Kahani

by Aamer Hussein

  ‘Excuse me, Amma ji,’ Pakhi opened her mouth in front of Amma for the first time. ‘Maybe where you come from they are hooligans and vagabonds. Here things are quite different. It is only we, who even when handcuffed, dare to speak the truth. Fear the moment when the fury of the storm will blow away everything with it.’ After all, Amma had, in an extravagant statement, turned her brothers, who were reputable political workers, into hooligans and vagabonds.

  ‘Pakhi dear, are you any less than a storm yourself? See how you are sweeping all that we love along with you.’ Understanding the delicacy of the moment, she had attempted to restore good humour to the conversation.

  For the moment the matter was defused and in a few days Bade Bhaiyya packed his belongings and went off to celebrate his new life in the outback. After his departure Amma began to lose interest in the house which would still resound with their voices. Baby and Rani had matriculated. Baba could have sent her off to the hostel, but to send all three was beyond his means, so he thought it best to gather all of them and move to Dhaka.

  It was probably around 1960 or 1961 that she graduated from college to enter university. She discovered that Chote Bhaiyya, still considered a child by Baba, was quite an important person in the university world. His ideological positions and individual way of looking at things had endeared him to all. In those days, nobody bothered who was an original resident and who was not. People were just concerned with the taste of the fruit, nobody was interested in counting the trees.

  While studying in college she had felt that the roots of hatred had weakened considerably and had lost the capacity to flourish. The joy of life itself, the striving after truth and mutual trust and confidence would uproot it for ever. She was convinced that as time went by, if right thinking prevailed, the positive values of life would be strengthened and the difference between resident and non-resident would disappear. The example of Chote Bhaiyya was before her. Chote Bhaiyya didn’t know Bangla well, as Urdu was his mother tongue, but, to share with others the voice of his conscience, he would speak broken Bangla and English and he was not discriminated against but loved by all. When she joined the university Chote Bhaiyya had already left but the consciousness created by him, his words, his passion, was still alive in his followers. In all matters he was considered a friend of the underdog. In the most difficult conditions, whenever there was a ray of hope, people had complete faith in Chote Bhaiyya. The walls of hatred are falling down, she thought happily.

  People were naturally drawing closer to each other and she who had felt self-conscious speaking Bangla in front of Pakhi was now speaking it with ease, however incorrect and broken. When Bade Bhaiyya came to Dhaka on Amma’s death she saw that the extremely smart and easy-going Bade Bhaiyya had disappeared. He who had been famous in the family for being well-dressed in the latest fashions was now, in the style of the quintessential Bengali butcher, attired in loose trousers, sported flowing locks and spoke Urdu in halting tones. This was the Bade Bhaiyya for whom Amma had renounced life – her only regret on her death bed was that Bengal had swallowed up both her sons. One had been so mesmerized by the Bengali magic and absorbed in his family that he had forgotten that he was part of another family as well. The other was so fond of disentangling the tangled locks of Bengal that six months out of the year would be spent in jail. So Amma was among those fortunate ones who had all the luxuries in the world, but her sons turned out to be rebels and it was not in her fate to be blessed with even a few drops of water from their hands as she lay dying.

  When she died, Bade Bhaiyya, whose elegant Urdu and perfect pronunciation had been held up as a model by his teachers, was now, with complete ease and no embarrassment, confusing the masculine and feminine genders and talking to his children in fluent Bangla, for was that not his children’s mother tongue? He had in all matters erased his identity and sought to merge himself with this land. What is all this and why is it so … why Bangla? Why can’t we get to the root of the matter, she would think; and unintentionally talk to Pakhi and the children in broken Bangla and the children would smile, wondering why their aunt could not speak properly. Pakhi would burst into laughter and say, ‘Leave it. Why should you speak Bangla? I’ll talk to you in Urdu.’

