Yaraana

by Hoshang Merchant

  As I write this, I realize that I am using astrology not for foretelling the future but for arranging my life, my friends into some order.

  I write very slowly. I have all the time in the world (though I am forty-six). Today is a holiday. I have too much leisure. Until I started writing, I could not fill my time, I did not know why the day was given to me. I write about friendship. ‘Life was given for a moment with a friend,’ the Iranian Sufi, Attar, has written.

  We repeat our friends, our friendships. Solat and Faraz are reincarnations of my Hyderabad friends whom I miss so much. I am greedy: when you love two brothers, it is as if your life has been doubled. Sometimes I come between two brothers: there are possibilities of intrigue. I also keep secrets of both: the possibility of trust is also endless.

  What I am doing fills my loneliness.

  Solat and Faraz live with their families. They are never lonely. But I see Faraz at school walking around alone. He never talks to girls. Solat is noisy. But he comes and sits in my classes just to hear me; think upon what I teach. So both the brothers are trying to end inner loneliness. I wrote in my first poem for them:

  The body is but the prison of the soul

  though a beautiful one.

  And action in the world leaves it restless.

  Which is the extraordinary pathos of all youth

  I took these lines out of art-criticism (on Michaelangelo’s David). So art makes me understand life; understand my friends. It is not an activity in the void.

  The first time I saw Faraz, he was watching me talk to a student at the college entrance. I smiled at him but he did not smile back. I was struck by his physical beauty (which he, like most shy people, doesn’t realize he possesses).

  Solat I saw as a beak-nosed shape agitatedly moving along the corridors. He attended one of my lectures. I was so struck by his sweetness. I was saddened when he said he could not sign up for the course. But I saw his essential shyness when I told him to keep in touch. Loyal as ever, he turns up to see me daily. This, I think, is the Muslim loyalty of student to teacher; friend to friend. All his agitation and lightning-quick movements come from his air sign. Solat has uneven teeth and his nose was broken playing cricket. I loved him first for his broken nose—mine, too, is broken from a fall in childhood—and then I loved him for his intelligence. One afternoon, after school, he held me up and would not let me go for lunch. Boys gathered around us. When I used the phrase ‘longing for human touch’, I saw Solat’s eyes lowered deep in thought and I saw his beautiful eyelashes like any Afghan boy’s! ‘What are you thinking about so deeply?’ I asked, full of pity. And like the little boy he is, he felt found out.

  Faraz attended a debate we had in my speech class: who is superior—man or woman? The kids spoke, I spoke. Faraz did not speak. At the end, he asked a question: ‘So do you think that there is nothing like masculinity and femininity?’ He had heard so deeply in his quietness and heard me correctly. I had to merely reiterate for him what he had already heard well. But in asking that question, he had shown what it was that also agitated him and I knew that despite the difference in our ages, backgrounds, physical appearances, we were brothers under the skin. Seeing through sham is both a Scorpion and an Aquarian trait.

  I began again my daily writing habit for the two brothers. I had stopped writing for a month in India prior to my coming to UAE to make money. Since there is no money in writing, I make it on the side. I get involved with my students, but not with my teaching. Only writing involves me. I have made and spent what is a lot of money for a single person, teaching in an exotic locale, but I consider my true wealth to be my writing. My wealthy parent does not see it this way. But I have stopped seeking his approval. Faraz laughed when I said I was the most selfish person I know besides my own parent!

  I consider myself selfish because I have never been able to get out of myself: not in love, not in friendship, not in religion, not in politics, not even in art because I write about myself. There is a humility in any artist who claims to know no more than himself, but such writing is limiting and critics judge it harshly. They do not see that the ‘I’ is trying to know itself through the ‘others’.

  Solat fears the word ‘criticism’. At the same time, he mocks it with a child’s mockery of adult faith in nationality alone. I join feeling to criticism. If it does not move my listeners, it is not worth saying. Hence, I find teaching poetry painful. I understand the learning process to be the most painful part of growing up. But Solat takes my criticism seriously. If I tell him he jumps around too much, he follows me to the canteen the next day, jumps into a chair, and says: ‘It is true. I am like that!’ I reassure him that our behaviour only shows soul-states which fluctuate, mutate, evolve or regress and hence are not permanent.

