by Pran Kishore
Narayan Joo sank in the sofa hearing the news. He said to Vijay Kumar, ‘So he left with the unfulfilled desire of meeting his father.’
‘No, Daddy, Dilip told me that Haji Sahib was with Qadir in his last moments. Zeb Bhabhi was also with him. The two were followed by Bilal Ahmed. Dilip told me that Ghulam Qadir breathed his last in his father’s arms.’
Narayan Joo turned to the wall where a photograph of the sacred site of Tulmul was hanging. ‘Oh Mother! I lay down my life at your feet. You ultimately showed the right path to that stubborn brother of mine. Qadir’s departed soul would otherwise haunt him always.’ Then he turned to his son and said, ‘Start the car. The driver is not expected here before nine.’
The news of Ghulam Qadir’s passing spread throughout Malla Khaliq’s fraternity and throughout Dalgate. A caravan of shikaarahs and canoes left for houseboat Glacier.
Malla Khaliq received all the mourners and did not break down even when Narayan Joo, Vijay Kumar, Parveen and Abdul Razaq arrived.
All of them wept but Malla Khaliq sat aside like a lump of clay. Reeny remained confined to her room. She sat still with her eyes shut. Zeb too sat silently near Mukhta. The time for the burial was running out, yet no one dared ask Malla Khaliq where to perform the rites.
Noor Mohammad said to him, ‘From where should they carry the body away, Abba?’ He cast a listless glance at him. ‘While he lived, he did not enter his house. Should you carry him home now that he is dead?’
Ghulam Qadir had expressed his last wish to Noor Mohammad that his body should be interred near the foot of his mother’s grave.
Abdul Jabbar, the owner of houseboat Glacier, was standing beside Noor Mohamamd. He said to him, ‘You need not worry. This too was his house. All the rites shall be performed here.’
Bilal Ahmed, who chanced to hear Abdul Jabbar, was about to express his resentment, but Malla Khaliq stopped him with a gesture of his hand. Vijay Kumar took him aside and said, ‘Since Sulaiman and his mother are also here, it is perhaps for them that Haji Sahib has taken this decision.’
Narayan Joo sat beside Malla Khaliq. He was at a loss as to how he could revive his friend from his state of numbness.
By afternoon all the arrangements had been made. The sky was overcast with dark clouds when Qadir’s body was placed in a big boat. A procession of boats followed it. All the mourners were reciting ‘laa illaha illalah’ in unison. Ghulam Qadir’s last journey ended in the waters of the Dal where he had opened his eyes for the first time. He was placed for his final rest in the foothills of the Shankaracharya mountain where his mother was buried.
All the women remained at the ghat until the funeral procession was out of sight. Ghulam Ahmed had stayed back to look after the family. He made arrangements for sending the women back to the houseboats. When everybody had left, Reeny sat all alone. Abdul Jabbar’s wife and his daughter-in-law went to her. The daughter-in-law said to comfort Reeny, ‘We can feel your pain, Madam. Please don’t think that you are alone. We are here to share in your grief.’ Reeny thanked her. ‘You took care of all of us throughout this period of suffering. Even my own people would not have been able to help us as you did. Never in my life shall I forget your kindness.’
‘No, Madam, we did not do a favour to you. Allah had assigned this task to us and we were honoured to fulfil it.’
‘Which direction is the graveyard where they carried the body to?’
‘It lies there behind that mountain. Qadir Sahib’s mother is also buried there. It is there, where you can see the crowd gathered.’ Reeny got up, went into the houseboat, and climbed the stairs to the deck from where she could see the funeral procession. The sun came out from behind the clouds; it had already touched the summits of the Apharwat mountain. The light started gradually diminishing at the foothills and the people gathered there also grew invisible. Reeny closed her eyes. She felt like she was drowning in an endless ocean of darkness.
Next day in the evening, Noor Mohammad and Mukhta found Zeb sitting at the window from which she could see Kotar Khana. On noticing them, she moved away and sat in a corner with her head bent. She felt nervous as if she had been caught doing something wrong. Noor Mohammad took out the letter which Ghulam Qadir had entrusted to him for her. Holding out the unopened envelope to her, he said, ‘My dear sister, I kept this envelope safe with me for the last few days. Ghulam Qadir had asked me to give this to you after his passing. What he has written is between you and him. We are here only to entreat you to forgive him now. Whatever had to happen has already happened. Please ask Bilal also to forgive him. Only then can his soul find eternal rest.’
