Shahmir had run off. He had seen his mother lying lifeless and his heart had told him to run and so he did. He ran until he left Lyallpur and the life that he had there behind in the past. He ran until he could only see a fraction of what life was from a distance so great that he did not have it in him to return. It wasn't until dark clouded over that reality cascaded upon Shahmir. Suddenly, his knees gave up and so he knelt. He wept and screamed until tears dried up on his cheeks and his lungs shut down and then he walked a little further. He came upon a lonely train station that only housed one train that seemed to be extending as far as his eyes could see. Without another thought, he climbed in and left the city of his father and his father and his father before him not to return until so many years later.
The inside was dark and smelled like burning lumber and coal. It was criminally silent inside. Such was the deafness of the silence that traveled wherever the train number 786 traveled that Shahmir did not realise until many moments later that the train was not silent at all, but alive with a crowd absolutely packed. Carriage after carriage, Shahmir dragged himself through men and women of all shapes and personalities. There was a man with unusually small eyes who smelled of ash and smoke as Shahmir passed him. There was a man who seemed to be mumbling some long forgotten song to a woman sitting beside him. There were a set of twins wearing a set of maroon shalwar kameez and matching hats. The only difference that Shahmir thought could tell them apart was a deep scar that only one of them bore on his face. There was also an old man who had a seat free next to him so Shahmir decided to sit there. Suddenly, the train took off and it didn't stop again for a time Shahmir did not seem to care enough to count. It was as if not hours or days, but weeks had gone by without anyone realising. The deafening sound the carriages made against the iron rails and the chaos that was inside it somehow silenced Shahmir's own demons for a while. Suddenly, he only had himself to ponder over. He decided to close his eyes for a second then a minute and before he knew it, he had drifted into a deep dream that was or was not.
The first time Shahmir dreamed about Tasneem, it was only for a second. She was wearing red and had her hair tied up. Before he could make sense of this unwoven reality, it was over. Shahmir woke up with his heart pumping out of his chest and his hands shaking. It was almost like as if he had known her for a time longer than his own existence.
While Shahmir slept, the train engraved with the number 789 would make soft stops at a number of small towns and villages before finally concluding at Delhi, the capital of British Raj and all that came before them. When Shahmir finally woke up, he found the train to be empty. He stepped down to find himself staring at a weirdly placed pole that simply read 'DELHI' painted in white against black.
Although Delhi had been reduced to only a fraction of its greatness at the time when Shahmir first came there, it was still - in all its flaws and neglects - a sight to behold. Mosques larger and more prestigious than the one he had seen at Lahore were erected every few blocks as if they were the very pillar keeping the city standing. Shahmir had only heard about the city from his grandfather - may he rest in peace - who had told him that the city's foundation was laid down by angels themselves.
"When a man who has loved God more than anything else in his time and place dies, he is reborn in Delhi - the city that was founded by the righteous for the righteous."
Shahmir spent the first night sleeping under the open skies and he spent the next few days wandering. He fed on whatever he could find and he rested wherever he could find shade from the burning sun in between. His fair skin quickly withered, his body shrinked unto itself, so much so, he became a ghastly version of his former self. Soon, he forgot how to weep and make sense of things. Most nights, he would drift to sleep remember his home, his father, his mother, and his love that he was able to leave behind so easily.
Such is the tragedy of life, he would think more often than not, that it flips with such an intensity that whatever past one has is erased into oblivion. He would smile sometimes too, especially when he would think about the trip they undertook to Lahore and the zoo and the King's mosque. He would smile thinking about his friends. One day he laughed almost hysterically over the time when he had stolen cigarettes from his grandfather's room to share with his friends. He would close his eyes and try to remember how his mother's eyes would light up every time she smiled or laughed. He kept moving until he knew he could no longer and so he sat down under a tree that barely provided any shade and he closed his eyes. Shahmir had convinced himself that he was not going to wake up again. He made his peace with God and asked for forgiveness. Once again, he thought about everyone he had loved in a life so short. Morni was the last one he thought about.
