Sita Under the Crescent Moon

by Annie Ali Khan

  The ride from the heart of the city to its outer limits, was a cacophonous stretch. Qurban kept pounding on the bus door— three slaps to stop, three slaps to start, kept taking on more and more people. A woman in a blue embroidered shuttlecock burqa climbed on board at Sher Shah and sat on the floor. This was her first time travelling to Noorani, she said. No one offered her a seat. An old woman leaned over and told her, daughter, take the bus from Lea Market next time.

  Down the aisle, a fight broke out over a bag of belongings too large, left near the front by someone seated in the back of the bus. ‘Tell those women to calm down,’ the woman seated next to me on the gearbox said. ‘These are all guests of Noorani Baba. He will not like it if anyone is denied a ride.’

  Just as things seemed ready to spiral out of control, Qurban turned on Sufi beats—Bollywood fare being frowned upon on this holy journey—played off his cellphone, which he placed inside a sliced-off plastic litre bottle nailed to the wall of the bus as an improvised cellphone holder. The scenery outside, shops and shacks, arrayed in loose lines on spindly streets, began to sway in rhythm to a Qalandari qawwali. The passengers settled down.

  ‘Tanhaa safar hai zara jhoom ke chalo’ began to play—life is a solitary journey, put a little swing in your step.

  Someone took the song to heart and lit a joint. ‘Have some shame,’ said a woman holding up the small child in her lap. ‘There are families here.’ The smell of hashish soon withered away. It was not really a solitary journey—if families were there, there was always someone getting shamed.

  As the bus rolled past the traffic intersection at Eagle Chowk, a group of school children were gathered there, holding up placards. They faced the opposite direction, but where the sunlight touched the writing on the chart paper in their hands, the word ‘disappeared’ was clear. The child’s small hands were steady as he held up the sign under the sculpture of a falcon—with a broken wing. Those children standing on a busy intersection reminded strangers going somewhere about the stolen bodies in Balochistan—the disappeared.

  Past the barbershop of ‘Taj Hairdresser’ and the chai hotel of ‘Fakhre Afghan Bacha Khan’ the bus exited the city through Kutti Pahari—literally, a mountain sliced into two to make way for the road in between on which the bus to Noorani now crossed. In the space in between, of the now two separated pieces, the sky met the road, the clouds touched the bus as it moved along the centre of this sliced mountain, taking people along, people living their lives, in-between.

  Like Saima.

  She was seated next to me on the gearbox. Saima’s parents had parents who had moved to Karachi from Bombay, she said, sometime during Partition. Saima’s family was strictly Urdu-speaking and she had been hoping to be married into a mohajir family—those who had migrated to Pakistan. But she had turned thirty-three and no marriage proposal came her way. ‘I was getting fat and old,’ Saima said.

  When a man from a Pathan community offered to marry her, she agreed. Her husband had been married before. A woman he divorced, because, Saima said, the woman was having an affair.

  Saima wanted a child of her own, but her husband already had two children from his previous marriage—two young girls, who now lived with his sister. Saima helped her husband run a business recycling plastic bottles. All day hundreds of children went around the city of Karachi, scavenging through garbage for plastic and brought it to Saima’s husband’s warehouse where it was sorted before being sold. All day, Saima watched over these children. Saima herself had never been to shrines before she was married. Her husband had introduced her to Shah Noorani and now she visited regularly—her husband, who was seated in the back of the bus with other men, watching her, watching the road go by.

  In 2011, Kutti Pahari was the site of a massacre between Pathan men and mohajir men over land and identity that left hundreds dead—like that Partition, those ideas that divided men, who fought then died, leaving women behind, alive, then dead. Women like Saima, dressed in a tie-dye shalwar kamiz, her hands decorated with henna, who wanted to marry and have children, the ones getting fat and old, the ones who were childless. Women like that first wife left behind because she was desired.

  One woman brought home because of her body. The other woman sent away from home because of her body. These bodies that did not behave—did not fit on either side of a partitioned hill. These bodies that were childless or scandalous had no home to call their own.

  But Baba was giving, Saima said. She was hopeful.

