The Naked Beggar
and other stories
by
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Solitude Very few people in the world have an actual realization of how solitude is such a great blessing. Solitude is a double edged sword that has the power to make somebodies out of nobodies or nobodies out of somebodies. It has swept millions to dust. Those of us who are busy have no time to be alone or to enjoy solitude. On the other hand, those who have nothing to do will spend their free hours in trying to figure out how best to spend their time. Free time or solitude should be left alone sometimes just for the sake of it. If people were aware of the real worth of solitude, they would beg for it on the streets. Solitude is referred to as a meeting with the self. When all the meetings are over, all the talking for the day is done, all the crowds have returned to their homes, all travelers have found their destinations, all companions are lost, then man meets himself. And this is referred to as solitude. It is not actually getting there, but the quest for the destination is the real challenge. For when the destinations are found, everything becomes meaningless. Even the destination itself. When you meet people, they ‘consume’ you. It is only in solitude that you make contact with your Creator and reenergize yourself and your soul. Solitude is a mirror to the self; it shows you who you really are. This is the mirror in which one sees not faces but only characters. It is a special spot where there is pandemonium in silence, quietness speaks, and thoughts perspire in the form of tears. Solitude is also a craving for the potential for doing good. The effect of deeds invariably cascades upon the character. One of my friends says that the closeness of Allah (swt) is forbidden upon the one whose solitude is not pure. You should be at least a hundred times more respectable, honorable, and reputable in your times of solitude as you are in the presence of people. It is this solitude that gives weight to a character. If the solitude is pure, it will automatically attract the potential for good deeds. And if the solitude is impure, then it will definitely prove to be a magnate for ill company and ill deeds. Solitude is also a thirst that forces water to be dependent on life for its existence. The day thirst rises above its dependency upon water, and water beseeches to find thirst, then thirst will turn into Karbala and annihilate Yazeed’s progeny. Therefore, thirst always needs to exist because it is this thirst in which millions gain their daily bread. Solitude is also a paradox. Whatever deed you carry out in solitude, you get a reverse reward for it in life. After crying for years, you are awarded the unique skill and dexterity to make people laugh and the insight to share their sorrows. The more you cry in solitude, the more life smiles for you. Those who have erased themselves in solitude have historically proven to be the most notable of men. Giving your heart to the Creator in solitude means to lure the hearts of all creation towards yourself. And keeping an account of remorse and penitence in solitude means passing the very difficult exam of worship with the greatest of ease. The art of measuring, weighing, testing, appraising, and screening the self is also awarded during solitude. The tribulations of the fate can only be eased through lamenting and crying during solitude. It is also solitude that has the power to enhance and adorn the ugliness of a broken, twisted fate. Cherish your solitude. You will understand the real meaning of blessing.
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About the Book
Curiosity defines the struggles of an ordinary man to come to terms with extraordinary circumstances in order to discover the exact nature of his identity. Though the characters are fictitious, the land, with its convoluted internal struggle as well as its abysmal darkness of ignorance, corruption, illiteracy, and its defiance and obstinacy to come to terms with this malevolence is very much real.
Curiosity takes its start in an impoverished, rural village in Pakistan where the question of the day is survival, even at the cost of dignity. Abdullah, the protagonist, is a nameless son of a ploughman who sets out to defy the odds and change the course of his life. His odyssey of self-discovery is through the channels of religion and spirituality. Abdullah realizes that his greatest battle is finding a voice in a third world country where poverty is a man’s greatest foe. Using faith and spiritual guidance as his weapons, he nurtures his relationship with God and seeks spiritual leaders. As his education increases, so do his questions about the morality and ethics of the society in which he struggles to make his place as a Muslim. A coveted scholarship allows him to move to the US. Here he challenges every assumption he has made throughout his life about the country, its culture and its people.
The questions about life that Abdullah seeks to answer are real life narratives that frame the current political and social position of Pakistan on the global stage. Curiosity is not only a social reformist novel but also a seething satire on modern Pakistani society. It is the story of a traveler who begins his journey without a destination in mind. A traveler who hitches a ride on any caravan that is headed anywhere. It is only at the end of the journey that he realizes that it was the wrong caravan and the wrong destination. All of the people whom he yearns would join him do not share his passions nor his visions to make the land as pure as it could—and should—be.
About the Author
Dr. Usmani is a Fulbright Scholar and Eisenhower Fellow. He holds a PhD and MS in Computer Science from the Florida Institute of Technology. As part of his Master’s thesis, he developed a simulation of supermarkets to observe and quantify the effects of herd behavior on impulse shopping by customers. His PhD work focused on simulation and modeling of blast waves in open and confined spaces. His work has been mentioned in The Wall Street Journal, AOL News, Wired Magazine, NPR, MIT’s Technology Review, Florida Today, The Economist, Brown Journal of World Affairs, and the Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation. He has authored dozens of research papers, articles, and several books. His research strengths include real-world simulation, programming human emergent behaviors, and modeling of catastrophic events. He is founder of Pakistan Body Count – the oldest running tally of suicide bombing and drone attacks in Pakistan. He was a Visiting Scholar at Brown University and an Industrial Professor at Coventry University. He has worked at Citi Bank New York, Discover Financial, State of Illinois, Fulbright Academy of Science and Technology in Maine, and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, in Topi, Pakistan as an Assistant Professor and most recently as Chief of Research at Interactive Group in Islamabad. He divides his time between Cary, North Carolina and Islamabad, Pakistan.