Ten vignettes:echoes of dust and blood

 


10 Vignettes from the Subcontinent: Echoes of Dust and Blood

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)

1. The Matchbox

He lit a match in the rain. It died. He struck again. It flared, revealing the bruises on her face. "One last time?" he asked. She nodded. The flame went out. So did she.

2. The Coolie

Every morning, he wore his grandfather’s brass badge on his chest: License #294, Lahore Junction. No one noticed. They only yelled, "Ay bhai, utha lay!"
That day, he dropped a suitcase.
It burst open—revealing bundles of old newspapers.
He hadn’t been hired in weeks.

3. The Widow of Sialkot

Her bangles still jangled when she made roti.
She didn’t remove them—though her husband had died 14 years ago.
"Some ghosts like music," she whispered, rolling dough with trembling hands.

4. The Temple Bell

The bell still rang every morning at 6.
There was no priest. No idol.
Only Abdul Bhai, who climbed the broken steps to ring it himself.
He said the village needed “any sound of God” to start the day.

5. The Landlord’s Dog

He fed his German Shepherd biryani while a boy watched from behind the neem tree, licking his cracked lips.
When asked why he didn’t share, the landlord replied,
"That dog has papers. That boy doesn't."

6. Gulshan Begum’s Closet

After her death, the family found hundreds of diaries wrapped in silk sarees.
Each page described a lover.
None of the names matched her husband’s.

7. The Partition Box

They opened the old iron trunk from Dilli.
Inside: a single pair of gold bangles, a blood-stained passport, and a child’s shoe.
No one asked whose.

8. The Train from Bhopal

She boards the local every evening, dressed in her bridal red.
They say she’s mad.
She says she’s waiting for the man who said,
“Just wait at Platform 6. I’ll be back.”

9. Taimur’s Tea Stall

He once taught English Literature at Aligarh.
Now he pours chai near a university gate.
His regulars don’t know he once translated Yeats.
They just call him “Professor Chaiwala.”

10. Beggar’s Mirror

A beggar sat with a cracked mirror before him.
"Why this?" a child asked.
“So people remember what they look like when they ignore me.”

Why These Stories Matter

These ten vignettes are echoes of forgotten alleys, broken hopes, and unnamed heroes. They are fictional, yes—but rooted in truth. The truth of the subcontinent where identity, memory, pain, and survival intersect like tangled wires above every street.

These stories are not to be merely read.
They are to be felt.
They are to be reflected upon.
They are to be shared—before they’re forgotten like the scent of wet earth after the monsoon.

📘 Keep visiting our blog:
🔗 farazparvez1.blogspot.com
Where stories breathe, ache, and survive.

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)


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