  She was astonished to see that Pakhi’s pronunciation in Urdu was now better than Bade Bhaiyya’s. When she expressed her surprise, Pakhi had smiled and said, ‘Why not? This is the language of my children’s father.’ Seeing Pakhi’s good humour and pleasing conversation, she felt the need to go and spend some time at Bade Bhaiyya’s home. It was a strange coincidence that whenever Amma had gone to Phoolbari she had been unable to accompany her. Sometimes she would have her exams or then Rani would, and sometimes there would be no one to take care of Chote Bhaiyya and Baba. Now was the perfect time.

  With Amma gone, Baba suddenly realized that Rani and Baby were adults. Placing them in the care of Chote Bhaiyya, he got ready to go to Phoolbari with Bade Bhaiyya. This time there was no reason for her to stay on in Dhaka since she had passed her M.A. and was waiting to find a job. She wanted to go to Phoolbari anyway. Whenever Baby and Rani had returned from there, they had brought back the fragrance of motia and tales of Pakhi’s good humour and Bade Bhaiyya’s affluence, and for weeks they would be regaled with stories of Bade Bhaiyya’s comfortable and happy existence. The picture they would paint, from the hilsa fish cooking in Pakhi’s kitchen and the opening buds of motia in her courtyard to the children’s chatter, made her long to go there. Flowers were her weakness, especially bela flowers, and Bade Bhaiyya’s obsession with gardening fanned her interest still further.

  Listening to these stories, she remembered the time before their move to Dhaka when they had lived in Patna and along with Bade Bhaiyya she had planted bela flowers in their spacious courtyard. Deep in the recesses of her memory, the day stood out when Bade Bhaiyya had brought the bela saplings from school. How carefully the ground had been prepared, the pebbles separated from the earth, and when even that had failed to satisfy, it had been sifted through the sieve kept for cleaning sand. And this was how, in the full heat of the monsoon sun, dripping with sweat, the bela saplings had been planted and received their first watering. The plants took to the soil, little buds developed and when one day a tiny flower emerged from the pistachio bush, her small heart had thumped violently in its enclosed space. When she had told Bade Bhaiyya the news his face had lit up. It had been a moment of never-to-be-forgotten happiness. That night the plants had yielded huge baskets full of flowers in their imagination and as they talked her eyes kept returning to the bushes in the courtyard. She felt waves of fragrance arising from the solitary flower and engulfing her tiny being until finally, in this heady state, sleep claimed her. The next day she had awoken to find the three doors leading to the courtyard closed and the noise of a great commotion coming from without.

  She caught hold of Chote Bhaiyya. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘That’s where the marriage party will set off,’ he said in flat tones, and moved on, balancing his books.

  As their house was the largest in the neighbourhood, every other day a marriage party would descend on them. She thought nothing of it as the marriage party came and left, but alas, it carried away the fragrance of flowers with it. Not only had the wretched neighbours entertained the marriage party there, but dug up the entire place so that food could be cooked there to fill the gaping hell of their guests’ bellies. The courtyard itself presented the picture of an inferno. All the plants had first shrivelled and then died. She had cried her heart out. Bade Bhaiyya, too, had looked sad but as he was older, and a man besides, he had put a better face on it. She had, however, kicked up such a rumpus that, finally losing her patience, Amma had given her a few quick slaps.

  Bade Bhaiyya had comforted her. ‘Let it be, Munni, child. I’ll plant a whole garden of bela for you.’

  The incident blew over. The house and that entire world changed at the same time. What to say of a whole garden of bela, when no one had
the time to plant a single sapling? In Phoolbari she saw that while Bade Bhaiyya had not planted a separate garden, the whole courtyard was abloom, and among the fragrance of the flowers and the sounds of children’s voices he was leading a very contented life. Living with Bade Bhaiyya, she herself lost awareness that things were changing and that the gathering wings of the storm that Pakhi had so unconsciously feared in Santahar were upon them.

  In her last days at university she had sensed that the gulf had widened instead of narrowing. The waves of the Sarjoo were sweeping away the good times. The fire and passion in Chote Bhaiyya, whose character and actions had been a source of hope for people, had been extinguished. Despite his best efforts, relationships were ending. People were scattering. Suspicion and mistrust were creating cracks in the edifice of mutual confidence and certainty. The earlier love was now a mere legend, a time when hearts and minds were one and on the face of this earth there was only one right and one left.

