This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (55 page)

The house where Hafizji lived was not very large, but it housed only his immediate family. It was built in the style of other houses in Lahore of that period: a sitting room beside the entrance doorway to the house, then an open aangan with smaller rooms opening off it, and a bathroom. An iron grille acted as a roof over the aangan. From the aangan a staircase led to the upper floor, with a large room that overlooked the gali, two smaller rooms to left and right of the iron grille, and a kitchen.

Hafizji was happy that Ahmed Ali, his elder son, was reaping the benefit of his father’s long record of government service, and had been appointed sub divisional officer in the Department of Canals. His current posting was in the district of Brar. Hafizji’s second son Amjad Ali, the sub-inspector of police, was stationed at Amritsar.

The outgoing British administration had given its public servants and armed forces personnel the option of taking postings either in Hindustan or Pakistan. Amjad Ali had opted to go to Pakistan. It had already been announced that Amritsar would become a part of Hindustan. Hafizji waited, with a sense of uneasiness, for his son to come to Lahore on his new posting, but he also felt reassured by the thought that Amjad was an officer in the police force. Who could be more protected and safer than he? He also took comfort from the knowledge that either the British administration or the new government of Hindustan would see to it that his son returned safely to Pakistan.

Hafizji’s three daughters were married. They were all, thanks be to Allah, blessed with children and living contented lives with their in-laws. Ahmed
Ali spent most of his time on official tours. His son Anwar was a college student. In view of her son’s education, Ahmed Ali’s wife Khursheed, along with her thirteen-year-old daughter Farzana and eight-year-old Qamaroo, lived with her father-in-law in Lahore. Her third child, Hajra, was a two-year-old toddler.

Members of Hafizji’s household reflected the influence of his beliefs and values. His wife the begum, and her daughter-in-law gave a warm welcome to Tara in her suffering and injured condition. They gave her a hot bath, sent for medicine for her wounds and fever. Then they set up a charpoy for her upstairs, in the airy room that opened on to the gali.

Tara refused to eat anything, in spite of the well-intentioned appeals of Hafizji’s begum and daughter-in-law. Hafizji tried to change her mind, sitting on a chair beside her charpoy, ‘Beti, how will you get well if you continue to starve yourself like this? You’re trying to kill yourself. Don’t you have faith in Allah’s mercy?’

Tara admitted, her eyes downcast, that her life was not worth living. Since the only wish she had was to die, what other recourse did she have but to keep up her fast until death?

Hafizji spoke to her lovingly, ‘Beti, how can someone as educated and intelligent as yourself talk so foolishly? What sin are you trying to atone for by killing yourself? You are an innocent victim. The person who committed the crime should be punished for it. If the victim is punished instead of the offender, this would be an even greater crime. Tell me, if you starve yourself to death, what effect will that have on that badmaash Nabbu? It’s we who are affected by your starving yourself. To blackmail people by the threat of starving oneself is the act of a stupid uneducated woman. Or Gandhi, who brought it in as a political manoeuvre. When he feels that he does not have a good argument, he tries to frighten others with the threat of starving himself to death. The British used to pay attention to him only because they saw him as their ally against the Muslim League.

‘Beti, what you should do is to get your health back, and then help other right-minded people to rid this world of badness. Why think of the past? Why don’t you think of the future? Why not have faith in Allah’s mercy? If you kill yourself in our house, it would cause problems and difficulties for us, not for an evildoer like Nabbu.’

Tara had no answer to the simple logic of Hafizji. And how long could she go on being ungrateful to those who were helping her so selflessly? The
thought of the problems that her death would create for Hafizji’s family weakened her resolve. She forced herself to eat a little now and then.

Because of the unrest and the daily curfews, the delivery of milk from the countryside to the city had all but ceased. Still, the begum would force Tara to drink about three quarters of a glass of milk twice a day. The begum and Khursheed would often curse those opposing the formation of Pakistan. Except for Qamaroo and the toddler, everyone in the family was observing the Ramadan fasts. When the begum saved something from the sahari for the two girls to eat during the day, she kept a share for Tara too. The chapattis were cooked in the kitchen from wheat, as they were in Tara’s home. The same kinds of vegetables were bought from the bazaar, but cooked in a way that made them taste differently from what Tara was used to. That was another reason for her reluctance to eat.

