‘So Gulabiya Natni was a real wheel.7 Even if you would just glance her way, she would hand you a neem twig. Man, I can’t lie to you. On Doomsday, I’ll have to show my face to my father, in addition to God. Why should I hide anything from you? I’m no saint. I’m a man of the flesh. Like Maulvi Hashmatullah says, people are puppets of mistakes and women. My friend, the fact is that I had to carry a neem twig too. I wasn’t yet a grown man. I was seventeen when the tragedy struck. But, believe me, Tamizan was a first-class, respectable woman. She wasn’t some whore. She was married. She lived in the neighbourhood. Actually, I became a man in her house. She must have been fifteen, if not twenty, years older than me. But still her body was like a taut drumhead. If the wind just grazed across her, she started to rumble. I used to go to her roof to fly kites. She was used to me being around. Sometimes she would give me gazak snacks, and sometimes she gave me halva that she herself had made. Her husband, who was probably twenty years older — well, at least fifteen — had gone to Faridabad to get an amulet to speed along the birth of a child.’ (At this, he started giggling despite himself.) ‘I’d already cut four kites when I reeled it in, put it under my arm, and went downstairs. The damsel was taking a bath behind the see-through screen of a charpoy stood on its side. The wonderful scene is still fresh in my eyes. When she saw me, she stood up, naked. Man, what should I say? Alarm bells went off inside me. In a second, I turned her inside out like a pair of socks. The thing about gazak is that it makes your blood run fast and hot.
‘When news got out, my father, may God have mercy on his soul, was beside himself with anger. He menaced me with his shoe. He said, “You’re no son of mine! Get out of here, or else I’ll cut your throat.” But there wasn’t a sword in the house; there wasn’t even a dull kitchen knife with which he could have carried out his threat. And, anyway, I was a foot taller than him! But I was in such awe of him that I was trembling badly in my colourful lungi. My mom was standing in between us, protecting me. She grabbed his hand. I remember everything about it. In the commotion, she’d broken her bangles, and her wrists were bloody. She worked so hard, day and night. For as far back as I can remember, her face had always been wrinkled. Tears were running over her wrinkles. Even today I feel like her tears are staining my cheek. She said, “I swear to God, they’re slandering my baby angel.” I tried to explain to my father, “I got it from eating khichri made from buckwheat and from mangos picked raw. Please listen to me. I got this wretched disease from riding bareback on a black mare. Eating some chia seeds8 will get rid of it.” But he would never have believed me. He said, “Chia seeds, my ass! You think this is funny? You’ve ruined the honour of barbers. You’ve disgraced your ancestors.” No one believed me but my mom. My younger brothers started fighting with me every day because my mom had stopped serving them — and my father — buckwheat khichri and mangos picked raw. Sometimes I think that if God loves his creatures as much as my illiterate mom loved me, then everything will be all right. On the Day of Judgement, all my sins will be forgiven and mullahs won’t get hot from eating khichri and mangos. I hope to God this proves true!
‘Well, whatever. The thing was that I had no idea that my uncle was already well acquainted with Tamizan. I swear on my youth! If I’d had the slightest doubt, I’d have kept my feelings to myself, and let him have his jollies. Man, in my youth, my pulse was so strong it beat like a hammer. I was handsome too. And strong. If I grabbed a girl’s wrist, she wouldn’t want me to let go. Anyway, those were the days. I was saying that the cure was worse than the disease. To cool me down, I had to drink heaping bowls of thandai sherbet, coriander juice, and goat’s thorn potions three times a day. And twice a day I had to eat bland bread with salt-less, chilli-less kothmir chutney. In those days, everyone called me Brother Kothmir. My father was terribly upset by the whole ordeal. He was sceptical to begin with. Now whenever he heard about a child being born without a father anywhere in town, he looked at me with fire in his eyes. Whenever he saw a girl walking quickly through the neighbourhood, he assumed I was stalking her. His health got worse fast. His enemies spread the rumour that Tamizan had turned his beard grey overnight. He agreed. In order to humiliate me, he made me wear a beet-red lungi that was brighter than a railway guard’s flag, and, instead of a neem twig, he made me carry around a full branch, which was bigger than me. On Shankarat, I cut eight kites with it. In childhood, you can really feel like a king. In those days, if someone had given me King Solomon’s throne, a hoopoe, and the Queen of Sheba, I wouldn’t have been as happy as I was from cutting a single kite. Man, I wish I could have some roasted makhana [fox nuts]. It’s been ages. I don’t remember what they taste like. My mom made them so good. Man, I made my mom so upset.’
Thinking of his mother made tears well up in his eyes.
Massacre of His Ancestors
Regardless of his present duties, Khalifa was still thinking about horses:
The smell of the black horse still wafts from his pillow.9
One day he said to Maulana Karamat Hussain, ‘Maulana, all I know is that if you don’t discipline kids and conveyances, you’ll never, ever get them under control. That was the reason why Nadir Shah jumped from his elephant’s howdah and, in a rage, started to massacre others. He massacred all my ancestors like he was cutting carrots and radishes in the field. He even speared the suckling babes and threw them to the side. He didn’t leave even one man standing.’ Maulana looked at him over the edge of his glasses, which were set on the end of his nose. Then he said, ‘Khalifa, there hasn’t been a single conflict in the last five hundred years in which you haven’t killed off your ancestors one by one. If your seed was massacred, if your ancestors were all killed one by one, how is it that you’re alive today?’ He said, ‘Through the blessings of pious souls like you!’
Out of all his ancestors, he took the most pride in his paternal grandfather about whom he knew only one thing: that when he was eighty-five, he could still thread a needle. Khalifa was so impressed, no, overawed, with this fact that he didn’t worry himself about what his grandfather did with the needle after threading it.
5.
The Car’s New Look
One day near the T-intersection at Robson Road, the car broke down near Afkar magazine’s office. He yoked it to a donkey-cart and had it taken to Lawrence Road. This time the mechanic had pity upon him. He said, ‘You’re a good man. When are you going to stop ruining yourself? Trying to do things on the cheap kills a businessman, and a bad ride like this kills the passenger. I’ve heard of a car running over someone, but this piece of shit is killing the person sitting inside it! Listen to me. Cut off its body, and put a truck’s frame onto its chassis. Use it to take lumber here and there. My brother-in-law just opened an auto-body shop. He’ll do it for half price. I’ll rebore your engine for 200 rupees. I charge 675 to others. Once the car gets its new look, you won’t recognize it.’