Illustration: Bülent Gültek

The 7th-century Najdi Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mullawah or more popularly known as Majnun (مجنون) crossed the Arabian desert, travelled through Persian literature, Hindi cinema and ended up on the door of my childhood home.

In the early twenty-first century, I spent my dreamy childhood at the welcoming Road No. 5, Nasirabad Housing Society in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Road No. 5 was delicately assorted with three-storied red-brick buildings, dawdling swans, and a cluster of exuberant children whose company skirted my childhood. The afternoon sun shone differently in Road No. 5. It was fresh and full of life. Whenever life takes the air of vacant lands, I conjure up the image of Road No. 5 to return and find my innocent joy. 

My family rented an apartment in one of the red brick buildings called Marina in Nasirabad Housing Society. At Marina, as strange as it may seem, the main gate was eternally open during the daytime. Perhaps, people were less wary of strangers back then. The opened gates often allowed a myriad of fakirs to come and go, sometimes as near as the main door of the rented apartments. The tenants would oblige them with poishas, meals, and clothes if necessary.

On a calm Monsoon day, a naked fakir found his way to our door. I was upstairs playing with the neighbours’ children while my mother was in the kitchen preparing lunch. There was a slow knock at the door - “thuk-thuk-thuk”, like the rap of a lazy woodpecker. From the peephole, my mother saw a drenched fakir. His head was droopy, his hair unruly and he had ghastly blisters on his feet. At first sight, he gave the impression of a madman. The fakir was quiet, lost in his solitude as if he was in some profound dhikr. Unaware of how to communicate with him, my mother called upon our old driver and the middle-aged durwan of Marina to see what the fakir was looking for. As they began to gently query him, my mother noticed that his eyes were as scarlet as the evening sun and he had his trousers on. It seemed as if the pair of trousers magically appeared. It surely wasn’t there when my mother looked through the peephole, unless the midday darkness of the monsoon tricked her eyes.

During their query, they asked the fakir where he was from. He merely replied, “Titumir”. They then asked him whether he was hungry. He responded with a nod. So he was provided a warm plate of lunch, which consisted of a savoury piece of fish and freshly cooked vegetables; along with a tee-shirt, which barely drew his attention. Despite his appearance, the fakir ate like a true gentleman. He delicately used his fingers to combine rice and bits of fish to ball them. He chewed the balled-up food patiently and noiselessly. This suggests that he may have an unspoken history, that he may not be a fakir after all. As he ate, there lay beside him a poisha or a single penny. The meaning of that gesture is still a mystery today.

Consequently, my mother, the driver, and the durwan went back to their businesses leaving the fakir with his lunch at the gloomy landing in the stairs. He left like all the other visitors at the door naturally do after they were done with their humble affairs. However, after a while, there was a knock at the door again, sharper than before, and he cried, “Aisha! Aisha! Aisha!”.

My mother’s name is not Aisha neither the Aishas she knew had a Majnun as their acquaintance. Back in the late 70s, they all married their respective “Majnuns”. She was in trepidation because I was still playing upstairs and it was already lunchtime. If I descended and encountered him, I might feel threatened. After all, I was only five or six at the time and was not yet prepared to greet a naked fakir. As I look back now, I wish I had met him. There is no underlying reason except that when my mother narrated this story to me, I felt as if I had missed an opportunity to meet a poet, a saint, or a pilgrim.Worried that his outcry and offbeat presence may intimidate the other tenants, the old driver and the middle-aged durwan arrived again to politely ask him to leave. He was sitting in the stairway surprising the durwan who had clearly seen him leave. They said, as courteously as possible: ‘We’d be obliged if you leave. They are afraid of you.’

“But it would be a mistake to be afraid of me.” He said in his placid voice. Nevertheless, he obliged and with the tee-shirt, his voiceless misery, he embarked yet again on his quest to find Aisha. We never saw him again. I wasn’t fully aware of this tale as a child. I must have come back home that day like any other day, had my lunch and hovered in my innocent exuberance. Many years later, though, my mother narrated the story again in a guilt-struck voice. She felt she could have done better and the stranger may have arrived as a messiah or a blessing that we decided to shove away. 

After she told me the story, I too reflected on her guilt. It was just his last utterance that still rings through our family, even after our departure from Marina: “But it would be a mistake to be afraid of me.” Whether he was a messiah or just another fakir, we could have done so much better.

As I write this now, I wonder if this was a new incarnation of the Layla-Majnun story. What if Aisha is indeed his lost ladylove just as how Layla al-Aamiriya was for Qays ibn al-Mullawah. In this particular narrative, the appearance of the stranger gave him the epithet of Majnun (مجنون). In reality, we can never unravel the mystery behind him being derailed from reality. Perhaps, he was dwelling in truth all the time while we are all still living in our world of make-believe. As the chapters of the twenty-first century unravel, we may feel like there isn't much to be discovered about this reality. But when we observe more closely, there is something mystical about what we see, what we hear, and who we come across. It's in the breeze, in the trees, and in the sky, awaiting us to realise that it exists. Nothing but lingering solitude. As for me, I discovered my solitude in the crowd and found solace in mere words and phrases. With each turn of every page in the book of life, I realize that the memories of Road No. 5 are on the brink of fading. I say this with profound sadness, that I find it burdensome to reminisce about Road No. 5.

Thus, like every individual with a pen and a valley of sentiments, I began to jot down my feeling of the abrupt visit of the fakir at Marina. This is my endeavour to keep this Majnun alive, to keep the memories of Road No. 5 alive just as how Nizami Ganjavi, Muhammed Fuzuli, Amir Khusraw Dehlawi and several others made the tale of “Leyli o Majnun” immortal.

The three-storied red brick buildings, including Marina, are replaced by towering flats. The children of Road No. 5 are no longer children nor exuberant. And the once dawdling swans flapped their mighty wings to a land of uncertainty. Maybe, it was indeed a mistake to be afraid of him. It’s too late to beg for his return. He is far off in his quest. But there is still the solemn power of prayer that shall make up for all the years that have gone by, all the paths that were uncovered, and all the words that remained unsaid.