The Death of Sheherzad
INTIZAR HUSAIN
Translated from the Urdu by
RAKHSHANDA JALIL
NEW YORK • LONDON • TORONTO • SYDNEY • NEW DELHI • AUCKLAND
To Najmi
Contents
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Circle
Sleep
Captive
Those Who Are Lost
The Wall
Reserved Seat
Clouds
Needlessly
The Sage and the Butcher
Noise
Between Me and the Story
The Death of Sheherzad
Dream and Reality
The Story about the Monkeys of the Big Forest
The Last Man
PS
About the Author and Translator
Copyright
Circle1
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It is as though someone is urging me to rake the ashes. Compelled, I sit down to sift the fifty-year-old ashes. What is left to explore? But I have the bad habit of scouring the past. Some dusty alleys, some half-grimy faces, some voices, a mildewed parapet, a tumbled-down turret, a few trees, birds – that’s all that appears in my mind’s eye. Gradually, a tableau unfolds: a shop front, some people sitting and chatting on the shop’s stoop, the shopowner standing behind a huge cauldron of milk, stirring its boiling contents with a ladle. The scene is straight out of my very first story. It comes back to me now with the realization that something is lacking here. In fact, this isn’t the story I had wanted to write. Most important of all, the main character is missing from this story. Qayyuma was not the central figure of this story.
It was someone else. I don’t know how I could have forgotten that while writing my story. I remember it now, fifty years later. I can clearly remember that whole set of characters and that group of people sitting and chatting at the shop front. Those days my mind had become so hazy. It is only now, after so many years, that my memory has become nimble again. Now, those pictures are emerging clearly before my eyes.
Should I rewrite the story I had written fifty years ago? I remember something that Karn had said. In the forests of Khando, Arjun had slain the serpent that was Ashwasen’s mother. When Karn aimed his arrow at Arjun, Ashwasen thought it was a good opportunity to avenge his mother’s death. He slithered up from the bowels of the earth and wrapped himself around Karn’s arrow. But by a single stroke, Lord Krishan caused Karn’s chariot to get stuck in the mud at that very moment, and Karn’s arrow went to naught. The serpent, Ashwasen, beseeched Karn to let him entwine himself once again around his arrow and shoot Arjun once more. But Karn said he did not believe in re-using an arrow that had once left his bow. If the arrow was wasted, so be it; that was its destiny. I am lost in thought … should I attempt to rewrite the story that has been squandered already? After much dilly-dallying, I make up my mind. Karn’s words went away with him. I must attempt to write that story once again.
No, now this story has gotten away from you. Now someone else will write it.
I hear these words and am confounded. Where did these words come from? Who said them? Did they come from within the story or from one of its dramatis personae? Well, never mind. Someone else can also write this story. But it must be written once again. Who will write it? Anybody else can do the job. I wasn’t the only one who was present at the time. There were scores of others. Though everyone else had left at some point or the other, save for that one person. So, who will be the ‘other’? I am the only ‘other’. Now, I shall write this story. Yes, I. Even though I am one of those who left; all the others have made new homes in new lands. I was the only one who never found peace and tranquility. Sometimes I am seized by doubt. Have I left that place or not? It seems as though that other person has got left behind, and the rest have all come here. And I, I am neither here nor there. Like a restless spirit. Anyhow, I am not about to tell my story here. I have to tell the story of the person who is the central character of that story.
