Daily Times

It was drizzling initially, then it poured. As he left the hostel and moved towards a nearby hut, he remembered a rainy day when he was flanked by Mah Zaib in the corridor of university.

His memory of that day was about how Mah Zaib was feeling the rain, and inveighing that such rainy days are not great for her here, but rain in general is only beautiful in her village. He could also remember that something was nagging her and as though she was under a huge surveillance and wanted to leave. Mah Zaib was a very reserved girl. She disliked crowds, and felt insecure in thronging places.

It was raining and Shay felt he must call her and talk with her. He had no one else to talk to him except her. So, he dialed her number. ” Hello…” Shay uttered this hello with profound gentleness, and to this she said: ” Hello. How are you? I hope you would be fine.” ”I am so-so.” Shay said in a whisper-like voice. ” Is it raining out there? I can hear it. It is raining here.” ” Yes, favourite. It was drizzling earlier, and now it is pouring. ” ” I see.” Mah Zaib said. There was a complete silence. As though they were speaking in silence. But after a while Mah Zaib said: ” what are you reading these days?” ” I am reading a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is about memory and forgetting. An elderly couple: Axl and Beatrice. They think that they had a son and they loved him very much but they cannot recall all the details of their son due to forgetfulness. It asks such questions as when it is good to let bygones be bygones and forget; when it is appropriate to remember past things. You know Mah Zaib. Memory is a very dangerous thing. We all have our own dark memories. Ishiguro calls them buried giants. We have no authority over our memories. A simple moment can reawaken past things and make us feel ashamed. Whatever we do today will, at some point of our lives, make us either proud or ashamed. In doing things, we must be very careful.” ” Nice. I have read Klara and the sun by this writer.” Mah Zaib said in a soft yet reassuring voice.” ” Yes. I remember and you loved this novel very much. But I would like to say a few things about this novel which I am reading these days. What intrigues me about this novel is the way they forget things so easily and cannot remember them. At one point Beatrice says:’ it is queer the way the world is forgetting people and things from only yesterday and the day before that. Like a sickness coming over us all.’ To explain the forgetfulness to Beautrice, at one point Axl warns that perhaps God himself has become forgetful and has completely forgotten everything, and now does not want mortals to remember anything, even from the immediate past. Apart from this, the novel is a love story of an elderly couple. On the way to find their son, they pass through lawless and very difficult terrains. But on the way Axl asks time and again to Beautrice: ” princess are you there?” to which she replies, ” yes, I am here.” Unlike modern couples, Axl and Beatrice are very respectful of each other. They care for each other. Even small things, like when it is getting cold, Axl asks Beatrice whether she is wearing her cloak. You get a different feeling when you read this novel.

”On their journey they come across many people who tell them lots of stories. Mah Zaib, this is a very great novel. I am continuously talking, my apologies.” After a long monologue Shay felt he must let Mah Zaib to talk to him. ”No, no. You were talking so beautifully. It really is a great novel. And I will read it once I get there. But I will also say a few things about the novel I have read, Klara and the sun. It is a novel about loneliness. Klara is an AF, or artificial friend, designed and made to save children from loneliness and provide them hope and company. Klara is a very sensitive AF girl. Her observational powers are immense and very unique. See how humans will become sad, lonely and dejected that they will make artificial friends to save them from the darkness of being lonely. I sometimes think, Shay, that aren’t we lonely all the time? We are born alone and we will die alone. But despite knowing that we are so afraid of being lonely. It is like we need warmth, or the presence of someone that must tell us, ” I am around. I am here. Always ready to cry, laugh and smile with you,” it is this reassurance that we need. But again we always need people when we are alone. Once loneliness is erased we soon forget the people who stood by us when we needed them most. And it hurts shay. It hurts. We must not forget people who were there when no one was there. Who told us stories to let us sleep. Who cracked jokes to let us laugh. We must never forget them.”

” I really like all the works of Ishiguro. He writes so magnificently.” ”Yes, Shay, he does. I like the way he explains human emotions. I sometimes think like humans, can an artificial friend need company? Will Klara at some point become lonely and feel suicidal? You know the air of the human world is full of sadness that no one can escape it. But Klara has no human heart. And she is incapable of understanding the very miniscule niceties of the human heart. Human heart, as Ishiguro says, is like a house with many rooms. you enter one room and find another room in that. It becomes a labyrinth of rooms. So sublime and strange.”

At one point Klara was asked by Josie’s father, Josie is the lonely girl for whom Klara is purchased, ”Then let me ask you something else. Let me ask you this. Do you believe in the human heart? I don’t mean simply the organ, obviously. I am speaking in the poetic sense. The human heart. Do you think there is such a thing? Something that makes each of us special and individual? And if we just suppose that there is. Then don’t you think, in order to truly learn Josie, you would have to learn not just her mannerism but what is deeply inside her? Would not you have to learn her heart.” But I believe a human heart could be understood by those who have a heart of their own. I heard someone say that adulthood is so painful for him because he feels that over each passing day his heart is getting bigger and bigger for what he deeply feels, and at a certain level, there remains no space, but his feelings keep swarming in. ”

The rain in both areas has stopped. After a small pause Mah Zaib said, ” I am sitting on the ledge of my window overlooking some mountains, and a lake. The rain has reduced to drizzle. A gentle wind is blowing and dishevelling my well-kempt hairs. What about you?” ” Same. Rain has stopped. I can smell the petrichor. But I am remembering a line by an English poet John Keats, ” Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, what can I do to kill it and be free?” This line is so touching. Everything has some sort of memory. The sound of rain, petrichor, tweets of birds, and warmth, or let’s just say touch, of someone has a memory. We are the product of our memories.” Shay was feeling utterly despondent but he was hiding it. ” Don’t be so sad. Everything will be alright. Let me confess that when you call and for me these two to three hours of our talks are more than any therapy. The way we talk makes me tearful. I feel one day we must sit near a lake and cry out hearts out. You know, people say to err is human. But I feel to cry is human.” ” You are right Mah Zaib. I also have this wish. So I guess we must say our sweet goodbyes for now.” ” Yes. But please call a little sooner since I am all alone here and talking to you gives me strength and refreshes me.”

”Sure sure Favourite. So bye for now.”

”Bye for now.” continued

The writer is a student, based in Turbat. He Tweets at @shahabakram6 and can be reached at shahabakram0852@gmail.com