Today marks the first century of my life. These days, people are expected to live up to two or three hundred years with the help of the age extension machine. But surprisingly, not many people go for that option. Like me, the rest of my generation is content with the life they have been given thus far. Living beyond our allotted years feels like a sin, like a way of cheating our most loyal friend—death. And anyway, my generation at least is an outcast in today’s technological world. Gone are the halcyon days when we used to watch cartoons from the safety of our sofas. Now, technology is no more a cold, inanimate object to be regarded with fascination from afar, but an extension of human beings, an essential body part.
It’s not like people of my age never push back against this change; it’s just that nobody wants to listen to us. Why would they? Our wisdom is obsolete and even after being taught multiple times, we still confuse the plethora of buttons on our grandchildren’s holographic devices. Younger people giggle at our bafflement. Some are bold enough to do it in front of us. Others are contortionists; they talk to us with trembling voices, their lips twitching at the edges, the mirth visible in their eyes.
So, in perfect alignment with our ancient wisdom, we have learned to accept our futility. We don’t shy away or hide behind extension machines when death knocks at our doors. Instead, we welcome it like an old friend saying: Take us home. We have been waiting for you.
This, I admit, is far simpler for those who do not believe. In my religion, it is forbidden to yearn for death because it belies the general philosophy of being Muslim. We must live in a constant state of gratitude—towards our bodies, our lives, our faith. But what is one to do when she is no longer needed?
My friend—who has long since passed now—used to say that it doesn’t matter if others do not need us. Our purpose in life is to live as a believer and to die as one. Sure enough, she was successful in this little mission of hers. Just before she died, just as her eyes rolled upwards, she recited the kalima like a sigh. It escaped her mouth easily.
It is the same for me—it is religion that has kept me afloat and alive so far. Why else would I continue to live in a world that has thrown me up like bad food? Why else would I linger in people’s doorways, why else would I suffer through accusations that I was interfering, that I didn’t understand, that I wasn’t keeping up with the pace of the world?
I tell my daughters this often, but save for the youngest one, they remain unconvinced. They ask: Mama, why do you need God when there’s a machine for literally anything in this world?
So, this is what the world has come to. Before people worshipped science, now they worship machines. They bow at technological altars, leave offerings for robots working in factories. But even machines cannot do everything.
At least that’s what I tell myself. They can’t lighten my heart. They can’t tear the world asunder with a singular, ear-splitting siren. Yet the list of things technology cannot do has grown morosely small. In theory, Zeeraq, my eldest daughter, argues, if I talk to a ‘therapist’ robot’, it’s just as likely to reduce my depression as is prayer. There have been studies conducted to corroborate this conclusion. And perhaps, a robot cannot tear the world asunder with a siren—but this is a religious prediction. It has not happened before in history; instead, there have been earthquakes and tsunamis, and technology is more than capable of producing them.
“What about djinn possession?” I argue.
“You have no proof that jinn exist.”
“No proof!” I reply, offended. “How can you say that in the face of hundreds of experiential accounts?”
“All easily explainable via psychology.” She smiles at me—a condescending smile reserved for the senile, the aged. I don’t understand. Of course, I don’t.
It leaves me with a tight feeling in my chest. If I am alive because of religion, and if technology has replaced religion, then I do not need to be alive. But I know religion is not as simple as the others make it out to be. So instead of renouncing God, I promise myself that I’ll prove that I am on the right path. After all, I need to follow in my friend’s footsteps.
The next day, I am walking with great difficulty with my grandchildren who want to play games in an arcade for a change. Arcades still exist but they are just what homes look like these days—with added noise pollution. We are just turning around the curb when a gliding scooter almost collides into me. The boy (black hair, 20ish, wearing a pair of 3D ultra-vision glasses) swirls around for a millisecond as a half-hearted apology. I have to hold myself back from giving him the middle finger. Heart pounding, I scurry after my grandchildren who have already made it to the arcade’s gate. They seem unfazed by the accident.
“I almost died there,” I tell them casually as they extract the tickets from the machine outside.
The youngest one—who is five—scoffs. “You wouldn’t have died. The man’s glasses flashed red, so he turned.”
