by A. A. Jafri
As the door opened, Jumman rushed in and ran straight towards Kaneez, who was now twisting and writhing on the floor, becoming more frantic, more delirious. She had utterly cracked up. Between wails and laughter, she burbled out a litany of nonsense. The only word they could make out was Mansoor. Out of frustration, Jumman pulled Kaneez up and struck her on her cheek. The powerful blow staggered her and she tripped backward. But Jumman did not stop there. Bending down, he whacked her a few more times until she became senseless. Panting and recovering from the exertion of beating her, Jumman got up and stumbled towards his cot. He ordered Mehrun to bring a brown bag from the green steel trunk that lay next to Kaneez’s mattress. She quietly followed his command, still holding her torn kameez together, and handed the bag to him. Jumman took out a large bottle of medicine from the paper bag, something that Dr Minwalla had given him in exchange for pulling out a dead tree from her backyard. His back had hurt from digging and pulling out the tree, and so she had given him this medicine. Not only had he felt better, but he had also felt happier after drinking some of it. ‘This is better than money,’ she had said. ‘It is a miracle drug—ikseer-e-zindagi, the elixir of life.’
Jumman got up and went towards Kaneez. Squatting beside her, he pressed open her mouth and poured in the some of the medicine. She made a guttural sound but did not move. Jumman waited, as if expecting her to suddenly pop back into consciousness, but she didn’t.
This entire racket had attracted a group of curious neighbours outside their door, including Naseebun, a frequent visitor to the house. She announced to the crowd that Kaneez was under the influence of an evil djinn.
‘Jumman, you’ll have to call Malang Miran Shah to cast the djinn out. If you want, I can bring him tomorrow,’ she offered.
‘We’ll see about that tomorrow. Now go home,’ Jumman replied and closed the door.
Throughout that night, as Mehrun kept a close watch on her mother, she heard the whirring sound of helicopters, and each time, the sound was followed by Kaneez’s blood-curdling screams. It was the worst night of her life, far worse than when she had been thrashed by Zaidi.
*
The next morning, Kaneez woke up still delirious and incoherent. Jumman noticed that her body had begun to twitch, and that every now and again, she would have a fit of convulsions. He asked Mehrun to stay with her mother and make her sniff an old shoe after every convulsion, a traditional practice of dealing with epilepsy, popular in many parts of India and Pakistan. Jumman, in the meantime, went to fetch Dr Minwalla. The buses were still not running due to the general strike, so he took a cycle rickshaw. The rickshaw-wallah was a tattler. He talked non-stop and then asked Jumman if he had heard all those helicopters the night before.
‘No!’ Jumman said, still preoccupied with Kaneez’s condition.
‘It’s the government snooping on us. Why are they wasting all these helicopters on us? Don’t they know we are poor people who don’t even have time to earn another rupee? Could you believe they would use helicopters on us?’
Jumman did not reply, and when they reached Dr Minwalla’s clinic, he asked the rickshaw-wallah to wait for him. Although he had been to the doctor’s house before, this was the first time he was entering her clinic. More like a dingy, back-alley teahouse, the clinic had a putrefying smell of raw sewage mixed with Dettol. In the small, dark waiting room, Jumman saw a horde of burqa-clad women, sickly children and a few old men with stubbles waiting to be treated. He bounded right past them and went straight into the doctor’s office, where Dr Minwalla was busy with a patient.
‘Doctor Sahiba, your servant Kaneez . . . I don’t know . . . something bad has happened to her. Please, Doctor Sahiba, come with me or she will die,’ he said, clasping his hand together as if begging.
‘Get out! NOW!’ Dr Minwalla yelled at him. ‘Don’t you see I am busy with a patient? How dare you invade my office like this?’
‘Please, Doctor, I beg you, she is going to die,’ Jumman persisted.
‘She was the one who ran away yesterday when I strictly told her not to go. What do you want from me now?’
‘Begum Sahiba, you are her mai-baap, her mother and father. You are her mistress; give her some medicine. Make her better.’
‘Okay, okay. Stop babbling and don’t make a scene. Go to my compounder and give him this.’
