When Maujo returned from the field before sundown it pained him to see that Maulvi Sahib was nowhere in sight. He cursed himself roundly for this negligence. Why had he left the maulvi? Why hadn’t he stayed near him? Perhaps the maulvi was displeased and decided to go away. He might even have called down God’s curse upon Maujo. With that thought his simple peasant’s soul began to tremble with fear and tears appeared in his eyes.
Maujo looked for Maulvi Sahib everywhere but couldn’t find him. No trace of him either even after it got quite dark. Maujo gave up exhausted, lamenting and cursing himself. Homeward bound, his head hung low, he saw two harried young men coming along the road. He asked what the matter was. After some hemming and hawing they blurted out the truth: They had dug up a pot of wine stashed in a dirt heap and were about to drink from it when, all of a sudden, an elderly man with the luminous face of a divine being confronted them with wrathful eyes. This was a downright unlawful act. God had forbidden the consumption of intoxicants. They were committing a sin for which there was absolutely no forgiveness. The young men were so intimidated that they couldn’t utter a word and just took to their heels.
Maujo told them that that heavenly figure was in fact a man of God. Then he gave voice to his fear: all this didn’t bode well for the village. No telling what calamity might descend on it now. First he’d acted discourteously by leaving the maulvi alone; now these boys had attempted to imbibe the forbidden drink.
The Chaudhry mumbled, ‘Only God can save us now, my boys, only God,’ and headed home.
He didn’t exchange any words with Jaina, just sat down quietly on the cot and began smoking his hookah. Tumultuous thoughts were swirling around in his head. He was sure that both he and the village were in for some unspeakable calamity.
The evening meal was ready. Jaina had cooked extra for Maulvi Sahib. When he didn’t come, she asked about him. Maujo replied with sorrow, ‘He’s gone. Why would he want to stay among us sinners!’
Jaina felt very sorry because Maulvi Sahib had promised to find a way to bring her mother home. He was gone. Who would find a way to do that now? She sat down quietly on the low wooden stool. The meal started to get cold.
A while later the deorhi came alive with the sound of movement and the two started. Maujo got up and went to the deorhi, returning moments later with Maulvi Sahib. In the dim light of the oil lamp Jaina noticed the maulvi’s unsteady gait and the small earthen pot he held in his hands.
Maujo helped him to the cot. Maulvi Sahib handed the pot over to Maujo and stammered, ‘God put us through the worst ordeal today. We stumbled upon two young men from your village. They had dug up a pot of wine from the earth and were about to drink. The minute they saw us they ran. Their conduct shocked us. So young and on the verge of committing such a grave sin! But then we thought: At their age one does sometimes stray from the straight path. So we entreated God, the Most High, to forgive the boys their sin. And lo, He replied…Do you know what he said?’
‘No,’ said Maujo, trembling all over.
‘He said, “Do you agree to take their sin upon yourself?” I said, “I do, Sublime Lord.” His voice came, “Well then, drink the whole pot yourself and we will pardon the boys.” ’
Maujo drifted off into the world his imagination had conjured up. His hair stood on end. ‘So you drank?’ he asked timidly.
The maulvi’s voice trembled. ‘Yes, I did. I d-d-d-drank…to assume their sin…to save them…to please God Almighty. There is still some left in the pot. I have to drink that too. Put it away carefully. Make sure not a drop disappears.
Maujo put the pot in a small room, tying a piece of cloth tightly over its mouth. When he returned to the courtyard he saw Maulvi Sahib making Jaina massage his head while he told her, ‘If a man does something good for the sake of others, God, eminent is His glory, is very pleased with such a man. Right now, He is also very pleased with you. So am I.’
As an expression of his pleasure, he made Jaina sit next to him and kissed her forehead. She cringed and hurried to get up, but the maulvi’s grip was firm. He clasped her to his chest and said to Maujo, ‘Chaudhry, fate is smiling on your daughter.’
The Chaudhry was overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘It is all due to your prayer…your kindness.’
Once again the maulvi pressed the girl to his chest. ‘When God is kind, everyone else is kind too. Jaina, I’ll teach you a prayer. Keep saying it and God will be kind to you.’
