Between Clay and Dust

by Musharraf Ali Farooqi

  Gulab Deen winked mischievously at Kabira and Tamami before continuing:

  “Ustad Ramzi does not know that Tamami is playing a cat-and-mouse game with Sher Ali. Of course, Ustad Ramzi has no way of knowing it. He is confused. Only one thing will help him see things as they really are.” The promoter got up, grasped Tamami and Kabira by their forearms, and walked them to the entrance of the pavilion. “And that thing is to fight and defeat Sher Ali. Tamami will make the contest even by winning this bout, and in the next one Tamami will rout Sher Ali.”

  Gulab Deen then looked around and said in a conspiratorial manner: “I should be careful with my words. If one of Sher Ali’s supporters heard me, I would be in big trouble. They would think I was conspiring against their pahalwan with Tamami and his manager. Now we are not doing that, are we? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  “He is not here,” Tamami looked at the only empty seat that was visible from the pavilion. Devoid of anger, his words sounded more like a complaint.

  “I told you. Ustad Ramzi will not be here. But he will be waiting. Waiting for the news of Tamami making him proud, to receive the victory procession. Everything will be forgotten then. But to the akhara now—we don’t want to keep Ustad Ramzi waiting.”

  Tamami’s voice choked as he spoke. He did not seem to address anyone in particular: “I will go back to the akhara if I win. I will ask his forgiveness. He will forgive me.”

  “Yes, Tamami,” Gulab Deen said, casting a sharp glance at Kabira. “But you must hurry. The sooner you finish the fight the sooner you can go before Ustad Ramzi. The sooner you will be reunited.”

  “Then I will fight!” Tamami said resolutely, wiping away a tear.

  “Yes! Yes! Tamami will fight! Tamami will prove himself to Ustad Ramzi once and for all!” the promoter said, looking at Kabira.

  Kabira did not wish to argue with the promoter, with Tamami in such a state of mind. He felt totally helpless against Gulab Deen’s tricks. He cursed him in his heart, but remained quiet.

  “Kabira, I want you to be my witness,” Tamami said. “Be my witness that I fulfilled my promise to Ustad Ramzi.”

  “Yes Tamami, I will,” Kabira said.

  His heart was heavy as he led Tamami to the akhara. He was no longer able to think clearly. He was afraid now. A vague fear took hold of him as the beat of the dhol rose to a crescendo.

  There had been a lot of rumors about Tamami’s health and addiction. Some debased sense of excitement in the cruel spectacle had drawn a larger crowd than the earlier bout.

  When Tamami removed the coverlet from his body, the audience saw that he was shrunken. His muscles had become slack, and the tendons were clearly visible under the skin, as in an old man’s body. While the drugs had done their damage, they had been unable to completely wreck the mass of muscle and bone. Tamami still towered over the quiet, grim-looking Sher Ali.

  “Even a dead elephant is worth a lakh-and-a-quarter,” someone from the spectators commented.

  Sher Ali did a few leg squats in his corner, then took off his robe and defiantly faced Tamami. A month of preparation had made a difference to his constitution as well. He looked better prepared than he had the last time.

  Tamami cast a last look at the last empty chair and went to his corner in the akhara. A few in the crowd hooted at him, but he did not pay attention.

  At the referee’s signal, Sher Ali cut a circle around Tamami and locked him in a triceps and triceps tie-up. Then he ducked, and sweeping under Tamami’s arm, he emerged at his back. He led Tamami into a breakdown and reached for an inside crotch hold.

  The crowd applauded and cheered him.

  “Ride him! Ride him now!” they shouted.

  “Soon! Soon!” Tamami shouted back, imagining the crowd cheered for him.

  People broke into laughter at his retort.

  Kabira felt as if someone had stabbed him through the heart.

  “Ride, Sher Ali! Ride him!” someone shouted, and Tamami raised his head. The look of shock in his eyes turned the next moment into a scowl.

