Daily Times

Once a cleric came from a faraway area and stayed in a mosque. He would offer Namaz and address the people. His room was besides the mosque and his house was on its backside. On the backside of the cleric’s house, there was another home. The meals of the cleric were on those neighbors. One day, a member of the family was passing by the cleric’s house when he caught the cleric peeping into their house from the window. He went back home and informed the other members about what he had seen.

They all came and beat the cleric terribly. The cleric cried and begged for mercy, “Don’t beat me, don’t beat me, what is my fault?” A few other people were wondering around near the area. As they heard the cries of the cleric, they came inside and asked the people why they were beating him. They replied, “Because he was looking inside our house and we caught him red handed.” The people said to the cleric allegedly, “You are a cleric. You lead people in prayer and address them on religious affairs. Yet you are doing such wrong acts. Don’t you feel ashamed?” The cleric cried even louder and said, “There is a WiFi connection in their home. Whenever the signal wouldn’t come, I would see from this window if the light of the DSL was on or off. But they beat me and broke my bones!”

This is the translation of a Balochi short story written by Darmad Baloch

Published in Daily Times, December 21^st 2017.