Dozakhnama

by Rabisankar Bal

  I used to live in the kholi that I’ve told you about. Brijmohan lived in the room next to mine. Every Sunday he would go to Bandra to meet his girlfriend Pairan. Pairan was a Parsi girl. I couldn’t quite make out what Brijmohan’s real relationship with her was. Why did he actually go to Bandra every Sunday? Pairan was like a powerful addiction in his life. I had to lend him eight annas every time for the journey. He would spend several hours with her before returning. ‘What do you do with her?’ I had asked him. ‘Do you go out, or do you stay at home and kiss her?’

  — Oh no! Brijmohan laughed. ‘I solve crossword puzzles for Pairan.’

  — Crossword puzzles?

  — They’re published in the Illustrated Weekly. Pairan sends entries. She’s won many prizes.

  Brijmohan had no work. He would sit in his shack and solve crossword puzzles for Pairan. One day I asked, ‘Pairan wins the prizes. What do you get?’

  — Nothing.

  — Doesn’t she share the prize money with you?

  — No.

  — Why? You’re the one who solves them, after all.

  — So what? Pairan sends the entries with her own name. She wins the prizes. Why should she share the money with me?

  — You’re a total idiot.

  Brijmohan would laugh, displaying yellow teeth.

  He used to take photographs. He showed me many photographs of Pairan’s. In different poses and outfits. In a shalwar kameez, in a sari, in a shirt and slacks, even in a swimming costume. She didn’t appear remotely pretty in the photographs. But I never told Brijmohan this, Mirza sahib. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. As they say, it’s my senses that make the emerald green. I never asked Brijmohan questions about Pairan. He didn’t tell me anything of his own accord either. All I knew was that every Sunday Brijmohan would ask me for eight annas after breakfast, and I would have to give him the money. He always returned by lunchtime. One Sunday, when he came back Brijmohan said, ‘I’ve ended it all.’

  — Meaning?

  — I never told you this before, Manto bhai. Pairan is actually the angel of death in my life. Whenever I meet her, I lose my job. I told her this today.

  — What did she have to say to that?

  — Then don’t meet me anymore, she said. Look for a job instead. Maybe you think you’re not getting a job because of me, but the fault is actually yours. You don’t really want to work.

  — What did you say?

  — Never mind all that, Manto bhai. I’m positively going to get a job tomorrow. Just give me four annas in the morning. I’m going to meet Seth Nanubhai.

  Seth Nanubhai was a film director. He had refused Brijmohan a job many times in the past. But still I gave Brijmohan money for his bus fare the next day. At night, I heard that Nanubhai had given him a job. With a monthly salary of two hundred and fifty rupees to boot. Pulling a hundred rupee note out of his pocket, Brijmohan said, ‘Here’s the advance. I had a strong urge to go to Bandra and let Pairan know. Then I realized that if I did that, I would lose the job the very next day. This is how it has always been, Manto bhai. I get a job, inform Pairan, and I’m sacked. God alone knows what star she was born under. But I’m sure it was an evil star. Listen, Manto bhai, I’m going to spend at least a year away from her. I have to. Have you seen the state of my clothes? If I can keep my job for a year, I will at least be able to get myself some decent clothes.

  Brijmohan didn’t visit Pairan in the next six months, Mirza sahib. He worked to his heart’s content, and bought himself new clothes. He was very fond of handkerchiefs. He bought many beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs. Suddenly a letter arrived for him. Reading it, Brijmohan exclaimed, ‘It’s all over, Manto bhai.’

  — Why, what’s the matter?

  — Pairan’s written.

  — What’s she saying?

  — She’s asked me to visit her on Sunday. Apparently she has a lot to tell me. It’s Saturday, isn’t it?

  — Yes. So what?

  — That means Seth Nanubhai will kick me out on Monday.

  — Then don’t go to Pairan.

  — Impossible, Manto bhai. I have to go if she wants me to.

  — Why?

  Brijmohan was silent for some time. Then he looked at me and chuckled. ‘I’m tired of working too, Manto bhai. It’s been six months, after all.’

