The Sea Lies Ahead

by Intizar Husain

  ‘Majju Bhai, how are these people of yours?’

  ‘What do you mean, Miyan? How should they have been?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem as though they are the same people.’

  ‘Same people? Majju Bhai paused, then said, ‘Have you gone mad that you are looking for them? Those people are not here. How could they have stayed the same when they left there? There was the soil of rivers; here, there is the sand of the sea.’

  ‘So one will have to go there to see them,’ I laughed and said.

  Majju Bhai laughed, ‘But my dear, I hope it doesn’t happen that when you go there you find those people are not there either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Time, my dear, Time!’

  ‘I see,’ I said and I felt sad.

  ‘Yes,’ And Majju Bhai issued a notice, ‘Let us go.’

  ‘Where?

  ‘Anywhere … there are a thousand shade-giving trees along the way.’

  ‘The mullah can only run till the mosque. We can only knock on the door of the Meerutwalas or the Lucknow-walas.’

  Majju Bhai laughed, ‘All right, today we won’t go to either of those places. Today, I will show you a new specimen.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘Don’t ask; just come along. You will recognize them when you see them.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, they are one of a kind.’

  Indeed they were one of a kind. His language was different from his wife’s.

  ‘Miyan Jawad, this is my friend Saiyad Shabbir Husain Karbalai; he is someone you will enjoy meeting. Qibla, this is my friend Jawad.’

  ‘Miyan, where are you from? Are you a Saiyad? Which family? How many Saiyad families in your basti? And how many Imam Baras?’ Such a deluge of questions that I became nervous.

  ‘Miyan, I am from Shikarpur. It was once a famous basti of Shias in the Bulandshahr district.’

  ‘A basti of Saiyads?’ Saiyadani Chachi (this is how Majju Bhai was addressing her) said mockingly. ‘There were a bare handful of Saiyad families there. The others were all Hindus. Ai Bhaiyya, they set up such a din on the day of Holi that I used to go mad. Allah knows why he goes on all the time about “our Shikarpur”.’

  ‘Yes, they were Hindu,’ said Karbalai sahab, ‘But each was a master in his own craft. Majid Miyan, Banwari was a halwai par excellence; that fellow had amazing taste in his fingers. It is the truth; after all, we have to show our face to God. I have not eaten the same besan laddu since leaving Shikarpur.’

  ‘Now let us hear all about the halwais,’ Saiyadani Chachi cut his account. ‘There was only one alley that had the halwai shops. All the halwais were Hindu and there was such smoke and such filth that Allah help us! And on top of it, there were the blasted dogs that would barely wait for the cauldrons to cool before they set about licking them. And the sweets? There was layered gazak made from gur, sweet sev fried in sweet oil, and gur-dhani … that was it. I ate far superior sweets when I had once gone to Chhatari1.’

  ‘Chhatari?’ Karbalai sahab asked contemptuously. ‘All the place could boast of was the Nawab’s moustaches! What else was there? How can you compare Shikarpur with Chhatari?’

  ‘Ai Bhaiyya, talk some sense into him,’ Saiyadani Chachi said to Majju Bhai. ‘What was there in Shikarpur? Its bazaars had nothing but dust. Broken down ekkas, carts pulled by ageing and ill bullocks, shops run by oil merchants and paanwalas. I don’t ever tell anyone that we are from Shikarpur. Why should we give others a chance to laugh at us? Thank God, our two children are living the good life in America. They keep writing to us to say, “Amma, leave Karachi; it is no place to live. We have the Green Card for America; you just have to say yes, we will get you a visa, put you on a plane and bring you to America.” And, Bhaiyya, I too sometimes think: Is Karachi really a place to live? Bullets are fired night and day. Goons go about abducting young men from its streets. And on top of it all, the dacoits have unleashed such mayhem that Allah help us!’

  ‘Dacoits,’ Karbalai sahab muttered. ‘I don’t consider them dacoits. Majju Miyan, do you know the name of any one of them?’

