On the crumbling threshold of fleet-footed moments, holding on to the arms of the wind, a girl stands and wonders: what should she tell you? Years ago, in the still hours of some night, she had prayed to God that He should reveal to her the girl inside her. I am sure God must have smiled, at least once, at the simplicity of that prayer-girls of tender age don't know that no greater calamity befalls those who dwell on earth than self-knowledge-but He granted her the request. And so, at an age when others wish for the moon, she received the magic word that would let her into the thousand-gated city of the Self.

An abstract from " Khushboo" by Parveen Shakir