The Half-mad Sunday, a novel by Tahir Mehmood delves deep into meaning of life, death, freedom, virtue, vice and struggle with eternal contradictions. Life remains a struggle and death lays hidden inside life. The novel explores life, which can’t be defined in a single concept, but offers a unique freedom to human race. On a journey from finite to union with the infinite, a continued human effort espouses the essence.

Tahir Mehmood is an ardent student of life, history and human affairs. He is a traveler by passion, seeker by nature, and a nomad by habit.

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Philo’s heart hitherto was unaware of love, but tears in Rabeel’s eyes for departing Shelu had suddenly awakened the spirit of infinite love for her. Philo saw only one face in the whole universe; and it was Rabeel that filled the cosmos. He felt that whole universe had squeezed in those eyes and nothing existed outside her eyes.

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Setting his foot on land after a long time, he felt a different kind of freedom which a ship on the sea never offers. Philo had experienced that despite vastness of the sea, the ship becomes a cage in itself. “There is always an infinite outside a finite. A prisoner in a cage to the freedom outside. Our galaxy to other galaxies; our universe to our galaxy; planet earth to the universe, and the life itself on the earth…. What we see and understand as a reality, can be an illusion within a bigger illusion.

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Peace came to him through quietly listening to other fellow human beings. He listened without question, interruption or judgement. He listened for love…, for empathy…, for pity…, and avoided condescending to others. When they smiled and laughed, Philo joined them, and when they wept, he wiped their tears. He was never tired of listening, and when they got tired of speaking, they hugged and thanked him.