‘We have eaten a lot.’
‘Ai wah, how can that be? And, Jawad, you too have stopped … Why, didn’t you like the parathas?’
‘They were delicious; I ate my fill.’
‘And,’ Majju Bhai added his bit, ‘we ate so much that our bellies are bloated.’
Meanwhile, Tausif too showed up.
‘Baji Akhtari,’ Majju Bhai broached the subject, ‘try and make your brother understand that it isn’t good to always jest everywhere.’
‘Ai, what happened? Tausif, what is Majju Bhai saying?’
‘I don’t understand, Majju Bhai.’
‘Yes, why would you understand? Miyan, when you went there, could you not find a better subject for conversation … you read a panegyric in praise of the gur rewri of Meerut. Those people talk of qand and nabaat; you want to make them eat the rewri of Meerut? Anyhow, that was then … it seems you have been up to some new mischief now.’
‘No, no, Majju Bhai, nothing of the sort.’
‘Obviously something is wrong. It appears you have subjected them to a lecture on poetry.’
Tausif laughed. ‘Oh, I see, Majju Bhai. You see, Saiyad sahab was busy reciting the verses of his oh-so-eloquent poet Hazrat Safi Lucknowi. I thought let me also tell him a thing or two about some poet from Meerut. So I told him a few sparkling verses by Boom Hapuri.9 His forehead creased at the very mention, even though I had heard the verses of Safi Lucknowi with the utmost attention and patience.’
Majju Bhai struck his forehead. ‘The verses of Boom Hapuri, and that too in front of that refined gentleman from Lucknow! Could you think of no other poet from your Meerut? At the very least, you could have read out something by Bayan Yazdani.’
‘Bayan Yazdani? What a thing to say, Majju Bhai! I will bring Bayan Yazdani into the battleground when Saiyad sahab recites his Aatish and Mushafi.’
Majju Bhai was trumped by Tausif. Now, he turned imploringly towards Baji Akhtari, ‘Baji, make this impetuous youth understand how delicate these marriage-related matters are! It is all very well to talk in this callow manner among friends, but you can’t talk like this with your prospective in-laws. The last time he went, he read a panegyric in praise of til bugga and gur rewri; this time, he recited the verses of Boom Hapuri in front of that elegantly rhetorical and gravely ponderous gentleman.’
‘Baji, those people mention their Lucknowi culture with such reverence that I too had to give them a glimpse of our Meeruti culture.’
‘Fine glimpse you gave them!’ Majju Bhai retorted acidly.
Baji Akhtari heard them out in silence. Then, she said, ‘Majju Bhai, you know what a jester he has always been. He is not going to change his ways for them. But, Majju Bhai, I must say these Lucknow-walas have their head in the clouds. And Basho Bhabhi … she is up there in the skies … she can’t be bothered with lesser mortals. God knows what that arrogance is all about. They may have been big people in Lucknow. Perhaps they had elephants tied at their gate; here, I have seen no sign of their greatness, and it isn’t as though there is something extraordinary about their daughter either. Fine, so she is educated. But she is also a bit tart. Doesn’t have an ounce of flesh; she is all skin and bone. Arre, that girl from the Hyderabadi family is better; at least, there is some flesh on her body. She is cheerful and what is more, she is extremely domesticated. And those people are all set to fix the marriage. I am stuck here with these Lucknowi people only because I had broached the subject.’
Majju Bhai finally unlocked his tongue. He said, ‘Baji Akhtari, that is all right. You seem to like that other girl; why don’t you bring her as your brother’s bride? But remember that she is from Hyderabad. She will drive Tausif mad by feeding him khatti daal and bhagare baingan!’10
‘Ai Bhaiyya, at least she will cook for him. I don’t set much store by the Lucknow-wali. These people don’t let anybody come close in their arrogance in being Lucknow-walas. Then there is also the girl from the Pilibhitwalas. How friendly they are! And their daughter is a gem! So, there is no shortage of girls for us. Let the Lucknow-walas understand loud and clear … and let them understand we will not brook any more nonsense. Nor will we wait much longer. We have waited enough. Let them not
keep us dangling. Let them give us a final yes or no. We want a clear answer.’
‘Majju Bhai,’ Tausif added, ‘I have had enough of the Lucknow-walas; I want to steer clear of them.’
‘What do you mean, Tausif Miyan?’ Now Majju Bhai too sounded a bit sharp. ‘They are respectable people. You have sent a proposal; you can’t run away now. The other side also has their honour.’
