Dozakhnama

by Rabisankar Bal

  It was at such a time that she came into my life, my brothers. I only saw her eyes at first. And the moment I did, Mir sahib’s ghazal began humming in my head:

  There’s so much in my heart, my soulmate

  But not a single word reaches my lips

  I had drunk a great deal that evening. I couldn’t go back home after leaving the kotha and fell asleep on its veranda. Someone awoke me from the depths of sleep. I saw only her eyes, the line of her kohl, and silken tears.

  — Mirza sahib.

  A voice engulfed me like a wind on a wintry night. I gazed only into her eyes and hundreds of birds were flying in them, as though it were dawn, the first dawn of my life, in her eyes. As though the painter Bihzad’s brush had painted a pair of eyes on a body made of air.

  — Mirza sahib …

  — Who are you? Kaun ho tum?

  — Why didn’t you go back home?

  — Home? I chuckled. —Where is it?

  — Next to Habas Khan’s gate.

  — But my home isn’t there.

  She was quiet for the longest time. Then she said, ‘Come, let me take you home.’

  — Why?

  — You mustn’t languish here on the streets, Mirza sahib.

  — Why not?

  — Because you’re a poet without peer.

  — Without peer?

  — Truly, yes.

  — Say it again.

  — You’re a poet without peer. You’re benazir.

  I grasped her hand. How warm it was, how hot. I held it against my mouth, I sucked on its flesh. She was dark as the night. And because of this, she dazzled in the darkness.

  — Let me go, janab.

  But I was entering her darkness. I wouldn’t be satisfied till I had clasped her to my breast. She allowed herself to be taken, without resisting. For the first time I got the scent of moist earth in a woman’s body, Manto bhai. The scent that the base of the tree gives out after it has rained. This was not the fragrance of ittar on the bodies of the courtesans in the kothas, this was the dark smell of a moist, ancient earth.

  I was entranced by this smell, Manto bhai. She was no famous courtesan from a brothel. She was an ordinary domni. You do know what domnis did for a living, don’t you? They sang and danced at weddings to earn money, and they slept with men as well; but no refined Mirza would ever touch a domni. Their behaviour and speech belonged to the gutter. But Munira— Munirabai was different from the rest of them.

  Munirabai gave me shelter in her room from that day on. She sang nobody’s ghazals but mine. When Munirabai sang, the glow of vermilion clouds would spread on her darkling face.

  — Munira …

  — Yes?

  — Where did you hear my ghazals?

  Munirabai would smile. ‘They fell from the heavens.’

  — The sky?

  — Yes.

  — Where is that sky, those stars?

  — Here. Munira would smile, her hand on her heart. ‘They’re in my breasts, janab.’

  The sky was inside her breasts and my ghazals had dropped from this sky—nobody had ever described it like this before. Only Munirabai could put it this way. She had no monetary relationship with my ghazals. I clasped her to my breast. She disrobed behind the shield of my body. I seemed to be holding a black, moisture-laden cloud. Begum Falak Ara was a sunlit day in my life, Manto bhai, and Munira was like torrential rain, continuous. New green leaves sprang up on my body; believe me, when I sat in front of Munira, it was only her eyes that I saw, as swift as a doe but stilled every now and then. In those still eyes I could see fear, like a running deer stopping abruptly in its tracks.

  They heaped calumny on me, Manto bhai. You’re Mirza Ghalib, very well, you may visit a kotha, you may even spend the night with a courtesan, but that doesn’t mean you can live with a domni in her house. Are you forgetting your position? What is one’s position, Manto bhai? When I was humiliated at the mushairas, she was the only one I could go to. She never said anything, she only sang my ghazals:

  What’s wrong with you, innocent heart?

  What’s the cure for this illness?

