Darf ich hoffen?

Life's such a wonder of contradiction.
Give thanks to God when he squeezes you so,
And thank Him when he lets you go.
----Goethe

There's always something special about meeting an old friend from Lahore, that oldest of cities. The friend in question is someone who cannot reach the end of a sentence without thinking that what he said at the start was somehow wrong. As long as we are unsure we are alive.

There were the usual stories of personal traumas, multiple affairs and the indecision which riddles his life. But with him had tagged along a young kid who had spent twelve years studying in a religious school in the backwaters of the Punjab. A poor and simple man visiting the country for the first time, he was as calm and reserved as D was restless and animated. He seemed completely unphased by the licentious discussion and brushed over it lightly without the slightest feeling of moral superiority or contempt. We talked about NY (where D lived) but the kid, lost in his own world, only seemed interested in plotting his bus ride through London on a tattered old map that he had brought with him.

We gulped down large swigs of milky tea and scoffed down some Chelsea buns (which he admitted were quite good) . But he forgot to pay for his stuff (normally , if there are three Pakistanis it would be unheard of if more than one paid for the food but we -D and I-had disregarded all etiquette and allowed him to pay for his own food). I thought about this. Was it that the kid had spent so long in a religious hostel that he wasn't used to paying for food? He was terribly embarrassed but D laughed it off by saying : I know the food's crap in this country but you actually have to pay for it ! And that, to me, summarises so much of the charm of the East. Here, to pay for someone else usually elicits the response : I owe you one. Thankfully, some of the old ways still survive.

We went to Saint Bart's, one of London's oldest and most beautiful churches. "B", he said, "this is the first time since I've come to London that I've found any tranquility". Yes, that's right I told him, so much better than the mosques back home which are full of people. He laughed like a child.

We said our goodbyes and promised to write eachother. I doubt we will. His world is infinitely different from mine. He is a student of theology and a translator of religious texts and has , as they say, 'given his life' to this. Ours is but a religion of the mind. But there is always hope.

Hans Jonas relates the story of how he came back to Germany to meet his esteemed former teacher after a span of twelve years-years that had seen Germany ravaged first by fanaticism and then by war:

There he sat, as always, at his desk, pale and emaciated, collar and suit too wide on him , but peace in his face. In instant recognition he hastened to meet me in the middle of the room...Jonas had with him a book under is arm which he had been asked to take to him since civilian military services hadn't resumed after the war....

May I hope that this is the second volume of your Gnosis?"At that, there entered into my soul too, still rent by the Unspeakable I had just learnt about in my erstwhile home-the fate of my mother and the untold others-for the first time something like peace again: at beholding the constancy of thought and loving interest across the ruin of a world. Suddenly I knew: one can resume and continue that for which one needs faith in man.
---from Hans Jonas, Mortality and Morality

Initially posted, August 14, 2006.
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I was reminded of this by a strange (or perhaps not so strange) co-incidence: Antonia had written an interesting post on hope and how it was related to the mind (or the European mind and its "crisis"). At the same time, the very chap mentioned here sent me an e-mail completely out of the blue about a petition against wikipedia for showing the image of the Prophet.

At this stage I feel like saying (former students and family avert eyes now): for fuck's sake, haven't you got anything else to do in life?

And now I look back it, this was written on a day when a star and a crescent were born, when hope became a reality-at least for some. For others it ended in tragedy.

Goethe's lines are so, so very hard to live. To give thanks in either case is no mean feat. But it is there nevertheless, as a possibility, as an asymptotic ideal, a direction..a hope.