‘I forgave him long ago. If I had not forgiven him, why would I go in the dead of the night with Abba to see him? As far as Bilal is concerned, give him some time. He too will forgive him. Time will heal his wounds. He was his father after all.’
Zeb opened the envelope. Her hands quivered. She felt like Ghulam Qadir was speaking to her. ‘I have lost the right to address you by the name I used to call you in those sweet days of my youth which I have lost because of my own foolishness. I once came to take you away with me with the confidence in the old, pure love which I had for you. I had come to tell you the events in my life that led me to another woman, and was sure that you would pardon me. Had I been a little honest and courageous when I had my chance perhaps I wouldn’t have lost you. But no one can defeat his destiny. Whatever had to happen has happened. I attained all that I had once hankered for. I spread my wings to reach the sun; not knowing that the wings that supported me were as fragile as wax. The wings melted and I fell into an endless abyss. Then an angel appeared in the form of Vijay Kumar who rescued me. Then I washed away all my sins, and embarked on the path of truth to make something of myself. I have written to Abba telling him all that happened after that. It is likely that one day he might ask you to read that letter. If you happen to read it, I am sure you will forgive my sins. Now all is finished. This is the end of my trial. God bestows His revelation upon me, leaving no space for lies. I beseech you to believe that I never stopped loving you and Bilal even for a second. If you two forgive me, Allah might absolve me. Yours, Qadir.’
Every word struck Zeb’s heart like a spear. She wept for a long time.
The letter was still in her hands when Bilal entered the room. ‘Why are you still sitting here? Are you all right?’
Without replying or even lifting her head, she held out the letter to him. Bilal took the letter and asked, ‘Who gave it to you?’
‘Your uncle gave it to me. Your father had entrusted this letter to him.’
Bilal went through the letter and then sat with his back against the wall. He closed his eyes. She warily said to him, ‘Why are you silent, my son?’
‘So he had written a letter to Abba as well?’
‘Did he not tell you?’
‘Yes, he let me read it.’
‘What did it say?’
Bilal got up, but before leaving, said to his mother, ‘Don’t get sucked into this quagmire. Leave everything be as it is. There is nothing to gain from it.’
Zeb folded the letter carefully, got up and kept it in her trunk.
Three days had passed since Ghulam Qadir’s funeral, but Malla Khaliq was still numb. He moved about like a robot. After reading Ghulam Qadir’s letter, he started holding himself responsible for the tragedy. In his sorrow, he had given the letter to Bilal, but then he repented for the mistake. Since that moment he perceived Bilal distancing himself from him. Bilal was his life and soul. He thought if Bilal turned his back on him, he would be left all alone. Malla Khaliq shrank into himself more and more every passing day.
One day, he took his boat out. Bilal rushed to him and said, ‘Abba, where do you intend to go to all alone?’
‘My son, I just want to exercise my benumbed arms by rowing the boat. I will be back soon.’ Having said this, he steered the boat towards the Boulevard. Bilal called out to send Subhan after him, but Doctor Nisar stopped him saying
, ‘Let him have some time by himself on the lake. The lake may revive and heal him.’
In the meantime, Narayan Joo’s boat came from the direction of Dalgate. When Bilal saw it, he said to Nisar Ahmed, ‘Doctor Sahib! Isn’t that Lala Sahib coming this way?’
‘Yes it is!’
‘Abba has moved away from him as well and yet Lala Sahib does not complain.’
‘He is more than a brother to him. He is more worried about Abba’s health than we are.’
Narayan Joo’s boat touched the ghat. Bilal and Nisar went to receive him. Both held his hands and pulled him ashore. Noor Mohammad also saw him coming up to the isle, and went to greet him. He said to Bilal, ‘Go and tell Abba that Lala Sahib has come. Lala Sahib, he does not come out of his room at all any more. He might come out from the confinement for you.’
‘Abba has taken out his shikaarah towards the Dal,’ Bilal said to him.
‘And you let him go all alone?’
Doctor Nisar allayed his fears. ‘It was I who told Bilal not to follow him. I am sure the lake will relieve him of his grief.’
