by Benyamin
While unloading the material, I explained to him all my sorrows in all the languages that I knew and begged him to somehow save me from the hell I was in. However, I saw only icy coldness in his face. He didn’t even acknowledge me. The anguish I felt! When the arbab had called me to the trailer, I had run to him with so much hope, deserting the goats. It was an optimistic dash towards the light of life. But the driver’s cold look drained me of all hope. I looked at him pathetically whenever he placed the bundles of hay and grass on my head and tried to attract his attention with some gesture. I begged him to save me. Once I deliberately dropped the hay bundle and bent down and touched his feet. Even then, he wouldn’t look at me. I felt sad. My heart broke.
After unloading the goods, the Pakistani drove away without even smiling at me. My optimism dimmed. How much I cursed him! Nobody in the world would have ever cursed a stranger like that or hated one like that. To get rid of some of that anger, I hit my own chest twice as I walked back to the desert to gather the goats.
Today I can understand the vulnerability of the driver who must have known the arbab for years. One cannot say what the arbab would have done if he had tried to talk to me. One time, the arbab jumped out with his gun when the driver of the wheat trailer tried to talk to me. I remember the arbab felling the driver of the water truck with his rifle butt for trying to talk to me. How many goats like me must have got trapped in this masara before? Maybe the miserable outcome of trying to save one of them must have been fresh in the Pakistani’s mind. Maybe he, sitting in his vehicle, was crying his heart out for forsaking me so heartlessly. Even if that wasn’t the case, I preferred to believe so. I tried to convince my heart so. It was only thus that I managed to swim across many of my sorrows. Merciful Allah, I am fated to walk through these harsh days that you have ordained for me. Forgive me for hating and cursing that innocent man for that.
In the beginning, everything in the masara had a nauseating stench. The smell emanating from goats’ urine, the stench of the droppings, the reek of grass and hay that got wet with the urine. If I had ever experienced a similar stink before, it was in a circus tent.
Even the goats’ milk had that stench. Whenever I dipped khubus into the milk to eat, the smell would drill into my nostrils. How many times I vomited in the first days. But slowly, it retreated from me. Or I forgot about it. Later, although I tried many times, I could never experience it. It became so much a part of me I could not believe that such a stench had ever existed. Not only that, I was able to discern the difference in the many smells that originated from the goats. The he-goats had a special smell and the sheep another. There were hundreds of types of sheep, each with a distinct smell. Pregnant goats had a certain smell; goats about to give birth had another. Based on that smell, I was even able to calculate a goat’s date of delivery. The newborns had a particular smell different from that of older lambs. Goats in heat had a different smell. The smell of the camels was distinct from all the rest. There are two types of camels—those with one hump and those with two. Each type smelled different. There was only one animal in that masara without any smell, and that was me.
One day, I developed a craving to write a letter to Sainu. I didn’t bother about how it would reach her. I had to write. I had to. During the brief interval after the khubus-and-water lunch, I dragged out my bag from under the cot. The letter pad and pen I had brought from Bombay were inside it. I took them out. The pen began to write faintly only after a lot of scribbling. I was writing a letter for the first time. I had no idea how to write one. Still, I gathered all my thoughts and began to write.
My very dear Sainu,
I have reached safely. I couldn’t even write a letter because I was very busy with work. I know you must be worried. Don’t worry. Your ikka is comfortable here. I am in a big firm that produces milk and wool. It is a good job. We don’t need to do anything. The machines take care of everything. I supervise the work around here. My arbab likes me very much. He likes my work, and often gives me presents. I stay in a very expensive place. Sitting on my cot, I can see everything that’s around us. It is so beautiful. Ah, the food. How many new and unseen items the arbab brings for me! I started writing this letter after eating khubus with chicken curry and mutton masala, and a glass of pure milk. Indeed, I wonder if I have become fat even within these few days! Now it is afternoon—rest time. I need to get back to work after some time. Till then, I can sleep in this pleasant breeze.
