I’m glad I got out; don’t care if I get worse. Stupid viral would just make me miserable if I stayed indoors all day today. This girl is really nice, but so lost in her own dreamworld. If I was just a little more lesbian I might be interested in her. I’m glad she doesn’t want to talk much either. We don’t know each other at all, come to think of it; but how could I say no:
- I’m going to Daryaganj, want to come?
- Oh. When? I’m not too well, I don’t know.
- About eleven. I don’t know, maybe just rest today.
- Ya, I don’t know.
Do you have company?
- No.
***
Oh shit where is this bus going. Come on. I’ve taken the same one before. Stops near that cinema theatre. Bang in the middle of the books. You pass booksbooksbooks, lining the street before the bus stops. Where is it all? Why on earth are we passing Rajghat?
Oh it’s the other end, is it. She’s least bothered. Good. She doesn’t care. Lovely. Dreamworld is good.
***
How desperate am I man. Daryaganj. No, I can’t buy clothes here. Not that Sarojini Nagar is much better. Bloody hell. She’s such a chhooimui type. She’ll think I’m some bum on the street if I buy clothes here.
- Hey, these look good…
- [YAY]
***
CHAI! Yes! O my god, just what I needed.
Do chai dena yaar. Mathri bachi hai?
I’m trying to blend.
She eats that thing, what is it called...Cheese twist or whatever. Yuck. That crispy thing that makes crumbs all over your clothes.
***
[There’s this distinctly chor-bazaar-ish display of goods at the end of the market.]
- Yeh kitne ka hai?
She wants to buy the fish-lamp. The plastic 80s art-deco piece of shit, a broken fish-tail lampshade. Weird.
- I don’t know you. You want to buy this thing, don’t you.
- Maybe when I have a house of my own.
***
I don’t even want to buy anything. So many books already waiting to be read...
***
- Emily Dickinson!
- You know, I had this thing for her once; you know she’s the kind of writer you pick up in the library and just end up reading on and on for hours...
- I know, same here...
- What’s that one, um...
“A word is dead...”
- “When it is said,
Some say. I say it just...”
- Begins to live
That day.”
***
- What’s that?
- I don’t know, go ask.
- Bhaiyya, yeh kya hai? [- Naankhataai]
- Really? Not like the ones I’ve eaten in Lucknow...
- Yeh kaise banta hai, Bhaiyya? [- Aapke saamne banaa to raha hoon Madam]
[He was making tiny bakery-biscuit sized cakes and heating them on a makeshift tandoor heated by coals on his tthela.
They were absolutely delicious.]
***
Jama Masjid ke liye Madam aap to galat side aa gayeen.
[Chhodo. Next time.]
***
Home, hungry, tired, more broke than before; back to hostel in time to catch leftover Maggi and tepid chai.
A Day in the Life: Turning 35
Prickly. The little hair that starts growing in your armpit like a second after you’ve shaved. Maybe I should get waxed next time. Eek. Somebody else in my armpit. No thanks.
I was slopping on some lotion, it was winter, anyway I’d be breaking into a dry rash any day now. Did I rub harder than usual? Am I just imagining things?
I felt a lump. Right side. Only right side. Nothing on the left. Funny. Never noticed this lump before. Not funny really. I check, recheck. My right and left don’t match.
Something’s wrong. Can’t be. I’m not over fifty. That’s when you’re supposed to go for those regular check-ups and shit. I’m not even forty. Dammit. I’m just a day over thirty five goddammit. It’s nothing. Relax. We just have too much information. Just a recipe for hypochondria. It’s nothing. Just some rough skin. Maybe it’s just a hair follicle gone mad. Ok. Ok. It’s nothing.
Remember when Athimber had bought that big fat medical book, I was eleven, I thought I had breast cancer. Mercifully I just had breasts. It was just the tender tissue of a growing child. Nobody had told me, that’s all.
Maybe I should just call Anand. No, leave it. He’ll be busy, anyway it’s silly to call him at work for something so small. If it hadn’t been for this meeting at this odd hour, I’d just have been at work myself. Not at home, time to kill.
Maybe it’s something to do with the hormones. Ya, that’s got to be it. Why can’t we just have a kid like everybody else does. Dammit. All these fucking hormones. If my body isn’t ready how the hell do they want to force it. I wonder if he gets weird side effects. Must ask him. Maybe he thinks I’ll get worried if he tells me. He never tells me anything. No, wait. That was the last doctor. Anand isn’t taking any supplements anymore. Or is he?
Dammit.
