“Zakir, son! Are you awake?”
“Yes, Ammi.” And he sat up.
And after that Ammi raised both hands in prayer: “God protect us!” Abba Jan recited something in Arabic under his breath. Sometimes a prayer in the name of Ali, sometimes the Verse of the Throne. Ammi prayed in a high, quavering voice. Since the war began, at Ammi’s wish we sleep in one room. In the darkness of night, three shadows sitting on their cots. Abba Jan is reciting verses from the Quran. Ammi is praying. And at such times I’m unable, even after so many nights of danger, to find any way to occupy my mind.
In the stillness our ears are trying to make out something. Welling up from the layers of silence, a droning sound. In the day, how low this sound is, but in the night, how sharp and awe-inspiring. Suddenly, from somewhere far off, an explosion.
“Zakir!”
“Yes.”
“Son! That sounded like a bomb.”
“Yes.”
“Where did it fall?”
Where did the bomb fall? The various lanes of the city rise up in my imagination. I try to guess from which direction the sound of the explosion came, and which neighborhoods are located in that direction. Abba Jan is entirely absorbed in reciting from the Quran, and my mind is wandering through the various lanes of the city. In Shamnagar I suddenly pause. That house in Shamnagar where we camped when we first came to Pakistan rises up in my imagination. Has the bomb fallen there? No, it shouldn’t fall there. I have no emotional relationship with that house. The moment we left it, the house slipped out of my memory without leaving any imprint on my heart or mind. But suddenly now that house rises up in my imagination. Before my eyes I see the room in which I spent my first night after coming to Pakistan. No, the bomb shouldn’t fall on that neighborhood. The house ought to stay safe, the whole house and the room which holds in trust the tears of my first night in Pakistan.
DECEMBER 5
I’ve thought of a means for keeping my mind occupied during the wartime nights, and I’ve put it into practice. That is, while outside dogs are barking somewhere in the distance, I’m sitting wrapped in a quilt, with a lantern before me, writing a diary.
The winter nights are long, and wartime nights are even longer. Now the seasons of war and winter have come together. The wartime day passes in listening to good news of victories and rumors of defeats, and in racing the horses of conjecture. How can the night pass? I come home well before curfew time. Ammi Jan tries to arrange it so that we finish eating before the blackout. This is how it works. We eat dinner before the blackout. Then Ammi closes up the kitchen and comes and sits at her ease in the room. At the same time, the sounds of footsteps cease in the lane outside. No sounds of footsteps, no noise and commotion of children, no cries of mothers calling to their children. Complete silence falls. The sound of the volunteers’ whistles ceases too. Suddenly the neighborhood dogs begin to bark in chorus. They receive encouragement and support from the dogs in distant neighborhoods. At nightfall, they create the effect of midnight. Silence, then siren and whistles, then the quiet, low drone of planes flying somewhere far off, then siren, then silence. The night stretched and stretched. It simply couldn’t be ended.
Abba Jan has thought of a good means for passing the long wartime nights. He spreads out his prayer carpet and seats himself, and stays there far into the night. Following his example, Ammi Jan too has begun to prolong her late evening prayer.
I couldn’t find a way to pass those nights. I couldn’t read a book for very long by lantern-light. Ammi Jan didn’t allow the lights to be turned on. And she was right. The bright electric light always manages to find its way through the cracks somehow or other, and shows outside. Then the volunteers make a commotion, “Turn off the light,” “Turn off the light.” And somehow I like the lantern. How lovingly I remember the lantern era, when electricity hadn’t yet come to our Rupnagar, and inside in the house and outside in the lane there was only lantern light. When I was older, I passed through all the stages of my education by lantern light alone. But now things are such that I can only remember the lantern era. I can’t read a book by lantern light. But I’ve found out today: I can write.
The primary point of writing this diary is that during the long wartime nights it will help me discipline my distracted mind, which suffers from insomnia and wanders restlessly all over; it will help me put my mind on a single track and protect myself from confusion of thought. But now I see another advantage of it as well. I’ll be writing my wartime autobiography. After the war is over, provided I’m alive, I’ll know how many lies I heard and how many lies I uttered and how afraid I was during the wartime nights, how often I trembled. I ought to preserve the record of my lies and my cowardice.
DECEMBER 6
My patriotic fellow citizens are happy, and most of all our patriotic newspapers are happy. Suddenly their circulation has doubled and tripled. Every day comes news of another victory. Every day people fall on the newspapers and snatch them up, and read the news of victory and are happy. But,
London is victorious and the Germans are advancing.*
Still, today there’s news of a powerful, victorious advance onto their soil. Amritsar too has been taken. Khvajah Sahib told us this news so confidently, and ascribed it to such reliable sources, that Abba Jan was forced to believe it. But Abba Jan listens to defeats and victories, both kinds of news, with equanimity. After Khvajah Sahib had told us the news, I watched him carefully. On his serene face I caught a glimpse of satisfaction. When I left the house, from Nazira’s shop to the Shiraz I heard the news everywhere that Amritsar had been taken.