The Sea Lies Ahead

by Intizar Husain

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘You did not pay heed to my words then, and later you regretted it. Miyan, loneliness does not pinch during one’s youth. It begins to gnaw as the years go past. And this is only the beginning. Wait and see how it gets worse. So, listen to me; you will do well.’

  ‘And what do you think about yourself?’

  ‘Me?’ Majju Bhai let out a thunderous peal of laughter. ‘Ustad, I had rid myself of the thought early on in life. I never could abide the thought of this nuisance. And that is why I am doing well; loneliness can do me no harm. And you can see my habits and pursuits. But if someone has tasted the pleasures of married life once and, as luck would have it, is also the father of a child, he is troubled by loneliness. My dear fellow, you should at least have kept your son with you. You could have got him married by now. He would have had children. You would have forgotten your loneliness in the midst of your grandsons and granddaughters. By the way, how is Arshad? Has he written any letter recently? Does he plan to return, or not?’

  ‘Under these circumstances, what will he do if he returns? I never ask him to come back.’

  ‘And marriage? What does he say about that?’

  ‘At present neither he has any views on the subject, nor do I.’

  Majju Bhai laughed. ‘Today, neither of you has any views, but tomorrow it can pose problems. What will you do if he marries a mem? And if he has to stay there, then I can find a Green Card holder for him. There are plenty of such women available in Karachi. In fact, I have a couple in mind; if you want, I can set the ball rolling.’

  ‘We’ll see; there is no hurry.’

  Nemat Khan brought us tea. I made a cup for Majju Bhai, and then poured for myself. One sip transported me far, far away. Meanwhile, Majju Bhai also lit up his cigarette.

  ‘Majju Bhai,’ I was struck by the strangest thought as I was sipping my tea. ‘These friends of yours … thanks to you, I have started meeting them too. I don’t even know why. Earlier, I had not the slightest desire to meet them, and you too did not make any especial effort for me to meet them. There must be some wisdom in it because you take me along when you go to meet them. Anyhow, as I was saying, these people …’ And I didn’t know how to say it.

  ‘You will say that these people don’t appear to be like that. Yaar, you must stop repeating things. It gives the impression that you are indeed getting old.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I am repeating myself. Yaar, I sometimes feel as though something has gone missing in them.’

  Majju Bhai laughed, ‘Something? Why, they have gone entirely missing. In fact, they are transformed. Now they have become true-blue Karachiwalas.’

  ‘And what about all that talk of “our Delhi” and “our Lucknow” that they used to go on about?’

  ‘It is all a big fraud. Anyhow, you should forgive them; this fraud was their compulsion.’

  ‘How was it a compulsion?’

  ‘Because if one has to survive in Karachi, one has to engage in some fraud or the other.’

  ‘That is tough; what is one to do if one wants to escape from them?

  ‘How is it difficult for you? You have always shunned human company and lived in a world of your own. Now you have come up with a new one,’ Majju Bhai paused, then said, ‘Miyan Jawad, sometimes when I see you I am amazed: you are something else! Now you have burdened yourself with this new nuisance of memories. Why, for heaven’s sake?’

  I laughed. ‘Majju Bhai, I have my own compulsions. I too needed a fraud in order to live in Karachi.’

  Majju Bhai laughed uproariously. ‘Yaar, you have rendered me speechless today. Truly, you have!’

  ‘But there is one big difficulty.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘At first, I thought I remembered a great deal. But when I sit down to reminisce, it seems as though my memories are sliding out of my recall. Or perhaps I am imagining that I can remember,’ and I became sorrowful as I said these words. ‘The truth is I don’t remember anything anymore … I am empty … completely empty.’

  ‘Yaar, you were a hundred per cent true to begin with, but then you came back to your usual nonsense. Come on, get up; let me take you out for some great tea somewhere.’

  ‘Great tea? Where will you take me?’

  ‘That depends on which brand of tea you wish to drink. The Lucknow brand, the Delhi brand, or the Meerut brand? Each has its own distinctive flavour.’

  ‘None of these are acceptable to me. If we must go, let us go to the Shikarpurwalas.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Majju Bhai laughed. ‘Look where you have met your match! Remember they are from Shikarpur! Anyhow, I knew from the first instant that Chacha Karbalai had made an impact on you.’

