Women kneel in rows in the packed mud courtyard of the mosque. Rotating their bodies, they toss their oiled hair over their heads, back and forth and around and around with a whipping motion like horses’ tails, in a frenzy of devotion.
Women whirl like dervishes, ankle bracelets jangling, their skirts flying out like disks of color. All around are women: wailing women, silent women with children clinging to their skirts, women dancing and playing flutes and singing songs about the life of the Channan Pir. Beside the entrance to the shrine a woman, her head thrown back, wails her anguish at having lost a child. Another sits in a trance, a small girl crawling under her knees.
The queue grows quieter as we approach the mound of stones. Colored flags snap and curl in the breeze. I lay a fistful of sweets and my garland beside the tomb and bow my head amid buzzing flies. I close my eyes, and the combined sweetness of crushed flowers and burning incense makes me dizzy. I pray with all my heart that Phulan will have sons. In the second before someone shoves me aside to make room for another supplicant, I pray she and Hamir will be happy, and that life will not be too difficult for her.
Afterward, we push our way back to our camp. The camels lie with their legs under them, dozing in the sun. Flies collect in the corners of their eyes, and the heat presses down on us so we can barely breathe. Mama and I tip the panniers on their sides and tie chadrs at their corners, making a shelter against the sun. We have a cup of water, then lie down on our quilts to sleep through the burning white afternoon.
Before the sun sets I take Xhush Dil out into the desert to collect fodder and firewood. We haven’t gone far when we hear bagpipes and drums from the camps where the men wait for their women. A roar goes up, and Xhush Dil and I move closer to see. We stop under a thorn tree. If Dadi sees me he’ll be angry. Xhush Dil lifts his head to nibble the leaves overhead, and I stand behind his hump, holding on to the tree trunk with one arm.
The men stand several deep, jostling for position. One sweeps clear a circle, dust rising in gray clouds around him. Two men wearing nothing but loincloths stand outside the circle, flexing their legs and arms. I am too far away to see their faces clearly.
The crowd cheers as one of the bare-chested men, with shoulders broad as an ox yoke and a round, hard belly, pushes through the circle and lifts his arms above his bald head. But a roar of approval goes up as the other man, much smaller than the first, with a handsome black mustache, comes into the ring, his broad back glistening in the lowering sun.
The two crouch and circle each other, and the tempo of the drums and bagpipes quickens. The smaller man, clearly the crowd’s favorite, turns toward me, thick muscles bunching in his thighs and calves. Something is oddly familiar about him. The larger man lunges, the smaller dodges, catching the arm of the other as he hurtles past, levering the immense weight and hurling him onto his back in the dust.
They remind me of Kalu and Tipu.… All at once I realize it’s Dadi! My heart thunders. I want to ride through the circle of wildly cheering men and make them stop.
But I am stuck to the tree as if it’s caught me with its thorns. The huge man regains his feet and, in so doing, pulls Dadi’s leg out from under him, slamming him to the ground. The large man pounces on top of Dadi, who rolls away an instant before the other smashes to the earth.
Again Dadi uses the momentum of the other man’s lunge to flip him onto his back and pin his shoulders to the ground. It’s over in less than a minute, and Dadi, the favorite, has won. The crowd is nearly mad with ecstasy, calling for blood.
My heart thrashes inside my ribs as I yank Xhush Dil’s head down from the thorn branches and turn him. The motion catches Dadi’s eye, and my last glimpse of him is of a heaving chest and angry eyes.
We dash up the great, soft dunes and down the other side, over the hot white desert, the wind stinging my face through tears. The sun is gone, and I have little light to gather wood. But I do it with a fury and return with bulging bags to the happy warmth of the women.
As Phulan fills the kettle, Mama begins slapping dough into chapatis. She smiles as she works, looking forward to Sharma and Fatima’s visit. I stare at her and wonder, How can she stand him? How can she let a man who would fight another naked man touch her … and do what the camels do?
“What is it, Shabanu?” she asks, the smile still hovering on her mouth. I turn away, and she goes back to her bowl.
Sharma
We hear Sharma’s deep, husky voice laughing and talking, calling out to women camped around us and moving animals from her path long before we see her.