  Hope, like the fragrance of the henna on her hands, lifted out of the bus and dissipated into the air where the sky met the road in-between, leaving behind the bloody divide, a mountain cut-up between mohajir and Pathan and into another land, the gateway to Gwadar: a land under dispute between the Baloch demanding rights to their land, the Baloch who had not disappeared and the state not present, unless there was a security situation.

  Past Hub Chowki, the bus began to slow as a security check post loomed ahead. A young man, thin, with eyes like a deer, in army fatigues, looked around the bus, trying to avoid looking at the women, then got back off. The men on the roof were called down, off the bus. This was why those sellers sold those clear plastic covers; all the men had their identity cards out in their hands. Like Anwar, who kept his identity card shiny by rubbing it with petrol from his son’s motorcycle so it was clear as day to everyone including himself, who he was—everyone, especially this soldier.

  Near the front of the bus, a woman from Shadadpur in Sindh, Sameera, belonged to the Ababki tribe. She said the tribe was the original people from which all other tribes came. Sameera’s son was in the army. He was one of five children, all grown up, she said, and with families. They were all well settled, which was why no one in Sameera’s family could understand why she woke up one day and could not stop crying. For three days and three nights, Sameera cried a river. Her family carried her half-alive, half-dead, limp body to Shah Noorani’s shrine, where she recovered. Now for the past many years, Sameera had been making this pilgrimage to Shah Noorani. Sameera, with her army son, watched as other army sons searched other sons of other mothers for identity and purpose—their purpose for the pilgrimage, their purpose for being there. Who are you, a question, when you thought about it, was a question with infinite possibilities for a Sufi pilgrim headed for a life in a dark cave—like an entry-test designed for people going to a shrine, to keep their identity in check, coming and going. What if the answer changed on the way back?

  Sameera did not have an identity card, so she did not have to bother with, did not have the choice, to ponder over questions of self. But her army son had one and so did Anwar, who kept his shiny card by his side so he could show it. The mothers watched from the windows of a rickety bus to Noorani, watched their sons, and worried.

  ‘It is the power of Noorani, otherwise this bus would never make it across this difficult terrain,’ Sameera said, rubbing the beads on the rosary in her hand—the power of Noorani, heavenly light, noor, on her mind, that kept this mother on the bus, her eyes on the road.

  Past the security checkpoint, the road widened, the bus sped up, the breeze turned cool. Outside, on the open road, a woman in a Balochi style dress stood waving her arms in the air begging for a handout—a woman in hand-embroidered clothes only she could make, these symbols stitched for months the way she wanted to place them, on her clothes like a story only she knew. A woman suffering silently, her hands waving at the bus rattling past.

  The bus crossed past an open lorry, in the back of which two little girls hung onto the grill of the cabin, their curls flying in the air as they hung on for dear life, smiles on their sunburned faces, smiles in their sun-bleached hair. The lorry almost caused the bus to veer off the road with no shoulder. Just as up ahead a bus was overturned, a grim reminder of how frequently accidents happened and how far away the nearest hospital was, at least two hours back in Hub Chowki—where the injured had been carried, it was said, in the back of an open lorry.

  Up ah
ead, a bullock cart loaded with straw crossed the bus. The bullock cart rider was upset. ‘It will topple over,’ the cart rider screamed in Sindhi. The two men exchanged angry words, then the bus moved past. I wondered about the sound a bullock cart made when it toppled over.

  Past 2 pm, the hilly slopes and sand and thorny bushes as far as the eye could see had become monotonous. The dry air and dust stung the eyes. The heat made the corners of the pages of my notebook curl. Some of the children cried themselves to sleep on the hot rusted iron floor, their tears like mud tracks on the tender slope of their cheeks. I began to nod off the seat and into the aisle along with my notebook, dizzy with sleep. The bus made a brief stop at a rest stop where an elderly woman seated across the aisle from me held out a ten rupee note asking for someone to fetch pakoray and roti for her. She had not eaten since the day before, she said, and was starving but there was no food at the hotel. She kept holding out the ten rupee note as the bus rolled again.

  Up ahead, a group of motorcycle riders were stopped by a Levies officer. The bus slowed down and two other motorcycle riders parked a little ways ahead, as the officer pocketed some cash and let them go. The bus sped up and the breeze picked up again.