  ‘If their names were known, would they not have been caught?’

  Karbalai sahab laughed. ‘What a thing to say, Majju Bhai? The hallmark of a true dacoit is that his name is known and dreaded. Even a child knows his name. And it takes a brave man to catch him. The name of Sultana Daku was known all over India. These are not dacoits, for no one in Karachi knows their name.’

  ‘Arre, you always start your own tales,’ Saiyadani Chachi interrupted him yet again. ‘I was saying that Karachi is no longer a city worth living. I wouldn’t stop here long enough to sip water. One daughter is waiting to be married; the day I am free of this responsibility I, for one, am going to board a plane to America, whether I get a visa or not.’

  ‘What a thing to say, Nazeer’s mother! America is not exactly next door; it is a long and arduous journey.’

  ‘The journey to Pakistan was also a long and arduous one. How we offered praises at every step and reached here eventually! The journey to America may be long, but it will be a peaceful one.’

  Karbalai sahab drew a long breath. ‘Yes, you are right. We left Shikarpur at a strange hour. How fearful we were whether we would be able to reach the station or not. We made that journey by offering thanks for every step we took.’

  And then he fell silent and seemed lost in thought. After a while, he said, ‘Majid Miyan, just the other night … Yes, the night before last, I had a strange dream … as though I had reached Shikarpur … I was so happy, so happy that I cannot describe it. And also surprised … surprised because Shikarpur had become so beautiful. The tall buildings looked like palaces. Miyan, can you believe it … there was not a kutcha house in sight. And the roads … those dust-filled, potholed kutcha roads had disappeared. From here till there, there were only pucca, metalled roads, glimmering like mirrors, and so many cars! I was surprised … what had happened to the ekkas? There were no ekkas in sight. I saw a tanga with rubber tyres racing along and my alley … how spanking clean it was! There was no one in the alley. But there was a lot of peace and calm. I had just about entered my alley when I woke up.’ He paused, then said, ‘I was heart-broken. Why did I have to get up at that moment? Why does it always happen like this in my dreams? I am happily going towards my home, thinking that I will soon reach there, but as soon as I set foot in my alley, I wake up … But this was a strange dream.’

  ‘It may have been strange,’ Saiyadani Chachi spoke disinterestedly. ‘You have been having these strange dreams ever since you came here. All you have done since coming here is have these dreams. Thank god for Nazeer and Basheer … we would have starved if it were not for their incomes. And ever since they have started sending money, he has stopped even trying to work. God knows why he has so many dreams and in every dream he sees Shikarpur. I have never seen it in my dreams … Shikarpur has become beautiful … Of course, it will seem beautiful in your dreams.’

  ‘Well, that’s not quite true, Nazeer’s mother. I had told you about the dream I had last month. I had seen Shikarpur barren and desolate, as though everyone had left it and gone away. Silence reigned from one end to the other. Just one dog stood barking. I was scared. I wanted to get home quickly. But just as I turned into my alley to go home, and had barely taken a few steps, that I woke up.’

  Saiyadani Chachi seemed thoroughly fed up of all this talk about dreams. She changed the subject abruptly, ‘Ai Majju Bhai, what happened to that marriage you were fixing for that daughter of the Lucknow-walas?’

  ‘Aji, don’t ask, Saiyadani Chachi. These Lucknow-walas of yours are great ones for looking for faults. The match was nearly fixed when they came up with a new one: “These people are such village yokels; how can we give our daughter to them?”’

  ‘I knew all along: I knew they would come up with some fault or the other. It is because of these reasons that their elder daughter is still sitting at home. In any case, she h
as studied medicine and now, thankfully, she has her own clinic. She is not dependent on anyone. There is so much money in this business that she can feed four others beside herself. But what about their younger one? Parents don’t stay around forever. It would have been good if they had married her off; they should think of what will happen to her after they are gone.’

  ‘Well, that is not quite the case; this one too is educated.’

