talked to the mane Yashab ate heartily after a long time. The affects of paralysis were now restricted to his right hand. His fingers trembled constantly and he could not hold anything. After about an hour, the bus rolled out of the valley; very soon they were in the Hindu Kush region. The air became biting cold. The driver had a difficult time in pushing the old engine on. With every new climb his whole body would lean forward as if he were running the bus with his weight. In a few hours, the mountain peaks were wrapped in a hazy moonlight. A growing and frightening darkness coming down from the mountains put most of the passengers to sleep. The foreign couple, sitting on the front seat, caught Yashab's attention. The woman's golden hair was hanging down from the back of the seat and the conductor, who was no more than fourteen, was touching the strands of gold and constantly giggling. "What brings these people here?" Yashab thought. Then he realized that there was a mysterious connection between his staggering thought and the trembling of his fingers. These people, he thought, I should try to think dearly, shapes and shadows . o . everything is like shadows, how free are the birds, returning to their nests after a day of wandering! Love and indifference, attachments and detachment, the time of descent, scattered thoughts, my distorted relationship with the land. History and Time, ages and kings, who are our heroes? Perhaps we are only here to fill the gap between two generations. How meaningless and void is this freedom! What is happening in the other parts of the world? Time and Distance -- two nightmares, and religions and nationalism and capitalism and poor villagers, bundled up bodies, deformed matter and lustful grave-diggers, turbulent evening, eternal sorrow, a sticking foul taste in the mouth, secret of the trembling fingers, captain Ahab's ivory leg, Blake's fiery god, old Russian among the children, mad woman's laughter, red-haired old man, Rahmat Alt dreaming in Cambridge, secret police, SS, Nero's Rome, Socrates, Sara and Abraham and Isaac, Qaramatis and the abduction of the Black Stone, Companions of the Elephants and birds striking them with stones of baked clay. Companions of the Prophet digging a trench, secret reservoirs of gold, wrathful rulers, powerful masses, clay houses, wet and sticky prostitutes. Caliph's Harem, Scheherzade's voice, mystery of the tale, loss of sacredness of the Word, death's permanence, grandfather's company, firm breasts of the Eurasian woman sitting behind a motorcycle rider, ruthless wave of memory, a boy sitting in the teacher's lap in grade three, summer's sun burning the land, two boys sitting under a tree, school bells, newspaper pictures, flood waters, floating corpses, stethoscope, heartbeat, mechanics of the body, awe of the corpses, action and reaction, reasoning and its nullification, Burhan and Qaie' Burhan, Victoria's England, honours bestowed by the rajahs, Kashgar and Samarqand, Ibn-e Ata's murder, Al-Mutanabbi's assassination, mirrors, horsemen, engraved dragons, swords, Carthage, Gibraltar, firing boats, victorious and mysterious men, angels and men who died for God, earth and sky and crops and birds, desert and camels and herd of deer, Jahangir's tomb and Nur Jahan's underground grave: signs of Love: Taj Mahal, acid rain, illusions of waters, clear air of the mountains, passion Annual of Urdu Studies, #7 54