Who are you? By Bilal Haider Junejo

Who are you?

This is a question which I am sure I once put to myself, for there is no other way in which I can account for knowing the answer. But why should that answer be of interest, any interest, to you? My conjecture is that it will be so because of the fact that when I contemplated my own self, I could not resist this tenacious, and possibly inevitable, impression that I had, in the process of so doing, (inadvertently) realised a few truths about you — too!

Let me explain.

When I asked myself “who are you?”, I was staggered by the variety of answers upon which I alighted. Never before had it occurred to me that I, a nondescript, could actually embody, actually comprise — and actually did — a robust union of an array of perceptions. When I asked myself the question in question, “myself” informed me that

. I am Bilal.

. I am Bilal Haider.

. I am Bilal Haider Junejo.

. I am a male who is five feet and eight inches tall.

. I am a Capricorn.

. I am a Pakistani.

. I am an Asian.

. I am a Muslim.

. I am a heterosexual (so far).

. I am an omnivore.

. I am someone who is eligible to drive.

. I am someone who is eligible to vote.

. I am a lawyer.

. I am an aficionado of history.

. I am an aspiring Oxonian.

. I am an Anglophile.

. I am so many things I have yet to realise.

. I am … overwhelmed.

For no other reason does the enumeration pause here, so soon. But is it not a marvel still? Who would have thought, even though I should have (for the sake of self-fulfilment, if for nothing else), that so innocent a question could elicit from existence so revolutionary a realisation? And it was at this point in my journey to self-discovery that I realised we are both already visible in each other’s mirrors! Certainly, when I look at my reflection, when I contemplate my past and my present and my future, when I recall that “I think; therefore, I am”, I simply cannot help remembering you! Are you not also a unique amalgam of so many shades all derived from the same lovely hue? Are there not hidden depths to your soul which even you have yet to fathom? Is there not an entire universe waiting to be discovered down your throat — too? Have you not your own list of lineaments — as long as mine, and as varied as my own — to offer? You must have, and you do; for if you do not, then tell me this — who are you?

I shall wait for your answer, even as we continue to wend our way down the rabbit hole — forged by destiny, and illuminated, for want of a nobler candidate, by serendipity.

Have you realised that the “I” in “ I am …” still remains as mysterious as ever? The list above is but a compilation of my attributes. They make me identifiable — or perhaps I should say that they bestow an identity upon me. Nearly half the things in that list are beyond my control, which means that nearly half my identity comes from without, rather than from within. I am, therefore, but an offspring of fate and chance! And so, now that I come to think of it, are you! We are (unwitting) siblings, says the Universe, and I can only hope the epiphany fills you with as much delight as it has me! There is a certain quiet joy to be found in realising you share something with someone you have never even met. And I want to add to that — to increase what we share, to imbue you with the same wonder that pervades my own being. I want us to peel away, now that we have done them justice by recognising them (for what they are worth), the layers of temporal attributes, and to arrive unblemished and unscathed at the core — that is to say, at that point of existence at which you and I, without pretension or exaggeration, are quite literally the same!

Let me give you a regrettably grisly but necessary scenario to ponder. Imagine that one of my legs has to be amputated because gangrene, for whatever reason, has set in. Now, after amputation, my erstwhile limb and I are lying side by side before you. A casual, and possibly facetious, onlooker asks you which of the two is Bilal. Assuming the tenor of all you have read thus far will enable you to suppress the very natural scorn that is aroused by a request for stating the “perfectly obvious”, you will answer that the disfigured person lying next to the unfortunate leg is Bilal (a philosopher might quibble you should rather say Bilal’s, but no matter).

So far, so good.

Now, imagine that the operation is repeated upon my other leg. Again, you are asked the same question, and again, I trust, you will return the same answer. Eventually, my two arms, my torso, and my head also undergo similar ordeals. Finally, with the aid of a special ventilator which will hopefully have come into existence by the time I am called upon to enact my hypothetical role before the world, an assortment of myself is kept from dying as it is placed alongside each other. Now, the question is once more put to you — which of them is Bilal? Is it the legs, the arms, the torso, or the head? You will, I am sure, point towards the head, even though all parts, thanks to the ventilator, are biologically alive. That would probably be because humans recognise each other from their faces.

Again, so far, so good.

Now, the same operation is repeated upon the different parts of my head. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the teeth, the tongue, the hair — you name them, and they are severed. Even the brain has been removed from the skull. Now, with only cranial appendages to choose from, the question is again repeated — where is Bilal? Almost at your wits’ end, you would desperately gesture towards the brain.

