by Rita Kothari
Fateh turned red at this question, his eyes hardening with anger. A mere Oadh had dared to insult him, although he knew that nobody in the village would give a daughter in marriage outside the caste. The Narejas married Narejas and Kalhoras married Kalhoras.
Enraged, Fateh roared, ‘Watch your tongue, Mukhi. A word more and you …’
An unperturbed mukhi stood smiling, ‘Which code tells you that you can take a woman from another caste, but not give one? I thought your religion is above discrimination and everyone is a Muslim brother.’
‘That’s our ancestral practice,’ Fateh retorted.
A triumphant smile played upon the mukhi’s lips. Abdullah had turned pale, his lips quivered. Tears welled up in Allah knows which corners of his eyes and soaked his eyelashes. Before his tears could break all barriers and turn into a flood, he slipped his hand into the mukhi’s and left—not towards the mosque, but his ancestral dwelling.
The following day, Abdullah paid penalty fees to the panchayat and shaved his beard off. He wore his gold earrings, and in keeping with the Oadh traditions, he had a ritual bath to cleanse himself.
Meanwhile, one of the jamaatis in the village mosque said to the moulvi after the mid-day namaaz, ‘As they say, what does a dog know of wheat roti?’
Another one added, ‘You can decorate asses and make them stand next to horses, but they will remain asses forever.’
Moulvi sahib stroked his beard as he too gave his verdict, ‘Yes, abba, you are right. Once an infidel, always an infidel.’
Khaanwahan
KALA PRAKASH
‘Here, here, the train is moving,’ yelped an excited eight-year-old Harish, thrusting his neck out of the window as the train left Bombay Central. He was almost dancing with joy. Then, pulling his head back in, he asked, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Khaanwahan,’ I said and drew him to myself.
‘No, but Ma says we are going to Admahdbad.’
A smile played on the lips of Ma and Baba. ‘Wretched fellow, even after hearing the word Ahmedabad twenty times, he has still not learnt to pronounce it,’ said Ma with amusement.
But Harish’s innocent face suddenly acquired seriousness, ‘Ma, Kali says we are going to Khaanwahan!’
Pammo held Harish’s hand in his own, ‘We are going to Ahmedabad, but Kali and I have renamed it Khaanwahan. Which name do you prefer?’
‘Khaanwahan,’ he replied with a smile.
‘In that case call it Khaanwahan,’ said Pammo, disentangling his hand.
‘Sure I will,’ replied Harish, a look of peaceful resolution on his face as if he had arrived at a solution to a serious problem.
‘And, after all, it is Khaanwahan,’ said Ma. She continued, ‘All our Khaanwahan relatives are there.’
‘Which is why we too call it Khanwahan,’ I said. I looked at Ma and added, ‘The families of Chachi, Sita, Meera, Girdhari and Sadori, in fact, all of them are there.’ While naming thus the people of the village Khaanwahan, its simple and artless inhabitants came alive on my mindscape.
One of them was an eighty-year-old man, with an untidy black shalwar and red ajrak. His name was Jumman Shaikh. I saw him in my mind’s eye. At the gentle break of dawn, Jumman took us in his bullock-cart from Mehraabpur station to Khaanwahan. Once the cart had covered some distance, Baba asked him, ‘Jumman, are you returning from Khaanwahan this early?’
‘No, beloved friend,’ he had replied, pouring all his love into the words, ‘when I brought passengers here last evening, I just stayed back. Bhai told me you were arriving by the morning train.’
The bullock-cart left the tiny village of Mehraabpur and went through expansive fields. The large fields bore testimony to the large-heartedness of the villagers. They held in their laps tall trees and luxuriant green grass.
Sweet and cool breezes stirred the trees. Melodious bird songs filled one’s heart with pleasure. For some time, we were quiet. We didn’t feel the need to talk. We had covered a tidy distance and just before reaching Khaanwahan, we passed fields swaying and swinging with activity. At some places, the haaris’ children were chasing away birds with catapults. At others, the cultivators had begun their work for the day.
