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Marley Allen-Ash/The Globe and Mail
It’s easy to miss. It sits there on the lower surface of a double-tiered coffee table, in the formal living room. An empty room in which not much living happens, neglected except for those occasional evenings when the call to entertain is dutifully but ceremoniously fulfilled.
A few years ago, we purchased a model Lego set of the Taj Mahal for my dad’s birthday, thinking it would both suit his admiration for all things art and architecture, but also provide us with a way to spend time together in the evenings. Time that was increasingly hard to find as he and my mom, both in their early 60s, entered a new phase of life, and as my brother and I, on the cusp of our mid-30s, entered a new phase of ours.
My dad and I convened each evening around the large dining table to plan our line of attack. We faced thousands of tiny white pieces, each packaged with precision in numbered plastic bags. These were accompanied by an ominously thick instruction booklet.
We marvelled at the booklet’s meticulous diagrams and sequential procedure. Was there a team of expert engineers and designers who created the instruction booklet? How did they make it? A quick Google search revealed there is a building instruction team, whose sole goal is to assemble the instructions once the model had been designed and developed.
The evenings passed quickly, and the structure’s foundations began to take shape. We reflected at how utterly useless we were at recalling the basics of Mughal history. Not that we were long-lost heirs to the Mughal throne, but being Muslim and having South Asian heritage, there was a nagging sense that we had failed in our collective responsibility at knowing the basic facts of this long-gone dynasty.
We consulted Google yet again and discovered Ustad Ahmad Lahori was the Taj Mahal’s chief architect. The building was commissioned by then emperor Shah Jahan, in memory of his wife Mumtaz. With that established, we quickly moved on.
The building rose before our eyes. The Taj Mahal’s distinct silhouette began to emerge. We could see our efforts coming to fruition, and as we turned to the tedious task of ordering the coloured tiles on the mosaic floor, our conversation too took a turn.
We were struck by the parallels – and incongruencies – between Lego blocks and life.
We were amazed by the intricacy of the model and its instruction booklet. We realized the booklet itself was a work of art, beautiful, but also spectacularly detailed and clear. It provided us with the comfort of certainty. We knew if we followed all the instructions, we would end up with a model that looked exactly like the picture on the box. If we made a mistake, all we had to do was retrace our steps, flip back the pages and start again.
Life, however, does not fit together so neatly and rarely provides us with such clear instructions. We reminisced over our respective lives, decisions made, and actions and choices never taken. He reflected on a life well lived, and I on the uncertain path that lay ahead.
Here, at the edge of our dining room table, in those fleeting hours between the glow of sunset and blanket of nightfall, we were masters of the world. In here, we were the expert architects doing the assembling, but out in the world, we were the ones being assembled.
We might believe we are in control of our decisions and choices, yet the nature of those decisions is whittled by winds that blow beyond our control. We do not know how the pieces of life will eventually fit together, nor what the end result will look like. In the face of uncertainty, we proceed as we must, hesitantly placing one foot in front of the other, trusting both in the process and the end result.
The model still sits there today gathering dust. Its minarets pierce the living room’s air. Air that has grown heavier and thicker over the years, infused with the smoke of sandalwood, the echoes of forgotten conversations and memories of days long gone.
I look at it sometimes on the days I return home, and it evokes a time of happiness, laughter, comfort. It reminds me that life is built slowly, with mistakes, an element of uncertainty and no instruction book. That consideration, warmth and faith will result in a life well lived. That like the now dusty replica, life itself is not about what we materially create or leave behind, but rather how we lived it.
Farhan Karim lives in Richmond, B.C.