  Then, as time passed, the headiness of power brought changes in common objectives and paths began to diverge. She began to feel as if someone was poisoning the atmosphere and the flow of running water was being deliberately impeded and channelled in another direction. But water is water and will find its own way. She saw in its surge countless rivulets branching out. Its strong flow, which was once heading in its fullness towards truth, light and life, was dividing, dwindling, stagnating into a slush that over time would breed maggots. So people were corrupted. Obstacles were put in the way. Greed dimmed the vision and the dream.

  Living in Bade Bhaiyya’s world of fragrant flowers and joyous children, she had forgotten to guard against the evil eye that destroys happiness. Flowers die and their fragrance dissipates in the air. Yes, it had been a mistake to forget.

  Evil overpowered good. The enemy attacked with full force and man lost his humanity. Fire devoured Bade Bhaiyya’s garden. Pakhi, hair in disarray and fluttering like a thirsty bird, clung to each person in an attempt to save her home. When she herself regained consciousness, the garden had been reduced to ashes. She sought to find herself in that pile of ashes. She looked into Bade Bhaiyya’s open, lifeless eyes, eyes that carried pride of life and the light of confident and certain love till the very end. The eyes that had erased their own identity in the dream of a brighter tomorrow were open in amazement now. She looked at Baba, who had sought his salvation in a future for his children and who had prayed at Amma’s death to be spared a burial in this land as he had watched, in pain, her body float in waist-high water in the grave. Watching his companion’s body being reduced to these straits had brought this prayer from the depths of his heart, and because it had come from the depths of his heart God had accepted his prayer. His body was free even of the prison of a shroud. Pakhi’s beauty had been reduced to ashes. Her tiny, unopened buds had been consumed by the flames. And she … she herself lacked the strength to die, so she had drunk the poison of life.

  Translated by Samina Rahman

  KHALIDA HUSAIN

  Hoops of Fire

  So one by one the four of us embrace Salima. We shed the requisite amount of sympathetic tears; we draw on experience and hearsay to tell her true stories and countless tales of other happenings, crises and catastrophes.

  ‘I’d warned you,’ says Rafat, in her usual manner.

  ‘You could see it in his face, damn him’ … says Zakia, examining her face in her pocket mirror. ‘Yes, send him to hell, it’s hardly worth ruining your good looks by weeping over him. Have you been using that moisturizer, by the way? Your skin looks so dry …’

  ‘Don’t talk such rubbish’, Rabia snaps. ‘What we ought to be thinking about is a course of action. Yes, a plan …’

  Action! And what can you expect to do now, now that it’s all over, when it’s already happened – when it keeps on happening, will continue to happen, it’s been going on since the beginning of time, will probably go on for ever …

  God, what fools you are.

  I don’t bother to speak. I watch the weeping Salima, her torrents of tears, I am absorbed in my envy of her good fortune. Such a display of grief, so direct, so simple, in these times of ours, so much agony and all because she’s been abandoned. So women still possess such treasures of tears, of emotions?

  A ring of bright blue and yellow lights, of seething, screaming lava, revolves in my head, like those hoops of fire you see in circuses, which people-or dogs-leap through to the spectators’ wild applause, while useless, hypocritical, cowardly beings like me keep wondering what they feel.

  I shudder. A noose tightens about my neck. Enough.

  I consider complimenting Salima on her treasure of tears, but I settle for silence. So you really suffer so deeply, and all because a man has abandoned you? And you, too, will you leap through hoops of fire, and ask for applause, while hypocrites like me keep on wondering what you really feel?

  ‘Listen, you do know Farida, don’t you? Now we know what happened to her. All those years go by and then X turns up and tells her his sole intellectual rapport in the world is with her, and she does have half a dozen children to console her and brighten her life. After all, he has a wife who makes those divine rice dishes.’ Zakia is still trying to console Salima.

  ‘Yes, and you know that Farida’s recently set up an association? Hmm, she keeps asking me to join her, too.’

