Years went by, but that heady feeling never returned. In my own life, a number of small and big revolutions came and went. I went to college, but failed my exams twice. My father died and I had to run from pillar to post looking for a job. I finally found a translator’s position with a third-class newspaper, but I soon became restless and left. For a time, I joined the Aligarh Muslim University, but fell ill and was sent to the more salubrious climate of Kashmir to recover. After three months there, I moved to Bombay. Disgusted with its frequent Hindu-Muslim riots, I made my way to Delhi, but found it too slow. If there was movement at all, it felt somehow effete. I preferred Bombay. What did it matter that my next-door neighbour didn’t even bother to ask my name?
It was now eight years since I had left Amritsar. I had no idea what had happened to my old friend or the streets and squares of my early youth. I had never written to anyone and the fact was that I was not interested in the past or the future. I was living in the present. The past, it seemed to me, was like a sum of money you had already spent, and to think about it was like drawing up a ledger account of money you no longer had.
One afternoon – I had both time and some money – I decided to go looking for a pair of shoes. Once, while passing by the Army & Navy Store, I had noticed a small shop, which had a very attractive display window. I didn’t find that shop, but I noticed another, which looked quite reasonable.
‘Show me a pair of shoes with rubber soles,’ I told the shop assistant.
‘We don’t stock them,’ he replied.
Since the monsoons were expected any time, I asked him if he could sell me rubber ankle-boots.
‘We don’t stock those either,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you try the store at the corner? We don’t carry any items made of rubber here.’
‘Why?’ I asked, surprised.
‘It’s the boss’s orders,’ he answered.
As I stepped out of this strange place that did not sell rubber shoes, I saw a man carrying a small child. He was trying to buy oranges from a vendor.
‘Ghulam Ali,’ I screamed excitedly.
‘Saadat,’ he shouted, embracing me. The child didn’t like it and began to cry. He went into the shop and asked the assistant with whom I had just been talking to take the child home.
‘It’s been years, hasn’t it?’ he said.
He had changed. He was no longer the cotton-clad revolutionary who used to make fiery speeches in Jallianwala Bagh. He looked like a normal, domesticated man.
My mind went back to his last speech. Nigar, would you like to mother a child who would be a slave at birth?
‘Whose child was that?’ I asked.
‘Mine. I have another one who is older. How many children do you have?’ he answered without hesitation.
What had happened? Had he forgotten the vow he had taken that day? Was politics no longer a part of his life? What had happened to his passion for the freedom of India? Where was that firebrand revolutionary I used to know? What had happened to Nigar? What had induced her to beget slave children? Had Ghulam Ali married a second time?
‘Talk to me,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen each other for ages.’
I didn’t know where to begin, but he didn’t put me to the test.
‘This shop belongs to me. I’ve been living in Bombay for the last two years. I’m told you are a big-time writer now. Do you remember the old days? How we ran away from home to come to Bombay? God, how time flies!’
We went into the shop. A customer who wanted a pair of tennis shoes was told that he would have to go to the shop at the corner.
‘Why don’t you stock them? You know I also came here looking for a pair,’ I said.
Ghulam Ali’s face fell. ‘Let’s say I just don’t like those things,’ he replied.
‘What things?’
‘Those horrible rubber things. But I’ll tell you why,’ he said.
The anxious look, which had clouded his handsome face suddenly, cleared. ‘That life was rubbish. Believe me, Saadat, I have forgotten about those days when the demon of politics was in my head. I’m very happy. I have a wife and two children and my business is doing well.’
He took me to a room at the back of the store. The assistant had come back. Then he began to talk. I will let him tell his story.
‘You know how my political life began. You also know what sort of person I was. I mean we grew up together and we were no angels. I wasn’t a strong person and yet I wanted to accomplish something in my life. I swear upon God that I was prepared then, as I am prepared today, to sacrifice even my life for the freedom of India. However, after much reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that both the politics of India and its political leadership are immature. There are sudden storms and then all is quiet. Storms don’t come out of nowhere.
‘Look, man may be good or evil, but he should remain the way God made him. You can be virtuous without having your head shaved, without donning saffron robes or covering yourself with ash. Those who advocate such things forget that these external manifestations of virtue, if that be indeed what they are, will only get lost on those who follow them. Only ritual will survive, what led to the ritual will be overlooked. Look at all the great prophets. Their teachings are no longer remembered, but we still have their legacy of crosses, holy threads and unshaven armpit hair. They tell you to kill your baser self. Well, if everyone went ahead and did it, what sort of a world would it be?
‘You have no idea what hell I went through because I decided to violate human nature. I made a pledge that I would not produce children. It was made in a moment of euphoria. As time passed, I began to feel that the most vital part of my being was paralysed. What was more, it was my own doing. There were moments when I felt proud of my great vow, but they passed. As the pores of my consciousness began to open, reality seemed to want to defeat my resolve. When I met Nigar after my release, I felt that she had changed. We lived together for one year and we kept our promise to Babaji. It was hell. We were being consumed by the futility of our married life.
