I woke up early, got ready and hopped on a rickshaw to see Mehboob Ali Shah sahib. I got there a bit before our meeting time of 8 am. I called him, then sat down in his bethak (sitting area).He came out with three cups of tea, and his warm nature. He was looking around for someone else that was there, hence the third cup, but did not see him, so I got some more tea. We sat down and I waited to let him lead the conversation.We talked a bit about teaching here and as the conversation logically lead that way, it made sense for me to share more about “Risalo”, as well as past projects in Jamshoro with the help of friends here. It can be a lot of information to share, so I share it when people are curious. After all, they have a right to know about me too, as they are investing their time and thought towards my efforts.He shared a lot of relevant and interesting stories throughout our conversation. In fact, before we even got to the poetry, he spent a good hour on discussing humility through the example of a story of the prophet Musa (Moses), and how even after achieving so much, God asked him to go to a seemingly random person to learn from. He went, and the man did things that seemed dishonest, cruel, and evil. At each step, Musa could not contain himself and spoke up. The person told him if he spoke up again, he would be sent on his way. At the second time, he was given a final chance.He did not manage to stay silent and was sent packing, disheartened. The man stopped him and did explain why he had done the cruel acts he had commit in front of him. There was an idea of how each of those acts was really to benefit others as told to him by God. While those acts themselves, and that particular mode of “belief” is not exactly how I feel, the moral of the story was very relevant. The idea that even when you feel you know a great deal or are accomplished, let there be humility. Life or God, may push you into situations where you are forced to learn these lessons. What I have written is a brief summary, that really doesn’t do justice to how fantastic a storyteller Mehboob sahib is.We also discussed the idea of payment for his help. He refused any monetary compensation. What he did ask of me, was something greater and something I intended, but have only more reason and need to fulfill with the help of each person I meet along the way. He wanted me to do this film, but not let my work end at that. He requested, that in lieu of payment for his efforts, I should do my part to take Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai’s poetry and message, back to Lahore, to other parts of Pakistan and to the world in a meaningful way. I take this responsibility seriously, and will continue to try and learn from Latif’s example and do my part to take his work to the world.We worked on poetry for several hours. The portion we worked on today came from a different sur, other than Sorath, which I used to bring in some of the background to the story presented in Sorath, but not featured in Latif’s poetry. With great care and attention to detail, we went over that entire chapter. I see more and more, that Sheikh Ayaz, upon whose Urdu translation of Shah Latif’s poetry; “Shah Jo Risalo” my work is based, did a lot of rearranging of the verses in a sense as I did too for this film. That makes it much more difficult to find the sources, as we are not looking for direct translations, but trying to find those verses from which these meanings were extracted into beautiful Urdu poetry.After completing that section, piece by painstaking piece, we were done for the day. Mehboob sahib continued with a few more stories, that seemed to fit well with adjusting my own state of mind. He shared a story of Hazrat Ali, the son in law of the prophet Mohammed. Hazrat Ali spoke of how he finds God in his own failures to reach his goals. In essence, that when he strives for something and finds himself beset upon by missteps or obstacles, it is within those challenges that he remembers God or feels his presence in guiding himself forward. Perhaps those missteps or obstacles are not really that. Perhaps they are the steps that guide you forward, just not in the way you expect. I’m not going to lie. I get the logic, it’s just hard to set my mind into being able to flow with it without frustration.I head back to the hostel. I went through and wrote blog posts for the week. When going day by day, it feels like I am wasting away, with little hope at progress, but when I write it all down, there is indeed progress, albeit painfully slow.