Everything was ashes. Only his small side-office was safe. A long time ago in Kanpur, Lala Ramesh Chandra had said to him, ‘Things are dangerous these days. You should get insurance.’ In response, Qibla had turned up the pleated sleeve of his muslin kurta to show the throbbing muscles of his arm. ‘This is my insurance policy!’ he had said. He had flexed them, then asked Lala Ramesh Chandra to touch them. Lala had said with surprise, ‘It’s iron. Iron.’ Qibla had replied, ‘No, that’s steel.’
There was a big crowd in front of his shop. People gave way for him the way people let a funeral pass. His face was expressionless. He had nothing to say. He unlocked his office. He picked up his accounting books, stuffed them under his arm, and raced to the western end of the lumberyard where the pine was still burning. First he committed the accounting books to the fire, then his keys. Then, without looking right or left, he slowly walked back to his office. He removed the photo of his mansion and wiped it down with his hankie. Then he put it under his arm and, with the pine still burning, went home.
His wife asked, ‘What now?’ He bowed his head.
I often imagine that if the angels took him to the heaven of cream-coloured light and cornflower blue clouds, he would stop at the gates for a second. Rizwan would motion him to quickly enter, and he would puff out his chest and step closer. Producing the photo of his mansion, he would say, ‘We left this to come here.’
1 The mention of an earthen jar automatically reminds me of a Nazir Akbarabadi couplet that goes like this:
Your young heart and fresh body
Wow! A new earthen jar is wonderful
Nazir Akbarabadi is truly wonderful. Look at any of his poems. Whenever he encounters nature’s handiwork or evidence of God’s glory, he falls to his knees and offers paeans to its beauty. So as soon as he saw a new earthen jar on the girl’s head, he started composing verses while staring darts at her. Then ‘a ripple went through her body.’ He can’t control his heart and his poems. Wherever they go, he follows happily. It gets so bad that whenever he sees a stand for a water pitcher or a jug with a spout, he loses all sense of proportion. Depraved thoughts take over his mind.
I saw a jug with a spout
And my heart drowned in lechery
The poor jug bears blame only for having a passing resemblance to Nazir’s lover.
2 Cupping horn: The site of the pain or puss was first cut. Then the big end of the cupping horn was affixed to the skin, and, putting the mouth on the small end of the horn, they would suck out all tainted (and untainted) blood.
3 Pilkhan: Readers who have never seen this type of tree can find one in Qurratulain Hyder’s novel Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai [I Have A Lot To Do Here]. I’ve only seen this tree in photos. I can’t find mention of it in any dictionary. I have no idea what its grammatical gender is either, but if the love with which Hyder speaks of it is any indication, my guess is it’s feminine.
4 A passage just like this exists in Nau Tarz e Murassa, [The New Ornate Style]: ‘When the moons of my life had accrued to those of fourteen years, the dazzling light of the happy day turned darker than the darkest night of winter, that is, the goblets of my parents’ days were filled with all sensual pleasures only to spill over upon fate’s hands.’
All he really wants to say is that his parents died when he was fourteen. But because of his turgid style, not only did his parents die but the meaning did too. Mirza Abdul Wadud Baig came up with a new term for this pompous style of Indo-Persian writing: ustu khuddus [bitter medicine]. Please see my footnote on this in the fifth part of ‘The First Memorable Poetry Festival of Dhiraj Ganj.’ Actually, the literal meaning of Mirza’s term is the medicine for the common cold (and madness) that doctors refer to as ‘the mind’s broom.’
5 This person said ‘Kan hi pur.’ Sometimes people from Kanpur say ‘Kan hi pur’ instead of ‘Kanpur hi.’
6 Pentangular: A yearly cricket tournament in Bombay in which Hindu, Muslim, Parsi, English, and European teams participated.
7 These eaves were those for thatched or tiled roofs.
A Schoolteacher’s Dream
1.
A Feudal Fantasy
Everyone dreams a dream of a fantasy life that they’ve copied from others, but whatever sadness a person experiences is strictly their own. No one can experience it with them. It is exclusive and personal. Who can understand the bone-melting fire they walk through? Even the fires of hell are not so hot! My toothache? No one has ever had one so bad, and no one ever will. But, on the other hand, the dream of a fantasy life is always copied from others. The dream that occupied Basharat’s mind resembled the extremely colourful patchwork quilts that our dear grandmothers stitched together from thousands of scraps of cloth. And in this dream many things from those bygone days were jumbled up: feudal shows of pomp and circumstance; the dissolute nobility’s haughtiness and elegance; the middle class’s showiness; the small-town person’s airs; and the slickness, simplicity, and stinginess of a person with a good job. Basharat himself said that in his childhood his greatest desire had been to toss aside his writing slate, to rip up his primers, and to become a wandering juggler. He wanted to go from town to town beating his drum, getting his monkey, bear, and young assistant to dance, and encouraging the kids in the audience to clap. But when he grew up a little and was able to distinguish a bad idea from worse, he exchanged that dream with wanting to become a schoolteacher. And after he became a schoolteacher in the village of Dhiraj Ganj, he dreamt of wearing corduroy pants, a silken Two Horse Brand boski shirt, two-ounce gold cufflinks in his double cuffs, a new sola hat without its khaki protective covering, and patent leather pumps; and he dreamt of going to school to teach the boys his own ghazals. Then the dream took on a more mature form: a white silk achkan coat with bidri engraved buttons rising up to his Adam’s apple; in his pocket a little paan box with ganga-jamuni engraving on it; a white brocade Rampuri hat on his head worn at a rakish though somewhat modest angle (though not so modest that he would seem entirely respectable); a white chikan-embroidered kurta with small flowery designs soaked in itr-e-henna or itr-e-khas, depending upon the weather; churidar pyjamas with a white silk drawstring woven by a beautiful young woman; white sheep’s hide Salim Shahi shoes; an Italian blanket for show and to protect his pyjamas from the tail and the projectile piss and poop of the white horse yoked to the phaeton; and, on the running board at the rear of the phaeton, a groom wearing a large belt around his waist stitched with zardozi embroidery, as well as woolen livery chaps from knees to ankles, who would be yelling ‘Get away, kids!’ while whipping kids as they tried to catch a ride. Youth had passed him by, but his childishness was still intact.
The depth of concentration, complete involvement, and self-forgetfulness with which a child plays a game outstrips by a factor of ten that which adults demonstrate in the course of their business and other doings. It goes without saying that even the world’s most famous philosopher isn’t more engrossed in his task than a child playing a game. When the child’s toy breaks, he suddenly looks into the light, and in his tears a rainbow begins to glimmer. Then he falls asleep sobbing. If magically this toy is brought to the man after he has grown old, he will be speechless as to how this toy’s getting broken could have caused him to cry so much. This is the same for those toys that people play with their entire lives. Yes, it’s true that as we age, our toys change. Some break on their own. Some are broken by others. Some toys change into gods for you. And some goddesses (toys) fall from grace and you realize they are just rag dolls. Then there are the unfortunate moments that spare none of the toys. And in those moments, you too break.