WHAT lies between reality and dream? This question has occurred to me twice. Once, while trying to decipher the enigmatic symbolism of the late Intizar Husain and now again while reading Shafqat Naghmi’s novel.

There is, after all, a difference between spoken words and the printed page. In Naghmi Sahib’s spiritual lineage stood the illustrious Qudratullah Shahab, who recounts an episode of a revered mystic illuminating his disciples’ hearts with divine light. Shahab’s bureaucratic curiosity could not tolerate the mystery. Searching the holy man’s cloak, he produced a battery-powered torch, exposing the secret behind the celestial radiance. Many years later, I find myself in a similar predicament. Among the fortunate few to read SaatJanam before publication, I now find its images and symbols seizing me at every turn. Whether a battery-powered torch or the modern printing press, both possess a kind of magic—the former a source of light, the latter of profound influence, like the acacia tree beneath whose shade a mysterious stranger awaits a traveller, opening before him all his treasures before departing into nonexistence.

This acacia tree, too, is filled with strange enchantment. In forgotten ages, it would fill people’s laps with fruits of every kind, but now........

© Pakistan Observer