The maulvi got up quite late the next morning. Out of deference tinged with a feeling of awe, Maujo hadn’t dared to go to work in his field and had remained beside the maulvi’s cot in the courtyard. When, finally, the man’s sleep broke, Maujo helped him brush his teeth with a twig and wash his hands and face. Then he brought the pot of wine over to him as ordered. The maulvi mumbled some pious words, removed the cloth from the pot, blew into it a few times, and emptied a few bowls. Now he looked at the sky, again mumbled some words, and said in a loud voice, ‘Oh Lord, we will prevail in whatever test you put us to.’ Addressing the Chaudhry, he said, ‘Maujo, we’ve just been ordered to tell you, go right now and bring your wife back! We’ve found a way.’
Maujo was overjoyed. He hurriedly saddled his mare. Promising to return early the next day and advising Jaina to look to the maulvi’s every comfort and not shrink from serving him as best as she could, he left.
Jaina got busy scrubbing the dirty dishes. The maulvi, comfortably settled on the cot, kept staring at her and drinking wine from the bowl. Eventually he pulled out a string of large beads and started to roll them through his fingers. When Jaina was finished, he said to her, ‘Look here, Jaina, do your wuzu.’
‘I don’t know how to, Maulvi Sahib,’ she replied innocently.
He chided her softly. ‘You don’t know how to make wuzu? Tut-tut-tut. How will you face God then?’ He stood up from the cot and taught her to perform wuzu, scouring every last nook and corner of the girl’s body with his eyes as he went over the different acts of ritual washings with her.
This done he asked for the prayer rug. There was none. He chided her again with the same tenderness. He asked her to get a sheet instead, spread it out in an inner room of the house and then latch the main door. When she had done so, he asked her to bring the wine pot and the bowl over. She did that. He drank half a bowlful of wine, set the still half-full bowl down in front of him, closed his eyes and resumed telling his beads. Meanwhile Jaina sat quietly near him.
His remained busy with his beads for a long while. Then he opened his eyes, blew into the half-full bowl three times over and offered it to Jaina. ‘Drink!’
Shaking, Jaina took the bowl with hesitant hands.
‘Didn’t we say drink?’ the maulvi commanded in his awe-inspiring voice. ‘It will rid you of all your miseries.’
Jaina quickly downed the liquid. A smile spread across the maulvi’s thin lips. ‘Look, we’re about to start our wazifa again. When you see our index finger rise, it is a sign for you to fill the bowl about halfway and drink from it immediately. Understand?’
The maulvi didn’t wait for her to answer; he closed his eyes and sank back into his meditation.
A terribly bitter taste exploded in Jaina’s mouth; she felt as if the inside of her chest was on fire. She desperately wanted to get up and drink some cold water. But how could she? So she just sat there, enduring the stinging sensation in her throat and chest. Suddenly the maulvi’s index finger rose with a snap. As if hypnotized, the obedient girl quickly filled half the bowl and drank the wine. She wanted to spit it out but she just couldn’t get up.
Meanwhile, the maulvi continued rolling his beads, deep in meditation, his eyes closed in rapture. Jaina felt as if her head was spinning and she was succumbing to the relentless onslaught of drowsiness. In her semi-conscious state she saw herself in the arms of a youth with neither beard nor moustache who was taking her along to enjoy the pleasures of paradise.
When she opened her eyes, she saw herself stretched out on the coarse sheet. With her half-open, inebriated eyes she looked around herself and wondered: When did I lie down here, and why? Everything seemed shrouded in fog. She fought back another wave of sleep and abruptly got up. Maulvi Sahib – where was he?…And that paradise?
It was an empty space that confronted her. She stepped into the courtyard and found the maulvi making his wuzu. He turned around at the sound of her footsteps and smiled. Jaina withdrew to the room. She sat down on the sheet and began thinking about her mother, whom her father had gone to bring back home. There was still a whole night before they returned.
And to top it all, she was feeling quite hungry. She hadn’t cooked a meal. Many thoughts were crowding into her agitated mind. After a while the maulvi appeared and said, ‘I have to do a wazifa for your father. It will require an all-night vigil by some grave. I’ll also pray for you.’ Then he left.