  Deliverance lies where there is sanctuary. So I didn’t pay any heed to all the mud flung at me. Why should I tuck my tail between my legs and run away just because a commoner was throwing stones at me? I was never one to do that. I may not have gone to battle like my ancestors, but my life had become nothing but a battlefield, where I had to fight all by myself. To hell with what people said. When I was in bed with Munira I forgot all the humiliation heaped upon me, Munira made me forget it all, and I clung to her more and more with every passing day. As I heard her sing my ghazals one after the other, it occurred to me that for all their jibes at the mushairas, at least one woman was keeping my ghazals alive through her voice. I wanted to have Munira all to myself, I wouldn’t let her perform anywhere else. I wouldn’t let anyone visit her either. I took on the responsibility for her maintenance. Not that I was particularly well-off—all I had was the monthly pension of sixty-two rupees and fifty paise from the British. It was used to run the household, pay for my drinking and gambling, and now, for Munira’s expenses too. But then my mother’s sister used to send some money every month, as did Ahmed Buksh Khan from Loharu now and then; even my mother used to send me some money sometimes from Agra. But given my profligate ways, this was never enough. So I had to borrow. Back then, of course, people like Mathura Das or Darbari Mal or Khoobchand never turned down my requests for loans. All told, my days were passing quite enjoyably. And a hundred ghazals were being born around Munira.

  I am charitable to you, my love

  I do not know what prayer is

  But one day some people stormed Munira’s house, beating her up and breaking things. Do you know why? So that she wouldn’t let me in anymore. But still I went, for I was adamant. Munira only wept, holding my hand. ‘Go away, Mirza sahib. If they see you …’

  — What will they do? Will they beat me up?

  — I don’t want your name to be besmirched.

  — Do you also want me not to visit you anymore?

  Drawing my head to the seclusion of her breast, she continued weeping and said, ‘I cannot live without you, Mirza sahib, you are my love. But still …’

  I couldn’t imagine living without her either, Manto bhai. I was drawn to Munira as the moth to the flame. My life was incomplete without her beauty. Do you know how I felt? As though someone would steal her from me at any moment. I didn’t even go into the garden for a stroll with her, for I used to fear that the narcissus would forget its own beauty when it saw her and assume its human form to run to her. The more I explored Munirabai’s depths, the more I felt that I did not have her in all her fullness.

  That was exactly how I felt. Complete union with her was not in my destiny. The longer I lived, the longer I would wait for her. Only once in my life was I able to love like this, Manto bhai. Firdausi among poets, Hasan Basri among sages and Majnu among lovers—these were the three beacons of the world. If you cannot love like Majnu I don’t call it love. I had dreamt of it, but I could not love like Majnu, Manto bhai. It was too arduous a path for me. How many of us can train our body and soul to forget ourselves? I could not.

  I was extremely hurt at first, so I cut down on my visits to Munirabai. Gradually the hurt was erased. And so was she. Mughal blood is very cruel, Manto bhai; the same blood ran in my veins too. Do you know what this blood does? It kills the one it loves. I succeeded in forgetting her and getting involved with life in new ways. But Munira had locked herself up within me, no new paths opened up for her. Women are like that. Once they love someone, they cannot escape from the cage of this passion; even if they waste away and die they will confine themselves to the cage. Once upon a time I used to consider their world too narrow for my liking. But someone who can even die out of her love for a man has actually embarked on the ultimate journey, an endeavour to reach beyond the self and lose oneself in another. God did not give this life of noble
pursuit to the male, Manto bhai. We are like moths, and they are like flames—they burn and destroy themselves to give out light. This is the love you will see in Meerabai’s songs, Manto bhai. Without Giridhari, Meera’s life was dark. Kaise jiyun re mai, Hari bine kaise jiyun. How will I live without Krishna, how will I live?

  One day I heard that Munirabai had died. With her death, this maddening love, this bekhudi mohabbat, left me too. But her eyes didn’t leave me. Those eyes, just like the ones painted on a peacock’s tail, kept coming back to me. When death finally appeared to take my hand, I realized that I had indeed wanted to love Munira like Majnu did, or else she would not have appeared to me in my final moments.

