The Black Rainbow

by Hussain Zaidi

  “Why do you want to have a rich wife? You can get what you want by dint of hard work.”

  “Hard work! There’s no correlation between hard work and wealth my dear friend. What will I get at the most by dint of hard work? A job worth a few thousand rupees. You know the house where we live is a government accommodation, which we’ll have to vacate once my father retires. Hard work can give you necessities; it can’t give you luxuries. It can give you money, it cannot give you wealth. Wealth is the gift of luck and I can’t count on my luck to get wealthy. So I must prey upon someone who is already wealthy. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But, Javed, wealth isn’t everything. The real thing is happiness, for which wealth is not essential,” Ali objected.

  “It’s all bookish dear. If you have wealth, you can buy anything — fame, power, loyalty, comfort. Name anything and I’ll tell you that wealth can buy it. Wealth may not be a sufficient condition for happiness but it’s invariably the necessary condition.”

  “Well I don’t agree with you. My parents aren’t wealthy but to be sure they are happy. But let’s leave this discussion for some other time, preferably for the classroom. Now tell me have you had any success?” Ali asked.

  “Not yet I’m afraid,” Javed replied. “But I’ haven’t given in. I have couple of targets — of course outside the department. Wish me success. Would you?”

  “Of course I do. But I also wish you see reason and learn to rely on your own potentials.”

  “On my part, I wish you get Sara. But have you opened your heart to her?” Javed queried.

  “I have thought over this but haven’t been able to make up my mind.”

  “I guess it’s not the question of making up your mind. It’s a matter of mustering up the courage, which we middle class people are remarkably deficient in, “Javed observed.

  “Your observation is valid. But I don’t want to act in a haste. Unless I get some positive signal from Sara, I had better remain silent.”

  “You may be right but you see girls like Sara are in high demand. What I fear is that someone wealthier, more intelligent and more handsome than you may cajole her. You know in our society, girls, even if they are as wealthy and intelligent as Sara, are impressed by the man who takes the initiative,” Javed opined.

  “Well if that’s the case, why didn’t you try your luck with Sara?”

  “I would have done so had I had the faintest of hope of success. In fact, let me share it with you and only you, I did in the beginning make some advances towards her but the message in her eye was clear — fuck off,” Javed confided in Ali and began to laugh. “But your case is different or should I say better? He said.

  “Ok I’ll think over that.”

  “Do think my dear but your thought must beget action. Don’t be a Hamlet.”

  “But I don’t want to be a Macbeth either,” Ali replied and then realized that Sara might have returned and been waiting for him in the library. “I’m to prepare notes so I’m going to the library. Would you come?”

  “No my dear I have got better things to do,” Javed replied and they went their ways.

  Ali returned home with two considerations uppermost in his mind: One that he needed to perform better so that his teachers have no cause for complaint; second whether it was safe for him to open his heart to Sara. Javed’s word of warning that girls like Sara were in high demand was echoing in his mind. As Ali saw it, the two problems were inter-related.

  “For,” he thought, “if I perform well in the class, if I actively participate in the discussion and earn good grades that would impress Sara and strengthen my case for her. So first I need to give greater attention to my studies and come out of my shell. I should try to dominate the discussions and put intriguing questions to the professors. This means I need to fully digest the reading material and go to the class fully prepared. However, at the same time I should also throw some hints at Sara in a subtle way and then see how she reacts. This means from now onward my focus should be only on Sara and studies. All else should be secondary.” Ali decided.

  Ali was happy on reaching that decision. At the same time, he felt proud that unlike Javed, he was interested in Sara not for her wealth and fortune but because of her personal qualities. But he also admitted to himself that should he marry Sara, he would share her enormous wealth. “That will be a collateral benefit to me,” he himself summed up the situation.

  The Farzana factor, Ali thought, was one thing that could potentially distract his attention. “I don’t understand Farzana. She is well aware that our marriage is impossible but still she insists on that. This is the sign of an immature person hoping the impossible to happen. But I also feel sorry for her. She is otherwise a nice girl but her emotional nature verging on stupidity is her greatest flaw and I hope it doesn’t turn out to be a tragic flaw. May God show her the light of reason! In any event, for me Farzana’s chapter never existed at all and even if it existed it is closed once and for all. Whether she marries Rashid or not, it’s none of my business. I think I made a mistake by meeting Rashid and thus became part of the controversy. In future I’ll not get myself embroiled into her affair,” he committed to himself.

