Basti

by Intizar Husain

  “Brother, when was all this?”

  “Maulana, this happened at the time of Jallianwala Bagh. What a great fire was started then! For three nights no one lit a lamp in his house, there was so much light from the fire.”

  “Oh?” Zakir looked with surprise at Khvajah Sahib.

  “Yes, son! Would I tell a lie, now in my old age? It was the biggest petrol pump in Amritsar, the one where the Sahibs’ cars were filled with petrol. It burned for three days and three nights. The flames reached to the sky. Then what happened was that the bank was looted, then the looting spread to the cloth market. Then a curfew was imposed. It was a curfew like the wrath of God! When anybody stuck his head even a tiny bit out the window, there was the crack! of a rifle, and he dropped like a stone.”

  “The Europeans did so many cruel things,” Abba Jan muttered.

  “Maulana, everyone has oppressed us, the foreigners too and our own people too. Aren’t there cruel things going on right now?” He paused, then said, “But, really, the English were held in so much awe. What authority they had! Proclamation was made that whoever had looted any property should put it outside his house by evening. After that, the houses would be searched. I tell you, Maulana-ji, you won’t believe it, but people who hadn’t looted a scrap of cloth put their own property out in the street. People even piled their daughters’ dowries outside their houses. By evening, the streets of Amritsar were heaped with satins and brocades.”

  Abba Jan listened in silence, smoking his huqqah. Then he cleared his throat and said, “God bless him, my venerable father always told how in ’57 there was such a strict curfew that they had to keep even the bodies of the dead in the house for three days sometimes. They couldn’t even get a piece of plain cloth for a shroud, and they couldn’t even get a grave for the burial. They would wrap the body in coarse sacking, and in the dark of night, making sure that no soldier was watching, they would bury the body right there in the lane.” He fell silent, then said sadly, “What hard times Muslims have faced!”

  “But, Maulana, now what times are coming upon the Muslims?”

  Abba Jan raised his forefinger toward the sky: “Only He knows.”

  “Maulana! Let me tell you one thing: we’re destined to endure bad times at the hands of our sons. I tried to make Salamat see reason: ‘Son, your wits are wandering. Why do you ruin your throat yelling slogans?’ And what answer does he give me, but ‘We’re going to change the system!’”

  Abba Jan said gravely, “Khvajah Sahib! In this world there have lived one hundred twenty-four thousand Prophets, and has the world changed?”

  “No sir, it hasn’t changed.”

  “Then when the Prophets haven’t been able to change the world, how will your boy and mine change it?”

  “Maulana, you’re quite right. The world cannot change.”

  “Khvajah Sahib, I’ve reached such an age—what times have come and then gone again! Each time I’ve seen the same result. Some hot-blooded types have had their blood cooled forever. As for the rest, they’ve looked out for their own interests, and made their own deals.”

  “Sir, you’re absolutely right. Please, Maulana, tell this to that bastard Salamat.”

  “His blood is still hot, he won’t be able to understand it yet. It can only be understood after living a long time. And Khvajah Sahib! I now no longer intervene, under any circumstances.”

  “You’re very right. In Pakistan, there’s no point in speaking out.”

  “Khvajah Sahib, there’s no point in speaking out anywhere.”

  “Yes sir, exactly, exactly. Whoever speaks out is arrested. At least, we’ve seen this happen in Pakistan.”

  Abba Jan silently slid the huqqah over toward himself, took the mouthpiece in his mouth, and was lost in thought.

  Khvajah Sahib sat in silence. Then suddenly he addressed Zakir: “In the afternoon he was with you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then he didn’t go off with the procession?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The bastard,” Khvajah Sahib muttered angrily. Then he said, “The truth is that his mother is very worried. I told her, ‘Count your blessings—you have sons. Be patient about your son,’ but she couldn’t be patient.” He paused, then said, “How could she be patient? One son went to Dhaka and got trapped there, one son is ruining himself here.”

  “Have you had any letters from Karamat?”

  “That’s the worry, that we haven’t had any letters from him.”

