by Bapsi Sidhwa
A man walked up to Qasim. Dripping gloriously, arms akimbo, he grinned, “Well, Pathan, I certainly saved you from that tree!”
He was about thirty. A black cord, stringing a silver amulet, hung from his neck. He was shorter than Qasim but magnificently built.
Qasim touched his forehead in gratitude. Must be a wrestler, he thought, noting the cropped hair and the smooth, well-oiled face.
“You a pehelwan?” he asked, diffidently.
The man nodded.
“Ah! I thought so.”
“Nikka. They call me Nikka Pehelwan. Come, let’s have a look at the tree,” he said in Punjabi, his even teeth gleaming in a vigorous smile.
He strutted ahead jauntily and Qasim followed.
The rain exhilarated the camp. Irritated, bitter tempers gave way to camaraderie. Men and women teased each other, laughed and romped around like children. Naked children wallowed in foamy cushions of mud, splattering the slush, dancing and shouting.
“Put me down. Put me down,” cried Zaitoon fretfully, but Qasim, enthralled by the confident stride of his newfound friend, did not hear her. The wrestler reminded him of a velvet-brown pedigree pony that is reined in to keep its neck arched and high.
They reached the fallen tree and Nikka tried to lift a branch. Each of his gestures combined grace with a hint of arrogance. “This would have flattened you like a chappati,” he said impassively.
Zaitoon beat Qasim on the chest. “Abba-a-a, put me down, Abba-a-a-a.”
“Hush, child,” he said absently. For a flash, his heart constricted. Was her “Abba-a” directed at the stranger? No, she was looking at him. He was flooded with a sense of relief and tenderness.
Zaitoon smiled happily at the affection shining in his face. “Put me down. I want to play.”
“All right,” he said, lowering her.
“Is she your daughter?” the Pehelwan asked.
Qasim grew tense. “You heard her.”
“Where is your wife?”
“Dead.”
“Was she also Pathan?” Nikka inquired. “The girl is dark.”
Qasim glared at the wrestler. “Look,” he snarled, with a sudden hold on the man’s wet, muslin shirt, “nothing about my wife concerns you . . . And I am not a Pathan. I am a Kohistani.”
“Calm down. I was only asking. What’s the harm in that?”
Qasim loosened his grip.
“You don’t ask a hill-man anything about his womenfolk, understand? I would have slit your throat for less had you not saved me and my child from that tree.”
“Lay off, friend, I meant no harm,” the man flashed a warm smile. “I’m not a hill-man. I don’t know your ways.”
Qasim’s anger subsided as quickly as it had begun. “Let’s sit down.” He offered a placatory gesture, clearing away a few twigs. Then he asked, “Where do you come from?”
“Pannapur, near Amritsar,” Nikka paused, and Qasim waited attentively.
Then Nikka said, “Do you know what those swine did in my village? They herded the Muslims into a camp for protection . . . Protection, mind you . . . because of some fool rumor—Allah grant it be true—that a trainload of Hindus and Sikhs had been slaughtered near Wagha. Once inside the camp, a Sikh police inspector—the dog’s penis—picked up a machine gun and went “tha-tha-tha-tha!” He killed them all. By Allah’s grace, we had already left.”
They brooded awhile. Qasim was the first to look up.
“You had no land?” he inquired hesitantly.
“No, only a small paan and betel-nut shack.”
“Any family?”
Nikka probed the simple, inquisitive face, and a wide grin stretched his mouth.
“I have a wife. Does it offend you to hear me tell of my own womenfolk?”
Qasim glanced at him sheepishly.
“She’s barren.”
Nikka detailed the probable causes of her barrenness, mentioning her ailments, her temperament, her age, and Qasim blushed up to his pale eyelashes.
“Women are strange. I know she cries her eyes out thinking I will get myself another wife. Why should I? It’s Allah’s will. I’m content.”
He flashed Qasim an irrepressibly mischievous grin.
“Hah! I forgot to mention my other profession! You must have heard of the Shiv shrine at Benares?”
Qasim nodded.