  Brijmohan went to Bandra the next day. He didn’t tell me anything about Pairan when he returned. ‘Let’s see what happens tomorrow,’ was all he said during dinner at Haji’s restaurant.

  Brijmohan burst into laughter when he came back from office on Monday. —I knew it, Manto bhai, I knew it. Pairan has done what she had to.

  — What’s the matter?

  — The studio’s closed down, Manto bhai. I did it. If I hadn’t been to see Pairan yesterday …

  Brijmohan went out with his camera slung around his neck. Where was he going with his camera at this hour of the night?

  Brijmohan was jobless again. He ran out of his savings. The old system was resumed. Every Sunday he borrowed eight annas from me after breakfast, spent a few hours with Pairan, and returned.

  One day I asked Brijmohan, ‘Does Pairan love you?’

  — No.

  — Then why do you visit her every Sunday?

  — I can’t stay without going, Manto bhai.

  — Does Pairan …

  ‘Yes, Pairan loves someone else,’ Brijmohan snarled. ‘But what’s wrong with that?’

  — Nothing at all. But why does she send for you?

  — She’s very lonely.

  — Why?

  — I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.

  Flopping down on his bed and staring at the ceiling, Brijmohan continued, ‘Perhaps she finds me amusing. You need people who can amuse you, Manto bhai. Maybe because I take photographs of her. She looks much prettier in the photos, you see. Or, who knows, maybe it’s because I solve crossword puzzles for her. You’ll never understand these women, Manto bhai.

  — Why not?

  — Because you want love.

  — And you?

  — I don’t know. But I know women like Pairan.

  — What are they like?

  — They love someone, but when they don’t get what they want in this person, they look for it in someone else. And when they do, they coil themselves around him like a snake, but mentally. They’ll never let him near their bodies.

  — Then why do you go?

  — Because I like it.

  — What is it you like? Pairan doesn’t give you anything.

  Brijmohan smiled. —But she does. She makes her evil star work on me, Manto bhai. I’m just playing a game. Let me see how many dark clouds she can bring into my life. Pairan is peerless. Every time I visit her, I lose my job. I have just one wish.

  — Which is?

  — I want to cheat Pairan once.

  — How?

  Brijmohan was silent for a while. I could hear a rat gnawing away at something in the room. Getting off his bed, Brijmohan began to pace up and down. ‘Have you made your plan for cheating Pairan?’ I asked him again.

  — Hmm …

  — What is it?

  — I will resign before I’m sacked. I will tell the boss directly, I know you’ll sack me, but I’m resigning so that you don’t have to do such a terrible thing. I’ll tell him something else too. It’s not you but Pairan who’s sacking me. That’s all I wish for, Manto bhai.

  — What a strange wish.

  — Yes.

  Brijmohan left the room, returning after a long time. ‘Where did you go?’ I asked him.

  — To look at the sky. I can’t stay in bed for long stretches at night, Manto bhai. I feel suffocated in the kholi. So I go out for a glimpse of the sky.

  — What do you see, Brijmohan?

  — Nothing.

  — Do you look at the stars?

  — I only see a dark blue, Manto bhai, in which my strange wishes twinkle. Last Sunday I took a photo of Pairan’s. Her lover w
ill enter the photograph in a competition, under his own name. I’m sure the photo will win a prize, Manto bhai.

  — Do you know the man?

  — No. He’s won many prizes in the past with photographs of Pairan that I shot.

  — Hasn’t Pairan said anything to you about him?

  — No.

  One Sunday, Brijmohan came back from Bandra and said, ‘This time I really have ended it all, Manto bhai. I’ll get a job very soon. Seth Niaz Ali is setting up a new production company. Can you get hold of his address for me?’

  — Let me see.

  I phoned a friend and got Seth Niaz Ali’s address. Brijmohan went to meet him the next day. When he came back, he hugged me and said, ‘I’ve got the job, Manto bhai. Two hundred rupees a month. But they’ll increase it soon. You’re happy, I hope.’

  — I’m happy if you are.

  — I’m so relieved. Brijmohan threw himself on his bed.

  ‘Aren’t you going to meet Pairan?’ I asked him the next day.

