The Weary Generations

by Abdullah Hussein

  Mirza Mohammad Beg was a hard-working man and had an interest in metalwork. Besides agriculture, he also started a little workshop, where he was later to make all the tools used in working the land. He was not even forty years of age when bad luck befell him. After a brief illness, Mirza Mohammad Beg died, leaving behind wife and two sons. The eldest, Niaz Beg, grew to be a strong and handsome young man under the tutelage of Roshan Agha, living a comfortable life on the lands. He had inherited his father’s love of working with metal objects and spent much time in the workshop Mohammad Beg had built. His mother married him off to a good-looking girl from a Mughal family she had known from her old town of Rohtak. There was no issue until, fifteen years after the marriage was consummated, a son was born. It was said that the old woman, Mohammad Beg’s widow, was seized with such overwhelming joy at the birth of a grandson that she died on the spot. With the removal of his mother’s iron hand, Niaz Beg felt free to take a second wife, a girl from a lower class and much younger than himself.

  Mohammad Beg’s second son, Ayaz Beg, had the love of books. He went to a madrissa in a neighbouring village for some time, but did not like it. He stopped going to the madrissa and began spending most of his days wandering around or helping his older brother make tools in the workshop. After a few years, Ayaz Beg got bored with village life and ran away from home. He joined up with a group of travelling people roaming the vast country and ended up way out in Calcutta. There he joined the East Bengal Railways as a labourer in the yards. After a time, a sudden change came over Ayaz Beg. He started reading pamphlets and magazines of a technical nature, chiefly to do with the railway systems. All the boredom of life went out of his bones and with years of hard work and application, teaching himself to read English, he rose to be a mechanic and kept rising through the ranks thereafter. He did not return home.

  Then an incident occurred in the village which radically changed this family’s fortunes. On the charge of having committed a grossly illegal act, Niaz Beg was arrested and sentenced to twelve years of rigorous imprisonment. The authorities did not stop at that; they also confiscated most of the lands belonging to the two brothers in their joint names, leaving only enough for the two wives of Niaz Beg to get by. Ayaz Beg then came to the village for the first time since he had left it and took his brother’s young son with him to Calcutta, where he had by now risen, despite his lack of formal qualifications, to the very considerable position of engineer, educating himself besides in a wide range of general subjects, acquiring a rounded and sophisticated personality all the more remarkable for a man with his background. He never married. Now he had got something to do: to educate his nephew. He sent the boy to good English schools, giving him the best education available at his level.

  Roshan Pur has a central position in this story; for the first few days, however, our narrative takes us to Delhi, the capital city of the Indian Empire, where, the old Roshan Agha having died recently in his eighty-sixth year, the title was going to be transferred to his son, Nawab Ghulam Mohyyeddin Roshan Ali Khan, in an elaborate ceremony held at Roshan Mahal. These were also the days when the struggle for the political independence of India had begun to take shape.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE LARGE HOUSE, set back from the road, stood in vast grounds at the corner of Queen’s and Curzon roads. The two men, one elderly, the other young, got down from the behli a short distance from the main gate. Approaching the house, they could see the bunting strung overhead, the breeze ruffling it gently, and little multicoloured lanterns twinkling in trees and bushes. The light of the day was dying. The surface of the long drive leading from the gate was covered with freshly crushed, bright red gravel, marked on both sides by neat chalk lines defining the borders of the banks of summer flowers going right up to the wide patio. On the veranda were placed two tables, one bearing white napkin cloths, the other bare. Around the bare table were gathered several young people of both sexes, busily making up loose-knotted napkins but in a way that seemed not a job but an entertaining game to pass the time. Chairs and tables were being laid on the lawn by servants. A girl stepped aggressively from the lawn on to the patio. Going up to the veranda, she spotted the two guests and stopped, looking up as if startled.

  ‘Hello, Uncle,’ she said. ‘Adaab. Papa is in the drawing room. Please go in. We are,’ she laughed, ‘making napkins.’

  Taking a quick glance at her wrist watch, she went up the four steps and joined the others. The girl had hazel eyes.

