Who was Tariq Yasar?”

“He was a saint, a God fearing and a God loving person.”

“Where is he now?”

“He has passed away, leaving behind his two sons.”

“Were his sons as nice as he was?”

“No, they weren’t. But the two loved their father very much especially the younger one.”

“What was so exceptionally great about Tariq Yasar?”

“He was a dream interpreter, and so was his father Yasar Kainat.”

“What kind of dream interpreters were they?”

“When people used to share their dreams, they used to make assumptions only when they were 100 per cent sure about their predictions.”

“Those were prophecies?”

“Yes.”

“How would you define a prophecy?”

“A prediction that could have been wrong according to them, but in reality they were always true.”

“True or accurate?”

“I would say true.”

“True but not accurate?”

“100 per cent accurate, further interpretations of those prophecies by their descendants were wrong

at times.”

“So, what were Tariq Yasar’s predictions?”

“He predicted the mischief that was about to come, in his family.”

“Mischief? You mean family disputes?”

“Not just family disputes, something worse.”

“Worse?”

“The two brothers Rizwan and Hannan, they were torn apart.”

“Was money involved?”

“Surprisingly, there was none. There was some property involved but the dispute was not based on that.”

“The two brothers, did they ever reunite?”

“Everyone wanted them to, but…”

“But what?”

“The ending of their story was not a happy one, not according to me.”

“Not according to you?”

“Yes, I wanted it to be something else.”

“So, can you tell me

about why the two

brothers went apart?”

v v v

1966

It was an early afternoon, but the clouds made it look like an evening. Four men followed by a group of several men were carrying a coffin on their shoulders and were walking towards a grave. A crowd was following them and they were literally uncountable.

A crowd of women was standing at some distance, most of them had worn white clothes and all of them were weeping. The comments that were being passed made everyone even more upset,

“He was a saint.”

“He was the only person who feared God and made us realise about life after death.”

“And now he’s gone too.”

“His death is a tragedy, there won’t be any hope on this land anymore.”

As one woman said this, other women standing in front of them turned and looked at them. They all paid attention to the conversation of those two women,

“You are saying that there won’t be any hope?”

“That’s true because he was the only person who had weight in his words.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think that means?”

“I want you to clarify that.”

“Well, this means that there is no one to stop the troubles and disputes of the family now.”

“There are disputes in this family?”

“There aren’t yet, but there are going to be.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“There were predictions.”

“What kind of predictions?”

“These predictions were made by Tariq Yasar himself.”

“You mean predictions about disputes in this family?”

“Dispute is not enough to define it, you should call it mischief.”

“Mischief? You mean a long lasting mischief.”

“Yes.”

The women listening to the conversation were quite agitated and wanted to hear more but they turned back as they heard some noise. A tree near the graveyard had unexpectedly fallen down. One of the women standing ahead commented,

“She was right, the bad time has begun.”

Near the grave, an average heighted guy with slightly long hair was standing. Someone called him out,

“Rizwan!”

He turned, looked at his relative and uttered,

“Yes.”

“It’s time to pour sand over your father’s grave.”

“Okay,” Rizwan replied while not showing any sign of grief.

Another guy of the same height but fairer complexion came to the spot and uttered while crying,

“I’ll do it.”

Rizwan looked at his brother, who was crying a lot, he tried to console him,

“It’s okay Hannan, he’s at a better place now.”

Hannan kept on weeping helplessly. Although, it was time for them to move towards the grave and pay their last tribute, Rizwan held his brother tightly and hugged him. Hannan began to cry even more and heard his brother saying,

“It will be okay, we’ll continue his legacy, and we won’t let his teachings die.”

Hannan was helplessly crying but he tried to calm himself down trying to suppress his feelings.

“Let’s go,” Rizwan said to him.

Their relatives were looking at them, where one of them appeared really upset and

the other one appeared

quite stable.

“Let’s do it, Hannan,” Rizwan said to his brother while tapping his shoulder.

Both of them walked towards the grave and slowly made their way to the spot. Rizwan was not too upset but Hannan began to cry again as he saw his father’s coffin.

Other relatives came from behind and supported Hannan as he was about to fall down. Rizwan felt a bit upset for his brother but then changed his direction and looked at his father’s coffin.

Next afternoon, Rizwan was sitting upset in his house thinking about his father, but he was more upset about his brother who was not able to gain control over himself. He thought,

I don’t understand, I just don’t understand why he’s so upset. I mean I am upset too but he seems to be so deeply attached to father. We all were expecting this sooner or later, but he appears to be broken down like a shattered glass.

He saw his servant walking by, he stopped him and said,

“Can you please see if he’s in the room?”

“Who?” the servant asked.

“Hannan.”

“Hannan? He wasn’t there in the first place.”

“What? He didn’t return?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” the servant answered.

Rizwan stood up immediately and walked towards the room where he was expecting that his brother might be.

As he opened the door, he called out his name,

“Hannan? Are you here?”

There was obviously no response from the other end. He called out again,

“Hannan, are you here?”

