The Zahir

The name "zahir" may have many definitions, but here it was a coin. The protagonist found it one day and got obsessed. He began seeing it everywhere. He got rid of the coin, yet no fruitful outcome occurred. Slowly, he dived into a state of absolute obsession. Everyone would think he was a madman. Everyone, who did not see the zahir, will be considered sane owing to having majority.

Jorge Luis Borges invariably ends his story with a question. "Others will dream that I am mad, while I dream of the zahir. When every man on earth thinks, day and night, of the Zahir, which will be dream and which reality, the earth or the Zahir?"



Definition of reality and dream can be hard to be defined. Can’t it? Only perception can deliver it. Perception can be different. One perception can argue that God exists just like image of scripture. Others may argue that is nothing. Someone’s perception can deliver the notion of right and wrong. Yet it changes with another perception. Politics, ideologies, war, freedom... All are offsprings of perception. Perception can label a man as mad. When everyone becomes mad, madness becomes sanity. Majority wins. Doesn’t it?