  ‘Look, Azra,’ a girl in red silk dress said, holding out a jumbled-up white cloth. The first girl took the cloth and, exhibiting the same aggression that was in her step, held it up.

  ‘Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Look, everybody. Pervez,’ she cried, pointing to the tallest boy in the crowd, ‘makes it like this,’ and rolled up the cloth into a misshapen ball.

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘The maulana ties it like this round his head to lead the namaz,’ a plump boy said from the other side of the table.

  With her head thrown back, the girl was laughing, causing the back of her neck to roll up in a tight little rope of young, wheaten flesh, her face, flushed with the rush of blood, stretched in mad hilarity, making her finely ribbed throat tremble ever so slightly, her eyes beginning to water thinly, mockingly fixed on her brother, Pervez, the tall boy.

  ‘I am not a girl,’ the boy said, embarrassed. ‘It’s a girl’s job. Or a bearer’s.’

  In this unfamiliar milieu, Naim’s heart began to beat rapidly. He wanted to go and join this crowd, yet he couldn’t. He followed his uncle, Ayaz Beg, into the house.

  Nawab Ghulam Mohyyeddin was sitting on a tall delicate stool in front of a roll-top bureau, writing in a heavy notebook. He had a fair complexion, gold-tinged hair, a high, straight nose and pale-grey eyes. He extended his hand to Ayaz Beg.

  ‘Come, come. When did you arrive?’

  ‘Only an hour back,’ replied Ayaz Beg and shook hands, bowing low. Naim had never seen his uncle greet anyone with such deference. ‘I am sorry, couldn’t attend Roshan Agha’s funeral. Job held me down.’

  ‘Of course, of course, for a conscientious officer like you.’ The nawab turned to Naim. ‘And the young man?’

  ‘Nephew,’ Ayaz Beg replied.

  ‘Oh,’ the nawab said. ‘I see.’ He kept his gaze upon the boy for a few seconds. Naim thought that the older man’s powerful face had imperceptibly tensed. ‘I see,’ he repeated. ‘Resembles his father. You know, we grew up together.’ He paused. ‘Is he back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long was it?’

  ‘Twelve years.’

  ‘Oh!’ The nawab got up from his seat and started pacing the room. Looking at Naim, he asked, ‘Is he at school?’

  ‘He has just done his senior Cambridge,’ Ayaz Beg informed him.

  ‘Have you seen your brother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will you be seeing him?’

  ‘No,’ answered Ayaz Beg.

  All three sat down on sofas. Ayaz Beg finally broke the brief silence that followed their last exchange. ‘I hope everything is in place for Tajposhi.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Insha’allah. Plenty of people. You will enjoy meeting them. Gokhle sahib is coming. So is Mrs Besant. I know you are a rank theosophist. Ha, ha!’

  Ayaz Beg smiled.

  ‘You know,’ the nawab continued, ‘I would have liked Niaz Beg to come for this …’ his voice sloped off.

  After a pause, Ayaz Beg said quietly, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  Naim was beginning to feel uncomfortable; never before had he heard of his father being talked about like this. When Ayaz Beg changed the subject and the two men began to talk about the political situation in the country, Naim felt relief. He started looking around. The nawab’s glasses seemed embedded deep into the flesh of his nose. In contrast, his hands were delicate, with perfectly tapered fingers, which he moved prettily as he talked. He was a man of ordinary features, yet appeared imposingly attractive becau
se of the manner in which he conducted himself. The room was opulently furnished. Directly behind Naim’s chair stood a mounted tiger, looking alarmingly alive. The floors were covered with the deepest-pile Kashmiri rugs Naim had ever seen. Tall camel-skin floor lamps stood in four corners of the room. As the two older men conversed, a servant had silently entered to switch on the lamps, their soft light falling on the intricate wine-and-fawn patterns of the carpets. The nawab’s eye-glasses glinted. After a little while, the nawab got up and went to the window that opened on to the veranda and the lawn beyond. After having had a look, he turned to tell his guests that the seating outside was nearly in place. Then he excused himself for having to go inside and change for dinner.