  Sher Ali tried to climb onto his leg. As Tamami rose, Sher Ali inserted his leg between Tamami’s. He pushed Sher Ali’s knee, making it impossible for him to move back on top to maintain his crossbody ride. Sher Ali slid off Tamami’s shoulder. Tamami quickly tried to rise to his feet, but for a moment everything went dark before his eyes. He reeled. Sher Ali, already on his knees, lurched forward to tackle Tamami’s legs. Tamami threw his weight forward even as he was pushed back. He landed on his hips on the akhara clay, facing the empty chair in the first row.

  Tamami weighed more than Sher Ali and, while Sher Ali’s maneuver was foiled, he had already moved too far down across his adversary’s body for Tamami to gain any advantage. Suddenly Sher Ali saw Tamami rise and reach out.

  “He’s here. He’s come.” Tamami mumbled.

  Without thinking of a possible motive for Tamami’s strange behavior, Sher Ali took advantage of this shift of balance to gain his feet, and immediately threw his weight backwards, pulling Tamami down with him. Tamami, who failed to apply the counter, fell awkwardly. His neck bent under the joint weight of his and Sher Ali’s bodies. To avert the building pressure on his neck he turned using all his strength, and both his shoulders briefly touched the ground.

  Sher Ali disengaged and jumped to his feet when the dhol began beating. He bolted to his corner to do a victory dance.

  Tamami’s face looked drained. There was no sign of Ustad Ramzi. The chair was empty.

  The uproar of the audience drowned out even the beat of the dhol.

  ❖

  The spectators had thinned out. Kabira and Tamami were the only ones left with the promoter in his pavilion. Tamami had been drinking water constantly and still felt thirsty. Kabira angrily pushed away the jug of water.

  “Tell him he can challenge Sher Ali,” he addressed Gulab Deen sharply.

  “Of course he can challenge him. Everyone knows that.”

  “When? Arrange it for this week. We will declare it this very day. I will go and talk to Sher Ali.”

  “You are forgetting something.”

  “What?”

  “Tamami cannot fix the date.”

  “Why not?”

  “The winner decides that. He decides when the challenge fight will be held.”

  Kabira was struck silent. He now understood the reason for the promoter’s defiant tone and his testiness, and he felt a sudden rage.

  “You are responsible for all this!”

  “Responsible for what?” Gulab Deen started gathering the receipt books on his desk.

  “How early can the challenge fight be held?” Kabira asked after a moment.

  “In a few months, maybe. Maybe more. It all depends. Sher Ali might wish to postpone it further. You know he wants to fight some exhibition matches—make some money. That’s what I think he will do. But I have to go now. Come see me when you think he is ready.”

  Kabira felt a hint of derogation in the way the promoter pointed towards Tamami.

  “Come over next week and we will settle our account,” Gulab Deen told him as he stepped out.

  ❖

  Tamami had only half-listened to the conversation between Kabira and Gulab Deen.

  “Ustad Ramzi did not come,” he said as Kabira led him back home.

  Kabira did not reply.

  “He did not come, Kabira,” Tamami’s voice broke. “He will not come now. He will never forgive me.”

  Kabira still remained silent.

  Tamami was occupied with only one thought: any possibility of a rapprochement with Ustad Ramzi was now forever lost. He began to cry.

  After escorting him home Kabira brought him some food. Before leaving the room he asked Tamami to get some rest and sleep for a few hours.

  Tamami could not sleep. Every time he closed his ey
es he felt his predicament more acutely. He tried to ward off that oppressive weight. But a swirling darkness surrounded him. He felt more depressed than ever. His hands desperately searched his dirty clothes and discovered a small packet carefully tied with a rubber band.

  ❖

  Kabira had kept a strict watch on Tamami, but it had not crossed Kabira’s mind to search the dirty laundry. When he returned home he found Tamami lying face down on the floor, the viscous fluid from his nose slowly pooling around his head.

  He had been dead for several hours from a drug overdose.

  Sanctity

  After the post-mortem, Kabira collected the body from the morgue.

