The Friend's Corpse and the Firefly (Jagno)
The Friend's Corpse and the Firefly (Jagno) Seeing the banyan tree falling, but could not save it. Many childhood memories were associated with it. We used to swing on the branches of the same banyan tree. The city expanded and we who loved Lahore went on shrinking. Many decades passed. Neither the house nor the streets nor the neighborhood remained. The "invaders" who invaded Lahore from other cities took away the beauty of this city. Today we are in the minority and in the "immigrant" majority, we have become strangers in our own city. In the summer nights, people hang their feet on the mandir and wait for the "carriages", the jingle of the bells hanging from the necks of the bulls, the waving lanterns, the tops of the bulls and the drums of the "carriages". Nothing is forgotten. Where was the power to endure these painful moments like a cut stem of a banyan staring at me. What can be more agonizing...