Before I begin my story, I must first outline the map of that town for you. But before I explain that to you, you too must understand that towns are not just about geography; neither are they just a cluster of dwellings rooted in solid earth. A part of them is on the ground, the rest inside one’s mind and soul. And that is why there is no point in giving the geographical name of that town. Of course, you can see the town as it stands with your eyes, but there is far more to it than that which meets the eye. I have seen the town in so many guises that I have started calling it Guisetown.2 And what a town it was! I mean, on the surface it was like any other town, colourless and drab, as is the destiny of all small towns. There used to be such a crowd in the grocer’s market. The air would be heavy with the pungent smell of asafoetida. Sacks of asafoetida, turmeric, chilly and salt would be piled inside the shops. You could find everything there. When pulao or qorma had to be cooked at home for special guests, I would buy cardamom, mace, nutmeg and saffron wrapped in scraps of paper from this very market. But the big market would be even more crowded, what with bales of cotton stacked in piles and carts laden with grain and slabs of raw jaggery jostling for space. And such a crowd of buyers that God save you from that crush of people! It wasn’t so much the buyers as the slabs of jaggery that took up all the space. And among them were sparrows and pigeons, also a few partridges. If you wanted to see a bigger crowd, you could go to the open-air market beside the pond. The place was so full of dirt that by evening a film of dust coated the radishes, turnips, cauliflowers, cabbages, pumpkins, spinach, potatoes and an assortment of greens and vegetables.
The pond would be full of water only during the monsoon. What a large and deep pond that was, with steps on all sides. It looked like a large overflowing sea. In the monsoons, its water became green. In the summer, its water sank to the lowest step, and clouds of dust billowed all around it as the water completely disappeared. In its dry days, the pond was distinguished by the two bulls that were usually found standing inside it. One was a dirty white, the other black. They stood in splendid silence: one on the right edge of the pond, the other on the far left. The dirty white bull was more fretful; he would begin to snort and paw for no reason. Sometimes he would rush towards the big market, snorting and hissing. He had such an awesome presence, the crowd would part, like a layer of algae on the surface of a pond, and he would rush through with complete disregard. Sometimes the black bull too would get restless. He would get out of the pond with measured, imperious steps and walk, snorting and bellowing all the way, towards the grocer’s market, and then towards the open market and the gaggle of small shops.
Talking about the cluster of shops reminds me that once the two bulls had come face to face with each other here. It had seemed like the end of the world. There they stood, with their horns locked in mortal combat. How far the white bull had pushed the black one! But when the black bull pushed back, all the sweet-laden trays at Mitthan Lal’s halwai shop were overturned. So you can imagine.
Mitthan Lal was one of a kind. His gujiya was so fantastic that peda-makers from Mathura and Badayun would come to kiss his hands. How grand his shop looked on the eve of Diwali. Trays laden with sweets rose in tiers from the floor to the ceiling. You could find just about every type of sweet here – from gujiya to tangani.
And what could you find at Qayyuma’s shop? Only pedas. And those too were no match for Mitthan Lal’s pede and gujiya. Anyway, this was not a marketplace. This was the only shop in front of Hafiz-ji’s chaupal. So there was never any hustle-bustle here. Though, every six months or so, or on special occasions, you could hear the cry ‘Ram naam satya hai, Ram naam satya hai’. And a dead body would be rushed by on its funeral pyre. Following close behind would be
a group of Hindu mourners, clutching the firewood for the pyre and chanting their prayers for the dead. This was a Muslim neighbourhood, but still nothing much could be done since the way to the cremation ground went through this mohalla. No other Hindu procession or party ever came this way. Hindu marriage parties, which were led by horses festooned with kite-paper and tinsel streamers, would come right up till the edge of the lane, then turn left towards the Red Temple Lane. The wedding procession of Ramchandarji would also duck into this lane. All those who sat on Qayyuma’s shop front had to get up and come to the edge of the lane to watch the elephant with the red and yellow checks painted on its forehead carrying the howdah in which Raja Ramchandar-ji, the groom, and Sita-ji, his bride, sat dressed in their wedding finery. All those who wanted to play Holi also took the same route.
The largest of all Hindu parades and pageants was Ramchandar-ji’s wedding procession. Only one other procession had been bigger than that. That had been when Master Piyare Lal had courted arrest. There had been such a crowd here, and such an angry one at that, that had they stormed the police station they would have torn the policemen from limb to limb. The police, too, had their guns trained. Master Piyare Lal had paused before entering the police station and addressed the crowd. ‘Friends, don’t forget the words of Mahatma Gandhi. We don’t talk about an armed revolution; we only advocate non-violence. This is what Gandhi-ji has taught us. This is our belief and therein lies the key to the success and happiness of our people. Mahatma Gandhi ki …’ And the crowd roared ‘Jai!’ The air was rent with jubilant cries of ‘Inquilab Zindabad!’ and ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai!’ Master Piyare Lal folded his hands and said ‘Namaste’ to the crowd and entered the police station. The massive iron-barred gate clanged shut behind him. After the historic battle of the bulls, this was the second major event in the lives of those who lived here.