  Brijmohan smiled. ‘I do want to. But no, Manto bhai, I’m not going to rush into anything this time. I have to buy some new clothes. Here, I’ve got an advance of fifty rupees, you keep twenty-five.’

  — What for?

  — Repaying my debt.

  Times weren’t too bad, Mirza sahib. I was earning about a hundred rupees a month. Brijmohan was earning twice as much, of course. We didn’t particularly lack for money. You could say it was more than enough for life in a kholi.

  About five months later, a letter arrived for Brijmohan. Glancing at the envelope he said, ‘The queen of death.’ I realized it was from Pairan.

  Brijmohan opened the letter with a smile on his face. ‘She wants to meet on Sunday,’ he told me after reading the letter. ‘It’s urgent.’

  — Will you go?

  Brijmohan leapt up. —Of course I’ll go. How could you imagine, Manto bhai, that I wouldn’t go if Pairan called me?

  Whistling a recent Hindi film song, Brijmohan sat on his bed, swinging his legs. I was silent for some time. Then I said, ‘There’s no need to go to Pairan, Brijmohan. You can’t imagine how difficult it is to give you eight annas every Sunday after you’ve been to see her.’

  Brijmohan burst into laughter. —I know. Those days are coming back, Manto bhai. I have no idea where you will get eight annas to lend me every Sunday.

  Brijmohan went to meet Pairan the very next morning. At night I asked him, ‘What did Pairan say?’

  — Nothing.

  — She said it was urgent.

  — That’s her usual practice. She’s probably frightened all the time.

  — Why?

  — No one knows. But I told her, this is the twelfth time I’m going to be sacked because of you. May Zarathustra save you.

  — What did Pairan say?

  — You’re an idiot.

  — She’s right. I smiled at her.

  — Absolutely right. Brijmohan laughed. I’ll resign first thing tomorrow.

  — Why?

  — So that they can’t sack me. I wrote the resignation letter in Pairan’s room.

  He handed me the letter.

  Brijmohan left early the next morning. When I returned at night, I found him in bed, staring at the ceiling. ‘Whom will you go to for a job now?’ I asked him.

  — Why? Brijmohan sat up in bed.

  — Didn’t anything happen by Pairan’s grace?

  Brijmohan stared at me without speaking. I saw tears trembling in his eyes. ‘I gave Seth Niaz Ali my resignation letter, Manto bhai,’ he rasped. ‘The seth handed me a letter a little later. My salary had been raised from two hundred rupees to three hundred.’

  Brijmohan lost all interest in Pairan from that day onwards. Later he told me, ‘If Pairan’s curse doesn’t exist anymore, nor does Pairan. My life has lost all its excitement. Whom will I resign for now, Manto bhai?’

  I saw Pairan for the first time that day. She had fallen asleep on the beach by the Arabian Sea. A dark ship rose and fell nearby on the waves. Bombay is a city of just such imaginary people, Mirza sahib.

  29

  This baseless world is only a succession of haphazard events

  Don’t harbour thoughts of building amidst these ruins

  fter my return from Calcutta, seventeen years passed in one form of prison or another, Manto bhai. I was reminded of Mir sahib all the time. There he was, locked in a dark cell, his hands and feet trussed. And Mir sahib kept muttering:

  Every leaf, every shrub, here knows my plight

  The entire garden knows, but not the rose

  Yes, Manto bhai, flowers are very cruel, they do not care for anyone else. They’re drunk on their own fragrance. Have you any idea why? Is it because their lives are so short-lived? Or because they fall to the ground so soon? We fall to the ground too, maybe we spend some more time on earth than flowers do, but we still go up to them, we caress them. But flowers don’t even spare a glance for us. Don’t you wish you could be born as a flower, Manto bhai? Bloom and spread your scent all night, and then fall to the earth at dawn. What an exquisite creation of the lord’s … this life as a flower … like a note that comes to life and instantly loses itself in another one. Do you know what life as a flower is like? Like a grain of melody cascading from mian Tansen’s throat … birth and death are fused within that grain, but you will not be able to forget it all your life. When I grew old and looked back on my life, Begum Falak Ara from Chaharbagh seemed to be just such a grain of melody; perhaps it had rolled out of a tawaif’s throat somewhere and then been lost, with only its light still being visible, like a dead star. And I became an old man, gazing at the lives of flowers.