We entered the village intoxicated by the sweetness in the atmosphere. The bullock-cart slowed down and took the turn into the village near the peepul tree There were diyas from the previous evening which had exhausted their light. Women of the village lit them at sundown. After that, the bullock-cart passed the pakora-seller’s shop near the well.
At this point, Pammo tugged at my dupatta and said, ‘Do you remember we used to go to the garden early in the morning?’
My reverie was broken. From the well of Khaanwahan, I returned to the train. ‘Of course, I do,’ I laughed, ‘and how big that garden was! Once we simply could not find the exit, and I was so thirsty.’
‘Then where did we go for water?’ Pammo asked.
‘To Sadori’s house. Her house was close to that garden, that’s why.’
‘How sweet of them! Remember, they gave us butter and lassi? We told them that we only wanted water, but they wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Poor things, they were indeed poor,’ I said.
‘And Kali,’ asked Pammo, ‘do you remember the mangoes, pharwas, and roses?’
‘Of course, of course. We used to fill our laps with roses and make gulkand, the rose-jam.’
The mention of gulkand made everybody laugh. Harish was intrigued, ‘How did you make gulkand?’
Restraining his laughter, Pammo said, ‘You know what we did? We would hide the flowers and take them to the terrace. There used to be a large trunk with utensils in it. We would take a largish bowl from there and put the flowers in it with some sugar and water. Then we would return the bowl with all its contents to the trunk and lock it up. By evening, the whole thing turned into such lovely gulkand, I can’t describe it to you.’
Harish looked pensive. Perhaps he was trying to remember the names of things—lassi, mangoes, butter, pharwas and gulkand.
The train sped further along, while our memories took us backwards. After a moment, I said to my mother, ‘Ma, grandfather must be finding it difficult to live here, no? It’s a small place. He used to live in such a big dharamshala there.’
Baba replied with a yawn, ‘Putta, your grandfather was the headman of the village. That dharamshala belonged to the entire village. They had asked Baba to stay in it so that he could look after the village. It was used for auspicious occasions like weddings, and social events took place there. So people wanted Baba to stay there and guard the place.’
Ma said, ‘Baba was like an emperor there. People played chopad all the time. In the evening they would make bhang and hukka for him. The moment a child visited the dharamshala, whether he knew the child or not, Baba would give a paisa to every one of them. A paisa could go far then …’
‘While distributing money to children,’ said Pammo to Harish, tickling him on his stomach, ‘he would tickle them like this and …’ Harish rolled with laughter.
It was quite late in the night. I looked outside the window. The wind whistled as it pierced through the thick darkness. My face had become damp. I looked inside. The train had become calm, and our eyes were heavy with sleep.
At Ahmedabad station, we looked around for Harbhajan. Pammo was the first to spot him, ‘There he is.’
Harish came and stood by my side, ‘How is he related to us?’
‘He is our cousin,’ I replied.
Harbhajan greeted everyone with warmth. He hugged Baba and said, ‘Finally, you grace this poor person with your presence.’
Baba hugged him back, ‘Please don’t say that.’
I noticed that Baba’s eyes were misty. Ma’s voice was heavy with emotion, ‘The fares were killing, child, what else would hold us back?’
We took our luggage and got into a bus bound for Kubernagar.
‘Harbhajan, tell me, is there a yard in front of the house?’ I asked.
‘You must be joking,’ he laughed.
‘Arre, arre,’ I looked at Pammo, ‘how can there be goats without a courtyard?’
Pammo simply smiled, touched perhaps by the memory of goats in the courtyard. Pammo would drink up the milk fresh from the udder no sooner than Kaka had milked the goats.
We reached home and found grandfather sitting on a stringed cot outside a barrack. He appeared meditative. His eyesight had weakened. The way Baba used to spread his arms out and hug us in Khaanwahan—he could not do that anymore.
Pammo ran to his grandfather and clung to him, ‘Baba.’
God knows what suddenly came over Baba. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and his dry lips broke into a smile. Kissing our foreheads, he said, ‘You have come, my children.’ Although he could not see, he recognized each of us. Harish looked peeved after having met him, ‘He did not give me a paisa nor did he tickle me.’
I looked at Baba’s aging body, and felt overwhelmed. I went inside.
