Okay, you didn’t understand what life was all about. It’s also okay if you didn’t enjoy its pleasures, but—now whose line was it that Ameena Bai Chitlekar, may God pardon her, used to intone in such a heartbreaking voice, ‘Mar ke bhi chain na paaya to kidhar ja’inge’†—I mean to hell with life if it still didn’t get better after dying.
So the thought came to me: why not let these poor, ill-fated members of humanity who were spurned at every door they knocked on, who so desperately longed for every good thing in this world, find in that other world a station that will be the envy of those who would not deign to give them even a sidelong glance in this world. There was only one way to ensure that: They should be spared a common, ordinary death and be made into martyrs.
Now the question was: Would they consent to be martyred? Of course they would, I thought. What Muslim does not long for martyrdom? Even Hindus and Sikhs have caught up with Muslims in coveting this lofty status. But imagine my disappointment when I asked this emaciated half-dead old coot, ‘Would you like to become a martyr?’ and he flatly refused with a resounding ‘NO.’
For the life of me I couldn’t understand why he wanted to go on living. I tried to reason with him, ‘Look, old man, you’ll be dead anyway in a month or so at the most. You have no strength left to walk. When you lose consciousness in the throes of a hacking cough it looks as if you’re dead. You don’t have even a broken cowrie to your name. You haven’t seen any comfort in life and probably won’t see any in the future either, the question doesn’t even arise. Why do you want to live longer? You can’t enlist in the army in hopes of laying down your life for your country fighting at the front. Isn’t it better that you arrange for your martyrdom right here in the bazaar, or in the dump where you flop down for the night?’
‘And how might I do that?’ he asked.
‘You see that banana peel up ahead,’ I said. ‘Suppose you slipped on it . . . It’s obvious that you would die. You’ll attain martyrdom.’
He failed to grasp my meaning. ‘And why would I want to do that? Why would I want to knowingly step on the peel when I see it clearly? Don’t you think I love my life?’
My, my, what a life! A pack of bones! A meshwork of wrinkles!
I felt sorry for the man, and sorrier when I heard that he, who could so easily have attained the lofty status of martyr, died, coughing away in the steel-frame bed of a charity hospital a few days later.
Then there was this decrepit old hag, practically toothless and in her last moments. I felt compassion for her. She had spent most of her life in abject poverty and suffering. I picked her up and brought her over to the railway paata (forgive me, back where I come from paata stands for railway tracks). But sir, what do you know, the moment she heard the whistle of the approaching train, she bounded clear of the tracks like a wound-up doll and fled.
It broke my heart, but I didn’t let go of my resolve. After all, the son of a bania doesn’t quit so easily. I didn’t let the clear Path of Virtue slip out of my sight.
A big compound dating from the times of the Mughals lay vacant. It had a hundred and fifty-one small chambers, now in an advanced state of decay. My experienced eyes immediately estimated that their roofs would cave in during the first blast of torrential rain. So I bought the enclosure for ten thousand rupees and settled one thousand indigent tenants there, charging them two months’ rent upfront at the rate of one rupee a month. Come the third month, as per my calculation, the roofs caved in during the first onslaught of heavy rains. Seven hundred people were martyred at one fell swoop, including old men and children.
That strange heaviness I was carrying around in my heart eased somewhat. The population decreased by seven hundred and the victims became martyrs in the bargain. Not a bad deal, eh!
I’ve been running this business ever since. Every day, according to my God-given ability, I manage to have two, sometimes three people quaff the wine of martyrdom. As I said before, everything requires gruelling hard work. For instance, this fellow whose life was as useless and meaningless as the fifth wheel of a rickety pushcart, I had to drop banana peels everywhere for ten full days to send him skidding to his martyrdom. But, I’ve come to believe now that just like death, the day of martyrdom is also foreordained. It was on the tenth day when this fellow finally fell over the peel on the hard cobblestoned ground and received martyrdom.
These days I’m having a gigantic building erected. The contract for two lakh rupees has gone to my own company. I’m sure I’ll be easily able to pocket a neat seventy-five thousand from that amount. I’ve also taken out an insurance policy on the building. By my calculations, the entire building will crumble when the work on the third floor gets going because of the poor quality mortar I’ve used. Three hundred men are working on it. By God’s grace, I dearly hope they’ll all perish as martyrs. If anyone walks out unscathed, I will think he must be the worst kind of sinner and his martyrdom is not acceptable to the Lord.
Recite the Kalima!