“Well, what if he hadn’t swerved when he did? If his mind hadn’t worked fast enough—
“You don’t understand,” my ten-year-old daughter, who is a carbon copy of her mother, exclaims haughtily. “It wasn’t the man who swerved but the bicycle. It’s collision free. Recently imported from Japan.”
I want to argue further, want to tell them that death will only come when God wills, but find myself falling short. Once again, the work of God has obscured by technology. If you believe, you can convince yourself that God has allowed you the use of this technology, but how do you persuade a non-believer?
“You don’t need to,” Alishba—an old friend of mine, still alive, almost 98—says. “All these ultra-modern hippies of the 2100s like to pretend they don’t need God, but just visit a temple and you’ll see hundreds of them in all sorts of disguises.”
That might have been true for some people, but not for my daughters, who have packed away every prayer mat I have given them. Even in darkness, even in the isolation of midnight, my daughters turn their heads in disregard.
One day, I spot a leaflet lying in my middle daughter’s huge dustbin, reserved for recyclable items only. It says ‘Call for Prayer of Rain’ and is filled with details about how our ancestors behaved in times of drought.
It is not strictly drought season in Karachi but the rain we have received in the past two years has been meek and tentative, like a civilian afraid of tampering with the crime scene at a critical moment. It has dodged the mainland, falling lightly on the outskirts which are occupied by poorer people living in mud-houses. Now, the government is finally waking up to this reality, issuing orders for weather machines to be imported into the city. According to the newspaper, these are expected to arrive by the end of August.
It appears that the mosques, too, are playing their part. The leaflet outlines dates, times, and locations for the rain prayers, which are to be offered over the course of the last two weeks of August. A coincidental overlap.
I fish out the leaflet from the dustbin and slam it on the dining table in front of Arisha.
“If it rains before the weather machines arrive, you’ll have to believe in the power of prayer.”
She eyes me with distaste, the same way she used to as a baby when I hadn’t grinded her apple puree properly. Oh, how quick these girls have grown! “Let’s see.”
“Yes,” I mimic her confidence. “Let’s see.”
I reach the venue of the rain-prayer, which has been arranged in one of our nearby parks. Some say that the rain-prayer is supposed to be offered in open air—so that God’s answer can be felt on our shoulders, heads, arms. Someone in the women’s row orders us to squeeze in closer to each other to make space and then, suddenly the imam starts speaking into the mic. He beseeches God using His many beautiful names, then prays with the desperation of a little child, until tears are running down all of our cheeks. I close my eyes and imagine the sound of our collective weeping reaching the seventh sky.
When the congregation ends, I look up, half-expecting grey clouds to sully the clear sky, to obscure the scorching sun. Instead, we are met by a stunningly bright azure.
That isn’t a problem, the imam reassures us. Prayers are answered in different ways. Some difficulties are only trials and tribulations. But I am thinking of what my daughters will tell me. These are just excuses of men grasping at straws.
On the phone, Zeeraq and Arisha inquire about the prayer in condescending tones. Noor—my youngest—asks too, but more gently. I tell them all the same thing—that there are still some days and many prayers left.
The rain comes. Three days later, it pours all over the city with a vengeance. It pounces off brick ceilings, glistens on solar panels, and pitter-patters on windowpanes. The thunder accompanies the rain in its theatrics. It booms and echoes throughout the city, until I finally understand what God meant when He said that thunder, too, sings His praises.
I pick up my phone to call my daughters; I intend to include all three of them on the line, to let them know that God is capable of doing what technology cannot. Of course He is! Weather machines did not always exist.
But before I dial their numbers, I catch sight of a new article in the local newspaper. WEATHER MACHINES IMPORTED EARLY, MIGHT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HEAVY RAIN.
Suddenly, the rain loses its magnificence. And the thunder stops so abruptly that I begin to wonder if I had imagined it.
I click on the link and skim through the text. It’s unclear if the machines are truly responsible for the rain but the writer of the article deems it very likely. He argues that since the monsoon system had already passed the city without leaving behind its remnants, it was unlikely that a new, unexpected cloud-system would enter the city.
I backspace my daughter’s numbers, enter Alishba’s.
“Well,” she says, “why does that matter? Why can’t the weather machine be the answer to our prayer of rain? Both things can be true at once.”
“It matters,” I say, “because of my daughters.”
