TURNING POINT

Baba, my loving father, left all of us forever, on July 18, 1991. Since then, I have spent almost, over twenty six thousands and two hundred hours, without my Baba!! It’s very surprising, how dare I yet alive without him but its fact, I am here, alive and needless to mention, all alone as well. My calendar is showing, it is July 18, 1994 again, same day when my Baba decided to leave for his final destination. Baba did not ask me how would I survive without his company and made his final decision, perhaps, Baba was in hurry to start his journey to heaven, no doubt, a better place than elsewhere!

 

For many days, the phenomena that Jupiter was hit by falling pieces of a comet (Schumaker-Levy 9) was being reported in the news with a sense of foreboding and drama.  Some people began to feel apprehensive and fearful.  And like at any time of disaster or hardship, they were praying to their assorted Gods for salvation and protection.  However, the remaining people took this earth-shattering news in the same light as a sensational murder or massacre and went about their day-to-day business.  Today, like everyday, my mother prepared food for an extra person, in the hopes of earning a reward from God for feeding a hungry person.  She asked me several times to take the extra food to the mosque and give it to someone who was needy or hungry.

I did not go to work, decided to stay home as it was the death anniversary of my Baba. There, I opened my small attaché and grabs Baba’s personal belongings and spread them out on the bed.  Amongst the mementos, I was holding his personal diary that I never urged to read before as I knew there would be no secret bank accounts details. An honest, hardworking reporter for a newspaper would never manage any account to save money as the news reporter barley saves his life so saving money is always out of question for every honest person so this goes to my Baba too.

 

  Who was my father? Its very simple to answer, no words manipulation ever needed. My Baba was a hard-working and honest journalist, spent his whole life in reporting news and writing articles.  He never thought or attempted to save a penny for the future of his children.  In my opinion, the only thing my father would’ve written in his diary was his method of collecting and reporting the news, and because I have no desire to become a journalist, I never felt the need to read his diary.  As I count things as my treasure, especially if it belongs to my father, I’ve kept it safely and cherished it.  I haven’t mislaid it like I have my degrees and certificates.  Earlier, I kept my degrees very safely as well; I laminated them, made photocopies and filed them away.  Then came a time, when along with job applications and their rejection letters, I burned the photocopies of my degrees and heated my tea over the resulting bonfire.  As for the laminated degrees, I have no clue where they are.  Then, out of frustration at the futility of earning any kind of degree and to support my mother and younger siblings, I accepted  a job at a tailor’s where I didn’t need to show my worthless degrees nor fill out a job application.

 The tailor that I worked for was a good man; instead of giving me assorted tasks to do he put me in charge of the accounts.  Sometimes he asked me to jot down measurements.  Its yet fresh in my memory, one evening, a regular customer came into the store, he asked me to bring in some tea, when same customer left, he told me that if I continued to work hard, he would apprentice me and teach me how to sew and cut to become a good tailor.

Two days ago, a fellow classmate from university came in to get some clothes sewn.  We exchanged pleasantries and while I was taking his measurement, he asked me for my address and asked when I would be at home.  He showed up at my house the very next day.

He didn’t ask me about where I had applied for jobs nor did he question me about the struggles that I had endured in finding gainful employment.  For some moments, we both recalled our old days.

“Will you work with me?” while he was ready to go, he suddenly asked me.

“What kind of work do you do?”, I inquired.

“I collect ‘protection’ money.”, he replied.

Then I noticed, he had pulled out his gun from his inner pocket of his jacket. He was smiling in very strange way. His eyes were fixed at my face and to be very honest I realized my face was just astonished. I was speechless.

“Well you can think over, I would be more happy to help you, we used to have very strong ties” he replied to me once I declined his offer politely.

“I will come tomorrow to ask you finally”, he gazed at me and I am sure he read my face that I am little confused.

“Stupid, there is no way to accept your call”, I said to myself and after a short while, my friend left and then I fell asleep.

As today is Baba’s death anniversary, I didn’t go to work.  Every year on this day, I open my small attaché case and take out all of my father’s personal possessions.  Picking up his pen, ring and watch I try to imagine what his hands and fingers felt like and I sniff his handkerchief and cap to see if I can smell him.  By reading over his old correspondence, I try to imagine the sound of his voice when he was in a conversation. 

He had two pairs of glasses, a prescription pair and sunglasses.  I would take them both out of their cases, clean them, and then put them back in.  And then there was his diary which I have never read.  I would just pick it up, dust it off, and put it back into the attaché.

Since the morning, I’ve felt agitated.  Maybe it’s the effect of the comet pieces falling on Jupiter.  Maybe it was the thought of the return visit of my old university chum or possibly, I was missing my father more than usual, but in an effort to alleviate the agitation I was feeling, I took out my father’s diary and began to read.

The diary began in 1986 but there was no correlation between the date that was printed on the diary and what my father had written in the diary.  From 1986 to 1991, those events that my father would have considered important were only briefly mentioned.  I also deduced that he started writing the diary towards the end of the year because on the page that was printed “January 1986”, my father had written in his own handwriting, “November 1986”. 

 

November 1986:

Today, at the age of 69, I broke my first tooth.  It was the fourth tooth on the upper level on the right side of my mouth.

This is what happens when you chew iron pellets.

 

            On the opposite page, he had written:

 

March 1, 1987:

Today, I returned the rest of the 60 rupees that I owed Ibn Abbas. My old debts are cleared.

 

            On the page that was printed “January 5, 1986”, my father had written “June 22, 1987”.

 

June 22, 1987:

By the Grace of God, my son, Ali Ahmed, graduated with honors.

Looking at my temperament and the situation at home, I think my son has decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps.  He wants to go on and study father.  May the Grace of God be with him and may he be successful.  Amen.

