. He had more wounds on his soul than apparent wounds on his body.
“Help us for we are helpless.” Sarang begged of the Omnipresent, “Shield us for we lay bare to the wolves.”
“No mourning could alter the Supreme Systems.” The bleeding man said, “Mills of God grind slowly, but surely.”
Sarang closed his eyes, lowered his head and clinched the fists. Shrieks and wailing of the women kept tormenting his heart and soul. He sat as if at the ridge of a steaming volcano on the verge of eruption. He folded his fastened hands, looked upwards and murmured in agony, “Your mills grind, grind surely, but very slowly.”
The bleeding man heard him talk to the Omnipresent in whispers. He said, “Oceans boil and turnover, earth shakes like a leaf and the volcanoes erupt neither a moment before nor a moment after the time set in the Supreme Systems.”
Sarang raised his head, looked at the bleeding man and asked, “In whose name men killed each other when there were no gods?”
“Frightened and fickle-minded man has always been crafty at creating gods.” The bleeding man said, “Much before the invention of wheel, man was already engrossed in worshipping anything enigmatic that frightened him, and then replacing it with more complex and fearsome phenomenon. He has dedicated his killings to the gods.”
“Your face is covered with blood, but I believe to have seen you before.” Ravaged by what was going on around him, Sarang asked, “Who are you?”
“Between tormented and the tormentors I am with the tormented.” The bleeding man said, “Between invaded and the invaders I am with the invaded.”
Then, an echoing cry pierced through the earth and the sky above, “Sarang, Sarang, Sarang.”
The sky came tumbling down. Mountains melted. Volcanoes erupted. The oceans turned over and inundated the earth.
Sarang leaned over the window, and saw his sister die. He spoke for the last time in his life, “Die peacefully my sister.”
A third person sat gagged at the entrance of the lavatory in the same room. A masking tape was wrapped around his mouth. He was tied to a chair. He engraved each moment of the soul-shattering incident on his mind. Months after the harrowing happening when obscurity dispelled, fear subsided and the smell of the charred wood wilted, the third person narrated each agonizing moment of the dreadful holocaust to me that I have penned for you. The third person lives with me, within me. n
