Sufi - The Invisible Man of The Underworld

by Aabid Surti

  Suddenly she got up and offered him her hand, “Good luck, Iqbal!”

  So far, Iqbal had had only the soup; Kiran's wailing face, underneath her laughter, made him pensive. He could not eat a single morsel.

  Instead of shaking hands with Kiran, he got up. “Come, let me drop you home.”

  Withdrawing her hand, she shot back, “There’s no need,” and proceeded staggeringly. She could not go much further, swooned and dropped on the ground in her red sari, the colour of weddings, a tragic wedding without a groom.

  Howsoever strong the heart may be, it is bound to suffer once the thread of love snaps. Kiran was to recover from it within a week or two and get back to her old profession. Her love affair with Iqbal was to become a sweet dream from the past.

  I could not imagine Suraiyya’s plight. Like me, it would take her years to recover from the trauma. She was to flutter like a fish out of water, wail like a child widow, bang her head against the wall like a lunatic, and finally surrender to her fate like a slave.

  I could not cry. It was not in my nature to shed tears. I could not bang my head against walls. I just quietly suffered the agony. I knew, it was now over, done with, a thing of the past. Yet, a raging fire burned within me day in and day out. I wanted to extirpate, root out the anguish with a flood of whiskey. Liquor was beckoning me—Devdas tried it, why don’t you? The inferno will die down.

  My wisest choice during those hellish days was that I did not surrender to liquor. I had resolved on the very first day that I tasted liquor that I would not touch it in times of sorrow. I stuck to my resolve like an obstinate child. For months, I suffered silently. If I tried to speak, words would suddenly fail speech as memory encountered something too painful, often too frightening to allow it to enter.

  I was aware of the fact that the weight on one's mind gets lifted on sharing one's sorrow with someone. However, ever since had Suraiyya entered my life, I had no close friend left with whom I could share my feelings.

  Lubayna and Anil were my friends. Both of them used to come to comfort me, walking, every evening, through the lane that linked our JJ School of Arts with St. Xavier's college. Sometimes, they used to get tickets for a film screening or a play. I never felt like joining them. The last thing I needed was pity. As if someone had poisoned the air of our campus, I kept away from it. Yet. I could feel the breeze on my face. I’d remember the first date at the zoo, our moonless walk in the pitch-dark night at Nainital. I’d see it all, every nook and corner we crossed, every bend we turned. What else was left in this solitary life I lived?

  A question cropped up every morning – Where to spend the day? And the days of Moharram began. These ten days are observed in memory of the martyrs of Karbala. On the last day, a ritual of walking on fire is also performed. Those days, this ceremony used to take place at Palghar, a couple of hours’ journey from Bombay.

  I arrived there along with a friend. It was 11 in the night. A bed of red hot coal was burning in a grave-size trench. The devotees were beating their chests, raring to take a plunge in it. They included children, as well as old and middle-aged people. To make things even more dramatic, drums were being beaten on one side while on the other, people were chanting furiously – Ya Hussain, Ya Ali.

  One after another, the devotees started stepping into the fire. I stared quietly. An old habit reared its head. If these children can jump into the fire, why should I be a bystander watching it from afar? Following the queue of devotees, I too stepped onto the fire pit. Steadily walking across the eight to nine feet long ditch, I too reached the other side safe and sound.

  The next morning, I learnt that almost all the devotees who had jumped into the fire the previous night had burnt their feet. I then recalled that a few years back, my uncle, to supplicate some imam, had walked on fire and burnt both his soles. Till date, I have failed to unravel the mystery as to why my feet didn’t burn

  One more question remained unanswered – Was the decision to jump into the fire a correct one? Was it not a suicide attempt? For how many days would I live aimlessly?

  At last, I realized that my agony would destroy me. The constant chatter of voices within had to cease. If I continued to grieve, one day I would surely collapse. It was necessary for me to give expression to my feelings. So, I dropped my brush and picked up a pen.

  I was a painter and had nothing whatsoever to do with literature. I had not even heard the names of the doyens of Gujarati literature of that period such as Chunilal Madia, Umashankar and Suresh Joshi.

  Of course, I had learnt to write children's stories by reading Disney comics. Urdu writer Mushtaq Jalili had taught me the art of writing film scripts. I had also written a couple of plays for inter-college drama competitions and tried my hand at writing short stories.

  Perhaps I would not have ventured to write an original play if Mushtaq Jalili had had enough time for me! He used to write a play every year for our college, and I used to have a tough time goading him to write it.

  Dilly-dallying had become his second nature. He would deliver the manuscript making me chase him for days pleading, begging. At last, I got fed up. It was not in my nature to go and fall at anyone's feet, imploring.

  For the first time in my life, I wrote a play for the fourth year Inter College Drama Competition. The name of the play was 'Bus Stop.' I also essayed the lead. This Hindi play met with unexpected success. I won the prize for best acting. The director of the play was the late Bharat Dave.