Fatima carries a steaming pot of spiced lentils, and Mama gives each of them a dress she’s sewn. Fatima holds hers before her lovely bosom, and Phulan nudges me with her elbow.
Sharma takes over making chapatis, and Mama whisks milk and sugar into the tea, and they talk about the preparations for Phulan’s wedding. Sharma will bring her jelabi-wallah, who fries crispy, sugar-filled pretzels in pink oil. Fatima has a friend who sells flowers; she will bring tuberoses, with the fragrance of royal weddings. Phulan’s eyes glisten, and her sculpted fingers clasp and unclasp with pleasure.
I say little and try hard not to stare at Fatima. How I long to be like her—never to marry, to stay in the warm, safe circle of women.
After we’ve eaten and the stars are brilliant and Mama has shown Sharma and Fatima all of Phulan’s dowry, as well as my shatoosh, they sit back and Sharma tells a story about a woman, her friend, who was stoned to death because her husband accused her of looking at another man.
Mama urges me to tell about the Bugti girl and her lover. They listen, horrified and delighted by the stories. Panic rises in my chest, tears building pressure behind my eyes.
Sharma takes me by the wrist and pulls me toward her, encircling me in her arms like a small child.
“Don’t be frightened, Shabanu,” she whispers against my ear. “There are evil men in the world, but the love of a good man is the most beautiful thing God can give us.”
How can she say that after what she’s been through with her terrible husband? She laughs her rich, deep laugh.
I think of Murad, his gentle eyes and his fairness at games. Is any man a good man? In a year I shall be married to him. If he isn’t a good man, I shall be like Sharma—strong and independent.
Still holding me, Sharma sings a song, a ghazal about a desert man who searches for his love in the desert as if she were water. Fatima brings her lute, and we listen to their rich, dark voices intertwine with the delicate sounds of the strings.
Sharma sings as if she is in a trance, and when she has sung two or three ghazals, she announces that she will sing a kafi, a poetic song about the Channan Pir.
Jalal-ud-din Sukh Bokhari stood on the riverside,
A Muslim son to the raja he truly prophesied
sings Sharma, her clean, husky voice traveling back four centuries, quietly setting the story at Uch Sharif, on the banks of the river that has wandered away, leaving this place a desert.
The story is of Raja Sher Shah, the Rajput prince of Bikaner, who hears Bokhari’s prophecy that a child conceived by one of his wives, a Muslim, will grow up to be a Muslim saint.
Sharma’s voice rises and falls in trills and cadences as the story unfolds, and a crowd of women gathers outside the circle of our fire. They bring more wood, their shawls, and quilts and quietly make room for more women.
When he learned of the birth, the Hindu raja took the infant out into the desert and threw him onto a mound of dirt, leaving him to die in the wilderness.
Here Sharma pauses to catch her breath, and Fatima’s tiny fingers pluck out the lilting music on her lute, the crowd saying “Va, va, va,” softly expressing their pleasure.
The raja cast the infant out into the wild,
He left him on a desert mound
Where thorns and rocks were piled
sings Sharma. But a magnificent cradle carved of fragrant sandalwood descended from heaven, hovered over the mound of earth, and
caught the infant. The raja ordered his soldiers to kill the child, but the cradle carried him up into heaven.
When the raja and his men finally went away, the cradle descended again, and the child grew up in the wilderness, protected by the animals of the desert.
The raja became obsessed with killing the child and frequently sent his soldiers out to search for him, but the animals would warn the boy, and the sandalwood cradle would lift him from danger. The child grew into a wise and gentle man, beloved of all people of the desert, Hindu and Muslim both.
Because of the miracle and the Channan Pir’s simplicity and wisdom, the people of the desert became his followers. Many Hindus converted to Islam because of the saint, but Hindus and Muslims alike come to worship at the mound of rocks where the infant was thrown, and where his body lies today.
The second morning we visit the shrine early, before the pushing and shoving, the singing and dancing begin, when the birds are just stirring in the thick, thorny branches of the tree that stands sentinel over Channan Pir’s mound of rocks.
