The Day When God Died

Dear Urstruly:

I am curious, how temporal would react to your literary piece?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Dear Urstruly:

When I read your article, it was like looking in the mirror; only this time, the image was blurred. I was crying, I am, even as I write this. I have never understood the concept of death, and yet I have had a childhood fascination for it. I would go around the house as a child to check whether everyone was breathing...and it was a joint family, and not everyone was so lovable!

My earliest memory of death as finality was when Nanima died. She had been in coma for long, and was finally brought home, because the doctors said nothing could be done. I was by then old enough to know what that meant. But would I accept it? No way. I would sit and talk with her, and her unblinking eyes would stare back. I seriously believed she understood what I was saying. My khaala, her favourite child, had come down from Karachi; she was leaving on Friday, and as she bid her mother farewell, Nanima beckoned to me all of a sudden, and wouldn`t let go of my hand. I did not want to create a family rivalry and tried to tell her that her daughter was leaving, but she wouldn`t listen. Two days later, I did my usual thing. At 7 am, just when everyone was stirring back to life, I sat by her bed and held her hand and started telling her some stupid stories; I even hummed a song. I was at it for 20 minutes, and then my mother came with the doctor. He said she was dead. She had died perhaps in the very early hours of the morn, and I had conducted a full-fledged conversation with a corpse. Corpse? Could Nanima become just a body? Bathe It, they said. Get the `kafan` for It, they said. Say the `fateha` over It, they said. IT. They were sealing her fate. They thought they were taking her away from me, but after all these years I still speak with her, her B&W picture. People think it funny. I think memories are not just those thoughts in our minds; they are the reason to believe that nothing is ever over.

I had not forgotten that, but thanks for being one more who believes...

Regards,

Farzana

...even though frances farmer was a certified looney she did say it well:

`` ...no one ever came to me and said ``You`re a fool. There isn`t such a thing as God...someone`s just been stuffing you.`` I don`t think it was murder. I think God just died of old age and when I realized that He wasn`t anymore, it didn`t shock me. Maybe it was because I was never properly impressed with religion. I went to Sunday school and liked the stories -- about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful, but I didn`t believe them. It was too vague. God was something different though. He was something real. Something I could feel. But there were only certain times I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night, having scrubbed my knuckles and fingernails and teeth, and talk to God. I`m clean now. I`ve never been this clean. And I`d never been cleaner. And somehow it was God. I wasn`t sure that it was. Just something cool and dark and clean. That wasn`t religion though. There was too much that was physical about it. After a time, even at night, the feeling of God did not last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said God sees even the smallest sparrow fall and that he watches over all of his children. But if God were a father with children, then that cleanness I had been feeling wasn`t God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think I am clean...I am sleepy. And I went to sleep. It didn`t keep me from enjoying the cleanness any less. I just knew that God wasn`t there. Sometimes I found him useful to remember. Especially when I lost things that were important. After slamming through the house breathless and panicky from searching, I could stop in the middle of the room and shut my eyes and say,``Please God, let me find my blue hat with the red trim.`` It usually worked. That satisfied me until I began to figure out that if God loved all of his children equally, then why did he bother with my blue hat, and let other people lose their mothers and fathers for always. I began to see that He didn`t have much to do about people`s hats or dying. They happened whether He wanted them to or not. And He stayed in heaven and pretended not to notice. I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. I was proud to have found the truth myself, without help from anyone. It puzzled me that others had not found out too. God was gone. Why couldn`t they see it? It still puzzles me. ``

Urstruly,

Excellent piece of writing. Moving, poignant, and not suffering from the trait of artificiality. A big plus, considering the dime-a-dozen ``Aspiring intellectuals`` from third world countries having taken hold of this ``used-to-be-fun-place`` called Chowk.

Those aspriring ``writers`` of Chowk, could well take classes from you.

Thank you for that vivid description of Messrs Hair Stylist and Garam Hamam. Brought back memories for me too; of reading the signs ``Yahan siyasat pur behas nahin hogi`` Good one.

Though i still would not call it ``work of art``. :)

P.S Angels can let people down, as much as other humans;in my experience perhaps more so. I try to not put angels on pedestals any more!

Great writing, touching.

I am sorry, i didn`t get it. Really enjoyed the read, every word of it. I was with you until the very last sentence, but didn`t see what you saw in her deep blue eyes.

A great article !The sensitivity associated with uncertainity , and irreversibility are very difficult things to combat with. Living far from loved ones , i could identify the fear of a telephone bell ringing at the most unexpected hours, anf all the possibilities it could announce ! left me thinking , again for the umtienth time , on our decisions , choices, or needs , whatever it may be , to live so far away from the ones we cherish the most ......

