Return flight to Delhi

As the big,ugly,rickety bird became airborne,the two widows looked,for the last time,at the tomb of Emperor Humayun,and beyond at the proud minarets of Shah Jahan’s Grand Red Mosque. They would have been thinking of their sons and husbands,fathers and mothers,near and dear ones,at whose graves they would never be able to offer fateha again.

Their thoughts would have wandered like haunted souls through the narrow lanes and winding alleys of the metropolis they loved,pretty as a water lily,proud of its past,perturbed by its present,confident of its future,the eternal city of Krishna and Nizamuddin,Firoz and Shah Jahan — the jewel of India which had moved the hearts of Zauq and Zafar,Ghalib and Iqbal.

As the Eternal City became more and more distant,all adult passengers wept silently. But the 10-year-old lad did not understand. He was lost with himself,flying high,savouring this new experience. He looked down and beyond at the vast expanse of the dry,brown land of India,cut into tiny squares and rectangles,rolling before his wide,wondering eyes. He felt happily the chess pieces in his pocket,and wondered if he would find a worthy chess player in the new land. The new land,he was old enough to know,was going to be called Pakistan,and the new city,he was vaguely aware,was to be Multan.

*****

It was a clear,warm spring evening on the festive day of Nauroz,the 21st of March,1984. The tomb of Emperor Humayun was silhouetted against the light of the setting sun as the PIA Boeing descended towards the Grand Old City. Seated in the front row was a balding,greying man in his mid-forties.

He looked through the window at the skyline of Delhi,and then at the passengers around him. Not a single face was familiar. Where had they all gone? He longed to see the two widows on either side of him — but they had long gone,sleeping peacefully and eternally in distant,dusty Multan,where destiny had pulled them away. He touched the pockets of his bush jacket,but there was no catapult there,no small wooden chess pieces. All was gone — three and a half decades ago. Only his memories remained,swirling like howling,dust-devils in the limitless universes of his consciousness and subconscious.

Once again,he had that unique,delirious experience. He was above space. He was beyond time. He had left the city of his birth by the morning flight,and was returning by the evening flight. The airport was the same. The minarets of the Grand Red Mosque were the same — tall and majestic,benign and inviting — just as he had left them. In the soft light of approaching evening,Delhi had the same rare radiance,that once-in-a-decade brilliance that he had seen on the morning of his departure. Two dainty rainbows hung in the sky,like two slim eyebrows of the beautiful woman that Delhi had always been.

The dazzling light made his eyes moist,and the two glittering rainbows got bigger and brighter in the ever-expanding mist that was getting into his eyes. He pulled out his handkerchief and touched the corners of his eyes. He wondered if he was daydreaming now,or had been sleepwalking for the past 36 years. At long last,the 10-year-old boy felt at peace. The return flight had landed at last.

(The author retired as the seniormost Additional Secretary to the Government of Pakistan in 1998)