Once, my daughters had believed. When their father was still alive and when the technologicians had not taken over the city, they had prayed all five prayers and fasted during Ramadan. When you are young, you follow your parent’s religion. Even God warns against that in the Quran—you must use your reasoning, He says. How did my daughters lose their way when they began to use their independent reasoning?
“It’s alright,” my husband used to say. “Just let them be. They are young. When they begin to search for the truth honestly, they’ll find it. That’s the beauty of our religion.”
I did not let them be. When they were young and even now that they are older, I continue to argue with them based on logic, spirituality, reason. They keep asking me if I’ve seen it. If I’ve seen God creating the world. And no matter how many evidences I give them, they claim that I am being arrogant. As if! Do they not know of the countless verses preaching humility in the Quran? How can believing be a sign of arrogance?
“I am an agnostic,” Noor tells me on the phone after I explain that the weather machine’s early arrival was God’s work. “You can interpret it like that. Or you can say that the administrators tried to speed up the process and succeeded in doing so.”
Something strange happens during that phone call. Instead of arguing back—as I normally would have—I find my body going limp. The phone clatters on the ground. I bend to pick it up but my body does not listen to me. Noor’s voice keeps coming through the receiver. It keeps coming but I cannot do anything.
Noor catches on that something is wrong and arrives with both of her sisters at my apartment. There, they heave me up, transfer me to the bed, and look at me with immense concern in their eyes. I can no longer begrudge their disbelief, their condescending tones, their arrogance. Once again, we are back to where we started. Mother and daughters.
For the first time in forever, I remember them from when they were young. Zeeraq’s little hands holding my chin up as she pretended to cut my hair. Arisha’s upturned lower-lip when I refused to give her chocolate milk. And Noor’s quiet voice pulling me back on my mother’s funeral. These are the girls that I gave my life to.
With eyes closed, I listen to them discuss my state. They talk about consulting doctors, going for the age extension machine, calling their husbands. Soon, they jump into action. Arisha makes the calls, while Zeeraq massages my arms and legs. Noor drives away to make sure all the kids are being taken care of. And despite their best efforts, I am left on the bed, helpless.
Paralysis puts a lot of things in perspective. It is true what my daughters say—that technology will soon fix my issue—but for these few hours, I am stuck to the bed, helpless, aware that only God can help me move my body. He warns against this in the Quran. He tells us that He can replace our ‘perfect’ physical form whenever He wills.
I close my eyes and pray in my head. I call out silently in desperation. I look up at the ceiling and imagine that I am looking up, all the way up, that I am standing just below His throne.
There is no response. The ceiling fan continues to spin clockwise, its hands blurring into one another. A single moth flutters about the lights restlessly, moving from one attractive bulb to the next. Arisha’s voice is a soft hum in the haze of my illness. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, letting myself feel the reality of my eldest’s touch. She is gentle in her massaging.
I expected this. This silence after a prayer. There are only two possibilities. One—I am undeserving. Two—I have been lying to myself this entire time.
There’s a third possibility, the one that the scholars always talk about. According to our religious texts, a prayer can be answered in three ways. God does not have to respond directly. He can either remove another calamity from our destiny or compensate us on the last day. None of these things are concrete, however, and I am tired.
Suddenly, I feel an intense anger rushing into my veins. Why did you not answer—I ask God—when I prayed for rain? Why did you stay silent when I asked you to guide my daughters? And why are you not responding now, that I am on my last breaths? Give me back my body, then take me away—I’ll come willingly, I promise.
After a while, the anger is replaced with desperation. Who am I talking to? Is there anyone listening on the other side? How long will I be left like this, with no control over my body?
In the meantime, Noor arrives again and Arisha is letting the paramedics in. They tell me they are going to slide me into the age extension machine; they have considered other possibilities and none of them are possible. I am going to last another hundred years probably—in rare cases, two hundred.
“But that’s okay,” Zeeraq says, “we’ll extend our ages to live with you too.”
“Hundred years?” I want to yell at them. “Two hundred?”
They know very well that I had never wanted to extend my age. I will live in paralysis if I have to for two years or three, but I do not want to be alive in this sick world. Why should I be alive now? My grandchildren only look at me when I take them to an arcade and supervise them while they are busy with machines. My daughters bring me food and gossip with me sometimes, but their eyes are always flitting to the clock. We have nothing in common anymore. Alishba talks on the phone sometimes, but she is better adjusted than I am. She says she is lucky to have children who understand her well. And my husband—my darling husband has left me already. He left me years ago. What do I have to live for?
