Zarri Bano and Shahzada stationed at each end of the portable bed deftly supervised the crowd of women mourners as they peered over shoulders and jostled each other to get a last view of the old man who had always been there in the village, for as long as they could recall. For nobody in the village could relate their life without mentioning Baba Siraj Din. His influence and decisions had touched all their lives, creating little ripples of controlled destinies. He had played an important role in so many marital matches and the joining of families from different villages. His demise thus necessitated plenty of ritualised chanting and wailing.
Losing patience with them and their wailing, ‘Please, you must not chant!’ Zarri Bano was forced to rebuke the women mourners at some point in the afternoon. ‘As you know, my grandfather disliked chanting. Please just read surahs from the Holy Quran – they will help him in his other life. Prayers, not your chanting or weeping, please. Thank you, ladies. Copies of the Holy Quran are there, and Mother and I will be very grateful if you could read a few pages – or even a few lines of prayers.’
Highly offended by Zarri Bano’s comments, one or two of the brazen women quickly put a stop to their regulated flow of tears and hastily moved away from the old man’s palang. Yes, they would read the Holy Quran – but not because they were ordered to do so in such a high-handed way. Shrugging their shoulders they dispensed with the crying. If the haughty granddaughter wasn’t able to appreciate their tears and chanting, then who were they trying to impress? Allah pak hadn’t blessed them with extra buckets of tears to be poured out on account of the old man who had lived his life to the full, more than dozens of other people! And it was time for him to go. That Shahzadi Ibadat, the Holy Woman, in her black burqa had herself remained dry-eyed all afternoon. And she was the granddaughter! Sullenly they moved to the other corner of women mourners, sitting on the silk rugs on the floor and reciting Arabic words over date kernels. With the ritualised weeping and chanting dispensed with they could now exchange other titbits of gossip and scandal. And there was going to be plenty of that especially as those two wives were back in the village – after twenty years and with their two husbands.
Gulshan and Naghmana sat amongst this crowd, separated from one another by three rows of Siraj Din’s closest women relatives. Each woman was very aware of the other’s presence. So far neither had had the opportunity to talk to the other – a passing ‘Assalam Alaikum’ only. Nor had they sought each other.
Chaudharani Kaniz, her sister Sabra and Shahzada were heading the female phoorie. As was traditional at funeral gatherings, the women exchanged nostalgic anecdotes concerning the deceased. Sitting cross-legged on the soft rugs over a cool marble floor, and mechanically rolling the date kernels between their fingers into the small plastic bowls, and with their heads and shoulders draped in large white chadors, the women took it in turns to reminisce generously about Baba Siraj Din, their beloved Buzurgh. It was now Chaudharani Kaniz’s turn. Some women mourners looked at her expectantly. Everyone knew that Baba Siraj Din had always harboured a soft spot for the attractive young widow and her son Khawar. She was his goddaughter, whose affairs he had always overseen.
‘Baba Siraj Din was like a father to me …’ Kaniz began softly, a catch in her voice. ‘For the last thirty years of my life in the village he was my mentor, my guiding force. He especially helped me after I was widowed at a young age. Like a father he guided me in everything. He was the one whom I consulted about my land and our business. He taught my son, Khawar, all the things about being a landowner and how to manage the land. I will miss his presence keenly.’
‘For my father-in-law’s sake, I abandoned my home in the town and returned to the village, one year ago.’ Shahzada added her own bit of reminiscing. ‘He was a very dear person to me. Very rarely did he say an unkind word to me …’
She stopped as she saw Naghmana get up. All the women mourners looked up, their eyes wary and speculative. Naghmana ignored them all and left the phoorie. She had her face carefully averted from the other women, her white chiffon shawl drawn lower over her face.
‘And he was the cobra of my nightmares!’ Naghmana cried in her head, crossing the courtyard to get away from the women – the ‘snakes’ – and their sickeningly generous reminiscences. ‘He was the man who snatched my first husband from me,’ she voiced loudly to herself, passing through the hawaili gates. There was no bitterness or vehemence behind the words. Time had dulled it all.