Nikka affected the mien of a Brahmin priest and chanted: “Hey Bhagwan—Harey Ram, Harey Ram . . .” He sighed, rocking cross-legged on the wet tree trunk. He rolled his eyes sanctimoniously to the clouds. “Every year I was summoned to Benares for the Holy Spring Puja. Childless women flock to the temple to invoke Shiva’s pity and assistance; plump young things married to dotards. There is much chanting of mantras, burning of incense, distribution of sanctified sweets and drink; until the women get stupefied—quite stupefied. You can do with them what you like. The Brahmins have a good time. But you know those lentil-fattened Hindus, they don’t have much seed. I was paid handsomely but, I tell you, I had to work hard at being Shiv—a circumcised Shiva! Hai, Hai . . . I wonder if I will ever get there again.” He pulled a long, droll face.
Qasim guffawed. He fell against Nikka in helpless mirth and clung to him laughing. He was secretly incredulous of the wrestler’s boast, but here was a man after his own heart. This was one up for the lusty meat-eaters. Identifying with Muslim virility, Qasim’s pride soared. His acceptance in these new surroundings was, as it were, assured by the wrestler’s ribald Punjabi humor. He now told him how he had traveled from Jullundur. He told him about the girl.
Nikka at once sensed his anxiety.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re her father. There is no need to tell me or anyone all this. You’ve done a noble thing, leave it to Allah’s will,” he said, endearing himself to Qasim.
It was growing dark. Throughout the camp chappatis and potato curry were being distributed at various hurricane-lit centers. Nikka arranged for Zaitoon to be left in the care of his wife Miriam, and the two men pushed their way through the throng to obtain their rations. When they returned, Nikka invited Qasim to eat with them. They sat on the ground in a rough circle. Miriam shaded her candid, heavy features with her chaddar, and Qasim did not glance her way even once. When she told her husband, “Ask your friend if he would like to have this chappati,” Qasim, his eyes riveted to the ground, replied, “Thank you, sister. I have had my fill.”
Nikka was reassured by the tribal’s polite ways and seemly behavior.
Next day, as they sat idly in the shade of a crumbling wall, Nikka asked, “Didn’t you do any money lending in Jullundur?”
This reference to a hill-man’s proverbial occupation in the plains irked Qasim. He looked at the Pehelwan sharply, but no insult had been intended and he admitted, “Yes, some.”
“Care to do business with me? I have no money, but I know the guts of the paan and betel-nut business inside out. Two hundred rupees would be ample for a start.”
Qasim’s eyes suddenly were as wary as those of a threatened cat, and Nikka hastily added: “Brother, you can trust me. I have a wife—where can I run? I won’t let you down. Anyway, think about it.”
Massaging the back of his neck, Qasim pondered. At last he looked up. “Neither I, nor my forefathers, have ever done business. But I could lend you the money—on interest.”
“Of course!”
“You said two hundred rupees? At the end of the month you pay me four hundred.”
Nikka glared at him incredulously. “You can’t mean that! Surely no one ever borrowed from you on those terms?”
“They have,” Qasim retorted.
“See here,” said Nikka, dismissing Qasim’s proposal with a shrug, “I will accumulate the interest at ten per cent and give you the whole lump sum when I can.”
Qasim sniggered. “Look at him! Look at him,” he said to the world at large. “Do you think I am a child—a dimwit? I haven’t bitten upon the years so long for nothing. You can’t fool me . . .”
Nikka stood up and Qasim caught him by the arm.
“How can we come to terms without talking?” he said as if he were placating a child.
They came to a series of decisions. Qasim would lend Nikka two hundred rupees. Twice that amount was to be returned to him at the end of six months. Nikka would, in compensation for these easy terms, provide them with food.
“My wife will keep an eye on your girl,” concluded Nikka magnanimously.
At the end of six months, the terms were to be freshly negotiated. Both retired with the drawn expressions of men having conceded too easily. But their hearts were jubilant.
That evening they walked some distance to a secluded spot between a grove of sheesham saplings. Qasim, delving deep under his shirt into the private folds of his trousers, pulled out a soiled cloth pouch. Turning slightly away from Nikka, he withdrew two limp hundred rupee notes.
