‘So let us then talk a little about this cat. Let it be known that even though it was black in colour, it had the greatest love for the brightest of consciences. It growled at worldly folk and embraced the pious with enormous affection. She was a favourite of our glorious ancestor. She lay snuggled in his lap all the time. When the hour of our ancestor’s death approached, he pronounced his last will and testament: his children must do whatever the cat bids them after his death. And with these words, he passed from this mortal world to the eternal one. And soon thereafter, that pure and virtuous cat sat down resolutely beside the corpse. She would growl at whoever ventured close and not let anyone come near the dead body. The news reached Sheikh Aryani; reciting many a holy verse, he reached the spot. At the sight of him, that cat with the brightly-lit heart and black body, that was by now a picture of learning, stood up on its hind legs. She embraced the Sheikh and wept, and immediately stepped aside. The Sheikh bathed our glorious ancestor with his own hands and buried him in the largest graveyard in Seville. The black cat adopted the grave as its abode and took to spending its days and nights beside it.
‘I heard this from my grandfather and my grandfather heard it from his grandfather, who was a descendant of Abul Hajjaj Sheikh Yousuf. And finally a day came, when the cat got up from the grave with an air of restlessness and went to the house where the Sheikh had once lived and where his son now lived with his entire family, and there she wept. Thereafter, all night long, she would weep and keep watch over the house. No one knew what the mystery was. The secret was revealed only when the Christians attacked the city. The attack proved to be severe for Seville. Al-Mu’tamid4 had already departed from the city, taking with him his many unfulfilled desires and yearnings as well as his poetry and his sword. And filled with the pain of captivity, his spirit had completed its designated imprisonment and flown out of its mortal cage. Now it was the turn of the other sons of Seville, whose swords had rusted. It was a perilous moment. Seville was drawing its last breaths. Every swordsman worthy of his name had been defeated. My grandfather’s father too fell in this battle. The harassed population left their homes and scattered in different directions. My dear friend, I heard from my grandfather and my grandfather heard from his that in the midst of this great commotion, that black cat rose from the shrine of our exalted ancestor and embraced my grandfather’s grandfather, weeping copiously all the while. My ancestor understood this to be a signal from the spirit of our venerable sheikh to depart from the city. And so he gathered his entire clan without further delay and set out from his home. The black cat accompanied them till the outskirts of the city and then stopped abruptly. Once again, she embraced my grandfather’s grandfather. And then, crying all the while, she returned to the shrine. Contemporary accounts tell us that soon thereafter, Seville emptied of all its people. For three days, that lone black cat, weeping and roaming its streets, was the sole occupant of the city.
‘Those who had left had not merely left Seville; they wanted to leave Andalusia too. But my grandfather’s grandfather’s wish was to look for shelter somewhere within Andalusia itself. A wise man saw his intent and rebuked him thus, ‘O imprudent son of a prudent father, what is this foolish thought you seem to be harbouring? Do you not see that Cordoba is already gone? Now Seville too is lost. Now which city in Andalusia has the strength to resist; they are no more than bubbles with foundations as fragile as water. Now there is no safe haven for us anywhere in Andalusia. Be sensible; come with us for we have decided to leave this place and find shelter in Fez.’
Hearing this, my grandfather’s grandfather wept and said, ‘We held fast to the staff of patience when we left Seville for that was the signal we received from our revered ancestor, but must I forsake Andalusia and leave forever? I swear by the Purest of Pure who holds fast to my life, I shall not be able to betray Andalusia thus. So, O Wise Elder, I shall henceforth part ways from the people of Seville.’
Saying this, my grandfather’s grandfather took his own path and, pulling the burden of his sorrows, enduring all manner of hardships along the way, reached the settlement of Malaqah.5 The soil of this ancient city held fast to his feet and he settled down there. Soon, he built himself a house of some sort. In its courtyard, he planted a date palm. In the shade of the palm, he put a wooden bed and, all day and all night long, he sat on it and wept. And he would remember the date palm in that long lost courtyard which, according to the best of his knowledge, was a veritable princess among date palms, and he would cry. On the morning of his last day, he called my grandfather to his side and smiled; my grandfather would say, that was the first time he saw a glimmer of happiness on his father’s face since the day they had left Seville. And he said to my grandfather, “Son, this is the morning of union. I had a dream at the break of dawn that I have gone to Seville and I am sitting in the shade of the date palm planted in the courtyard of my home and the black cat has come and embraced me.” Saying this, my grandfather smiled and said, “Dreams of early morning usually come true.” With these words, he hiccuped and handed over his life to the Creator.’