Pola found Shahmir as he lay half-dead, half-naked the next morning. When he asked Shahmir his name, he could not remember it and all he managed to do was nod before drifting back to the sub-conscious state of mind he was in. Years later when Shahmir bid farewell to Pola, Shahmir kissed Pola's hands and told him that he was the kindest man he had ever met.
Pola had been a qawwal in all his lifetimes and in all of them, he told Shahmir, he was bound to sit by the durbar of the great cleric Baba Janam who was and write and sing praises unto him. He had a voice that Shahmir thought was unlike anything else he had ever witnessed. It was almost like as if his voice was a form of heaven. He didn't know how to read or write nor did he know how old he was. Someone told Shahmir later, however, that Pola had just passed the great age of one-hundred-and-twenty.
Shahmir was welcomed with warm food to eat and clean water to wash with. He was given new robes and a turban that he did not know how to tie just yet. Shahmir told Pola that he did not know how to sing and that he would not be able to be much help when Pola asked him to stay for good.
"What will I do here?" Shahmir asked him. "This city is strange and new. I do not know what I'd do here."
"God will take care of you," Pola told him. "He does not do anything without a plan and He has a plan for you, my dear friend. You just need to close your eyes and let yourself go."
Something gave a Shahmir a feeling that Pola had a reason for him to stay but what he didn't know was that Pola would keep his lips sealed until his very last days.
"I found my purpose right here and so I decided to stay here," Pola told him. "I'm not saying that this, right here, is your purpose, but until you find it, you're welcome to stay here, eat here, sleep here for as long as you'd like. This is the house of Baba Janam. Everyone is welcome here."
And so Shahmir stayed. At first just to regain his strength but as he stayed longer, he started feeling at home. For five years Shahmir stayed at the durbar. He quickly learned the way of life at the durbar and started cleaning floors and picking shoes. His life became a mere shadow of what it used to be. He would still weep for his mother and he would still blame himself for leaving his father alone to take care of whatever was left back in Lyallpur but he promised himself he would never return. Not at least until he had a reason to go back. It was here that Shahmir started learning about life as it was - not what he had had thought it would be like. It was far from peaceful and it was far from complete. Everyday he would wake up feeling the same sense of emptiness and every night he would sleep thinking about everything that could've been. He never stopped dreaming about Tasneem, though.
As days turned into months and months turned into years, Shahmir slowly found himself tilting towards the contentment of things. He started finding it easier to push thoughts aside and it was only a matter of time before he realised he could do the same with grief. He bounded himself from ever thinking about his home, his father, his mother, and his love.
One day, during a cold winter night, Shahmir was rocked out of his sleep to attend to Pola who had fallen critically ill because of an old disease the Delhi mosquitoes carried with them. The disease would go on to infect almost two-third of the total population of the city. Shahmir was told that the mosquitoes were born as a result of pooled water - the cleaner it is, the deadlier. It was during this time that Pola told Shahmir about his upbringing.
Pola was born Sheeda Lal. Abandoned for being blind in one eye, he was brought up by a kind man who had lost all of his seven sons to the damning famine that had evaporated one-third of the population.
"It was a plague like no other," Pola told Shahmir. "I saw cruel men steal and rob those weaker than them. I survived only because no one wanted to touch a boy with a marble for an eye. They despised the ugliness I carried. For them, the demonic boy only brought bad fortune."
Pola survived seven attacks on his life before he could even understand the hatred orchestrated against him. It was during the seventh attack that the kind man who had lost seven boys of his own decided to send him to old Delhi concerned for the safety of his life.
"I don't even remember his name but he saved my life," Pola went on to tell Shahmir. "He had kind eyes, much like you do, and he was tall. He had this sense of calmness about him even when the villagers were raging to give up the demonic boy with one eye."
Pola told him that the kind man was the only person who loved him. He upheld no conditions and he had no reason to love him as he did.