He returned at the crack of dawn. His great big eyes, now bereft of their line of kohl, were bloodshot. His voice was faltering, his tread wobbly. As he entered the courtyard, he looked at Jaina with a smile, approached her and pressed her against his chest. He kissed her and plopped down on the cot. Jaina sat on a stool in a far corner and began mulling over the events of the previous evening, her recollection of which was quite hazy. She was also waiting for her father who should have been back by now. A full two years had passed since she had been separated from her mother…And yes, the paradise…that paradise…How was it? Was her companion Maulvi Sahib? She could vaguely remember that whoever it was didn’t sport a beard; he was someone young.
‘Jaina,’ the maulvi said to her after some time, ‘Maujo hasn’t returned yet.’
She remained quiet.
‘And there I was, performing the wazifa especially for his sake throughout the desolate night, sitting with bowed head by a dilapidated grave!’ he told the girl. ‘When will he return? Do you think he’ll be able to bring your mother back?’
Her only answer: ‘Perhaps he’ll be here soon. He will come home. So will Mother. But I can’t say anything for sure.’
Suddenly the sound of footsteps was heard. Jaina got up quickly. The moment she saw her mother she immediately wrapped her arms around her and broke into tears. When Maujo came in, he greeted the maulvi with the greatest courtesy and reverence and commanded his wife, ‘Phataan, say salaam to Maulvi Sahib!’
Phataan disengaged herself from her daughter and, wiping her tears, offered salaams to the maulvi. The latter gaped at her with his red fiery eyes and said to Maujo, ‘I’ve just returned after performing a night-long wazifa for you by a grave. God has heard me. Everything will be all right.’
Chaudhry Maujo dropped down to the floor and quickly started pressing the maulvi’s calves. So overwhelmed was he by feelings of deep gratitude and reverence that he couldn’t say anything to the maulvi; instead, he said to his wife tearfully, ‘Come here, Phataan, you thank Maulvi Sahib for I don’t know how to.’
She came and sat next to her husband. All she could say was, ‘We poor folk, how can we ever thank you enough.’
The maulvi looked closely at Phataan. ‘Maujo Chaudhry, he said, ‘you were absolutely right. Your wife is truly beautiful. In spite of her age, she looks young. Exactly like Jaina…even more beautiful. We will put everything right, Phataan, for God is inclined to be merciful and giving.’
Both husband and wife sank into silence. Maujo continued pressing the maulvi’s calves, while Jaina busied herself with getting the fire going in the hearth.
After a while the maulvi rose from the cot, patted Phataan’s head gently and said to Maujo, ‘God commands that if a man wants to remarry the wife he has divorced, he must, in punishment, have her first marry another man and seek divorce from him. Only then is it lawful for her first husband to remarry her.’
‘I’ve heard this before, Maulvi Sahib,’ Maujo said softly.
The maulvi made Maujo get up and placed his hand on his shoulder. ‘I entreated God tearfully not to put your poor soul through such harsh punishment; I said that you erred without meaning to. But God answered, “How long do you expect Us to go on listening to your intercessions? If there is anything you want for yourself, well, We’ll give it to you.” I submitted, “My Lord, Lord of the Sea and the Earth, I don’t ask anything for myself. You’ve already given me everything. But Maujo Chaudhry – he loves his wife dearly…” He proclaimed, “Well then, We want to test his love and your faith. You marry her for a day and hand her over to Maujo the next day after divorcing her. This is the best We can do for you, and that too because for the past forty years you have been unfailing in your devotion to Us.” ’
An overjoyed Maujo cried out, ‘I accept, Maulvi Sahib, I accept.’
He looked at his wife with a twinkle in his eyes and asked, ‘So Phataan, what do you say?’
But without waiting for an answer, he blurted out again, ‘We both accept.’
The maulvi closed his eyes, mumbled something, breathed over the two, and raised his eyes to the sky. ‘God, the Blessed, the Most High, may we triumph over this ordeal with Your help!’ Then he said to the Chaudhry, ‘Well, Maujo, I’m going out now. When I return, I’d like you and Jaina to leave here and spend the night somewhere else. Come back in the morning.’ And he went out.
