One day, Bakhtu the midwife came for Jaina’s daily check-up and brought along the news that the Indians were about to stop the river. Jaina couldn’t understand. She asked, ‘About to stop the river…which river?’
‘The one that waters our fields.’
Jaina thought for a while and then said with a smile, ‘Mausi, have you gone mad? Who can stop rivers? They aren’t just any old street drain.’
Rubbing Jaina’s belly gently, Bakhtu replied, ‘Bibi, I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I heard. This information has even appeared in newspapers.’
‘What information?’ Jaina was still finding it hard to believe.
Feeling Jaina’s stomach with her wrinkled hand, the old woman said, ‘The same…about stopping the river.’ Then she pulled Jaina’s shirt down over her stomach and said with the confidence of a seasoned obstetrician, ‘God willing, you’ll have your baby in exactly ten days.’
When Karim Dad came home, the first thing Jaina asked him about was this rumour about the river. At first he tried to evade the question, but when she persisted, he said casually, ‘Yes, I’ve heard something like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Just that the Hindustan-wallahs will divert the waters of our rivers.’
‘Why?’
‘To ruin our crops,’ Karim Dad replied.
The answer convinced Jaina that rivers could be stopped from flowing. With a feeling of utter despondency she merely said, ‘How cruel they are.’
This time around, Karim Dad took some time to smile. ‘But tell me, did Mausi Bakhtu visit you today?’
‘She did,’ Jaina replied half-heartedly.
‘What did she say?’
‘That the baby will be born exactly ten days from today.’
‘Zindabad!’ Karim Dad cried out boisterously.
Jaina was furious. She muttered, ‘You’re making merry, while only God knows what calamity awaits us.’
Karim Dad got up and left for the chaupal. Here, practically all the men of the village were crowding around Chaudhry Natthu asking him about this news of cutting off the water to their river. One man was roundly swearing at Pandit Nehru, another was cursing Indians without letting up, a third was persistently denying that the waters of a river could be diverted. There were also some in whose opinion what lay ahead was punishment for their own sins, best averted by collective prayer in the mosque.
Karim Dad sat quietly in a corner listening to their exchange. Chaudhry Natthu was the most effusive among those swearing at the Indians. Karim Dad was shifting so often in his seat that it gave the impression this sort of conversation was making him very nervous. The men were all saying with one voice that cutting off the water was a very nasty act indeed, the height of meanness, downright vile, a most horrid oppression, a sin, the very same conduct as Yazeed’s.
Karim Dad cleared his throat a few times as if preparing to say something. When another volley of the coarsest obscenities rose to the Chaudhry’s mouth, he yelled, ‘Chaudhry, don’t call anyone bad names!’
The swear word for doing something to the lower anatomy of the Indians’ mother caught in the Chaudhry’s throat. He turned around and directed a mighty strange look towards Karim Dad, who, meanwhile, had busied himself arranging his turban on his head. ‘Huh…what did you say?’
In a soft but firm voice Karim Dad responded, ‘Just that you shouldn’t swear at anyone.’
The word that was caught in the Chaudhry’s throat now shot out of his mouth with incredible force. He asked sharply, ‘Anyone? Who the hell are they to you?’
Now the Chaudhry addressed the folks gathered in the chaupal. ‘You heard him, didn’t you? He says don’t rebuke anyone. Ask him: Who are they to him?’
With tremendous poise and self-control Karim Dad replied, ‘Who are they to me? Well, they are my enemies.’
Something resembling raucous laughter rose from the Chaudhry’s throat so loudly that the bristles of his moustache flew to either side of his lips from the force. ‘You heard him. They’re his enemies. So we should love them. Right, boy?’
And Karim Dad, in the manner of a deferential boy, answered, ‘No, Chaudhry, I’m not asking you to love them. I only ask that they shouldn’t be called bad names.’
Karim Dad’s bosom buddy Miran Bakhsh, who was sitting right next to him, asked, ‘Why?’
‘What’s the point of it, yaar? They want to make your fields barren and you think that all you need in order to get even with them is a few insults. That isn’t smart, is it? Insults are the recourse of people who have run out of answers.’
