SAMMIR DATTANI

It is not the mingling of flesh and blood that makes us kin, but rather the mysterious alchemy of the heart—that invisible thread by which fathers are made of friends, and brothers of those who share neither cradle nor name. A family, in truth, is a curious little fellowship: a band of assorted souls meandering through the wilderness of life, borrowing toothpaste, disputing over desserts, hiding shampoo like ancient treasure, waging petty wars over bedroom doors, and yet—almost in the same breath—wielding the comfort of love with the very hands that inflicted the wound.

And yet, so familiar is their presence, so constant their orbit, that we grow forgetful of their gravity. We take them lightly, these characters of our private stage, as though the play would run on with or without them.

But today, in a moment of idleness, as I wandered through the shallows of televised distraction, I stumbled upon the trailer for Mukhbiir, Sammir’s latest work. And there he was—not merely performing, but inhabiting a character of great depth and tension. My heart, I confess, swelled with a pride I could scarcely contain. Yet it was not the craft of his portrayal that arrested me most, but his eyes. Ah, those eyes! They held the menace of a drawn sword and the mercy of an open hand. In one instant, they could wound; in the next, they could woo. They carried, as great eyes do, the power to terrify and to gladden, to command and to console.

How strange, how sudden, to see in him not the boy I once watched grow, but the man he has quietly become. Just yesterday, it seems, he was the younger brother in jest and in truth. Today, he stands with a stature all his own. And oh, how proud I am of him.