  Accordingly, Ali started paying greater attention to his studies. However, the more he studied, the more confused he became. When he studied materialism, it appeared to him to be the true philosophy. “After all what materialism says in a nutshell — that the world around us is real and what is not perceived by the senses doesn’t exist — nothing can be simpler, to-the-point and borne out by our everyday experience.”

  But when he turned to idealism, the shortcomings of materialism were exposed to him. “What reason do we have for maintaining that what cannot be perceived by the senses doesn’t exist? What reason do we have for believing that the senses give us true and infallible knowledge? My senses have often deceived me. Hence, it’s doubtful whether any credible philosophy can be erected on the edifice of sense perception. In fact, the senses give us chaotic knowledge and only reason can turn that chaos into order.”

  But further studies convinced him of the limits of reason as well. “Reason,” he realized, “can hardly give us fresh knowledge about the world. Reason, for instance, tells me that a person cannot at the same time both exist and not exist but whether that person actually exists or has ever existed, reason by itself is incapable of informing me. Only my senses can tell me. Either I personally see that person or hear or read about him. So ultimately I am thrown back to rely on my senses to know about the world or even about myself.

  “For whether I have ten fingers or eleven or nine; my heart is on the left, centre or right; my hair are black, brown or grey; my nose is flat, long or sharp; the color of my eyes is black, blue or green; I’m tall, short or of middle height; my complexion is fair, dark or yellow; I walk, crawl or run, no amount of logical reasoning will unfold to me the truth. Either I touch my organs or just look at them to know their number, size, color, shape and location. And if reason has so serious constraints, any philosophy which enthrones reason can hardly be a credible philosophy. But if both senses and reason have severe constraints, how can we get infallible knowledge either about the world or about ourselves?” Ali wondered.

  Though intellectually confused, Ali was clear about one thing — that he loved Sara and had to get her. But he was also painfully aware of his constraints vis-à-vis her. “Reason tells me that Sara will not reciprocate my love for she is far superior to me in all respects. But then reason can and does err. And it may err in this case as well. So I should shun skepticism and have what the poet Wordsworth called the willing suspension of disbelief.”

  However, Ali’s willing suspension of disbelief didn’t become strong enough to allow him to express his love to Sara. During the vacation, he met Sara almost every week and got the opportunity to spend time with her alone on every occasion but didn’t receive a ‘positive’ signal from her. In the meantime, the summer vacation ended.

  The way Ma
ulvi Zia had successfully secured the release of the militants made him fully realize that in politics the only effective antidote to power was power. The same Malik Naseem, who was even reluctant to see him, had not only invited him but also bowed to his demand.

  “If we are to bring the military operation against the militants to a halt, requests, petitions and supplications will be of little use; rather the government must be forced to do so. And this is possible only if we are strong enough to dictate to the powers that be,” Maulvi Zia shared his views with Dr Junaid.

  “You are right Zia sahib. Actually it was an error of judgment on my part,” admitted Dr Junaid. “When I floated the idea of the change in the government, I was of the view that if we had a government that is sympathetic to our demands then it would help our cause. But now I have realized that the government of the day is sympathetic only to itself. It is interested only in its own survival and consolidation. When there’s a conflict of interest, allies become enemies and when there’s is compatibility of interest, enemies becomes allies, foes turn into friends. In politics then there are no permanent friends no eternal foes. The government of Malik Naseem released our mujahideen, because doing so was in its interest. So you’re right, we have to match power by power.”

  “You know I had decided to set the diplomats free in any case, because the ambassador of a Muslim country, to which we owe allegiance, had personally requested me for that. But I knew Malik Naseem and the people behind him would find it impossible to resist the pressure for the release of the diplomats. I also knew that they wouldn’t dare to order the police to enter the mosque. So I played tough and succeeded. And that’s is the only effective way of dealing with these rascals,” Maulvi Zia observed. “But now the question is how to build on our one-time success.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “There’s a limit to what our students can do — and mind you they have done a lot. We should also avoid doing anything which may discredit us in public eye. And if we continue kidnapping people, it will for sure discredit us in public eye — even if we do so in the name of religion and morality. We need to show our strength; there’s no doubt about that. But we should do so in a subtle way. We have only to impress the people in power that we are too strong to be ignored. I have been thinking over this for last many days and I have hit upon an idea, which I would like to share with you.”

  “My pleasure,” a curious Dr Junaid nodded.

  Maulvi Zia explained what he had in mind. “Yes that’s nice,” Dr Junaid responded after the former had finished. “We should act upon your plan immediately.”

