| Exhausted by his long walk, his mind settled on the idea of taking rest at a place. His eyes caught sight of a place to the right where he was. “Ah, a farm”, he exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction. He paced his steps towards it, reaching there in a couple of moments. As he moved toward the edge of what he had thought was a farm, he came upon a long stretch of land under the shadows of trees flushed with greenery. In the middle of the land, he saw a large chinar tree overlooking the small stretch of land. He rushed to the chinar tree to rest a little. As soon as he reached it, to his amazement he found himself the only person among the dead, prompting him to raise his hands and say a fatiha (i) for their souls. No sooner had he uttered “asalamualiekum ya,” a wailing voice of a woman hit his ears. He stopped and turned around. He noticed a woman wailing in front of a grave. He quickened towards her and asked, “Hum shera, che kyaxi wadan”? (Sister, why are you crying?)
Sensing a voice behind her, the woman wiped off her tears, stopped crying, grabbed her bag, got up on her feet, turned around, looked him in the eye and replied, “Yi chu meon posh” (This is my son).
“When did he die?” he inquired.
Sighing a long and deep breath, she said, “Next month it will be twenty years.” She stopped and then continued, “I can’t forget that day. He had gone to a shop for milk and snacks for our guests…my brother…his mamu (ii). Gone for milk, but he came back in his blood-drenched body. It was his 20th Rohan posh today. I have been here praying to Allah for his return ever since. I have been to every shrine but of no avail. My prayers do not even go beyond my rooftop, let alone reach the sky. I want him back in my life… I only had one son, my everything in this world. Now that he is no more, I am devastated.”
He listened with utter, serene attention to her and seeing her fall into a silence, he asked her to give him eleven loaves of bread to pray for her son.
“I have tried this for years now. It does not even work now. Times have changed,” she retorted quickly.
Again, raising his hands in prayer, his lips quivered. No sooner had he finished his prayer, a creaking sound emerged from the grave of Intizar Ahmad. She looked around and found people rising from the graves, heading towards the village. Shocked at what was happening, she heard another voice— “moaji” (iii) hit her ears. She recognised the voice at once, turned around and found her son in the clothes he had gone that fateful day to the market.
“How did you know I was your mother?” she asked.
“How could I forget the face moaji,” he replied?
She embraced him as tight as she could. She then turned around to thank the man who had just prayed for her son; he was no more there to be seen. She was sad she could not thank the man and his prayers. Soon the mother and her son headed towards the village, his index finger in her hand just like twenty years ago when she would take him to the urs, in the next village. It took them long to reach home for the only path to the village was filled with the grave people, all walking home. Except his home had now changed. As he set his foot inside his home once again, Fatima woke up to the voice of Intizar, “moaji, moaji, crackdown chu nebir kin” (Mother, mother, outside is crackdown).
***
Notes:
(i)Fatiha: a prayer for the dead
(ii) mamu: Uncle in Urdu
(iii) moaji: mother in Kashmiri
(iv) Urs: A festival celebrated in honor of a Sufi
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