“Here’s the money,” he said. “Mind, don’t try any tricks.”
Nikka folded the notes and knotted them into the edge of his lungi. Then drawing his singlet down, he said, “Can’t say, but you’ll get to know me better.”
They walked back to the camp.
Zaitoon had not mentioned her parents for a week. She had fretted awhile but, blessed with the short memory of a five-year-old, appeared to be caught up in the excitement of her new life at the camp.
By eleven o’clock all the refugees crawled beneath whatever shade they could find or improvise. The sun struck with white-hot fury. The streets of Lahore lay deserted and the shops were closed.
One afternoon, while Qasim sheltered beneath a banyan tree, a girl, about thirteen years old, ran past. Zaitoon, her head pillowed on Qasim’s lap, was asleep.
Giggling with mischief and defiance, the girl had run only a little further when a querulous voice shrieked, “There she goes! Off to play just when I need her. Come back, Zohra! Zohra, I said come back at once!”
The girl stopped and turned. Zaitoon stirred in her sleep and Qasim, who had been watching idly, smiled at the sulking adolescent.
There was the mother’s voice again, “Wait till I get my hands on her! Zohra, where are you? Come back at once. Zohra! Zohra!”
Suddenly Zaitoon sat up. “Ma?” she cried, and before Qasim knew what had happened, she was racing towards the voice she had heard.
She flitted through the heat-drugged camp screaming, “Ma? Ma? Where are you?” and the burly tribal, floundering behind her, bellowed, “Zaitoon. Munni, wait . . . where are you going? Wait!”
Qasim caught up with her and carried her back screaming and kicking. He was appalled at the coincidence.
When the girl quieted down he asked her: “You told me your father’s name was Sikander . . . You haven’t told me your mother’s name yet?”
“Zohra,” she answered.
“Run, Zohra, run.” A tall peasant moves across the gory tangle. Light from waving torches licks his ravaged, bloodstained face . . .
Oh, the vulnerability of scrawny, stumbling legs—the futile plea, “Run, Zohra,” lost in the dark.
Qasim wanted to say, “I saw your father on the last day of his life. He was a brave man,” but he felt she was too small. He vowed to tell her all when she was older.
Despite Nikka’s reassurances, Qasim was cautious. He watched him carefully. Each morning, when Nikka slipped out of the camp, taking his mug up some deserted alley or into the pampas grass edging an irrigation ditch, Qasim followed with a fistful of toilet-stones. Both disappeared in the reeds, but Qasim was sure to keep the shadow of Nikka’s black hair in sight. At night, he slept as near to Nikka as possible, springing awake at the slightest rustle. He accompanied Nikka in his search for accommodation and helped carry back the merchandise purchased for the business venture: paan-leaves, tobacco biris, betel nuts, cheap sweets and cigarettes. Nikka labored hard, vending his wares around the camp on a tin tray that hung from his neck, and Qasim was surprised by the quick turnover.
One afternoon Nikka asked, “Still afraid I might vanish with your money?”
“No, no! What nonsense you talk. You are my brother.” But he continued his guardianship.
Many hawkers worked the camp, peddling a variety of goods, and among them were a couple of other paan-biri wallas.
Nikka learned of their presence and was offended. He kept an alert lookout, and early one sultry evening, he spied a hawker with merchandise similar to his own. He nudged Qasim and they steered a passage towards the unfortunate man.
Leaving his tray in Qasim’s charge, Nikka sauntered forward. He planted himself squarely before the surprised hawker and, raising his voice, spun off a facile string of practiced Punjabi expletives.
“You incestuous lover of your mother, lover of your sister, son of a whore, imbecile owl, dog, how dare you peddle this stuff here!”
Stepping forward, he slashed the clumsy tray from the man’s arms.
The peddler set up a cry. “Why, you crazy bastard, what right have you to dump my merchandise?” A throng of onlookers gathered. “Here I stand,” he whined, “minding my own business, and this bully scatters my goods! I am a poor refugee. What right has he to harass me, I ask you . . . I ask you?”
He stooped to pick up his belongings.
Nikka glowered at him.
