I saw her for the first time in our local Imambara during Moharram chanting a forlorn dirge to the accompaniment of chest-beating around the ‘Alam’. In spite of the suffocating rush of women and children around, she stood resolutely putting heart and soul into the heart-rending verses; her eyes large and hazel – a beautiful feature of her face – gazed steadfastly on the gaudy draperies which swathed the Alam in the mute token of vows fulfilled.

The Alam was the ensign of the brave seventy two, who were martyred by Yazid’s hordes in the scorching desert of Karbala . Abbas, the gallant and fearless bearer of this holy banner, relinquished it only when both his arms were cut off in the blood-bath that was enacted on the holy prophet’s grandson Hussain, who gave his all for justice and truth. The echoes of this unholy massacre, which are a standing blot till doomsday, have been ringing every year for 13 centuries, heralding the Islamic New Year in a gloom of lamenting and grief. Vows undertaken by devotees for the fulfillment of wishes, especially beneath the Alam are numerous, and faith in its efficacy as an emissary to God is as strong in this space age as ever before.

The Alam was now being carried to the courtyard; the rush of women mingled with the cries of children surging like a tidal wave towards it now turned into a frenzied rush. Hands reached up clutching at the fruit stuck on the silver panja (hand) which topped the Alam.

Being anxious for a share myself, I tried to move, but was pressed to a wall instead, panting in a terror of suffocation. I managed to slither down on a charpoy, which had somehow retained its place in the melee. Mopping my face with a hankie, I saw a hand thrust towards me with an apple quarter, soggy and brown. I looked up into a pair of smiling hazel eyes set in an attractive face framed with wavy hair, wisps of which lay in damp curls on her brow. I accepted the fruit gratefully and made place for her beside me. A plump baby was perched in the crook of one arm, and another three year old clutched at her mother’s shirt.

This was the first of a series of meeting in the years to come. It never occurred to either of us to extend the bonds of acquaintanceship beyond the limits of time and space. We always met at the Imambara, and took up the rein of friendship exactly where we had left them the previous year. It seemed the most natural thing to do. Sensing the complete privacy a total stranger affords to one’s affairs, our friendship took an easy confiding form, and we exchanged confidences most cordially.

She was the only daughter among eight sons and had been married just four years to an equally prosperous cousin, who obviously doted on her as was apparent from her own rapt expression at any mention of him. We took to sitting close to one another during the majlis and chatted in between the intervals, but at the close of the majlis, I would note with a surprise that she made a frenzied rush for the tabbarruk, and sometimes I would see her holding on to the “Alam” in a fervency of prayer and wishing which gave to her lovely eyes an almost fierce demanding look.

I also saw her once tie a knot in one of the draperies of the Alam and I know she had vowed, for it is customary – nay a ritual of this mournful month, that while lamenting the martyred Imam and his family, we also solicit his recommendation for the granting of our legitimate wishes. On such occasions I would keep the little girls by my side.

As usual after Moharram we never saw each other until the next year, when arriving late at the congregation I was beckoned by a pair of smiling hazel eyes. We soon found a corner together where appropriate participation did not retard in anyway fragments of conversation. She had the knack of introducing zest to ordinary talk. I liked to hear her chatter away; she seemed very enthusiastic about her husband’s transfer to Lahore. At the close of the majlis she handed me the new baby, for now she had three little girls, all of them enchanting.

We met nearly every day. That season it had been a prosperous year for the Imambara; numerous tokens of pledge, in gratitude to wishes fulfilled, adorned  the inner alcove, silver hands and costly cloths for the Alam – silver horse-shoes for the Zuljinnah silver apples and this time two golden apples brought by some prosperous devotees in token of vows fulfilled. These momentos are later exchanged for money and distributed to the poor.

My hazel-eyed friend mentioned casually that she had also vowed a golden apple. It did not occur to me to ask her why and yet the stakes must have been large, for it is no light matter to vow so costly a gift.

For the next few years I did not see her. I may even have missed her, for I was away on quite a few occasions during Moharram. When next I joined the congregation I vaguely wondered whether I would see her. I did eventually on the seventh day; she sat serenely against a bolster pillow. I realised that it was good to see her again and sat down beside her and we were soon bridging the span of the last few years.