Only one procession went past Qayyuma’s shop. And it wasn’t a particularly large one either. It was the procession of the saint Shah Madaar’s rods. They weren’t exactly rods. There would be just one long staff-like thing, as long as the tallest alam. It would be carried to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals. A dervish-looking person would walk alongside, wearing green robes. He had long, unkempt hair and wore a yellow and red string around his neck. He was the keeper of Shah Madaar’s shrine. He would plant the staff in front of Uncle Farooq’s gate. The drums and cymbals would begin to beat furiously. And some kind soul would come and start distributing malida.
There, I nearly forgot to tell you about the big procession. The zuljinah procession took the same route too. After all, the way to the Karbala also went through here. If you went straight ahead, you reached the ruined Chamunda. If you turned left and walked up a little, you could see the moss-covered spires of Karbala. But let me not talk about Karbala now. If I go that way again, I will never return. But there is no harm in going towards the Chamunda. I used to roam around a lot near its ruined ramparts. I have kicked dust from here till the little bridge on many a scorching afternoon. Drained by the heat and unable to take another step, I would often go and sit on the roof of the Chamunda temple where an ancient peepal tree gave respite from the relentless sun. This was the only sheltering tree for miles around. Not a single banyan, mango or tamarind tree grew in this wilderness. The ruins of Chamunda further added to its desolation. It must have been a large temple a long time ago, but time had not been kind to it. A few broken-down, moss-encrusted walls and a roof were all that remained. Under the roof was an idol that, as far as I could remember, had not seen any fresh offerings of flowers. Behind it stretched the eerie stillness of the cremation ground. One never knew when a corpse was brought here or when it was burnt. At least on those blistering afternoons, one never saw another human being around. Though, if you sat under the shade of the peepal tree on the roof of the Chamunda, you could see a few ploughmen in the distance, digging at the base of the yellow dunes and loading the dun-coloured earth onto donkeys. From this vantage point, that scene looked like it belonged to some other world. You never ever saw another human face near the ruined temple. There would be just us and a few monkeys dangling from the branches of the peepal tree. But we were never scared. It was only at night, when we heard the call of the jackals coming from the direction of the Chamunda, that we were frightened. In the silence of the night, their howling could make my heart thud with terror as I lay in bed. Listening to those calls, I used to imagine that all the jackals from the neighbouring jungles had gathered atop the Chamunda and were baying with their snouts turned towards our homes.
It was only once that I had felt scared during the day. But I wasn’t the only one. There were a whole lot of us. On a blistering hot afternoon, we had come out of the Chamunda and were shuffling along the dirt track when Shaddu suddenly spoke up in a wonderstruck voice: ‘A woman!’
‘A woman,’ we stopped in our tracks and chorused, ‘where?’
‘There she goes.’
A little further ahead, a woman was walking beside the dirt track. She was wearing a pale red ghagra, a matching blouse, and had a ring in her nose and large hoops in her ears.
‘You twits, that isn’t a woman.’
‘Then who is she?’
‘Look at her feet; you will know for yourself.’
And when we turned to look, she was gone.
‘But where did she go?’
At that very moment, a kite soaring in the sky let out a raucous caw. It was a strange keening sound; it seemed to scratch the air around us.
‘Run.’
And we ran from there. The kite’s screech followed us for a long while. Why am I narrating this in the past tense? That scene is frozen in time. I had gone down that track just a few days go. After all, how long has it been since I saw my last dream? In my dream, I had seen everything just as it used to be. If anything, it looked brighter. Or at least, so it seemed to me. It is only now, much later, that I am able to look at that scene in minute detail. I do believe that things reveal their true self only in dreams. Walls and niches, streets and alleys, plants and trees, the earth and the sky – it is only after we stop seeing them with our eyes that we truly begin to see them, when they start coming in our dreams and calling out to us. First in the first dream, then in the second, then the third and so on. It is after so many dreams that my town has come completely alive before my eyes, and I am now able to see it fully.
