Dear KLF, You Brought Papa Back to Life!

Of all the sensations and experiences I might have had in the four decades of my life, the most disturbing was the touch of my palm against the soles of Papa's lifeless, cold feet. In a blurred moment I saw some people bent upon him perhaps trying to revive him or figure out if there was just a tiny ray left; but I knew! I knew with my hands pressed against his feet that he was no more. My larger than life father, with his outspoken demeanor and intimidating gaze would never rise again. 

I'm a writer; it's in my genes. I find solace in the beautiful leaves of a journal scribbling away with a pencil, its scraping sound against the pages as soothing for my nerves as the cooing of the pigeons on my windowsill. I write to pour my heart out, I write to survive, I write to be able to live fully, to fight, to find courage, to shed my tears where no one will judge me. I write because for the first three decades of my life that's all I knew. But I could not write about him. I could not share even within the silent pages of my journal the grief, the void. So I withdrew, and put up so many facades that I lost track of Papa's little princess. She once was, but not anymore. The veil of indifference with occasional emotional outbursts of emotions expressed everything except a single word about that fateful night when he became one with the earth.

I went to the 8th Karachi Literature Festival last evening, the first time since it started many years ago. Over the years many asked me why despite such strong literary roots do I never attend it, why am I never part of it. I found many excuses to hide behind - large crowds, prejudice, indifference, lack of time; every single time finding a new, rather untrue reason for resistance. I went there yesterday because I knew I needed to; a voice inside drawing me to it, telling me to go find myself in a crowd of hundreds. I went there to salvage the ties to my family, revisit my roots, hear a friend speak, and to admire a woman who against all odds had built OUP and KLF to what they are. I went because I could not resist anymore yet did not expect what I found there. I found my father! I heard him in the speeches, in the humour by Mustansir Hussain Tarrar, and in the silky smooth Urdu by Arfa Sayeda Zehra; I saw him sway in delight at the couplets being recited occasionally, and smiling proudly at the statement by Arfa Sayeda that "those who are living under the notion that Urdu is a diminishing language could not be more wrong". I saw crowds around him greeting him with respect, and his old friends and acquaintances amused at his one liners. I saw him pleased, and proud, and just so happy, and I realized this was home to him; and he was there, all around me. I had been mourning a death for 16 years that never happened...