Sometimes in life, you need a shock treatment to wake you up. This morning proved to be a wakeup call for me.Previous night’s joviality from a friend's wedding was still fresh in my mind when I began the day with the excitement of Halwa Pori breakfast with friends and a wedding of another buddy planned for the night.
After setting out the table, I decided to quickly make Sher Khorma for the guest, with a maid by my side who was cooking parathas. During a casual talk, she started to weep. She shared that she wanted to visit some syed peer this evening. On my display of curiosity to know the reason, she said that her husband is jobless. She further said that she left her children sleeping today, and dint cook breakfast either. I wondered why dint she cook anything. She looked at me with tears flowing down her cheeks and replied,
″I swear, there was nothing to cook.″
Her tears drowned me in the filth of my own contentment. Her words pierced my heart. And her distress left me paralyzed and speechless.
She continued to work leaving my eyes fixed on all the food stacked in cabinets, a refrigerator packed with fruits, meals of all kinds and so much extra that was just there to delight… and her hands... that were rolling paratha for someone else while her own children were asleep with an empty stomach.
An echo of my father telling me stories about Ahl e Bait AS e Rasool SAW, and the three days when they had a fast and on all three nights they gave away all that they had to a hungry beggar.
Every single thing that I ever read about Imam Ali Ibn Hussain As and Imam Ali As, that they used to carry bags full of food and used to secretly deliver it to the doorstep of the poor every night, flashed back. My head bowed down in embarrassment in front of Rasool Allah SAW remembering that he said that you are not momin if your stomachs are full while your neighbors sleep hungry.
Her tears were a slap on my face. They exhibit my ignorance, my selfishness, my ego. While I was busy showing off my love for God... talking about ISHQ… I overlooked the ones whom He loves the most.
I found myself isolated in a fort with walls of ego that are plastered with contentment of being right! Thick curtains of ignorance have darkened the surroundings. Any beam of light that enters, gets lost in the hollowness of the adobe.
Her tears did crack a wall. They will stay with me every time I eat. It now scares me to spend hundreds on just a meal for my own self… for the sake of enjoyment and not to survive. That same money can give such families enough food to last for two days.
It’s painful when our fort trembles down, in the same way as if someone lived in dungeons throughout his live and for the first times he opens his eyes that are sensitive to the light.
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2 comments:
Hard to understand the pain.
And this only feeling give us a sence of being human at least, not in fact humnan, but a feeling of being human.
And to prove it, we have to transform our feeling into action.
And that's the pain of Imam Ali, we dont know, and even dont wanted to know.
Well Written
Leaves me thinking. I have stopped spending hundreds on a single meal thinking the same just as you said, that it can buy two days meal or so for the poor. But there is still a strong feeling of not-doing-anything for the poor, especially the safaid-posh ones.
Also, just a thought pops up in the mind: Does it really please us to dine lavish, spend hundreds on really really vile activities? (Like movies or hang-outs) Or there is something better than this? I share this experience: Just yesterday, I got a chance to sit with a couple of elders discussing something relevant to Gnosticism, and honestly; it left me with hours of jubilation. Not to forget to mention that the host was not a rich guy, probably making his financial ends meet in a tough situation with no apparent furniture at home: we sat on the floor.
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