I looked at him in surprise and said, ‘But we can talk peacefully here.’
‘All right, but,’ and he glanced at the watch strapped to his wrist, ‘if we sit here, we will miss the news. Let us go back to our regular place; it has a radio. We can listen to the news.’ And, after a moment’s respite, he said, ‘Sitting here, it seems as though we are cut off from the rest of the world.’
‘It is true; once inside this room, my link with the world snaps totally. In here, I do not know what is happening outside. Actually, the room doesn’t even have a window from where you can see the sky.’ We came out; the road was empty.
‘What is the time?’ he asked and looked at the watch strapped on his wrist with some alarm. ‘How odd! It has become so quiet so early!’
Indeed, it was quiet. There would be some noise whenever a rickshaw passed by, but as soon as it was gone, the silence would intensify. We could hear the sound of our own footsteps. We began to walk slowly. We reached our usual haunt. Today the restaurant had emptied so early! Only a short while ago, we had left it so crowded! At that time you couldn’t hear a word. Now, only two men were found seated at a solitary table; soon, they too got up and left. Now we were the only two people. We gave the order for tea.
‘This place has become so deserted so early,’ he said.
‘That is good; we can’t talk in a crowd.’
‘Yes, it is good,’ and then after a minute’s thought, he added, ‘Yaar, there is a lot of confusion.’
‘Was there no confusion before?’
‘You are right; there was confusion before too,’ and he lapsed into silence. Finally, he spoke again, ‘There is no clarity on what can be behind this, but I think …’ And he had nearly taken off when the tea arrived. Once again, he fell silent and began to pour his tea. As he was making his cup, he said, ‘The girl was nice.’
‘Girl? What girl?’
‘The girl we saw in Company Bagh.’
‘Oh! That one!’ And the girl with her youthful bosom and ample derriere floated in both our imaginations.
‘Yes. She was nice.’
It was as though a still breeze had given way to a cool burst of fresh air. Or so I felt. He too was looking sprightly. We ran our mind’s eye over the outlines of her pleasing body and concluded that the girl was very nice indeed.
‘Yaar!’ he spoke meditatively, ‘Our life is bereft of a girl.’
I laughed and said, ‘When did we ever have one?’
‘No, really,’ he spoke seriously. ‘At least there wasn’t this desolation before.’
Once again I laughed, but gave no answer.
Then, after some more thought, he asked, ‘Did you ever see her?’
I was surprised. ‘Who?’
‘That one.’
Now I understood who he was asking about. Suddenly saddened, I said, ‘No, yaar.’
‘You mean, you never saw her again after that?’
‘No.’
‘That’s very strange.’
I too had found it very strange at the time. After having been surprised and sorrowful, I had become free of it. But now that he had expressed his surprise, once again I was experiencing that sense of amazement; she had disappeared so completely that I never saw her again.
‘Yaar, you have suffered the same fate as me.’
‘The same fate that befalls every decent man,’ I added.
And with that, we both became sorrowful. He did not say anything more, nor did I feel like saying another word. We sat in silence and drank our tea. The time for the BBC news came and passed. And then Radio Pakistan, followed by All India Radio. The time for each news bulletin came and went.
‘Yaar, should we go?’
‘Yes, let us go.’
And we both set off – he towards his house and I towards mine.
Between Me and the Story1
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That day I picked up the pen with the intention of writing a story. I had sat down with complete concentration. But the television set had been left on. Since I am no TV addict, even popular serials and programmes leave me cold and, ordinarily, I can continue with my reading and writing, unperturbed and unaffected. That day it wasn’t so; even though that day there wasn’t a particularly riveting serial or a fun and games show on air. In fact, a very serious programme was being aired – a demonstration of national pride. A film on Pakistan’s experiments with the atomic bomb was being played. A mighty explosion occurred. The earth rumbled and shook. Then I saw the mountain quiver ever so slightly and its colour began to change imperceptibly, almost like the colour fading from a human face. I put my pen down. Or, perhaps, it stopped writing on its own and I had no other option but to put it down.