‘Doctor Sahib is right, let us sit inside and wait for him.’
Malla Khaliq stopped his boat at the ghat of the Boulevard from where his ancestral graveyard was a stone’s throw away. He trudged uphill where his beloved Azi and his youngest son lay in their graves. He had a small bag in his hand. He stopped in the graveyard to catch his breath. After a while he spotted a tall boy dressed in black near Ghulam Qadir’s grave, instructing people to erect a gravestone on the grave. It was Sulaiman. The mason and his helper stood aside when Malla Khaliq reached the grave. Reeny was sitting near the grave, a black headscarf obscuring her face. She hurriedly stood up and bowed to Malla Khaliq. Sulaiman also paid his salaam. He was at a loss about how to behave with them in such a situation. Malla Khaliq nodded and then turned to the mason, ‘Why did you stop? Finish your task.’
The mason stammered to say, ‘I had insisted that I first seek Haji Sahib’s permission, and then start the work, but—’
Malla Khaliq held his anger in. He interrupted the mason, ‘I am telling you to finish the job assigned to you.’
The mason raised the gravestone. After finishing, he gathered his tools. Malla Khaliq said to him, ‘You may leave now. God bless you. Come to me to collect your money. Don’t take any money from them.’
The mason and his assistant left as quickly as they could.
Malla Khaliq opened his bag and took out the bulbs of iris from it. He beckoned Sulaiman to come nearer. Sulaiman warily went near him and said in Kashmiri, ‘Farmeeviv haz! ’ to indicate that he was listening.
Malla Khaliq said, ‘I have got some blue iris. Please plant them all around the grave.’
The soil around the grave was still loose. Sulaiman took the bulbs and planted them close to one another. Reeny was standing behind a tree, looking at the grave. Malla Khaliq stood up, took the bucket of water left by the mason, and started sprinkling water on the soil. Sulaiman took the bucket from his hand and watered the iris bulbs. Having finished, he kept the bucket aside. But Malla Khaliq said to him, ‘You too sprinkle some water over those flowers that are growing on your grandmother’s grave.’
He watered the plants around Aziz Dyad’s grave as well. Malla Khaliq then said to him, ‘I want to spend some time alone over here, so you can leave.’
Reeny somehow gathered courage and went closer to Ghulam Qadir’s grave and Malla Khaliq, but he said to her, ‘Please go, please!’
Sulaiman, holding his mother’s hand, led her down the slope towards the road.
Malla Khaliq squatted near his son’s grave. In utter despair, he said, ‘So you did not even give us the trouble of raising your gravestone! All right, let it be so.’ Casting a doleful glance at his wife’s grave, he grumbled, ‘Do you see, Azi, what a fire your darling son has left smouldering in my heart?’
Then he softly chanted the holy verses for the peace of the two departed souls.
Narayan Joo and others were assembled in the drawing room of Gulfam. They discussed the issue which Vijay Kumar had raised when they were at houseboat Glacier. Noor Mohammad said to Narayan Joo, ‘Please break your silence. Tell us if it is wise to allow Ghulam Qadir’s second wife and son to come here and meet us, particularly Zeb.’
‘What is the point in her coming here?’ Ghulam Ahmed said. ‘What lies here for her? Why should she come to make our wounds ache afresh?’
Doctor Nisar, who had observed how earnest and harmless at heart Reeny was, could not desist from saying, ‘Ama Chacha! Such bitterness does not become you. You yourself have seen in Goa what a graceful and humble woman she is. In my opinion she should come for a while to see us here before she leaves for Goa. What do you think, Bilal?’
‘What can I say? All depends on Abba’s decision.’
All of a sudden it occurred to Narayan Joo that Malla Khaliq had been out for quite a long time. ‘We were so absorbed in our discussion that we did not notice that Haji Sahib has been out for many hours.’
Bilal stood up abruptly. ‘I will go and find out where he is.’ Mukhtar Ahmed also got up. The two called Subhan to get the boat. They left in search of their grandfather. After asking around from a lot of people, they reached the graveyard. They found Malla Khaliq sweeping the dry autumnal leaves strewn around the two graves with a broom he had fashioned from buck-wheat. They went running to him and took away the broom from his hands. ‘What is all this, Abba? When did you get this gravestone erected? We had planned to get a gravestone from Athwajan in a load-carrier. How did you get it here?’ Bilal asked him. Malla Khaliq was silent.
