Twenty Minutes To Isha

As I went out of the university today, I started feeling some weird discomfort. I did not exactly know what it was, what it meant, and where it came. An individual is sometimes absolutely unaware of his true position, whether he is moving on, or wandering purposelessly. That has hit me today, when I left my temporary home that I rented and went into the dying light of the evening sun.

 I was drifting through the throng of people, who were thronging the streets, and I had just as much sense as nowhere--no news, no place. I did not know where I was going, nor where I would come back. Having passed a little, I reached the railway station. A heavy freight train went rolling by, and people were hastening onto the platforms in twenties, with a purpose and urgency about their steps.

 I said to myself--lucky people because they have no doubt about where they are going.

Close at hand, too, was a rich green field, in which children and young men were engaged in an innocent game of cricket, whose shouts were heard in twilight air.

On and on I walked, and the ragged and uneven road cut at the tender flesh of my feet, and I had to remember the burden of every step that I took.

Even the rain water that was yet collected in the potholes of the destroyed streets were murmuring that the storm had only ceased.

With evening falling down round and a dusk darkness settled round the edges and the gentle shadows of the evening, the voice of Maghrib was heard at an adjoining mosque. I trailed the voice as it lingered and found myself in the midst of a business colony--full of vegetable carts, a few butcher-shops, and snuggled in between, a little mosque. Great numbers of people had flocked at its outer gate, the old and the young, homosexual and heterosexual, responding to the voice of prayer.

But I, thus engaged in my journey, withdrew and sat in an adjacent cafe to have a cup of tea. One of the cafe owners was a Muslim, and he spotted me and remarked with a warm eye that is, O prince, you are not going to pray?

My heart does not appear to rest in religion, I said and my voice was hardened with discomposure. Looking earnestly, he said, why so, prince? What has happened to you? Religion is no barrier to separate--it is a road to follow. Attempt but once to stand in the mosque, to pray.... and thou shalt find that that everything which seemed thy closed doors will be open, and all thy afflictions shall be light to thee.

I put up my teacup without saying excuse me, and was going to leave. And that was when the cafe proprietor kindly held me back and replied, alright then, prince... at least do me one favor. When I go off to give my prayer, watch my cafe on your part?

I do not even know you, and still you have subjected me to the surveillance in your small cafe. Or--suppose that I had stolen away--Why take a joke, my friend? Regardless, there is nothing in this little cafe of yours that could be stolen. A couple of chairs, one or two tables, or possibly the kettles where tea is poured. Should stealing these the weight of my life relieves, then let, by any rate, I steal. This was said with a laugh by the cafe owner and he walked off towards the mosque. Outside the rain had again just commenced falling softly. It is said that in this modernized technology, it is not always easy to predict the rains of Bangalore. Nobody knows when the sun clouds in this city will all at once shed their tears? It was at the entrance of the cafe that I was slowly swallowing the last drops of tea I had drunk but a few minutes before, my eyes staring up at the narrow street which led to the mosque, waiting till the time when the owner of the cafe should rise out of his prayer and come back.

 There was a short time and then the stream of worshippers started to pour out of the mosque. Some ran to the vegetable carts to negotiate their evening provisions; others were rushing over the paths to their homes. The cafe proprietor also came back smiling. Thanks, prince, he said but I, without saying, walked away.

Wait, whither hast thou doth fly? he called. "It's raining again! Sit awhile, drink some tea. Tea is a sort of magic in this cold, cool autumn--it puts the body about. Maalik Sahab talked fast, with his words pouring out like a stream of words in one breath.

I went back to the same corner table of the cafe, and lay my head on my bent-up arms. I could see the frolic of the rain through the broad glass window as it sported eternally on the street below.

A little later I requested the owner to give me another cup of tea, it must have been my third one during the same evening. By this time the cafe was full of an affable crowd, and the chatter and the clatter of cups were heard to mingle up. After a minute or two, the cafe owner himself entered the shop and sat opposite me on my table.

"What's the matter, prince?" he asked gently. Why burn yourself in the heat of this tea? What's troubling you?"

I gulped down some of the hot tea and answered, it is nothing special... I had been thinking of how greedy and selfish this world has become. We nourish our friends and enemies--and yet they lurk in our sleeves and only await the time to attack those who are innocent and unaware.

You are right, prince--these days, no one should trust anybody, because it is the worst thing to trust, old wounds, that is, hide that smile with a weary smile, he said. My own brother and myself, took a bank loan to open this little cafe, but as early as we opened we were losing money, and then as soon as he discovered the extent of the damage he disappeared, slipping away without leaving any trace behind him.

since that time, I use trust as a currency, spent, however, only rarely, with caution. Why then did you set me the make-shift custodian of thy cafe? My question, which I had, to my own amazement, posed, covered the hush of rain near the glass.

Your shoes and feet were telling their own story--you've come so far, you see the blood on your sandaled feet--you know you come so far, I said to myself, and I did, "I wanted you to rest a while. The agitation of your eyes gave restlessness a boost in me. I thought but of you only even in prayer--what could be more sorrowful that sits on the breast of this prince? By the way, what is your name?"

I responded in a daze, like it was the prison door being banged, as I listened, and then the response came along before contemplation could seize it: my name is Kamran. And I am not a prince, --merely a wanderer, of destination and abode unknown.

The owner smiled at hearing the answer. Very well then, little gentleman--where is your lot of striding’s to now? When a word can be trusted the night prayer is just a little way off--say it, and go. His words received certain weird echo in-doors, and my feet, without my own knowledge, turned down the road which led to the mosque.

I went to the outer gate and performed ablution and entered the prayer hall. There was a big clock--a Salah time indicator--on the wall, which said that there were still twenty minutes before the congregation. The silent prayer in the heart had started growing upon the tongue.

There burst forth, with a corner of the mosque one of them, a man, who started to weep--soft, stifled sobs, each of them sliding down his ear to his heart. What weight he had, it might have been unknown, but the pain of it pervaded the room like the sound of falling rain. It is true: everyone in this world is broken in his own way and only before the Almighty The dam of our patience breaks.

Had we but human beings been to follow the road of faith, life, the thought surged up, would be so much easier. We have come so far yet so many of the oppressed, the helpless and poor, the weighted down by circumstance, have been left out.

We must be a refuge to them--and this article is devoted to all our voiceless men.