  ‘Association?’ Stifling a yawn, I finally speak.

  ‘Yes, to get rid of the plague of intelligent, aware women in our society. She thinks that if some girl shows contagious symptoms of an overdeveloped intellect, she ought to be married off when she’s barely reached puberty so that she can produce lots of healthy babies at the perfect age, fulfil her destiny, take her place in the scheme of things, dress up in pretty clothes and chant songs of praise for the Prophet in the company of women for the rest of her life …’

  A faint smile plays on Salima’s lips. She retrieves a fragile scented handkerchief from her elegant handbag and raises it to her eyes. ‘Marvellous!’ Rafat is delighted to see Salima smiling. ‘Take me, I’ve got two daughters, if I don’t get them married off by the time they’re sixteen you can change my name. I’ve even made a vow …’

  ‘What? And when did you become religious?’ Rabia is apprehensive.

  ‘No great harm in making a vow, is there? If your prayers are granted, you pay up, well and good, and if not what do you lose?’

  ‘Just look at all of you, merrily chattering away because you can afford to. You have homes, husbands, children, there’s a sense of great purpose in your lives, but what about me? I’m so attractive and still I’m stuck in a lonely, gloomy room surrounded only by pictures. I have to kill time, kill life, murder it, I’d say …’

  ‘Don’t go away, Salima, sit down, you’re living in a world of dreams. You know what they say about distant drums … it’s hardly the paradise you make out, you know, married life, I mean. When two people live together …’

  The cue for a gale of laughter from Rabia. ‘Yes, what you need for those special moments are your deodorants, radiant teeth, fresh and fragrant breath, bright eyes, and what really happens is that after a few weeks …’ Her words dissolve in another fit of giggles.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rabia …’

  ‘Well, I’m right after all: after a few weeks a demon called togetherness creeps up to strangle you, erases your identity, and you forget those bacteria-killing toothpastes, you think that spending money on scent is an atrocious waste, and then comes the grand revelation, the man beside you sweats so heavily …’

  ‘Oh, do shut up, Rabia.’ Rafat restrains her mirth.

  ‘But in spite of all that, you don’t have to kill your time staring at silent, lifeless pictures. And … and …’ Salima stops in mid-sentence.

  We dispose of our half-full cups of tea, prepare to disband. It occurs to me, for a moment, to stop Salima, to take her with me, but I restrain myself because the world is so full of noise that I can’t hear a word, and if I could I wouldn’t u
nderstand. Salima, I recognize that place where you’re stranded, I know it so well, you’re like a part of myself that’s been released from the prison of the present moment. That loneliness of which you speak can also be a haven. You’ve laid down your weapons too soon. Solitude is protective, pacifying, a mother’s bosom. It’s the loneliness beyond that never ends, is limitless, the twilight region of time that spreads and enfolds everything, that each of us has to face alone, yes, each one, in the midst of silent, lifeless pictures or in the shadow of vital, fortunate others. The loneliness of that place is relentless – it tells you for the first time that you only belong to yourself because you’re separate from everyone else, you are yourself only because the other is separate from you. And that is why, every hour and every moment, you try to close those gaps and distances between yourself and the other, you’re lost in the music of harmony and union, but the music and the ecstatic bond are equally unattainable. And knowing this is like turning your face away from happiness.

  I pick up my handbag and leave. Perhaps we’re all sent here on a mission of penance, which we pursue without end. And still we know that we haven’t paid the price of our gains or of our losses. It keeps on rising. God spare us. Again the flame flares in my head, circling, revolving, rising, spreading. I have to leap through it, in this carnival emptied of entertainers. An act I have to perform alone, with no one to watch or applaud me, no one to bear witness. But without this flaring flame I have no existence, I am a non-presence, that’s the sum of the story: from the circling, soaring, searing flame I came to know that I am; and I exist because on the face of the volcano my name is inscribed.

  I am seated in front of the doctor with thick white hair, soft voice and gentle hands. On the table between us, a miscellany of x-ray photographs and medical reports.