Better just go to the bloody meeting, so much better things to do.
I was slopping on some lotion, it was winter, anyway I’d be breaking into a dry rash any day now. Did I rub harder than usual? Am I just imagining things?
I felt a lump. Right side. Only right side. Nothing on the left. Funny. Never noticed this lump before. Not funny really. I check, recheck. My right and left don’t match.
Something’s wrong. Can’t be. I’m not over fifty. That’s when you’re supposed to go for those regular check-ups and shit. I’m not even forty. Dammit. I’m just a day over thirty five goddammit. It’s nothing. Relax. We just have too much information. Just a recipe for hypochondria. It’s nothing. Just some rough skin. Maybe it’s just a hair follicle gone mad. Ok. Ok. It’s nothing.
Remember when Athimber had bought that big fat medical book, I was eleven, I thought I had breast cancer. Mercifully I just had breasts. It was just the tender tissue of a growing child. Nobody had told me, that’s all.
Maybe I should just call Anand. No, leave it. He’ll be busy, anyway it’s silly to call him at work for something so small. If it hadn’t been for this meeting at this odd hour, I’d just have been at work myself. Not at home, time to kill.
Maybe it’s something to do with the hormones. Ya, that’s got to be it. Why can’t we just have a kid like everybody else does. Dammit. All these fucking hormones. If my body isn’t ready how the hell do they want to force it. I wonder if he gets weird side effects. Must ask him. Maybe he thinks I’ll get worried if he tells me. He never tells me anything. No, wait. That was the last doctor. Anand isn’t taking any supplements anymore. Or is he?
Dammit.
Better just go to the bloody meeting, so much better things to do.
Discovering Agha Shahid Ali
Another stumble-upon find. Anyone familiar with this poet please quote some more!
Not much pirated stuff of his online. Must go hunt for his poetry.
This I found at a blog by one Eduardo C. Corral. Thanks Eduardo!
_______________________________
I remember Tha'mma from The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh; Ghosh seems to have been influenced by Agha Shahid Ali - he has written about him;
it's that same kind of absent sadness with which she asks where the borders are...
This is one poet worth pursuing.
Links to:
THE SHADOW LINES by Amitav Ghosh [via Google Books]
THE COUNTRY WITHOUT A POST OFFICE by Agha Shahid Ali [via Google Books]
Not much pirated stuff of his online. Must go hunt for his poetry.
This I found at a blog by one Eduardo C. Corral. Thanks Eduardo!
The Dacca Gauzes
. . . for a whole year he sought to accumulate the most exquisite Dacca gauzes.
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Those transparent Dacca gauzes
known as woven air, running
water, evening dew:
a dead art now, dead over
a hundred years. "No one
now knows," my grandmother says,
"what it was to wear
or touch that cloth." She wore
it once, an heirloom sari from
her mother's dowry, proved
genuine when it was pulled, all
six yards, through a ring.
Years later when it tore,
many handkerchiefs embroidered
with gold-thread paisleys
were distributed among
the nieces and daughters-in-law.
Those too now lost.
In history we learned: the hands
of weavers were amputated,
the looms of Bengal silenced,
and the cotton shipped raw
by the British to England.
History of little use to her,
my grandmother just says
how the muslins of today
seem so coarse and that only
in autumn, should one wake up
at dawn to pray, can one
feel that same texture again.
One morning, she says, the air
was dew-starched: she pulled
it absently through her ring.
_______________________________
I remember Tha'mma from The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh; Ghosh seems to have been influenced by Agha Shahid Ali - he has written about him;
it's that same kind of absent sadness with which she asks where the borders are...
This is one poet worth pursuing.
Links to:
THE SHADOW LINES by Amitav Ghosh [via Google Books]
THE COUNTRY WITHOUT A POST OFFICE by Agha Shahid Ali [via Google Books]
Sanity>Serendipity aka Normalcy>Writing
Really, if you are looking for connections, they will pop up everywhere. EVERYwhere!
As far fetched as this:
(After having (auto-) evoked interest in Jeet Thayil, I look him up online. I find some forum, in which [verbatim]:)
But that aside, I'm even seeing this Jai Malhar's attitude as a marvelous coincidence, because I feel the same way about so many artistes whom I discover.
Have now given self kick and advised self to control impulse to create serendipity.
If this made no sense whatsoever to you, dear co-crawler of cyberspace, it just goes to show how far gone I am.
Sigh.
I'm going to go study Economics now. P.S. Poor JM and bb are in for a shock next time they Google themselves (oh wait, don't tell me even that is something only I do?!)