And Ibn-e Habib fell silent. And then with a great effort, he spoke in a tone of immense sorrow, ‘My dear, I too have left my village like my forefathers before me, and I have come to your city and I am more ill-fated than my forefathers. They had one sorrow. My grandfather’s grandfather had entered Malaqah carrying in his breast the pain of separation from his beloved Seville. My breast is burdened with two sorrows: the separation from Seville which was my ancestors’ sorrow and the separation from Malaqah which is my own sorrow. The graves of my ancestors are in Seville and my own umbilical cord is buried in Malaqah. And so my comforter and friend, I am wandering around in your city with two aches in my heart and these tear-filled eyes of mine, these are two sources of the worst torment for me. One is forever shedding tears for Seville, and the other cries for Malaqah.’
And saying this, Ibn-e Habib wept. Abdullah, the naan-seller, too became moist-eyed. He wiped his tears and said, ‘O you who belong to the sacred soil of Seville and have come from the city of Malaqah, you have refreshed my pain, a pain that I had buried in oblivion for long years. Though I am a son of Granada, for my umbilical cord is buried here, I belong to the soil of Cordoba. My ancestors’ ancestor left Cordoba and, after great travails, reached here. To be fair, Granada gave him much encouragement. Like a mother who lavishes great affection upon a son who has returned from foreign lands, so did Granada embrace those who had come from Cordoba. But all the love of this city could not find a cure for my ancestor’s sorrow. The sorrow of separation from his beloved Cordoba kept eating away at him like a weevil that worries away. I heard from my grandfather’s grandfather that my ancestor had a recurring dream: he has gone back to Cordoba and he can see the Grand Mosque of Cordoba in the distance. Impatiently, he rushes towards the Grand Mosque and he is almost there when he wakes up. Every morning, he would gather his sons and narrate his dream and weep and say, “O my sons, pray for your ill-fated father … pray that at least once he may reach the steps of the Grand Mosque in his dream.”’
As he finished his narration, Abdullah the naan-seller’s eyes filled with tears. He fell silent. And for a long time, both men stayed silent.
After a long time, Abdullah the naan-seller spoke up, ‘O you who carry two burdens on your breast, you and I have a common sorrow. So understand this: you are no longer alone in this city. Consider this roof, under which you are sitting, as your own. Sit beside this oven and refresh the memories of your village. Perhaps in this way, I too might refresh my memories of that fragrant city to which I belong.’
Ibn-e Habib heard these words and broke down with a surfeit of emotions. He said, ‘Today I have received confirmation of all those stories of the fabled hospitality of Granada.’
Upon this, Abdullah the naan-seller said, ‘My dear, Granada is a strange city and stranger still is the fact that there has been a deluge of those who have been uprooted. From distant corners of Andalusia, caravans up
on caravans of those who have been uprooted and forced to flee their homes have been arriving to camp in Granada. Things have reached such a pass that there are fewer people from Granada in Granada and far more migrants and homeless people from outside.’
Ibn-e Habib swallowed a bitter draught and said, ‘Including myself.’
‘Yaar Jawad, I think you too are one of them,’ I was startled. Whose voice was this … so startlingly different as it was? Like a jute patch in velvet! My entire train of thoughts scattered and broke; rather, it disappeared all together. Now I was reminded of Majju Bhai.
‘Yaar, I do feel you too had set off with them. Your first stop was Granada; perhaps you are still camping out there. Enough is enough, Yaar; come away.’ Majju Bhai laughed.
I truly fell in deep thought. Was it true? I tried to remember. Was it this that I had forgotten? I kept thinking, and remembering without paying heed to Majju Bhai’s tone of voice when he made this pronouncement. Anyhow, I tried my best to remember. But I could not remember anything. I laughed at my own foolishness. ‘Majju Bhai is known for his tall tales; you are a strange one to take him seriously.’ Yet my seriousness did not go away. When I could not remember anything, I became even more sorrowful for I was not one of them. ‘No, Majju Bhai, no. I am sorry to say that I am not one of them; I am one of your multitudes. I came with their throng to this useless city and set up camp here.’
‘Don’t say that, my dear. It has become a useless city now. Had it been a useless city then, you would still have been rotting away in a shanty.’