  “Place your trust in Him.” Abba Jan gestured with his finger toward the sky.

  “Well, we do place our trust in Him. Maulana Sahib! That Karamat of mine is so lovable, so obedient and respectful. Look how the Lord arranged it: the one who’s a vagabond and a ruffian is here grinding our hearts into powder, while the well-behaved one has gone and got trapped there, poor boy.” As he spoke, he stood up.

  Abba Jan, smoking his huqqah, watched Khvajah Sahib. “Are you going?”

  “Yes, I’ll go check at home. That worthless wretch might perhaps have come back.”

  “Yes, go then.”

  “Maulana Sahib, do pray for the wretch. His mother worries about him all the time.”

  Abba Jan again raised his finger toward the sky: “He is the Protector.”

  Khvajah Sahib took his leave, and Abba Jan picked up his huqqah and went inside. Zakir was very tired. The moment he lay down, he began to feel sleepy. He closed his eyes, but sleep was only hovering around him, it didn’t descend. He couldn’t tell how long he lay there with his eyes shut, half asleep and half awake. Suddenly someone banged on the door.

  “‘Open this heavy door,* let me come in!’” Afzal’s voice came from outside.

  He rose and opened the door. Afzal entered, and behind him Salamat and Ajmal.

  “Zakir!” Afzal first looked at him, then gestured toward Salamat and Ajmal: “I’ve forgiven these fellows, you forgive them too.”

  He couldn’t decide how to answer Afzal. Afzal said imperiously, “I’m telling you, forgive them! I’ve taken them under my protection.” Then he said kindly, “Zakir, these two are good people.” As he spoke, he sat down in a chair and addressed Ajmal: “Fellow! Bring out what you’ve got with you.”

  Ajmal, sitting down in a chair, put his bag on the table. Opening it, he pulled out a bottle and placed it on the table. Zakir looked with fear and amazement at the bottle. “Yar, not here!”

  “What?” Afzal looked attentively at him.

  He said nervously, “Yar, you know my father is very strict in these matters.”

  Salamat laughed contemptuously. “Your father!”

  “Yar, that white-bearded fellow, that’s your father, isn’t he?” Afzal asked. “Never mind about him, he’s like my own child. I’ll explain to him, you go and bring some glasses.”

  “Nothing can be explained to fathers.” Salamat laid down the law.

  “Do you judge other people’s fathers by your own?” Afzal said.

  “He’s not my father!” Salamat yelled.

  “Then whose father is he?” Afzal asked innocently.

  “I don’t know, but I know he’s not my father. I’m a bastard,” he said, grinding his teeth furiously.

  “Is there any proof?”

  “The proof is that I say it!”

  “That’s no proof. Fellow! Before making this announcement, you should have asked your mother.”

  “I did ask her.”

  “Then?”

  “The ignorant woman refused to give evidence,” he said in a grief-stricken voice. Then he said sadly, “Our fathers are cruel and our mothers are ignorant.” Even as he spoke, he began to weep.

  When Ajmal saw Salamat weeping, tears began to fall from his own eyes as well.

  “Fellow, why are you weeping?”

  “Yar! My mother is even more ignorant than Salamat’s mother. When I asked her, first she slapped me, then she began to tear her hair and scream.”

  Afzal stared at Ajmal, then
at the weeping Salamat, and his eyes grew red with anger. “You’re both disgusting people!”

  Ajmal looked toward Salamat. Salamat announced, “Afzal speaks the truth, we’re disgusting people.”

  “I refuse to take you under my protection. Disgusting people! Get out of here. This is a virtuous person’s house.”

  Salamat stood up. Ajmal put the bottle in the bag, and followed Salamat out of the house.

  “Zakir! You’re a good person, forgive me.”

  “Yar, what kind of talk is this?”

  “No, forgive me.”

  “For what?” He looked at Afzal with concern.

  “I tried to give two evil spirits power over a virtuous person. I committed a sin. Ai good person! Forgive me, I’m a sinner.” As he spoke, his voice choked, and tears began to well up in his eyes. “We’re sinners, and we’re in torment.”