As far fetched as this:
(After having (auto-) evoked interest in Jeet Thayil, I look him up online. I find some forum, in which [verbatim]:)
Now quite apart from the fact that I have an irrational dislike for "best" as a signoff, this bb character seems to be one of those classic asking-the-obvious types.What do you think of Jeet Thayil? I once wandered into a book store and there was some desi looking dude reading poetry in a sombre voice, like somebody had just died, but I sat down and liked what he was reading. Later, I looked up his name in the bookstore's schedule of readings and found the name Jeet Thayil. Since then, I have looked upon him as some sort of a protege of mine, for no good reason of course. I haven't read any of his poetry, but still, I look at his career with great avuncular interest.so miya malhar ji, are the troops that you lead all poets? your comment about jeet thayil being your protege intrigues me. so you write poetry? i was not terribly impressed with jeet's poems. they reek of '21st century wastelandesque' angst. not that that's a bad thing:) just not my kind of thing. will ruminate some more on thayil and give you my response best, bb***Bhenji, Of course I don't write poetry. I can barely write prose. I regard him as a protege because I once walked into a book store and he was reading poetry. This sort of thing forms a bond. It's a guy thing.
But that aside, I'm even seeing this Jai Malhar's attitude as a marvelous coincidence, because I feel the same way about so many artistes whom I discover.
Have now given self kick and advised self to control impulse to create serendipity.
If this made no sense whatsoever to you, dear co-crawler of cyberspace, it just goes to show how far gone I am.
Sigh.
I'm going to go study Economics now. P.S. Poor JM and bb are in for a shock next time they Google themselves (oh wait, don't tell me even that is something only I do?!)
The poetic and the prosaic
I went to a Landmark today, the Fox Books in India these days, it seems. My dad was promoted recently; what this translates to, in real terms, is among other things a car-and-driver at disposal. Anyone's disposal. The per day mileage limit is so huge that Lucknow could not possibly use it all up. We've even been to Kanpur and back.
Anyway.
So I had the car today, much to my discomfort; not being used to royal treatment and all. So I had to deliver my day's plan to the folks first, before I could just up it and go, like I could if I didn't have to see if the driver had time for lunch, etc. etc. etc. But let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.
My first stop was Wave, a mall on the side of my house closer to Polytechnic and further from Hazratganj, where I was headed next. I went up to Landmark first, with Kundera on my mind. I just finished Ignorance, and after The Unbearable Lightness of Being and now this, I wanted more. As it happened, I found The Art of the Novel, which had been recommended. When I read the blurb, and the first few pages, I put it down. Sadly, this is exactly the kind of stuff I don't want to read right now. As if Terry Eagleton is not enough, not to mention Gauri Viswanathan, Edward Said, Raymond Williams and countless others whom I have to read as part of the English Hons. syllabus.
Then I didn't pick up Life is Elsewhere, [although come on, that's such a lovely title; like The Sun Also Rises. Sigh.] because I have an ebook version. Free.
There was also Testaments Betrayed, which was just a tad too obscure. Even for me.
So I wandered around.
Then I remembered S mentioning a book on Delhi, something that had gone out of and come back into print. Of course I had no clue what it was called.
So I go to the counter and ask the woman there to run a search on all books with "Delhi" in the title. She says But that'll show you even travel guides and stuff. I say Fine, I'll look. The list wasn't very long anyway, but nothing familiar showed up.
I call S, who is mercifully not asleep at 1 pm, and ask
- So what is that book on Delhi?
- City of Djinns.
- [No. Geez.] The one with kabootarbaazi in it (why it had been mentioned in the first place)?
- Oh, um, er.
- [Great.]
- No, wait.
- [Uh-huh. Lovely. Balance running out. Roaming charges. Drat. MTNL phones can't be recharged in non-Mahanagar towns.] Author?
- Er...Aijaz Ahmed...
- Can't be!
- No, no, something like that...
Something about...um...
AHMAD ALI!
The woman looks, finds it,
Twilight in Delhi! J and S yell.
Sigh of relief. Ok, got it.
- It's not in stock. You can place an order though.
- Does that mean I have to buy it?
Tough. I like a little leeway, man. That's why I hate the college Reference Section. You can't browse.
So I place the bloody order. There are by the way 3 hits for this search, Rs. 95, 195 and 295. Naturally I want the first one. Turns out that was from the 1993 inventory. So now it's either 195 or 100 more. No prizes for guessing which one I picked.