‘And you, do you have an answer?’ asked Miran Bakhsh.
‘Whether I have one or not is not the issue,’ Karim Dad said after a pause. ‘This matter concerns tens of thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands. A single person’s answer can’t stand as the answer for everyone. Such matters require a lot of deep thought and deliberation…to devise a solid plan of action. They cannot divert the course of the water in one day. It’ll take them years. And, pray tell, is your strategy simply to hurl obscenities at them for a few minutes and let out all your rage?’ He put his hand on Miran Bakhsh’s shoulder and added with genuine affection, ‘All I know, yaar, is that, somehow, even calling Hindustan mean, despicable, vile and tyrannical is wrong.’
‘Listen to this!’ Chaudhry Natthu blurted out instead of Miran Bakhsh.
However, Karim Dad continued his conversation with Miran Bakhsh. ‘It’s foolishness to expect mercy from the enemy. Once the battle has begun, lamenting that the enemy is using large-bore rifles while we have small-bore, that our bombs are fairly small and theirs are much larger…Tell me, honestly, is that any kind of complaint? Whether it’s a small knife or a large knife, both can be used to kill. Am I wrong?’
It was the Chaudhry, again, who started thinking, but got discombobulated in a second. ‘But the issue…’ he said with irritation, ‘the issue is that they’re stopping the water. They want to starve us to death.’
Karim Dad removed his hand from Miran Bakhsh’s shoulder and spoke directly to the Chaudhry. ‘Chaudhry, when you’ve designated someone as your enemy, why complain that he wants to kill you be means of hunger and thirst? Did you think he would send you great big pots of sumptuous pilafs and pitchers of ice-cooled fruit juice from across the border, rather than laying waste to your lush fields and crops? Did you think he would plant gardens for your enjoyment?’
The Chaudhry lost his cool. ‘Damn you, what nonsense is this?’
Miran Bakhsh, too, asked Karim Dad softly, ‘Yes, yaar, what nonsense is this?’
‘It isn’t nonsense, Miran Bakhsha,’ Karim Dad attempted to reason with his friend. ‘Just think a little: In a battle what wouldn’t one opponent do to defeat the other. When a wrestler, all set for the bout, descends into the arena, he has every right to use whatever manoeuvres he sees fit…”
‘Makes sense,’ Miran Bakhsh agreed, shaking his shaven head.
Karim Dad smiled. ‘Well then, stopping the river also makes sense. For us it’s an atrocity, but for them it’s entirely admissible.’
‘You call it admissible?’ the Chaudhry butted in. ‘When your tongue is hanging out from thirst, we’ll see whether such an atrocity is still admissible. When your kids are begging for a single morsel of food, will you still call it admissible?’
Karim Dad ran his tongue over his parched lips and replied, ‘Yes, Chaudhry, even then. Why do you only remember that he’s our enemy and conveniently forget that we’re just as much his enemy? If we had it in our power, we would cut his food and water supply too. Now that the enemy is able and about to do that, we’ll certainly have to think of a way to counter his move. And futile name-calling won’t do that. The enemy won’t send rivers of milk flowing your way, Chaudhry Natthu! If he could, he would poison every drop of your water. You call it plain inequity, plain best
iality because you don’t like this way of killing. Isn’t it a bit odd that even before the war has begun you’re setting up conditions, as if it is a marriage contract and you have the freedom to set down your conditions? To tell the enemy, “Don’t kill me by starvation and thirst, but, by all means, kill me with a gun that is of such and such bore.” This, in fact, is the real nonsense. Think about it with a cool head.’
This was all that was needed to send the Chaudhry to the height of his irritation. ‘So bring some ice and cool my head!’
‘This too is my responsibility now.’ Karim Dad laughed tapping Miran Bakhsh on the shoulder, and then got up and walked out of the chaupal.
Just as he was stepping inside the deorhi of his house, he saw Bakhtu coming out. A toothless smile appeared on her lips when she saw Karim Dad.