My compliments to you , for writing so brilliantly , on a topic so difficult to even concentrate on .

Shirin

Dear Friends!

Thank you very much for the time that you took to write your responses. I am also grateful to you for liking the write up.

Bahmad #1

I probably wouldn’t even have written it if the dearly departed (temporal) was still around :)

Ms. Versey #2

I am speechless. I am ashamed to tell you how clueless I am as to how to respond to your post. I think we put to much emphasis on death. How can something be so bad, which is such an integral part of our life. I think it is not death but it is loss of love that we mourn.

Hamidm # 3

Thanks for the time you took to write your post. Waisay aapis ki baat hay. Sometime I wonder how dependent He is on us. Would He still be God if we weren’t there? Allah Toba.

Asim # 4

Thanks for the kind words of appreciation. Let me assure you that I am not a writer. Consider this as a page from my journal. I also think that the Chowk standard is too low that they considered it printable :) (I hope they are not reading this).

Sadaf # 5

Thank you. The ending was intentionally left vague for two reasons.

1. It is too disturbing
2. People will think that I am an intellectual.

Please stick around, you will find the answer to your questions from some interactors post. Unfortunately, this story is also true. The girl was real, however, she met me in very different circumstances. I intentionally wrote it in the background of Christmas for two reasons:

1. I wanted to drag God into it.
2. See the reason 2 above.

I intend to write a post very soon explaining the actual events, which led to write this story.

Scout # 6

Thank you. Let me take this opportunity to assure everybody that my faith in Him is still alive and well. However, sometime I begin to lose my faith in us.

Shirin # 7

Thank you for your kind words of appreciation. I am not sure but I like to think that I have overcome this fear by thinking that “How can Death be so bad, if it is such an integral part of our lives.” However, I don’t know what to do about the feeling of loss of love.

Urstruly!

You look at women/girls very intently.

The ending only shows, how you were perceived?

But it was a very good piece of writing, with Climax heart-breaking.

Don`t take my comments about you seriously.

You have a very good narrative style, which captivates the imagination till end.

That was a truly good piece of writing...to say you write well would be an understatement

the descriptions were particularly vivid and imaginable..but i think you wrote that article for peope to get something more than the descriptions...unfortuntely i didn`t quite get the end but i can most definetly relate with you on that fear of death that lingers with you in a dark, ugly corner of your mind at all times and you just push it away everytime you rememember it saying, `` no ones dead yet..go away, lemmee live,``...its crappy knowing that everyone is going to die..and whether or not you go first, someone`s gonna be stuck crying, suffering and regretting...

i too, like another reader spent a long time checking whether or not everybody`s breathing or not just before bed when i was a child...and heck sometimes i still do when i feel like someone`s sleeping too still..death`s just a..i don`t know what it is...all i know its something i don`t want happening to anyone i love anytime soon...u know whats even more surprising...how we let selfishness slip into even this aspect of life..notice how i say `anyone i love`...why I love? cuz i`ll be hurt..i`ll suffer....it`ll be me in a bad spot...who knows, maybe its just me being so selfish but somehow or other i believe that selfishness is a disease afflicting almost all of the human race...okay sorry i`m getting carried away..but thats a great article, kinda vague end but great anyway.

Wassalam

Urstruly: #8:

This may be a long post. In the immortal words made famous by Mark Twain earlier the reports of my demise are slightly exaggerated :)

I’d rather you not reveal the various catalysts for this ‘story in journal form’ that you wrote. A writer or poet should not be subjected to explain his/her work Why? Because they use words as tools. They chisel the thoughts or story out of thousands of words and write a poem or story.

Some creative geniuses (genii) never re-write. Most serious writers, however, spend time revising it. Any speculation as to the meaning, intent, phraseology, nuances and the direction words take should be attended to before sending it off for publication.

(Digression: am smiling at myself. Am sure Saima is chuckling too! After sending a contribution to her I would continue to bombard her with minor revisions/changes. A word added here a phrase deleted there and on one occasion even after publication.)

I had written some musings on death earlier that I posted on my home page, a short story that is powerful but might get mixed reactions because of the language. But more recently I have written two new pieces. Because they are very personal in nature I am not yet ready to share them on a public platform like this. If you are interested send me an email at temporal@hotmail.com.

Death, along with sex is considered as one of the prime motivator (shankar here is a lead in for you: by the way you haven’t answered my Salman Akhtar query yet.)

