Lost and Found

Chapter 7

Standing in front of almost hundreds of people and in total eight hundred people listening to me, for the first time I am nervous. I remember back in high-school I was used to be the most confident figure of the student body, never in my life I had prepared a speech and even then I have won huge amounts of award in my academic life be it school or auditorium in Yale, I have confidently stand up and talk in front of my office board where we discuss about our budgets and success but standing here in front of these people looking at me, expecting me to talk about and give them information about Islam, give them a speech related to Islam, my knuckles are turning white. When Abdullah bhai informed me or more like told me last Sunday evening that I have to speak today, I turned pale and pleaded him to call someone else but then he told me that there is no chance I am backing out because my name had already been given. I couldn't sleep that night, what are you suppose to tell some fresh minds about your religion when you are not yourself so sure, when you yourself are a beginner, I took the whole week gathering words, putting it in a paper and then putting it aside, this morning when I again went to apologize, he took me in a corner and ask to confidently tell about myself to them and that's what I have decided to do.

"Asalam O Alikum, brothers and sisters. I hope you all are good and are learning the beautiful messages our respected brothers and sisters gave, so firstly I'll take this moment to thank you Abdullah bhai and Brother Naeem for arranging this event and all the speakers to come and teach us and help us learning about our religion and guide us about what is wrong and right, secondly to all of you who take out time of their day and came here to learn, it's great to see so many young people and not so young even," I smiled a bit lightening up my tense mind earning a small laugh from kids in front row, " from every aspect of life, taking part and remembering about akhira in this rushed world.

"Okay so maybe a lot of you might know me, who have been here before but those who don't, I'm Wali Ahmed and if you are thinking I am already a speaker or I have spoke to a crowd like this before then I should apologize in advance because I have not, if you find any mistake while I'm speaking please just stand up and correct me, if you oppose to any of my statements you have complete right to object, because neither am I a perfect muslim who knows every aspect in great details of our religion nor I have prepared my speech I just decided to come here and do a face to face talk with you lot, and standing here looking at you all who are our future, most of you are younger than me most probably in schools and colleges and I clearly understand at this stage anyone talking more than two minutes in front of you is categorized as a boring person, am I right?" I stopped for few seconds to look at Abdullah bhai who was smiling at me and then at Irtiza who was in third row, smiling.

"Well today I have decided that instead of discussing about any specific topic I would rather tell you a story, and it's a real one and not just only real, it's about a person I know and share quite a lot of things with, and today we'll be looking in his life and I would like a bit patience and hope this story really helps you, The person is my friend with a difficult past and a troubled childhood, he was eleven when his parents got divorced and unlike rest of the children in this world that day was the happiest day of his life, now you guys will be thinking how is that even possible? well it is, because the sole reason of his childhood getting ruined, of him staying awake at night because of terrible nightmares was his own father, the person whose blood run inside his vein, when we look at our fathers, our old men, we found part of ourselves in them, because we know how much struggle they have done for us and we believe in their love but that boy only found coldness, hiding in basement since he was just three years old to save himself from his drunken father,"

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah." I turned to look at a boy almost sixteen to seventeen years old.

"Were they Muslim?" he asked me in a state of shock and my already white knuckles turned frozen and I simply nodded. "But how?"