Today brought with it the first rain of summers. The drizzle started around evening but it didn’t last long. However it lasted long enough for me catch quite a few raindrops.

But that is not what makes this evening extraordinary. Tonight’s sky is full of contrasts. I was, as usual on the roof for offering my Maghrib sala’at. After offering my prayers, I sat down on a chair, looking at the sky. I love this place because if offers a spectacular panorama. Since it had rained earlier, the sky on the Murree side was quite clear and I could see the lights shining bright on the Murree hills.
On the Margalla hills, I could see a summer fire, illuminating its part of the sky. The fire, even from this distance, looked menacing as I could see the flames leaping up and down in the sky, trying to lick all that it could.
Smoke rising from the fire engulfed a fair part of the mountains. It spread as far as the Faisal Mosque whose minarets are visible from my home. The smoke covered the lights of Pir Sohawa, which too are very visible in the evening.
When I looked up, I saw the moon shining. Yes, I guess there’s still some romance left between us. It still pays me a visit every now and then in my window and I acknowledge it as a beautiful stranger. I could see big dipper, the first shape in the sky I learnt to recognize. It was the same sky, the same moon, the same stars, the same wind blowing the clouds and smoke about…but a very different me.
Towards the western part of the sky, I could see lightening, clouds ready to pour, winds playing in the sky like nymphs.
It was a sky of contrasts…carrying in it so many aspects of existence…the beauty, the danger, the hope, the immaculate, the blemished, the fear, the possibility, the challenge, the tension, the passion…I could see everything I felt in my life, in the sky.