61 - A Dream

O My Feeling Heart, Why Do You Laugh And Cry?

Wandering through the meandering labyrinth of the market place, two men were fighting with knifes. "Its mine... no its mine! You blackguard, you hypocrite, you son of a... you stole it."

The turban of one of the belligerents got dislodged and unfurled itself in a serpentine flurry. It was billowing in the breeze, apparently unnoticed by its erstwhile owner while the skirmish proceeded unabated.

Out of the shadowy comers of the bazaar, as by beguilement, a prostitute emerged in broad daylight. Compulsively reaching for the jagged end of the turban, snatching it from its trail and wrapping it around herself, she danced in sheer abandon much to the glee and opprobrium of the multi-colored crowd.

I loved him with my whole being - my body, an unworthy gift to his magnificence! They cast me out of my opulent Zenana - that most comfortable prison into the filth of the back-streets, amidst the greed, lust and vulgarity of the uncouth - me, who had always been so meticulous! Of course he left me. Yet this was a puny price to pay for that moment of 1ove's glory we shared once in a life-time. His turban which I wrested from him as a keep-sake was my flimsy protection from the lascivious glances that wounded and humiliated my soul. It served as my Purdah veiling my face from the sacrilege of the libidinous.

A Sufi passed my way, unable to offer me material succor in my ordeal, but he helped my soul to survive. He said: "The veil that conceals your face espouses the contours of your face and reveals your eternal countenance which is pure beauty". Then he quoted the Holy Qur'an: "All faces are His face". I cried for sheer relief and vindication. My tears flooding my face became the substitute of the turban which a pimp snatched from behind.

From his pedestal in his favorite street comer, a dervish was watching the scene, lost in ecstasy, listening to the exquisite echoes of a chant emerging from the nearby mosque. Bemused by the sheer exultation of that music, the prostitute's dance escalated into a frenzy. The turban swirled around her waist and then oscillated back to the head of the man still fighting.

Suddenly discovering the dervish, the prostitute uttered a shrill shriek and started winding the loose end of the turban on the head of the dervish.

The dervish broke into a quake of laughter that reverberated amongst the increasingly gathering crowd. "Allah Ho Ahad, Allah Ho Ahad!" (God is one), he exclaimed repeatedly. Then he added: "See we are all one, linked by that Ariadne thread of the turban! The men fighting do not have the slightest idea of that unity. They are like the two hands of the same person wrestling and wounding each other.

The prostitute's love is her way of giving expression to the divine nostalgia, longing that the fragments of Himself should realize their unity. So she projects that nostalgia in the form of love for that idol - her lover - in whom she discovers the divine love. It is all the sortilege of emotion: love, hatred, covetousness, libidinousness - like different makes of wine, until you realize the oneness of divine ecstasy behind its multifarious expressions. Then one can only laugh at one's own stupidity for not having seen that in the first place!"

As by enchantment her tears were replaced by laughter and smiles as she danced joyously.

By this time, the blood was pouting in rivulets along the bodies of the belligerents. A mullah cast himself between them, beseeching them: "stop in the name of the Prophet Sal Aleihi wa Salam". They stayed their hands a moment, placing their indexes upon their lips and eyes, then once more cursed each other blasphemously and the fight resumed even more viciously than before.

Taking what she thought was the hint of the dervish, she approached the belligerents laughing hilariously as she prance around them. She resorted to an unusual form of defiance as they snarled and ranted at each other. The now excited crowd burst into applause and laughter in mock derision and scorn. They were totally unaware of the fact of having unwittingly picked up the dervish's clue - but not quite.

Now the prostitute, remembering the dervish's references to the hands of the same person wrestling with each other, started wrapping the turban closer and ever closer around the two belligerents. She paired their movements, squeezing them tighter and tighter as she danced around them lost in the consciousness of the ecstasy of divine unity, exclaiming: "Allah Ho Ahad... Allah Ho Samad! God is one, we are one in God... linked inextricably with each other by the turban - the veil concealing the divine beauty.
