Dozakhnama

by Rabisankar Bal

  — Impossible. Ismat fumed in rage as she paced up and down. Very well, maybe he’s been to them, and if he has, all he’s done is to have a conversation or two with them. Right, Shafia?

  — No idea. Only Manto sahib can say.

  I burst out in laughter. And Ismat screamed all the louder, ‘It isn’t possible, it simply isn’t possible. Even if Manto bhai swears on the Quran I won’t believe it.’

  Such childlike trust. It’s hard to imagine the same Ismat writing a story like ‘Dozakhi’ about her dead brother Azim Beg. The story said that every incident ever recounted by Azim Beg was a lie. Whenever he began a story, their father would apparently say, ‘There you go building castles in the air again.’ ‘Whatever colour there is in life comes from lies, Abbajaan,’ Azim Beg would reply. ‘The truth doesn’t sound entertaining unless lies are added to it.’ The same mad streak ran through Ismat as well. She used to have strange whims. One day she said she would write a story about love between hens and cocks. Another time she declared she would give up writing and join the armed forces to fly aeroplanes. She was the kind of girl, Mirza sahib, who might be head over heels in love with you, but would still attack you mercilessly or just not talk to you. Maybe she was dying to kiss you, but instead she would prick you with a needle and make fun of you. Shafia had fallen in love with Ismat too. When she said as much one day, Ismat told her, ‘High hopes! Men with daughters of your age are in love with me, and you think you can …’ One particular writer was madly in love with Ismat, writing her a succession of letters. Ismat would write back too. Finally, she jilted him so ruthlessly, my brothers, that the writer didn’t know where to hide. That was the way Ismat was, like a floating cloud. When she didn’t write, months would pass but she couldn’t be forced to put pen to paper. And when she did write, she would write page after page, forgetting to eat or sleep or drink. All she needed was a supply of ice cream.

  Tell me, Mirza sahib, I’ve told you so much about Ismat—can you recognize her? Think of gulal of different colours—green, red, yellow, pink—in the courtyard when a breeze springs up. The colours mix with one another till they cannot be told apart anymore. Wasn’t she just like that? I remember a portion of

  ‘Dozakhi’. Early one morning, Shamim came to Ismat to wake her. ‘Get dressed, Azim bhai is dying.’ Ismat replied, ‘Azim bhai will never die. Why did you wake me up unnecessarily?’

  Shamim began to prod her. ‘Wake up, Ismat. Azim bhai is looking for you.’

  — Tell him I will see him on Judgement Day. Haven’t I told you Azim bhai cannot die?

  Ismat had written, wherever Munna bhai might be, in heaven or in hell, in jannat or jahannum, I want to see him. I know that he’s still smiling. Worms are gnawing at his flesh, his bones have turned to dust, and his neck has been snapped by the fatwa of the mullahs. But still he’s smiling. His mischievous eyes are dancing. His poisoned lips have turned blue, but still no one shall see a tear in his eye. In fact, he has only been transferred from one dozakh to another.

  After Azim Beg, Ismat had discovered in me another inhabitant of hell. We may have meant to meet for five minutes, but five hours would pass without our knowing it. Arguments, and more arguments. She was determined to defeat me. Did she want to take revenge through me on the Munna bhai she had lost? I used to get coughing fits when drinking. I had had a cough problem since childhood, after all. Ismat couldn’t stand my coughing. One day she asked, ‘You have such a bad cough, why don’t you get it treated, Manto bhai?’

  — Treatment! Doctors are asses. A few years ago they had predicted I would die of tuberculosis within the year. You can see how hale and hearty I am. Magicians are better than doctors.

  — I heard someone else say the same thing.

  — Who’s this angel?

  — My elder brother Azim Beg. He’s snoring in his grave now.

  Yes, Mirza sahib, on the one hand I was her Manto bhai, sometimes Manto sahib, and on the other I was also her Munna bhai—Azim Beg Chughtai. She had made me the target of the game she couldn’t play with her brother. And her husband Shahid used to enjoy this game enormously; he knew that Ismat would calm down only if she could tear Manto apart, that all of Ismat’s ‘darazdasti’ capers would be accepted by a clown named Manto.

  It was over this term ‘darazdasti’ that Ismat and I had a bitter argument once. Shahid and Ismat had invited us to dinner at their house in Malad. Over the meal, Shahid said, ‘Why is your Urdu not flawless yet, Manto?’