‘Just think, Majju Bhai. And Jawad Bhai, you are a disinterested party; you serve the cause of justice. I am a Meerutiya, I speak Khari Boli. Can I call malai balai? Those people will drive me crazy with their idioms dipped in the waters of the Gomti River.’
Majju Bhai held his head and said, ‘Do you see, Jawad Miyan, the state of this fifth community?’11
‘Ai Majju Bhai, let it be; you know how he has the habit of jesting. He will do exactly as I tell him to.’ And she immediately turned towards Tausif and said, ‘Arre, exactly what sort of wife do you want? A star from the heavens won’t come down for you. I looked for a good girl as far as I could.’
‘Good? Why, she is very good,’ Majju Bhai took the cue and added the weight of his approval. ‘Miyan, she is educated, genteel, comes from a good family. What else do you want?’
‘I like her myself. I was hurt when Basho Bhabhi began to find faults with our family. At least, she should have made some enquiries. She believed whatever our enemies told her. So Majju Bhai, please make her see sense. I too will go and meet her. I don’t have my nose up in the air, like people from the boy’s side usually do. I will give her every possible assurance and they should not have any concern about Tausif not having a job yet. Insha
Allah he will get one soon. Their daughter will know no scarcity in our home.’
‘I have explained all this to them. The crux of the matter is that some people from your Meerut have gone to them and said all sorts of strange things. But I gave them an appropriate rejoinder. Both Basho Bhabhi and Aqa Hasan are extremely respectable people.’
‘Yes, I know that; after all, they are from Lucknow. They are not nobodies from nowhere. And we have no shortage of enemies. That is why I want this business to be concluded soon.’
‘I agree; a hundred problems arise when things get stretched out.’
‘So, Majju Bhai, get them to agree.’ Akhtari Baji had come down from her pedestal and Tausif too put a lock on his tongue. Majju Bhai was in fine fettle. He was counting the many fine qualities of the girl, her parents and her entire family. But my attention had wandered. In any case, I become restless at the mention of engagements and weddings. And this particular conversation had stretched too long … at least for me. My glance wandered to a table and rested on a face. A long beard, a green robe, a green kurta, he looked like a parrot. A rosary clicked away between his fingers. As soon as Baji Akhtari and Tausif took their leave, I asked Majju Bhai, ‘Who is that gentleman over there?’
‘You don’t know him? What a heedless man you are! He is Ghazi sahab.’ And then raising his voice he called out, ‘Ghazi sahab, adab. Hope you are well. And how far has your movement reached?’
‘My movement is an indication of your vigour in your faith and your keenness to save it. I am giving the azaan in the wilderness.’
An elderly gentleman, who sat nearby, let out a sigh and said, ‘There is no vigour of faith, and no keenness to save it left, now.’
Ghazi sahab came back swiftly, ‘Yes, and we are being punished for it. Fa tabiru ya ullil absar …’12 and with these words, the tone of his voice changed and Ghazi sahab seemed to be delivering a sermon. ‘O you who sleep, how long will you be lost in heedlessness? Look how far the world has overtaken you. You prisoners of wrongdoings, you have remained where you were. These people from the West are reaching the skies and we are sinking further
in the pit of hellishness. And those devils have done so much … they have handed our youth their books of science and philosophy and put them on the path of godlessness. And they have created the atom bomb for themselves. People are going on about Musalman-Musalman. I ask you: Who is a Musalman? Where is he? I can’t see one for miles all around. If there is a Musalman let him come before me. I will tell him what it means to be one … Yeh shahadat gah-e-ulfat mein qadam rakhna hai …13 And my friends, I know a simple truth … If we were indeed Musalman, we would have created the atom bomb. The others would have gaped at us. May the Lord forgive us our sins! The atom bomb was in our destiny; it was made and ready. Those wretched New Light fellows, who go about as graduates, had they read about the Last Day, they would have known better. But because of our heedlessness and the cleverness of the others, now they have the atom bomb.’
‘But my dear Ghazi sahab,’ the elderly gentleman sitting nearby asked, ‘what is the way out?’
