A Journey of a Hundred Miles

I often think of my father and how it must have been for him at five to be told that there is no home, life is an unsheathed sword they need to search for a safe refuge in the annals of bloodshed I often think how he must have arrived with nothing, except a shirt on his back, a few crayons stuffed in his pockets, a piece of dry bread, a leaf from the mango tree he loved, a darkness he could not understand, the suddenness of a flight that he could not comprehend

My father had a heart of gold, he never questioned, he just understood the twist of fate in his silent subtle way, like a kid who is left at sea to learn the fine art of swimming among sharks, or perhaps like a kid who loves his parents too much to ask them how or why.

My father did not know about countries, he just knew they had left a house that was white with white pigeons sitting desolate on the ledge, with an Austin that had no wheels or fuel, with the waterman Iqbal Mian appearing mysteriously pleased at their loss of fortune. He remembered he had worn black and white canvas shoes, somebody took the laces off to tie the roof of the horse cart, after a while he was handed a well-sharpened knife, and told he must protect the women with all the courage he could muster as a boy of five that night he became a soldier, a patrolman, a messenger, a comforter in distress,

a boy of five, half dead, half alive, managed to reach the damp solace of a refugee camp that is how his childhood ended and that is how his tragic adulthood began.