See it fully … I said that wrong. I have still not seen it fully. For, you see, I have still not been to Karbala. How I love going in that direction! Just as I approach it, God knows what happens, I wake up. The map of my town is incomplete if it does not include Karbala. That used to be the high point of our town. You could say you have mapped the town fully only after you have been to Karbala. It is always the last stop on my journey of enchantment. On those long, silent afternoons which never seemed to end, we would trudge through the dusty alleys of our neighbourhood, walk from the Chamunda right up till the little bridge, and then as we turned to trace our steps back, one or the other of us would pipe up, ‘Yaar, shall we go to Karbala?’ And it was as though we had spoken up in unison, from deep within our hearts. And our feet would immediately turn in that direction. From the Chamunda, we would go past the old fort. And as we rounded the mound near the old fort, we would come upon the fields belonging to Sheikh Maddu where a Persian wheel would be slowly spinning. Just a little further grows a red tamarind tree and beyond that lies Babwa the wrestler’s wrestling pit. After Babwa’s wrestling pit, there is a tangle of berry bushes, then the white man’s grave, and then the orchard belonging to the Sambhali family. And just as you cross the orchard, there … there lies Karbala. A high wall runs all around it. And enclosed within are the deserted grounds of Karbala. In one corner are two deep pits. The taazias belonging to the Shias are buried in one pit, in the other those belonging to the Sunnis. And the doorway … how tall and grand it looks. An iron-barred gate, and on either side, two massive pillars and, sitting atop the pillars, two spires whi
ch have become black under the onslaught of sun and wind, and begun to look as though they are made of iron and have rusted over. The gate was opened only during Muharram; for the rest of the year, a massive lock dangled from it. When we used to peer through its barred gate at that sun-scorched barren wilderness, it truly looked like the desolate battleground of Karbala. And the searing loo that blasted us like a furnace seemed to come straight from the real Karbala.
On this side of the gate, next to the platform, stood Bholu’s hut, and inside its unpaved courtyard a pitcher of water under a kaithu tree. We would take the water from a coconut shell tied to its mouth with a bit of twine, pour it into our mouths from a distance and, with our thirst slaked, sit down on the platform beside Bholu’s hut. An exceptionally dense and old peepal tree grew in the middle of the platform, and so you could always find shade under it. The other trees, such as tamarind, grew along the left side of the Karbala wall. Those trees too were tall and dense. The tamarind fell from them in such abundance that you could never pick up all the fallen fruit. You could pick tamarind all the way from the Karbala wall until the elephant’s grave. There was only one blood-red tamarind tree – the one that grew right beside the elephant’s grave. If you bit into it, you could actually feel your mouth go red with its crimson juice.
Didn’t I tell you – once I venture towards Karbala, I can never return. The place is such. But I can say no more about it, because I have not seen it for the past fifty years. I have never been able to reach it. The furthest I am able to go is till Babwa’s wrestling pit. Even that makes me happy; my Karbala lies just beyond. All I need to do is enter the Sambhali’s orchard, come out at the other end and I would have reached Karbala. But at that very moment, sleep deserts me and I wake up. Though, on one occasion, I even made it till Sambhali’s grove. How fragrant was the grave of Sheikh Madad Ali Sambhali! The haarsingaar tree at its head had shed so many sweet-smelling flowers that the grave looked like a bed of haarsingaar blossoms. The dear departed Sheikh Sambhali used to recite the soz so soulfully that even the most stony-hearted would leave the majlis with drenched handkerchiefs. A dirge-like atmosphere prevailed in his Imambara on the eve of the eighth day of Muharram. The majlis for the big alam would begin after midnight and Sheikh Sahab would start the recitation in a voice wracked with pain:
The Death of Sheherzad Page 1