  ‘It isn’t enough just to be educated. One should have a skill too. Those with B.A. and M.A. degrees are wandering about; what good is just a degree? Nor is everything to be found in books alone. In any case, this is a man’s business; a girl looks good only when she is sewing, stitching, knitting and embroidering. Why does she have to become a know-it-all after reading all these books? Whenever I have been to their home, I have always seen that girl sitting in a corner with her books. One day, I could stand it no more. I said, “My dear, take some interest in cooking too so that you can ease your mother’s burden, and you too might learn some good housekeeping. As for the books, had you read even half the books you have, Masha Allah, and read about Hadith and Quran you would have fared better on your Last Day. After all, can these English books match even one rakaat of prayer?’

  ‘Saiyadani Chachi, what a thing to say!’

  ‘Ai Bhaiyya, one has to say the truth. Let those who want to take offense, take offense. Let them speak in two tongues who need something from others. I don’t need anything from anyone. So, I never refrain from speaking the truth. That is why I am not popular. But I don’t care.’

  ‘Chachi, now you have started a new topic. I simply meant that the boy is good enough, comes from a good family, we know everyone, they have no expectations … the girl would have been happy there.’

  ‘That is all very well. A star won’t fall from the firmament for their daughter. Good or bad, this is the stock of boys we have. But these Lucknow-walas have their head in the high heavens. They consider everyone except themselves to be peasants. They go about finding a hundred faults in other people’s children and, when it comes to their own daughters, they think they are perfect.’

  Karbalai sahab also found his tongue. He said, ‘Majju Miyan, I have seen Lucknow. I am not setting it up against Shikarpur. I swear, if you remove the Imam Baras, there is no difference between Shikarpur and Lucknow. If anything, there is a great deal in Shikarpur. Hazrat Bismil Allahabadi has given a fitting response to all the claims of these Lucknow-walas in his verse. He was from Allahabad; see how well he has praised the greatness of his city. He has said:

  Badha rahe hain bahut Lucknow ki shaan magar

  Woh Gomti ko to Ganga bana nahi sakte

  (They are bent upon exalting the greatness of Lucknow

  But they cannot turn the Gomti into the Ganga)

  ‘Majju Miyan, tell me truly, what do you think?

  ‘Well said.’

  ‘The Lucknow-walas pride themselves on their poetry, but they have not been able to find a fitting rejoinder to this verse.’

  ‘There is no answer to the fact,’ and once again Majju Bhai turned towards Saiyadani Chachi, ‘that they have turned their being Saiyad into an issue too. In calling the Meerutwalas village yokels, they have raised the question of their not being Saiyads but Kambohs.’

  ‘Hai, is it true?’ Saiyadani Chachi nearly jumped out of her chair. ‘Are these Meerutwalas not Saiyad?’

  ‘Saiyadani Chachi, I am saying, fine, so let them not be Saiyad; the boy is all right in all respects.’

  ‘Ai Bhaiyya, I will speak the truth; don’t take it amiss. Truly, I have no love lost for the Lucknow-walas, but they are right. You can’t swallow a fly once you have seen it. You can’t marry your daughter off among the non-Saiyads, knowing full well that they are not Saiyad.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it, Saiyadani Chachi?’

  ‘Ai hai, is there no harm? What a thing to say? Was this calamity too waiting to strike us in this 14th century2 that the daughters of Saiyads should go to the homes of the non-Saiyads?’

  ‘And what if one can’t find Saiyad boys?’

  ‘That is exactly what I am asking? Why is there such a scarcity of Saiyad boys in this day? The Saiyad boys are running around making a fool of themselves over all sorts of people, while Saiyad girls are sitting at home? On the Day of Judgement, when the women in Paradise3 will ask them: “O you misbegotten sons, why did you ruin my line?”, what answer will they have?’

  ‘These Saiyad boys of today,’ Karbalai sahab muttered. ‘Look at the state of decline in the saadat.’ He took a long deep breath and fell silent.

  And on that long deep breath, our meeting ended.