She handed him a hastily scribbled prescription. There were no questions asked about Kaneez’s symptoms, no diagnostic queries made, no prognostic answers given, just a one-size-fits-all prescription ready to be handed to her compounder. Jumman took the order and went to the next room where he handed it to the compounder. Glowering at him over the rim of his glasses, the man behind the counter passed on the prescription to his assistant, who gave him a bottle containing a pink foamy mixture.
‘Give this mixture to her every four hours,’ the compounder said to Joseph. In the same breath, he added, ‘And it will be three rupees and eight annas.’
‘But she works here, Babu,’ Joseph said, clutching his hands.
‘So do I,’ the compounder replied. ‘This is not a free dispensary for all the wretched of the world. If you want free medicine, go to the beggars’ hospital.’
Jumman shook his head in disbelief as he rummaged for money in his pocket. He took out some loose coins, counted three rupees and eight annas, paid the man and then raced back to the rickshaw. Kaneez’s ear-splitting screams were still fresh in his mind.
*
It was true that Jumman had never married Kaneez and that he occasionally beat her up, but he also cared about her. Why else would he plead her case with Farhat Begum? Getting married was a luxury for them; neither had the money nor the inclination. And so, they went on living together, letting people draw their own damn conclusions. Jumman had stood by Kaneez all this time, despite the rumours and the innuendoes. He defied them when they called her a churail; he ignored them when they called her a fornicator; and he fought them when they named their child a harami. But now she lay there, possessed by a djinn, tenuously clinging to life.
When he reached home, he found Kaneez losing and regaining consciousness between bouts of epileptic seizures. He sat by her and carefully gave her the medicine every four hours, just as the compounder had prescribed. Her condition worsened with every passing day. Naseebun came daily, pressurizing Jumman to let the malang, the faith healer, see her. She had no doubt that Kaneez was possessed by a djinn, and the only one who could cure her was Malang Miran Shah. Jumman was not opposed to the idea; he had seen the malangs move things in the air without touching them, he had seen them levitate. The man believed in them, but he wanted the doctor to treat Kaneez first. So, the next day, he sent Mehrun to fetch Dr Minwalla, but she too came back empty-handed. Finally, Jumman relented and agreed to let the malang come and purge the djinn out from his woman’s body. But no sooner did he accede to Naseebun’s pleas than a black Morris Minor came to a stop two houses before Jumman’s. Wearing sunglasses and a white doctor’s coat over her saree, Dr Minwalla stepped out of the car with a black physician’s bag in her hand. Naseebun came out to greet her.
‘Which one is Kaneez’s house?’ the doctor asked.
‘You must be the Doctor Sahiba. Kaneez is doing well now. You don’t need to see her.’
‘I am not asking for your opinion. If you don’t tell me where Kaneez lives, I will call the police and put you in jail.’
The threat of police action worked, and Naseebun led the doctor to their house. As she entered the dilapidated house, Minwalla took off her dark glasses and put on her prescription glasses. When she saw Kaneez lying unconscious on a mattress on the floor and Jumman sitting on his cot, she reprimanded him for being thoughtless.
‘Put her on the charpoy and fetch me that chair.’
Jumman lifted Kaneez, her hand dangling lifelessly, and slowly lowered her on to his charpoy, while Mehrun pulled the chair forward for the doctor. Dr Minwalla took out a stethoscope from her bag and began listening to Kaneez’s br
eathing; she then checked her pulse.
‘I am not sure what is wrong with her, but something is wrong. I want you to take her to the Civil Hospital first thing in the morning. Do you understand? And when she wakes up, give her the medicine I gave you.’
Jumman just nodded his head. Putting the stethoscope back in her physician’s bag, the doctor got up and quickly walked out. Mehrun saw her driver reversing the car. After she had left, Naseebun, who had been watching intently from the entrance of the house all this while, came in and addressed Jumman, ‘Don’t listen to that witch. If you take Kaneez to the hospital, they will tear open her stomach and kill her. The malang is going to be here early in the morning. Let him work his power. He is a man of Allah. He can cure everything.’
