Twilight in Delhi - pg. 23

Asghar said 'No' to his friend's query and sat down on the parapet, immersed in thought. The sun was setting and the western horizon was dyed a dirty red for the atmosphere was not clear and the dust and the smoke of engines far away had made the air dirty and black. Flocks of pigeons rose from house-tops and were lost in the toneless colours of the darkening sky. Far and wide wherever the eye could see, houses stretched for miles, their roofs and walls dim with dust and years. Here and there some new house was being built, and its scaffoldings looked hazy and dim. On one side the long low hills stretched, rugged and dark in the hazy distance, one dreary line of monotonous rocks. On the other side the ugly Clock Tower jutted its head towards the sky, and by its side the dull red building of the Town Hall looked drab. Wild pigeons circled and towered above the two buildings abd, beating their wings for a while, settled down on the roof of the Hall and in the crevices of the Tower. The Jama Masjid looked diminutive and shrunk, and its red-stone plinth and the marble domes all looked grim in the austere light.

Suddenly in the midst of this dreary scene was flung a stone. A moazzin from a nearby mosque raised his voice, calling the faithful to the evening prayer. Other moazzina called from the other mosques. As their voices were nearing an end there rose on the wind the voice of Nisar Ahmad, for Asghar' mohallah was not far away from where he sat. His resonant voice came bringing peace and rest, and a sense of the transience of life, that all that we do is meaningless and vain. Asghar sat listening to the azaan until it died away, leaving a sense of silence and a buzzing sound in the ears.