Asrar found Hina’s Urdu accent clearer than his own. He also remembered that Jamila Miss had recited this couplet to him many times. When she had recited it for the first time, she had also explained its meaning. He told Hina that this sher was written by a very famous Urdu poet called Ghalib and he had heard it from his teacher before. Hina asked if she had recited it correctly? Asrar answered, ‘Even Ghalib couldn’t have recited it better than you.’

Hina laughed at this hyperbole and said, ‘I didn’t know you are an exaggerator too!’

‘Honestly … ! I meant I enjoyed listening to this couplet in your voice.’

They reached the courtyard of Haji Ali Dargah while chatting. Hina covered her head with a dupatta and stood in the outer circle and started praying. Asrar stood in a corner and stared at her. It was as if her eyes were closed, her lips were chanting but her mind had transformed into an illuminated portrait gallery. In that gallery she could feel Asrar standing and looking at her with longing. All the hues of love were glowing in his eyes. Those colours were fashioned in a way that they evoked a natural attractiveness on Hina’s face. While chanting her prayers, unexpectedly, the words that Asrar had spoken came to her lips, ‘The heart is the home of the soul.’

She wanted to smile but controlled it because she was aware that Asrar’s gaze was focused on her and she knew that the face was the foremost page of the heart. She wanted right then her face not to reflect the condition of her heart. In their conversations for the past hour, she had noticed that Asrar was a coward as well as gutsy, kind-hearted and aggressive too, disconnected from the world, yet sensitive towards it, a little eccentric and yet a little wise. The portrait of Asrar that was sketched in her mind was very attractive. Her heart pulled her towards him. She finished her prayers and moved her hand ritualistically over her face. Asrar was still looking at her. As soon as Hina looked at him, he immediately did the same with his hands. She smiled in her heart on seeing him do that. They came out of the dargah. It was the time of sunset. The sun was touching the waves of the sea.

Both of them stood on the road to see the setting sun. Hina suddenly said that if he remembered more verses by the Urdu poet whose work he had recited earlier, she would love to listen to them. This seemed like an opportunity for Asrar. He had memorized Bani’s poems over the past three days so that he could recite them to Hina someday. He did not expect that a day like that would come so soon. They sat on the sea wall and Asrar recited a poem: