by Farahad Zama
‘Right . . . Now, the third one - Aisha - twenty-four years old and just over five feet. Her father runs a grocery shop in Kottavalasa. It is a small market town, about thirty miles from here on the road to Araku.’
Irshad nodded.
Mr Ali said, ‘She has two brothers and a younger sister who is in college. What do you think? Are they suitable?’
Irshad thought for a moment and said, ‘I know you said they are all of similar financial status to me, but really, I think the second family - the owners of the department store - are too rich for the likes of my mum and me.’
Mr Ali nodded and said, ‘Hmm . . . maybe you are right. It is a big store - they must be afraid of the income tax department and don’t want to tell us their real wealth.’
Irshad said, ‘I think you are right, sir. I remember reading that there was a tax raid on them last year.’
‘OK. Let’s contact the other two and see what happens.’ He looked up at the clock on the wall and stood up. ‘Isn’t it time for your appointment with the chief engineer?’
Irshad stood up as well and took Mr Ali’s hand in both his hands and said, ‘Thank you, sir, for taking so much of your valuable time to help me. I will write to both those families.’
Mr Ali laughed and said, ‘No, young man, you won’t contact them yourself. Come again tomorrow at the same time. We are normally not busy at this time. We will contact the families together.’
Irshad left and Aruna said, ‘How did you come up with the idea of the salesman selling himself? That was very clever of you.’
‘Oh! Nothing like that.’ Mr Ali laughed. He was pleased, nevertheless. ‘This morning I was listening to the radio and on the news they were talking about a police constable whose bicycle had been stolen. That got me thinking.’
About twelve thirty in the afternoon the next day, the gate to Mr Ali’s verandah opened and he looked up. Irshad mopped his brow as he came in.
Mr Ali looked at him and said, ‘It’s hot, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir. I couldn’t get parking under the tree on the other side of the road. I’ve parked my bike just outside, and by the time I leave the black seat will be scorching.’
Mr Ali laughed and said, ‘Better sit under the fan so you can cool down for now at least. It’s the month of fire according to the Hindu calendar and it’s no point expecting it to be cool. You are a bit late. I almost sent Aruna home and closed the office for lunch.’
Irshad sat down on the sofa. He said, ‘Sorry, sir. My mother asked me not to leave the house before noon. She said it was not auspicious because Saturn was in the ascendant until then.’
Mr Ali said, ‘Don’t you know that Muslims are not supposed to believe in astrology?’
Irshad was clearly embarrassed. He shrugged and said, ‘What can I say? She never does anything without consulting the Hindu calendar that hangs in our kitchen.’
Mr Ali nodded. He knew the calendar that Irshad was referring to. Besides normal dates it also had the phases of the moon and the rising and setting times of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He said, ‘Anyway, let’s start our work for the day.’
Mr Ali turned to Aruna and she gave him the files for the two girls they had shortlisted the previous day. Mr Ali dialled the accountant in the shipyard first. A woman’s voice answered, ‘Hello.’ It sounded like her mother. The prospective bride, Malkeen, was probably in college at this time.
Mr Ali asked, ‘Assalamu ’Alaikum. Is Mr Salman there?’
‘Wa ’Alaikum As-Salãm. Who is calling?’ the lady asked.
‘I am Mr Ali, calling from the marriage bureau. I wanted to speak to him about a match for his daughter.’
‘Oh! Just one moment. Let me give the phone to my husband.’
Mr Ali didn’t hear anything for a moment and then he heard a man’s voice say gruffly, ‘Yes?’
‘Mr Salman? Assalamu ’Alaikum. We have a match for your daughter that you might be interested in,’ said Mr Ali.
‘Sorry. We are not interested any more. In fact I was going to phone you to take my daughter’s name off the list,’ said the man.
Mr Ali said, ‘Oh! Did you find a match already? You came over for the new list just last month - the whole thing must have been sorted out very quickly.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Salman curtly. ‘Take my daughter’s name off the list. Bye.’
The phone was hung up. Mr Ali slowly replaced the phone in its cradle, shaking his head at the man’s manners. Wonder what’s got into him, thought Mr Ali.