La ilaha il-lal-lah, muhammadur rasul ul-lah*—
You are a Muslim, believe me, I speak only the truth. Pakistan has nothing to do with it. Honest. I’m ready any time to lay down my life for Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah. Please, don’t be so hasty. Yes, of course, I know you don’t have time, especially during these turbulent days of rioting. But, for God’s sake, at least hear me out. Yes, I killed Tikka Ram, slashed his stomach with a sharp kitchen knife as you say, but not because he was Hindu. Well then, if I didn’t kill him, who did, you might ask. All right, let me relate the whole story.
Recite the kalima: La ilaha . . . What wretch knew that he would be embroiled in this mess? I killed three Hindus during the last Hindu–Muslim riots. But that was different, believe me. I’ll tell you what happened, why I killed this Tikka Ram.
Well, sir, what’s your opinion of this breed called woman? I think our elders have spoken the truth: Only God can save us from their wiles, their shenanigans. If I’m spared the hangman’s noose, I swear I’ll never come anywhere near a woman—ever. But, sir, a woman is not the only one to blame; men are no less guilty. The minute they see a woman, any woman, they start drooling all over the place. Inspector Sahib, I have to die one day and face my Lord. The moment my eyes fell on Rukma, I just crumbled.
Now one should ask: Man, you’re a petty employee who makes only thirty-five rupees, what have you got to do with love? Collect the rent and be on your way. Call it my misfortune, Sahib, that one day when I went to collect the rent for kholi no. 16 and knocked at the door, Rukma Bai came out. I had seen her several times before, but that day her body was glistening with rubbed oil under a loosely wrapped gauzy sari. God knows why, a sudden impulse gripped me to yank on her sari and start massaging her body with all my strength. Well, that was the day when this wretch surrendered his heart and mind to her.
My, my, what a woman she was! Her body—so firm I thought I was massaging a piece of granite. I was gasping from exertion within minutes, but she kept saying, ‘A while longer.’
Married? Yes, she was married. And if Khan the watchman is to be believed, she was also carrying on with a lover. But listen to the whole story; the lover will figure in it and so will everything else.
So, I lost myself to her that day. And she seemed to have guessed as much. She would give me a sidelong glance and smile. But, as God is my witness, every time she smiled a tremor of fear ran through my whole body. At first I thought it was the result of seeing one’s love so close, but it was only later that I realized . . . But you should listen from the very beginning.
As I mentioned, I had exchanged many amorous glances with Rukma Bai. Now my entire effort was focused on how to get further along with her. Her husband, the bastard, remained glued to the kholi all the time, carving his puny wooden toys, and never gave me a chance.
One day I saw—what was her husband’s name . . . yes, Girdhari—I saw Girdhari headed for the bazaar carrying a bundle of toys wrapped in a chador. Here was my chance. I immediately ran to kholi
no. 16 and knocked on the door. My heart was pounding so hard it seemed as though it would jump out of my chest. The door opened. Rukma Bai stared at me. I trembled right down to the roots of my hair, I swear. I would have fled then, but she smiled and signalled to me to step inside.
She closed the door behind me and said, ‘Sit!’ I sat down. She came near me. ‘Look, I know what you’re after. It’s not likely that you’ll get it, not while Girdhari is alive.’
I stood up at once. Her closeness was scorching me. Even my temples were buzzing. She had rubbed oil over her body again today and had thrown the same gauzy sari loosely around her. I grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them hard as I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Oh, those biceps, by God, they felt as hard as steel! I can’t even begin to tell you what kind of woman she was.
Anyway, please listen to what happened.
I was so worked up I was sizzling. I hugged her tightly and blurted out, ‘Girdhari can go to hell . . . You’ve got to be mine.’
She pushed me away. ‘Watch out, you’ll get oil all over you.’
‘Who cares,’ I said and clasped her to my chest again. Even if somebody had flayed my back raw with a whip, I wouldn’t have let go of her then. But boy, oh boy, did she have a way with words! I cooled off and quietly sat down where she told me to sit. I knew she was thinking. That saala, Girdhari, is away at the moment. What is she so afraid of? When my patience ran out, I said, ‘Rukma, we won’t get such a fine chance again.’
She ran her hand over my head lovingly and said with a smile, ‘Oh we will, we will, an even finer chance, you’ll see. But tell me this: Will you do as I say?’
Sahib, I was like someone possessed. I was burning with passion. ‘Yes, yes. I can kill for you, not one but fifteen people . . . if I have to.’
