Trafika Europe 9/10 - UK in Europe

Bakhtiyar Ali

secret deeper than the secret of death and more infinite than the mystery of life. It is something that you may choose to believe in or to regard as the hallucination of an old man, breathing his last in a hospital in a foreign land. I have borne the pain of it throughout my life. Now that you are grown, you will understand that had I opened my mouth any earlier than this, I would havedone so in vain, andall I have written would have been without meaning. The only living being able to understand this tale is he who understands love, that is, he who is able to reason. Only God knows whether you are indeed such a person. Only God, and He alone. Do I, who impose this difficult task, this strange duty on your newly awakened heart, do

I myself understand love? Is there any human being who does? Or is love too divine amystery, a holiness of so high an order it is far beyond the grasp of you or me? OurdearBahman.Eighteen years ago ... eighteen years ago, on a clear night, I was lost in contemplation of the sea of stars when all of a sudden into my room came a young man, his face and figure like the pictures drawn by ancient miniaturists on the covers of books kept by the kings and princesses. He was a strange young man who knew by heart every ghazal I knew, who could recite any poem I had written better than I could myself. His knowledge of metre was impeccable. He introduced himself as a part of me. He portrayed himself as my shadow,

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