  THREE

  TODAY he found Mall Road peaceful, and he was melancholy. What a terrifying scene it had offered yesterday! Cars with their windows smashed, and a half-burned double-decker that lay all day in the middle of the road, had proclaimed the devastation that had happened here. After the brick-hurling, slogan-shouting procession, the nervous pedestrians, the closing shops with their rapidly falling shutters, there had been only the occasional timid bus or scooter-cab, picking its way through scattered bricks and glass. Now there was peace, and the road was clean from one end to the other. No scattered bricks, no fragments of glass. The flow of traffic moved evenly. Cars traveling at their ease, a second after the first, a third after the second. None of their windows seemed to be broken. He was amazed: yesterday it seemed that all the cars in the city had had their windows broken, but now all the cars in the city were in fine condition. And the double-decker that as late as yesterday evening had been lying half-burned in the middle of the road—where had it gone? Yes, the overturned car near the petrol pump was still lying there on its back. But now the pedestrians’ eyes showed no anxiety or astonishment, as though the car had been overturned in some other age and by now, with the passage of time, had lost its power to surprise.

  Passing by the Metro Wines shop, he looked carefully at the broken glass both inside and outside. The shattered panes were testifying to all that had happened here yesterday. Today nothing had happened, but still something had come over Mall Road. However strange yesterday’s tumult had seemed, today’s silence seemed even stranger. It also seemed strange that on the College verandahs all the potted plants that yesterday had been overturned were now nicely arranged. Order and organization had returned to the College. The classes were being held in the proper way. Outside, in the grounds, groups of students were walking around. Overnight, how peaceful the students had become. As late as yesterday, what a state they were in! At every little thing their faces would redden, the veins of their necks would stand out, they would put their throats to the fullest use. Insults, slogans. And the slogans were extraordinarily powerful, for in a single moment such a large procession would spring forth that the college compound was too narrow for it and it spilled over outside. And now? Now it was so peaceful that no one even raised his voice. People were talking, but in whispers.

  “Yar! My brother came by the night flight.”

  “Really?”

  “He left after the action started?”

  “It started just at that moment. He said it was difficult to get from the Intercontinental to the airport. Nothing but tanks on the streets. He says that as they were going toward the plane there was a roar as though a cannon had been fired, and then there were constant gunshots, as if a war had begun. And when the plane took off and he looked out, far into the distance there was nothing but clouds of smoke.”

  “Really?”

  “But what will happen?”

  “Whatever may happen, the damned Bengalis have had the wind taken out of their sails!”

  “Bastards!” someone muttered to himself. “This will straighten them out!”

  Joy, disgust, hatred, rage—every emotion was expressed in whispers. He began to feel suffocated. He wanted to escape from this stifling atmosphere.

  “The Mulla goes only* as far as the mosque.” He went of course to the Shiraz, but there too the atmosphere was stifling. No noise, no confusion, no bursts of laughter, no loud voices. Only the expressions on people’s faces showed that some serious matter was being discussed.

  “Yar, yesterday there was so much turmoil here—and today—”

  “Yes! And today,” Irfan muttered to himself, and began drinking his tea.

  “Yar, yesterday I was really afraid. It seemed that toda—” He himself didn’t know what he wanted to say.

  “So it was for the best,” Irfan said ironically.

  “In one respect, it was for the best.”

  “We say this every time, but later we find out that it wasn’t for the best.”

  “Yar, I don’t understand any of this.”

  “I don’t understand any of it either, but it seems to me that something’s happened.”

  “What has happened?

  “It isn’t clear. But what’s the good of clarity? What I feel obscurely is everything.”

  What was it that Irfan felt obscurely? What was the fear creeping through him? Zakir didn’t understand any of it. Then he changed the subject.

  “Yar, where are Salamat and Ajmal today?”

  “Today they’re in their holes. They come out of their holes when it’s the right weather for coming out of holes. Today the weather has changed.”

  “Look, that crackpot has come,” Irfan said, seeing the door opening.

  “What crackpot?”

  “Yar, that white-haired man,” he whispered, as the white-haired man entered and came straight toward them.

