I do remember when I asked my grandpa about the old man living in the ruined cottage. My grandpa had shouted on me saying, "What took you there? Never ever go close to him. I will never forgive you if you ever visit him again".
"What is so bad about him? Is he a dangerous man"? I had asked only to listen, "The entire village has socially boycotted him and no one can see him or even talk to him…"
"But, why?" My curiosity continued when he explained, "Listen, my dear son! You hail from an urban life. You have no idea of the village traditions and values. You need not to visit the graveyard, located at a far distance from the village. Please do not go there and never even talk of that old man".
"But why was the old man thrown out of the village?" I was unable to control my oddity.
"Will tell you sometime later, now I need to offer my prayers." Said my grandpa and left for the mosque.
Silence was the only option left to me at the moment. But my inquisitiveness was disturbing me from inside. I was thinking of some unknown secret in the life of the old man when my trusted pal, Gulzar jerked me and said, "Where are you lost? Is everything alright?" Gulzar was my class-fellow during my primary classes at the village school when my father shifted us to the city school. After completing his matric, his father had fetched him a flour machine for his earning. Whenever I visited the village, I used to go to him for a chat. Today, he himself had come to me and had awakened me from the deep ocean of my thoughts.
"Yes, its ok." I remarked pointing him to take the seat. I explained him of my talk with my grandpa and also shared with him my curiosity of the old man.
"That's all? I am sure you are talking of Baba Chiragh who lives outside the village, close to the graveyard."
"Yes the same old man, do you know anything of him?"
"I know nothing about him more than what your grandpa has told you. But what is so special of him and why are you so keen about him."
"Tell me if you know anything about the old man, yet don't yell on me like my grandpa." I just shouted on him.
"No, no; Don't worry, I can tell you a bit about the old man." And he started.
"Chiragh came to the village, many years ago only to learn Qura'n and then eventually settled here permanently. It is heard of him that he belonged to Kashmir. His parents had died and I have no idea, who had brought him to this place. He started living in a small cottage adjacent to the mosque with a sole intention of learning Qura'n and Fiqa. After learning Qura'n well, he found a good profession of teaching Qura'nic verses to the children of the village. He even did not have to prepare food for himself as the village Patwari had taken responsibility of his meals. Everybody, young and old respected him a lot, yet I have heard that Chiragh was a well-built handsome guy in his youth."
"Then why the villagers socially secluded him and threw him out of the village." I enquired.
"It is said that he had sexually molested a young girl of the Patwari. Chiragh had himself confessed to this reprehensible deed and had also conceded himself father of the baby, Shehnaz was to deliver. Dumbfounded villagers instead of calling police, called a meeting of all the senior and respectable citizens and decided a social boycott of him, reducing him to the lifestyle he is keeping now. More disgustingly, the villagers who had initially thought him of having angelic qualities, were now spitting on him showing utmost hatred and intense dislike. In sheer emotions of abhorrence, it was decided to ostracize him from the village. Hardcore directions were passed on to all the villagers not to visit him, talk to him or even see him in future. Before the dawn of next morning, the Patwari's family had left the village to an unknown destination and "Hafiz" was thrown out of the village. He decided to settle outside the town in a small cottage close to the graveyard some four five kilometers away from the village. None from our village has visited him since then. Yes some people from other areas sometimes find interest in him. That's all I know."
He finished his narration and I decided to see Baba Chiragh in person.
It was a dark cloudy day when I walked off to the distant graveyard. Fine drizzle was touching across my body when I reached there. I was still away from the ruined cottage of Baba Chiragh when I heard the voice of some verses. When I got closer, I could understand the meaning. Someone was reciting Heer Waris Shah:
[Ranjha speaks, "Don't pay any heed to what my thoughts are …
In fact loin, snake and a Faqeer have no dwelling place …
Like cranes and wagtail, we too, have left our dwelling places …
We have no concerns with the self, traits and the human guise…]
I witnessed some smoke was coming out from the cottage. The moment I entered, I saw a burning fire in the middle of the cottage, a young man, sitting and talking to himself and an emaciated old man yet well composed and self-contained with white, long beard sitting in front of him. He pointed me to a seat as soon as he realized my presence. I sat down quietly when I further realized another young man singing and reciting something. Giving attention further to that, I could make out that he was humming:
[It is insignificant to own a dwelling place without a pulse …
We have no concerns with the relations, connections and tribes …
The one who associates himself with lands and kinships, is not a darwaish, instead is a mundane …
Do not suspect us affiliated with the world, can you cement two broken pieces of stones with a conventional glue …
Everything, eventually is to disintegrate in mud, then what for is this luxury and affluence … ]
After the verse, the singer kept quiet. There was a silence in the cottage. The old man was sitting with his eyes closed. Breaking the silence, Baba G said, "Did you come from 'Tahli Wala?'"
"Yes" I responded and enquired, "How did you know, I am from Tahli Wala?"
Directing me to come closer, he said, "These two youngsters have come from across the river. It has been long to see anyone from Tahli Wala. Did no one block your way to this place?"
"Yes, I was blocked, but it was my sheer desire to see you in person." I responded spontaneously.
He pointed to one of the youngsters to arrange for a green tea and said to me, "Why did you want to see me in person? It appears as if you don't hail from the village."
"That's true. I live in the city. My grandpa lives in the village. I heard your story, but I…" I could not complete the sentence of the label attached to this apparently, gentle old man.
Baba G took out some seeds of Cardamom and gave to the young boy for the green tea, when I hesitantly asked, "Are you living a happy life in solitude? Don't you feel like seeing people?"
Baba G listened to me and surprisingly said, "Nobody wishes to live in isolation. I, too always wish to see people, but none visits me. Yet I have started enjoying this life style."