Aruna and Irshad were looking at him expectantly. He shook his head. ‘They wanted me to take the girl off the list.’
Aruna said, ‘That’s strange, isn’t it?’
Mr Ali said, ‘Yes. Take them off. Make sure we don’t give their details to anybody else. I think the girl has eloped and that’s why they are so touchy.’
Aruna gasped and said, ‘That’s a terrible thing to say, sir.’
‘Why else would they be so rude? He came here just last month and was all polite and friendly. If he had found a groom for the girl himself, there’s no need to act shirty, is there?’ he said.
Mr Ali took up the second file. The girl, Aisha, lived in a small town on the road to the mountains of Araku - home to tribal people and magnificent million-year-old limestone caves. Her brother lived in the city and he had come in and joined the bureau on behalf of his sister. Mr Ali looked through the form filled by Aisha’s brother and called him on the phone.
When Aisha’s brother answered, Mr Ali said, ‘Hello. This is Mr Ali here, calling from the marriage bureau.’
‘Assalamu ’Alaikum, Mr Ali, how are you, sir?’
‘I am fine. I have a match for your sister. I thought you might be interested,’ replied Mr Ali.
‘That’s good of you to call. Where is the boy from, sir?’ asked Aisha’s brother.
‘Irshad is from this city itself and he works locally as well. He is a sales executive earning twenty-two thousand rupees a month. They have a big house in the heart of town. Lives with his mother,’ said Mr Ali.
‘That sounds interesting. When can I come over to discuss this match?’
‘Your office is near the main bus stand, isn’t it?’ asked Mr Ali.
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Can you come over now? Irshad is here at the moment and you are not far. You might as well meet straight away. Never delay a good task, as they say.’
Irshad looked up, evidently surprised at the sudden invitation. He self-consciously brushed his hair with his fingers and sucked in his stomach.
Aisha’s brother was silent for a moment and then said, ‘That’s a good idea, sir. This is my lunchtime, anyway. I will be there in ten or fifteen minutes.’
Mrs Ali got glasses of cold water for all of them. Mr Ali emptied his glass and stood at the front gate, looking out. The road had emptied as the heat increased. The leaves on the trees drooped down listlessly in the pitiless sun. The stray dogs had found tiny patches of shade and lay down with their tongues hanging out. The birds fell silent; the crows were not to be seen and even the sparrows stopped zooming around. He thought about the ceaseless march of the seasons - this hot season broken by the monsoon rains, then winter, a brief spring and then summer again. We struggle so much, thought Mr Ali, for money, power and love, but the world doesn’t care. It just goes round and round in its own cycle. He wondered how his son was getting along in the Royyapalem protest.
‘Just this one match, sir,’ said Irshad from behind him. ‘I hope it works out.’
Mr Ali turned away from the road. ‘Don’t worry. I have a good feeling about this one. Remember, when God makes a creature - human or animal - he also makes its mate at the same time.’
‘That cannot be the case, sir. In almost all cases, brides are several years younger than grooms,’ said Aruna.
‘True,’ said Mr Ali, laughing, ‘but I am sure God has a good memory. After all, what are a few years to Him?’
‘Yes, sir. It is s
aid that in the world of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation, a blink of his eye is several hundred years in our world,’ said Aruna.
They were all silent for a while. Then Aruna said, ‘He could have a good filing system instead of a good memory, sir.’
Mr Ali looked at her and smiled. ‘You are correct - a good filing system can remove the need for a good memory. My memory is pretty poor, but our files let us manage all our clients. Our Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, told us to write all agreements down. He said that the faintest ink is more persistent than the strongest memory.’
Soon, they heard the phut-phut noise of a three-wheeled auto-rickshaw stopping outside the gate. A young man came in. Mr Ali recognised him as Aisha’s brother and said, ‘Hello, Jehangir. Good of you to come over as soon as I called. This is Irshad.’ Mr Ali’s hand pointed at him.
The two men looked at each other, clearly appraising one another.
Mr Ali continued, ‘Please sit down, Jehangir. Irshad lives with his mother in the city in their own house. His father is no more. He is a sales executive - earns twenty-two thousand rupees a month and has his own motorbike. By the way, we don’t have your sister’s photograph with us.’