Gulshan’s eyes had shadowed Naghmana as she stood up and left the courtyard. Handing the copy of the Holy Quran she was reading to Zarri Bano, she too left the women’s gathering, ignoring the hushed silence behind her. On the woven mats, the white shawled heads of a crowd of women moved speculatively to watch the two retreating figures of the two sokans – the wife rivals. Most of the women mourners were old enough to remember and had attended the kacheri twenty years ago. They didn’t dare voice their thoughts openly or gossip, but they allowed themselves the luxury of exchanging meaningful glances. Heads, eyes, eyebrows, lips parting and closing – all told their own story without the need for words.
That rule didn’t apply to the matchmaker. Only words satisfied her. ‘Gulshan too has left!’ Kulsoom Bibi bent over and gabbled in her friend Naimat Bibi’s ears, as she sat crouched painfully over a high steel bucket of potatoes, peeling them for the afternoon meal. She had already cut her hand three times with the sharp knife.
‘I know. I saw Naghmana go first.’ Naimat Bibi whispered, her head still bent over her task. ‘Hasn’t Gulshan changed? She is so quiet and reserved, I hardly recognised her.’
‘Yes,’ Kulsoom whispered in return while clutching onto Zarri Bano’s lively, four-month-old healthy son, Adam, with difficulty. How did she manage to get herself landed with the task of managing a bouncy little baby, with heavy, chubby legs, in her weak bony arms and hands? They were aching all over. All the presents that mistress Shahzada offered later wouldn’t compensate for this hard task of looking after him, adorable though he was. She enviously looked at her friend. Peeling potatoes wasn’t such an onerous task; she deliberately ignored the two buckets of potatoes that Naimat Bibi had slaved away to peel in the last two hours.
THIRTY SIX
GULSHAN FOUND NAGHMANA standing alone outside the hawaili gates. Hearing footsteps from behind, she hastily wiped her cheeks clean, before turning round. A forlorn teardrop still lingered on the end of her eyelash, before it fell. She looked at Gulshan in surprise, painfully aware of the tear still clinging to her cheek. It was a sad, sad face, inspecting her own sad face. Naghmana just knew that the sadness had nothing to do with the old man’s death. In the warm afternoon, the two women stared at one another and time stood still for them both. Caught in a tableau of their own making and destiny carved by others – the old man and Hajra.
Naghmana’s face trembled into an uncertain smile, not sure of what to say to a woman who was once her sokan and to whom she had bequeathed her beloved Haroon. There was no answering smile on Gulshan’s face, just a strange sadness. Her smiles had been forever stolen.
‘Could I speak to you for a few moments?’ Gulshan asked, afraid and unsure of the other woman’s response.
‘Yes, of course,’ Naghmana answered in a dull voice, her own face bereft of the mask.
‘Shall we go for a walk in the fields, Naghmana Jee?’ Gulshan respectfully asked.
Naghmana nodded and then began to walk. In companionable silence, the two women walked side by side out of the village and its walls that eavesdropped, and then into the open fields, giving them the privacy and the space they both craved.
‘How are you?’ Gulshan asked, after having crossed one field in silence. Companionable – not oppressive.
‘I am fine …’ Naghmana turned to look at the woman walking by her side, with a gentle smile. ‘And you?’ The irony was not lost on her. A shared history lay between them, yet they were virtual strangers. Twenty years ago they hadn’t even exchanged a single sentence. As
enemies they had parted. Shared so much – yet knew nothing of the other. Two ends of the pole, with a common middle.
‘We were two strangers brought brutally together in the kacheri and then ripped apart,’ throbbed the bitter words in Naghmana’s head.
Gulshan had stopped walking and was staring up at the clear blue horizon. In the distance, on the other path leading to the village, she saw a procession of male mourners returning from the cemetery. Their husbands, Jahanghir and Haroon, were part of that procession.