  The bus came to an oasis, a streamlet, where boys and men frolicked in the cool water. A man stood by the edge of the water, washing his rickshaw. Men stood handing out used plastic litre bottles filled with rose-coloured, rose-flavoured, sweet Rooh Afza mixed with milk from a plastic container inside which large blocks of ice floated. The bottles were handed around, chugged and then passed around, emptied and then returned, the soul— rooh, refreshed.

  Along the way, tamarisk trees, like a yogi in repose surrounded by devi bushes, greeted the bus. A young man jumped off the roof and laid fresh roses he had carried all the way from Karachi to spread over the earth under a red cloth tied to the branch of a tree under the sun, and then he climbed back on the roof of the bus and it was on its way again. These were some of the buried men who were said to be faqirs who had lost their lives on the long road to attaining enlightenment, like the old man dressed in red with shackles around his ankles—a qaray wallah baba—bangles like those worn on the wrist by a bride on her wedding day, a submission to a higher purpose, with or without purpose or submission—who took long strides as he made his way to Shah Noorani’s shrine. In the distance, a white dot became visible on a cliff.

  At the Lahooti Hotel, we stopped for lunch and tea.

  On the blue painted wall of the hotel, was a painted sign:

  noorani noorhar balaa dour

  It is forbidden to smoke weed.

  It seemed hashish here was a spell even Noorani’s light could not break.

  Another wall had a poster that advertised a full pilgrim for 4000 rupees, taking one from Sehwan to Manghu Pir, Abdullah Shah Ghazi, Jinnah’s mausoleum and six other places including the grave of Benazir Bhutto in Larkana, Sindh. The resting place of a populist, democratic leader included here, the first after a long, dark era of dictatorship, a woman who rose to power. Underneath the poster, the pilgrims sat having a meal, a hearty serving of curry and naan that cost less than 100 rupees.

  Another poster was for a festival at Qalandar, and had the caption ‘guddi chali Sehwan noun’—the car is leaving for Sehwan.

  My first lesson upon arrival at Shah Noorani was that one keeps going. Guddi chali Sehwan noun—life is one long pilgrimage, once you arrived at Shah Noorani, the car was already on its way to Sehwan, in the other direction. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, shrine–pilgrimage, shrine–pilgrimage, shrine– pilgrimage—until your legs gave out, that was life, was death: a grave by the roadside, under a cool tree in the scorching sun, maybe if you’re lucky, when you have nothing, that’s something, that’s a lot.

  Except, if you’re a woman, the only way you will be remembered is in the un-enshrined memory of Durga or Satiyan or Bibiyan, different from a sadhu, a saint, a king, a god. Unless, you are Benazir Bhutto, the first female prime minister of Pakistan, which was like being a god, a little bit, as much as was allowed— her face on posters, banners, billboards and painted on the back of trucks. Like the Sati who lived, burned on a pyre then worshipped like a goddess.

  At the foot of the mountain of the shrine to Shah Noorani, I noticed while making my way up the mountain, an enclave where I saw red cloth tied to the branches of a tree. But there was no time to stop. The dhamaal was about to begin.

  That Moharram. My first visit to Shah Noorani’s shrine was when I met her.

  Wrapped in a maroon shawl which covered her hair, tied in a loose braid, and the outfit she wore underneath—a pair of skinny jeans and a gauzy kamiz—as she walked about in the courtyard of the saint of heavenly light, was a young woman who had journeyed to a sacred place of pilgrimage.

  Her face, uncovered, was bare, save for a thin gold wire on her nose, and on the wedding ring finger of the hand with which she clutched her chaadar was a copper ring inscribed in Urdu lettering with the name of the saint—Shah Noorani.

  The Qalandari Faqir, dressed in all black with a necklace studded with aqeeq stones around his neck and kohl-lined eyes followed her around the open-air courtyard, studded with peacocks perched on every branch, nestled amongst the jungle-covered mountains.

  ‘That Qalandari scoundrel,’ she said, as she sat next to me on the floor of the shrine. ‘He said to me, “Come with me, I’ll take you for a Pepsi.” I said, “I am not here in pursuit of your bottle of Pepsi, so you can take me someplace else, away from here. Such a spot of dirt you carry in your heart in such a clean place,”’ she said. Before she turned to me, I had been writing in my notebook. I looked up to see her.