I am sure you can guess what is coming next.

Yes, the time has finally come to separate the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the thalamus, the hypothalamus, and all the other parts of the brain from each other. As a layperson, you will almost certainly throw in you hand at this stage (a biologist might go a step further or two, but they will eventually also end up exactly where you have).

And the question will still remain — where is Bilal? All the individual parts are still alive, thanks to that fabulous ventilator the morrow is yearning to yield, so where am I? Does your despair lead you to conclude, quite erroneously, that Bilal was always the aggregate of his constituent parts? That only the whole body was Bilal?

I hope not — for two very good reasons.

First, you did not say so when only one leg was amputated. Logic demands that you should have said so right from the start, and not only when you could see no way out of the looming impasse.

Secondly, it was Bilal’s body. In other words, the body belongs to Bilal, which means Bilal is not synonymous, or even coterminous, with his body. For Bilal to own his body means that Bilal has to be an entity independent of his body. Otherwise, the phrase “Bilal’s body” makes no sense at all. Have you ever noticed what happens in crime and thriller movies when the police arrive upon the scene of the murder? The first question the inspector asks is “where is the body?”. Why do they not say where is Mr or Ms XYZ? Why has the victim suddenly turned from a person into a mere body? What is it that has changed so mysteriously? The body is still intact, and no decomposition will begin to take place until later. Then why does the inspector speak of a body, and not of a person? What is that subconscious realisation in their mind?

I think you will have begun to realise by now that the answer is not, and never was, to be found in the physical world. Bilal, it seems, is not a physical entity at all. He is a part of this world, certainly, but he is not material (i.e. not composed of matter). Bilal is an example of the other (great) thing that exists in the known universe — energy. “I” transcend(s) the finite world of mere physicality. “I” am the force that moves this body you call me. “I” am what animates every part of it without becoming a part of it. “I” am what will leave every medical hand in the world unable ever to resuscitate this body when I withdraw from it. Was “I” born with the body? “I” do not know. But there are things which seem to indicate that “I” am capable of surviving it. The body “I” have today is not the one “I” had even a year ago, for all the constituent cells keep on dying and keep on being replenished. But “I” still look the same, and still am! A sufficiently powerful anaesthetic can numb this entire body, but still leave me able to reassure myself that “cogito ergo sum”. “I” taste death every night, every single night, when I wake up the next morning and realise “I” am unable to remember when my sleep began, when exactly “I” dropped off — and then remember the sensation is exactly the one that “I” feel when “I” try to think of what or where “I” was before “I” was born. And what will happen after this body dies? Will there be reincarnation? Will “I” forever leave this physical world for a non-physical one? Or will “I” perish, and there will be nothing? All that has yet to be ascertained. But if sleep is indeed the brother of death, “my” experience of the former suggests that the latter is also waiting to unveil its own share of irrevocable surprises.

And now “I” must ask — do “you” understand? Do “you” recognise yourself — in Bilal, and all that “I” have just told you about him? Is there anything here with which “you” cannot relate, which “you” have not already experienced as well? Do “you” now see me as clearly in your mirror as “I” can already seen “you” in mine? That core of existence which was mentioned earlier, consider it with the help of the mirror, which does only what it does best — reflect. Stand in front of it, point your finger at the reflection, and ask the question — who are “you”? I think the answer will turn out to be one already known to you — it is “I”!

Identity, eh? Community? My foot! I have no time for concepts that can only exclude and segregate members of the same species. There is only one identity, one community that is wide enough to accommodate me in this world — and that is humanity. Everything else is pernicious, sanctimonious drivel. I confess I am not sure of what I mean, but I certainly know what I feel — that only an individual who has yet to recognise themselves would venture to harm another, or to trespass upon their space. No one else in the world would. If they recognised themselves, their acknowledgement of their own limitations would lead them to realise that they share those limitations with every other individual in the world, and that this constitutes the single greatest similarity for which we can be thankful. Similarity begets oneness, and oneness begets reflection (of another in oneself). You begin to see yourself in others, and others in yourself. You realise that because you are the same, you can only ever meaningfully give them what you always give yourself — love, respect, empathy and a helping hand. Only thus would it be that “I” am finally moved to cherish “you”; “you”, who will now proceed without scruple to cherish “them”, who will in turn return to cherish us — until, at long last, cherished will be all.