  When I walk in the fierce afternoon sun with Solat, I do not feel the heat; when I eat with Solat sitting in front of me, I do not feel alone. But as soon as I am left alone, the food tastes bad and walking in the sun becomes unbearable. Is this a feeling of love or loneliness?

  I do not use the word ‘love’ for friendship. I call it friendship. I do not know what to call my young friends, so I call them friends. I do not know how to say what I feel in words, so I write poetry.

  Poetry is a way out of prose; love is a way out of poetry; friendship is a way of love.

  But an intense friendship is an intense love.

  The young understand this; the old dismiss it as ‘adolescent’. I will never grow old.

  Friendship is the most difficult thing in the world. A friend has no claim as a family does. The body is not involved as in love. It is purely an affectional tie. The only tie binding friend and friend is affection and when that’s gone everything goes. Hence, it is the most sensitive bond in the world and easiest to break. It breaks at the slightest insensitivity. But people feel friendship is only casual and treat it very casually. Not having family, I value friendship. I have seen the young place value on their friendships with me. Of course, they do not last. Perhaps it is a wrong expectation to want friendship to last forever like marriages. Even marriages do not last forever.

  ‘Friendship is the only sweetness in our lives,’ a Palestinian girl once told me.

  Lovers die; love remains.

  I treat my students as friends. But in the East, a teacher is respected. They call me ‘sir’! Faraz and Solat do not wave goodbye, they salute at going. Impeccable Oriental manners.

  Yesterday, when Faraz visited my class, my essential shyness returned. I had waited all day to see Solat. Faraz came pretending to look for Solat. Once again, I got confused between two brothers. I noticed Faraz’s smile. Once again, I taught love from books as I have done a hundred times before I became confused. Is this when I feel myself blush? I found my way out of confusion. The poem began to make sense. Faraz helped me along. I asked him about angels in Islam. He believed every word he said. It was touching. It was then that I remembered an Indian poet’s phrase about sculpture: ‘stone eyes drip love’. Keats’s ‘unheard melody’ made sense as sculpture means something but through the senses; not through the mind.

  Faraz understood me. I forgot his face, his physical presence. I felt his mind in tune with my mind making sense of seeing through the ‘five senses’. Plato said, ‘Teaching is an erotic activity.’ Erotics are mental. The intellect can be sensualized.

  Those clichés become real when lived out. We have to discover these truths unendingly. It is likely that a person is ridiculed for wanting to live out every experience. But heroes live like that.

  I want my life to become art.

  It is hard in God’s absence.

  Solat and Faraz are good Muslims. Solat told me: ‘To kill a man is a very big thing. When the Prophet entered Mecca, he told his followers not even to harm a tree.’ Faraz taught me about angels in Islam: They do not sing. The angel of Death! Each man has angels looking over his shoulders; recording the good and evil he does. Are the two brothers my two angels? In Hyderabad, of the two brothers,
one could see no good in me as I insisted on showing him my wicked side, and the other could see no evil in me as he only wished to see me as good!

  Good and evil are inseparable brothers, it is we who separate them for our own convenience!

  I call goodness ‘God’. I do not get involved in arguments. I know what I know. I feel what I feel. I feel a need for ‘God’!

  To Solat and Faraz, God is a certainty. I do not know or feel this certainty.

  The soul slowly progresses towards God as a friend gravitates to a friend. God is a far away, so the boys gravitate to me.

  I used to believe in friends. But I left them or they left me. I need, therefore, to believe in something that does not move away.

  I cannot move away from my responsibility towards a young friend; I cannot kill myself. Maybe, this is God. God is within us.

  The scientists at school are atheists. They have the certainty of their profession and their middle-class family life. Writing is not my profession. I will never marry. I will never know certainty. I cannot afford the luxury of atheism.

  Solat and Faraz never question. When their father opens a factory, they will help him. Perhaps this is love, selflessness.