Khair, still undaunted, I continue to browse. After looking through a depressing Non-Fiction section which is full of terrorism and religions of saffron and all other colours, I return in the general direction of Kundera, and then decide to spice up my life by going to the other side of the same shelf (which you can't lean against, by the way, it just slides away!).
Then a board boldly declares, POETRY, so I look for Emily Dickinson, whom I didn't buy in Daryaganj last time; I spent my last bit 150 bucks there on a jacket instead. No, poetry does NOT keep me warm.
I don't find her, but stumble instead upon Jeet Thayil, whose name I had heard [here] only recently, not knowing he was a poet. So to create serendipity, I opened These Errors Are Correct and found a poem called 'My Paris'. I read,
I like this line so much (and of course one of the songs I knew, but anyway) that I wanted to copy it down. So I take out my handy pen and notepad and begin to write.
As finish writing Maybe, this chap in Landmark sanctioned uniform comes and says
- Madam yeh allowed nahin hai.
- Kya?
- Copying.
- Are you serious?
- Yes, Ma'am, yeh allowed nahin hai.
- So you mean I should memorize this?
- Memorize kar lijiye...
- You realize you're killing any creative impulse.
- Ma'am...
- MAYBE ON THE METRO
SINGING MY THREE AND A HALF SONGS. Not going to forget this anytime soon. [Fume and storm out happily]
Yes, it was unnecessary. I agree.
Perhaps I just needed to vent somewhere.
Now what's eating me is that S was the one who recommended The Art of the Novel, which I didn't like, and S who recommended Twilight in Delhi. Hmm. Hakuna matata.
Did I mention I also bought much-needed new shoes today? And also much-needed second pair of jeans?
So not a wasted day after all!
Anyway.
So I had the car today, much to my discomfort; not being used to royal treatment and all. So I had to deliver my day's plan to the folks first, before I could just up it and go, like I could if I didn't have to see if the driver had time for lunch, etc. etc. etc. But let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.
My first stop was Wave, a mall on the side of my house closer to Polytechnic and further from Hazratganj, where I was headed next. I went up to Landmark first, with Kundera on my mind. I just finished Ignorance, and after The Unbearable Lightness of Being and now this, I wanted more. As it happened, I found The Art of the Novel, which had been recommended. When I read the blurb, and the first few pages, I put it down. Sadly, this is exactly the kind of stuff I don't want to read right now. As if Terry Eagleton is not enough, not to mention Gauri Viswanathan, Edward Said, Raymond Williams and countless others whom I have to read as part of the English Hons. syllabus.
Then I didn't pick up Life is Elsewhere, [although come on, that's such a lovely title; like The Sun Also Rises. Sigh.] because I have an ebook version. Free.
There was also Testaments Betrayed, which was just a tad too obscure. Even for me.
So I wandered around.
Then I remembered S mentioning a book on Delhi, something that had gone out of and come back into print. Of course I had no clue what it was called.
So I go to the counter and ask the woman there to run a search on all books with "Delhi" in the title. She says But that'll show you even travel guides and stuff. I say Fine, I'll look. The list wasn't very long anyway, but nothing familiar showed up.
I call S, who is mercifully not asleep at 1 pm, and ask
- So what is that book on Delhi?
- City of Djinns.
- [No. Geez.] The one with kabootarbaazi in it (why it had been mentioned in the first place)?
- Oh, um, er.
- [Great.]
- No, wait.
- [Uh-huh. Lovely. Balance running out. Roaming charges. Drat. MTNL phones can't be recharged in non-Mahanagar towns.] Author?
- Er...Aijaz Ahmed...
- Can't be!
- No, no, something like that...
Something about...um...
AHMAD ALI!
The woman looks, finds it,
Twilight in Delhi! J and S yell.
Sigh of relief. Ok, got it.
- It's not in stock. You can place an order though.
- Does that mean I have to buy it?
Tough. I like a little leeway, man. That's why I hate the college Reference Section. You can't browse.
So I place the bloody order. There are by the way 3 hits for this search, Rs. 95, 195 and 295. Naturally I want the first one. Turns out that was from the 1993 inventory. So now it's either 195 or 100 more. No prizes for guessing which one I picked.
Khair, still undaunted, I continue to browse. After looking through a depressing Non-Fiction section which is full of terrorism and religions of saffron and all other colours, I return in the general direction of Kundera, and then decide to spice up my life by going to the other side of the same shelf (which you can't lean against, by the way, it just slides away!).
