My flash story “Shattered” that was published in W.W. Norton’s “Flash Fiction International: Very Short Stories from Around the World was translated into Urdu recently by Khalil Ur Rehman and published in Humsub, Pakistan.

He said he translated it because the story was relevant to Pakistan as it was going through a period of terrorism just like Sri Lanka.

Here’s the Urdu translation. I’ve also included the original story in English below the translation.

تباہ حال – شیرانی راجا پکسے کا افسانہ

16/05/2023 خلیل الرحمان. میانوالی، پنجاب

مترجم: خلیل الرحمان

Shattered
Writer: Shirani Rajapakse , Sri Lanka
Flash Fiction International ; Very Short Stories from Around the World

اپنے دھیان میں مگن وہ سڑک پر چلی جا رہی تھی جب اسے اپنے سامنے ایک دھماکے کی آواز سنائی دی۔ دھماکے سے مضبوط حفاظتی باڑ ٹوٹ گئی اور اس کے ٹکڑے سارے میں پھیل گئے۔ وہ وہیں ٹھہر گئی کیونکہ اس کے پاس جانے کے لئے اور جگہ بھی کوئی نہیں تھی۔ اس کے پاؤں فضا میں معلق تھے اور بال سڑک کی پگڈنڈی پر بکھرے ہوئے تھے۔ اس کے اردگرد روشنی کے کوندے سے چمک رہے تھے اسے اپنے سر میں مسلسل گونجدار آوازیں سنائی دے رہی تھیں۔

اس کے بائیں کان کے پردے میں تواتر سے زوں زوں کی آوازیں آ رہی تھیں جو کہ اس مسلسل ہوتی ہوئی چنگھاڑ میں سے باہر نکلنے کی کوشش کر رہی تھیں۔ نقاہت کے عالم میں اس نے کن اکھیوں سے اپنے کان کے پردوں کو بغلی راستے پر تیزی سے گرتے ہوئے دیکھا، یوں لگا جیسے انھیں اس کے کانوں میں مسلسل گونجنے والے شور سے پرے کسی بھی جگہ کہیں دور جانے کی جلدی تھی۔

ندیشا جانتی تھی کہ وہ زمین پر گری ہوئی تھی کیونکہ اسی دوران کوئی بہت تیزی سے دوڑتا ہوا اس کے ہاتھ کو کچل کر کسی دوسری سمت کو نکل گیا تھا۔ لیکن وہ اپنے سر کے عین اوپر چمکتے ہوئے سورج اور ویساک کے تہوار کے دوران گھروں اور سڑکوں کے ساتھ روشن نیلے، سرخ، زرد اور سبز رنگوں کی بے بہا روشنیوں کی وجہ سے یہ نہ دیکھ پائی کہ وہ کون تھا۔ ندیشا نے چلانے کی کوشش کی لیکن سڑک بھی اس کی آواز کی طرح تباہ حال اور کٹی پھٹی حالت میں اس کے ساتھ ہی زمین پر پڑی آہیں بھر رہی تھی۔ وہ ناں سن سکتی تھی ناں تو دیکھ سکتی تھی اور ناں ہی بول سکتی تھی۔ اس کی حالت ان تین سیانے بندروں کی سی ہو چکی تھی جو کہ ایک دوسرے میں مدغم ہو گئے ہوں۔ کیا ہوا؟

وہ ہلنے جلنے کے قابل نہ تھی۔ ندیشا نے خود کو اسی سڑک کے فرش پر گرے ہوئے محسوس کیا جو کہ کچھ عرصہ قبل تک اسے خود پر سیدھا چلائے رکھتی تھی۔ اسے کچھ محسوس ہو رہا تھا مگر وہ یہ بتانے سے قاصر تھی کہ وہ کیا تھا؟ کیا یہ اس کے ساتھ ہی پڑا ہوا اس کا اپنا بازو تھا جس پر لوگ چڑھ رہے تھے یا پھر ایک بھدے سے انداز میں بکھری پڑی اس کی ٹانگ تھی؟ وہ حیران تھی کہ آخر کیا تھا یہ سب؟ تبھی اسے احساس ہوا کہ وہ اب وہاں نہیں تھی۔

کسی نے سڑک پر چلنے کے لیے اسے دائیں طرف کھسکا دیا تھا۔ اس عورت نے اپنے سینے کے ساتھ بم باندھ رکھے تھے اور وہاں سے تھوڑی دور آگے کی طرف جا کر اس نے خود کو اڑا دیا۔ یہ بہت بڑا دھماکہ تھا جس کی آواز ندیشا نے سنی، بادلوں کی گڑگڑاہٹ سے بھی ہولناک اور پرشور، اور یہ پہلے والے دھماکے سے زیادہ سخت تھا۔ اب وہ وہاں نہیں تھی۔ لیکن پھر بھی ندیشا نے خود کو حرکت کرتے ہوئے محسوس کیا، وہ اس سمت میں جانا چاہ رہی تھی جہاں اسے جانا تھا۔

