The exotic lunacy of parting gifts ~ Malinda Words

A call came around 11 pm on a Friday with an apology, ‘I’m sorry, I just got your message on the answering machine.’ This was long before WhatsApp and Viber. The caller and receiver were not really friends. They had met just once and had agreed that it would be good to meet again.

‘I read some of the things you’ve written. You had quoted Hafiz of Shiraz. So I emailed you some thoughts, the receiver, a young man visiting Geneva, who had been trying to reach her, said.

The young lady, an academic and a peace activist, born in India and educated in England, apologised again, ‘I have been very busy all day and just got back.’

‘I’m leaving on Sunday but I’m free all day tomorrow.’

‘Unfortunately I have to leave for France at 6 tomorrow morning.’

‘That’s still seven hours away.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘A friend invited me for dinner. I am having a drink.’

‘Then I can’t see you.’

‘I have low alcohol tolerance. I’m done. From now onwards there’s only poetry and philosophy.’

‘I’m going to do something that I wouldn’t usually do. I am coming to see you.’

So she turned up in her car, still in work clothes, an orange sari. Beautiful. She took him to one of the many places above the city from where there were truly wonderful views of Lake Geneva. They didn’t talk much. They just enjoyed the view, the city lights, the shimmering lake. There may have been stars out that night but he does not remember.

‘So what did you write in that email?’

‘I wrote that if you are truly interested in building peace, you should leave your conflict resolution job, give up teaching, sit under a tree and write a book.’

She was quiet for a moment: ‘I should do that soon.’

He didn’t say anything. He just smiled.

‘Why are you smiling?’

He just looked into her eyes: ’Soon is now,’ he said softly.

‘We must leave now.’

They didn’t speak on the way back. She stopped to drop him off.

‘As a parting gift…,’ she said and looked for something on the back seat of the car. A collection of poems by Hafiz. I can’t remember the title of the book. She started flipping through the pages, obviously looking for a particular poem.

‘Let me find it for you,’ he said.

She gave him the book. It might have been her favourite poem. Maybe she had read it many, many times. He opened the book to a random page. The title of the poem on that page was ‘The time is now.’

‘How did you do that?'

So he said what he had learned from having read and reread the poetry of Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī the 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic: ‘when you are in harmony with the forces of the universe, the universe conspires to give you what you need.’

And they parted. But she called when she got home: ‘Tell me something, anything, even if it is just one word.’

‘Silence,’ he said, again remembering Rumi, something on the lines of ‘hold your tongue and be silent, heart, do not set fire to the thicket for your tongue is a flame.’

‘You are a mystic,’ she said. He didn't understand, not then and not now.

That’s it.

The truth is that he had never heard of Hafiz until he had come across what she had quoted, which he now does not remember. But he would in later years look for Hafiz in bookstores and once even bought a collection simply because it contained ‘The time is now.’ He carried it with him for a while. He told the above story to a friend, who was interested in literature. He showed him the book and the poem.

His friend made a request: ‘Give this to me.’ Done.

And now he doesn’t even remember the title. He looked for collections of poems written by Hafiz of Shiraz. The one cover that looked familiar is of ‘The Gift: poems by Hafiz the great Sufi master,’ translated by Daniel Ladinsky. He might be wrong, but when looking for poems by Hafiz of Shiraz, the 14th Century Persian poet who was born Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī whose work is considered the pinnacle of Persian literature, he chanced upon the following:

“Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door

My address is somewhere else.”

Probably misaddressed, but that’s as good a parting gift as any.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

03 April 2023

The exotic lunacy of parting gifts

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