Then a board boldly declares, POETRY, so I look for Emily Dickinson, whom I didn't buy in Daryaganj last time; I spent my last bit 150 bucks there on a jacket instead. No, poetry does NOT keep me warm.
I don't find her, but stumble instead upon Jeet Thayil, whose name I had heard [here] only recently, not knowing he was a poet. So to create serendipity, I opened These Errors Are Correct and found a poem called 'My Paris'. I read,
Maybe on the Metro
singing my three and a half songs
I like this line so much (and of course one of the songs I knew, but anyway) that I wanted to copy it down. So I take out my handy pen and notepad and begin to write.
As finish writing Maybe, this chap in Landmark sanctioned uniform comes and says
- Madam yeh allowed nahin hai.
- Kya?
- Copying.
- Are you serious?
- Yes, Ma'am, yeh allowed nahin hai.
- So you mean I should memorize this?
- Memorize kar lijiye...
- You realize you're killing any creative impulse.
- Ma'am...
- MAYBE ON THE METRO
SINGING MY THREE AND A HALF SONGS. Not going to forget this anytime soon. [Fume and storm out happily]
Yes, it was unnecessary. I agree.
Perhaps I just needed to vent somewhere.
Now what's eating me is that S was the one who recommended The Art of the Novel, which I didn't like, and S who recommended Twilight in Delhi. Hmm. Hakuna matata.
Did I mention I also bought much-needed new shoes today? And also much-needed second pair of jeans?
So not a wasted day after all!
हो गई है पीर परबत सी, पिघलनी चाहिए
इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकालनी चाहिए
हर सड़क, पर हर गली, हर गाँव में
हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए
सिर्फ़ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं
मेरी कोशिश है की यह सूरत बदलनी चाहिए
मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही
हो कहीं भी आग लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए।
by Dushyant दुष्यन्त
इस हिमालय से कोई गंगा निकालनी चाहिए
हर सड़क, पर हर गली, हर गाँव में
हाथ लहराते हुए हर लाश चलनी चाहिए
सिर्फ़ हंगामा खड़ा करना मेरा मकसद नहीं
मेरी कोशिश है की यह सूरत बदलनी चाहिए
मेरे सीने में नहीं तो तेरे सीने में सही
हो कहीं भी आग लेकिन आग जलनी चाहिए।
by Dushyant दुष्यन्त
The Case of the Elusive Curio
They must have been grey.
I never knew the colour of his eyes, but I had heard the soft cadence of his Urdu a thousand times, and once, only once, caught a glimpse of neat fingertips through the chink in the door.
After Nana died, everything went haywire. So what if the girls were going to England to study. They were expected to respect the zenana there as well. God knows whether they ever wore the burqa in London as they were meant to, but we made it clear to them that if they tried to sow wild oats abroad, we would come to know, and consequences would be dire. They lived in Golders’ Green. What did they think? That Ashraf mian and his brothers would not keep an eye on them?
At home, I was very strict about the zenana. I would hear of no frivolities like these girls like to indulge in – giggling away about which boy said what to whom, how he looked at which sister. I know I was one of them, but I was a good ten years older than Rafiya, the next one after me, and you, Shabnam, jaan, whom I had to bring up like a mother after Ammi went.
I was going to be married to Amjad sahab, he was Ammi’s uncle’s grandson, a very bright spark they said. My age, because he had been in Jeddah for several years, unable to afford a ticket back home for a long while. Of course, by the time we were finally married he was rolling in riches, he had bought a Mercedes and what not.
I was really happy with Amjad; it feels so strange, Shabnam, to say his name, but you insist so! Why you want me to, I just cannot understand! But then if you want to hear the story, what can I do, I’ll try.
He treated me very well, you know, he was one of those “modern” types – the sort that wants his wife to talk openly about her desires; you can understand now, jaan, can’t you? You’re a married woman after all. But he was very particular about maintaining the purdah. I’m glad. I did not wish to wear those dresses and hijabs that seemed to be so popular in Jeddah.
But look, you can’t expect me to talk of him without recollecting every old memory...no, not Amjad, I mean him, the one you are so curious about.
He was just a boy, Shabbo, and I was very mature for my age – Ammi went and I had to be strong. He had just come from London, he had met our sisters there on Id-ul-bakr. It was nothing compared with the daawat at home, of course, but I think it was then that he began to think of our family like his own. No one knew why he divorced himself from his real family later – they were the best of people...they say it was because of some girl, it was inappropriate alliance...no one ever knew exactly, but he was lonely even before, a rift was always there. Strange, he would tell me everything, but never this. It was apparent that he was in love with someone; no one could speak like that otherwise. But you know what was surprising – he spoke like a shaayar but wrote rather badly – he was dabbling in Farsi as well as Sanskrit at the time – some fancy research in England. But he was perhaps destined to study language, not master it.