In my childhood, whenever there was a lunar or solar eclipse, my father would put away all his chores and sit down on the prayer rug. He would offer two prayers, which he called the Prayers of Fear. He would say that a great misfortune had befallen the moon, and we must pray to God that the crisis be averted and the Hour of Reckoning pass without any mishap. Perhaps, at this moment, just such an Hour of Reckoning had approached a mountain in Pakistan. In its moment of trial and tribulation, that mountain showed such amazing grace and strength! It bore the brunt of the havoc and destruction that the explosion brought in its wake and did not allow even a strand of hair to be hurt in Pakistan. How it must have suffered can be gauged from the fact that it quivered and lost its colour when the explosion ripped through it. It would never regain its lost colour.
Until yesterday, the atom bomb had been beyond our reach; it was, after all, a rare and exceptional weapon of mass destruction that could only be the prized possession of superpower armouries from across the seven seas. In the blink of an eye, it had fallen into our hands. Strange, very strange indeed! Now we too are an atomic power. An atomic power is a superpower. And who doesn’t want to be a superpower? So now the people of India must be very happy. The people of Pakistan are also very happy. It is the superpowers who are a worried lot now. They had signed countless agreements and counter-agreements among themselves that come what may, they would never use their weapons of mass destruction. Now they are bedevilled by this classic instance of the runaway monkey and the razor; no one knows who the runaway monkey will slash! What is more, who knows when these two will press the button and annihilate the rest of the world along with themselves?
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These days, I remember so many stories I had heard in my childhood from my grandmother. One of the stories was about a down-at-luck prince who gets caught in the snare of a genie. The genie lived in a grand fortress. He took the prince to his fortress and let him loose, saying ‘You are free in every way inside this fortress. There are seven doors here. You can open six of them; they will lead you to several amazing delights. You may have your fill of those delights. But do not open the seventh door. If you do, a great calamity will befall you.’ The prince followed the genie’s advice for many days. Of the six doors, each door lead to a cornucopia of plenty – there was every manner of bounty to suit every taste and delectation. Finally, the prince tired of these gratifications: One day he decided to open the seventh door to find out what great pleasures it hid. And the moment he opened the seventh door, a great calamity fell upon his head.
Our times, too, are caught in a genie’s snare – the genie of science and technology. In small countries, we are not fully aware of it. Go to any developed country in the West. Truly it appears as though the genie from Aladdin’s lamp has created those magnificent buildings and fortresses. Open any door and you will find such a bewildering array of luxuries and delights that you will be stunned. But a seventh door, too, has appeared in these fortresses. The genie has instructed us to open all other doors, but to always keep the seventh door shut. But sometimes I wonder, what if some eccentric prince were to take it in his head to open the seventh door, what would happen then?
The problem is that this is an age of science and technology, and I still subscribe to ancient tales and the old s
tories of genies and fairies. My friends tell me that these old yarns are a reminder of mankind’s earliest childhood when the human intellect was not fully formed and superstitions reigned supreme. Today, in this age of scientific temper, man depends solely on his wit and intelligence. But I want to know: has the child really grown up? One hears that in the West, he has grown up in the lap of science and philosophy to full adulthood and become a veritable model of intelligence. The atom bomb was crafted by his genius, just as Hiroshima was a spectacular example of his brilliance.
Anyhow, in this age of knowledge when technology is at its zenith, forests and deserts and oceans and mountains and birds and animals are all at risk. My friends say, brother, this is a manifestation of the conquest of nature, and they quote verses by the great poet Iqbal to buttress their theory. I too recall some bits of Iqbal. Two couplets are as follows:
Dhoondnein wala sitaron ki guzargahon ka
Apne afkar ki duniya mein safar kar na saka
Jisne suraj ki shuaon ko giraftar kiya
Zindagi ki shab-e-tareek sahar kar na saka2
(He tracked the orbits of the stars, yet could not
Travel in the world he had created in his thoughts
He captured the rays of the sun, yet could not
Make the sun rise on life’s dark night)
If anything, life’s dark night has become even darker since. And it is darkening every day. If there was a ray of hope left somewhere, that too was snuffed out by the coming of the atom bomb.