God, the answer comes. You live for God, as you have been your entire life.
That is true, I tell the voice in my head. But I cannot stay still anymore. Didn’t Prophet Ibrahim also ask to see a bird resurrected? Who am I compared to him? Nobody! I want a miracle, too, to relieve my heart. Something just for me.
Nothing happens and my heartbeat picks up pace. Zeeraq, Arisha, and Noor gather around me, just before sliding me into the machine. They have not given me anaesthesia yet so I am conscious and awake, staring at the wires that run from my head to the ceiling of the machine. This is a grave. I am sitting in a grave, waiting for another life.
Outside, my daughters are talking, but they do not know I can hear them. Noor keeps questioning whether they are doing the right thing. Zeeraq is saying that she can’t bear to see her mother die so young—hundred years is a short time, after all, isn’t it?
“Can I ask you something honestly, though?” It’s Arisha. “Did you have a good relationship with Mama?”
My heart begins to pound ceaselessly. I have never inquired this of my daughters. Whether they loved me or felt my love. Perhaps, I was always afraid of the answer.
“She was bit of a…” Zeeraq says. “Well, I don’t know. It was like, you know, influencers are scared of haram police? We had that in our home. She was always yapping on—
“I think that’s unfair,” Noor cuts her off. “She believed in something and wanted us to be saved from hellfire. And anyway, she didn’t police us that much.”
“But she was wrong,” Arisha says. “She ended up forcing her ideas down our throats and when we grew old enough, she tried to reason with us…and she could never win.”
“That’s not true,” Zeeraq replies. “I mean, yeah, she was forceful and all…but at the end, sometimes I thought to myself, maybe she has a solid point, you know? Like sometimes, I’ll look at my fingers and I’ll move them and think…how? How did we end up here, in this world, of all places?”
“There are many creation myths,” Arisha shoots back. “Any of them could be correct.”
“It’s a matter of seeing,” Noor says and I imagine the wise look in her eyes. “I think we never saw what she did…”
Oh, but what did I see, my dear daughter? I want to ask. I can’t see anymore. It feels like everything I have ever known keeps slipping away. Yes, I have felt contentment after prayer and yes, I have even had a few prayers answered here and there, but all of this—can it be coincidental? Without a plan?
The doctor arrives in the room and says something about anaesthesia. I try to move my limbs, to convey to my daughters that I don’t want this, that I don’t want to live. Bile builds up in my throat. There are tears clinging to my eyelashes; gravity pulls some of them sideways. Nothing else is in my control.
One last time, I say a prayer. I say: God, it is not that I do not believe, in my hearts of hearts, I know. This is how I have lived my entire life. I have prayed and fasted and performed the pilgrimage, and I have given in charity and tried to guide my daughters, although perhaps I have not been smart about it. I have loved my husband and I have been kind to my parents. And always, I have tried to seek out the truth. Dear Lord, Prophet Ibrahim also asked for a miracle even after you cooled a fire for him. I am nobody in front of you. Please, just this once, give me a miracle. Give me a miracle and I will not doubt you again.
I wait with bated breath. On one side of the dome-like ceiling, a small compartment opens, revealing a little injection. They are going to knock me out. I watch the needlepoint as it moves closer and closer. I watch it until I can’t see anything else.
This is it. A long, never-ending hell awaits me. If I wake moving, perhaps I should kill myself.
And then, just as the needle reaches my upper-arm, it stops. Outside, the lights go out and a loud blast echoes in the room.
“What was that?” all my daughters ask together.
“A power outage,” the doctor replies grimly. “It has not happened in the past twenty-five years. It’s quite dangerous for an age-extension process to be stopped mid-way. I’ll go check on it.”
Inside the machine, I begin to smile.
My daughters will interpret this as a coincidental outage, a random chance-event. They will talk of how technology has malfunctioned throughout history for various reasons and how it has redeemed itself, how it has consistently been fixed and elevated to meet our needs.
But I know I caused this through my prayer.
Oh, how pitiful a life my girls live! They believe in technology and logistics, and I? I believe in miracles.