Again, like hens laying eggs, we leave our prayers and hopes for Phulan’s sons at the head of the shrine.
For the first time, I feel a communion with the saint; his presence is like a soothing hand on my shoulder. Before Auntie nudges me to move along, I pray for wisdom, and my anger with Dadi eases.
I kiss Sharma and Fatima good-bye as the sun rises behind a thin haze that portends a hot day. While Mama, Phulan, and Sharma jabber about who should bring saris and bangles for Hamir’s mother, turbans for Hamir and Murad, and more wheat and sugar to Mehrabpur for the wedding, I turn to the business of saddling Xhush Dil. There are no tears, for we shall see them again when the family collects after the fasting month of Ramadan for the wedding in twelve weeks.
Sharma comes around to the side of the camel and catches me in one arm as I lift a quilt onto the mirrored pannier. She spins me away from my task. The way she reads my thoughts takes my breath away.
“Truly, Shabanu,” she says, holding my chin in her hand, “a man’s love is a blessing. You and Phulan are lucky. Your father is a good man, and he has seen to it that you will marry well.”
I can’t answer, because a knot of unidentifiable feeling has paralyzed my throat and tongue and brought tears to my eyes.
“God willing, your brain will unscramble itself soon, and you will know I speak the truth,” she says, giving my cheek a painful tweak. I manage a smile and hug her hard.
“If you say so, Auntie Sharma,” I whisper into her hair.
I wonder whether Dadi will be cross with me when we meet farther down the track toward home. If only I can keep my feelings under control!
The breeze is hot and dry with the sun still ringed by haze as we set off for home.
Dadi smiles when he sees us. He gives no clue that he saw me at the wrestling yesterday. My cousins are happy to see Auntie, who smiles for the first time in two days as she takes them from Dadi, hauling them down and wiping their faces, clucking as if Dadi has kept them badly.
Auntie takes every opportunity to show Mama how superior she is for having borne Uncle two sons. Mama always takes it in good humor, but I do wonder; if she ever wishes she’d had sons, she never shows it. I notice for the first time a strain about Auntie’s eyes and mouth and an extra swelling of her breasts. Perhaps she will bear another son before the year is out.
Mithoo trots up to Xhush Dil’s side, looking up to me for a treat. I have nothing to give him, but I slip to the ground and hug his neck, which seems to have grown even thicker in the two days since I saw him last. He prances as if he’s too old for such things, his shoulder as high as my head, his feet each bigger than my hand stretched to its broadest. Then he bleats like a lamb and nuzzles my ear. I sympathize, for I too feel like a child struggling to know what it is to be grown.
Desert Storm
By the time we reach the toba, Grandfather has fallen back into his torpid state, like a beetle in winter. Dadi worries about him, and Mama makes special efforts to make things that he likes to eat.
“He’ll come back,” she tells Dadi. “He’s been this way for years, and he always comes back. Don’t worry.” But Dadi continues to worry, stopping by Grandfather on his string cot in the shade of the courtyard wall to interest him in a camel that’s fallen ill or a batch of new lambs. Grandfather just nods and sucks at his hookah.
The water in the toba is slowly drying up, but Dadi says we have enough for the two months before we leave for Mehrabpur to prepare for the wedding.
One night Phulan shakes me awake in the middle of a deep sleep.
“Shabanu!” she shouts from such a great distance I can barely hear her.
She yanks the quilt away, and suddenly my skin is pierced by thousands of needles. The wind is howling around us. I can’t see anything when I open my eyes, but I can tell by the sound and feel that it’s a monstrous sandstorm, the kind few living things survive without protection. Phulan pulls me by the hand, but I yank away.
“Mithoo!” I stumble about the courtyard, tripping over huddled chickens, clay pots, and bundles of reeds that have broken away from the entrance. “Mithoo!”
Hands outstretched, I feel my way around the courtyard wall, where Mithoo normally sleeps. When I get to where the reeds were stacked on their stalks, lashed side by side and tied to cover the doorway, there is a gaping hole. Quickly I make my way around the courtyard again. Mithoo is gone.