So here I come back to my old song of distress. I have been singing this song for a very long time. In 1960, when the magnificently tall peepul tree beside the gate of the Punjab University was cut down, I felt as though a murder had been committed in broad daylight and a benign presence lifted from over our heads. For so long, I had seen eager young students chitter-chatter in its dense shade. How many stories lay behind that guileless chit-chat, the tree alone could have told. But there it lay, face down on the Mall, with the stories buried forever in its bosom. I used to work for the Mashriq3 those days. I had turned my face away from politics and wrote only of small matters concerning people, trees and birds. So I wrote a column on the martyrdom of the peepul tree and went to various literary circles pleading its cause. Those days, progressive and traditionalist writers met at soirees and discussed all sorts of literary issues. The traditionalists couldn’t understand why the hacking down of a tree was being presented as a human tragedy and a literary concern. My progressive friends read my plea as a war between the progressives and the regressives. Their argument was that Pakistan is entering an industrial era. So trees will be chopped down. How can the nation progress otherwise?
Soon, trees began to be cut indiscriminately. One day I received a strange phone call. Begum Hijab Imtiaz Ali4 was on the line: ‘Intizar Sahab, are you aware that the koel is silent in the city this year? The month of June has begun, and one hasn’t heard the koel coo. Tell me, have you heard it?’
I thought of my morning walks in Jinnah Bagh and remembered with surprise that the season for the koel’s calls had begun. But so far I hadn’t heard its call, neither from close quarters nor from far away. Why had I not thought about it sooner?
‘You are right, madam. I too haven’t heard the koel’s call so far this season.’
‘Then why haven’t you written about it in your column? People should know about it. Write about it, Intizar Sahab. Tell people that this is a matter of grave concern. So, will you write then?’
‘Yes, I will.’
Truly, this was a matter I should have written about. It made perfect sense to me. After all, some part of the natural world had to protest against the massacre of trees. And the protest came from the koels. They had decided to go silent and thus deprive us of their mellifluous cooing.
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The latest issue of Savera5 has just reached me. Salahuddin Mahmood6 has written in his article that birds, butterflies and fish are committing mass suicide in different parts of the world. Nasir Kazmi7 had written:
Urh gaye yeh shaakh se kah ke tayoor
Is gulistan ki hawa mein zahar hai
(The birds have fled from the branches, saying
There is poison in the air of this garden)
But where will they fly to now? Man has poisoned not just the air in the garden, but the entire world. The birds and the butterflies cannot grasp the hands of foolish, barbaric man and stop him from leaking poison in the air and making life lifeless on the earth that God created. At best, the koels can fall silent in protest. Birds and butterflies can turn despondently away from this foul universe and commit mass suicide. A sensitive butterfly and a twittering bird can give no other answer to man’s cruelty and ignorance. They have no deterrent.
But we come back to the same thing: what good is our crying and pleading? We aren’t people of any importance. Even Bill Clinton is ignored. No one pays any heed to him. In the atomic fracas between India and Pakistan, American bravado has disappeared in a wisp of smoke. This sea change in the world order is remarkable. In a young Pakistan, we had learnt to live in the shadow of two giants, both superpowers, both astonishingly terrifying. Small countries sought refuge from their wrath. If they annoyed one, they would immediately scurry to find a safe haven under the wings of the other. If one frowned with annoyance, the other would rush forward to provide shelter and patronage.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the balance of powers was overturned. Anis had written an elegy on the death of Dabeer, both famous elegy-writers: the joy of writing elegies is gone. He was right. Be it poetics or literature, politics or sports, the cricket field or any other field, a virtuoso’s real talents are unfurled only when he meets his match. America failed to grasp this truism. But so what? In the past, recalcitrant children would flout the instructions of one grown-up, but submit to another. If they disobeyed one elder, they would obey some other. The practice of obedience, nevertheless, remained intact. But now, only one elder remains. If someone disregards him, who can he be expected to listen to? Children have become headstrong. Their disregard knows no bounds. Earlier, it was the leftist intellectuals who were hell-bent on breaking all the rules. It was a strangely piquant situation. The more headstrong the leftists became, the loftier became the stance of the extreme rightists. American hegemony still remained intact. However, the leftists soon became an endangered species in Pakistan. In fact, the breed seems to have died out since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But how has that helped America? No, if anything, it has harmed American interests. With the fall of communism, the anti-US chant has been picked up by the Maulvi-Mullah brigade. The Maulvi-Mullahs may not have gained the same mileage as leftwing intellectuals, but America has certainly lost out in the bargain. It is no longer the presiding deity it had been for so long.