*
The malang came early the next morning, but before entering the house, he chanted something at the door, not in Arabic or Urdu but in some strange language that no one understood, and he rolled his head at the same time. Dressed in a long, black cotton robe, his dirty black hair matted and tied in braids, and his thick black moustache blending with his bushy black beard, he seemed like a madman from the caves of Bela, Baluchistan. Three necklaces of turquoise beads and a shallow wooden bowl hung from his neck. In his right hand, he held a crooked wooden staff. He had instructed Naseebun to have ready for him seven chattak (an old unit of measurement) of uncooked rice, eight chattak of uncooked grams and six chattak of ghee, thus creating the number 786, the numerical representation of the phrase Bismillah-ir-Rahman nir-Rahim, ‘in the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and Merciful’, which are the opening words of every chapter in the Qur’an. With the help of a few alarmed neighbours who were keen to drive the djinn out of their alley, the woman had obtained everything that the malang had requested.
Inside the house, the malang lit up seven joss sticks, their overpowering smell hanging stubbornly in the small space. With the groundwork done, he ordered everyone to leave the house, and once alone, he locked the door from inside. Mehrun ran to the back of the house and peeped in through the cracks in the wooden window. She saw the malang slowly approach the sleeping Kaneez, touching her forehead, caressing her face and then fondling her breasts. The very next instant, Kaneez woke up with a terrifying scream, as if ready to defend her honour. The malang jumped back, ran towards the door and unlocked it. He then motioned Jumman and Naseebun to come inside. In a hushed tone, he said to them, ‘I have woken the djinn up, and now I will get him out of her body.’
Mehrun ran back to the front door. She saw the malang going for his staff, and then suddenly, without any warning, he began beating Kaneez violently with it. It was as though he had become possessed by the very same djinn he was trying to purge out of Kaneez’s body. Jumman tried to intervene, but Naseebun stopped him. Mehrun hid her face with her hands and began weeping.
‘Let the Malang Sahib do his work, child. He is a man of God. He is beating the djinn and not your mother. Believe me, she is not feeling a thing. You will see; she will get well,’ she tried to mollify Mehrun.
By this time, Kaneez had succumbed to the beating and collapsed into a deep coma. Her breathing became difficult, her face became anaemic, but with every feeble breath in her body, she clung to life. The malang collected his money and the supply of food and left abruptly.
Eleven
Kaneez remained comatose for two more days and then died with a final hiccup, her life ending abruptly, bedevilled as it was by fear, superstition and sorcery. Only four mourners—Jumman, Mehrun, Joseph and Mansoor—attended the austere ceremony. Others were frightened away by the report of the exorcism. The sweeper’s son took the barrister’s son on his rickety bicycle, in utter silence. The death rites lasted no more than five minutes, witnessed by wilted trees and the cracked earth.
Noor heard the whole story of Kaneez’s death from Jumman and gave him two hundred rupees to ‘pay for any expense that he may have incurred’. And then, as if it was an act of sequential consequence, he took out his local whisky and resumed his nightly habit.
Mansoor came to his bedroom one night, wanting to converse with his father about death and dying. Kaneez’s death had shaken the whole Kashana. Even Farhat appeared sombre.
‘Abba, what happens after death?’ He had asked Maulvi Nazir the same question a fortnight ago but hadn’t received a satisfactory enough answer.
Noor thought for a while and then shouted for Budhoo, who came running. He ordered him to bring the burnt-out light bulb from the lamp in the men’s quarter, which hadn’t been changed for months, despite Noor’s constant reminders. The servant ran towards the room and came back a few minutes later with the light bulb, nervous and quivering.
‘You can go now,’ Noor said, dismissing Budhoo.
Mansoor sat opposite his father, anxious and confused, with no clue about what was going on. Was his father deliberately avoiding a delicate question? Was he going to throw the light bulb at him for attending the servant’s funeral without permission?
Noor did neither. Instead, he told Mansoor to take out the bulb from the lamp on his bedside table and bring it to him. Mansoor obediently followed his directive. Noor then held the two bulbs in both his hands and asked Mansoor to tell the difference between them.