  Out on the lawn, all the napkins, now properly done, were placed beside the crockery and cutlery, and bearers in starched white uniforms were moving among the tables making the last arrangements. There was no one else. Ayaz Beg sat down in a chair and started fiddling with his camera, which he had brought along especially to take pictures of the evening’s ceremony. Naim was wandering along the edges of the lawn, looking at rows of flowers, when a group of girls and boys came out of the house and scattered over the lawn in twos and threes. The tall boy, after offering a respectful salaam to Ayaz Beg, approached Naim.

  ‘My name is Pervez,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘You have come from Calcutta, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Naim said in reply. He shook hands with the boy and stood quietly looking at him. During a lonely, unthreatened upbringing it had become his natural manner not to feel the compulsion to say something and yet appear anything but impolite.

  ‘Let’s go and meet others,’ Pervez said.

  As they approached the first two people, the rest of the youngsters started joining them. They had all changed into formal dress.

  ‘This – this is Naim,’ Pervez introduced him. ‘He – he has come from Calcutta. This,’ he pointed to the hazel-eyed girl, ‘is my sister Azra,’ then pointing to the rest, ‘and they, I mean, are all members of family or friends.’

  Naim kept silently touching the tassel of his red Turkish cap.

  ‘Happy to meet you,’ one of them said. ‘Let’s sit down.’

  They sat down in chairs.

  ‘Do you not speak at all?’ asked Azra, her eyes dancing.

  ‘No – no. I mean, yes,’ Naim said.

  ‘Nice name,’ a thin boy spoke in English. ‘I like it.’

  Although their playfulness was gone, Naim discerned a vaguely mocking manner in them, which they used with each other as well. Only Azra kept talking in that frank and fearless way that could be taken as a shade too assertive. She was wearing a white silk sari.

  ‘Do you know how to fold a napkin?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Naim said.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘none of us does. We only discovered this today.’

  ‘Aw, that isn’t fair, Azra,’ the thin boy said. ‘You might as well say we don’t know how to wrap a sari around us.’

  Some of them laughed quietly. Naim felt that they weren’t laughing at what was actually being said, just amusing themselves because they were in a certain mood, as if carrying on a private engagement. There was wilfulness in their exchange.

  Ayaz Beg called out to Naim. He wanted help with fixing the camera, of which Naim perhaps knew more than his uncle did. It was a big box camera with a light-bulb flash, and Naim could take it apart and put it together again. It took them several minutes before it was loaded and the shutter working properly. Guests had started arriving. Nawab Ghulam Mohyyeddin stood at the entrance with a handsome middle-aged woman, receiving the guests. Azra stood alongside them. First came the foreigners, most of them British. Some of them wore top hats and long coats, under which they were sweating. They handed their hats and coats to the servants and were led to the best sofa chairs in the seating area, where they sat smoking cigars and talking in low voices, their women in high-neck dresses smoking long cigarettes stuck in equally long holders held aloft. The women laughed loudly, feeling free. The Indian guests arrived a little later. They were in various attires, marked by their area of origin, but chiefly by religion: Muslims in tasselled Turkish caps and long gowns, Hindus in hitched-in-the-middle loose dhotis and turbans, only a few of them in non-denominational sherwanis. They paid scant attention to the servants and went and sat silently on one side, bunched together, not caring to remove their large, loosely wound turbans and holding their canes straight up on the ground in front of them between their legs. They had all come in two- and four-horse behlis, only some foreigners and very few Indians arriving in automobiles. An Indian, in a shiny, gold-worked sherwani and tight turban, with a young man in Western dress trailing him, arrived in a car. The nawab met him, executing a deep bow. Someone said it was the Maharajkumar of Partap Nagar and the young man his secretary. He handed his gold-topped cane to the young man, who hung on to it. The Maharajkumar went and sat with the Britishers. An Englishwoman, sitting three seats away, leaned forward and waved to him. The man waved back.

