Daily Times

A travelling historian narrates that in the loving memory of a dervish, God sent a huge pile of wealth to his town called Xona, situated in a remote Chinese province.

The wealth was enough to let the citizens of the town live without work for centuries. However to not discourage the dignity of labour, God set certain rules to profit from that wealth for the citizens of the town. The people were instructed to work everyday and produce some wealth themselves from their own efforts. Then whatever wealth they would produce, they shall be allowed to take 10 times more of that from the Heavenly-sent pile and keep the original one too. There was no check on them and so they could collect their dues from the pile of wealth themselves.

The outsiders used to admire this while passing by the town. They would see the huge pile of wealth, the ease of life granted to them and admire it and would like to be a resident of that town. This travelling historian too was an outsider and he used to sit outside the walls of the town and write this story that you are reading. To test the honesty of citizens of the town, God decided not to stop the devil from entering into the town. However He promised that whoever ignored the devil shall be rewarded more. But those that shall listen to him shall suffer.

The devil incited those that had hated working right from the beginning. Those were the ones who wanted to take away the money without breaking a sweat. The devil told them that next time they go to the pile, instead of taking 10 times more, take 12 times more. A little bit of dishonesty must not be a big issue. To balance the acts of devil, God sent some angels among the citizens too. The angels would tell the people to take notice of the corruption. However, the devil would too reach the people and tell them to not take notice of this as the wealth was already enough and at least they were doing their job honestly so why worry about others? Inclined by the devil, the honest people would remain silent. Soon a spiral of silent people started to emerge; they would go to the pile of wealth everyday and would see the wrongdoers indulged in corruption, however they would not say anything.

By this time, the looters had already stationed themselves on the wealth and had even stopped producing the smallest amount of wealth against which they would take wealth from the pile. After months of silence, some people launched a resistance movement against this corruption. However it soon turned out that their motive too was to just get hold of the God sent wealth.

The majority that was not happy with the either group however remain silent. The travelling historian was already too anxious by all this and wanted to know what will happen next. So he stayed put. Watching all this ignorance of the people that were part of the spiral of silence, God decided to put a penalty on corruption that would affect the silent majority as well. He decided that for every one coin taken in corruption, 10 coins shall vanish from the pile of wealth and this rate shall multiply every day – so the next day for every coin taken away in corruption, 20 coins shall disappear from the pile of wealth and so on and so forth. For a few months, the penalty didn’t start to make any dent in the pile of wealth; however after a few months the travelling historian noticed that the sun had started shining at his face a little earlier than ever. Previously it wouldn’t use to shine in his face until 2pm because the pile would stand between him and the sun like a tower. However for sometime it had started shining in his face from 1pm. That’s when the travelling historian noticed the diminishing wealth. By this time, he had already started to lose interest in the fate of the citizens of this town.

After a few more months had passed, the looters kept taking away the money, the self-obsessed kept resisting without wishing for a mass movement and the silent remained silent. However the wealth kept diminishing. Even the outsiders had noticed this by now. And they started wondering what had happened to this town, which was once flourishing. For several more months, the historian kept sitting outside the walls of the town, writing history and hoping that the silent majority would speak up for a change, however nothing happened. And finally one day when he woke up, the pile of wealth had diminished to such an extent that it was no more visible from above the walls of the town.

At this stage, the historian stood up, brushing off dust from his clothes and started packing his belongings. He placed his pen in his breast pocket and the notebook in the backpack. He nicely folded his mat and stuffed it too in his backpack. Before finally leaving for his next destination, he looked back at this town for the longest time, its people and the wealth it had lost. He took a deep breath and moved towards his next destination.

Years later, when the historian met a person who had traversed the same route recently, he asked about the town, its wealth and its residents. The person replied, ‘What town? What wealth and which people are you talking about? There are only ruins and nothing more’

Years later, when the historian met a person who had traversed the same route recently, he asked about the town, its wealth and its residents. The person replied, ‘What town? What wealth and which people are you talking about? There are only ruins and nothing more.’

To this, the travelling historian looked directly into the readers’ eyes and said, “If only the silent would have come out of the spiral!”

The story has nothing to do with the current situation of any city, country or any organisation!

The writer is an assistant professor. He can be reached at m.khalid.shaikh@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, August 3^rd 2017.