  I moved away from my father. I had to struggle physically in my life; something Faraz and Solat will never know.

  I see Faraz struggling mentally, emotionally, spiritually. But he is outwardly calm. He relies on his mind. He relies on his faith.

  I noticed that Faraz wears a chain on his right wrist. He lives in his affection.

  Faraz is a loving elder brother. He bullies Solat sometimes. ‘That’s his privilege for being a year older,’ says Solat good-naturedly. Faraz is known to have a bad temper.

  Solat is the flashy dresser: Jacquard shirts, Pathan salwar-kameez suits, suede sandals. Faraz is always in T-shirts and jeans. Solat stands out with his dress sense, his liveliness, his helpful nature. Poor Faraz stands out because of his big build though he tries hard to make himself invisible. I never miss him, nor do the girls with whom he has a light, bantering, love-hate which amuses me.

  Solat doesn’t understand my poems since they work two traditions, English Literature and Sufism. He laughs, he can only understand daffodils and valleys. After boasting I’m Wordsworth, I wrote ‘An Indian Poet in the Desert’, which I sent to Vilas Sarang, a Bombay poet in Kuwait. I never felt guilt for using English. I create my own idiom. To reconnect with India, I became an Urdu poet. Those who harangue us for using English do so in English. They fail to see the irony of their situation.

  I wrote this diary for Solat and Faraz. When they understand me, I will feel useful. I will end my loneliness. Writing is a way out of one’s self. I write for others.

  This is the sanest diary I have ever written. It is not a complete record but it is honest in recording what it does record. I wrote it not to attract but to teach. I worked on it effortlessly for hours. It turned out like a long, seamless meditation on concerns and people dear to me.

  On Account of a Girl

  from Bhaalobaasaar Anek Naam

  Shibram Chakrabarti

  It has been a long time since the great Ashok Chatterjee last honoured my humble abode with a visit. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ I ask this illustrious nephew of mine.

  ‘I had to go to Allahabad, Uncle.’

  ‘Oh, I see. To see the Taj Mahal, then,’ I nod with dawning comprehension.

  ‘Why should the Taj Mahal be in Allahabad?’ he wonders. ‘The Taj is of course in Agra. Uncle, your geography seems brilliant!’

  ‘Oh, really? I thought it was in Allahabad. Okay, maybe it is in Agra, if you say so,’ I concur.

  My mastery of geography does leave quite a bit to be desired. It doesn’t seem to match the real world’s. To tell you the truth, I can’t even say for sure whether San Francisco is one of the sunspots or part of spotless France. But I do know for sure that the Ni Agra Falls, pardon my spelling, is not in Agra.

  ‘So why did you spend all that money to visit Allahabad during a season like this? Was it just a pleasure trip?’

  ‘It really was a pleasure trip, but without spending a penny. The journey cost me nothing, Uncle.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I become curious. ‘Were you travelling ticketless?’

  ‘No, Uncle. I had gone for an interview with the infantry military commission, you know.’

  ‘What!’ This really throws me off. ‘To fight real wars? Are you serious?’

  ‘Well, not really to get into actual battles, but you see, Uncle, if there is a chance to get into military uniform, I do feel like trying. Every time they recruit for the army, or the air force, or the navy, I apply at once—even though it’s quite obvious that I’ll never have the luck to land one of those jobs.’

  ‘How are you so sure?’

  ‘I know that I’ll never cross the hurdle of the recruitment interview, you see. If I don’t even clear that first test, how can I ever get a job as a soldier, let alone worry about having to actually fight? But they won’t even let me get through the first screening.’

  ‘They just won’t let you? They’ve made up their mind about it?’

  ‘Well, they aren’t giving me a break, right? This is the fourth time I’ve been interviewed, and the fourth place, and I’ve had no luck at all. But I did get something out of it. Government money paid for all these free trips, stays, meals, seeing all these countries, I mean these states, it was fun doing all this sight-seeing. You get what you can.’ Ashok sighs. ‘But this was a really good job, Uncle, an officer’s position, well-paid and all . . .’

  ‘And you couldn’t get it?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t.’ He sighs again. ‘I couldn’t, on account of . . . on account of you!’