  As Mr Gokhle arrived, all the Indians and two British people stood up to greet him. Ayaz Beg mentioned his name. Naim went and stood close to him. He had heard the name before, but it was the first time he had set eyes on the man. He had on a sherwani-type half-coat, buttoned up to the neck, over pantaloons, both in black, and wore a cap, the kind Naim had seen on Tilak’s head in photographs in Calcutta. A long narrow muffler was thrown freely round his neck. Wearing gold-rimmed glasses, the man might have been considered good-looking were he not so weak, thin and pale. Among the younger people, Naim was the only one who stepped forward and shook hands with him. Mrs Besant was the last to arrive. She wore a bright yellow sari and went and sat with the Indian guests. Upon her arrival, a hesitant conversation began in that group. Some British men stared at her. Servants were offering fruit juices to the guests. Naim stood under a young pomegranate tree, looking up in the subdued glow of a Japanese lantern hung among the branches to the shimmering red buds that had begun to appear. It’s a winter fruit, Naim thought absent-mindedly. What’s it doing here in May?

  ‘Hello,’ Azra said, emerging from behind the tree. ‘Have you had something to drink?’

  ‘No,’ Naim replied.

  ‘Have this.’ Azra proffered a tumbler full of fruit juice. Naim immediately lifted it to his lips.

  ‘Do you never take off your hat?’

  ‘No. Oh yes, I do,’ blurted out Naim, taking a quick gulp of the drink.

  Azra shone her eyes, which seemed in the half-darkness to have become almost black. ‘Take it off then.’

  Naim took his tarboosh off and began to stroke its tassel with his thumb.

  ‘Here, you look much better without it, don’t you think?’

  For the first time, Naim had the presence of mind to answer, ‘I don’t know, I can’t see myself.’

  Azra smiled. ‘Undo these,’ she said, pointing to the top buttons of his sherwani.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on. Open up.’

  As Naim undid the top three buttons, Azra suddenly blushed. ‘Don’t you feel hot bundled up like this?’

  ‘No,’ Naim said.

  ‘Look, our sweet peas, they are already wilting. Well, I have to go in the house. Go and talk to some people, won’t you? See you later.’

  She was still red-faced as she walked away from him. Beautifully wrapped in the sari, she seemed an altogether grown-up, simple young woman after all, and for the first time since stepping into this house Naim felt comfortable. He reached out and plucked a flower that had dried up on its stem. He looked at it for a moment and let it drop to the ground.

  The talk among the guests had now started in earnest. The Englishman with a huge head was talking animatedly, a finger raised above his head as if in admonition, to the man sitting next to him, while two others, leaning forward, listened intently. Next, in a four-seater, damask-covered couch, sat the Maharajkumar, flanked on one side by the Chief Commissioner, on the other
by Nawab Ghulam Mohyyeddin and another British gentleman. In his hands the Maharajkumar had a deck of playing cards which he was trying to organize in a certain order.

  ‘This is not the time or place for a game of cards,’ he was saying, ‘my apologies, nawab sahib. But I want to show you a fantastic trick I learned from a lady on my last trip to Paris.’

  The Maharajkumar couldn’t set up the cards as he wished and handed the deck to his secretary, who had stood behind him all along, to do the job.

  ‘It is not strictly a trick,’ he said to the Chief Commissioner, ‘not a one-off, but a “game” of tricks. I’ll tell you the basic rules …’ An Englishman, sitting on the other side of the Chief Commissioner, was showing great interest in the intricacies of what the Maharajkumar was explaining, while his secretary shuffled and rearranged the cards like a professional. Waiting for the cards, the Maharajkumar began nervously to reminisce. ‘You know, in the hotel in Paris where I was staying, I saw a strange sight. As I came out of my room one morning, a man, stark naked but for a towel thrown across his shoulders, passed me in the corridor. I said, “I am sorry.” The man paid no attention to me. He went down the passage and into his room. Next morning, as I stepped out at the same hour, I was confronted by the very same man, once again in the altogether, coming down the veranda from God knows where. Loud enough for him to hear, I said, “I am sorry,” and withdrew from his path. He appeared not to have seen me at all, much less respond to my apology.’

  The Englishwoman blushed. ‘Few of them understand English,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘Surprising,’ the Maharajkumar said, ‘considering that the French coast is only a few miles from England.’

  ‘Correct,’ replied the woman. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’