“You can’t find him without a light and something to put over your eyes!” Phulan shouts, pulling on my arm. Together we drag the bed through the doorway. Mama struggles to close the window shutters, and Phulan and I manage to push the door shut and wedge the bed against it. Dadi lights a candle and swears softly as the light fills the room. Grandfather and Sher Dil are missing too.
“Where can he have gone?” Mama gasps, her eyes bright with fear. Grandfather had been sound asleep, and the storm must have wakened him.
Dadi uses the candle to light the kerosene storm lantern and pulls the bed away from the door. Mama throws a shawl around his shoulders. He pulls it over his head, and I follow him out to the courtyard, where khar shrubs, their shallow roots torn from the dry sand, tumble and hurl themselves against the walls.
With my chadr over my face, I can open my eyes enough to see the haze of the lantern in Dadi’s hand, the light reflecting from the dust in a tight circle around him.
Auntie has already closed up her house, and Dadi pounds on the door for several minutes before she opens it again and we slip inside.
“Have you seen Grandfather?” asks Dadi.
“And Mithoo and Sher Dil?” I shout.
She stands in the center of her house, mouth open and speechless, her hands raised helplessly. My cousins stand behind her skirt, their eyes wide. From between her feet Sher Dil’s black nose glistens in the lamplight. But no Grandfather and no Mithoo.
“Come to our house,” Dadi orders her, handing me the lantern. “I’ll close up here. Shabanu, come back for me,” he says, bending to light Auntie’s storm lantern.
When I return, Dadi holds the light so we can see each other.
“Mithoo will be fine,” he says, and I know it is a warning not to ask to look for him. “When the wind has died and it’s light, we’ll find him standing near a tree by the toba.”
Through my mind race visions of Mithoo trying to stay with the other camels, but the females push him away, as they have since his remarkable birth. They treat him as if he’d been born of another species. Dadi is right. Mithoo has a chance if he can stay with the herd and find shelter in the lee of a dune. But Grandfather can never survive a storm like this.
Dadi holds my hand as we step back into the vicious wind. It slaps us with a terrible force, driving thousands of sand grains through our clothes and against our shielded faces.
“Grandfather! Grandfather!” I shout, but the wind tears the sound from my mouth and hurls it away before I can hear it. I catch wisps of Dadi’s voice calling
out.
Never have I seen such a storm. I wonder whether Dadi, or even Grandfather, has.
In half an hour we know it’s no use. We are exhausted and sick, our skin raw from the sand, our voices gone from shouting and gulping in dust. I close my burning eyes and let Dadi lead me home.
Mama, Phulan, Auntie, and the boys huddle under shawls in the hot, swirling dark. There is no escaping the sand, even indoors, and everything is gritty with the dust that blows with great force through the thatch and around the cracks in the doors and shutters. Mama runs to us and takes the lanterns. She holds me against her for a second.
Her eyes are haunted. I pray Grandfather will die quickly of heart failure and not be skinned alive by the sand and suffocated.
Phulan lifts her hands from over her face, and I can’t tell whether she’s been crying.
“Your eyes are bright red,” she says, looking from Dadi to me and back again.
My vision is blurred, and Phulan leads me to her quilt. Dadi and I both lie down, and Mama dips the corner of her chadr into fresh water in which healing desert mint has soaked, and squeezes drops into our eyes. It burns like fire, and I cry out. Even Dadi grunts as Mama gently squeezes the water into the corners of his eyes.
The night is endless. Branches—it feels like entire trees—crash into the walls and thatch. Mama thinks she hears a voice call out. Dadi gets up and lights the lantern. He pushes open the door and goes outside, but there is nothing.
“There is some light out there,” he says when he returns a few minutes later. The sand has got into the new watch he bought in Rahimyar Khan. It stopped at five minutes after two. Fear and pain have blurred the time, and we have no way of knowing whether it’s morning or afternoon.
The storm goes on for hours more, and we are too exhausted to go outside again until the wind dies. The boys whimper. Sher Dil stays under Mama’s skirt and never makes a sound. The rest of us are silent, as if our souls have blown outside with Grandfather, tossed with the dust on the wind.
Shabanu Page 8
