Palace of Colours

It has been two weeks since Miran was here. It is his father's paradise that he has been talking about in his last days. It was his will that he should be brought here to be buried after his death. Beyond the settlement there are palm groves and beyond them a seasonal river with blue lakes in the distance.He is lonely after burying his father. He does not want to return to the house where no one is waiting for him. His first sense of exile came from his father's accent as he recounted tales of his childhood paradise in his old age. He wanted to go back to his childhood and felt strongly that his childhood was safe in the same land he had left to come to Oman in search of employment. He wanted to return to his homeland again.He started talking about a lost paradise and telling stories that are told to children to lull them to sleep, but he was telling these stories to himself and like children he believed these stories to be real.

Miran's father had told him on his deathbed "Every man has been cast out of a paradise. Just as Adam was punished for his sins and cast down to earth, so every man is deprived of his paradise. My paradise is my childhood where I want to return." If I die, bury me in my homeland."Ma brought him here posthumously. Some old relatives buried him and performed the rites of death. Now Meeran is alone. His mother is buried in Oman and his father is in Balochistan. He knows this much that he does not want to return to Oman. Never in the house where the memories of his mother and the silence of his father dance. He wants to escape from these memories and the profound silence that haunts his soul.

He enters the palm groves and follows the path to reach the bank of the dry river every evening where the blue lakes glisten in the distance.