"Sometimes I think that maybe he was just alone. Whatever he was, my dear, he was someone who showed me that kindness asks for nothing in return. For years, as I settled, I looked for the kind man. Thrice did I go back to find him, but by that time he was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he passed away. Maybe he moved to a place I do no know about. Maybe he was called back by the angels and the beasts that live in the skies. Maybe he just didn't want to be found.
"Dreams, my dear, dreams were how I finally met my saviour again. Old age has bended my shoulders, taken away the sun of my early, naive years, and my good eye can hardly see anymore. I, however, learned that through dreams only can you wave the fabric of the past to the reality that is now. Through dreams only can one travel back and forth to a life that is bounded by no time nor any responsibilities.
"Now, I never wanted to live in the past as some do. All I wanted was to see my saviour and thank him for what he did for me when he didn't have to. Of course, he never told me his name but he smiled when I told him that I am now older than he was.
"I know," Pola went on to say. "Even though God has taken the light of sight from my eye. I know that you dream too and I need you to know that only some dream like you and I can. Only some know how to find and then manipulate the thin thread of reality that keeps us wondering as to what is and what is not."
Pola took a minute to say what he was going to say next. He had been coughing constantly as he talked, but for what he was said next, he didn't flicker or turn.
"Your destiny lies somewhere else, my dear, I had seen it written for you when I first met you. You will never find peace unless you strive for it. There's someone waiting for you, I know."
Shahmir, of course, knew what Pola was talking about. He knew the dreams were anything but ordinary. When Shahmir told Pola that he dreams about the same woman again and again, he was told that dreams never repeat themselves unless they mean something and for someone to see the same person again and again means they're not dreaming at all.
"Everything is written. Life, as it happens, is only a fragment of what it truly is. Once you've lived a reality, it is embedded in you. The people you meet or are to meet, the feelings you feel or are to feel, the hurt, the pain, the joy, the happiness, and grief stay with you until the day you're no more.
"Life is but a circle, but only some have the power and the gift to navigate through it. When I met my saviour, I know I did not see him as you would think I did. I remembered him and I found my way to that very memory where I could see his face as clear as ever.
"There's one more dream I have been dreaming and not until I saw you, petrified and spent, at the rail station when I realised what it meant. I was supposed to find you or rather you were supposed to find me. I was meant to fund you and tell you that your destiny lies elsewhere and now I have done that.
"I am old. I am so old that I have lived longer than trees and beasts that were born after I was. I never saw much clearly, but now I can hardly see anything at all. My knees are weak, my hands shake without my consent or knowledge, my hair has turned grey twice over, and I've known for a long time that I am near to my ultimate end. In all honesty, I should've been dead a long time ago, but only now I realise that I couldn't have died without meeting you, the boy with a broken heart. I had been waiting for you for so long you cannot imagine, my dear, so I could tell you exactly what you needed to hear and now that I have, I believe it won't be long before God calls me back. Finally to rest at last."
The revelation came as a shock to Shahmir in all his realities and Pola understood that better than even Shahmir did.
"God has given you free will, my dear," Pola continued. "It depends on you what you want to do from this point onwards. You can stay here and go on to live a very long life and maybe you'd even end up finding someone and have kids of your own, but you will never find peace in your heart because your heart belongs somewhere else.
"Every soul in this world has a purpose, some have a purpose greater and more celebrated than others do, but in the end, it is what it is. I do not know what your purpose is but I do know that it belongs with the woman you see every time you close your eyes."
Shahmir had never told Pola, or for that matter to anyone, what he had been dreaming about ever since he left the city he was born in. He was surprised when Pola mentioned the girl with eyes brown as honey and skin fair as milk.
"Now you understand, you need to find her. It does not matter where or when you'll find her. You have to find her for your own sake."
Three days later, Pola breathed his last. He was one-hundred-twenty-two and had no offspring nor any relatives. He was buried in the cemetery next-door. Qawwals from all around the city came to pay their last respects and he was buried in a grave that didn't extend more than one meter under a stone that simply said 'Pola.'
The next morning Shahmir left the durbar. He joined a passing caravan on its way to Bengal where so many years ago, Pola was born Sheeda Lal with an eye less than everyone else and a heart more.