Even so, I don’t know if this was even correct sentence structure, not knowing Farsi myself, but he had just read that famous inscription at Lal Qila and was deep in thought over it for many days. After which he passed a chit to me, in neat, if slightly immature handwriting,
Jahan-e-ishq zaminast
Salim, aashiq haminast
What he meant, I think, was,
There is a world of love on earth,
Salim, the lover is here.
He brooded over this so much, as if it had some hidden meaning. This meaning became clear later, but then I was too thrilled to see his handwriting, and read his poetry, preserve it, rather than hearing it through the crack in the door.
This door was locked. It had been for over a hundred years. This house, you know, was built in Bahadur Shah Zafar’s time, two families made their home in it, a wall was erected, and a door put in place, in simpler times, if ever a neighbourly service be called upon.
Salim began to talk to me by chance; I had just been married, Amjad had flown off to Jeddah again, it would be a year before he could return – some bureaucratic reasons. I was standing there, by the door, on my side of the wall. Nobody was home. I couldn’t stand the silence; said, to no one, “Aaine se baat karoon kya? Shall I talk to the mirrors? Huge mansion of a house and not a soul here”.
And to my surprise, a voice answered, “You can talk to me. I think we both need a friend”. He said “raazdan”, keeper of secrets, so hard to translate that word...
We poured our souls out; he was right, we both needed a friendly ear. After that we began meeting at night, when everyone was asleep. People assumed I could not sleep because Amjad was away, and I was restless. This was very true, but curiosity was what pulled me to the locked door night after night.
I don’t want you to think badly of me, I saw him as a confidante; not really an older brother, because he was younger than me, and boyish in his ways too – raazdan is the only word that can accurately describe it. We never saw each other, it was only fitting. I was, after all, married to Amjad and very much in love with him – perhaps distance did make the heart grow fonder. My letters to Amjad speak as much – I would not show those letters even to you, Shabbo Rani!
But Salim understood me, and my desire to see the world, and how it conflicted with my rigid views about the zenana.
“Your place is not here, begum, it is in the bright yellow afternoon in Hyde Park, in England where the sun shines till ten o’clock in the summer”, he’d say. “Begum, I have found this perfect little spot to hide treasure – where two apple trees crisscross in the park, a left from Speakers’ Corner and fifty feet as the crow flies”.
Such a boy, I tell you, adventure and treasure were no fantasy for him, they were that real.
I met Salim in October, by next September Amjad sent word that he would be returning in two months. The day I received the letter was the day Salim disappeared. No one ever heard of him again, not even when Ariba Hasan, you remember our second cousin, went to Rome and tried to look him up – rumour had it that had been planning to run off to Italy for a long time.
I might have been the last one to speak to Salim before he vanished...
He heard the news of Amjad’s impending return and said mysteriously, “There is something I have ordered to be made for you, begum, in Venice. A curio especially for you, to thank you for your patience. You will find it when the time is right, and I hope you do not find it soon, because I know you would forget me otherwise, but your curiosity will keep you from forgetting!”
I asked him what it was, what curio?
But he said if he tried to pass to me, the crack in the door would open so wide it could never be mended.
“You’ll find it, begum, it rests where you belong”.
Shabnam, I can’t tell you the anguish this little mystery caused me. Amjad, as you know, never returned, God bless his soul. My heart was broken, I was widowed after having spent no more than a few months with my husband. When I needed a friend the most, my Salim was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low for him, and for that accursed curio he had promised me – I was certain it would lead me to him. I asked everyone, I abandoned all shame, revealing I had been talking to him – I was a widow, I had no need for pretence – I had never been in love with Salim, I was not adulterous, he was my friend, keeper of my secrets. I asked everyone we knew, everyone who knew him. By then we had international dialling on our telephone, I telephoned people in Italy whose numbers I had to hunt for like a raving lunatic. I looked for him in London, seeing England through the eyes of our sisters who would call from there, and report, always, nothing, nothing, give it up, Aapi, give it up, he has left us, forget him, have you no shame left, grieve for your dead husband.
It came back to me years later, when you had also moved to London. That is why I let go of any remaining concerns of propriety and asked you and your husband – bless him, he’s a saint – to fly me to England. Don’t feel bad, Shabbo, jaan, I really missed you, but you were not the only reason for my wanting to come here. It came back to me, you see, his silly treasure map! It was in Hyde Park, buried, it had to be!
