Jahangir Khan.

How much I know about Jahangir is difficult for me to say, but yes I do know him quite That does not mean that I am his friend. We are pals for a very long time. We used to share our feelings, express our ideas. He is thirty years old, single. He likes to listen to anything that is soothing. But most of the time he listens to ghazals of Jagjit Singh & Chitra Sngh, and of Mehdi Hasans. But his all time favourite is ‘woha kaun he tera musafir, jayega kahan’ by S.D. Burman from the Hindi film Guide.

Jahangir works in a media house. But he does not like to read newspapers. For him newspapers repeats the same story again and again. Only the names and figures got changed. If yesterday in a bomb blast eight dies in Kabul, today in another bomb last some others got killed in Ukraine. For Jahangir there is no difference in these two news ‘Why’, Jahangir asks, ‘why do we always have to say how many died and how did they die. Why can we not say, how many lives we saved, and how we saved so that someone else can also think of someone’s life?’

Jahangir prefers to read advertisement. He says, at least the advertisements says about some new development, be it a product ad or a tender notice. At least there is some news.

I saw Jahangir roaming endlessly in the city. In his free time he likes to watch people of different class that their varied reaction to the same incident.

Although he does not like beggars on the street, he was very excited to see the four-year-old child insisting in helping a beggar. Jahangir says, humanity has not disappeared.

His grandfather named him Jahangir, the one who rules the world. His mother used to call him Jahan. For her, he is her world. But even in a crowd Jahangir feels lonely. He wonders, how lonely a person can be!

I know sometime Jahangir cries. He cries silently. He cries for his loneliness. He cries for not being able to share his feelings with anyone. He cries because he feels that there is no one who really understood him. He cries, because even if he wants to take a break from his daily life, he has no place to go.

Once Jahangir applied for leave from his office. His asking leave itself is a news in the organization where he worked. When his boss asked, what he intends to do with the 'indefinite period of leave', Jahangir said that he wants to go to somewhere where there is no news, no religion, no class. He wants to go somewhere where there is no black and white, and everyone is equal. He wants to go where everyone lives his own life.

Puzzled, I asked Jahangir, is there any such place on earth! And Jahangir said that there is. He wants to go to the mental asylum for some time, how long, he does not know. He says that there cannot be a better place to live in peace and with oneness other than the mental asylum.

I have not seen or heard of Jahangir. He did not even go back to his work either. I don't know whether he really went to a mental asylum, or if he had gone, is he still there or not. I don't know if he is at all alive or not. But I am not giving up my hope. I am still looking for my friend Jahangir.