‘That is a good question. Those who feel the pain of Islam and the twinge of Belief come to me and ask me the remedy for this decline. Ghazi Ataullah tells them, “There is a remedy, and a very simple one: Compliance and only compliance … Western science and philosophy will give you nothing, nothing except godlessness. Get out of this valley of thorns. Friends, my passion does not accept these trickeries of the mind. This is nothing but the work of Abu Lahab14. I am in search of 31315 mad men who will come and engage in battle with the Abu Lahabs and Abu Jahls, whose passion will not merely face the mighty mountains of hatred against Islam in the East and the West but also break those mountains into smithereens. Three hundred and thirteen mad men, that is, 313 true Musalmans; the day they get together, that day Ataullah Ghazi will not be seen in the city of Karachi; he will be on the other side of the border. The first namaz will be in the Babri Masjid and the second in the Masjid al-Aqsa.’16
‘Ghazi sahab,’ Majju Bhai interrupted, ‘Isn’t it a somewhat long programme?’
Ghazi sahab looked at Majju Bhai with smouldering eyes. ‘It is this faintness of faith that has defeated us. Think, you ignorant people, think of what we were and what we have become. We are those who had raced horses in the oceans;17 why is our resolve broken now? After all, how long is the distance between Babri Masjid and Masjid al-Aqsa? But the feebleness of our faith has made our steps feeble too. I have been shouting for such a long time that I need 313 Muslims for my programme, but it is as though Allah has put locks on their heart and ears.’ Ghazi sahab paused and then said in a pain-filled voice. ‘Or perhaps, my own faith is limited. If the fire of faith is intense in one’s heart, then one’s words have heat and passion too. When I think that I will be asked to give my answer on the Day of Judgement: “Ai Ataullah, to what extent did you pay your debt to your faith? Could you not even gather 313 Musalman?”, then I break out in goose bumps and find myself overwhelmed.’ And with these words, Ghazi sahab became overwhelmed with emotions.
Seeing Ghazi sahab in that state, Baji Akhtari grew alarmed and, in a panicky voice, called out to Tausif. Tausif came running and stood respectfully before Ghazi sahab with a glass of cold water. ‘Qibla, have some water.’
1 A form of poetry, literally meaning ‘misfortunes of the city’, it expressed political and social decline as well as turmoil in the poet’s immediate environment. The first proper shehr ashob is said to have been written by Mir Jafar Zatalli during the Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar’s reign (1713–1719). In some ways, much of Intizar Husain’s work is in the nature of a shehr ashob.
2 A town in UP beside the historic city of Ayodhya, it was once the capital of Awadh.
3 Sher-e-Khuda, ‘Lion of Allah’, was an epithet for Ali. He is also referred to as Mushkil Kusha, the Easer of Difficulties. Abbas was the son of Ali. Given the frequent allusions to Ali and the Battle of Karbala, it is evident Aqa Hasan’s family is Shia; as is Intizar Husain.
4 Sultana Daku was a near-legendary robber in undivided India, a latter-day Robin Hood.
5 Also spelt as Kamboj, they are descendants of a Kshatriya tribe that traces its roots to the Iron Age; the Muslim Kambohs, the great majority of whom migrated to Pakistan and settled in Karachi, were agriculturists. More than their occupation, for someone like Basho Bhabhi, marrying a Kamboh is a matter of great shame and dishonour also because they are Sunni Muslims.
6 Refers to those who are descendants of Prophet Muhammad, Aqa Hasan’s family being Saiyad and Shia can claim such a lineage.
7 A neighbourhood in Shahjahanabad, in what is now Old Delhi
8 The prophet’s mosque in Medina is one of the most holy mosques for Muslims.
9 Boom means owl; so one can well imagine the level of poetry. Hapur is a small town close to Meerut and part of the belt where Khari Boli is spoken.
10 Both are traditional Hyderabadi dishes; the daal is tart and flavoured with tamarind and the dish of aubergines too is extremely spicy and sour. Their flavours are very distinct from Lucknowi cuisine which is more subtle.
11 The newly-created state of Pakistan (West Pakistan) had four provinces and four principal communities from these provinces, namely Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi and Pathan. The fifth community comprised the muhajirs, referred to as the panchvi qaumiyat.
12 A verse from the Quran which means ‘See and learn, O you who have sense’.
13 Yeh shahadat gah-e ulfat mein qadam rakhna hai
Log aasaan samajhtey hein Musalman hona
(This martyrdom is akin to setting foot on the path of love
Yet people think it is easy being a Musalman)
This verse is by the Urdu poet Iqbal.