  It’s been long since my love was my guest

  Long since the wine warmed the parlour

  All these rigid rules choke my breath

  I long to wear my torn clothes once more

  Will my bleeding heart be mended, asks love

  They’re just waiting to rub salt in my wounds

  I want to be at my beloved’s doorstep again

  Pleading with the doorman to let me in

  My heart again seeks those easygoing days

  When hours were spent in thoughts of my love

  Don’t disturb me, Ghalib, my passion drives me on

  I am waiting now with stormy, reckless will

  Munirabai was gone. The miserable days became even more miserable, Manto bhai. Begum Falak Ara was a bolt of lightning in the sky of my existence, and Munirabai was the star whose light falls on our courtyard even millions of years after its death.

  Night after night I gazed at the darkness of her death, reciting Mir sahib’s sher:

  Munirabai, my love, you left the world carelessly, you did not notice that every spot here held a new world.

  16

  The rosebuds have bloomed to say goodbye

  Let us leave, nightingale, spring is ending

  ell me, Mirza sahib, have you ever considered how many Ghalibs were hidden within you simultaneously? How many of them did you know? Perhaps you never understood some of them all your life, isn’t that so? Society is troubled by people like you. It cannot fathom who the real Mirza Ghalib is. Take for instance the letter you wrote to Mirza Hatim Ali Saab Mihr. Do you remember what you wrote to him in 1860? Mirza Mihr’s lover had died; he had expressed his grief to you. You replied, I am now sixty-five, I have sized the world up thoroughly in the past fifty years. When I was young a wise man told me, don’t be hard on yourself. Eat, drink and make merry, but remember, you’re the fly that hovers around the sugar-bowl; never stick to the same flower like the bee. Do you remember what else you wrote, Mirza sahib? You wrote, only the person who will not himself die can mourn a death. Why should you weep? Enjoy your independence instead. Forget your grief. And if it’s a relationship that you hanker for, then Chunnajaan is no different from Munnajaan. Sometimes I imagine that I have been taken to paradise, where a nymph has been allotted to me, and I have to live with her till eternity. The thought makes me shiver with fright. Life will become such a burden. The same home in paradise, the same trees all around, and I have to gaze at the same face eternally, whispering words of love to her. Take your heart somewhere else, mian. May new fairies come into your life with every new spring. There is nothing more juvenile than being stuck to the same person all your life. Why did you mock someone else’s pain, Mirza sahib? No, don’t look at me that way. What did you think of yourself? Was everyone your puppet to play with? Now you want to talk about another letter you wrote to Mirza Mihr, don’t you? Yes, I’ve read that letter too. In it you had admitted that you were the indirect cause of Munirabai’s death. When I read that letter, I see a picture before my eyes. A destroyed man—you—gripping Mirza Mihr’s arm to tell him:

  ‘May Allah release our lost lovers, mian. And may he pity us, who have borne the pain of separation. Munirabai came into my life some forty years ago. I did not tread that path ever again, but even today I cannot forget her eyes, her grace. I will not be able to overcome my grief for her all my life. If the fire of your love from your youth is still alive within you, place it now at God’s feet. Khuda is the last word, all else is a mirage.’

  Which of these two letters written around the same time was from the real Mirza Ghalib? Which one was the face, and which the mask, Mirza sahib? I love you, but I cannot accept this duel between the face and the mask. I really am a straightforward person, who is bewildered by your labyrinth. I cannot dismiss you as a devil, yet at times you appear even worse than the devil. You can mock the very person whom you loved a moment ago. Perhaps this is the royal temper. What’s this, why are you going back into your grave? You cannot take what I’m saying, can you? I know, Mirza sahib, you couldn’t accept a single statement against yourself. You were the best after Amir Khusrau, there was no one in between. This was something that you could never forget, could you? I too believe, Mirza sahib, that after Amir Khusrau, no one else but you could have written a sher like this one:

  If he gives without being asked, nothing tastes better

  The finest beggar is he who does not seek alms

  But why did you put on all these masks so often? Whom were you afraid of? Whom did you want to protect yourself from?

  — Manto bhai …

  — Yes, Mirza sahib?

  — You cannot tear me into shreds just because you’re writing a story about me.

  — But I want to understand you.

  — Do not try. Do you know why I walked out of Mahroof sahib’s house? I was quite happy there. But he used to try to understand me, gauge me, at every step. What right do you have to want to understand me completely?

