One day, standing in front of the bookshelf, I was looking at the rows of books but couldn’t decide which book I was supposed to read. Though I had not read all the books on the shelf, I felt there was nothing left to be read anymore. It was as though I had already extracted whatever thoughts and ideas they incorporated in their pages. I pulled out some magazines to shake the dust off them. I started to turn the pages of a magazine and suddenly I found a colourful envelope tucked between. I was quite happy to have ran into a free envelope. I put the magazine back on the shelf and started to wonder who I should write a letter to. It had been quite a while since I had written a letter to any of my friends. Even though the facility of telephone had rendered the letter writing somewhat a passé pursuit, ever since I had found the envelope, I had been hankering to pen down a letter. But whom I should address the letter to, I couldn’t decide at all.
oI started to recall my friends. Ironically, I had contacted all of them on telephone and there was none whom I was passionate to write a letter to.
Finally, I decided to pen down the letter to Salman. He had not been my friend during my college or university days. Rather I befriended him when I was posted as Assistant Commissioner. Though he had been my subordinate, I spent my time with him more of a friend. I finished the letter and moistened the edge of the envelope with my tongue to seal the letter. While putting Salman’s address on the envelope, suddenly my eyes fell on the twenty-paisa-stamp on the corner of the envelope. But now it was supposed to cost me one rupee. I was quite astonished that the world had progressed a lot and I was still using a twenty-paisa-stamp.
I extracted the letter back and tore it into pieces and tucked the envelope back in a magazine. I felt all my books had antiquated and I couldn’t remember a single word I read from them. Indeed, too much water had flown under the bridge of time. For the first time I realised that age was creeping upon me too.
This Balochi short story by Munir Ahmed Badini has been translated by Fazal Baloch
Published in Daily Times, May 20th 2018.