And now they could hear the rumbling of tonga wheels in the paved gali. Uncle was coming. He was seated up front, wearing a garland. Asrar Miyan was by his side and a few of his friends sat in back.
‘Uncle has come,’ Aliya shrieked to the whole house. Kareeman Bua picked up the basket of wheat and stood at the door. Chammi got down from the swing and went into her room.
Allah, where was Shakeel? Now how could she garland Uncle? For the first time, Aliya felt angry at Shakeel’s dishonesty. When Uncle set foot inside, the very first thing Kareeman Bua did was to touch the basket of wheat to his hand; and then she began to give blessings. Uncle gazed about at everyone like a victorious hero.
‘Are you preparing for the BA now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Uncle. I asked Shakeel to get me a garland for you, but he hasn’t come back yet. When he does, I want to put a garland on you too.’
‘Yes, that Shakeel isn’t anywhere to be seen. How is he?’ Uncle asked as if for the sake of formality. As he sat down on the stool to remove his shoes, Kareeman Bua filled a large copper pot with water for him to wash his face. Aliya watched him quietly. Uncle looked so weak to her. His belly had shrunk and more than half the hair in his beard had turned white.
‘Your son comes home at midnight, and sometimes he’s missing all night long. He doesn’t study—but what does it matter to you? You went off to jail and forgot us all. And even if you’re here, you seem like a stranger! And on top of that, your elder son has taken to participating in Muslim League rallies.’ Aunty only paused to take a breath when she was done with all her complaints. Although Uncle already looked ashamed, he was completely taken aback at this last item.
‘Great! Great! So my son and heir has become a Muslim Leaguer?’ he exclaimed. Uncle tucked a pillow under his head and lay down for a while. The all-night journey had exhausted him.
‘Let’s see if you have the guts to mess with your son and heir now!’ challenged Chammi, who had emerged from her room and stood nearby with her back against the wall. She’d already begun to take vengeance on Uncle without even saying hello.
Aliya wished she could hide Uncle away somewhere at that moment so that no one could say anything to him right then, so that no one could remind him of old matters. He’d come home after such a long time. Jail had broken him; he needed rest.
‘Ah, Chammi, how are you?’ asked Uncle, smiling and deflecting her sarcasm. This annoyed Chammi and she went off to her room in a huff.
‘Tell me this, Big Brother,’ asked Amma, ‘where have these people gone and died who were supposed to bring a proposal for that witch Chammi? It’s been four whole months that we’ve been waiting.’ Amma sat next to him and began pouring his tea into a cup.
Uncle hadn’t even had time to finish his tea when friends began knocking on the door of the sitting room. Uncle went out to see them, and Aliya was left longing to sit by him and discuss heaps of things. There was so much she wanted to talk with him about right now. She wanted to praise his deeds. Everyone was worried for him in the house, but no one had welcomed him at all. Jameel pretended to have fallen ill. Chammi had needled him, and Aunty had opened up a complaints shop. Oh, Uncle, what did you get from doing all this, from dedicating yourself to the country, besides living frugally—what has been accomplished other than destruction? Not even your own family respects you. Oh, if only today everyone would be happy and praise him. Oh, if only . . .
15
It had been getting foggier since early evening. Kareeman Bua settled into the womb of the hearth as she cooked dinner. Aliya began to worry her clothes might go up in flames; in just a little while she’d roast and turn to ash, which wouldn’t be so unlikely, after all, as she couldn’t even see clearly any more.
‘Kareeman Bua, why don’t you sit a bit further from the fire?’ asked Aliya nervously.
‘I only have one life left; let it burn. My fate has already burnt up, Aliya dear. In this very house in the winter time I used to build fires with maunds of wood with my own hands. Do you know, this freezing cold veranda used to be fiery hot? Now all we have for warmth in this hearth, Aliya, is a couple of pieces of wood. How could that possibly burn me?’ asked Kareeman Bua morosely. She’d seemed despondent for a few days now. Memories of bygone days constantly plagued her. Even after speaking so much, she did not stop. ‘God curse all these rallies and marches,’ she muttered softly. ‘They’ve taken over everything. The fat-bellied ones have consumed everything. What I want to know is, will anyone really get independence by destroying a household? May God protect Master.’