‘Why don’t you say anything?’ Mukhtar Ahmed was getting impatient. Malla Khaliq sat down and looked at Qadir’s grave. ‘He was split into two halves. The other half also had a little right over him. I got angry when I saw him erecting this gravestone, but some unseen force stopped me and I did not stop him. This was perhaps ordained by the Almighty.’
Bilal went silent. For the first time since his father’s death, his eyes watered. He calmly said to his grandfather, ‘What shall we do with the gravestone that we ordered?’
‘Keep it reserved for me,’ said Malla Khaliq with a smile. Then he looked at his wife’s grave again. Affectionately touching the soil there, he said in a voice choking with emotion, ‘I request you to inter me here—’
‘Don’t talk like that, Abba. Now please come with us; it’s getting hot.’
Even after requesting him to get up, neither Bilal nor Mukhtar stood up. Bilal thought that his grandfather, who was looked up to in his fraternity for his strength of character, his larger-than-life presence, who could single-handedly take even the largest barge out of tempestuous tides, who was such an experienced boatman that he made other boatmen feel shy to handle their oars, seemed now like a ripe pear precariously perched on a branch, and could fall down any time. Malla Khaliq looked at Bilal. ‘My dear, I know what you are thinking. You are hoping your grandfather will be around forever, holding your hand. But has any mortal lived thus? Only the name of the Almighty has such powers. The boatman who spends his life toiling in the Dal Lake will one day have to lay his oar down and make way for other boatmen to take his place. Thus Malla Khaliq too shall depart one day and you shall wield the oars. This is an undeniable truth. Now get up, hold my hand for your Abba is tired.’
Bilal held his left hand and Mukhtar his right and Malla Khaliq stood up. He released their hands and stretched. He looked at Bilal and said, ‘Thank you! See, just by sharing a few words with you, the hunch in my back has straightened! You alone are my strength.’
Then he turned to the grave of Ghulam Qadir and said to himself, but loud enough for Bilal to hear, ‘He laid down his life to end all animosity.’
Having said this, he strode fast down the slope towards the road.
When Bilal and Mukhtar did not return quickly, the family grew anxious and went out to the isle. Doctor Nisar and Abdul Razaq called out to the boat that passed t
he ghat, but Doctor Nisar said to his father, ‘You stay here, we will go and get them back.’ Just then Ghulam Ahmed said, ‘There they are; both the boats are returning.’
Malla Khaliq was the first to climb up the steps. His eyes were fixed on Narayan Joo who stood in a corner, looking down. Malla Khaliq said to him with affection, ‘Why is our Panditji standing aloof ? Now please forgive this brother of yours.’
Narayan Joo looked at him; his eyes were brimming with tears. Malla Khaliq hugged him. ‘Throughout this storm that overtook our lives, you have proved to be as pure as gold tested in fire. But I failed you. Forgive me. For all that you and your family did for him, I will always—’
Narayan Joo interrupted him, saying, ‘No more of these formalities. Let us go in because an important decision is awaiting your consent.’
‘Bilal Ahmed has already told me. There is nothing to wait for. The bereaved woman wants to see us before going back, so let her come. She is not going to live with us permanently, after all.’
When the days of mourning were over, Vijay Kumar and his son led Reeny and her son Sulaiman to Malla Khaliq’s house. Narayan Joo introduced all of them one by one to Reeny and Sulaiman. Reeny, still clad in black, met them, her eyes brimming over with tears. Sulaiman said, ‘No, no, Mummy! You promised not to cry.’
‘I’m sorry, my son. You see what it has taken for me to meet them for the first time.’
Mukhta, Zoon, Parveen and Zeb silently shed tears. Then Malla Khaliq entered the room followed by Bilal and Ghulam Ahmed. Reeny pulled her headscarf down on her forehead and stood up to say salaam to her father-in-law. Malla Khaliq responded to her salaam and said, ‘Please be seated.’
He too sat down. Reeny was about to say something, but Malla Khaliq said to her, ‘My son told me everything about you and himself in his letter. We therefore understand your predicament, and bear no grudge against you. Even if we had had any grudge, it is meaningless now.’