The Kiln Cannot Be Hurried

Before You Read

This is a story about Hamid, a young potter who learns that some things cannot be rushed.

Notice when he chooses hurry, and when he chooses patience.

Hamid’s late father left him a potter’s wheel, an old brick kiln and a quiet shop in a narrow Multan lane.

When Iqbal Sahib ordered forty blue water jugs for his daughter’s wedding, in six days, Hamid said yes too quickly.

He worked at the wheel from dawn till midnight.

Khala Bano, his father’s old painter, frowned. “The clay is still wet, beta. Let it dry.” “There’s no time,” said Hamid.

He painted blue flowers on damp clay and fired the kiln too early.

On the fourth night, too impatient to let it cool, he pulled the door open.

Cold air rushed in. One by one, the jugs split with a sound like breaking ice.

By morning, nearly all forty lay cracked on the bricks.

Hamid kicked a shard across the yard and shouted at the kiln, the clay, his father’s silent wheel.

Then he sat down on the step and covered his face.

Khala Bano put a cup of tea in his hands. “Your father broke a hundred jugs before he learned,” she said.

“Real patience is at the first blow, beta. Not after.”

That afternoon, hands shaking, Hamid went to Iqbal Sahib.

He told him everything: the hurry, the cracks, and that good jugs need time.

Iqbal Sahib was quiet for a long time. “I trusted you,” he said at last.

“The barat is in nine days. Bring them by then, or don’t bring them at all.”

This time Hamid let every jug dry slowly in the shade.

Waiting was harder than working. After Fajr he asked Allah for patience, and his breathing grew steady.

He fired the kiln, then did the hardest work of all: nothing.

For a day and a night he sat by the warm bricks and kept the door shut.

At dawn, Hamid and Khala Bano opened the kiln.

Forty jugs stood whole and shining, blue as the evening sky. Khala Bano wiped her eyes.

At the wedding, the jugs stood in a long row, garlanded with marigolds.

Iqbal Sahib shook Hamid’s hand. “Worth the wait,” he said.