She smiled. ‘Of that I’m sure.’
I swear to God, once again I trembled all over. I thought it was because of my inflamed passions.
Well, I stayed with her a little while longer, engaged in some love-talk, ate her fried bhajia, and then quietly slipped out. That thing? Well, it didn’t happen, but, Sahib, that sort of thing doesn’t happen the very first time anyway. Some other time, I told myself.
Ten days went by. On the eleventh day at two—yes, it must have been two in the morning, someone woke me up gently. I sleep down by the staircase.
When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see Rukma Bai in front of me. My heart started to pound. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked in a hushed voice. And she said very softly, ‘Come with me.’
Barefoot, I followed her to her kholi. I flung every thought to the wind and then and there clasped her tightly to my chest. And she whispered, ‘Wait a little.’ She turned on the light, the sudden glare blinding my vision somewhat.
When I was able to see again, I noticed someone lying on the floor on a mat; the face was covered with a piece of cloth. I gestured with my hand asking Rukma who it was. She said, ‘Sit down.’ I obeyed like an uncomprehending fool. She came close to me and, caressing my head lovingly, said something that knocked the living daylights out of me. I was frozen stiff, as if all the blood had coagulated in my veins.
Recite the kalima: La ilaha . . . I’ve never seen a woman like her in my life. ‘Kambakht,’ she said smiling, ‘I’ve bumped off Girdhari.’
Believe me, she’d murdered the sturdy man with her own hands. What a woman, Sahib! Whenever I recall that night every hair on my body stands on end. The heartless woman showed me the braided electric cord she had used to strangle Girdhari. She had attached a piece of wood to the cord and twisted it over and over again with such force that the poor man’s tongue and eyes had popped out. It only took minutes to finish him off, she told me.
She removed the piece of cloth and showed me Girdhari’s face, and I froze down to the marrow of my bones. What a woman! There, in front of her dead husband, she hugged me. I swear by the Qur’an. I immediately felt as though I’d become a dud forever. But, Sahib, the minute her body rubbed against mine and she gave me a strange sort of kiss, I was revived like never before. I’ll remember that night for the rest of my life. Oblivious of the corpse lying in front of us, Rukma and I were deeply absorbed in each other.
In the morning we hacked Girdhari’s body into three pieces. That was no trouble; the poor man’s tools came in handy. Yes, we made a lot of banging noise, but people must have thought that Girdhari was working. Well, now, you might ask: Why did you participate in such a gruesome deed? Sahib, if you want the truth, she’d made me her slave in just one night. Had she asked me, I would have had no trouble making short work of fifteen men. Remember, I’d told her as much.
The big problem now was how to dispose of the chopped-up body. Rukma, regardless of her pluck and nerve, was a woman after all. I told her, ‘Darling, don’t you worry. Let’s just dump the pieces in the trunk for now. I’ll carry it out at night and get rid of them.’ As luck would have it, a riot broke out that day and a lot of fighting and killing took place in five or six areas of the city. A thirty-six-hour curfew was imposed. I told myself, ‘Abdul Karim, you must dispose of the body today no matter what.’ So I got up at two in the morning and hauled the trunk out of her kholi. God, it was heavy! I was afraid of running into a khakiturban any minute somewhere on my way and be arrested for breaking the curfew. But, Sahib, no one harms him whom God wishes to protect. Every single bazaar I passed through was deathly still. I spotted a small mosque near one bazaar. I opened the trunk, threw the pieces inside the mosque’s courtyard and went back.
Oh, wouldn’t a man sacrifice his life to the Lord’s absolute power! Come morning it was discovered that Hindus had set fire to that mosque. Girdhari must have been burned up with it, I imagined. Now, Sahib, there was no impediment. I advised Rukma to let it be known in the chawl that Girdhari had gone out with his toys. I would visit her about two-thirty in the morning and we’d have action. She said, ‘Abdul, let’s not be hasty. Let’s not meet at all for a fortnight.’ That made sense. I kept quiet.
Seventeen days passed. Girdhari stole into my dreams to frighten me, but I told him, ‘Saala, you’re finished, dead. You can’t do a thing to me now.’ On the night of the eighteenth day, as I was sleeping at the foot of the stairs as usual, Rukma came, woke me up and led me to her quarters. It must have been around twelve, or at most one.
She stretched out naked on the mat and said, ‘Abdul, my body is aching. Come, give me a massage.’