  — Don’t talk rot.

  Accusations and counter accusations flew fast and furious. It was past one-thirty in the morning. Tired, Shahid said, ‘Let it go now, I’m sleepy.’

  Ismat refused to relent. She kept arguing. In some context or the other, she used the word ‘dastdarazi’. I saw my chance. ‘You’ve been holding forth so grandly all this time. But there’s no such word as “dastdarazi”, Ismat. It should be “darazdasti”.’

  — Of course not.

  — Check the dictionary.

  — No need to. I’m telling you it’s ‘dastdarazi’.

  — Don’t argue without reason.

  — Who do you think you are, Manto bhai, the king emperor of Urdu literature?

  Eventually Shahid fetched the dictionary from the next room. There really was no such word as ‘dastdarazi’; it was indeed ‘darazdasti’. ‘You’ve lost, Ismat,’ said Shahid, ‘you must accept it.’

  But Ismat refused to do any such thing. Now husband and wife began to argue. I sat back chuckling. It was dawn by then, the cocks had begun to crow. Flinging the dictionary away, Ismat declared, ‘When I compile a dictionary, I will have the word “dastdarazi”. “Darazdasti” my foot!’

  Ismat was a crazy woman—really crazy. Let’s say someone were to ask us, the two of you are so close—what is it about Ismat that you like so much, Manto? And what about Manto attracts you, Ismat? I know both of us would have been in the dark. In that darkness Ismat and I would have looked at each other in wonder. A single lifetime isn’t enough for anyone, Mirza sahib.

  33

  Compose some more poetry, Mir sahib

  Your words may survive on someone’s lips

  am reminded of a Sufi tale, my brothers. A starving beggar was wandering from house to house in the city. Spotting him through their windows, people refused to open their doors to him. Eventually one door did open. The owner asked, ‘What … what is it … why do you keep banging on the door?’

  — Some food, huzoor. I haven’t eaten in three days.

  — So what can I do? No one’s home now.

  — I don’t need anyone huzoor. Just some food. Nothing else.

  Just like this beggar, I was wandering about from door to door. After I was released from jail, the lord arranged for my livelihood for some time. Mian Nasiruddin sahib drew me to his bosom. Everyone called him mian Kale Shah. Jahanpanah Bahadur Shah had accepted him as his teacher. So after my release, I moved into a part of mian Kale Shah’s house at Lal Kuan. I could not afford to pay him a rent; Kale sahib didn’t bring it up either. I was sitting with him in his drawing room when someone came up to me and said, ‘Congratulations, Mirza sahib.’

  — For what?

  — For your release from prison.

  I was perpetually up to mischief, Manto bhai. Smiling at Kale sahib, I said, ‘Released? What do you mean, mian! At best you can say I’ve moved from the British jail to Kale sahib’s jail.’

  Kale sahib, who had a sense of humour, burst into laughter. Then he said, ‘I have no idea why the emperor doesn’t call you to his court. If even a few drops of your sense of humour were to splash on him, his life would not be such an accursed one.’

  — Why should Jahanpanah call me, mian sahib? I’m the lord’s dog.

  — Mashallah! This is the Mirza Ghalib we know.

  — Did I say something wrong?

  — Haven’t you heard the story? Maula Darvish, the guide of the Naqshbandi order of the Sufis, used to call himself a dog.

  �
� Tell me the story, janab. But let me send for Kallu first.

  — Why?

  — He cannot go to sleep without a story. Just like my addiction to alcohol, he’s addicted to stories.

  — You have a very strange servant, Mirza.

  I sent for Kallu. His eyes shone at the prospect of a new story; sitting down at Kale sahib’s feet, he began to massage them. I ought to have written a nazm about Kallu, Manto bhai; I never saw another person so addicted to stories.

  Kale sahib started his story. —Maula Darvish was reciting the sayings of Maula Rumi to initiates at the dargah. You know what Maula Rumi said, don’t you? Man has to pass through three phases in his life. In the first, he worships something or the other—men, women, money, children, this world, a rock … anything. In the next, he reads the namaz for Allah. And in the last phase, what he says is neither ‘Allah is all I have’ nor ‘There’s no such thing as Allah’. Suddenly a mullah marched into the dargah, growling in rage. ‘You dog!’ he swore at the Maula. ‘While you chat with the initiates here, no one pays any attention to me when I try to turn them towards the lord.’

