When Basharat arrived at the steel rerolling mill, the businessman was getting ready to go home. That day, he was feeding pulao to somewhere in the vicinity of 200 beggars as a way to honour a saint. He believed that doing this would sanctify his month’s earnings. And this sort of laundering was nothing new. For as many as twenty years, one certain bank had been serving dinner to just as many beggars as new accounts had been opened in all its branches on that day. (It wasn’t clear whether this was done out of happiness for the new accounts or to atone for the uptick in the usury business.) Once, I happened to travel to Multan. That day a very senior executive from the bank’s hierarchy was there for an inspection. That evening I witnessed a truly righteous scene that made me happier than anything: the senior executive sat on his haunches alongside fifteen or twenty beggars as they all ate pulao, and he was going from man to man asking in detail about his (bad) health and that of his people. But Mirza Abdul Wadud Baig has a bad habit of popping my balloons. He ruined my good mood: ‘When a lion and a goat drink from the same well, realize that the lion’s intentions and the goat’s intelligence fall into question. That Mahmood and Ayaz are sitting together eating is also part of the audit and inspection. The executive wants to find out whether the beggars are truly beggars or whether they’re not the manager’s friends and relatives come for handouts.’
But back to the matter at hand. I was talking about the businessman from the steel mill and how he ‘laundered’ his income by performing monthly religious functions. Back then the invention of a new magic wand2 was still far in the future, and our intelligent and creative Minister of the (Empty) Treasury and other economic gurus were still busy studying for their final high-school exams. Back then the transubstantiation of black into white was a conjuring performed only by spiritual masters, swindlers, occultists, and kitchen cleaners.
Mahatma Buddha Was Bihari!
The businessman denied vociferously that he had known anything about the horse’s injury. He turned the tables on Basharat: ‘You came to see the fucking horse a half dozen times. The horse even began to fucking recognize you. You counted its teeth ten times, you know? You even brought cookies once! You said the horse was nine hands’ long. You thought the horse was a fucking giant. Now you come four days later wearing your horse blinders to accuse me of atrocities, you know? Even the dead lying in their fucking graves have their accounts settled in three days. You didn’t notice any defects then. You yoked him to the cart and took him to your humble fucking abode, and still you didn’t notice anything wrong!’ (Basharat had called his house his ‘humble abode’ so many times that the businessman thought that was its name.)
Basharat wanted to say something, but the businessman went on, ‘Look, baba, there isn’t any part of the horse that you didn’t stroke ten fucking times, you know? You say you’re a businessman, and yet if you start lying through your teeth, what do you think I’m supposed to do? Tell me! Don’t keep going on like a fucking imbecile, you know?’
Basharat got upset, ‘Was it too much to ask for you to tell me that the horse had desecrated a funeral procession? And you call yourself a Muslim and a Pakistani!’
Pointing at his chest, he answered, ‘Do I look like a fucking Buddhist to you? I’m from Junagadh in Kathiawar, you know? I have a domicile certificate from Sindh. Mahatma Buddha was Bihari!’ (Then pointing at the paan in his mouth.) ‘I swear by the food in my mouth, I cannot lie. Now, swear on your children’s good health, when you asked why I was selling the horse, I told you immediately. If you had asked before the deal was done, I would have told you then. You sell lumber, you know? Do you point out each fucking burl and impurity and ask the customer to look them over? Should I have done business with you or told you the horse’s fucking biography? My father always told me that if a customer looks like a fraud make sure to get a good fucking look at him. Then, when doing business with him, make sure to talk less and watch more. Then you started singing ‘Untie it, untie it now!’ It was like coins were jingling in your fucking mouth. In Gujarati there’s a saying that goes that money is a lioness’s milk. It’s hard to get, and it’s hard to digest. But you’re trying to fucking milk a lion! I do business in the millions. To this very day I’ve never reneged on my word. OK, if you swear on the Quran that you were drunk at the time of the purchase, I’ll refund you every fucking penny.’
Basharat started to plead, ‘Sir, take 100 or 150 rupees for yourself, but please take back the horse and refund me. I have a family. I will be grateful to you forever.’
The businessman lost his mind, ‘Oh my God, baba! You’re being as stubborn as a fucking mule! Don’t use such difficult Urdu! Why did you come here like some film’s villain wearing your fucking sunglasses and trying to intimidate me? Sir, you’re an educated man. You’re not some scum of a pimp, some malbari, who goes around threatening decent people. You read the signboard, baba! This is a rerolling mill — a steel rerolling mill. It’s not a fucking horse shop, you know? Tomorrow you’ll come trying to get me to take back the cart. If I start fucking selling horses and carts, what will my family do? Sit around at home singing qawwali? Sir, my house is a family house, not some fucking saint’s shrine where prostitutes come to let down their long hair and make a ruckus singing dhama dham mast qalandar!’
Basharat parked the cart outside the rerolling mill. He sat down on a raised platform, dangling his legs, and waited for the cover of darkness before returning home so that he wouldn’t get his third ticket in nine hours. His ears were still burning with anger, and his throat was like a cactus. Balban was standing with his head down and tied to a gulmohar tree. Basharat went to a paan shop and bought a bottle of lemonade. After only one swig, he realized that this Codd-neck bottle had been waiting for him in the sun for several months. And then he suddenly remembered that in all the running around of that afternoon, Balban hadn’t been fed or given anything to drink. Basharat poured the lemonade into the sand, and he took off his sunglasses.
‘Nevertheless, They Caught Us’
Somehow the cart managed to lumber on. Rahim Bakhsh got caught several more times, but things were resolved with the exchange of a little money. About two weeks later, he approached again with his whip raised in the air. He said, ‘Boss, nevertheless, they caught us. Though I didn’t have any money on me today, he asked for more. He wanted twenty-five rupees. So the officer took over the cart, and I came straight here. But the kids are in the cart, the horse is with it too. You always think that Rahim Bakhsh is making things up, so please come with me to get them back. Although the inconvenience…’ At the time, Basharat was squatting and inspecting the knotty grain of a board. He sprang up in anger. Since there was no one else to take his anger out on, he grabbed the whip from the bringer of bad news and snapped it hard upon the ground, ‘You ninny! If you ever again say “although,” “nevertheless,” or “so” in my presence, I’ll flay you with this whip!’