When he returned in the evening, Jaina and Maujo were ready. He exchanged a few short words with them and started mumbling something. A little later, after a sign from him, father and daughter promptly exited the house.
The maulvi fastened the door latch and said to Phataan, ‘For this one night you’re my wife. Go bring the bedding and spread it out on the cot. We will sleep.’
Phataan did as commanded. The maulvi said, ‘Bibi, you sit here. I’ll be along shortly.’
He then went into the other room. In the light of the earthen oil he spotted his wine pitcher in a corner near the stack of pots and pans. He shook the pitcher. There was some wine left. Still standing, he impatiently gulped a few mouthfuls of the intoxicant directly from the pitcher and used the embroidered saffron-coloured silk sash that was slung across his shoulder to wipe his lips and moustache. Then he closed the door.
He re-emerged after quite some time with the bowl in hand. Phataan was sitting on the cot. He blew into the bowl three times and offered it to her. ‘Come on, drink up!’
Phataan gulped down the liquid and instantly felt queasy. The maulvi tapped on her back a few times and said, ‘There, okay!’
Phataan tried to feel better, and to a degree she did. The maulvi stretched out on the bed.
In the morning, when Maujo and Jaina returned, they found Phataan sleeping alone in the courtyard with no sign of the maulvi anywhere. Maybe he’s gone out for a bit…to the fields, Maujo thought. He tried to wake Phataan. Mumbling some inarticulate sounds, she slowly opened her eyes. Then, in a clear distinct voice, she mumbled, ‘Paradise! Oh, sheer paradise!’ But as soon as she saw Maujo, she sat up in the bed, eyes wide open.
‘Where is Maulvi Sahib?’ Maujo asked.
Phataan, who still hadn’t fully recovered her senses, replied, ‘Maulvi Sahib? What Maulvi Sahib? Oh he, God knows where he’s gone…Isn’t he here?’
‘No,’ Maujo said, ‘Okay, I’ll go out and look for him.’
Just as he was leaving he heard Phataan’s muffled scream. He turned around to look at her. She was pulling out something black from under the pillow. ‘What the hell is this?’ she asked, looking at the object in her hand.
‘Hair,’ Maujo replied.
Phataan quickly threw that tangled clump of hair down on the floor. Maujo picked it up and gave it a close look. ‘It’s a beard and sideburns.’
Jaina, who was standing near them, said, ‘Maulvi Sahib’s beard and sideburns.’
‘Yes, his beard and sideburns,’ affirmed her mother from the bed.
Mau
jo was nonplussed. ‘But where is the Maulvi Sahib himself?’
Suddenly a thought came into his simple, trusting peasant mind. ‘Jaina, Phataan, you don’t understand. He was a godly person, full of saintly graces. He fulfilled what we most yearned for and left us this memento to remember him by.’
He reverently kissed that clump of hair, touched it to his eyes, and, handing it to Jaina, told her, ‘Go, wrap it in a clean piece of cloth and put it in the big chest. God willing, it will bring blessings to our household forever.’
Once Jaina left, he sat down next to his Phataan and told her lovingly, ‘I will learn to say my namaz and always pray for the saintly elder who again brought us together.’
Phataan just sat there in hushed silence.
Translated by Muhammad Umar Memon
The Assignment
BEGINNING with isolated incidents of stabbing, it had now developed into full-scale communal violence, with no holds barred. Even homemade bombs were being used.
The general view in Amritsar was that the riots could not last long. They were seen as no more than a manifestation of temporarily inflamed political passions which were bound to cool down before long. After all, these were not the first communal riots the city had known. There had been so many of them in the past. They never lasted long. The pattern was familiar. Two weeks or so of unrest and then business as usual. On the basis of experience, therefore, the people were quite justified in believing that the current troubles would also run their course in a few days. But this did not happen. They not only continued, but grew in intensity.
Muslims living in Hindu localities began to leave for safer places, and Hindus in Muslim majority areas followed suit. However, everyone saw these adjustments as strictly temporary. The atmosphere would soon be clear of this communal madness, they told themselves.
The Dog of Tithwal Page 19