Anyhow, as I was saying, children have become disobedient. Their irreverence knows no bounds and those who were once the elders are now completely disregarded. In such a scenario, anything can happen now that the atom bomb has fallen in the hands of children.
Only time will tell what will happen next. For now, our heads are raised high with pride. But see, what a firecracker our friend Anwar Sajjad8 has let off. At a time like this, when the People’s Party is trying to remind the people of Pakistan that the credit for acquiring the atom bomb must rightfully go to Bhutto Sahab, Anwar Sajjad has dug up evidence to prove that Manto was actually the first man who dreamt of atomic power for Pakistan. And he has cited Manto’s writings in the form of letters to Uncle Sam. Sajjad read his article in a discussion organized by a newspaper and sent a copy to me. I read the article and was consumed by sheer astonishment that Manto had had such a dream! According to Anwar Sajjad, Manto’s dream simply awaited a man of action who would make it come true. This vision eventually took the form of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was instrumental in giving it a concrete shape.
I read Manto’s letters to Uncle Sam a second time. Once again, I was lost in amazement. This time, I was perplexe
d more by Anwar Sajjad than the letters. There was a world of difference between what Manto had written and the meaning Anwar Sajjad had derived from it. Manto never wrote the Anwar Sajjad brand of abstract short stories where anyone can ascribe any meaning he or she wants. Manto has a fairly straightforward satire. He asks Uncle Sam why the hydrogen bomb is being prepared. Which countries are going to be wiped off the surface of the earth? And if that is the plan, how about giving a small atom bomb to the favourite nephew who is sick and tired of those fellows from across the border who don’t believe in washing their butts? Why not just get rid of them once and for all?
This reminds me of a Bombay film called Eight Days, made shortly before Partition. Manto had acted in the film and probably also written its script. He had enacted the role of a halfwit who goes around with a ball in his hand, which he calls an atom bomb, and scares everyone by threatening to hurl it. The thought of the film scares me. But then, I am a coward. These days, the people of Asia are under the spell of the atom bomb. Some are worried about its long-term consequences, but many others are delighted at the magical wand that has fallen into their hands. The atom bomb has had different effects on different people. Its effect on me is that I cannot write a story any more. On Anwar Sajjad, the effect has been totally different. Strange, very strange indeed. First he saluted the Marxist revolution, then became a fervent devotee of the Islamic bomb. In his article, he has appealed to the Muslim community that now that we have become an atomic power, we must strive to become an Islamic superpower.
May the revolution bring happiness to the Believers!
Consider this: even in this new world order, Anwar Sajjad has found a mission for himself. And I, I have once again been left behind. I can see no other mission but the modest one of writing a story. And my story, too, is surrounded by afflictions. Whenever I pick up my pen, the mountain of Chaghai comes and stands before my eyes. First a slight rumble shivers through it, then its colour begins to fade. After every little while, a sound emerges which causes panic among the people. The entire city lives in the thrall of this Mountain of Summons.9 No other sound reaches here. Suddenly, the mountain loses all colour. Its effect on me is like the call from the Mountain of Summons. The magic of the atom bomb does not work on me. I live in the tormented shadow of that mountain. I can write my story only if I am able to overcome its paralysing fear. But this pain-riddled mountain has come and stood between the story and me.
The Death of Sheherzad Page 9