Asrar looked up and said, ‘Fate is in the hands of Allah!’

The man smiled and said, ‘Show me your hand.’

Asrar stood up and opened his palms. The Sufi narrowed his eyes and stole a glance. He stayed silent for a few moments. He suddenly bent down and took out a magnifying glass and looked at the palm again through it. He lifted his eyes and stared deep into Asrar’s. Asrar could sense a lot of intensity on the face of the Sufi. He said in a loud voice, ‘Maulabax!’

An aged man came out of a nearby shop clad in white kurta and trousers. Contentment and the experience of age reflected on his calm face. When he came near, the Sufi said, ‘Look. Look at this,’ and pointed towards Asrar’s palm. The man also looked at it through the magnifying glass. Finding it all very interesting, Asrar’s friends gathered around him. After studying the hand for long, the aged man said in a morose tone, ‘Almighty is behind every design!’

Before Asrar could say anything, Usman pulled him out and took him away, saying that this was Chor Bazaar and customers were fooled here. But Asrar’s heart was telling him that the Sufi was not putting up an act. There was definitely something. They had moved away, but the Sufi and the aged man still stood there, talking. In fact, that evening, they turned the pages of many old, archaic books. The aged man had a precious ancient manuscript in the form of a book titled Kitab-ul-Hikmat Bain-ul-Aafaq (The Book of Knowledge of All Worlds). This manuscript had travelled through Iran, Iraq, Hijaz and Syria before coming into the hands of a Mughal prince in the twelfth century. This prince had lent it to his concubine to read for a few days.

The concubine was murdered by thieves who looted a lot of things from her house, including this book. For them this was nothing more than a bundle of papers. One day a poet bought it in the seventeenth century in Delhi at a throwaway price. The book stayed in the house of the poet for the next three generations. In the first decade of the twentieth century, a maulana borrowed it from the poet’s grandchildren. When he realized the importance of the book, he started his research. It revealed such information that sleep started eluding him. He started living in a parallel universe altogether. The maulana bid farewell to Delhi and without informing anyone left and settled in Mumbai. He kept himself immersed in hash and alcohol for twenty years. During that time, he translated a few parts of this 1500-page book into Urdu. He had done this translation to understand the actual purpose of the words written in the book.