  Ustad Ramzi lay awake on the charpai later that night when the enclosure attendant entered his room.

  “Ustad…” the attendant said.

  Without getting up, Ustad Ramzi turned towards him, but the attendant remained silent.

  “What is it?”

  “They have come.”

  “Who has come?” Ustad Ramzi asked, looking blankly at him.

  “They are asking for you.”

  Ustad Ramzi got up and stepped out of the room.

  Nobody had turned on the enclosure lights, but Ustad Ramzi could make out the figures sitting around a bier draped with white sheets. There was a smell of camphor in the air. He stopped at a distance.

  “What do you want?” he called out.

  One among them got up and stepped towards him. It was Kabira.

  “We have brought Tamami’s body here,” Kabira said.

  “Why did you bring him here?” Ustad Ramzi asked.

  “We have brought him here to be buried, Ustad.”

  “You brought him here to be buried? But these gates have been closed on him.”

  Kabira seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. His voice trembled when he spoke: “The time for disputes and forgiveness is now past, Ustad. Tamami is dead.”

  A few more people got up from around Tamami’s bier and came forward. Ustad Ramzi recognized Maulvi Yameen and one of Tamami’s friends from the neighborhood.

  “Take him back!” Ustad Ramzi suddenly raised his voice. “He was expelled for desecrating the place! These grounds are hallowed! He cannot be buried here! Take him away! Take him…!”

  More people entered the akhara. These were members of Ustad Ramzi’s clan who had arrived when they heard that Tamami’s bier had been brought to the enclosure. As they gathered behind Ustad Ramzi, he turned towards them.

  “The burial cannot be allowed here! Those who have broken the creed cannot be buried in these grounds,” Ustad Ramzi’s voice was composed.

  The members of his clan looked at him.

  “Death removes all differences, Ustad,” Kabira spoke again.

  “Ask them to leave. It is not warranted, tell them.” Ustad Ramzi repeated, looking at the members of his clan.

  They stared back, unsure of what he meant.

  “Maulvi Yameen!” Kabira called out. “Explain to him…! He will listen to you.”

  “Ustad Ramzi…” Maulvi Yameen began.

  “Take him away! Take him away! Tell them to take him away!” Ustad Ramzi shouted, turning toward Maulvi Yameen.

  Maulvi Yameen said to Kabira, “Do not let this argument delay the burial.”

  “Even animals respect death,” Kabira hissed. “Even animals know better.”

  “All places are equal,” Maulvi Yameen said. “We can bury him in the municipal graveyard.”

  “Yes. Bring him away.” Kabira wiped his eyes. “Bring him away, as God sees all. He will not respect the honor due to the dead,” he said pointing at Ustad Ramzi, “but we must not disgrace it. Pick him up. Pick him up now! We are leaving!”

  Driven by the authority in Kabira’s voice the men in Kabira’s group stepped forward to lift Tamami’s bier.

  Ustad Ramzi watched Kabira and his friends carry it away. All the members of his clan and the trainees who had come out from their quarters followed them. The enclosure grew darker as the men left, reciting prayers for the dead.

  When the enclosure attendant, who was the last to leave to join the funeral procession, turned back to close the gate behind him he saw Ustad Ramzi standing rigid and unmoved in his place.

  For Ustad Ramzi it was not just Tamami’s life that had ended. Tamami’s slide into degeneracy, which would have brought further disgrace and ruin to his clan, was finally over. So was Ustad Ramzi’s own exhausting journey through the pits of humiliation and shame.

  Reckoning

  When Ustad Ramzi had excommunicated Tamami, using his authority as the head of the clan, everyone followed his orders. The clan members felt that Tamami’s punishment was disproportionate to his actions, yet their own interests were tied to the clan. Ustad Ramzi’s actions gave them a sense of moral superiority that allowed them to feel outraged at his deed while maintaining an attitude of just indignation toward Tamami.