Chachi was soaking clothes. Harbhajan’s wife was dressing her younger son. Everybody was warm and welcoming, but I was not satisfied. I wanted Chachi to smile and show her broken teeth. Harbhajan’s wife should have been humming while making her son wear clothes. Varandi should have been so overjoyed to see us that her dal or rotis cooking on the fire should have got burnt in joyful oblivion. Why had the splendour of Khaanwahan left their lives? I wondered.
We sat talking to each other. Harish found a companion in Harbhajan’s son and they went out to play. Once he had had his fill of wandering about outside, he returned. By then we had finished our meal, but Harish was ravenous. ‘Give me food, give me food,’ he demanded.
‘Share a plate with Pammo,’ Chachi suggested.
Harish threw a tantrum, ‘No, I went to eat on my own in a different plate.’
Chachi took him into her arms, ‘Bless you, my child. Wait for a while if you want to eat on your own. There is no empty plate right now.’
Harish wriggled out of Chachi’s arms and flopped about on the floor, crying. I went up to him to gently bring him around. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘Then why isn’t she giving me food?’ he sulked like a baby.
‘Either you eat with us or wait until we can provide you with a plate,’ I said.
Harish shrugged my hand away, ‘Why doesn’t she take out a plate from the trunk and give it to me?’
‘Which trunk?’ I asked with impatience.
‘The one lying on the terrace.’
Chachi and I laughed. Chachi ran to the neighbour’s and got a plate. She filled it with food and gave it to Harish.
That evening Chachi took us to a couple of houses in the neighbourhood. Sadori, whose place we visited, gave us tea and papads. Harish stole up to me with disappointment writ large on his face and said, ‘You people had butter and lassi, while we must have only tea.’
I immediately shushed him, ‘Enough!’
As soon as he woke up the next morning he requested me, ‘Please take me to the garden.’
‘Which garden?’
‘Where you used to pluck roses from which you made gulkand.’
‘There is no such place here.’
Harish refused to take that for an answer. He jumped off the stringed cot, stamped his feet hard on the ground and began to cry. To pacify him, Chachi gave him an anna, but he threw it away. Baba said to him, ‘Come, I will take you to the bazaar.’ But Harish would not budge, instead he cried with a vengeance. He sobbed and entreated me with a tear-filled voice, ‘Take me to the garden. I will pluck mangoes, pharwa and flowers.’
His wailing exasperated Ma. She slapped him on his head, ‘Silly, this is not Khaanwahan, this is Ahmedabad, you understand? Ahmedabad.’
Life, a Mere Dream
SHEIKH AYAZ
Most of my relatives were associated with the Muslim League, and they had a pejorative name—Muhatma—for Gandhi. In fact, my closest friend Wajid Ali Shaikh was the president of the Muslim League in Shikarpur and he played a leading role in the incident of Masjid Manzilgah. Had Masjid Manzilgah not taken place, Allah Bux Soomro would not have lost his life. Had Allah Bux Soomro not been assassinated, the Sindh Assembly would not have supported the Pakistan resolution. Once Pakistan came into existence, the Muslim Leaguers of Shikarpur who had played a role in its formation, began to rule Shikarpur as if it was their own fiefdom.
In those days I was a law student and I was in Shikarpur to quietly prepare for my final examinations. (The story as to why I did not appear for the examinations on schedule and chose instead to take the supplementary examination is not relevant here, although I shall narrate it elsewhere.) I had learnt to wrestle very well from my days in Karachi, especially at the akhada near Metharam hostel. Every single day, I would do my exercises there, and go to the ghats of the Neti-Cheti temple for a swim. (I remember reading Savarkar’s autobiography, especially the part where he mentions how, when the English held him captive and were transporting him by ship, he had jumped into the Suez Canal and swum his way to Cairo. From Cairo, he had gone to Paris where he wrote his revolutionary book about the revolt of 1857.) I had exercised so intensively and regularly that my body was as malleable as dough and I could slip through window grills.