  — And then? Kallu grew agitated. —He thrashed the mullah within an inch of life …?

  — Patience, Kallu. Kale Shah laughed. Does a thrashing solve everything? Of course, the initiates did jump to their feet and were about to beat the mullah up.

  — He should definitely have been beaten up. Kallu grew agitated again. If I’d been there, I’d have torn the mullah’s beard off and …

  — Let mian tell the story, Kallu. If you’d been there we’d never have had the chance to listen to the story. And you would have wandered about the streets, pulling the mullah by his beard. I laughed.

  — Maula managed to stop the initiates. Laughing, he told them, ‘What do you think you’re doing? What’s so bad about the word “dog”? I quite like the idea. Of course I’m a dog. I follow my master’s instructions. I bark when I see my master in danger; I wag my tail joyfully when he’s happy. Barking, wagging his tail, loving his master—this is the way of the dog. I see nothing insulting here.’ So Mirza, if you’re a dog of the lord, what could be more honourable?

  That was mian Kale Shah for you. As interested in the finer things of life as he was compassionate. He used to talk to the emperor regularly about me. He wanted wholeheartedly that I should find a place in the royal court. ‘Always remember, Mirza, that the lord settles all accounts in this very world,’ he used to tell me. ‘On Judgement Day you only have to be with the lord. There are no gains to be made there. You will surely be rewarded for the beauty that you have created for the lord, Mirza.’

  — The lord is the creator of all beauty, mian sahib. What can we possibly create for him?

  — Why did he bring us into this world then, Mirza? He gives us truth, and we give him illusion.

  Kale sahib was right. The ghazal is in fact an illusion. Do you know what’s hidden inside the word ‘ghazal’? A conversation with your lover. About love. Just as spring appears and then vanishes, so too does love arrive suddenly and depart the same way. Don’t you feel a chill when you think about it, Manto bhai? The seed of death sprouts within the desire for union. The body will decay, so will the heart, desire will approach its death. We only wander about briefly in the picture gallery of illusion. But never mind all these clichés. Man doesn’t survive on a diet of illusions. What I needed was bread and meat and wine.

  At the age of fifty-two, I found a place in the royal court, the durbar. When I went to Shahjahanabad from Agra, the emperor’s court was the world of my dreams. Those dreams had died and rotted long ago, Manto bhai. I wanted nothing more as a poet, either. I knew that conversation had forsaken me too. I needed a place at the royal court only for my material needs. The court cannot bring the spring of creativity to an artist’s life. If only I had found a place at the durbar when I was still capable of writing, I would not have had to resort to dirty tricks to survive, I would have had the respite to make love more passionately with language.

  Kale sahib stood by me, of course, and Ahsanullah Khan, the emperor’s doctor, also held out his hand in support. He was extremely fond of my Farsi compositions. Telling the emperor of my Farsi diwans and my Melody Quintet, he got me a job at the court. What else was it but a job? Look, you may be a poet, or you may be a brilliant writer in Farsi, but you must remember that you’re nothing but a servant of the court. To the emperor we were all eunuchs, Manto bhai. If not, could he have asked a composer of ghazals to write a history of the Mughal Empire? I would be paid six hundred rupees a year.

  All humiliation is ceremonial. So I was given a title along with suitable garments for the royal court. Nazm-ud-Daulah, Davir-ul-Mulk, Nizam-Jang. Was this a title for a poet? But so the emperor desired. In other words, you’re not a poet anymore; you are the jewel of the kingdom, composer to the nation, and war hero. For heaven’s sake, was I capable of fighting in a war? How could someone who had been defeated in the war for survival possibly be a war hero? I had a big laugh when I went back home. Me, a historian? I had not read the stories about Sikandar and Dara; half my life had been spent on stories of love and death. But since Jahanpanah had so willed it, even I would have to become a historian. Six hundred rupees a year, after all. He could have turned me into a eunuch guarding his harem if he so wished.

  Umrao Begum came to me that evening. Perhaps Kallu had told her I was laughing incessantly, like a braying ass. I had drunk more than usual that day. When I saw Umrao I said, laughing, ‘Why are you in my hell instead of your mosque, Begum?’

  — It’s a happy day for you, Mirza sahib.

  — But of course. I am a war hero.

  I began to laugh again.