Jehangir replied, ‘I know, sir. My father didn’t agree to the photograph being left here. He is a bit old fashioned.’ Jehangir turned to Irshad and gave him an embarrassed grin.
Irshad nodded in return. ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘My mother spends all her time in prayer.’
‘You do not own a shop, do you?’ asked Jehangir.
‘No,’ said Irshad. ‘Why do you want to know?’
Jehangir took a deep breath and said, ‘My sister is a very good girl. She does a lot of housework and helps Mum with the cooking. She is adamant about two things. First, she wants to marry somebody in the city. She reads a lot and has decided that she wants to live in a big place. She has rejected some nice matches because they are from villages or small towns and Mum is in absolute despair. We don’t know that many people in the city - I only moved here last year. She wanted to move along with me and said that she would look after my house but my father refused. Second, she doesn’t want to marry a shopkeeper.’
Irshad said, ‘That’s good because I don’t have a shop.’
Jehangir said, ‘She is a very sensible girl - not headstrong at all. She knows all the housework and normally doesn’t go against anything my parents say. But she’s stuck on these two things.’ Jehangir was obviously worried that Irshad might think that his sister was a ‘difficult’ girl. He continued, ‘My father has set aside five lakhs, five hundred thousand rupees, as dowry for Aisha. All the traditional gold ornaments like a long chandanhaar, necklace, anklets, and earrings have already been purchased. Also, my mother has been buying silk saris for a few years now. There will be no stinting on that side. We are not very rich, but we will spend freely of what we have to make sure my sister is married off in style.’
Irshad waved his hand in a dismissive gesture - but he knew that his mother would set great store by all these things and therefore they were important. They exchanged each other’s contact details. Irshad and his mother would formally visit Jehangir’s family and take things from there.
Both of them thanked Mr Ali and Aruna for their help and left.
Forty minutes later, Mr Ali and his wife were sitting on the verandah, having eaten their lunch. Aruna had gone home. Normally, Mr Ali would take a siesta after his lunch, but there was a power cut and it was too hot to stay inside the house. On the verandah, there was a slight breeze that provided welcome relief.
‘It’s eerie,’ said Mr Ali. ‘Everything’s so silent: no traffic, no noise of the fan, not even any birds chirping.’
Mrs Ali nodded. They both sat in companionable silence.
After a while, they heard a voice call out loudly, ‘Palm fruit, cooool palm frooot . . .’
Mr Ali immediately went to the gate. He saw an old man carrying a big basket of fruit and called him. The man walked over; he was thin - his bare legs all sinew and bone. His face was gaunt and he had white stubble on his chin. The man was wearing thin flip flops that were almost worn to the ground and the straps on the left one had been patched with rope.
Mr Ali watched as the man took the heavy load off his head and put it on the ground. He had rolled a towel into a ring and put it on his head as a cushion against the basket and it came undone as he bent forward. The man used the towel to wipe his face and head and put it over his shoulder.
‘Good fruit, sir. Just what you need in this hot weather.’
The basket was three-quarters filled with palm fruit. Each fruit was a round disc about the size of the palm of a hand.
‘How much?’ asked Mr Ali.
‘Six rupees a dozen,’ replied the man.
The fruit were certainly fresh. The brown covering on them was a light cream colour - not dark. They looked plump and juicy - not dried out and thin. Mr Ali did not have the heart to bargain with the poor man in such hot weather.
‘I will take two dozen,’ said Mr Ali and went into the house. He came back with his wallet and a steel vessel. The man picked out twenty-four palm fruit and put them in the steel vessel. Mr Ali pointed to one of the fruit and said, ‘Not that one. It doesn’t look tender. All the water in it must have turned to jelly by now.’
The man quietly replaced the fruit with another. Mr Ali gave him twelve rupees and said, ‘Why did you come out in this hot sun? You should have started selling earlier in the day.’
The man put the money away in a pouch tucked into his waist, rolled the towel round and round into a ring and said, ‘What can I do, sir? The bus was late coming in. The police had established a checkpoint and were checking all the vehicles.’
‘Don’t you have any sons who will look after you? Then you wouldn’t have to roam the streets in such hot weather,’ said Mr Ali.