I quickly took some oil and started rubbing it over her body. I was out of breath within half an hour and a few drops of my perspiration dripped on to her clammy body. But would she ever say, ‘You can stop now, you must be tired’? Eventually, I had to say, ‘Rukma, that should do it.’ She smiled, and what a smile it was! After catching my breath I sat down on the mat. She got up, turned off the light, and snuggled up to me. I was so exhausted from the hard work of massaging her that I couldn’t think straight. I just put my arm on her breast and dozed off.
At some point I woke up with a start, feeling confused. I felt something hard digging into my neck. The thought of that twisted electric cord ran through my mind. Before I could free myself from the tightening noose, she had already mounted my chest. She pulled the cord with such force that my throat began to make cackling sounds. I tried to scream, but my voice couldn’t leave my throat. After that I passed out.
I believe it must have been around four when I slowly came to. My neck was hurting badly. I stayed put and started unravelling the cord around my neck slowly. Suddenly I heard noises. Holding my breath with my eyes wide open, I probed the pitch-dark room but saw nothing. The noises gave the impression that two men were wrestling. Rukma was gasping. Breathless, she said, ‘Tikka Ram, turn on the light!’ A frightened Tikka Ram peeped feebly, ‘No, no. Rukma, no.’ She said in a mocking tone, ‘So timid! How will you cut him up and carry the pieces out in the morning?’ My body froze stiff. I have no idea what Tikka Ram‘s response was.
God knows at what point the l
ight suddenly came on. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. Tikka Ram let out a scream, hurriedly opened the door and took off. Rukma quickly closed the door behind him and latched it securely. Sahib, how can I ever tell you about my state then. Although my eyes were wide open and I was seeing and hearing everything, I had absolutely no strength to move.
Tikka Ram was not somebody I didn’t know. He often came to our chawl hawking mangoes. I have no idea how Rukma managed to hook up with him.
She was gaping at me as if she didn’t believe her eyes. She thought she had killed me. But there I was, alive and breathing right in front of her. She was about to pounce on me when there was a knock at the door followed by a crescendo of voices. She quickly grabbed my hand and dragged me into the bathroom. Then she opened the front door. The people outside were all chawl-wallahs. They asked her, ‘Is everything all right? We just heard a scream.’ ‘Everything is fine,’ she replied. ‘It’s just that I have this habit of walking in my sleep. When I opened the door and came out, I dashed against the wall. I panicked and screamed. That’s all.’ The people felt satisfied with her explanation and left.
Rukma shut the door and latched it tightly. I was worried sick thinking of what lay in store for me. Believe me, sir, the thought that the wretch wouldn’t spare me produced a burst of energy in me, spurring me to fight her with all my might. In fact, I decided to hack her to pieces. When I managed to get out of the bathroom and saw her peering out of the big window, I rushed over to her, lifted her rear end and pushed her out. All this happened in a blink. I heard a heavy thud, quickly opened the door and cleared out. Lying on my cot, for the rest of the night I kept rubbing oil on my badly frayed neck to sooth it—here, you can see the bruises. None of the neighbours would have a clue about what happened, I thought with satisfaction. Didn’t she herself tell them that she walked in her sleep? Her corpse lying on the other side of the chawl would convince them that she must have been sleepwalking and had fallen out the window. Dawn broke, taking all the time in the world. I wrapped a kerchief around my neck to hide the bruises. Nine o’clock, and then twelve, but nobody was talking about her dead body. She had landed in a long, narrow space wedged between two tenements with a door at either end to stop people from using it as a toilet. Still quite a heap of trash tossed out of the windows of the two buildings collected here and the sweeper woman carried it away every morning and evening. Perhaps she hadn’t come to collect garbage that day, I thought, for if she had, she would have noticed Rukma’s dead body as soon as she entered and would have made quite a hullabaloo. What the hell was going on? I wanted people to know about it without delay. By two o’clock, I couldn’t hold back any more. I opened the door and peeked. I was stunned. No dead body, no garbage either. Wonders! Where the hell had Rukma disappeared? I swear by the Qur’an, if I ever walk away from the hangman’s noose a free man, it won’t surprise me more than her inexplicable disappearance. I’d pushed her from the third floor on to the cobbled ground below. How could she have survived? But then who had carried her corpse away? Reason refuses to accept it, but who knows, Sahib, the kind of woman she was, she might have walked out alive. Chawl-wallahs think that some Muslim either made off with her or killed her. Good for him if he killed her, but if he’s keeping her in his house, you can imagine what end he’ll come to. God save him, Sahib.
My Name Is Radha Page 36