I wonder sometimes whether it was all a ploy to draw me out of my zenana, travel to his England, his London. But how did he know I would do it for him? Travel all the way? What if I were married still? But these are questions that have no answer, Shabbo, no answer.
This is what I found. It’s a paperweight. I mean it was. Now it’s just fragments, of course. I could see the paper inside it, it was made to be broken to read the note inside the glass.
You can read it, go ahead. It is very simple, all it says is
“It was you, my begum –
Where love exists under the earth,
And the lover is here”
I honestly don’t know whether he is even alive still, but I doubt it, Shabbo. My curiosity led me to the elusive curio, but it can’t lead me to him. How did he know I’d come all this way? I never even loved him. How was he so sure?
You made a mistake, Shabnam, you thought you’d get a mystery story out of me. But this is not the kind of mystery that can ever be solved.
What time is it? Ten? Look outside, I don’t understand this country, the sun is still shining.
[Excuse this random detail: Winner of creative writing contest at Litmus 2008, LSR, DU]
I never knew the colour of his eyes, but I had heard the soft cadence of his Urdu a thousand times, and once, only once, caught a glimpse of neat fingertips through the chink in the door.
After Nana died, everything went haywire. So what if the girls were going to England to study. They were expected to respect the zenana there as well. God knows whether they ever wore the burqa in London as they were meant to, but we made it clear to them that if they tried to sow wild oats abroad, we would come to know, and consequences would be dire. They lived in Golders’ Green. What did they think? That Ashraf mian and his brothers would not keep an eye on them?
At home, I was very strict about the zenana. I would hear of no frivolities like these girls like to indulge in – giggling away about which boy said what to whom, how he looked at which sister. I know I was one of them, but I was a good ten years older than Rafiya, the next one after me, and you, Shabnam, jaan, whom I had to bring up like a mother after Ammi went.
I was going to be married to Amjad sahab, he was Ammi’s uncle’s grandson, a very bright spark they said. My age, because he had been in Jeddah for several years, unable to afford a ticket back home for a long while. Of course, by the time we were finally married he was rolling in riches, he had bought a Mercedes and what not.
I was really happy with Amjad; it feels so strange, Shabnam, to say his name, but you insist so! Why you want me to, I just cannot understand! But then if you want to hear the story, what can I do, I’ll try.
He treated me very well, you know, he was one of those “modern” types – the sort that wants his wife to talk openly about her desires; you can understand now, jaan, can’t you? You’re a married woman after all. But he was very particular about maintaining the purdah. I’m glad. I did not wish to wear those dresses and hijabs that seemed to be so popular in Jeddah.
But look, you can’t expect me to talk of him without recollecting every old memory...no, not Amjad, I mean him, the one you are so curious about.
He was just a boy, Shabbo, and I was very mature for my age – Ammi went and I had to be strong. He had just come from London, he had met our sisters there on Id-ul-bakr. It was nothing compared with the daawat at home, of course, but I think it was then that he began to think of our family like his own. No one knew why he divorced himself from his real family later – they were the best of people...they say it was because of some girl, it was inappropriate alliance...no one ever knew exactly, but he was lonely even before, a rift was always there. Strange, he would tell me everything, but never this. It was apparent that he was in love with someone; no one could speak like that otherwise. But you know what was surprising – he spoke like a shaayar but wrote rather badly – he was dabbling in Farsi as well as Sanskrit at the time – some fancy research in England. But he was perhaps destined to study language, not master it.
Even so, I don’t know if this was even correct sentence structure, not knowing Farsi myself, but he had just read that famous inscription at Lal Qila and was deep in thought over it for many days. After which he passed a chit to me, in neat, if slightly immature handwriting,
Jahan-e-ishq zaminast
Salim, aashiq haminast
What he meant, I think, was,
There is a world of love on earth,
Salim, the lover is here.
He brooded over this so much, as if it had some hidden meaning. This meaning became clear later, but then I was too thrilled to see his handwriting, and read his poetry, preserve it, rather than hearing it through the crack in the door.
This door was locked. It had been for over a hundred years. This house, you know, was built in Bahadur Shah Zafar’s time, two families made their home in it, a wall was erected, and a door put in place, in simpler times, if ever a neighbourly service be called upon.
