Read it Live
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It was nearing dusk by the time the old jeep pulled up near the hut. Plumes of dust settled in its wake, and when the driver killed the rattle of the engine, the ensuing silence seemed almost eery.

The driver spoke something to the passenger, who was sitting wrapped tightly in a black loi. The passenger didn’t respond, and the driver continued to speak, mouthing words that were struck silent beyond the glass windows of the jeep. Finally, with great hesitation, the passenger opened the door and stepped outside.

The driver held the passenger by the shoulders and led him to the front of the hut, where a ragged curtain hung in the opening of the entrance in place of a door. They had hardly reached it when the curtain was pulled aside, and a bearded man wearing a tilted mock army cap on his head looked out at them from within. The driver spoke to him in a hushed breath, and the man nodded, stepping aside to let them in.

He led them through a dark corridor, lit only by a flickering lantern placed by a wall, until they came to a door. The bearded man stopped, and nodded towards it, as if telling them that it was all right to go in.

The driver seemed tense, his eyebrows drawn into a knot. The passenger looked at his feet sullenly, almost in defiance to the driver, the bearded guardsman, even the sage that sat on the other side of that door. The driver exhaled slowly, opened the door and stepped in.

The room was barely bigger than a janitor’s closet, with just enough room for three people. The sage sat against a wall, looking at his visitors through fold-ridden eyes. His lips moved slowly, brushing forth prayers, as his fingers counted the beads of a tasbeeh.

“Assalam oh great sage, great peer of our lands, shaman and….”

“Wasalam,” the sage said. His voice barely rose above a whisper, and yet its finality shut the driver up. He stood, his face down and hands clasped in front of him. The passenger continued to look sullen, as if he cared neither for the sage, nor for his touted wisdom.

“Sit. What ails you?” The sage asked. The driver sat down on his haunches, and after a moment, nudged the passenger to sit down also. The passenger did so, and sat down cross-legged, his arms folded across his chest.

The driver glared at him for a moment before addressing the sage. “Aaqa, my name is Manzoor. This is my brother, Ghufar, and he has been invaded by a jinn.”

“Why do you say so?” The sage asked.

“Aaqa, we’re the only two children of our parents. I’ve been away from the village for three years, getting tossed about in the city like a sparrow in a gale. I’d left Ghufar to take care of my parents - and he was young too, barely older than a lad at the time. I came back, and he had changed completely.” A shadow passed over Manzoor’s face. “And the stories my parents whispered to me of him and his doings! They were…they were actually afraid of him!” Manzoor looked at Ghufar sidelong with a mixture of concern and anger.

The sage looked at Ghufar. “What did you do?” He asked gently.

Ghufar remained silent. Manzoor spoke hurriedly, “I apologize for his impertinence, wise one. He is, after all, with the jinn even now. He was not always like this, Aaqa - he used to be good. Even now, he has not done any one thing drastic. It’s just small things he does that have changed him. Small things that have accumulated, like grains in a bag of sand.” When the sage didn’t speak, Manzoor continued, “Like for instance, he used to accuse my parents and myself of conspiring against him. Or whenever my parents would say something to him, perhaps rebuke him for something (and you must see how my parents rebuke, Aaqa! Their words are gentler than silk!) he would retaliate against them, shouting at them loudly enough to set the neighbors in the muhalla gossiping for days. For no small people are my parents in the village, wise one. They’ve always been well-respected by friends and enemies alike…until their own child became their undoing!” Manzoor glanced at Ghufar darkly.

“What else?” The sage asked.

“Small things, Aaqa. Just small things that seem too much to bear when totalled up, because Ghufar was never like this. He’d eat up more than his share of food, leaving little for his aging parents. He’d never help his mother with her chores. Once, the elder kids in the muhalla were gathering to play cricket, and when he asked them if he could join in, they gently refused, for Ghufar is known not for his skill at cricket! Ghufar took a pail and watered down their pitch, just so they could not play either. Even now, aaqa, I know not what repurcussions these very words of mine will have a month down the line. I know not how I will have to pay!”

“Will you make your brother pay, Ghufar?” The sage asked.

Ghufar finally looked up at him, a thin smile playing on his lips, and winked.

“ANSWER ME NOT WITH WINKS AND SMILES, YOU SCOUNDREL!” The sage roared. “I ASKED THEE A QUESTION! ANSWER ME WITH THY WORDS!”

Manzoor flinched. Ghufar looked like he had been slapped, before his countenance clouded over. He scowled back at the sage, his lips muttering under his breath.

“That’s what I thought,” the sage said, his voice again barely a whisper. “Please leave the room, Ghufar. Wait for your brother outside.” Still mouthing curses silently, Ghufar stood up and left the room, slamming the door on his way out.

“Do you want to cure your brother, Manzoor? For I know how, though it will not be easy, neither for you nor your parents.”

“Anything, my Aaqa,” Manzoor said, and his voice trembled, at least partly out of fear of the sage. “I will convince my parents.”

“Then take him north, to Balakot. To those villages that are still in mourning in the wake of the earthquake. Take him there, get him a tent to stay in, and then simply leave him there. Let him stay there.”

Manzoor’s eyes were wide, the eyes of a lost child. “For…for how long?”

“As long as it takes, Manzoor. I told thee it would not be easy.”

“But…I beg your forgiveness, oh sage, but will that get rid of the jinn?”

“No jinn afflicts your brother, Manzoor. The only demon that needs to be exorcised from him is the demon of self.” The sage shifted his weight to his other leg, and his knee gave a crack. “You see, Manzoor, the elders and sages that taught me often likened self to a vortex. The closer one gets to it, the deeper one is sucked into its eye, until it’s near impossible to get out. I think that’s where your brother lies now, Manzoor. In the eye of the storm and the lair of the beast.

“There are only two chances he has. One lies in the mercy of time itself. But time is a shifty creature.” The sage chuckled. “Time is moody and lazy and has its own agenda, more a spoiled kid than something divine. So instead of placing your faith in time, I give you the other option. For him to see the suffering of others, to eventually begin to join in their suffering, and to finally declare to himself in the looking glass, ‘The world is bigger than you and I.’”

“But will that happen, oh sage? Will that really happen?” Manzoor’s forehead had broken out into dotted beads of sweat.

“Now that is something only time will tell,” the sage said, and laughed.

———-

The two got into the jeep. Manzoor started it, and rolled out onto the main road. There was no talk between them, and Ghufar looked out of the side window, silently smoldering over the sage’s words and the fact that his brother had dragged him out here. He spoke only when they crossed the main intersection of the city.

“That’s not the way to the village,” he said, looking back. “Where are we going?”

Manzoor smiled. “We’re taking a little trip, Ghufar, you and I.”