لیکن کیسے اور کہاں؟ اسے اپنے گرد شدید حدت سی محسوس ہوئی۔ اس کے گرد جوہڑ سا بن رہا تھا لیکن بارش تو ہوئی ہی نہیں تھی۔ روشن سورج، گندے پیچدار سیاہی مائل دھوئیں میں سے اس پر چمک رہا تھا۔ جوہڑ ایک چھوٹا سا تالاب بنا اور پھر اس تالاب نے ایک ندی کی شکل اختیار کر لی۔ پھر اس ندی نے پانچ میل کی مسافت پر واقع سمندر کی جانب چلنا شروع کر دیا۔ اس کے جسم سے بہنے والی رطوبتیں پگڈنڈی پر سے ہوتی ہوئی سڑک پر بکھر رہی تھیں۔

بہت جلد یہ سمندر کا حصہ بن جائیں گی اور اس کو اس بات کا یقین تھا۔ اس نے بہنا شروع کر دیا اور رستے میں دوسرے لوگ بھی اس کے ساتھ شامل ہو گئے۔ چھوٹی چھوٹی ندیاں اپنے سوالوں کے جواب کی تلاش میں ایک ہی سمت میں بہتی چلی جا رہی تھیں۔ انہوں نے ایک دریا کا روپ دھار لیا تھا۔ وہ سمندر کی جانب اس طلب کے ساتھ بڑھے چلے جا رہی تھیں کہ وہ انہیں اپنے اندر شامل کر لے۔ ادھر ان کے چاروں طرف لوگ چیخیں مار مار کر آسمان کو اپنے سروں پر اٹھا رہے تھے، وہ سب لوگ جن کے سر سلامت تھے۔

وہ دیکھ تو نہیں سکتی تھی اور سن بھی بمشکل ہی سکتی تھی لیکن محسوس سب کچھ کر رہی تھی۔ وہ مکھیوں کی طرح گر رہے تھے اور باقی لوگ بھی ان کے ساتھ شامل ہو رہے تھے۔ اور یہ سب اس لیے ہوا تھا کہ اس نے دہشت گردوں کو چیلنج کرنے کی جسارت کی تھی اور اس دن کام پر نکل آئی تھی۔ لیکن ایسا کرنے میں آخر کیا برائی تھی؟

خلیل الرحمان. میانوالی، پنجاب

Shattered – Shirani Rajapakse

She was walking down the road minding her own business when the sound exploded in front of her. It shattered the sound barrier and sent off sparks in all directions. She stopped in her tracks; there was nowhere to go. Her feet flew in the air and her hair touched the pavement. Lightning flashed all around her. Thunder roared inside her head. Her left ear drum beat a series of staccatos and strained to pop out as the thunder roared its way down her ears. From the corner of her eye she faintly saw the ear drum roll away along the pavement as if in a hurry to get someplace, any place, other than her loud resonating ear.

Nidisha knew she had fallen to the ground as someone trampled on her hand in a hurry to get to somewhere else. She didn’t see who it was for the brightness of the sun overhead and the million and one flashing lights in her eyes; blue, red, yellow and green like the brightly coloured lights hung in homes and along roads during Vesak. Nidisha tried to call out but the road to her voice was cut open and lay gasping on the ground next to her. She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t speak. She was like the three wise monkeys all rolled into one. What happened?

She couldn’t move either. Nidisha felt herself lying across the pavement that not so long ago held her feet upright. She could feel something but wasn’t quite sure what it was she felt. Was it her arm lying by her side, the one trampled on? And was that her leg jutting out in an ungainly manner? What was it, she wondered? It was then that it struck her that she was no longer there.

Someone had taken away her right to walk on the road. That someone had strapped bombs to her breasts and exploded herself not so far away. That was the loud noise Nidisha heard, louder than thunder that shattered her a few minutes ago. She was no longer there. Yet Nidisha still felt herself moving, willing herself to walk to where she was supposed to go. But how, and where?

She felt warmth flowing around her. Puddles were collecting but there was no rain. The bright sun glared at her through the ugly grey smoke swirling, swirling around. The puddles became a small pond and then took on the shape of a stream. It began to flow, flow towards the ocean five miles away. Her juices were flowing out fast and furious down the pavement and all over the road. Very soon it would reach the ocean, of that she was certain. She flowed and as she did others joined her on her way. Tiny streams seeking answers, they flowed in the same direction. They turned into a river. They flowed into the sea waiting to take them in.

And all around her people were screaming their heads out. At least those that still had them on. She couldn’t see, could barely hear but she could sense it all. They had all dropped like flies and there were more to come. And it all happened because she had dared to defy the terrorists and go to work that day. But what was so wrong with that?

