“Baba jee,” Amro asks Baba Nanak between bites, “Will you
give me a rabab?”
“I’ll give you one,” Nanaki says. “Bhai Phiranda, the
rabab maker, brought many rababs for the congregation, including some
smaller ones for children.”
“Wait till she’s done eating,” Sulakhni says.
“Can girls play rababs and sing?” Buddha asks. “Aziza’s
mother says girls mustn’t do such things. They are not pure enough.”
“Not pure enough!” Nanaki says. “How can they not be pure
when, as Baba Nanak says, they birth emperors and saints! They birth the
world!”
“Can I have a bow and arrow, too?” Amro asks.
“You’re a
girl,” Buddha says.
“Girls must be warriors, too,” Nanaki says as she goes inside
to fetch the items, returns with another rabab, a small children’s set of bow,
quiver, arrows and gives them to Amro.
“And,” she says, producing two, small, hand-made pothis from the
pockets in her kameez, “These are for you as well. But you must wash
your hands before I give them to you. They are very precious and must be
handled with love and care.”
The two children go off to wash their hands from the water
jars in the courtyard, and return.
“What is it?” Amro asks.
“I’ve been
sewing them and writing Baba Nanak’s Japji in them.” “What does it say?” Amro
asks, opening it in awe.
“The first word in it is ‘One.’ Just learn that.”
“But I already
know ‘one.’ I know two and three and four all the way to one hundred.”
“Good. But
just remember, ‘One.’ That is your homework, Amro.
And next time we’ll learn some more, but you always have to
keep coming back to the first lesson, ‘One.’”
“One,” repeat the children in unison.
~
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