‘The world outside had changed too. Spun cotton, tricolour flags and revolutionary slogans had lost their power. The tents had disappeared from Jallianwala Bagh. There were only holes in the ground where those grand gatherings used to take place. Politics no longer sent the blood cruising through my veins as it used to.
‘I spent most of my time at home and we never spoke our minds to each other. I was afraid of touching her. I did not trust myself. One day, as we sat next to each other, I had a mad urge to take her in my arms and kiss her. I let myself go, but I stopped just in time. It was a tremendous feeling while it lasted. However, in the days that followed, I couldn’t get rid of a feeling of guilt.
‘There had to be a way out of this absurd situation. One day we hit upon a compromise. We would not produce children. We would take the necessary steps, but we would live as husband and wife.
‘Thus began a new chapter in our lives. It was as if a blind man had been given back the sight of one eye. But our happiness did not last. We wanted our full vision restored. We felt unhappy and it seemed that everything in our lives had turned into rubber. Even my body felt blubbery and unnatural. Nigar’s agony was even more evident. She wanted to be a mother and she couldn’t be. Whenever a child was born in the neighbourhood, she would shut herself in a room.
‘I wasn’t so keen on children myself because, come to think of it, one did not really have to have them. There were millions of people in the world who seemed to be able to get by without them. I could well be one of them. However, what I could no longer stand was this clammy sensation in my hands. When I ate, it felt as if I was eating rubber. My hands always felt as if they had been soaped and then left unrinsed.
‘I began to hate myself. All my sensations had atrophied except this weird, unreal sense of touch, which made everything feel like rubber. All I needed to do was peel off my terri
ble affliction with the help of two fingers and throw it as far as possible. But I didn’t have the courage.
‘I was like a drowning man who clutches at straws. And one day I found the straw I was looking for. I was reading a religious text and there it was. I almost jumped. It said, “If a man and woman are joined in wedlock, it is obligatory for them to procreate.” And that day I peeled off my curse and have never looked back.’
At this moment, a servant entered the room. He was carrying a child who was holding a balloon. There was a bang and all the child was left with was a piece of string with a shrivelled piece of ugly rubber dangling at the other end.
With two fingers, Ghulam Ali carefully picked up the deflated balloon and threw it away as if it were some infinitely disgusting piece of filth.
Translated by Khalid Hasan
The Dog of Tithwal
THE SOLDIERS had been entrenched in their positions for several weeks, but there was little, if any, fighting, except for the dozen rounds they ritually exchanged every day.
The weather was extremely pleasant. The air was heavy with the scent of wild flowers and nature seemed to be following its course, quite oblivious to the soldiers hiding behind rocks and camouflaged by mountain shrubbery. The birds sang as they always had and the flowers were in bloom. Bees buzzed about lazily.
Only when a shot rang out, the birds got startled and took flight, as if a musician had struck a jarring note on his instrument. It was almost the end of September, neither hot nor cold. It seemed as if summer and winter had made their peace. In the blue skies, cotton clouds floated all day like barges on a lake.
The soldiers seemed to be getting tired of this indecisive war where nothing much ever happened. Their positions were quite impregnable. The two hills on which they were placed faced each other and were about the same height, so no one side had an advantage. Down below in the valley, a stream zigzagged furiously on its stony bed like a snake.
The air force was not involved in the combat and neither of the adversaries had heavy guns or mortars. At night, they would light huge fires and hear each other’s voices echoing through the hills.
The last round of tea had just been taken. The fire had gone cold. The sky was clear and there was a chill in the air and a sharp, though not unpleasant, smell of pine cones. Most of the soldiers were already asleep, except Jamadar Harnam Singh, who was on night watch. At two o’clock, he woke up Ganda Singh to take over. Then he lay down, but sleep was as far away from his eyes as the stars in the sky. He began to hum a Punjabi folk song:
Bring me a pair of star-spangled shoes
yes, star-spangled
Harnam Singh, O darlin’
should it cost you your buffalo.
On all sides, Harnam Singh could see star-spangled shoes, scattered over the sky and twinkling softly.
Them star-spangled shoes I’ll bring you
yes, star-spangled
Harnam Kaur, O darlin’
should it cost me my buffalo.
He smiled, and knowing that sleep now would not come, he woke the others. The thought of a woman had excited his mind; he wanted to make foolish conversation; conversation in which he might re-live his feeling for Harnam Kaur.
Talk did begin, but it was abrupt and disjointed. Banta Singh, who was the youngest among them, and had the best voice, sat to one side as the others chatted, yawning now and then. After a while, Banta Singh, in his mournful voice, began to sing ‘Hir’:
‘Hir said, “the yogi lied; no one pacifies an aggrieved lover/ I searched and searched, but found no one who could call back the departed. A hawk lost a crane to the crow; look, does he lament or not? Give not to those who suffer fond tales.” ’
Then a moment later, he sang Ranjha’s reply to Hir’s words:
‘ “That hawk that lost the crane to the crow is thankfully annihilated/He is like the fakir that gave up all his possessions, and was ruined/Be contented, feel less and God becomes your witness/Quit the world, wear the sackcloth and ashes and Sayyed Waris becomes Waris Shah.” ’
A deep sadness fell over them. Even the grey hills seemed to have been affected by the melancholy of the songs.