What a memory Majju Bhai had revived! He was an ace marksman. I was reminded of my days in the shanty. What a catastrophic downpour had devastated the shanties! The rain came a bit late; I had shifted to Majju Bhai’s flat by then. Or else my cot too would have been seen floating down that river of cots and beddings. Those were sobering days of great reckoning for, right in front of one’s eyes, one saw the owners of mansions and palaces turn into shanty-dwellers. But now I felt that the Golden Age of Pakistan, or at least of Karachi, was that era of the shanties. You can get an idea of those times by virtue of the fact that you saw neither masked men nor wielders of Kalashnikovs, and cars were not hijacked in broad daylight. In any case, who had cars those days? People had neither money nor worldly possessions, nor pennants and banners or carriages! What could the world take from you even if it turned against you? What was there for thieves and robbers to snatch? The only wealth was one’s memories. Actually, I was trying to see that age from this angle, for everyone had a lot of memories those days; if anything, people had a surfeit of memories. Though they lived on memories, they were actually living in a world of imagination, high up in the clouds. They talked of the Lal Quila though they were living in Lalu Khet.6 But this age passed all too soon. The shanty-dwellers became house-owners and began to be counted among affluent folk. A wealth of memories was bestowed upon me. And with it came my share of taunts – taunts, sarcasm, jibes and ridicule.
‘Excuse me, Jawad Bhai, but why had you gone to Meerut?’
‘What?’ I looked askance at Tausif. It seemed as though his tone and tenor had changed since he had become a part of the bureaucracy, or as Akhtari Baji would have it ‘the ruler of a district’. And his world view along with it.
‘See, Jawad Bhai, the other day we organized a feast of Nauchandi parathas for you as well as kababs from Khair Nagar.7 And then well-wishers like us are always here for you. What is left there?’
‘Only Khairul Bhai and his cat,’ Majju Bhai added as a riposte.
Tausif let out a feeble laugh. Then he said, ‘I had once gone to Meerut. Baji used to talk a great deal about Kotla8 once upon a time; but it was deserted when I saw it. I saw a few wizened old men who looked as though they belonged to the previous century. Khairul Bhai was sitting in his living room all by himself looking rather the worse for wear. I felt sorry for him. Had he come to Pakistan, surely something or the other could have been arranged for him.’
‘How could he come?’ Akhtari Baji spoke up. ‘His brain was addled. We were distantly related, but the bonds of neighbourliness were stronger. How much my mother had tried to make him see reason, “Son, what is left for you here? Will you stay back to do menial jobs like a cobbler stitching old shoes? Come to Pakistan.” But his brain was addled; he wouldn’t listen. He ruined his life. His parents had suffered such hardships to give him a fine education; it all went waste.’
‘Majju Bhai, I got bored out there in just two days! For one thing, I was heartily sick of the bathrooms in the homes of my elderly relatives. It is so strange … they are still using the old-fashioned open-air lavatories.’
‘I feel such pity for those people,’ Akhtari Baji said, adding her bit to Tausif ’s account. ‘What is left there? The truth is that the real excitement was because of us. Who is left there now? Only the no-good inconsequential types remain … Those who belong to the low castes such as teli, tamboli, bhatiyare, ghasiyare, or idlers like Khairul Bhai. The only reason I went back was out of love for my poor Khala Amma when her husband died. I nearly went mad in the first four days. I somehow managed to stay on till the fortieth day ceremony and then fled for dear life.’
And Majju Bhai was happily agreeing with every word she was saying.
‘Majju Bhai,’ Basho Bhabhi was saying, ‘I am not one to talk big, but one must speak the truth, after all. Our family was the pride of Lucknow; there is nothing but dust left there since we came away.’
‘My dear sir,’ Syed Aqa Hasan spoke up, ‘I don’t even feel like remembering that lost land. Our home, believe me, was a palace. A tumble-down ruin stands in its place today. Now you decide for us: why should we remember that desolate ruin?’