  Among the spectators were the actors Rajesh Khanna and Kader Khan. (Both of them were students at the time.) Besides, K. Asif's chief assistant Sultan Ahmed too had come to watch my play. Impressed by my performance, he came directly backstage.

  “Aabid!” he said, introducing himself, “Asif Saab has come up with a film project that will have an entirely new cast and there is a role of a comedian tailor made for you. I want you to come and meet Asif Saab.”

  I laughed and said, “Friend, acting is my hobby! The day I make it my profession, I’ll forget my art.”

  He was terribly disappointed as well as surprised. He could not believe that someone could have the audacity of refusing to work with the famous director who had made the evergreen classic 'Moghul-e-Azam'.

  After the death of K. Asif, when Sultan Ahmed became an independent director and was making his first film, he again offered me the role of a comedian.

  I was firm in my resolve. I neither wanted to become a star nor a writer, and yet my separation from Suraiyya made me an author. Excavating memories I’d treasured, I scribbled over five hundred pages of tragedy that I could not share with anyone. I felt as though I had taken a very heavy load off my shoulders.

  Those days, there lived an affable kabaadi (scrap-collector) in our neighbourhood at Dongri. His name was Mohammed Hussain Meghani. But we would affectionately call him 'Rata'. (Perhaps because he was neither a Tata nor a Bata.)

  Every morning, before going to Bhat Bazaar to sell old books and magazines, he would peep into my room. He was naturally curious. What could this painter be writing round the clock? And yet, he did not have the courage to come inside and pester me.

  One day, we bumped into each other on the stairs and he inquired, “What do you write the whole day?”

  “I don't know,” I replied.

  “How many pages have you written?”

  “Around five hundred, I guess.”

  “And, you don't know what you have written?”

  “I know what I’ve written; but I don't know what to call it.” An autobiography? A novel? A piece of junk…I could not tell certainly at the time.

  He stared at me for a few moments and asked me again, “What will you do with it?”

  I laughed and said, “You may take it if you want.”

  He was serious. “You know very well that I deal in waste paper also.”

  “I also know that you are an honest waste paper dealer. You won’t cheat me in weight.”

  That same day I handed him over a heap of
handwritten pages called the manuscript. At the time I was not aware that our friend Meghani was in touch with publishers of Gujarati books and that too with Shivji Ashar, the owner of Swati Prakashan, known for publishing new wave books. (He used to publish the works of only a select few renowned authors such as Suresh Joshi, Harindra Dave, Madhu Rai etc.)

  Meghani read my manuscript first and then gave it to Swati Prakashan. Early one morning, he simply walked into my house and stared at me in amazement. I felt like horns had grown overnight on my head. “Bastard!” he chided under his breath and then aloud, “You wrote such a brilliant novel and you want me to believe you don't know what it is!”

  It was now my turn to look at him in amazement. He continued to chatter. In short, he was telling me that Shivji Ashar had agreed to publish my novel and that I would be paid a minimum of five hundred rupees as royalty.

  Overnight my name was included in the list of young Turks of Gujarati literature. The novel Tutela Farishta (Broken Angels) became the talk of the town on its publication. Before that, I had failed in my final year examinations.

  Like me, Iqbal too was a first class student in his studies. But his tragedy was different.

  After breaking away from Kiran, he vacated Usha Sadan and moved to the Sagar Darshan apartment. That was the period when the virus of conjunctivitis spread through Bombay.

  Just two days before the final examinations, he fell victim to this epidemic. Yet, he did not lose hope. In his efforts to fulfill his father's dream that he should become a doctor, he put eye-drops and sat for the examinations. However, he could not answer any of the questions. For he could not read a single question.

  Chapter 29

  You can very well imagine the pitiable condition of a diligent student who, despite having stood among the top five from the first year till the final year, fails in the final examinations. To rub salt into the wound, friends and acquaintances never miss the opportunity to offer condolences.

  Someone said: “Aabid, a great injustice has been done to you. You must fight it out.” Another fellow said the examiners were orthodox and could not understand my abstract painting. Someone blamed the examination system, while others blamed the communal bias.

  I was interested neither in their condolences nor in the causes they had come up with. My greatest concern was for my mother. The poor soul, living on a thin hope, would sometimes tell the neighbours proudly, “This year, my son will pass with flying colours and get a job with a four-figure salary. And bring an end to our misery.”

  In her dreams, she would see me going to office like a bureaucrat wearing a tie with shirt and trousers, carrying a briefcase.

  Now, how should I face her? If I told her the truth, lightning was sure to strike her and if I told a lie, my face would betray me. As it is, my mother had started suspecting me following visible changes in my behavior.

  Earlier, I used to return home chirping like a bird. After the kidnapping of Suraiyya, my face looked crest-fallen as if I had just returned home from the funeral of a close friend. My mother did comment on it quite a few times but I scoffed her off.