Individually, I find we react in two different ways to death. Those who have not experienced the death in any ‘personal’ sense are mortified by the idea of losing loved ones. Never themselves. A friend of mine is worried should something happen to her parents or siblings. Yet she is a reckless drivers who in her words takes ‘unnecessary risks’ while driving. She never pauses to think that should something fatal happen to her others will be mourning her loss. Like her, people in this group are mortified by a sense of loss, or love as you wrote.

Then there are those who have seen it at close(r) range. War vets, palliative care staff, police and security personnel, close friends and relatives. Here again the reaction is divided into two distinct sub-groups. One develops a shield between death and themselves. They are not affected by this transformation (for that is what death is) while the other sub-group is almost traumatized by death and have to seek help to get over it.

(Now that you have got me going: some more thoughts.)

We, the living, arrogant, humble, iconoclastic, individualistic, legends-in-our-minds, forever ready to pronounce our superiority from minarets, temples, church towers forget and are blind to raw, undiminished and unalterable and forever staring in the eye fact that in some years from now we would be dust or ashes.

We walk the walk and talk as if we own the world.

Sometimes I wonder how our individual behavior would modify if we were forced to take a semester studying manifestations of death with visits to the morgue, post mortem labs and exhuming buried bodies with hands on experience.

Unalterable, unavoidable, inevitable death should teach us humility if nothing else.

If I write more, am afraid I would end up sermonizing.

_________________________________________


Some words of critique to be ignored or taken in the right spirit.

You could have played better with the structure. And language – there we go – my pet peeve.

Some flashbacks were awkward. Tenses were mixed in some places. The O’Henry ending was brilliant. You should not explain it away.

Judging by the responses most of the readers seem to have bypassed it focusing on the more obvious. Nothing wrong in it. Literature like art owes much to individual interpretations also. If they liked what they read, so be it.

You have a keen eye for observation. Nurture it. I enjoyed the posted signs. The ones I recall specially from restaurants were always signed off as ‘ba’huk’m-e-manager’ as in: Yahan kursi pur paire rakh kur siyasi guftoogoo mamnoo hay — ba’huk’m-e-manager.

regards,

temporal

PS: The correct address should be temporal3@hotmail.com

INFORMATION REACHED TOO LATE!

The death of God can be defined in numerous ways and thus,billion and trillion number of examples can be presented for the death of God but I`ll stick with Urstruly`s definition.

God was dead the day,

* when the most powerful man on earth tried to change the meaning of sex and he did change the meaning to a certain extent.

* when two men and two women decided to live as a couple and this changed the meaning of men and women.I`ll not be surprised to hear one day that woman is a politically incorrect word.

* when incest became acceptable to a man or woman out of love for his/her lover/beloved.

* when Briteny Spears sang the hit song,``I`m not that innocent`` while her attire was proving her proclamation more than her words.

* our capitalist lords decided to win teenagers market and they started with the most revealing outfits. The main consensus was that every effort must be taken to make pre-teens and teens look grown-up and most of all sexy. No single voice was heard in any forum, senate or parliment against this attack of its kind and for this, even the word inhuman is not enough. Even though,in this society,food and sex are the most vital part and President Clinton`s definition of sex has done predators`job easy. Let`s suppose that this society does`nt mind about sex then what our capitalist marketing gurus have done is acceptable. But unfortunately this is not the case even then. This has intensified and in some cases,created a huge gap between haves and havenots, a constant hostile war among parents and children has erupted and most of all and worst of all, it has increased the menaces of drugs and forced sex among our young generation.

Even on the same day when Urstruly found out that God is dead, God has died a number of times before. For example, when he found out that Chinese sales girl is ass-less and also that Wonder Bras work wonders,God was dead already.



In the end, I`ll salute Urstruly for his wonderful article, he sure does wonders with his thought process and writing power. Even if he is a master of making things up,his fiction looks more appealing and true than ``true stories``. I`ll end with a qitta of I think Syed Adam or Habib Jalib!

*too ne asmat farokht kee haey

*ik faqey ko mitane keliay

*log Yazdan ko bech detay han

*apna matlab nikalne keliay

urstruly,

I agree with t-bhai and dost mittar, don`t reveal your personal thoughts about the ending.

To me, the ending signified something very disturbing. Poverty or a child selling herself...

A great story that even woke up temporal
from isolation. Welcome back!
Although I have attempted short stories myself and failed miserably in the attempt, I always enjoy such work. The narrative that Naipaul has
mastered still remains elusive in my own writing.
I certainly liked this work.

Anyone know what became of a Wasiq Bukhari on
CHOWK?

Ras

Urstruly
Good work like the previous one(though I agree with krashid`s first comment).

Re the end, supposing it was not a sign of the death of God but a sign of His reaching out to you?

Sadhana