‘I have a son, sir. But he is an irresponsible wastrel who goes against all the advice my wife and I give. He spends all his money on drink the day he earns it. It’s my karma that I have a son like that and I am forced to work hard even in my old age. Can there be somebody more unfortunate than a man whose son doesn’t listen to him?’ said the man.
He placed the towel ring on his head and keeping his head straight, he bent down to lift the basket. Mr Ali bent down with him and helped him lift the bamboo basket on to the man’s head. The man stood up, his legs trembling under the strain, and Mr Ali looked at him anxiously, one of his hands half raised as if to support the old man if he collapsed. Once he was up, the old man seemed all right and went back on to the street, calling out, ‘Palm fruit . . . cooool palm frooot . . .’
Mr Ali stood for a moment in the hot sun looking at the departing old man. The old man’s words rang in his ears and he couldn’t get Rehman out of his mind.
Mrs Ali got a couple of steel plates and forks from the kitchen and they both sat down in their chairs again to eat the fruit.
They heard the outside gate open and looked out. They were surprised to see Azhar come in.
‘What brings you here in the heat?’ asked Mr Ali.
Azhar sat down heavily on the sofa. Mrs Ali asked him, ‘Do you want to eat a palm fruit?’
Azhar shook his head and said, ‘I’ve just heard from my friend in the police. You know, the inspector in Three Town police station. ’
Mr Ali felt a prickling of apprehension. He felt his wife’s hand on his arm. ‘What happened?’ Mrs Ali asked.
‘The police have moved against the protestors in Royyapalem with lathis. There’s been a truncheon charge and they’ve arrested everybody.’
‘Rehman?’ asked Mrs Ali.
‘My friend called his colleague in Royyapalem and he confirmed that Rehman has been arrested too.’
‘Has he been hurt?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Azhar. ‘My friend couldn’t find out, but he said that several boys were injured badly. Some of them apparently have fractures.’
&
nbsp; ‘Allah show mercy,’ said Mrs Ali. ‘We have to go there.’
Mr Ali nodded numbly.
‘No point,’ said Azhar. ‘They are bringing everybody into the city. They don’t want to hold them near the village.’
‘When will they be here?’ said Mr Ali. ‘Where will they be taken to?’
‘They will be here by the evening. The ones with fractures will be taken to hospital and the others to police stations. There are too many to put in one station, so they will be distributed out. My friend said he will let me know where Rehman is being held as soon as he finds out.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mr Ali.
‘No need for thanks. I am his maama, you know,’ said Azhar.
Mrs Ali was in tears as she looked at her brother.
Mr Ali said, ‘What’s the point of crying? We told him not to go, but he wouldn’t listen to us. When we told him the police were going to move against them, he was so arrogant. They’ll never move against us, he said. What an immature boy he is. Hopefully, he is only hurt a little and a night in the police cell will bring him to his senses.’
Mrs Ali said, ‘How can you talk like that about your own son? He is in trouble and it is our duty to help him.’
Before Mr Ali could reply, Azhar said, ‘Aapa, don’t worry. We’ll get him out as soon as possible.’
CHAPTER NINE
The next day, Aruna’s house was thoroughly cleaned and a fresh, colourful spread put on the bed. Two folding chairs were taken down from the top of the cupboard and four more were borrowed from the neighbours. She and her mum worked in the kitchen for several hours frying different snacks. A packet of sweets and a couple of soft drink bottles were bought.
The house was brightened and looked festive. Her mother was wearing the new sari and her father was wearing a neatly pressed dhoti. Aruna was on her own in the kitchen, changing, when she heard her mother say in the other room, ‘Why did you come so late? I asked you to come early today. Go in and change quickly. Help your sister. Make sure she wears the red stones necklace.’
Vani slipped into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. Aruna wound the long cloth of the sari round herself and tucked the folds into the waistband of her petticoat. She took the other end of the sari and placed it over her shoulder. Vani got down on her knees in front of Aruna and adjusted the pleats of Aruna’s sari, so they fell straight. Then she got up and helped Aruna pin the end of the sari that was over her shoulder to her blouse.