Aunty and Amma were sitting on the takht, warming their hands over a small clay oven filled with coals, now caked with ash. Aunty sighed deeply and slightly raised the wick on the lantern set out on one corner of the takht. There was perhaps little oil left in the lantern, making the flame burn lower and lower. Somehow they eked out their expenses by economizing on everything. The war had been going on for a few years now and inflation had completely destroyed their household. Everyone worried all the time. Even if they got enough to eat, their clothing barely covered their bodies. Jameel’s income amounted to nothing more than salt in the dal, and on top of that, the earnings from Uncle’s shop did not even enter the household. It was all spent outside the house. Aunty was always berating Jameel to do something more. But now he too was involved in the movement to free the country. Shakeel had sprouted an early moustache and would spend all night and several days outside the house, supposedly reading the course books of others. Everyone considered him a good-for-nothing and he was resigned to it.
Kareeman Bua seemed truly determined to light herself on fire today. She was practically sitting in the hearth. Aliya felt she would go mad.
‘Sit a bit further away, just one spark is more than enough to set you on fire,’ Aliya entreated as she warmed her hands over the coals in the clay pan by the takht. My, how cold it was, and her stupid sweater had grown so old that it gave no warmth at all. After toasting her hands, her body felt a little warmer, and she too settled down by Aunty’s side. The frozen voice of the revari seller slowly receded into the distance in the gali outside. How deserted that foggy night felt.
‘We all used to sit on this takht during the winter and eat handfuls of revaris. Your mouth would tire from all the chewing; but now winter goes by like this, and there’s not one revari in our fates. Oh, the times, oh, the times,’ lamented Kareeman Bua as she shifted the wood in the fire. She’d developed a bad habit of talking all the time.
Aunty sighed deeply again and raised the flame of the lantern.
‘Goodness, Kareeman Bua, how can you even talk when it’s this cold out?’ Aliya asked irritably. In the dim yellow light Aunty’s face looked like the skull of a dead person. If she had any money, she’d ask Kareeman Bua to buy some revaris and feed them to Aunty to remind her of bygone days. Aunty grew so weary with these conversations.
Aliya suppressed a sigh. If she got dinner quickly tonight, she’d be able to study for a little while. The whole day had passed by but she hadn’t touched a single book. She’d spent her time dozing in the sun on the bare cot.
Everyone sat there quietly. Aliya stared glumly at the walls of the veranda and ceiling; it had been ages since the electricity had been cut off, but there were still fuse bulbs in a bracket on the veranda that were now completely blackened by the smoke. No one had the nerve to take out the black bulbs and throw them away; Kareeman Bua wouldn’t let anybody touch them. Aliya grew abstracted as she pointlessly clung to signs of the old days and then looked down.
‘Kareeman Bua, is dinner ready? It’s so cold tonight,’ Asrar Miyan called out for the second time from the chilly sitting room, where he was huddled.
‘Hold on, Commander,’ Kareeman Bua responded irritably. ‘Will he starve to death? He doesn’t have a bit of patience.’
‘Ridiculous, how he’s always dying for food—so greedy! What sort of people does Big Brother take in.’ Amma had been sitting silently for quite a while, wa
rming her hands, but now she spoke out angrily. Aliya was furious, but what could she say to Amma? Nobody was even thinking about how terribly cold it really was. Asrar Miyan was human too; he wasn’t made of stone, thought Aliya. What a dismal life he led. Ever since she’d come, she’d seen how he wore Uncle’s cast-off kurtas and pyjamas and went about performing insignificant tasks. He spent both winters and summers this way. There was never one warm piece of clothing in his fate. How must he feel in this chill?
‘All right, dinner is ready, Asrar Miyan,’ Aliya called out weakly, as she glanced over at Amma nervously.
‘Who told you to respond to him? Have you too taken leave of your modesty?’ scolded Amma immediately.
Aliya didn’t reply. She did not want to hurt Amma’s feelings. Old habits die hard. Amma was the only one left to uphold the old grandeur.