  After the result were declared, I thought seriously before going home and, at last, decided to tell a spectacular lie. My acting skills were about to be tested. Acting on the stage is comparatively easier then acting in real life. On the stage, I had never cared whether the audience would be impressed or not. I was not a professional actor. I had never taken any training in acting. My problem was – I had to not just perform but also to impress a single spectator.

  Before going home, I bought a box of sweets and entered our dimly lit room with a broad smile as if I was entering a stage flooded with light. Then, glibly, with all the authority I could summon, “Ma… Ma…your son has become a graduate. Yahooo…”

  Mother was doing dishes in the kitchen. She turned her head with a jerk and looked at me. She just stared at me for a few moments. I felt that the smile that I had stuck on my lips would fall off and I too would collapse on the ground.

  Realizing the meaning of my words, she washed her hands clean and came before me. “Why shouldn't you succeed! I’ve been praying every day for you after namaaz.”

  Before she could say anything more, I stuffed a peda into her mouth. She snatched the box from me, forced a peda into my mouth too and gleefully went out to distribute sweets to the neighbours.

  I felt my legs trembling and leaned on a chair to steady myself. Couldn’t. I simply slumped into it. I had never experienced such pressure, so much tension on the stage. It appeared as if this one-minute performance had sucked away a year of my life. Beads of sweat from my forehead trickled down my neck. My only satisfaction was that I had succeeded in my effort. I had saved my mother from drowning in a pool of sorrow.

  Iqbal was conquering peak after peak of success. His dim hope of retracing his steps and becoming a doctor had proven illusionary. Now, there was no one to stop him. Even the sky fell short as far as his area of operation was concerned. He had spread his net from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

  This does not mean that honest customs officials like Khan and Rustomji had gone out of business. On the contrary, their vigilant eyes were keeping a constant watch on Iqbal. Their helplessness was that they could not arrest him without substantial evidence.

  The cat-and-mouse game between the customs officials and smugglers was on. Khan and Rustomji would lay a trap on knowing Iqbal's game plan only to realize later that the artful dodger had changed the blueprint and set up a new chessboard.

  Howsoever cautious the smugglers may be, they have always this fear of the naval ships guarding the frontiers on the sea. Besides, there were also the coast guards of the customs.

  Most of the coast guard officers are on the payroll of smugglers; but I had neither read nor heard that a gang of smugglers had won over a captain of a naval ship to make him work as a carrier.

  When Sufi broached the subject for the first time, I don't know why I had the suspicion that he might be boasting. I have seen this characteristic in quite a few traffickers I have had the chance to encounter. Since I could not believe him, I showered him with a barrage of questions.

  “Where did you meet this captain?”

  “At the CCI club.”

  “Then?”

  “Then what?”

  “How did you entrap him?”

  “The way I’d lured other customs officials.”

  “I want to know the exact method.”

  “Method?” Sufi paused for a while and said, “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “Don't you go to him with a briefcase full of bank notes and ask him to do the job?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Then?”

  “It's true that bundles of notes play a vital role; but how to use them is an art.” He added pondering over the issue swiftly, “Generally, a man's face reveals his character. Going a little deeper, a man's eyes reflect his psyche. When introduced, I first peep into the person’s eyes and determine whether the fish will take the bait or not! If I see even a slight hope, I set the ball rolling.”

  After a long interaction, a rough picture of the methodology emerged before my eyes. We can describe it as the terror of the future. For example, on being introduced to a senior official in a five star hotel or a club, Iqbal would indulge in small talk and casually bring up the subject of integrity and challenge him.

  If an officer does his job honestly throughout his life, how does the government reward him? Just a petty pension, which is not enough to run even the kitchen. Secondly, he has to surrender the government’s apartment that he has lived in all his life, after his retirement.

  If the officer has not made arrangements for alternate housing, he will be out on the street. Moreover, how can a government servant raise five to ten lakh rupees needed for a house in a city like Bombay during the tenure of his service when his salary barely makes both ends meet!

  For example, take the Bombay police. As if their petty salary is not enough to torture t
hem, there are many police officers with families here, who are not provided with accommodation by the state. Some of them live in dilapidated barracks that resemble stables, while some live in oven-like rooms in slums.

  There is no need to frighten them to enslave them. Shiva’s death-dance is already manifest in their lives.

  In short, the underworld is well aware of the weakness of government servants and takes full advantage of it. In addition, there is of course the lure of lucre.

  If an honest officer does not have a TV at home, but his corrupt colleague has not only a TV but a VCR as well, this would pinch him somewhere and in a moment of weakness he would put aside his principles and accept the values of the day.

  Iqbal had not ensnared the captain of the naval ship in just one meeting. After the formal introduction, he had gradually built up a rapport with him. The captain was intrigued for Iqbal knew a hundred and one recipes for making money, both black and white. Who would not be interested in such a sorcerer?