‘Congratulations, Kaimay. You’ve got a boy, the very image of the moon. Now think about a nice name for him.’
‘Name?’ Karim Dad thought for a moment. ‘Yazeed…that’ll do, yes, Yazeed.’
Bakhtu the midwife was stunned, her face dropped, while an overjoyed Karim Dad barged into the house shouting jubilantly. Jaina was lying on the charpoy, looking paler than before, with a cotton-ball of a little baby boy beside her, sucking away at his thumb. Karim Dad looked at the baby with a mix of affection and pride. He tweaked the baby’s cheek playfully with his finger and muttered, ‘Oh my Yazeed!’
A shocked scream escaped from Jaina’s lips, ‘Yazeed?’
Looking closely at his son’s face and its features, Karim Dad affirmed, ‘Yes, Yazeed. That’s his name.’
Jaina’s voice suddenly dropped to a whisper, ‘What are you saying, Kaimay – Yazeed?’
He smiled. ‘So what’s wrong with it? It’s just a name.’
‘But whose name…Think!’ was all she could say.
Karim Dad replied in a grave tone of voice, ‘It isn’t necessary that he should turn out to be the same Yazeed, the one who cut off the water; this one will make it flow again.’
Translated by Muhammad Umar Memon
The New Constitution
MANGU THE TONGAWALA was considered a man of great wisdom among his friends. He had never seen the inside of a school, and in strictly academic terms was no more than a cipher, but there was nothing under the sun he did not know something about. All his fellow tongawalas at the adda, or tonga stand, were well aware he was versed in worldly matters. He was always able to satisfy their curiosity about what was going on.
Recently, when he had learnt from one of his fares about a rumour that war was about to break out in Spain, he had patted Gama Chaudhry across his broad shoulders and predicted in a statesmanlike manner, ‘You will see, Chaudhry, a war is going to break out in Spain in a few days.’ And when Gama Chaudhry had asked him where Spain was, Ustad Mangu had replied very soberly: ‘In Vilayat, where else?’
When war finally broke out in Spain and everybody came to know of it, every hookah-smoking tonga driver at the station adda became convinced in his heart of Ustad Mangu’s greatness. At that hour, Ustad Mangu was driving his tonga on the dazzling surface of the Mall, exchanging views with his fare about the latest Hindu-Muslim rioting.
That evening when he returned to the adda, his face looked visibly perturbed. He sat down with his friends, took a long drag on the hookah, removed his khaki turban and said in a worried voice, ‘It is no doubt the result of a holy man’s curse that Hindus and Muslims keep slashing each other up every other day. I have heard it said by my elders that Akbar Badshah once showed disrespect to a saint, who angrily cursed him in these words: “Get out of my sight! And, yes, your Hindustan will always be plagued by riots and disorder.” And you can see for yourselves. Ever since the end of Akbar’s raj, what else has India known but riot after riot!’
He took a deep breath, drew on his hookah reflectively and said, ‘These Congressites want to win India its freedom. Well, you take my word, they will get nowhere even if they keep bashing their heads against the wall for a thousand years. At the most, the Angrez will leave, but then you will get maybe the Italywala or the Russiawala. I have heard that the Russiawala is one tough fellow. But Hindustan will always remain enslaved. Yes, I forgot to tell you that part of the saint’s curse on Akbar which said that India will always be ruled by foreigners.’
Ustad Mangu had intense hatred for the British. He used to tell his friends that he hated them because they were ruling Hindustan against the will of the Indians and missed no opportunity to commit atrocities. However, the fact was that it was the gora soldiers of the cantonment who were responsible for Ustad Mangu’s rather low opinion of the British. They used to treat him like some lower creation of God, even worse than a dog. Nor was Ustad Mangu overly fond of their fair complexion. He would feel nauseated at the sight of a fair and ruddy gora soldier’s face. ‘Their red wrinkled faces remind me of a dead body whose skin is rotting away,’ he used to say.
After an argument with a drunken gora, he would remain depressed for the entire day. He would return to his adda in the evening and curse the man to his heart’s content, while smoking his Marble brand cigarette or taking long drags at his hookah.