Some of our local people are here with me: Ravuthar, Raghavan, Vijayan, Pokkar, and so on. I do not interact with them much—the arbab doesn’t like it. The arbab has a houri of a daughter. Every evening, she and I go for a stroll. She insists that I must go with her. Her name is Marymaimuna.
This is my news. I hope you and Ummah are fine.
I shall write again when I get time.
Your own ikka,
Najeeb
I folded the paper. Closed my eyes. Wept for some time. The truth was not in that letter, but in my tears. Nobody read the truth.
Twenty
One evening, as I was walking with the goats, I noticed the eastern corner of the sky becoming dark and cloudy. I had observed the desert over the previous days. Usually the change of seasons was accompanied by a dust storm. By the time the dust storm disappeared, the weather would also have changed. In the desert, all changes were sudden; nothing was ever slow. The previous day might be very hot, but the next day might dawn chilly; it might be shivering cold one day and burning hot the next. One moment the sky would be pure without a speck of dust, but the next second a dust storm would churn that purity away. This storm too appeared in a similar fashion. The whole day had been fiery hot and all of a sudden a host of black clouds appeared in one corner of the sky. Within seconds the darkness flowed across the whole sky and blanketed the earth. A cold wind blew, slicing through my mind and body. I felt like I had been thrown from the desert into the South Pole. As if caught in a frenzy, the goats bounced around aimlessly. A similar feeling overtook me. I was filled with ecstasy. Leaving the goats to wander, I spread my arms and sauntered through that chill.
It was only when the arbab came in his vehicle and admonished me that I gathered the goats and returned to the masara. By the time I reached the masara, it had started drizzling. When the first drop fell on me, I writhed like I had been stabbed. By my calculation, it had been eight or ten months since a drop of water touched my skin. The experience was incredibly painful. Soon, it began to rain. And as each drop fell on me, I felt like my body was being pierced. Unable to stand that excruciating pain, I ran to cover myself with a blanket. And it was not just me, even the goats suffered. They began to bleat, emitting a strange sound. The usually unruffled camels returned in the rain looking troubled and hurt.
Along with the rain came thunder and lightning. It seemed to me that lightning would strike and burn out the whole masara.
Every time a raindrop fell on my head, my hair stood on its end and trembled. My body alternately burnt and shivered. I longed to get wet in the rain and bathe. But I couldn’t bear it. When I could take it no longer I ran to the arbab’s tent. The sight I saw! The arbab crouched in a corner like a coward. More than anything else in the world, the arbab feared water, I felt. Nowhere had I ever come across so frightened a man. The arbab seemed to fear water falling on his body, as though it were the touch of a jinni. As the rain droplets blew into the tent, the arbab retreated even farther into the corner. I thought the arbab had probably not had a bath even once in his life.
In an unprecedented gesture, the arbab invited me into the tent. When I tried to sit on the floor, he made me sit on the cot. Like a frightened child, he grabbed my hand and then slithered under a blanket to screen the sight of the rain. Sitting in that posture, my hand touched something under the pillow. Cautiously, I tried to feel it again. It was the arbab’s gun! Slowly, I pulled it out. The arbab did not notice, he was chanting ‘ya Allah, ya Allah’ and praying for the rain to stop.
A kind of
wildness came over me. Just aim and pull the trigger and you will be saved. There is a vehicle outside with the key hanging from the ignition. You can find the road and escape somehow. This is the chance, the moment Allah the merciful has ordained for you to escape. If you do not use this moment, you might never get a chance like this, ever. You do know that such opportunities do not come again and again. Do it. Escape from this hell somehow. My hand indeed moved towards the trigger.
Suddenly the arbab started praying loudly, ‘My Allah … you kept us safe. Had Najeeb not been here, I would have died of fear now.’ That was the first time that the arbab said my name. I had even doubted that he knew my name. He usually called me ‘himar’ or ‘inti’. That call of prayer softened my heart. I didn’t feel like escaping after killing a coward who had been crying for my help. I returned the gun to its place.