  — What is it, Mirza sahib?

  — You won’t understand, Begum.

  — Do I not understand you at all?

  — No, Begum. You do not understand me at all.

  After a long, long time, I drew Umrao Begum to my breast. —I don’t have a dream anymore, Begum. Poetry has abandoned me. I can be a servant to anyone who will ask me to be one, so that I can earn a livelihood. I was not just Asadullah Khan, I was also Ghalib—these are two different individuals, Begum. Asadullah Khan likes his drink, enjoys his kebab and paratha; and Ghalib savours only words—words hung on rainbows. The emperor can buy Asadullah Khan, but he doesn’t have enough money in his treasury to purchase Ghalib. Go ahead, buy my compromise as you will.

  — Mirza sahib …

  — Yes.

  — Give up the job then.

  — No, Begum.

  — Why not?

  — There’s nothing coming in the way now, Begum. Once the ghazal has forsaken someone, he can do as he pleases. He can massage the emperor’s feet, he can play political games too. Why don’t you make some keema pulao tomorrow? I want a comfortable life now, Begum.

  I could make out that the emperor did not like me at all. He had accepted me only for Kale sahib’s and Ahsanullah Khan’s sake. I didn’t enjoy the ways of the royal court either. I had to compose poems commemorating Eid to make the emperor happy; there were a hundred other celebrations—I had to write poems for each of them. I couldn’t do all this. I would simply recite a sher or two, without bothering to write them down. Could such stuff ever amount to poetry? Jahanpanah had to be paid a royalty during celebrations; I had to write something or the other to save money. It was shit and dung, Manto bhai, that I flung in Jahanpanah’s face; do you suppose the emperor was capable of understanding the artist’s devious ways, his haramigiri? All he wanted was flattery. The court poet Zauq sahib’s continuous sycophancy had convinced him to the core that all poetry in the world was actually in praise of Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. All rulers think this way. If you oppose this line of thought, you will be at the receiving end of abuse all your life. Think of all the praise Jahanpanah Akbar commanded in history. But how could he have Anarkali killed the way he did? Her real name was Nadia Begum. Some called her Sharafunnisa Begum. The ravishingly beautiful daugh
ter of a slave in Akbar’s harem. One day in the Chamber of Mirrors, Emperor Akbar discovered Anarkali smiling at prince Salim. This smile was all it took for the seeds of Anarkali’s death to be sown. The living Anarkali disappeared into the depths of the palace walls. All … all empires gobble up human beings this way.

  Empire and history consume everything, Manto bhai. On Jahanpanah’s orders, I began to write history. I planned a two-volume work on the Mughal Empire. The first would cover the period from Timur Lang to Humayun, and the second, from Akbar to Bahadur Shah. I titled the first volume Mihar-e-Nimroz—The Midday Sun. And the second, Mah-e-Nimmah—The Midmonth Moon. The two volumes together would be titled Partabisthan—The Kingdom of Light.

  Since it was a matter of my livelihood, I began to write quickly. I was supposed to be paid every six months. In the first six months, I completed the history of Emperor Babar’s life. But how could I accept payment only once in six months for such tedious work? I composed a poem requesting monthly payments and sent it to the emperor.

  Your slave and a pauper?

  Your servant and always in debt?

  Let my salary be paid every month

  Let my life not be full of hardships

  I was unable to complete the history, my brothers. Only the first volume, The Midday Sun, was published. I couldn’t proceed with the work on The Midmonth Moon. I told hakim Ahsanullah Khan sahib that someone like me couldn’t go scouring in the jungle of history for accurate information; all I can do is write poetry by the light of the heart, hakim sahib; so it would be helpful if the facts that needed to be included in the history could be selected and sent to me. Do you know what he did? He wrote down all kinds of facts, starting with the birth of Adam and going on to Chenghez Khan, and sent them to me. But I had begun the history of the empire with Timur Lang. What was I to do? I prefixed all that I had written with this new material. But no information arrived for the second volume. I had written about sixty-four pages. I sent word several times, asking for more information. Once, the response was, ‘It’s Ramzan’. The next time I was told, ‘Everyone’s busy celebrating Eid.’ Damn it! Why was I obliged to write a history of the empire of the badshahs? I sent off the sixty-four pages I had written. I wonder in which dark cell of the fort the termites got at it. History is for termites to destroy, isn’t that so, Manto bhai?