  — But human beings have always wanted to understand one another, Mirza sahib.

  — Bakwas bandh kariye. Stop this nonsense. I can’t stand all these homilies. Under the pretext of understanding, what you actually want to do is to trap a person on a chessboard. What do you think you can understand about me? Will you ever be able to enter my dreams and nightmares? Will you understand why I used to talk to myself in my sleep through the night? I’m not talking about pain. I had been insulted so much that I no longer took it seriously. Man derives the greatest pleasure from humiliating another man. Do you know how he does it? When he says, I love you very much. Take this down—I never loved anyone. That is why I humiliated people, why I laughed at them and mocked them. But I said, ‘I love you’ to someone and then threw her into the gutter. I have seen the ways of the world much longer than you have. Can you imagine the same man being the convict as well as the executioner, Manto bhai? That’s me—Mirza Ghalib. Just as the ink might overflow and blot the paper when you write, so too is the book of my destiny inscribed with symbols of the exiled night.

  — Mirza sahib …

  — What is it?

  — I am not dissecting you.

  — I squirmed if anyone stared at me too long, Manto bhai. Do you know why? Everyone wanted to seek out the real Mirza Ghalib. But I was nothing but a shadow.

  — Whose shadow, Mirza sahib?

  — I didn’t see him even once in my entire life. When I listened to the azan at dawn, it seemed he existed, existed somewhere, while I languished in this world merely as his shadow.

  — I am his shadow too, Mirza sahib.

  — Very well. Now let us hear a story of your love. I hope you have something suitable up your sleeve. You keep talking of some Ismat. Let me lie back and listen.

  A curtain of mist trembles, beyond it seems to be my life.

  I’ll tell you about Ismat later, my brothers. If I were to admit from my grave today that I loved Ismat—did she not love me too?—the people up there will have a big laugh if they get to hear. Actually both of us evaded the issue, we tried to suppress it; or else our friendship would not have survived. We spoke a lot of love, but I always took the stance that love was just a word that meant nothing. ‘What do you think love is?’ I asked her once.

  — I want to hear it from you, Manto bhai.
r />   — Me? Why me? I’ve told you so many times that all this love-shove means nothing to me.

  — Don’t be so stubborn all the time.

  I laughed at Ismat’s scolding. —All right, let me tell you then. I am fond of my gold zari-embroidered shoes, Rafiq is fond of his fifth wife. That’s love.

  — What do you think of yourself, Manto bhai?

  — Nothing at all. Haven’t I told you over and over that I’m a fraud?

  — That same litany.

  — Now you tell me what love is.

  — What’s born between a young man and a young woman.

  — Oh is that all? Then you could say I had fallen in love too.

  — What? Ismat looked at me wide-eyed, as though she could not believe me.

  That’s the story I’ll tell all of you, Mirza sahib. The first rainbow of my life. I was twenty-two or twenty-three. After passing the matriculation exam on the third attempt, I was despatched to the Aligarh Muslim University. My friend Syed Quraishi, who failed his exams eternally, was with me too. But I could not adjust to the strict rules and regulations at the university. However, many of the students and teachers there had come to love me. Because I couldn’t adjust, I fell ill. For several years I had chest pains, along with a fever. It got so bad—the pain increased so much—that I had to sit with my knees drawn up to my chest. This posture became my companion for life. I began to drink excessively to overcome the pain. There was no respite except when I drank. I went to Delhi for treatment. X-rays revealed I had tuberculosis, Roohaf. I had to drop out of the university. There was no money for treatment. My sister Iqbal Begum rescued me. She sent me to a hospital in Bataut, paying for all the expenses. Bataut was an extraordinary island in the mountains along the Jammu-Srinagar highway. That was the first and the last time in my life that I saw the finest beauty in the world, my brothers. Just mountains all around, in the distance forests of pine and chinar and majnu that you could reach out and touch, countless snow-capped Himalayan peaks. If I could have spent all my life in a place like this, if I had never felt compelled to write, I would not have had to live through this history of abasement and violence and bloodshed. If only I could have stayed back in the mountain village with Begu!