I felt very hot inside the tent, so I removed my wet sheet and released the arbab’s hand. I threw away the wet clothes and bravely walked into the rain. Initially, my body pulsated with pain, as if it were being stabbed by several arrows. I endured it, and the pain gradually faded away. After that each raindrop refreshed me. I enjoyed that rain. Like lambs that can sense the coming of rain, I leapt around. And thus, after a very long time, the rain washed me clean. Dirt quietly trickled down my body.
At some point in the night, as the rain eased, the arbab ran out of the tent and drove away in his vehicle. The other arbab did not come that night. After a while, the rain grew heavy again. That whole night, I was free, out of anyone’s coercion or control. That night I could have run away. But I didn’t go anywhere. As always, I didn’t know where to go to reach a safe destination. So I gave up the desire to escape. How many such opportunities to escape do we give up every day? We who throw away the golden bowl of opportunities when it comes into our hand.
That night, I felt the need to do something. Something that violated captivity, something that would have annoyed the arbab. If I didn’t do anything, it would have been a waste of those precious moments of freedom. The desire blossomed instantaneously: I must go up to the neighbouring masara, I must see my Hakeem. He was dropped there the night we arrived in this country, and he has not been seen since. I did not even know whether he was alive or dead or if he had escaped. The poor boy was so near, yet so far. It was only then that I registered the extent of my cocooned existence. Once or twice I had asked the arbab about Hakeem, but he had ignored the question as if he hadn’t heard it at all. In that downpour, I walked towards Hakeem’s masara. Apprehensively I knocked on the gate fastened with an iron padlock. I feared that I would be in trouble if there were arbabs present. Still, I called out. ‘Hakeem, Hakeem, can you hear me? This is me, Najeeb … the Najeeb who had come to the Gulf with you … Are you there?’
There was no reply despite my incessant knocking. I was about to walk back disheartened when I saw a shadow moving far away. I called out loudly. ‘Hakeem! Is that you? It’s Najeeb.’ I was afraid the rain’s snake-whistle would drown my voice.
But I saw the shadowy figure slowly walk towards me.
‘Hakeem, is that you? Come closer, it is me, Najeeb.’
When that figure came near me, I looked at it carefully. Dark, skinny, dishevelled, ugly. Another scary figure. This was not my Hakeem. He did not look like Hakeem. Hakeem was handsome. Very fair. Very good to look at. Strong for his age. I had even advised him in jest to stay put in Bombay and try his luck in Hindi films.
‘Is there someone called Hakeem here? He is a friend of mine. He came along with me. I haven’t seen him since then. Do you know him, or where he is?’ In one breath, I bombarded the scary figure with questions as he walked towards me.
For some time, the hideous figure stared from the other side of the gate, as if I were speaking in a strange language. Then, quite unexpectedly, he hit his head against the gate and started crying. I got scared. Then, between sobs, came his heart-wrenching cry, ‘My Najeeb ikka.’ It was only then, only then, that I recognized Hakeem. Alarmed, I understood how circumstances could redraw a man’s shape beyond recognition. I could estimate how the same circumstances must have changed me too—completely. I had not looked in a mirror since I had entered the desert. If I had, I might not have been able to recognize myself as well.
He cried a lot, recalling his ummah, uppah, relatives and Allah. I had no answers for him. I only had the strength to cry with him, holding his hands to my chest through the iron railings. The night washed away in tears.
Twenty-one
It rained for two more days. The masara was filthy and full of muck by the time it stopped. The foul smell of goat droppings, urine, decaying hay and grass rent the air. It took me three or four days of back-breaking work to clean it all up.