14 Abu Lahab was Prophet Muhammad’s paternal uncle who steadfastly opposed Islam. He is condemned by name in the Surah Masad in the Quran. Abu Lahab’s wife, Umme Jamil used to strew thorns in Muhammad’s path and throw garbage on him when he walked past. Abu Jahl, whose real name was Amr ibn Hisham, was one of the pagan leaders of the Quraysh tribe known for their hostility towards Muhammad and the early Muslims in Mecca. Such was his malevolence and relentless enmity, that he acquired the moniker Abu Jahl (‘Father of Ignorance’) in his lifetime, despite his other gifts of wisdom and courage. The Battle of Badr was the result of his obstinacy and refusal to accept Muhammad as the messenger of a new religion.
15 In Islamic history, 313 is the number of Muslims who fought in the Battle of Badr and by extension, Islam’s, foes. It was a decisive Muslim victory against a force of over 1,000 adversaries: the Muslims lost only 14 men. The battle also took place on March 13, or 3/13, hence the significance of the number.
16 Masjid al-Aqsa, a mosque in Jerusalem beside the Dome of the Rock, is the third holiest site in Islam after the mosques in Mecca and Medina.
17 Referring to a verse by Iqbal in his long poem Shikwa (The Complaint): ‘Dasht to dasht thhey darya bhi na chhode hamne/Bahr-e-zulmat mein daura diye ghore hamne’ (Forget the deserts, we even raced our horses in the dark regions of the oceans. The Bahr-e-Zulmat is said to be a name for the Atlantic Ocean. The ‘we’ here is a reference to the Muslims.
‘Majju Bhai, what happened to that match you were fixing between Meerut and Lucknow?’
Majju Bhai looked closely at me. He seemed to be amused by my question. ‘That’s a good question. I am pleased. It means you are in good spirits now.’
I was a bit surprised by that last comment. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, earlier you were completely cut off from the life of Karachi. You used to taunt me that I am engrossed in the pointless matters of all sorts of useless people. Now, Masha Allah, you seem to be interested in them and in their affairs. It is a good sign.’
‘You have misunderstood me. I am not in the least interested in them or in their meaningless lives. If anything, what interests me is that something substantial should emerge from the interest you take in other people’s lives.’
Majju Bhai laughed, ‘So be it! As long as you have an iota of interest in the life around you! At least you have come here. I am happy; i
t is a healthy sign.’
Majju Bhai had every reason to be happy. He had succeeded in his mission. Taking me for a mental patient, he had devised a remedy to pull me out of my shell of loneliness. ‘He will sit among people and listen to their good and bad things. He will laugh and cry with others and feel better, and perhaps the dryness of his temperament will be removed.’ And so, in the early days, he used to drag me to the homes of his acquaintances. The interests of those people, such as mushairas for instance, and the sort of conversation they indulged in, used to bore me to tears. Majju Bhai seemed perfectly content in their company; he would talk animatedly with them and laugh while I sat like a statue in their midst. The truth is that so many of their signs and gestures went over my head. The others would laugh approvingly at his jibes and comments, whereas I would gape at him like a fool. The background of those signs and symbols was the life of Karachi, that is, the way of life that these people had forged upon their arrival in this city. I had very little to do with it. I had begun to come and go in some of these homes because of Ishrat, but after she passed away, I slipped back into my old way of life. If anything, I was more cut off from these people than ever before. Now, after an age, Majju Bhai had tried to push me back among them. Because of his insistence, I began to go to those programmes and those homes where he was well known. Initially, as I said, their company bored me, but gradually it so happened that my boriyat began to lessen. A strange sort of interest took its place. Now it seemed as though I stood, a little apart from others, watching a tableau, as though whatever I was watching was not a part of a full life but a play.
Majju Bhai was right when he said now our city had become a quarrelsome city. Ya Allah, so many cities had collected in this one Karachi as though it was not a city but a sea. And every river, ever stream from across the subcontinent, came noisome and rollicking and merged in it. But rivers are supposed to mix with the sea and lose themselves. Here every river was shouting and saying, ‘I am the sea.’ And our Majju Bhai was a part of the noise of every noisome river, part of the fun and festivity of every community. Now he had begun to go everywhere with me in tow. It seemed as though there was a great clamour and I was a part of that clamour, and yet not a part of it. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes worried, sometimes content that the seed from which I had grown was breathing among them, sometimes anxiously asking myself: Who are these people? Who am I? What are they doing? What am I doing in their midst?
The Sea Lies Ahead Page 9