  The side of human nature that takes delight in the spectacle of others’ misery had revealed itself in the comments the clan members and trainees made in passing even before Tamami’s death:

  “It was too harsh to expel his own brother from the enclosure.”

  “But Tamami had crossed all limits.”

  “Still, he was his brother. Born of the same mother.”

  “But Tamami had rolled his name and his family honor into the dust.”

  After Tamami’s death, Ustad Ramzi had vowed to carry on as if nothing had changed. But when he stepped out of his quarters he felt hostile eyes following his movements.

  The one who was dead had escaped condemnation. But the other was alive and was judged:

  “Ustad Ramzi was heartless to deny the clan burial grounds to his own brother.”

  “He first expelled his brother from his home and then denied him even a burial with his fathers.”

  “Why should he expect those who are not his kin to show him any mercy?”

  Ustad Ramzi heard these remarks and kept quiet. But now he had recurring dreams in which he saw his brother’s dead body lying without a winding sheet at his feet.

  Reproach

  When Ustad Ramzi stepped out of the enclosure on the fourth day after Tamami’s death to visit Gohar Jan’s kotha, he felt nauseous. He kept wandering off the path and walked aimlessly in the adjoining alleys.

  He had summoned all his fortitude to drive the thoughts of his brother out of his mind. But he did not succeed in quelling his conscience from which fragments of guilt broke out. An unresolved conflict now festered in his mind. He had tried to subdue the commotion in his soul and failed.

  When he was the foremost pahalwan of his day, he had defended his elders’ titles until they retired. But it was also true that he never had any dearth of worthy competitors. Those were the times that produced great ustads and champions. A month never went by without a major bout or tourney. He had always had the incentive to remain in a state of constant physical preparedness and his grueling routine never tired him mentally.

  But nobody came forward to fight Tamami after Imama’s death. There was no challenger in sight, but Tamami underwent a punishing regime of exercises day after day, week after week. If Ustad Ramzi had retired at that time, the Ustad-e-Zaman’s title would have brought some consolation to Tamami, who would have found in the gesture an acknowledgement of his struggle. But he could not bring himself to accept that Tamami was worthy of a title that he had held.

  He had turned his brother into his personal slave, fighting the shadows of his own fears. His actions did not serve the art he professed to protect; they served only him. Tamami’s inability to protest his treatment must have driven him to despair.

  Ustad Ramzi found himself not far from Gohar Jan’s kotha entrance. He craved some reprieve from his suffocating grief, and the darkness of the unlighted stairwell offered itsel
f as a refuge to him.

  Ustad Ramzi climbed up the stairwell and sat down midway.

  He was sure Gohar Jan would have learned of Tamami’s death. Everyone in the inner city knew about it. Banday Ali, who usually came to inquire if he was absent without notice, had not visited him for three days. Ustad Ramzi’s presence at the kotha would oblige Gohar Jan to adhere to the usual routine of her recitals. He was not sure if he desired that.

  Ustad Ramzi regretted having come there, and felt he would be sick.

  As he rose to leave, he heard someone coming up the stairs.

  “The bulb is fused again! What a nuisance!” he heard Banday Ali say.

  “Who’s there?” Banday Ali asked hearing Ustad Ramzi’s footsteps on the staircase.

  “It’s me!” Ustad Ramzi called out.

  “I am coming up,” Banday Ali said.

  He passed Ustad Ramzi on the way up and opened the door. The bulb in the veranda lit up part of the staircase too, but Ustad Ramzi did not move into the light. Banday Ali stepped over to one side.

  “Come on inside. I will go and change the bulb,” he said.

  Ustad Ramzi stepped inside.

  Entering the Music Room, he found Gohar Jan by herself. The tanpura and the tablas were covered.

  “Please sit down,” Gohar Jan said, motioning him to his regular place on the carpet.

  Ustad Ramzi sat silently.

  He felt cold. It was not yet September, but in the evenings the air had become crisp and dry. He felt thirsty.

  “Can I have some water?” he asked.