She was far gone with child I noticed, and when I asked her how the little girls were she replied carelessly that they had doubled in number since we last met; a shade too carelessly I thought. In fact, there was a resentful note in her voice. Sure enough there were six girls, all of them enchantresses; the babes I remembered had grown up into sweet young things.

She still talked enthusiastically of her husband who seemed as fond of her as ever, and she told me proudly how fond he was of all his daughters (an admirable feat of nature in our country). Yet there lurked a brooding look on her face; her lovely eyes looked wistful at times. Soon the Majlis was over. In spite of her condition she went into the mob of tabarruk and waived my offer to do so with a pressure of her hand. We both however, went into the inner alcove where Ziarat was kept and which was even now littered with various mementos, but this time there was one golden apple, and the old woman who kept a watch in the doorway, wished us. As we reverently stepped inside I saw my friend

of the Imambara pray fervently, even demandingly. Before I could avert my eyes she saw me looking at her and putting her whole being into those eyes she said, “Oh, do please pray for me to have a son this time”. I was taken aback, “son?”, I gasped. “Is it so very important for you?”

“Yes, Oh, yes”, she cried, “there is nothing I wish for more. I have wished and wished since I carried my first child, only one son”. The words seemed to settle heavily in the gloom filled room. I shivered involuntarily as the old woman croaked Ameen from the doorway and my gaze alighted on the golden apple, which seemed to lose its glimmer and turn a dull yellow.

We parted at the doors of the courtyard and as I was leaving town next day, I said good-bye to my friend, wishing her happy ending. She told me how her husband had vowed to perform Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) when a son was bestowed upon him.

As I said before once out of the Imambargah we lost touch with one another. I did however fleetingly wonder on the following Eid whether my hazel eyed friend had got her wish, and whether her husband was even now performing the pilgrimage in fulfillment of his vow.

The following Moharram I felt an excitement within me as I looked forward to meeting her. The place was packed with women and children, being the first of the month. I looked around for her and sure enough I found myself staring across the room into a large pair of hazel eyes, which stared back into mine mournfully.

I wound my way towards her with difficulty. The majlis had started and we were barely able to exchange greetings. I squeezed myself beside her. In her lap was perched the sweetest, fattest little cherub about eleven months old, who crowed and patted its little hand at his mother’s averted face. Without a word she handed the baby to me, and then we devoted ourselves to the Majlis. Once or twice I glanced sideways as her body shook with sobs and I fancied an anguished undertone in her weeping. It couldn’t be the recitation for it had not yet reached that crescendo when the audience breaks out into uncontrolled weeping. I wondered whether the babe in my arms was a boy or a girl for it occurred to me in a flash that my friend looked unbearably unhappy.

The Majlis was over now and she staggered to her feet, clutching a green silk handkerchief which rustled with tissue paper; then made her way to the inner alcove. I followed with the baby in my arms. We waited till the rush abated. She looked controlled now and even managed a wan smile. As we went inside she unwrapped the green hankie and I saw a gleaming golden apple on the white tissue paper. I knew the baby was a boy. She quickly put the apple along with the other tokens as if she wished to be rid of it – slight carelessness of gesture – I can’t say.

We seemed to have lost the easy exchange of small talk and just to break the oppressive silence I smiled and asked her, “Did your husband then perform the pilgrimage?” “Yes, he did perform the pilgrimage to Mecca”, she replied stonily, repeating my words. “Is he very happy too?” I blurted out for something better to say. Her brow puckered and she crumbled into a sobbing, weeping heap on the floor. “He was killed six weeks ago in a motor accident”, she sobbed brokenly. I clutched her baby closer in an astonished gasp. Brokenly and incoherently the tragic story came out.

The boy had been born to the great joy of everyone last year. Ten months later the proud father went to perform Haj, and she had the golden apple made as a fulfillment of her vow. A week after his return from Mecca he was killed in an automobile accident.

I sat dumbfounded. What unkind fate was this to give and deprive with the same hand, and yet her intense wish for a son had blotted all else from the horizon of life. As if aware of my thought she broke into fresh sobs.

“I wish, I wish, Oh I wish”, she wailed. “Mubarak, Mubarak”, croaked the well-known voice of the old woman who watched the door, her beady eyes lighted on the golden apple, which now gleamed mockingly and turned a brassy yellow in the fading light. The only sound was of the muffled sobbing of an anguished soul on whom it had just dawned that one’s dearest wishes when granted do not always augur happiness.