‘What was wrong with her replying, Mazhar’s Bride? After all, Asrar is also the offspring of your father-in-law,’ said Aunty, chuckling at her own joke.
‘Certainly he is, but he should never forget his low status,’ retorted Amma, making a face. Then the thought of Chammi’s wedding began to eat at her. ‘Sister-in-law, do set a date whenever you hear back. Look how long that girl’s been out in the mohalla; she’s not even back yet.’
‘What do you mean she’s not back? She’s in her room,’ said Aliya quickly.
‘But the five hundred her father sent for the wedding, how will that be enough for everything?’ asked Amma, who had now moved on to another worry.
‘Well, it will have to do,’ said Aunty, looking down.
‘It’ll do the way it does in low-class homes,’ said Amma.
‘Well, where are we supposed to get thousands?’ asked Aliya, who could not stand listening to her mother today.
‘It costs five hundred to let off fireworks alone. These eyes have seen it all in the weddings of our household,’ remarked Kareeman Bua as she quickly toasted the rotis.
Chammi lifted the curtain and entered, sitting down by the hearth next to Kareeman Bua, so the talk of her wedding ended there. Everyone fell silent. They were hiding everything from her. Her father had sent money for a dowry and one day she’d be carried off in a palanquin. Everyone worried she’d start some sort of storm; there was no telling with her.
There were huge holes in the canvas curtains hanging in the veranda now. The sun and rain had destroyed them. And now it was as breezy by those holes as it would be before an open window. Aliya, growing tired of the silence, began to count the holes.
‘Big Brother has gone to Kanpur in such bitter cold, and he hates even English clothing! How could a sherwani fend off the kind of cold where you feel every little breeze? I mean, really, what harm would it do to wear a coat? May Allah alone show mercy,’ said Amma, starting up the conversation again. ‘Who knows where this family’s habits came from.’
‘Well, this is how he lives, Allah will take care of him; may God protect him from the cold. He’s never worn English clothing, of course, always hated it. And then, ever since his warm sherwani tore, there wasn’t enough money to buy another. I’m sure his old one doesn’t hold any heat at all,’ said Aunty, as she began to scrape at the ashes stuck to the coals with a thin stick.
Aliya hid her head in her arms and closed her eyes. Red and yellow spots began to dance and jump about in the darkness, and then she saw iron bars in her mind’s eye, and the face of her father shimmering behind them. How cold Abba must be in there, she thought. There’s probably no one there to light coals and keep the room warm, and his warm clothes must also be old by now. How does he pass the nights? She shuddered and opened her eyes. Why did her heart ache so?
‘Kareeman Bua, you can keep toasting rotis, but will you feed me first today? I have to study,’ said Aliya.
‘Sweetie, have some piping hot rotis—Chammi can also eat with you,’ said Kareeman Bua.
‘I have nothing to study—why should I sit down and eat piping hot rotis?’ asked Chammi, frowning and hiding her face in her arms as she scooted closer to the hearth.
Aliya ate dinner apathetically. At that moment everyone was sitting around silently again. It was hard to find signs of life even though there were so many people. If Uncle were there, at least the sitting room would be occupied until ten or eleven at night, she thought, and who knows where Jameel had gone. What activities was he busy with? And God only knew where Shakeel was off to, wandering about like a bum.
‘Kareeman Bua, send the food out to Asrar Miyan now too,’ said Aliya as she stood up. But on such occasions Kareeman Bua always became deaf and dumb.
‘It will be sent, once someone gives Kareeman Bua ten hands,’ replied Amma bitterly.
‘Yes, just look, Mazhar’s Bride,’ Kareeman Bua interjected quickly. ‘What times those were, when . . .’
Aliya quickly pulled the curtain aside and went out into the courtyard. How dark it was. You couldn’t even see objects that were close by. She bumped into the metal chair. A thin shaft of light coming from Chammi’s room was all she could see on the other side of the wall of mist. She crossed the courtyard and quickly climbed the stairs. The thought of Kareeman Bua’s ten hands made her terribly furious.