It doesn’t take much to annoy a Muslim. Draw a cartoon figure and call it Mohammad and you’ll have the Muslim world up in arms, destroying property and killing a few hundred innocent people who have nothing to do with the cartoon.

Nearly seven years ago Muslims ran amok protesting vehemently when Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist published a series of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in Jyllands-Posten. Over 250 were left dead and approximately 800 injured as a result of Muslim extremism.(Huff Post)

Muslims went berserk worldwide recently when Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the California based film maker made a movie on the life of the Prophet Mohammad. This time too it was innocent people that got killed as Muslims the world over took to the streets and forced non Muslims to take note of the insult to Muslims.

Those same Muslims went on the rampage killing Buddhist monks in Bangladesh just a few days ago. Why? Because someone, no one is quite sure who it was, allegedly posted a photograph of the Prophet Mohammad on Facebook. Did they wait to verify the authenticity of the person before they turned violent? No. They didn’t merely target the person who is alleged to have posted the photograph. They targeted the entire community. It was as if the Muslims were waiting for the opportunity to destroy the Buddhists community and that one photograph gave them the much needed excuse to go ahead and kill in the name of Islam. Not so long ago, a young Christian girl was arrested in Pakistan for allegedly burning pages from the Koran.

Muslims are quick to shout out against the slightest insult they feel that is directed at Islam but they don’t seem to care about insulting other religions or hurting and destroying the life of non –Muslims. When the Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Kandahar, Afghanistan, non-Muslims didn’t go on the rampage killing and destroying property of Muslims or dragging out the ambassadors of Islamic nations and killing them. The Bamiyan Buddhas were ancient statues depicting the form of the Buddha. Not only were they of value to Buddhists but they were also of historical and cultural value to the world.

Religions are supposed to, and claim to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs and view. Yet this doesn’t appear to be so in practice, or at least it doesn’t seem to hold true in Islam where it seems it’s alright to destroy and kill people of another religion.

Innocent Buddhist monks were killed, their temples burned to the ground and the homes of hundreds of Buddhist followers were destroyed in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. A photograph posted on Facebook a few days later, of a monk sifting through the charred remains of what once must have been a temple in search of books that were saved from the fire brought back startling memories. It reminded me of another incident way back when in history. Nalanda University, in north India was one of the world’s oldest centers of learning and was once a thriving center of study. But it was razed to the ground by Islamic fundamentalists that didn’t appear to tolerate other religious views. It was said that the University burnt for days. Everything was destroyed, books, journals, and many students perished too. It was said that scholars came from far and wide to study there. Not anymore.

What Islamic fundamentalists burnt down that day in history was knowledge and the freedom of expression and discourse; the people they denied were the scholars and intellectuals, the cream of any society; they also denied future generations gaining from Nalanda’s vast storehouse of wisdom and knowledge. It was not only a gross injustice to freedom of expression but also a violation of the very basic rights of all peoples – the right to knowledge, education, freedom of expression and importantly the right to life and liberty.

Sadly it’s still the same. Nothing seems to have changed. Except that the temples and houses they burnt recently in Bangladesh was no Nalanda, yet it represented a place of learning, of discourse among people living in that area. These were also their homes that gave them shelter. Now these innocent people are forced onto the streets.

How can a religion claim to be tolerant or peaceful when it burns down and destroys places of religious value? How can it be called peaceful when it destroys life? Islam does all this and still expects the world to feel sympathetic towards them when someone insults Islam. Isn’t this hypocrisy? Or is that allowed?

The Pakistani ambassador recently condemned the anti-Islam video made by Nakoula that defamed the Prophet. Speaking at the UN on behalf of the 56 Islamic states that make up the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) he spoke of the urgent need to protect against “acts of hate crimes, hate speech… and incitement to religious hatred.” His speech is clearly directed at what he believes to be insults towards Islam and not to other religious or peoples.

“Incidents like this clearly demonstrate the urgent need on the part of states to introduce adequate protection against acts of hate crimes, hate speech, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation and negative stereotyping of religions, and incitement to religious hatred, as well as denigration of venerated personalities,” Pakistan’s ambassador Zamir Akram said in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council. (Reuters)

The OIC hopes to introduce laws to make insults against religions an international crime. It has backed a resolution submitted by African states and calls on all countries to introduce a provision in domestic criminal law to prosecute those responsible for racism or xenophobia. While the text deplores “the targeting of religious symbols and venerated persons” one wonders if this will be applied to crimes such as those that took place in Bangladesh recently, or even in Pakistan or any other country. Will this piece of legislation, if adopted by countries be applicable for all citizens living in those countries, including Muslims, or will it only target non –Muslims? If found to be guilty of inciting religious hatred or acts violence against believers of other religions or faiths, would Muslims agree to abide by the decision of local courts or would they try to get away from punishment by hiding behind Shariah? Only time will tell and hypocrisy rules.