  “Well there’s another thing I want to tell you,” Maulvi Zia told Dr Junaid. “You remember a girl interviewed me some time back on madaris education. I saw her coming out of your university the other day.”

  “Really!” Dr Junaid exclaimed. “Either she studies in the university or she was there to meet someone. If she studies in the university, she was lying to you. But why did she lie to you? Anyhow did you have a chance to follow her?”

  “No I’m afraid. I was passing by the university when I got sight of her. But before the driver stopped the car, she had disappeared.”

  “One thing is clear,” Dr Junaid observed, “she is in the town and if she really is what she told you, you can expect her.”

  Chapter 21

  It was the first day after summer vacation. Life had returned to the university. The students were back with renewed expectations and fresh plans. Some hoped to do better in studies; others expected to excel in extra-curricular activities. The boys hoped this time they would be successful at seducing pretty girls; the girls planned how to be successful at husband hunting. For many, the final year of their studies had started after which they would be thrown into hard practical life. What they did or failed to do during that year would determine their future.

  In the philosophy department, all the students were present in the classroom. Though most of them had been meeting every week, they had formally assembled after three months. During this period, Sara and Ali had come closer to each other.

  “Who is supposed to take the first session and on which subject?” Sara asked her classmates. “They haven’t notified the time table.”

  “If you don’t know then probably none of us knows,” Javed remarked. “But don’t worry, you’ll have your answer in few minutes.”

  And the answer came when the door opened and much to their surprise a tall, slim and smart young man entered. “Hello I’m Ahmad Rameez and just three days back joined your department. Earlier, I was teaching in the Peshawar University,” the new professor introduced himself.

  After the introduction was complete, the professor told them that he would be covering the ‘Living Issues in Philosophy.’

  “Since you have completed your first semester, you must have been well grounded in the basic concepts of philosophy. This makes my task easier since I need only to apply these concepts to the contemporary issues and problems in philosophy. I want to make it clear at the very outset that I don’t believe in teaching in the traditional sense of the word; instead I believe in sharing views openly, frankly and candidly. So please don’t hesitate to share your views no matter how ridiculous they may seem to you at times.”

  The young professor cast a glance across the class to see their reaction and then continued: “A common charge against philosophers has been that they are divorced from the real world; that the problems they grapple with have little relevance to the contemporary society; that they dwell in a world of their own far from the madding crowd; and that the questions they raise have either no answers at all or where the answers can be found they do little to contributing to social good. It is alleged that while science gives us knowledge, control and power and art affords us pleasure, relief and entertainment, philosophy gives us nothing but unending skepticism. Such allegations of course are unfounded and expose popular prejudice against philosophy and philosophers. The point that I want to make is that while the problems of philosophy largely transcend time and space, the real significance of philosophy consists in its contemporary relevance, in helping us reconstruct a better society and a better world. As Karl Marx said, philosophers must go beyond understanding the world to changing it.”

  Prof Rameez paused for few seconds to capture the breath and then added: “In the course of our interaction, we’ll try and see how basic philosophical tools can help us understand and improve the society and the world we live in. Any question, comment or observation?” he invited the class.

  There wasn’t any response, partly because the boys and girls hadn’t yet returned to their normal classroom mode after long summer vacation and partly because they were interested more in the young professor than his statements. Naila in particular was keenly watching him. She was impressed by his attractive appearance and fluent English. Prof Rameez also felt Naila’s attention on him.

  “Well if you have nothing to say, then we may proceed. We have twenty-five credit hours for this module and we have the flexibility to identify about ten contemporary issues that we may discuss. Interestingly, you also happen to be ten in number. So each one of you will propose one issue. How simple it is! So we start with you the young lady,” Prof Rameez looked at Sara.

  “Well I confess you have caught us off-guard. But since we have to propose one topic each now and I have a background in economics, I’ll go for the current economic order, that is, capitalism,” Sara spoke.

  Prof Rameez noted the topic proposed by Sara and then said ‘next.’ Javed who was sitting next to Sara thought for a moment and then proposed ‘democracy’. Subsequently the rest of the students came up with their topics until only Ali was left. All the time that his classmates were proposing the issues for discussion, Ali was thinking what he should propose. At least two subjects that came to his mind were already proposed by them so that when it was his turn to speak, he was blank.

  “Yes by now you must have decided which issue to suggest,” Prof Rame
ez addressed Ali.

  “Sir pardon me but you have still got to know Ali. He never decides in a haste. He needs at least one week to make up his mind,” Riaz remarked sarcastically.