  ‘Majju Bhai, Chacha Karbalai may be from Shikarpur, but he is any day better than your crowd from Lucknow, Delhi, Meerut and Amroha. There is a still a spark of truth in him.’

  ‘Let a few more years pass; you will turn into another Chacha Karbalai. You are going in the right direction.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, never mind. I am happy in whatever makes you happy.’

  And as soon as we reached, the first thing Majju Bhai said was, ‘Chacha, my friend Jawad has become a great admirer of yours. And so I said to him, “Let me take you there to meet him.”’

  Karbalai sahab was pleased. He said, ‘Miyan, what good will it do anyone to meet me? I am just sitting here with a few broken-down memories. I am the lamp that will be snuffed out at dawn; I will flicker on till the Angel of Death does not think of coming for me. And the day he remembers, this lamp will be snuffed out.’ And then his tone changed as he asked, ‘So you are Jawad Hasan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The other day you had mentioned that you are from Meerut.’

  ‘Yes, I once had some ties with Meerut.’

  ‘It is the same thing, Miyan. I have seen Meerut. That’s the benefit of a government job; one keeps getting transfers and gets to see many different cities. So, I was transferred to the Government High School in Meerut. I taught there for three years. Did you see that theatre show called the Murder of Tameezan?’

  ‘I had heard about it, but I hadn’t seen it.’

  ‘Then obviously you wouldn’t have seen Tameezan either?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what did you see in Meerut? What a fine looking woman she was! You know, she was a real firecracker! She got murdered in the end, but drove so many to their death with her killer looks. I have seen with my own eyes that kotha where she was murdered. I didn’t go up, though.’

  ‘There is no harm if you had gone up.’

  ‘No, no. I have never let anything come in the way of my faith. While passing by, a friend had pointed out the kotha where Tameezan used to stay. Though I must say I had often seen Boom Hapuri. He would stand at the Lorry Station and sell his verses in such a loud voice and with such relish! Boom’s new verses in four annas! Chamarinama2 in two annas! If nothing else, at least the good man wrote the Chamarinama. After all, if the tehsildar had lost his heart to the chamar girl, what is it to you? These things go on. A woman is a woman, whether she is a chamar or a mem. Be that as it may, Jawad Miyan, there was certainly no match for the Nauchandi fair of your Meerut.’

  ‘Yes, there was a lot of excitement during the Nauchandi fair.’

  ‘Yes, there was such splendour. People talk of the numaish3 at Aligarh, but it was actually Nauchandi that was more splendid. In fact, a poet from Aligarh had come up with a verse … what was it … Yes, I remember …

  Sajawat mein, banawat mein, lagawat mein, dikhawat mein

  Aligarh ki numaish Hind bhar mein sab se behtar hai

  In ornamentation, constitution, appeal and show

  The numaish of Aligarh is better than all others in India

  ‘Wrong, all wrong! You didn’t get anything there except Peshawari kabab-parathe and black burqas. And in Bulandshahr you didn’t even get that! But the Nauchandi fair … it had everything! Subhan Allah!
One round of the fair was enough to fill your eyes with light and suffuse your heart with intoxication.’ Chacha Karbalai was mumbling as though he was indeed strolling in the Nauchandi fair. He paused, then said, ‘Miyan Jawad Hasan, there was no dearth of splendour in our Shikarpur. There would be an animal fair that drew hordes from all the villages in the neighbourhood. And during Muharram, there was an altogether different kind of splendour. Miyan, don’t think I am lying, but when the Imam’s procession was taken out … I would stay there for the entire ten days. That reminds me … Last night I had a dream where …’

  ‘So you have had another dream,’ Saiyadani Chachi stopped him mid-sentence. She had finished her chores and come and sat with us during this conversation. She had opened her paandan. She stopped Karbalai sahab’s narration and said angrily, ‘Again, that wretched Shikarpur must have appeared in your dreams! Ai Majju Bhai, talk some sense into him. How long will he go on invoking that city of ill fortune?’