  It came but once, Manto bhai. Don’t ask for a list of all I lost in that single coming. Peace and patience, strength and health, youth and enterprise, and so much more … I lost them all. And what did it leave me in return? Only pain. A cry for help that split the night open before dying. See, there goes that cry, carrying an orphaned sher of Mirza Ghalib’s:

  Yes, my brothers, love brought many of the pleasures of life, I found in it the cure to many agonies, but the pain that it left for me, oh lord, was one that even you don’t have a cure for. Why don’t you? The lord himself is agony. The older I grew, Manto bhai, the more I felt that Allah is the original agony. Ash-Shahid. What else but agony can be the witness to our lives?

  No, don’t be restless, my brothers, I do remember that I have to tell you the details of Frazer sahib’s murder. You know what, I no longer care to tell stories from my own life. The more of myself I can erase, the more peaceful it is. I stopped writing ghazals for some time—but not because of the pressures of poverty and deprivation, nor because I felt that no one would read my work. I thought it was time to talk to myself; yes, believe me, Manto bhai, I killed my art with my own hands simply in order to genuflect at the feet of agony. I believe that an artist must identify that moment in life when he must assassinate his own art. Why has he really been born in this world? Not to create something, no. After Allah, no one can create anything. At best, we can copy his creations. All we can do is touch life. This gift of the lord’s is incomparable, Manto bhai. On a rainy day on my way back from Calcutta, I spotted a lonely hillock. It stood in the middle of a green stretch of land, and at its feet were several mossy graves. I wept. Life was so lonely, so beautiful, bathed in monsoon caresses. Late one night, a Sufi saint had said, weeping, ‘We live in the covered coffin of this world amidst such mistakes and ignorance. Can you hear them? When death will arrive to open the lid of the coffin, those of us with wings will fly off towards eternity, while those without wings will remain imprisoned. Do something before the lid is opened, friend, that can turn you into a bird and let you grow wings. Convert your arms into wings as soon as you can.’ I knew all this, Manto bhai, but I did not grow wings. And one day I crumpled to the ground, dead, my face buried in the ruins of Shahjahanabad.

  Don’t be impatient, my brothers. Let this old man ramble on in his own
way. I promise not to leave out any of the stories. So, Fraser sahib was murdered one night. He was shot dead near Kashmiri Gate. I turned to stone when I heard. Fraser sahib may have been the Resident of Delhi, but you could say our relationship was one between friends. He was different from the rest of the Englishmen. He thoroughly disliked his colleagues. He wanted to get to know our country, and didn’t care a hoot for rules and regulations. I borrowed hundreds of books from his library. We talked about a variety of things. He was the first one to tell me an extraordinary story about the Sufi saint Jami. Should I tell you the story, my brothers? Who is man? Jami had asked. A reflection of light. And this world? A wave in the infinite ocean. Can the light be separated from its reflection? Can the wave be separated from the ocean? Remember, this reflection and this wave are nothing but the light and the ocean. There was another factor behind my friendship with Fraser sahib. He used to assist Shamsuddin’s stepbrothers Aminuddin and Ziauddin in their litigation over property. And Shamsuddin, of course, couldn’t stand me.

  Karim Khan was arrested on the charge of murdering Fraser sahib. He was an employee of Shamsuddin’s. The magistrate of Dilli was a friend of mine. Given the mountain of debt on my head, I couldn’t leave my house by daylight. Afraid of being arrested, I could only fly like an owl in the silence of the night to the magistrate sahib’s home. We discussed Fraser sahib’s murder. I never said anything about Shamsuddin. But the investigations revealed that it was he who had engaged Karim Khan to murder Fraser sahib. Both of them were hanged in public on a Shahjahanabad street. I didn’t watch the hanging, but I heard that the crowds spilled over to see it. There is no limit to man’s cruelty, Manto bhai. For the first time I realized that the English were just as barbaric. Who knows, maybe the history of civilization is nothing but the history of barbarity from another perspective.