Naghmana’s dupatta had fallen off in the breeze, revealing an attractive mane of healthy, shining shoulder-length hair. She still looks young and attractive, Gulshan noted with resignation. ‘I could never have competed with her! This is the woman that Haroon fell in love with first. This is the first woman he held in his arms and made love to.’ She was bent on punishing herself.
‘I could say that I am fine too, Naghmana Jee,’ Gulshan said aloud, carefully choosing her words, ‘but that would be untruthful. For why else would I seek your company, if not to talk to you?’
Naghmana waited, her eyes understanding, coaxing the other woman to continue.
‘I have, for so long, wanted to talk to you, to ask for your forgiveness.’ The quiet words fell awkwardly between them. It had taken twenty years for the right ears to hear the words that she uttered to herself in all her prayers on the prayer-mat.
‘My forgiveness?’ Naghmana was startled.
‘Yes, my forgiveness! The old man died begging for your forgiveness; for what happened at that kacheri twenty years ago. I, too, like him have waited twenty years. I have pined to find you and ask for your forgiveness – for what we did to you – for what happened to you. My mother died an early death from guilt, always begging Allah pak’s mercy. You should never have been divorced, nor should you have asked for it. I knew that what you did that afternoon was for me, my sister. You sacrificed everything for my sake. I can never repay you for that. Why did you do it? I still cannot grasp – how any woman could do it. You lived and died before my eyes. I hated you, yet you offered me your husband – killed your own longing. I had no greater right to him than you did. This is what has eaten me up – guilt – for twenty years. You shouldn’t have had a divorce – you were his wife, too! After you left, I suffered the pain of knowing that I had no right to be Haroon’s wife.’
‘Please stop!’ Naghmana begged. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, my sister. I wanted a divorce. It wasn’t for all the noble reasons you have listed. We were never destined to be sokans, wife rivals – you and I. You should be able to understand that. No woman should be placed in a situation of having to share. Neither of us was capable of sharing him with another, we wanted him all – or nothing – but more importantly, remember, as the Buzurgh said at that time, ‘It was all for the best.’ As you can see, I am happily married. I met a wonderful university professor, who adores me and I am still madly in love with him, even after nineteen years. I have two handsome sons, one fourteen and the other eighteen years old, both at schools and colleges. They are the reasons for my existence. So you see, it was all for the best …’
Naghmana’s words lingered between them in the warm soft breeze caressing their faces. Their eyes were now on the crowd of men heading back to the old man’s hawaili. Her two husbands were only a few paces apart. Naghmana’s heart tripped a beat. She hadn’t yet introduced her professor, for some reason, to Haroon. Her professor didn’t know he was walking a few steps behind her first husband.
An awkward silence stretched between them. Then with tears shimmering like large diamonds in her eyes, Gulshan impulsively pulled Naghmana into her arms and embraced her tightly.
‘I am so glad’, she whispered, her face buried in Naghmana’s shoulders. ‘If only I had known.’ The other woman heard the regret in her voice. ‘If only I could turn the clock back.’ Gulshan confessed sadly, stepping away from Naghmana. ‘How strange life and fate is. You found new love in the arms of a stranger. I, on the other hand, after the kacheri, couldn’t return to the arms of my own husband. Your shadow.’ she stopped.
‘What?’ Naghmana stared aghast, her mouth half-open. ‘I am so sorry. You must return to your husband. Don’t let my shadow stand between the two of you. You have wasted so many years – what about him?’
‘He accepted my behaviour. He, too, seemed to want to punish himself. He let me be. We let each other be – wrapped and cocooned in our own worlds of misery, worlds of our own making. He never attempted to win me over. He was always afraid that he had hurt me. Strangely, we punished both each other and ourselves from the time we left the village a day after you left. Life just stopped since I saw you in his arms that night. It ripped our world apart.’