  1 Chhatari, like Shikarpur, is another small town in the district of Bulandshahr in UP.

  2 According to the Islamic calendar, the 14th century AH corresponds with 1883-1980 AD. See footnote 68.

  3 Refers to the ladies from the Prophet’s family, such as Fatima; Fatima will be the first among women to enter Paradise.

  One evening, Majju Bhai telephoned me and asked, ‘Are you at home?’ What are you doing?’

  ‘I am home and doing nothing at all. But, huzoor, where are you today?’

  ‘I was getting bored; first I waited for you, then when you didn’t show up, I thought perhaps the bank has seized you, then I set out on my own. I thought of meeting Tausif Miyan. When I came here, I met a new trouble.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There is trouble in this area.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘It is being said they were masked men … they came and shot blindly and went away. At that time, everyone was struck dumb. It was only when they went away that the people set up a din. All hell broke loose. The police came immediately and then what usually happens, happened. And now there is curfew. So, Jawad Miyan, I am stuck, and it looks like I will end up spending the night here. Tausif Miyan immediately devised an impromptu night-long mushaira.’

  ‘May God give you more such opportunities!’

  ‘What to do? I am stuck … now I am entirely at Tausif Miyan’s mercy. There will be no need to go far … this alley is bursting with poets. The mushaira will go on all night and there will be taar-roti1 to go with it.’

  ‘Where did this taar-roti come from?’

  ‘Ama, don’t you know, the Rampurwalas live right next door. They have offered the taar-roti on their own. So the curfewed night will go well. How are things at your end?’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Even so, be careful. Is Nemat Khan around?’

  ‘Yes, where will he go?’

  ‘All right then; as soon as the curfew relaxes for a bit tomorrow, I will leave this place.’

  So, thanks to the curfew, Majju Bhai got busy in his interests; I too found something to keep myself occupied. Some time ago, I had found an interesting book in a junk-dealer’s shop. I thought of finally reading it today. But the book had got so lost among my books that I could not find it. And so I ended up turning all my books upside down. Strange things happen when one turns one’s books upside down; all sorts of old papers are found, some from behind books, some tucked in their pages, others stuck between books, and every such paper revives some long-lost memory, and some forgotten incident comes back to life. In the process of turning the books upside down, several old letters were found. Phuphi Amma’s letter? When did this come?

  My Dearest Munnan Miyan,

  May you live long! Accept thousands of blessings from your poor Phuphi. My dear, are you angry with me? Why do you never write two words to tell us of your well being? At least, let me know what is it about your poor aunt that has distanced you? How much I loved you! Still, if something has hurt you, please forgive me, my son. You have forgotten your Phuphi Amma; but how can your Phuphi Amma forget you? You are the only surviving sign of my long departed brother. How tenderly I looked after you when you were a baby, cleaned your poop. I didn’t know the difference between day and night, so engrossed was I in tending you. I slept i
n the wet to ensure you were warm and dry. So many nights, I slept on one side in fear that if I turned I might disturb your sleep. You were such a light sleeper; you used to get up at the slightest movement. And once awake, how difficult it was for you to fall asleep again! You used to blink your eyes like a waking-sleeping doll. And I used to put you back to sleep with such difficulty. So, my dear, this is how I raised you. How was I to know that you would grow up and go away so that your poor unfortunate aunt would long for a sight of your face! After all, people used to go abroad in earlier times too. My dear brother, may God rest his soul in peace, had gone and settled abroad, but every week or fortnight, he would send word of his welfare through an electric cable. Such was the love of those days. Now, this is a wretched new age, and Pakistan has been created. How blood relations have changed … whoever goes there does not turn to look this side. May you be happy in your Pakistan; we are not coming there to share your good fortune. We are only hungry for your love. If you were to write a short note every month or two telling us of your safety and well being, we would have been content. Here, we fret over the safety of our children, the stars of our eyes, who have gone so far, far away. May our children remain safe! May they know no grief except the grief for Husain!