  ‘On account of me?’ I feel genuine consternation.

  ‘Yes, of course. Boys take after their mothers’ brothers, don’t you know? I’m really bothered by the way you’ve somehow smothered me, so I must lay all this to your account!’

  I hold my peace and wait for his serialization to be continued into the next issue.

  My eyes raise the question my lips are sealed about.

  ‘Really, these uncles are such a contagious disease! My interview was scheduled for eight thirty,’ Ashok reveals. ‘I turned up at nine thirty. Late by an hour. One of the board members asked me, “Why so late?” I said, “Sir, I kind of overslept; I am a late riser, you know.” I didn’t tell him where I’d picked up this habit, I couldn’t talk about you over there, could I really? How could I say that following in your footsteps had done this to me? So I kept that to myself.’

  ‘That was exactly the right thing to do,’ I concur. ‘They would have detained me under the DI rules if you’d told them.’

  ‘And then the gentleman said, “Suppose you’re at the front and a war begins, and suppose this bad habit makes you late for the battle? What will you do then?”

  ‘I told him, “Well, sir, of course that could easily happen, we aren’t as strong as our sleep, are we?”

  ‘They went ahead and asked me, “Suppose you suddenly win the lottery and get twelve thousand rupees or so. What will you do with it?” I said, “I’ll eat, drink and make merry. I won’t save a penny.” They didn’t expect an answer like that. So the moment they heard that, they said, “Bye.” So they fired me even before they’d hired me.’

  ‘What kind of answer did they expect?’ I inquire.

  ‘They were hoping that I’d use a big part of that money to buy defence bonds and put the rest in the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. A reply of that sort, I guess. But how could this impish tongue of mine actually say anything like that? We have seen your example since we were little kids, haven’t we, Uncle? You’re the one who’s really spoiled us, you know!’

  ‘Oh well, I guess all’s well that ends well . . .’ I console him. ‘Maybe you would have got caught in the crossfire during a battle and managed to get yourself killed in some god-forsaken hole of a place . . .’

  ‘But this Muslim fr
iend of mine did get the job, Uncle. He was there on time, and his answers were on the mark. But that’s not what did it. He really got the job on account of a girl.’

  ‘Yeah, I see.’ I savour my savvy as I clarify: ‘You had girls on that interview board, then, didn’t you?’

  ‘Do you have any idea, Uncle, what kinds of people make up a military interview board?’ asks Ashok, plumbing the depths of my common sense after he has finished with my geography. ‘Only lieutenant commanders, commanding officers, and so on can be on an interview board. You think such people are women, do you?’

  ‘They must be,’ I submit.

  Ashok says nothing, but makes sure that he and I see eye to eye on his response.

  ‘If they aren’t, that may well be so,’ I justify myself, ‘but I do feel that it’s got to be women. The one who commands a lieutenant is a lieutenant commander, right? Now, who but his wife can command him? And somebody who can command and does command an officer, the one whose words make him go through all the drills and the left-right routines, has got to be his wife, who else?’

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ He lightly dismisses my weighty intervention. ‘For your information, Uncle, a commission interview board is quite remote from womankind.’

  ‘It’s you who said he got the job on account of a girl, and you are now saying there weren’t any girls within miles of that board of yours. You’re the one who doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘Let me tell you the story of Rashidul Haq, and you’ll follow,’ says Ashok. ‘The interview board has all the military top brass on it . . . Let me tell you, blow by blow, the story that Rashid told me, the way it happened, you know . . .’

  I am all ears as he presents his report.

  ‘Once the interview is over,’ Ashok continues, ‘the board says, “We’ll write to let you know if we’re going to take you”, and they have nearly sent him off when Rashidul says to them, “May I please make a couple of points before I leave?” They say, “Sure, go ahead, why not?” Then he says, “Well, sir, I’ve done this interview and I can see two possibilities—one is that I may get the job, the other is that I may not get the job. If I don’t get it, I have nothing further to say. But if I do get the job, two further possibilities arise. First, you may keep me at the headquarters, second, you may send me to the border . . .”