There are times when Shuntoo seems to be in no mood to talk to anyone at all, unless he is provoked. Most of Shuntoo’s life consists of these times and that is a blessing. But on certain rare occasions, he is in a completely different mood and just cannot help commenting on or reacting to anything he finds worthy of his obnoxiously straight forward response. On these occasions, one should be wary since Shuntoo does not give a shit about who he is talking to or whether he even knows him or not.

Last night was one such rare occasion. And it was made all the more interesting by the presence of a friend of mine (who, by the way, was meeting Shuntoo for the first time) who is a member of the ‘in-love-with-my-own-voice’ group. He just cannot stop talking, has an opinion on absolutely everything, has a solution to every problem and …. well you know what I mean.

Sitting in the safety of my lounge on a rainy night, my friend suddenly got into a literary mood and said “You know Sarmad! This rain, this rain is not just water. It is an expression of love that comes from the skies to the earth. Since the sky and the earth cannot meet, the sky sends its love in the form of raindrops and the earth accepts them and absorbs them to feel the purity of the love being expressed. It is beautiful.”

Shuntoo eyed him with a genuinely amused face and simply said “No Kakay! This rain! This rain is just water.”

My friend was justifiably not pleased by this retort and responded, “No sir! You have to look closely…”

And now Shuntoo waved his hand to cut him short and said “No Kakay! You do not have to find silly, romantic meanings in everything you see. Believe me, it only impresses the morons, and you should not try to impress them since that does not serve any meaningful purpose anyway. The rain is a message of love! PUhleaase. It is people like you who find meanings in poetry that even the poet was not aware of, who just cannot enjoy the beauty of nature without bringing it to the level of a cheap novel. It is people like you who love living in a world full of self-created illusions.

“Illusions like something great is going to happen to them. Illusions like someone is going to come and help us, our family, our country, that we are the most talented people who are just victims of fate and someday this is all going to change. Illusions that Allah is going to forgive us all in the end and we will end up in streams of milk and honey with gold, diamonds and women all around us. Illusions that nobody in the world has been able to understand us, that there is someone made just for us and it is only a matter of time before we find him or her. I could go on for a month but obviously you have got the point.”

“But sir!” my friend was surprisingly calm. “You see this rain…….”

“Just water kakay!” Shuntoo repeated. “Just water.”

I had to make a real effort to control my laughter.