Seamless continuity of footsteps

NOSTALGIA is an old man’s best friend, and lack of sleep his worst enemy. I knew it because when my old parents came to live with us for a few months, I could hear the voices emanating from their room well past midnight.

They had a whole world left behind in Pakistan to talk about. Pakpattan Sharif (see photo), the place where Baba Farid resided, was also the place where my mother was born and brought up. She had a strong religious instinct, maybe due to the proximity of the Sufi saint’s dargah to her home. However, it was my father who often recited the saint’s poetry during their conversations because he had studied it while preparing for an examination.

Some of the couplets that I used to overhear have stayed with me. My favourite: “Farida je tu aqal lateef hain tan kaale likh na lekh, Apnre girebaan mein munh neewan kar dekh” (O Farid, if you are really intelligent, don’t write negatively about others, you must look within and see your own faults first).

Then they talked of relatives who vanished during the Partition and those who survived. They also talked of gold and silver buried in the courtyard while leaving the house in a hurry, hoping that one day they would come back to retrieve it — as and when things settled down. Alas, it was not to be.

While witnessing them getting older, losing their teeth, upgrading their specs and piling more and more medicines on the bedside, I pitied their condition, hardly realising that a subtle change had been in the offing. Their eventual departure was only a matter of time.

The actors have changed now. Approaching their age, my wife and I have slowly cast ourselves in their roles. Sleep often plays truant, and after uselessly tossing and turning in bed, we are left with nothing but to relive the memories of our youthful days and childhood. When there is a brief lull in our conversation, I sometimes hear the voices coming from the room where my late parents used to talk and sleep. I often wonder if it is a fait accompli for every human to follow in the footsteps of his or her forbears.

We often hear that age is just a number, but having seen old age from close quarters, I can say that all numbers are not the same. Robert Stach’s The Ice Age Cometh, a sci-fi novel set in 2125, is a case in point. Even the years are numbers, but 2125 will never be 2025.

Poet Nida Fazli has beautifully summed up this continuity of relationships in his poem ‘Walid ki wafat par’ (Upon the death of a father):

“…tumhari qabr par jis ne tumhara naam likha hai

Voh jhootha hai, voh jhootha hai

Tumhari qabr mein main dafn hún, tum mujh mein zinda ho

Kabhi fursat miley to fatiha padhne chale aana…”

(The one who has written your name on your grave is a liar,

I am buried in your grave, you are alive in me

If you ever get free time, come and offer the ritual prayer).