After a short pause, he directed the boy to serve me with the green tea, and said, "If man understands the meanings of solitude, it may take him to the ultimate heights of nobility, grandeur and magnanimity. I am too, making an attempt to turn my body to a lamp ignited by the fuel of my own life. Truth remains that this kind of lamp requires fuel of one's own blood. Only then enlightenment befalls on him. One is to toil and sweat hard for this intent. But, alas, everyone wishes to take and eat fruits but none is willing to plant, grow and water it."
Baba G took a cup of green tea and offered it to me saying, "Take it before it gets cold in your impatience to listen to me."
"What do you mean by fruit?" I further enquired.
Baby G saw in my eyes and explained, "Desire is also a kind of fruit. Man is the one who successfully gets rid of desires and wishes."
Baba G's talk was penetrating yet soothing. I was impatient to listen to him more, when the other two youngsters begged leave from him. Now there was none other than me and Baba G in the cottage. This was the opportunity I was looking for, and immediately asked him, "You did not respond to my particular question. Why did you live here, far away from the village? Instead of making a family, you preferred a life in solitude?
I noticed mischievous smile on his face when he said, "I have been reduced to this life over the ashes of my own sweet home. By the way, when one burns one's house to ashes, factually one secures himself from all threats and dangers. Contrastingly when one toils to take care of it, the same is extinguished to nothing."
I felt as if heavens have fallen on me. I had never been to this kind of conservation before. I was trying to remain composed, particularly, to understand the meanings of Baba G's the talk and asked him, "In fact your story has brought me here. I am sure, that it is not a true story. Truth is definitely beyond that." I gave my stance in one go.
Putting more wooden logs in the fire, he said, "I knew you will come to this point. I had noticed curiosity in your eyes the moment you landed in my cottage. But please tell me, why do you want to take a stuck thorn out of my throat? I have put this thorn deliberately in my tract. Further to this the people have put a strong rope around my neck and are continuously pulling it to my insult, indignity and scurrility. And for your intense information the people's hatred is now an elixir of my life… so beatific."
"But Baba G, what secret could be there in keeping yourself in the depth of these accusations?" I further inquired.
Turning pale to my question Baba G spontaneously said, "No dear, leave it apart. Let me remain in the dirt of disgrace in which I have passed my entire life. What is now good in taking bath in the clean waters? I am very cheerful in the lifestyle of solitude and loneliness, otherwise you never know by this time my salty flesh would have dissolved in waters of life. My dear! Public domain is like water and our body is like a salt. Whenever man enjoys life in public, he himself is dissolved in it, completely disintegrating his own self. For me life in solitude is the best course."
"But I am still there. You have not revealed you particular secret to me. Narrate to me what is the factual story of Patwari's daughter?" I put this straight question which led to a long silence in the cottage.
Breaking the silence, anticipating my curiosity and getting the idea that I was not leaving without resolving the mystery, he said, "I have attempted to digress you from the secret of my life. If you are so adamant, let me tell you without caring the episodes of hereafter. Needing not to reveal you the fundamentals of the epic, let me brief you that Patwari's daughter had fallen in love with village's Lumbardar's son. It was he who had dishonored and sexually abused her. When the story became talk of the town, the girl's mother rushed to me requesting me to help her, this way or the other. She wanted me to rescue her daughter by confessing a sin I had never committed or alternatively her daughter would be killed by her father and brothers. What option did I have? After all it was the Patwari's family, who had provided me shelter, clothes and even daily food in an alien village. Now it was time for me to pay back."
"And you disgraced yourself to a sin you never even thought of?" I interrogated him further.
"Yes! I humiliated myself in front of entire village for the sake and honor of the Patwari's family. The people started spitting on me. I became a symbol of disgrace and shame. I was held guilty of the crime and the girl and her family were acquitted from any misdeed. They left the village before the next morning and I was reduced to death. You know coffins are buried in the graveyards. So I brought my corpse to this cemetery with only one difference that it was me and myself alone who brought his own body to the graveyard… There was only one man in the entire village who knew of my innocence and the real story. He, Sultan is still with me and has been serving me with some sort of groceries, milk, yogurt and pieces of bread since last fourteen years in the darkness of nights. I told him many times to leave me alone but he is a real friend indeed."
He stopped for a while and then continued, "I am incinerating like a wet log slowly and gradually. The day this process of burning completes, I will be reduced to ashes. That would be the time when eternity would befall on me and I will reach my destination. My dear! I don't know would we have a chance to meet again, but keep it in your mind, "It is better to defraud oneself, instead of deceiving others."
The moment he finished his philosophical and meaningful discussion, I realized that the earlier drizzle outside the cottage had changed to downpour. Sprinkling water brought a long silence in the cottage. Finally Baba G broke the silence and said, "It is quite late now, let me accompany you to some distance."
I contested rigorously asking him to take rest instead. But he was kind enough to give me light of his lantern to my village and then gave me a kind and spiritual hug and said, "May God bless you and surround you with His own aura." He then turned around to his cottage.
I stopped there and kept looking on this illuminating personality. I felt as if some mysterious aura had surrounded him and had enlightened the entire area.
Next day I turned back to the city to start a normal life. I could not make it to the village for a long time and had forgotten the episode when I received a short letter from Sultan. He had written:
What a secret has been revealed to you. I don't know why you forced Baba G to speak out. You know, Gulzar has narrated the entire story of Baba G to everyone in the village. Our mosque's Moulana gave a detailed account of the story in his Friday sermon. The moment this secret was revealed to the villagers, they rushed to Baba G's ruined cottage…But…
"Only to find an enlightened lamp in the cottage instead of Baba G."