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By: Raja Atif Raza
After traveling all day through the desolate desert, I sat down on the sand in a state of exhaustion. After resting for a while, I scooped up some sand in my hand and closed my fist, but the sand slipped through and scattered onto the ground. It happened so easily and ruthlessly, as if my grip had no existence at all. Surprised, I repeated the action; every time, the sand slipped from my hand and scattered. I felt a strange sensation, neither fear nor peace, but a quality somewhere between the two. It felt as if the desert were watching me, not with anger but with a profound stillness. As if it had seen millions of people before me and would continue to see millions more after me.
When evening came, the sun began to set, shifting its colors from gold to orange and finally to red. With the sun, the desert too changed its colors; the brown sand turned blue and then black. I stayed the night right there. The stars in the sky twinkled so rapidly, as if someone had lit lamps. I spread my sheet and lay down on the sand. The sky became my roof, the stars became my lamps, and the cool sand felt as soft as a bed.
When I closed my eyes, the desert began to speak. The wind came very softly and gently, as if the desert were breathing. Grains of sand blew and brushed across my face. From far away came a sound, perhaps the tinkling of a camel’s bell or perhaps the beating of my own heart echoing across the vastness of the desert. Then came the silence that speaks and the stillness that hears everything. That night, I listened to many things from the desert. It told me how many caravans, kings, armies, merchants, lovers, madmen, prisoners, and criminals had passed through, leaving their stories behind in the desert. Watching the stars, I finally fell asleep.
In a dream, I saw a masked elder dressed in white standing in the middle of the desert. He scooped up sand in his hand and closed his fist, and the sand scattered. Then he scooped up sand with both hands, and the sand blew away into the wind, shining like stars before falling at his feet. I woke up with a start. When the first ray of morning struck the desert, it looked as though someone had laid down a golden sheet. Every grain of sand became a mirror of light. I got up; my clothes were filled with sand. The desert had embraced me within itself.
I looked around, but no one was in sight. I thought about the dream and realized that we spend our whole lives running in pursuit of wealth, fame, relationships, and respect, but time slips away like sand in a fist. If one values time, success kisses a person’s feet.
Sand is made of tiny particles. Every grain is distinct, yet all come together to spread across the earth, and the desert protects them. Human beings are just like these grains of sand. Just as sand faces the storms, man confronts every hardship in life. When fierce storms arrive, they carry the sand away, shifting it from one place to another, in the exact same way circumstances make a person a traveler. And after scattering in the fierce winds, the sand ultimately returns to its place. Like a traveler, a human being also stumbles through the world before finally reaching their true home.
The very dust from which human existence is fashioned is ultimately where it returns. Sand is also a part of this same earth, the same grains, the same journey, the same beginning, and the same end. The desert is a witness to it, and I am merely a traveler putting it into words.
