Omar’s Philosophical Musings

“Naomi, do you know how big is God?” Omar’s eyes widen to stretched halfway down his face, as they always do when he tries to educate me about something.

“Omar, I have no idea.”

“Have you seen the Mickey Mouse who stands on big wooden sticks outside MacDonald’s? The one who is as tall as the rooftop?

“Yes?”

“Well, God is bigger even than that Mickey Mouse.” Here Omar stops and looks at me to gauge if I have grasped the enormity of the size.

“Wow! That’s really big.”

“But you see God is so much bigger. He is as big as the distance between America and Pakistan…that is, the distance from the gates of America to the gates of Pakistan.” Omar looks at me triumphantly with the accumulated wisdom of four years shining through his eyes.

I don’t say anything and just widen my eyes to somehow match the area covered by Omar’s eyes, and fail miserably.

“And He was there even before our house and the road outside were built,” Omar tells me.

“Omar, that must be really long ago.”

“Yes, He was there even before you were born. And He lives in the sky, you know,” Omar educates me further.

Here he stops and contemplates for a while and then asks, “What do you think how did God get there, I mean up in the sky?”

“Omar I am afraid I don’t know. But if, as you tell me, He is so big, then reaching the sky shouldn’t be a problem, no?

“Yes.” He thinks again for a while and comes up with, “Do you know who made God?”

“No, I don’t.”

Here Omar makes peace with my limited intellect and asks a simpler question, “I am feeling hungry. Could you cut a mango for me, in cubes?”

Comments

How Selfishia got Rid of Her Feathery Moustache

Selfihsia the selfish hen was unhappy. And understandably so. After all, having a feathery moustache is not the same thing as having a new hairdo or a brand new dress from a well-known boutique. She couldn’t flaunt it. It didn’t make her feel beautiful. It didn’t even make her feel like an ordinary hen with a few feathers missing. She felt feathery at the wrong places and this made her sad. One day when she was crying and looking at her reflection in the puddle of water near the grapefruit tree, Kayseria strutted toward her. “Selfhisha, I have clucked at the thought and have finally come up with a solution,” she said. All the hens had been thinking about Selfishia’s moustache for a while now. There had been five meetings under the grape fruit tree to get Selfishia out of her predicament. “Really!” Selfisha clucked loudly with hope. Hearing Selfishia’s loud cluck the others came trotting and gathered around her. When the cluck cluck of exci...

Napoleon and His Family in the Land of Lilliputians

As Napoleon the rooster traveled in the white Suzuki pickup van that was taking him to the Land of Lilliputians, he wondered. Yesterday, he along with the five hens who now cackled in the van were put in a separate basket. They were sold to the Lilliputians. Napoleon looked at the five hens who were now under his guardianship. “What a diversified lot,” he thought. Somebody cackled in soft purring tones. He knew it must be Chandni , the eldest, the prettiest of the hens. She was snowy white with black dots. Yes, there she was, sitting snugly near the window; oblivious to the world around her except the warm egg which she had just laid. Chandni was good at it: laying eggs day after day. “The ever maternal Chandni,” thought Napoleon and smiled indulgently at her. However, at times it irritated him that Chandi treated her eggs as if they merited a pride of performance award. “As if this is the only act of creativity in the world! But then this is a hen...

Martian in the Land of Lilliputians

“Are you really from Mars?” Saif asks me in his usual pitch of voice: loud. He apparently presumes I am sitting on the ceiling fan. “Saif, I am near. I can even hear you whisper. Yes, I am from Mars.” Saif tries to lower his voice a notch. He doesn’t succeed. “No, you are not. You make up stories, and you don’t understand the language of birds and animals. You have made up also those stories about Selfishia and Kayseria.” “Saif, first you doubt my Martian antecedents and then you challenge my communication abilities. Okay, if you don’t want to believe it, don’t,” I say with Martian nonchalance. “But why do you say so? Okay, now that the Curiosity Rover has landed on Mars will you go back?” “I don’t need any curiosity rover. I can go there on my own volition, just by snapping my fingers and closing my eyes.” Martian nonchalance helps to make your point. “I know this can’t be true. You are not from Mars,” Saif asserts his nine years old adul...

Land of Lilliputians

Search This Blog