‘I am sorry – please believe me! I just wish I had never agreed to meet him in the middle of the night. You are right – what we did ripped the whole village apart, not just our lives. I have told you that I am happy with my husband. Well, I have to confess something also. What I failed to tell you is that like you, I cannot escape from that kacheri either. I, too, am haunted by that day. I have had nightmares for the past twenty years, in which there are a lot of snakes and a cobra. They are always after me – chasing me, taunting me. Many a night I have woken up screaming and found myself covered with sweat. I cannot talk about it with my husband. He knows nothing about that day. It is my terrible secret. I hope to take it with me to my grave. So far, I have kept it hidden from him. I have tried to forget – but I can’t. I am so afraid for the same reason. I wanted to bury the past. I didn’t want to come here, but my husband forced me to. He has no idea what arena he has entered into. My past has caught up with me, my sister. And I am so afraid for some reason; so afraid of my husband’s reaction. I don’t know why – will he be able to cope? I am so afraid,’ she repeated.
‘You must tell him, my sister, you must. If he loves you, he’ll understand. Why shouldn’t he? You have done nothing wrong. You must not be afraid. You, too, must learn to bury the past. Look, the men are coming this way. Shall we go back?’
Naghmana nodded, lost in thought, her eyes following her husband, as he walked back to the village. They are almost walking shoulder to shoulder now she voiced in her head, seeing Haroon turn to talk to another man. It was so strange, but Haroon meant nothing to her now; her love was all for the grey-haired bespectacled tall professor whom she had married nineteen years ago. What was six months to nineteen years? Incomparable.
In Baba Siraj Din’s courtyard, the women mourners watched the men file back into the building through the large wrought-iron gates. They knew that the old man had been laid to rest in his plot of land. Sabra looked at her sister, sitting opposite her on the silk rug, reciting Surah Yasin. When Kaniz looked up and saw the men, her eyes went straight to Younus Raees as he walked across the courtyard with the others. She caught her sister’s eye and felt her fair cheeks throb with heat and colour.
‘You must talk to him tonight!’ Sabra urged, leaning forward to whisper. ‘You must … I will write him a note, requesting a meeting with you later in the evening.’
‘Sabra!’ Kaniz hissed, alarmed, aware of the other women sitting around her – afraid to say anything further. Her almond-shaped eyes, however, made her feelings and anger perfectly apparent. Sabra just calmly smiled back in answer, her cheeks plumping with laughter. She was in control of the situation.
Five minutes later, Sabra resolutely stood up from the women mourners and went to write the letter, which she would hand to him personally during the afternoon meal. She knew he was still going to be around in the old man’s home. Kaniz was not to be trusted.
THIRTY SEVEN
‘I JUST CAN’T wait to get back to my own house and my own life!’ Naimat Bibi heaved another huge pot out of the basin. ‘People think it is great living here – but they should ask me! I wish this funeral was over and done with. At least you can sleep in your own home and in your own bed, Kulsoom.’ Twitching her shawl off her shoulders, Naimat Bib
i complained to her friend.
‘Yes, I may sleep in my own bed, but I am here at the mother and daughter’s beck and call all day with this prince,’ Kulsoom tartly returned. ‘You try looking after a bouncing baby all day and with the weak wrists that I have.’
‘Well, it’s pots for me and a baby for you – we’ve both got our hands full.’
‘Where is Mistress Zarri Bano? I don’t intend sitting here all night watching you scouring pots, I want to get home!’ Kulsoom continued hotly, bringing a smile to her friend’s flushed face.
It was the first night of Baba Siraj Din’s funeral. The guests had either departed or, for those who were staying a few more days, made their way to their sleeping quarters in the hawaili. Zarri Bano had helped her mother to supervise the meal and later the bedding arrangements. All the tasks were carried out smoothly. Zarri Bano simply directed the two young women, hired to help at the funeral and they did the rest. Bedrooms and bedding, including those for the portable beds in the courtyard and on the rooftop, had all been sorted out, a stressful evening chore for the mother and daughter. They made sure that everybody had a pillow and a soft under-mattress, and either a mink blanket or a thick cotton coversheet.
The guests had been offered the choice of either sleeping upstairs on the rooftop under the shining stars and cool night breezes, or downstairs indoors for those who preferred the privacy of one of the bedrooms. Wanting first choice of beds, some had retired early to the rooftop gallery to claim their favoured spot.
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