  “May I sit down? I’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “Of course, of course.” As he spoke he glanced at Irfan, whose expression showed that he didn’t care for this interruption.

  “What’s your opinion, was it for the best, or not?”

  “What’s your opinion? It was very much for the best!” Irfan said bitterly.

  “I don’t know whether it was for the best or not, I only know that if Pakistan can be saved this way—”

  “Which way, this way?” Irfan grew angry.

  The white-haired man regarded Irfan, then said calmly, “You’re looking at my hair?”

  “I’m looking at your hair, it’s all white. Do you want to base some appeal on it?”

  “No.”

  “Then?”

  “I want to tell you how my hair became white.”

  “What difference will it make if you tell us?”

  “A big difference.” He paused, then said, “When I set out from my home, my hair was all black. And I wasn’t any age at all, I was only twenty or twenty-one. When I reached Pakistan and washed myself and looked in the mirror, my hair had turned entirely white. That was my first day in Pakistan. I left my home with black hair and my family, when I reached Pakistan my hair was white and I was alone.” He fell silent and went away, without waiting to see the effect of his words, as though he had said what he had to say. Now he sat down calmly in his corner, and gave Abdul an order for tea.

  •

  He glanced out the window, where after so many nights the rally-ground was now empty and silent. Well, maybe it was for the best. A procession one day, a procession the next day. With a sigh of satisfaction he leaned back against the cushion. Tonight he’d be able to sleep in peace. He tried one position, then a second, then a third. Sleep was miles away from his eyes tonight. Controlling his desire to toss and turn, he lay silently with his eyes closed for a long time, as though any moment he might go off to sleep. But his mind went on talking, telling stories from different times and places, some new ones and some ages old. Today I somehow managed to finish the Mughal period. Teaching history is a bore. And studying history? The boys ask absurd questions. And the mind? A boy stood up: “Sir?”

  “Yes, what is it?”
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  “Sir! Among the Mughals, were all the brothers stepbrothers?”

  “Sit down. Out of this whole history, is that the only question you’ve found to ask?”

  I scolded him and made him sit down. A meaningless question. It’s meaningless to distinguish full brothers from stepbrothers. Cain and Abel weren’t stepbrothers. In history, and before history. Myths, tales, fables, stories of brothers. Those who while their father was alive—those who after their father’s death—it’s time to go to sleep. After all, in the morning I have to go to the College. Again the same wretched history. How boring it is teaching history to boys. And studying history? Other people’s history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. But my own history? I’m on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking. Are you looking at my hair? I’m looking, it’s all white. Irfan answered that poor man’s straightforward question in such a bitter tone. I want to tell you how it became white—when I reached Pakistan my hair was white and I was alone. His first day in Pakistan. The white-haired man swam before Zakir’s eyes. And my own first day. My first day in Pakistan—

  FOUR

  HE WASHED, and looked in the mirror, and he realized that his hair, which when he left home had been entirely black, was now entirely white. It was his first day in this land. And my own first day? Days from the past crowded into his imagination. But I’m looking for my first day in this land. Pushing and shoving, he forced his way through the encircling crowd of days and went on. Where’s my first day? As he steadily forced his way through the crowd, a day in the form of a dim, misty memory came and stood before him.

  •

  Anarkali Bazaar partly closed, partly open. A few shops here and there open, the rest shut up and locked. The bazaar crowded, but no one buying. He went out and came to a big road. Mall Road, horse-carts, bicycles, an occasional car, a few buses passing from time to time. A tall man, stout and broadly built, with a crested turban on his head and very wide trousers, passed by him, taking long strides. He watched him with wonder. Then he saw so many men of the same stature and build, with the same outfits on, walking nearby. These shapes were new to him. Everything around was new to him. As he went on, it seemed to him that he was walking on a new earth. He was enjoying this new earth very much. From one street to another, from the second to a third, he lost track of time as he walked on, but he never felt the least bit tired. It had been so long since he had walked around freely, without the fear that at any moment someone passing by would slip a knife into his ribs.