  ‘My name is Zahida,’ she said, offering me her hand with the copper ring, inside of which was a half-eaten paan. A shiny rose-red packet of gems, illustrated with roses and hearts—a whisper of the fragrance of sweetened betel-nut wafting from her open palm. ‘I was born to my mother after seven years of a prayer, a gift of Noorani Baba,’ she said, using the word for old man, Baba, for the mighty saint, dear to her.

  That’s how Zahida—the name meaning a female ascetic—a devotee of Shah Noorani, introduced herself.

  Zahida was visiting Shah Noorani’s shrine, accompanied by her family: her sister Saira, now married and with child, her family, her mother Saeeda, her father Anwar, and her two brothers, Amir and Noor, were seated together near us. They had marked their spot under a shaded tree in the courtyard, a place for a night’s sleep where they were sheltered from the next morning’s sun. They had with them a small water cooler and a thin blanket for the cool December nights. The food in their tiffin, half-eaten on the journey over, had already gone cold.

  For the three nights, 9th, 10th and 11th of Moharram, observed in remembrance of the martyrs of Karbala, the bustling stream of cycles, rickshaws, cars, buses, lorries, vans and motorcycles, trailed all the way back to Karachi, where Zahida lived in Masaan Chowk. Once a place for burning pyres, now a makeshift settlement by the sea.

  Zahida, like me, was travelling by bus for the first time since childhood. She knew the bus conductor Qurban well, and he had saved her seats in advance on the packed buses coming in daily from Lyari to Shah Noorani.

  Inside the pale green washed room of Mohabbat Faqir’s shrine, Zahida settled on the floor to offer her prayers. A beautiful young person entered the room. Dressed in leaf green silk, draped by a braid weaved in a paranda that tumbled down to the waist, eyes lined with soot black kohl, lips coated in powdery red tincture.

  The summit of Mohabbat Faqir marked the mid-way point between the cave of Lahoot and seven peaks in the other direction from Shah Noorani. The summit where a giant serpent set in a natural rock formation led to a towering shiv lingam, said to mark the coming of the end of the earth, leading to a cave of Lahoot. Inside a narrow passage, stepping over the head of a lion naturally formed in rock, a boulder shaped like a she-camel led the way to a narrow passageway, a mother’s womb where pilgrims took turns slipp
ing through to figure out the meaning of creation and to remember something about the experience of birth, the beginning of life, the mystery of our origins. For the last stretch across seven peaks to Shah Noorani’s shrine, there were vehicles for hire. Twenty rupees was the charge per person, for fifty people to fit into open jeeps called kekras, for a twenty-minute ride to the base of the mountain of Noorani. Others walked.

  After a meal of paratha and an omelette fried on a greasy skillet followed by chai, Zahida and her family, travelling by foot, began the long walk, over pathways turning steep then dipping, curving, spiralling along circular mountain tops, before unravelling into rocky bluffs dotted by caves high above on the face of the bluffs, like ear holes. Where sages, past and present, having left the self behind, sat inside a dark womb-like room and pondered over the meaning of life, truth, beauty. Where below, out in the sun, Zahida made her way, sure-footed, on these spiralling, serpentine pathways and slopes that could lead away to someplace else, into the wilderness, towards Shah Noorani’s shrine, a pearl in the wilderness.

  Along the way, small children in hand-embroidered dresses with symbols that could be decoded back to thousands of years ago, ran towards strangers, grabbing, wanting anything shiny and new. Letting go at the edge of the stream where fairies, women possessed of heavenly beauty with wings, once bathed but had not been seen for a long time and around a mountain, inside which Gokul, both a king and a demon, was said to be trapped, turning a mill that made the stream flow—that kept the stony mountainside hydrated, that kept the place alive— like Gokul, alive, even though he was said to have been slain by Shah Noorani. A sadhu, a king, a demon, Gokul, waited to be released from under a mound of rocks—awaited the twin trees of Khuzdar to grow anew, for time to reverse, for an age to end, for an age to begin, at the place where all day children watched, from across a stream, strangers go past.