As she walked through Najma Aunty’s room, she saw from lowered eyes that her aunt was reclining in her easy chair, lost in a book twice her size, and that a silken quilt exquisitely embroidered with silver lace was draped stylishly over her legs. As was her habit, Najma Aunty did not even look up. But how was Aliya supposed to stop using this route? Flying through the air to her room was beyond her.
The moment she entered her tiny room, she opened the shutters of the window into the gali. She made her bed in the strong electric light and then wrapped herself in her quilt and lay down. When her hands had regained some warmth, she picked up one of Uncle’s books and began to read.
It had got much colder with the window open, but if she closed it she would be plunged into darkness. She always felt restless in the thin, sickly light of the lantern. And anyway, there was once a time when a large part of her life had been spent in the glow of the thirsty lantern. How much fun she used to have in the monsoon when the moths would gather around the lantern. ‘Look, a moth just hit its head on the glass and is lying on its back! Now a second, now a third!’ She used to fall asleep counting moths in this way, but now she couldn’t study even for a minute without this free electricity.
Only the early part of the night had passed, but complete silence had descended over the gali. The school building and the dense trees around it were cloaked in mist. She could still hear the sound of loud conversation from downstairs and Asrar Miyan’s reedy voice mingled with the others.
‘Kareeman Bua, if dinner is finished, please send some in to me.’
‘Eat, Asrar Miyan. If you eat late, you’ll be really hungry. If your hunger has not been sharpened in this expensive age, what will we all do?’ Chammi teased in her inimitable style, and the sound of her laughter pierced Aliya’s ears.
Aliya lay the book down on her chest. A twinge of compassion pierced her heart. Really, how was it the poor man’s fault? Why were all these people so hard-hearted towards him? After all, he didn’t enter this world of his own accord—why should everyone be a stranger to him? He was no one’s beloved uncle, no one’s brother, no one’s father—in fact, who would even think such a thing? How could he become anyone’s father when he had no father himself?
How she wished she could run downstairs just this once, arrange a tray with her own hands, then place it before Asrar Miyan, and stand by his side like an obedient niece as long as he kept eating. But all of this was completely unfeasible. It would injure her mother’s beliefs in the old ways, and Kareeman Bua would surely begin to lament the era gone by. ‘Well, it’s not my home,’ she muttered.
She picked up her book again. Her heart pounded with horror as she read about the atrocities of Ghengis Khan. She put down the book and covered her face with the quilt. Mankind, the noblest of all God’s creatures,
had fashioned history from such hideous crimes, she thought. She was becoming something of a philosopher these days.
The will to power is never quenched. Countless civilizations are born but none survive. Power burns all to ash. Despite this, it is claimed that now we have become civilized. The idea of erecting towers made of heads, and putting men in cages, brings up memories of centuries-old barbarism, but in this war that was happening now, they would take a single bomb—each even more amazing than the last—a single bomb that could kill the largest number of innocent people, and that was considered the most advanced weapon of all. And then there was the story of Jallianwala Bagh—that was hardly ancient history! It was this civilization that gave birth to that incident. And then she thought of Kusum—her corpse floated before her eyes in the dark. Drops of water fell from Kusum’s yellow sari into Aliya’s heart.
Someone softly slid the quilt off her, and she started and sat up.
‘Oh, I frightened you,’ said Jameel, who stood by the head of her bed.
‘Yes, I truly did get frightened, just a little while ago I was reading about Ghengis Khan’s atrocities.’
‘And it’s also possible that you think I am like Ghengis Khan, even though I hardly have his nerve,’ Jameel said with a laugh.
‘How could I say that? You are civilized, and also a poet—did Asrar Miyan get his food?’
‘I don’t interfere in Kareeman Bua’s business,’ replied Jameel insipidly. ‘But right now, I’ve come to talk to you, and . . .’
Jameel was clearly not in the mood for chit-chat at this time. He had something else on his mind. She’d already figured out what that was, and what he wanted to say, now in particular, when he’d come into her room in the dead of night after everyone was nestled safely in their beds. Then suddenly she worried that Najma Aunty might begin to suspect something.
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