Who is the other?

WHO IS THE OTHER? Somewhere lost track between fiction and "reality"...anyways here it is....


“Finally, after a long hiatus...I am happy for you”, said her mother. She replied, “I know mom”. With a childlike innocence she added, “He is a nice person”. “I am sure he is. By the way what’s his name”, asked the mother. “Iqbal”, she replied. “Iqbal...Is he a Muslim?”

Then came the horror on her face, which seeped in her voice and could be felt across the other end of the telephone. It was as if somebody had just given her the news of an incurable ailment of a very dear one. Her mother made her feel as if this time she wasn’t seeing “one of us”. She did not understand the category, if it was just confined to being a Hindu or being a human. She was getting used to the bizarre reactions that buzzed after she uttered his name as the guy she was involved with. Revulsion in her mother’s voice made her strongly realize that she was with a guy whose identity is larger than life and is an embodiment of confusion, error and prejudice which illicit mixed emotions of hatred, terror and acerbic reactions from people around her.

She heard the tinkling of the wind chime hung outside the carved door of the main entrance. She wasn’t sure of the wind but she waited till she could hear the doorbell. She rushed to open the door. He understood what had happened when he saw her red and moist eyes. He wanted to hold her and avoid her at the same time. It was a difficult line that he walked, not pouncing on those who called him the “other” and not pampering those who pity him as an underdog. “I am a terrorist”, he said half jokingly, but the cynicism shattered the glass, cut across through and slapped her face and some other faces. But only she could hear the crackle and only she could feel the pain.

She knew that he had not eaten anything as it was his first roza. He had told her how angels come to look after them when they fast on auspicious days of Ramzan. It brought a faint smile to her face, when she was reminded of being told by him that she was his angel. She knew that “his” god was the nucleus of his heart but the atoms were only filled with a universal longing for love. She affectionately watched him. A splendid silence filled the room as they looked in each other’s eyes.

She sat on his lap and they embraced each other. She felt his hand roving through her body and as she closed her eyes, a “Kashmiri jehadi’s” unrecognizable face filled the darkness. She opened her eyes, looked at him desperately and hurriedly sealed his lips with a fervent kiss.

This time when he closed his eyes, myriad of glimpses passed through. He saw his parents who claimed to kill themselves if their daughter married a Hindu doctor who she was in love with for eight years. He saw how he had told this girl who was in his arms at the moment, that they will break up if they “seriously” fall for each other. He saw how out of 50 odd college students on hunger strike, only two, including him, were picked up to spent a night in jail because their names ended with Khan and Mustafa. He saw an invisible wall which was staring at him in the face, ready to rip him apart, the day he decided to cross it and venture into the “other” land.

He picked her up in his arms and took her to the bedroom. For a moment, she felt like tearing apart his body to wade through his soul and see if something is encrypted on it which makes him the “other”, the villain of a heinous story or a figure who needs pity.

They lay in each other’s arms quietly, staring at the ceiling and feeling the warmth of naked bodies and inhibited hearts. They saw the moonlight and eclipse alternately and sometimes simultaneously and wondered who the “other” is….