The Hindu migration from Shikarpur began much before March 1947. Thousands of Shikarpuri Hindus had abandoned their homes, trusting the safety of their belongings to mere locks. They left in the hope that the riots would eventually be over, peace would prevail and they would be able to return home. Colonies upon colonies in Shikarpur suddenly vanished in the exodus. Our neighbourhood was flanked on one side by the area of Nebhanpur where the Shaikhs and Bhutoos lived. Next to Nebhanpur was Shahibaug. On the other side of our neighbourhood was the dargah of Pir Salam Shah and next to it lived the weavers and carpenters. On the remaining two sides were the homes and havelis of the Hindus, except for a few houses belonging to the Shaikhs.
Subsequent to the migration, a couple of my relatives began to steal. Around midnight they would break open the locks on the houses of the Hindus and walk away with everything they could.
Once while they were discussing their various exploits in my presence, I said, ‘You people are educated. What will you do if you get caught someday?’
One of them answered, ‘Not possible! We can’t get caught. You see we go in the dead of night when it’s completely dark and deserted. We take a damp towel, cover the lock with it and hammer away. We manage to break it open noiselessly. Then we quietly pick up things and bring them home.’
I thought for a bit and then said, ‘I’ll also come with you tonight.’
In the eerie quiet of the night, four of us headed out of our homes. We went to the neighbourhood behind us and stood facing a mansion owned by a renowned Hindu seth. There was an iron lock on the main entrance. One of my relatives covered it with a dripping rag and brought down the hammer hard some five or six times. Soundlessly the lock came unfastened. We walked into the house. There was a sitting room, divan and three bedrooms. Of these, two were locked from the outside, while one was closed from the inside. But one of the windows to the room was open. My relative wanted to break the locks first, but I restrained him. ‘I will go inside and undo the latch.’
I put both my hands through the iron grill and pulled myself up. I slithered though the window like a snake and jumped into the room. I lit a matchstick and flicked a switch on. It seemed as if the occupants had closed the room some days ago and gone out. Clothes and towels lay neatly folded in the almirah. Next to it were some iron trunks which had locks on them. Beside them on the floor lay a cotton doll which had a plait and little breasts made of cloth. The doll was naked. I couldn’t tell whether the doll was Hindu or Muslim. I held the doll in my hands and stood gazing at it. I tried to imagine its little owner who must have crossed Khokhrapar and gone over to Bombay or Banaras or Calcutta, empty handed. I continued to gaze at it for a long stretch, and in the meantime my relatives got tired of waiting for me. They calle
d out my name several times, but when I didn’t respond, they finally began to strike at the lock. They continue to strike … to strike … to strike …
Excerpted from Sheikh Ayaz’s autobiography, Life, a Mere Dream
Lost Nations
GULZAR AHMED
My friend Abu-al-Hussain had returned from a trip to Hong Kong. I recently bumped into him at a restaurant. While narrating his experiences, he related the following incident.
Once, as I was wandering aimlessly through the streets, I walked into a shop. It was very posh, with beautifully displayed foreign goods. A young Chinese woman welcomed me, and took me on a tour of the entire shop. She spoke in English, and showed me different objects. Meanwhile, a pleasant young man addressed me. Perhaps, he had guessed from my face or clothes that I would know Urdu, because his first question was, ‘Aap kahaan se aaye ho?’
Happily, I told him that I was from Karachi. His face lit up on hearing my answer. He seemed overwhelmed by emotion. He immediately held me by my hand and dragged me to a room situated in a corner of the shop. A middle-aged man sat there, busy working on something. The moment he spotted us, he put his pen down and welcomed us with a quiet smile, although he didn’t know anything yet.
The young man who brought me into this room told the middle-aged man something about me. Their confabulation was in Sindhi. On hearing the young man’s words, he almost leaped out of his skin and gave me a tight hug. I wondered if my ribs had cracked.
Holding both my hands in his and shaking them, he asked me in Sindhi, ‘Are you from Karachi?’
‘Jee haan.’ When he heard my affirmative response, he smiled and spoke in Urdu. Despite my entreaties, they plied me with things to eat. Every now and then, they kept asking me questions about Sindh. I felt very sorry that I was unable to provide all the information they needed about Sindh. What could I have told them about Hyderabad, Larkano, Shikarpur and Sukker! I felt a trifle embarrassed at some moments.