Thursday, February 12, 2004
Song of the Nightingale
It is one of the more hallowed cliches of our time that the life of a writer is a lonely one: Max had known that much anyway. But he was sure that he was not lonely simply because he could, or did, write. No. He was lonely because of something else. For, he never did write for the sake of writing or for being published. In fact, he was an engineer by training, if not by profession. But then, he knew he felt the pangs of loneliness every now and then because of just that: his profession.
His profession of the heart.
His intensity and his passion.
For a world that ought to be but not, painfully, is.
No. His loneliness couldn't be because of his writing. Simply because he hardly ever wrote anything for the sake of writing or for being published. He didn't care a trifle for such things. The Wayfarer had seen to that while he grew up in his company. In fact, he never did most things just for the sake of doing them. He always did them for what he believed in with all his heart.
With all his being.
No matter what his limitations were.
No matter what his weaknesses.
No matter what his mistakes were.
No matter what his sins.
Of commission and of omission.
Despite all that, he did love that which he believed in. He loved it with such passion and intensity that few ever imagined they could get closer to the fervent being that was his soul without being scorched themselves. Max was always too much for most people in his obsession with the tragedy of the Muslim Ummah and his brooding temperament lost, as it was, in a great wave of yearning for the way out of its travails. For a path that would grant him one breath - one single breath - in that ideal world that he longed to be in.
A world, the reality of which few people ever bothered to enquire. People who lost themselves in the attractions of the life-long surroundings into which they were born. And from which they had, one day, to pass away. People who catered more to merry making and the good things of this life. People of the type, in the midst of whom, another would be an exception. The oddity.
So out of fear of loneliness, Max had searched history for his friend and brother who was killed in the very blossoming of his youth for the crime of awareness. For, awareness in a world of ignorance, or like the Buddha said, 'to exist as an island in a land of lakes,' are unforgiveable crimes. Had not the last Messenger explained: 'The world is a prison for the believer and Paradise itself for the unbeliever.' It was another thing that a few persons questioned Umar bin al Khattab, one of the closest companions of Muhammad, regarding this utterance of his.
'How could that be possible when God had granted the believers the good in this world also?'
'That,' said the vigilant Umar, 'is because, in comparison with what the believers are to get in the Hereafter, this world would seem a prison to them, while in comparison to what the unbelievers are to get in the Hereafter, this world would seem to be a veritable Paradise, as it were.' But, Max never was certain with regard to that answer. For, he craved, and ached, for what could be achieved here and now, not there and then.
'The craving with which you are enamoured of, Max, is the driving power that sketches the Divine pattern in human history.' The Wayfarer had once informed him. 'Yea, thanks a lot, Wayfarer,' he had replied sarcastically because he knew it had to be from the heart, and not from the lips or even the head.
'Like the one who once pointed to his chest and said thrice: God-consciousness exists right here.' Muhammad had said that: Max remembered. The pain had to be there. The pain when one is left so terribly alone with the desires of one's heart. When none else cared for what you believed in.
'Your passion is not an exception, Max.' The Wayfarer had tried to make him understand. 'Nor are all those who possess such intensity for the cause destined to die an early death. You would see that, for instance, in the one who wrote of the lone nightingale in his complaint, Max. In his Shikhwa.'
'Shikhwa?'
'The Shikhwa of Iqbal, Max. You would do well to read it.'
'You have known Iqbal, Wayfarer?'
'I have known hearts that palpitate with the remembrance of God, Max. Throughout history.'
Yes, the Shikhwa. That was Muhammad Iqbal's complaint to God. Right from the heart. Like the solitary nightingale that sat singing its heart out for the rebirth of the garden that was its haunt. The garden of the heart that had dried out and was now dead to the possibility of another, perfect world.
And how Max read that every time he was gripped of loneliness, like he read it now:
Now the secret of the garden by the rose's scent is spread;
Shame it is, the garden's blossoms should themselves the traitor play!
Now the garden's Lyre is broken, and the rose's bloom-time sped,
And the minstrels of the garden from their twigs have winged away;
Yet one nightingale sings on there, rapt by his own melody,
In his breast the plangent music tosses still tempestuously.
All the ring-doves from the branches of the cypresses have flown,
And the petals of the blossoms flutter down and take to flight;
And the garden's ancient walks, how desolate they are and lone;
Ravished of their leafy robes, the boughs stand naked to the light.
Still he sings forlorn, all heedless of the season's changing mood;
Oh, that someone in the garden his sad anthem understood!
Life is joyless now, and death no comfort promises to bring;
To remember ancient sorrows is the sole delight I know.
In the mirror of my mind what germs of thought are shimmering,
In the darkness of my breast what shining revelations glow!
Yet no witness in the garden may the miracle attest;
Not a tulip there lies bleeding with a brand upon its breast.
Break, hard hearts, to hear the carol of this nightingale forlorn;
Wake, dull hearts, to heed the clamour and the clangour of this bell;
Rise, dead hearts, by this new compact of fidelity reborn;
Thirst, dry hearts, for the old vintage whose sweet tung you knew so well.
Though the jar was cast in Persia, in Hejaz the wine first flowed;
And though Indian the song be, from Hejaz derives the mode.
'Yes, Wayfarer.'
'Break, hard hearts, to end the loneliness of such a one!'
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