Blank Canvas Gulfam Dhillon

It was in my freshman year of high school when my father gave me the gift of a desk for my new room in our new house. A small black desk from Ikea. A desk that went unused for the first year I owned it. It saw no work. Housed no books. It sat empty in a corner. Little did I know at that time, that desk would become my creative sanctuary and become my canvas for love, calligraphic drawings, poetry, books, and faith. My blank canvas.

Towards the end of my freshman year was the time I took on the proverbial rose covered shackles of life, the religious texts gifted to me by my father. My mind and my desk’s untouched bodies first experienced the heaviness of the religious texts. I placed them and I left them to adorn on the left side of my desk and the Mecca of the books I placed in the middle. Even though those books were shackles and they held me back to an extent, I learned how to take passion in my work and loyalty in my craft. I spent every waking day reading and memorizing those books, finding the secrets that they kept, trying to find the meaning hidden in every word. I memorized Twenty One chapters of the Quran out of the 114, not a lot by any standard, except at my home where I was the only one to memorize so many. The...