He walked inside the room and turned on the lights. He looked around and there was literally no sign of his brother being there. He went out and asked his servant,

“Where would he be?”

“I don’t know, I was thinking you must be aware about his whereabouts.”

“No, how would I? I returned home alone.”

“Okay, so what must we do now?”

“I just want you to go back and see if he’s there.”

“Go back? Where?”

“To the graveyard?”

“Yes, please. We need to find him.”

“Why don’t you page him?” the servant asked.

“His pager is over here in the living room. He has kept it off since the demise of our father.”

“Alright, I’m leaving.”

Rizwan felt a bit relieved for a few seconds then he suddenly remembered some chore and walked towards his room.

One hour later, Rizwan entered in the living room and saw his brother Hannan sitting there. He sighed with relief and asked,

“Oh, where have you been?”

Hannan didn’t respond and kept on sitting as if he heard nothing. Rizwan asked again,

“Hannan, I’m asking you, where have you been? I was really scared.”

Hannan moved a bit and looked up at his brother but then closed his eyes. Rizwan came and sat next to him. He asked politely,

“Where were you? At the grave yard?”

Hannan nodded and then said,

“I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“I know it hurts, Hannan, but we need to pull ourselves together and be strong, like we were before.”

“No, Rizwan, I can’t. I really loved him and now I feel that my existence does not really matter.”

“You can’t think like that, Hannan, we have to expand his legacy. We have to teach his teachings to others.”

“No, Rizwan, I can’t. He’s gone, I feel everything’s over.”

Rizwan didn’t speak as he wasn’t able to respond. He then said after a while,

“You and I are burning together in this.”

“I don’t think that he passed away naturally. There is something suspicious.”

“What do you mean?”

“He did not die a natural death, he was murdered.”

“Oh, come on, how could you think like that.”

“I have to, I can’t take this matter lightly.”

Rizwan held his forehead for a while, getting a bit stressed and then said,

“Alright, Hannan, do what you like. Do whatever that satisfies you but I want you to understand that no one can be as good as our father, he had no rivalries and literally nothing against anyone. So, I personally believe that there is no one who would be happy to see him dead.”

“What if, he had opponents and he never told us?”

“That’s not possible,” Rizwan replied. “He’d never hide anything from us.”

“And what makes you think that?”

Rizwan was speechless for a while. Hannan continued,

“Matters of money are not involved I understand, but there can always be some other rivalries.”

“I don’t know, Hannan, he was at his home and he had a suffocation problem, that’s what we’ve all been told.”

Hannan changed his sitting position and sat straight. Rizwan waited for him to respond. Hannan said,

“It definitely means that someone from inside the house was involved in this.”

“No, Hannan, you don’t have to think like that. Our father never really liked suspecting others.”

“I don’t care, I can’t let injustice happen to that selfless soul.”

Their landline began to ring, Rizwan stood up and went to answer the call. Hannan kept on sitting until Rizwan came back after a few minutes. Rizwan said while standing at the room’s door,

“Uncle Taha has called us.”

“Why?”

“I just talked to him, he was saying that there is something important that he wants to share with us.”

“Like what?”

“Well, he was talking about something like prophecies.”

“Prophecies?”

“Yes, our father had made some predictions regarding our future and he believed that he was absolutely helpless about them.”

“I don’t get it, prophecies based on what? The dreams?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Oh, I see,” Hannan replied.

“Yeah, and I believe that we must go and meet him. He’ll provide us with plenty of information that we have no idea about.”

Hannan gave it a little thought and then said after a moment,

“Alright, let’s go!”

Half an hour later, they were sitting at the house with no lights on. Someone came holding two lanterns, Rizwan looked at him and thought that it was his Mr Taha but as his face became visible to him, Rizwan realised that he was someone else.

“Mr Taha is coming,” the man said.

That unknown guy left the room. Rizwan was waiting until he heard his brother saying,

“I am here to find the clue.”

“Clue? Regarding what?”

“About my beloved father’s murderer.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Hannan, please think out of this for now. Mr Taha is a much respected friend of our father and this kind of attitude would really not please him.”

“I won’t displease him, I’ll just ask him nicely.”

“No, you’re not allowed to ask this, not today.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m your elder brother, you have to leave this meeting to me, please I’m asking politely, please don’t do anything inappropriate.”

That very moment, Mr Taha, an aged person came inside and greeted them. Both of them greeted back and then Rizwan asked him,

“So, can we begin?”

“Yes, just give me a minute.”

Mr Taha brightened up two lanterns and then asked,

“So, do you want to know about your father’s prophecies?”

“Yes.” Rizwan answered.

“Well, in that case, let me clarify first that I don’t know about any of your father’s prophecies, but I do know that he had a diary.”

“A diary?”

“It was not his own diary, it was written by his close friend Umar. That diary is with him, your father made interpretations on dreams and he noted those down.”

“What were those prophecies? I mean were they harsh?”

“Yes, they were very horrifying. I’m sorry, but you guys won’t be pleased to learn about them.”

“Can you give us a little idea?” Hannan asked.

“I can only tell you that a really dark period is about to come.”

to be continued...