Qasim, holding the tray, edged closer. Three men at the inner ring of the surrounding crowd helped the peddler gather his strewn goods.
“Look, you fool,” Nikka shouted ominously, “I sell paan and biri in this camp. No one but I shall do so, understand?” He thumped his massive chest with both arms, arching his strong neck ever more like a stallion. “Go peddle your goods elsewhere. Peddle condoms.”
Emboldened by the throng of sympathizers, the man screamed, “You think you’re the only man in Lahore? Who do you think you are anyway! Don’t you glare at me like that! I shall sell my stuff where I wish!”
“I’ll show you who I am!” said Nikka, and cutting swiftly through the crowd, he once again struck the tray to the ground.
The man wrapped himself round Nikka’s waist, and they fell rolling in the mud.
Nikka forced the peddler flat upon his back. With one knee pinning his chest, he twisted the man’s arm brutally.
Two young men tried to hold on to Nikka. “Let go, Pehelwan,” they cried, “let go of the poor man.”
The hawker sobbed pitifully, tears parting the dust on his cheeks. At last he screamed, “Hai, maaf kar—forgive me brother. Leave me, for God’s sake.”
More men fell upon Nikka, trying to wrench him away. Abruptly he let go of his prey and wiggled his powerful, oil-moistened body free of its oppressors. He stood facing them in the alert stance of a wrestler. The young men were moving in cautiously. “Come on, you cowardly suckling heifers. Come, all you effeminate crybabies all . . . ,” he egged them on.
A thickset youth, wearing only a baggy shalwar, flung himself at Nikka’s knees and the others closed in quickly.
Nikka grappled with them expertly. Bloody and hurt, he still punished them. The throng grudgingly acknowledged his skill. Hitting hard, slipping free, hanging on to an arm, twisting a knee, he held his own. Qasim placed Nikka’s tray on the ground and drew his pistol from its holster. Casually he blew specks of dust off it. A man stared in amazement.
The fight was getting vicious. Mean, sweat-filmed eyes and pain-parted teeth flashed through the haze of dust they kicked up as now one face, now another, bobbed up in the tangle.
Qasim watched. Suddenly his attention was riveted to the stooped glistening back of one of the fighters. Nikka held down the man’s head as in a vice and the youth danced and twisted on his thick legs trying to loosen the hold. Qasim saw his arm swivel to his back and his hand grope in the gathers of his shalwar. At once he fired into the sky.
The shot cracked, stunning the onlookers for an
instant. There was panic. The wrestlers straightened, aghast and bewildered.
Qasim held the gun aloft and shouted, “Stop the fight. This swine was reaching for a knife!” He stalked through to the wrestlers and contemptuously pushed back the thickset youth. “Nikka Pehelwan has proved himself. Everyone disperse. The fight is over. Move on, come on, move!”
“Your friend is a strong man,” someone said and Qasim glowed with pride.
The crowd broke up reluctantly, leaving a knot of about ten admirers. They brushed the dust from Nikka’s hair and clothes and handed him his slippers. He walked away erect and silent, followed by this group, the undisputed strong man of the camp and the only paan-biri vendor around.
A month later in the seedy neighborhood of Qila Gujjar Singh, Qasim and Nikka secured adjacent rooms on the second floor of a narrow three-storied building. Constricted balconies, floored by sagging planks, ran the full breadth of the facade one above the other. The rent was twenty rupees a month.
Nikka wasted no time in establishing his trade. He set up a wooden platform that projected right out on to the busy pavement. It was nailed to the building at one end and supported by stumps and bricks. Here he sat all day, cross-legged, shaded by a canvas canopy, near-buried under his wares. Trade was brisk, and Qasim hung around, offering occasional help.
They had been in business a week, when immediately after the Friday prayers, a massive customer sauntered up to Nikka’s new stall.
Here comes trouble, Nikka guessed. He had been expecting a confrontation of sorts: a test to establish his trading rights. Glad of the opportunity, he turned to the stranger.
“Packet of Scissors,” the man said, demanding one of the cheaper brands of cigarettes. He opened the packet, removed the silver folder, and sniffed at the cigarettes. Throwing back the packet, he sneered, “Stale!”