Tara began to recover in a few days’ time. One day after the morning namaz of fazr, Hafizji had a chair put beside her charpoy, and began to read to her from the Quran. He would pause to explain the meaning and to elucidate some passages. He had especially selected passages where Allah was described as
wadahul mutwakkill
—most merciful, most compassionate, omniscient, omnipotent and supreme, and Mohammed as his last prophet. And passages that described those with faith in Allah and his prophet going to heaven, and warned that unbelievers would burn forever in the fires of hell. Hafizji would be droning away with his preaching, but Tara’s thoughts would drift away to her own problems. For her, these sermons soon became as distasteful as being forced to eat a tasteless meal without having any appetite.

For the first few days, Khursheed and her mother-in-law talked to Tara about nothing but her injuries, about how she felt, and about her tastes in food. Feeling strong one day, Tara got up from the charpoy and sat on a chatai spread on the floor. Khursheed came and sat beside her, holding a dress for the toddler into which she was putting basting stitches. As Khursheed continued to sew, she began to ask Tara how she had fallen into the hands of that badmaash Nabbu. Tara told her briefly about the incident of the attack on the house of her in-laws, and how she had escaped by climbing over the wall onto the neighbour’s roof.

Khursheed asked with friendly concern, ‘Hai, there must have been your husband’s mother and sisters, and other women in the house. Didn’t you call out to them or your husband for help?’

Despite her reluctance and embarrassment to talk about it, but mindful of the kindness of Khursheed and the begum, Tara narrated, gradually and haltingly, how vengeful and cruel Somraj had been on their first night together. She could not avoid the mention of her own unwillingness to marry Somraj. There was no reason or point in mentioning the attraction between herself and Asad.

Both Khursheed and the begum bad-mouthed Tara’s in-laws, and the inhuman treatment meted out to her by her husband, and then condemned the Hindu system that allowed such injustices and unfair treatment. They said, ‘Such unfairness could never happen in our Muslim community. Before the nikah is performed among us, the mullah always asks the bride-to-be for her consent. If she says no, the ceremony can never go forward. In our Muslim community, the groom has to declare publicly and in accordance with the bride’s social status, the amount of the bride’s meher, the settlement due to her if he divorces her. This can go as high as eight or ten thousand rupees. If the man wants to leave the woman, he has to pay up. There couldn’t be such cruelty among Muslims …’

Despite the misfortunes that she had suffered, Tara felt it was unfair to blame all Hindus for the unfortunate consequences of certain customs and traditions. She could not resist answering the women that the custom of asking the girl’s consent, together with the rule that the wedding could take place only after she gave that consent, existed in the Hindu religion also. And that the problem was not in the theory, but in the practice. She also remembered Nabbu’s treatment of Rukkan, but mentioning that now did not seem appropriate.

That evening Hafizji was still upstairs after ending his fast. Since the Shariah ruled that one avoid any type of smell or aroma that could excite appetite during the hours of the fast, the preparations for dinner began in the household of Hafazji only at sunset, after the ending of the fast. Waiting for dinner to be cooked, Hafizji sat in the open air on a charpoy that was set on the iron grille covering the aangan, smoking his hookah and chatting with his wife, daughter-in-law and the children of the family.

The begum brought up the topic of the contrasting status of women in Hindu and Muslin communities. Hafizji explained in great detail that the Hindu culture was primitive and barbarian. As in savage tribes, he said, the Hindus considered a woman to be family property, and the burning of a widow on the pyre of her husband to be a pious act. What other proof did
one need of their barbarism? Unlike Hinduism, Islam gives both sons and daughters equal shares in the family inheritance. Both men and women have the right to ask for a divorce. A man may not have more than four wives at one time. The Hindus did not draw the line even at one thousand wives.