He would deliver himself of a heavyweight curse, shake his head with its loosely tied turban and say, ‘Look at them, came to the door to borrow a light and the next thing you knew they owned the whole house. I am sick and tired of these offshoots of monkeys. The way they order us around, you would think we were their fathers’ servants!’
But even after such outbursts, his anger would show no sign of abating. As long as a friend was keeping him company, he would keep at it. ‘Look at this one, resembles a leper? Dead and rotting. I could knock him out cold with one blow, but the way he was throwing his git-pit at me, you would have thought he was going to kill me. I swear on your head, my first urge was to smash the damn fellow’s skull, but then I restrained myself. I mean it would have been below my dignity to hit this wretch.’ He would wipe his nose with the sleeve of his khaki uniform jacket and keep murmuring curses. ‘As God is my witness, I’m sick of suffering and humouring these Lat sahibs. Every time I look at their blighted faces, my blood begins to boil in my veins. We need a new law to get rid of these people. Only that can revive us, I swear on your life.’
One day Ustad Mangu picked up two fares from district courts. He gathered from their conversation that there was going to be a new constitution for India and he felt overwhelmed with joy at the news. The two Marwaris were in town to pursue a civil suit in the local court and, while on their way home, they were discussing the new constitution, the India Act.
‘It is said that from 1 April, there’s going to be a new constitution. Will that change everything?’
‘Not everything, but they say a lot will change. The Indians would be free.’
‘What about interest?’ asked one.
‘Well, this needs to be inquired. Should ask some lawyer tomorrow.’
The conversation between the two Marwaris sent Ustad Mangu to seventh heaven. Normally, he was in the habit of abusing his horse for being slow and was not averse to making liberal use of the whip, but not today. Every now and then, he would look back at his two passengers, caress his moustache and loosen the horse’s reins affectionately. ‘Come on son, come on, show ’em how you take to the air.’
After dropping his fares, he stopped at the Anarkali shop of his friend, Dino the sweetmeat vendor. He ordered a large glass of lassi, drank it down, belched with satisfaction, took the ends of his moustache in his mouth, sucked at them and said in a loud voice, ‘The hell with ’em all!’
When he returned to the adda in the evening, contrary to routine, no one that he knew was around. A storm was roaring in his breast and he was dying to share the great news with his friends, that really great news which he simply had to get out of his system. But no one was around to hear it.
For about half an hour, he paced about restle
ssly under the tin roof of the station adda, his whip under his arm. His mind was on many things, good things that lay in the future. The news that a new constitution was to be implemented had brought him to the doorstep of a new world. He had switched on all the lights in his brain to carefully study the implications of the new law that was going to become operational in India on the first of April. The worried words of the Marwari about a change in the law governing interest or usury rang in his ears. A wave of happiness was coursing through his entire body. Quite a few times, he laughed under his thick moustache and hurled a few words of abuse at the Marwaris. ‘The new constitution is going to be like boiling hot water is to bugs who suck the blood of the poor,’ he said to himself.
He was very happy. A delightful cool settled over his heart when he thought of how the new constitution would send these white mice (he always called them by that name) scurrying back into their holes for all times to come.
When the bald-headed Nathoo ambled into the adda some time later, his turban tucked under his arm, Ustad Mangu shook his hand vigorously and said in a loud voice, ‘Give me your hand, I have great news for you that would not only bring you immense joy but might even make hair grow back on your bald skull.’
Then, thoroughly enjoying himself, he went into a detailed description of the changes the new constitution was going to bring. ‘You just wait and see. Things are going to happen. You have my word, this Russian king is bound to do something big.’ And as he talked, he continued to slap Ganju’s bald head, and with some force as well.
Ustad Mangu had heard many stories about the socialist system the Soviets had set up. There were many things he liked about their new laws and many of the new things they were doing, which was what had made him link the king of Russia with the India Act or the new constitution. He was convinced that the changes being brought in on 1 April were a direct result of the influence of the Russian king.
The Dog of Tithwal Page 25