Then the desert’s vaults were flung open for the winter. It was foggy and cold in the mornings. When I got up and looked around, all I could see was the white film of winter. Everything—the masara, the goats, the arbab, the tent—disappeared into that whiteness. It was only around nine o’clock that the fog faded and everything became visible again—though the hour is a guess on my part, for I was a lonely being with no sense of time—and, so, all routines were disrupted. During summer, the days were very long. The sun rose very early, by about three in the morning, and the light didn’t fade till eight at night. But in the winter, the sun didn’t rise till nine, and the light would fade just after lunch. By four it would be completely dark. So the hours one got to do work were limited. In the winter one had to finish work in about six to seven hours, the same work that took ten to fifteen hours in the summer. Moreover, it was hard to work properly because of the cold. Even at noon it was spine-piercingly cold. I could not even touch the water. My hands would become numb if I had to work with water. It was in those days that I learned that even cold water could burn skin. On one occasion, blisters appeared on my left palm as if it had been scalded with hot water, after it was in cold water for some time. I have heard that it is cold at the poles, but I don’t know from where such cold comes to the desert!
I didn’t have any special clothes to protect me from the cold. I only had that abaya, the long unwashed garment that the arbab had given me on my first day, which I never removed from my body. What I had was a woollen blanket left behind by the scary figure. I wore it during the first days of winter, but it was a bother. How could one run after goats and enter the masara to fill the containers with water or hay wearing a blanket? I gave it up. It became my habit to walk in the cold in that single piece of clothing.
Though I discovered it a little late, there was something that gave me heat even in the height of winter: sheep! It was a real comfort to walk among them. When the cold wind came whistling, I would hold the sheep close to my body. Whenever the cold pierced through the blanket to maul my body, I would go to the masara and lie there embracing the sheep. I spent the winter as a sheep among the sheep.
Apart from the raucous wind, another unwelcome guest came to the masara in winter: flies. There were flies all around. A thousand flies would sit on the khubus when it was taken out. One hand had to be free all the time to keep them away. If one went to the masara, one could hear them buzzing like wasps. Though I disliked those wretched flies, I began to think that they too had to live somewhere. And if they liked the masara the most, then let them live there!
That winter, had I wanted, I could have escaped along with Hakeem, taking cover in the heavy mist. But the same doubt that I had on the first night of rain cast a spell on me, paralysing me from making my escape. Where to go? I did not know anything about this country, not even about the area I was in. In which direction—east, south, west or north—should I run to find a way out? Here, surely, I didn’t have enough food, water, clothes, a proper place to sleep, wages, dreams or aspirations. But I did have something precious left—my life! I had at least managed to sustain that. If I ran away into an unfamiliar desert I might lose even that. Then what would be the meaning of all that I had endured so far?
Every pr
ison has its own aura of safety. I didn’t feel up to bursting that bubble of security. I decided to wait for the appropriate opportunity to strike—when I was sure of reaching a safe location. Was my decision correct? I didn’t know.
At the beginning of winter more sheep had been offloaded in the masara by trucks. It was their breeding time, the six months till summer. Actually, sheep survive best in cold, mountainous climates. Rearing them in the desert is an injustice to them. The desert is congenial to goats as they can endure the high temperatures. The arbab kept the sheep because of the profit he made from selling their wool. Although three-quarters would be sold by the time summer came, the ones that remained, suffered. As the temperature soared, they died sweltering in their own woollen coat. I witnessed this many times. The arbab didn’t throw away any of the corpses. He’d drag them into his vehicle and drive away. They must have been served as fresh mutton in some restaurant or the other later.
One day, when the winter was coming to an end, two men came to shear the sheep. They were Sudanese and both of them had broad smiles. Filled with the joy of meeting people after a long time, I followed them around like a puppy. But they didn’t understand much of what I said and neither did I make sense of what they said. But it was with broad smiles that they remained uncomprehending of my words.
That year the Sudanese came with a machine to shear wool and a generator to work it; previously they had used hand-held scissors. The arbab began to jump around like a troubled jinni as soon as they started the generator and the machine. His first fear was that his sheep would get electrocuted. The poor men had to struggle to convince the arbab that the machine wouldn’t kill the sheep with electric shocks. The arbab’s second fear was that the machine would shear more wool than necessary and the sheep would burn to death in summer. (There would be no demand for such sheep in the market.) It was only after they had demonstrated on a sheep that the machine was set to shear only to a certain thickness that the arbab half-heartedly gave his consent. Even then he continued to express his displeasure at the use of the machine.