Some moments later, Corporal Harnam Singh, after hurling filthy abuse at an invisible object, lay down.
* * *
—
This mood was shattered by the barking of a dog. Jamadar Harnam Singh said, ‘Where has this son of a bitch materialized from?’
The dog barked again. He sounded closer. There was a rustle in the bushes. Banta Singh got up to investigate and came back with an ordinary mongrel in tow. He was wagging his tail. ‘I found him behind the bushes and he told me his name was Jhun Jhun,’ Banta Singh announced. Everybody burst out laughing.
The dog went to Harnam Singh, who produced a cracker from his kitbag and threw it on the ground. The dog sniffed at it and was about to eat it, when Harnam Singh snatched it away…‘Wait, you could be a Pakistani dog.’
They laughed. Banta Singh patted the animal and said to Harnam Singh, ‘Jamadar sahib, Jhun Jhun is an Indian dog.’
‘Prove your identity,’ Harnam Singh ordered the dog, who began to wag his tail.
‘This is no proof of identity. All dogs can wag their tails,’ Harnam Singh said.
‘He is only a poor refugee,’ Banta Singh said, playing with his tail.
Harnam Singh threw the dog a cracker, which he caught in mid-air. ‘Even dogs will now have to decide if they are Indian or Pakistani,’ one of the soldiers observed.
Harnam Singh produced another cracker from his kitbag. ‘And all Pakistanis, including dogs, will be shot.’
A soldier shouted, ‘India Zindabad! Long live India!’
The dog, who was about to munch his cracker, stopped dead in his tracks, put his tail between his legs and looked scared. Harnam Singh laughed. ‘Why are you afraid of your own country? Here, Jhun Jhun, have another cracker.’
The morning broke very suddenly, as if someone had switched on a light in a dark room. It spread across the hills and valleys of Tithwal, which is what the area was called.
The war had been going on for months but nobody could be quite sure who was winning it.
Jamadar Harnam Singh surveyed the area with his binoculars. He could see smoke rising from the opposite hill, which meant that, like them, the enemy was busy preparing breakfast.
Subedar Himmat Khan of the Pakistan army gave his huge moustache a twirl and began to study the map of the Tithwal sector. Next to him sat his wireless operator, who was trying to establish contact with the platoon commander to obtain instructions. A few feet away, the soldier Bashir sat on the ground, his back against a rock and his rifle in front of him. He was humming:
Where did you spend the night, my love, my moon?
Where did you spend the night?
Enjoying himself, he began to sing more loudly, savouring the words. Suddenly he heard Subedar Himmat Khan scream, ‘Where did you spend the night?’
But this was not addressed to Bashir. It was a dog he was shouting at. He had come to them from nowhere a few days ago, stayed in the camp quite happily and then suddenly disappeared last night. However, he had now returned like a bad coin.
Bashir smiled and began to sing to the dog. ‘Where did you spend the night, where did you spend the night?’ But he only wagged his tail. Subedar Himmat Khan threw a pebble at him. ‘All he can do is wag his tail, the idiot.’
‘What has he got around his neck?’ Bashir asked.
One of the soldiers grabbed the dog and undid his makeshift rope collar. There was a small piece of cardboard tied to it. ‘What does it say?’ the soldier, who could not read, asked.
Bashir stepped forward and with some difficulty was able to decipher the writing. ‘It says Jhun Jhun.’
Subedar Himmat Khan gave his famous mou
stache another mighty twirl and said, ‘Perhaps it is a code. Does it say anything else, Bashirey?’
‘Yes sir, it says it is an Indian dog.’
‘What does that mean?’ Subedar Himmat Khan asked.
‘Perhaps it is a secret,’ Bashir answered seriously.
‘If there is a secret, it is in the word Jhun Jhun,’ another soldier ventured in a wise guess.
‘You may have something there,’ Subedar Himmat Khan observed.
Dutifully, Bashir read the whole thing again. ‘Jhun Jhun. This is an Indian dog.’
Subedar Himmat Khan picked up the wireless set and spoke to his platoon commander, providing him with a detailed account of the dog’s sudden appearance in their position, his equally sudden disappearance the night before and his return that morning. ‘What are you talking about?’ the platoon commander asked.
Subedar Himmat Khan studied the map again. Then he tore up a packet of cigarettes, cut a small piece from it and gave it to Bashir. ‘Now write on it in Gurmukhi, the language of those Sikhs…’
‘What should I write?’
‘Well…’
Bashir had an inspiration. ‘Shun Shun, yes, that’s right. We counter Jhun Jhun with Shun Shun.’
‘Good,’ Subedar Himmat Khan said approvingly. ‘And add: This is a Pakistani dog.’
Subedar Himmat Khan personally threaded the piece of paper through the dog’s collar and said, ‘Now go join your family.’
He gave him something to eat and then said, ‘Look here, my friend, no treachery. The punishment for treachery is death.’
The dog kept eating his food and wagging his tail. Then Subedar Himmat Khan turned him round to face the Indian position and said, ‘Go and take this message to the enemy, but come back. These are the orders of your commander.’
The Dog of Tithwal Page 4