  A river that was in full spate stopped. Chacha Karbalai looked at his wife with the utmost innocence and helplessness, and became silent. Now, it was Saiyadani Chachi’s turn to start talking. She had her own interests. Right away, she fired the first salvo. ‘Ai Majju Bhai, whatever happened to that doomed match you were trying to fix? Have the Lucknow-walas given their answer or are the talks still on?’

  ‘It is dangling mid-air. I have tried to make both parties see sense. It is not so much both as the Lucknow-walas who have flown off the handle; they are the ones who have to be brought back to the discussion. I have tried my best to make them see reason. I have told them that they will not find such a good match, and those who have tried to misguide them are waiting for things to be called off so that they can jump in and grab the groom for their own daughter.’

  ‘Ai, really? Is that the truth?’

  ‘Yes, that is the real truth. You know how it is when a match is proposed and someone or the other cuts in because of their own interest.’

  ‘What can one say about people these days … they just have to hear the faintest whiff of a rumour and they start to keep tabs! They root about in the past and do everything they can to break up a prospective match.’

  ‘That is exactly what I tried to make them understand. I asked them who are these people who are going around spreading the rumour about them not being Saiyad? After all, I am here, I know them. And as for the genealogical tree4 … We should not forget the circumstances in which we left our homes. At that time, who had the time to keep the genealogical tree? We escaped with our lives; was that not enough of a miracle?’

  ‘What did she say then?’

  ‘At that time, she was in her senses. She understood things. Now, I am trying my best to ensure that the nikah is performed at the earliest.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I am trying to say too; there should be no further delay. The moment you give the slightest slack, all sorts of things begin to come out. I have decided that the day I get a good match for my daughter, I will have the simplest possible nikah and send her away.’

  ‘What happened to that match that was being set up among the Sarsiwalas?’5

  ‘Ai Bhaiyya, that turned to be a real can of worms: six sisters, three brothers and a gaggle of their offspring. And on top of it all, the job of a professor with no extra income. The boy’s mother told us he wrote books. I said a marriage doesn’t run on books. These days, people with the smallest jobs earn so much that they have lakhs of rupees.’

  ‘Yes, the avenues for earning money have really opened up.’

  ‘Bhaiyya, I am sick and tired of people telling me that their boy is an M.A.! Arre, what good is an M.A. or a B.A.? The boy should also know how to earn. Now, may God keep him well, there is my niece’s husband. He had just cleared his Entrance when his parents had him admitted in the police as a constable. He is a smart boy; he served his seniors so well that they promoted him to a thanedar. The house he has had built for himself looks like a palace. Two cars stand in the driveway. Apart from that, he has a plot of land too. I want that sort of boy for my daughter. Don’t you know someone like that?’

  ‘Chachi, what can I say … Unfortunately, all the accursed young men I have in mind are educated. What is more, they keep on getting more and more educated and are showing no signs of stopping. Wherever you turn, you see someone madly engrossed in some research or the other. I told that son of the Lucknow-walas, “My dear, if all young men were to become Plato, how would Pakistan go about its business?” He said, “There is no need for educated people in Pakistan, in any case. I am studying for my own interest.”’

  ‘Now, Majju Bhaiyya, you tell me: Can one give one’s daughters to such mad men? One can’t knowingly push one’s own offspring into hell.’

  How restless I was becoming. I could barely control myself though my dearest wish was that somehow Saiyadani Chachi could be silenced and Chacha Karbalai could start again, and that too from the point that he had been interrupted. He had been interrupted just as he was about to describe his dream. Who knows what the dream was all about? Saiyadani Chachi was in full flow. My curiosity about the dream was growing. So, when Saiyadani Chachi stopped to draw breath and turned her attention towards her paandan, I thought it best to make use of this interval. I threw the ball in Chacha Karbalai’s court. ‘Qibla, what are your views about this?’

  ‘Yes, Chacha, you should also say something.’ Perhaps Majju Bhai too was fed up of Saiyadani Chachi’s views and wanted a change. ‘You are not saying anything.’