 

            On the next page he had written:

 

June 29, 1987:

There is a gaping hole in the wall of our society and through that hole, foreign currency is flowing in.  If this hole isn’t plugged soon, then a flood will break down the wall altogether.  And the waves of this flood will wash away all our love, affection, peace, manners, etiquette, culture, heritage, etc.

 

            On some pages, there were some calculations.  Then he had written:

 

July 11, 1987:

Latafat Hussein’s nephew died while in police custody.  Latafat Hussein came to see me and asked me to write an article against the police.  I said that the whole of society needs correction.  Once there are no longer any social evils, all facets of society will correct themselves.  He was not satisfied by what I had said.  As he left, he taunted me by saying that I should first fix myself first so that I gained financial stability and as a result, got mental peace.

 

            On the next page, he had written a poem:

 

I’m picking twigs from a garden

But I have no time to make a nest

 

            On some pages he had written various sayings of saints. 

            On another page he had written October 19, 1989:

 

I am your reflection Oh wise man

As the other side of wisdom is insanity

 

           

            Almost all the remaining pages were filled with similar couplets.  I continued to read them until I got to the last written entry which was written on December 29^th and 30^th.

 

The road in front of my house merges with the main road after one furlong.  About twenty years ago, my deceased father came in with the groceries while I was getting ready to go to work.  He looked at me.  He began to say something to me, but stopped.  He turned to leave but then turned back to me.  He said, “If you are going out, don’t follow the turn in the road.”  As was my habit, I replied, “Yes sir.”  Exiting the house, I started thinking.  There was only way to reach the main road.  The road leading up to our house ends there.  Why would my father tell me to do something that was impossible?  I was still pondering over this when my father came out of the house.  He was holding a torn sheet that belonged to my mother.  He handed it to me and said, “Here, take this and spread it.” He then went back into the house.  For a moment I just stood there in bewilderment.  I took the sheet and when I reached the bend in the road, I saw a half-crazed beggar woman who was not in her senses.  Like the monkey, she was clutching her dead infant to her chest.  I draped the sheet over her half-naked body and shivered.  I caught the bus and went to work.  From work, I phoned the local police station and informed them about the deceased child.

Today, after twenty years, at the same bend in the road, I saw another beggar woman that was skin-and-bones.  She also had an infant in her lap but this one was alive.  But there was no way I could tell how long the infant would continue to live.  I know that my wife didn’t have an extra sheet that she would be able to spare, so I averted my eyes and passed by the woman.  Upon reaching work, I kept thinking about the poor woman and her child.  Is this what life is?  Who am I supposed to phone for this dead body?

January 21, 1990.

 

            Holding the open diary in my hands, I sat for a long time, morosely.  Then I turned the page.  It was the last page of the diary.  Here, he had written a couplet:

 

I’ve already waged war against life

Now it’s time to do battle against death

 

            My father had written this couplet about two months prior to his death, on May 16, 1991.  I thought that between January 21, 1990 and May 16, 1991, whatever my father had wanted to write, he didn’t because he didn’t have another diary.  Did no one give him a diary?  He got a hold of an old diary and wrote whatever he wanted to write for four or five years. 

I was lost in my thoughts when I heard the sound of a motorcycle.  I quickly put the diary in the closet.  Someone was knocking at my door. I opened it.  That was him. He was not talking but looking at me, again in very strange way.

“Today was my father’s death anniversary so I’ve taken a day off from work.  Tomorrow I will go back to work.” I broke the muteness.

He was yet not talking to me. I looked at him closely.  His face was pale and I could see pain in his eyes. The thought arose that he might have sustained an injury while collecting ‘protection’ money.  I was about to ask him if everything is ok.

“There’s a beggar woman at the bend in the road holding a child in her lap.  I don’t know if it is alive or dead.” He hardly completed his sentence.

First, his words were a jumble but then they hit me like an exploding bomb.  There was an explosion inside of me just like the pieces of the comet falling on Jupiter.  My eyes were wide with amazement.  The words from my father’s diary were flashing before my eyes.  What a strange turn in the road that’s giving birth to similar incidents over and over again.  And what a strange turn in the road, that it has become a shield between those poor beggar women with their dying children and the cruel and unforgiving world.

    “Do you realize what kind of person you have become due to your  being jobless and without patience?” I started shouting at him.

“Your indiscriminate wishes and ambitions have led you to murder, which in turn has contributed to the condition that these poor women are in by taking away their sole means of support.”

“Has your ill-gained ‘protection’ money clothed these naked women?  Or has it given life to their dying children?  Weren’t the money-hungry feudal lords, billionaires and landlords enough that you want me to become like them and take from these poor people?  Do you want me to become another murder and robber in an already long line of murderers and robbers?” I was screaming at him and I felt words were automatically extracting from my Baba’s diary.

He was just lying there on sofa, staring at the ceiling.  He remained silent for a long time but I was not sure, if he ever heard what I said to him.

Finally, supporting himself on his elbows, he tried to rise and stretched out a hand towards me for support.

“The universe is a target for revolution.  The surface of Jupiter has neither water nor vegetation, but because pieces of a comet have fallen on its surface, it’s shaken.  Then why can’t a revolution occur here that will end poverty?”

“ Why can’t there be a revolution that will end the need for poor women with their needy children to seek shelter from the cruel world in some bend in the road?  Why?  Why can’t there be changed?” Now, it was his turn, he was replying me back. The difference is that this time, I was sure that I heard every word he said.

He got up, squeezed my shoulder, opened the door and left. When the sound of his motorcycle faded, my eyes searched the place where he had been lying down. He left his gun there. I know, he did not make this mistake but he surrender this to me. May be it was also his ‘Turning Point’.

I picked up the gun and put it behind my father’s diary.