Salim began to talk to me by chance; I had just been married, Amjad had flown off to Jeddah again, it would be a year before he could return – some bureaucratic reasons. I was standing there, by the door, on my side of the wall. Nobody was home. I couldn’t stand the silence; said, to no one, “Aaine se baat karoon kya? Shall I talk to the mirrors? Huge mansion of a house and not a soul here”.
And to my surprise, a voice answered, “You can talk to me. I think we both need a friend”. He said “raazdan”, keeper of secrets, so hard to translate that word...
We poured our souls out; he was right, we both needed a friendly ear. After that we began meeting at night, when everyone was asleep. People assumed I could not sleep because Amjad was away, and I was restless. This was very true, but curiosity was what pulled me to the locked door night after night.
I don’t want you to think badly of me, I saw him as a confidante; not really an older brother, because he was younger than me, and boyish in his ways too – raazdan is the only word that can accurately describe it. We never saw each other, it was only fitting. I was, after all, married to Amjad and very much in love with him – perhaps distance did make the heart grow fonder. My letters to Amjad speak as much – I would not show those letters even to you, Shabbo Rani!
But Salim understood me, and my desire to see the world, and how it conflicted with my rigid views about the zenana.
“Your place is not here, begum, it is in the bright yellow afternoon in Hyde Park, in England where the sun shines till ten o’clock in the summer”, he’d say. “Begum, I have found this perfect little spot to hide treasure – where two apple trees crisscross in the park, a left from Speakers’ Corner and fifty feet as the crow flies”.
Such a boy, I tell you, adventure and treasure were no fantasy for him, they were that real.
I met Salim in October, by next September Amjad sent word that he would be returning in two months. The day I received the letter was the day Salim disappeared. No one ever heard of him again, not even when Ariba Hasan, you remember our second cousin, went to Rome and tried to look him up – rumour had it that had been planning to run off to Italy for a long time.
I might have been the last one to speak to Salim before he vanished...
He heard the news of Amjad’s impending return and said mysteriously, “There is something I have ordered to be made for you, begum, in Venice. A curio especially for you, to thank you for your patience. You will find it when the time is right, and I hope you do not find it soon, because I know you would forget me otherwise, but your curiosity will keep you from forgetting!”
I asked him what it was, what curio?
But he said if he tried to pass to me, the crack in the door would open so wide it could never be mended.
“You’ll find it, begum, it rests where you belong”.
Shabnam, I can’t tell you the anguish this little mystery caused me. Amjad, as you know, never returned, God bless his soul. My heart was broken, I was widowed after having spent no more than a few months with my husband. When I needed a friend the most, my Salim was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low for him, and for that accursed curio he had promised me – I was certain it would lead me to him. I asked everyone, I abandoned all shame, revealing I had been talking to him – I was a widow, I had no need for pretence – I had never been in love with Salim, I was not adulterous, he was my friend, keeper of my secrets. I asked everyone we knew, everyone who knew him. By then we had international dialling on our telephone, I telephoned people in Italy whose numbers I had to hunt for like a raving lunatic. I looked for him in London, seeing England through the eyes of our sisters who would call from there, and report, always, nothing, nothing, give it up, Aapi, give it up, he has left us, forget him, have you no shame left, grieve for your dead husband.
It came back to me years later, when you had also moved to London. That is why I let go of any remaining concerns of propriety and asked you and your husband – bless him, he’s a saint – to fly me to England. Don’t feel bad, Shabbo, jaan, I really missed you, but you were not the only reason for my wanting to come here. It came back to me, you see, his silly treasure map! It was in Hyde Park, buried, it had to be!
I wonder sometimes whether it was all a ploy to draw me out of my zenana, travel to his England, his London. But how did he know I would do it for him? Travel all the way? What if I were married still? But these are questions that have no answer, Shabbo, no answer.
This is what I found. It’s a paperweight. I mean it was. Now it’s just fragments, of course. I could see the paper inside it, it was made to be broken to read the note inside the glass.
You can read it, go ahead. It is very simple, all it says is
“It was you, my begum –
Where love exists under the earth,
And the lover is here”
I honestly don’t know whether he is even alive still, but I doubt it, Shabbo. My curiosity led me to the elusive curio, but it can’t lead me to him. How did he know I’d come all this way? I never even loved him. How was he so sure?
You made a mistake, Shabnam, you thought you’d get a mystery story out of me. But this is not the kind of mystery that can ever be solved.
What time is it? Ten? Look outside, I don’t understand this country, the sun is still shining.
[Excuse this random detail: Winner of creative writing contest at Litmus 2008, LSR, DU]
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