‘This one works and this one doesn’t,’ Mansoor replied.
‘Look at them closely and tell me again.’
‘The left one has the wire broken, but the right one is still intact.’
‘This wire is called the tungsten filament. Do you know how it works?’
Mansoor shook his head.
‘I don’t know what they teach you in school, but here, let me explain the science behind it.’
Noor then proceeded to tell Mansoor that what he was holding in his hands was an incandescent bulb. ‘It emits light due to heat. When the electric current passes through the tungsten filament, it gets so hot that it glows and emits light.’ Here he paused, took a sip of whisky from his glass and continued, ‘This tungsten filament is like our consciousness. When broken, it emits no light. When we die, the tungsten wire of our consciousness gets broken. This burnt-out bulb will be thrown in a dumpster, and when we die, our bodies will be thrown into a grave. This bulb will be crushed, it will become something else, but it will no longer be a bulb. Son, when we die, our body also changes into something else. We become part of nature. But when we die, that is khatam-shud, the end.’
‘But Maulvi—’ Mansoor stopped, realizing the man’s name was unmentionable before his father, and then continued, ‘But what about heaven and hell?’
Noor laughed and took another sip of the whisky before reciting a famous couplet:
Hum ko maloom hai janat ke haqiqat lekin
Dil ko khoosh rakhney ko Ghalib ye khayal acha hai.
He then asked his son if he understood the words, but Mansoor shrugged his shoulders.
‘Son, this is a profound couplet from Mirza Ghalib, an Urdu poet without equal, not even in the West. It means: “I know the reality of heaven. If it makes your heart happier, Ghalib, then it’s an excellent idea.” Heaven and hell are human concoctions, Sahibzadey.’
*
Haider Rizvi’s book, Representatives of Muslims and the Partition of India, received mixed reviews from the Pakistani critics. The pundits in the press, especially from the rival papers, excoriated him. He had walked a thin line between questioning the tactics of the Muslim leaders during the partition of India and criticizing their motives. His veiled critique of the founder of Pakistan and the first prime minister also did not sit well with sensitive journalists. The criticisms from the government-backed newspapers were even more spiteful, accusing him of treason and calling the government to arrest him.
The political climate continued to deteriorate as the C.O.P.s successfully paralysed the government with daily strikes and lockouts. To ambush the C.O.P.s effectively, General Dundda called for elections and declared his candidacy. Being in power for six years and ruling the country as the most powerful potentat
e in its brief history had made him confident enough to think that he would win the elections.
The call by his fellow journalists to arrest him made Haider fearful. So he, in turn, called Noor to get his legal opinion. Noor calmed him down and joked, ‘There is no chance in hell that you will be arrested before 2 January 1965. After that, come to me.’
The elections were scheduled for 2 January 1965. Noor was right, the elections eclipsed Haider’s book from the front pages of most dailies, except the Daily Jadal. It continued its campaign to have his book banned and demanded that Haider Rizvi, the traitor-in-chief, be arrested.
*
Just before the elections, Sadiq invited his three friends to his house for dinner. His wife, Talat, had made an elaborate Hyderabadi dinner that included biryani, korma and a few other delicacies before leaving with their daughter, Hannah, to spend the weekend with her grandchildren. Sadiq called his daughter Anna, as in Anna Karenina, and that is how he introduced her to everyone.
Haider came incognito with Zakir, hoping that the goons from the Daily Jadal would not dare attack a car that had the federal government’s licence plate. Noor came with Sikander, who, after dropping him at Sadiq’s house, went back to the Kashana.
The Unholy Quartet moved to Sadiq’s unpretentious drawing room where the only item of decoration was a bookshelf filled with Western and Russian classics in dark buckram binding. A coffee table stood in the centre of the room with a sofa, bordered by two side tables, set against the wall and two wooden chairs across from it. The discussion invariably gravitated towards national politics. And how could they not talk about politics so close to one of the most hotly contested elections? Excitement and edginess permeated across the country. There was this faint hope of a true democracy, but there was also a fear of another martial law.