Tara listened, her eyes downcast. Wasn’t it absurd that such sanctimonious claims of liberalism and equality with men were made by purdah-keeping families, and by women who had to hide behind a burka because they could not show their face to a man other than a close relative? But this was not the occasion for argument or a show of disagreement, nor was there any sense in doing so. Next morning, when Hafizji began to read to her from the Quran, she found it more annoying than usual. ‘What difference does it make to me who’s a Hindu and who’s a Muslim?’ she asked herself. She was not particularly religious or sectarian in her outlook, but still she found it unpleasant to hear her family’s customs and traditions being criticized and maligned. All she wanted was to be left alone.

Since Tara spent most of her time lying on a charpoy, dhurrie or chatai, she had little else to do but think. And she had become tired of thinking. What was left to think about? How much longer could she think back on what had happened in the space of one night and the following day? All that did was to give her headaches. Whatever she thought was going to happen, never happened. What did happen was what she could have never have expected or imagined.

Even if she did not want to think about anything, her mind could not remain idle. Was all this written in her fate, she could not help but ask herself, and what more was left that could happen to her? At one time she had determined to kill herself when her brother had falsely accused her; now she was still alive after going through unspeakable humiliations. Why couldn’t she hang herself with her dupatta at night, when everybody was asleep? But she wouldn’t be able to die if that was not to be her destiny, no matter how hard she tried. She had put her faith in her brother, and he had failed her. If she had defied her family and continued to refuse to get married, would that shame have been harder to bear than her present fate? What could Somraj really do to harm her?

Tara felt grateful to the family that had been so kind and sympathetic to her. In this spirit of thankfulness she began to help Khursheed with some household chores. She asked Khursheed for the dress she was sewing for her munni, and finished it expertly, with a flower embroidered on the front.
She did not like to eat alone when everybody else was keeping the fast. When everyone ate the sahari before sunrise, she too ate something with them. She did not feel hungry at that time, but that saved her from staying hungry for the rest of the day. The family, including the girls, noticed and appreciated this consideration for their feelings.

Tara was living in comfort and safety with the family in their house, but the news she heard from outside was a source of worry and despair for her. Anwar was always reporting how victorious the supporters of Pakistan had been in the city, and how large numbers of Muslims were arriving from the east, and how Hindus were fleeing to the east. Whenever old Naseeban, the family’s housemaid, returned from talking with the neighbours, she always spoke of incidents of arson and murder. When Kalu, the old latrine-cleaner came, he would sometimes excitedly speak of how the Hindus had abandoned the neighbourhood of Lohe ka Talab after most of it had been gutted by fire. At other times, he brought back rumours of Gwal Mandi and Old Anarkali being on fire and Hindus running away before the relentless march of the Pakistani juggernaut.

Hafizji had been told that Tara had studied up to the BA level. He gave her two books to read in the hope of setting her mind at ease. The books, published by Jamayat-e-Islami, were
The Life of God
, and
The Scientific Religion of Islam
. But Tara found them tedious reading, and full of important-sounding but meaningless words. The family was orthodox Muslim, but well meaning, she decided. How long could she continue to be a burden on them? But where else could she go? She would have to find a place somewhere. And where could she go but back to her parents? She had yielded to their wishes and agreed to get married. Now at least they would have to let her do as she wished.

A thought flashed through her mind: What if her own family thought that she had run away from her in-laws? There again would be the old question of their prestige! No, that life and those ties for her were now a thing of the past.

Her head would begin to spin in confusion. Another thought crossed her mind, perhaps the Communist Party comrades were still working to stop the Hindu–Muslim conflict and keep the situation peaceful. She was one of the thousands of victims, just like Dauloo mama, of the strife they were trying to prevent. ‘What is an individual’s life worth? And we are all just individuals.’ She thought of Asad too, but that memory was not sweet,
attractive or thrilling as before. She now disliked all men. She tried to blot out such thoughts, but they continued to haunt her, stealing away her sleep and bringing on headaches and muddle-headedness into the bargain.