I was suddenly reminded of Dilkusha. There, in the place of Dilkusha, lay a heap of rubble. All that remained of the building was one staircase – that too dilapidated and falling to pieces. It was odd; an earthquake can certainly wreck an entire building, but it does nothing to a staircase. That is why it is said that one should take shelter under a staircase during an earthquake; one will be safe there. So, all that remained of Dilkusha was a decrepit and dilapidated staircase. And this decrepit and dilapidated staircase brought back to life the memories of the Dilkusha of days long gone. Now I am going about with this staircase inside me. Yes, and that tumble-down moss-encrusted old wall of the haveli. Who is to know all that lies hidden in a moss-encrusted wall? Surely, there is a magical quality in a wall that is so moss-encrusted that it has become black as a griddle. It draws a person so; it seems as though it isn’t a wall but an entire era standing there in front of you. The wall of my haveli had cast just such a spell on me on that rainy evening. I was caught in the magic of that wall. How long I had stood there, gazing at that rain-drenched, stained dark, high wall. I had tried to include Maimuna in my wonder. ‘Maimuna, do you see how black the wall of this haveli has become? It tells us how many rainy seasons it has seen.’
Maimuna became a part of my wonderment. She said, ‘Really,’ as though she had seen the wall for the first time.
As I was recounting the many rainy seasons I had enjoyed along with the wall, somehow I let slip the following sentence, ‘Now, those who come after us shall see the coming rains.’
Maimuna heard this sentence and looked at me in anger, an anger which contained a sadness too and said, ‘Who shall come after us? Who will stay here?’
I fell so silent that for a long time not a word escaped my lips, nor did I find the courage to meet her eye. She too became quiet after that one sentence. For a long, long time, the two of us kept sitting silently and still – like two islands of silence, miles apart from each other.
That haveli was like a dream for me now. In fact, that entire age had turned into a world of dreams and imagination. But from that day onwards, that black wall got after me. And that unbroken staircase from Dilkusha. I began to feel as though I was stuck between the wall and the staircase. Those magical powers had me in their thrall. Together, time and rain can
transform a wall. A simple, straightforward wall can become a wall of wonder. If an entire building collapses but one staircase remains standing upright, stairs begin to emerge from within stairs. Now those stairs were inside me, and were going higher and higher. And I … I was finally beginning to understand why the dharamshala with its moss-eaten wall and its tall peepal tree had seemed such a riddle to us. The wall and the peepal were not part of the dharamshala, but the two entities that together constituted the dharamshala and made it an enigma. The wall and the peepal … Arre … Suddenly, I was reminded of our neem. Look at me, I had forgotten all about it! True, the staircase and the wall had their rightful place, but the greatest magical force was that ancient neem tree that stood in the courtyard of our haveli whose dense branches had bent to drape the top of the black wall. If there is a tall and dense neem tree and a moss-encrusted black wall with an equally black and moss-encrusted parapet and if the branches have bent over it, then a veritable mountain of magic stands before you. It is strange that I went there after such a long time. I was looking at every nook and cranny of the haveli, and every object in it with wonder and amazement, yet I had overlooked the neem tree. As though it wasn’t there! I was taken by surprise in that rain-washed moment, as though the neem had caught me. I felt as though I was seeing it for the very first time, even though I had spent some of the finest moments of my life under its shade – along with Maimuna – hidden among its boughs, like two birds, chirping and cheeping on its branches. But in those days, the neem held no great mystery for us. Why would it be a mystery when it was one of us? Rather, we were a part of it. Among its densely-foliaged boughs were two tender green branches. The mystery began now. The bark of its trunk was transformed. It seemed as though it was opening up and somewhere deep from within it, from somewhere far away, a voice could be heard. Slowly-slowly, softly-softly, as though Maimuna was not sitting next to me but had appeared from within it. Dear Lord, how do things turn into mysteries? Or they are mysteries but are revealed to us only in a certain special moment? What is all this, after all? What is this thing called a cloud?9 What is the wind when it is swaying the branches? And what is the neem? How do those little berries appear on its branches? And what of the moss-encrusted wall and parapet? If I had the slightest spark of a Sufi in me, that day, at that instant, I would have entered the realm of wonder incarnate, and then all life long, I would have spent it just so: that is, sitting still and gazing at the neem. And also at the moss-encrusted wall. The walls of our dharamshala too had endured many rains and turned black with moss. How startled Maimuna used to get whenever she spotted a monkey on its parapet, even though it wasn’t unusual to see monkeys roaming around our house. But the monkey sitting on top of that parapet was not merely a monkey; it turned into something else! In any case, a monkey and a cat are two animals that can suddenly transform into something else. That is, a cat is not merely a cat and a monkey does not remain merely a monkey. Among the many mysteries of nature, the cat and the monkey are two mysteries.
The Sea Lies Ahead Page 24