  ‘Arre bhai, what should I say?’ And he lapsed into silence as though he could not understand what to say after he was cut short just as he was preparing to describe his dream. Whereas I was sitting there hoping that Chacha Karbalai would seize the opportunity and describe his dream. Saiyadani Chachi too sensed the possibility that he might do just that. She immediately sensed the danger and averted it, ‘Yes, what will he say? That is our problem; he has nothing to say about whatever is happening in our home. Had he the slightest interest in this home, he would think of something to say. Everything circles back to the description of his dreams and in every dream there is nothing but the narration of that ill-fated Shikarpur.’

  ‘Chacha, I also want to ask you something,’ Majju Bhai interjected. ‘Why does the landscape of your dreams never change? Fine, let it not be Karachi but you have been to Karbala. By landscape I mean how come you don’t ever see Karbala in your dreams?’

  ‘Miyan, that will be my last dream.’ And with these words, Chacha Karbalai turned towards me. ‘Miyan Jawad Hasan, have you been to Karbala?’

  ‘No, sir, I have not had the pleasure so far.’

  ‘Oh, I see; that is unfortunate. One must go to Karbala at least once in one’s lifetime. That one journey ends all one’s suffering.’ He stopped and then after some thought, said, ‘Miyan, I made a mistake; I regret it now. It was a big mistake.’

  ‘Mistake? What mistake did you commit?’

  ‘Don’t ask, Majju Miyan. Now, as you know, only the fortunate few can go to Karbala. Only those whom Ali remembers can go there. So, I was called and I went. But why did I come back? I am wracked by regret. It was a huge mistake.’ He sighed. ‘I was destined to face these travails in life. Somehow or the other, we reached here. And now we are languishing in Karachi. Our children are in America and we are in Karachi and my heart is in Shikarpur and my spirit is in Shikarpur. I am in a dilemma, Majju Miyan.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Truly, I am in a dilemma. I am hanging between Shikarpur and Karbala. My soil tugs me in one direction and my faith in the other. My spirit tells me what is there in that desolate soil; a window into heaven is open for you here. I am in such a difficult spot.’ Karbalai sahab fell silent and remained quiet while Saiyadani Chachi kept prattling on. Lost in his own thoughts, who can tell which journey he had set out upon? Had he embarked on a journey to Karbala or to Shikarpur?

  That night, as we talked, I finally told Majju Bhai what lay in my heart. ‘Majju Bhai, I have been th
inking of going there.’

  ‘Oh?’ Majju Bhai looked askance at me. ‘You have thought of going there after such a long time? So Karbalai sahab’s influence has rubbed off on you?’

  ‘It isn’t Karbalai sahab’s influence. Actually, it is those letters that have created a sense of guilt in me. I am thinking that …’

  I couldn’t say anymore. And Majju Bhai did not give me enough time to complete my sentence. He said, ‘Yaar, why do you sound so apologetic? What is wrong if you want to go? You have relatives there. Of course, you must go.’ And after a pause, he muttered, ‘Land is the most God-awful thing. One is better off till one is not reminded of it. There are some people who live their entire lives and don’t let the thought of their land come anywhere near them. But the moment one thinks of it, the thought seizes you.’

  ‘Have you never thought of going there? Some relative, friend, someone … anyone …’

  ‘Some beloved? That is what you want to say, isn’t it? No, there isn’t.’

  ‘You are a lucky man.’

  ‘You can say that. Anyhow, my view is that once one has left that place and the humiliating manner in which one left it, one should never go back.6 No, never.’

  ‘You have enormous self-respect,’ I laughed.

  ‘That is the way I think. But that does not mean I am stopping you. This is the only cure for that sense of guilt you have so needlessly built up inside yourself.’

  ‘I am only thinking about it; it isn’t so easy to go there.’

  ‘What is the difficulty?’

  ‘The first difficulty is the visa.’

  ‘Leave that to me; what next?’

  I was left speechless. And at that time, it seemed to me as though there were no more obstacles in my journey. Even if I didn’t wish to go, Majju Bhai would push me there.

  1 Intizar Husain uses the Persian expression taaq-e-nisiyan, which refers to that place where forgotten memories go, sometimes never to be retrieved. In Urdu, the creative writer has long used this expression to evoke a sense of wonder and the capability of the human mind to seek refuge from its own hurts. In contrast, the concept of ‘memory hole’ propounded by George Orwell is a sinister, organized, ideology-driven mechanism to willfully hide memory and subvert history.