Two Short Novels (10 page)

‘Sire, far be it from me to suggest anything else, but you know the bazaar gossip
. . .
’

‘To be sure we tried to tell Jinnah to keep off Kashmir. But the exalted butchers, and the white skins behind them, have prepared the invasion. They trained the tribesmen under Pakistani officers. They armed them and sent them in army trucks. They have set up an ‘Azad Kashmir’ Government in Rawalpindi, with Muhammad Ibrahim at the head. And they now say we are with them!!!’

Mahmdoo was silent again. The political words of Maqbool Sherwani were too clear to allow him to doubt, though he could not comprehend everything.

‘Do you realise what they have done in Baramula? These “Muslim brothers!
”
In their holy war?’ continued Maqbool. ‘They have looted both Hindus and Muslims. And they took the shame of the women!
. . .
They may soon do the same in Pattan!’

‘As Baramula is richer than Pattan, perhaps it will take a few days for them to collect all the loot!’ said Mahmdoo half from wishfulfilment and half out of bitter humour.

‘But we can’t sit here talking,’ said Maqbool suddenly. ‘I must go ahead
. . .
’

Mahmdoo dared to look up at Maqbool’s face. It was a lean pale face, with the delicate golden broom of youthful fine hair on the upper lip. At once the intelligence of the young man was obvious to the shrewd shopkeeper, but, at the same time, the impetuosity and the lack of mature judgement.

‘Sire, one does not walk into a burning fire,’ counselled Mahmdoo. ‘One allows the flames to die down a little.’

‘But if one makes no effort to extinguish the fire it has a way of spreading,’ said Maqbool. ‘Pattan is not far from Baramula. And, after Pattan, Srinagar is not much further! And they may spread out if they are not stopped at Baramula.’

Mahmdoo could not understand how they were to be stopped at Baramula. Apart from the traditional fatalism of the villager, who had to accept all kinds of tyranny as the inevitable punishment of the poor as the evidence of his guilt in the eyes of Allah, there was the commonsense cunning of the shopkeeper, which was proof against the literate. On the other hand, the Pakistanis were ruffians to send the tribals here, eating up all the chickens. He had heard that there was not one chicken left in Baramula.

‘Sire . . . , ’ Mahmdoo began but could not finish his sentence.

Maqbool understood the man’s meaning from the curious intonation of his voice and the pallor on his face.

‘I will go now, Mahmdoo,’ he said. ‘I will have to leave my motorcycle here.’

This sentence brought a glow on the face of Gula, though it seemed to confuse Mahmdoo.

‘But you must have some warm tea,’ Mahmdoo said heightening with the feeling of traditional hospitality due to a man in the cold and the dark. ‘Gul, go and make some tea.’

Maqbool would have refused if he had not suddenly become possessed with the sense of his failure with Mahmdoo. What was the use of his going to Baramula to rally people, if he could not convince this man? He sat silent with a bent-head seriousness, which compelled Mahmdoo to sympathy.

‘Oh! Gul, hurry, son!’ Mahmdoo shouted after his son.

‘The
samovar
is nearly boiling, Father,’ Gula said. ‘And Babu Ishaq is brewing the tea.’

Mahmdoo’s face suddenly fell as a fat man’s face seldom falls.

‘Ishaq is — that teacher — once a colleague of mine — in the school at Baramula?’ Maqbool asked after a while.

Mahmdoo nodded his head and then after a tense silence said: ‘Never trust a cockeyed fellow!’

Hardly had he declared this dictum when Ishaq appeared at the door, a pale, shrivelled up man, cockeyed and, therefore, lacking in the dignity of weakness which somehow surrounds everyone in the village.

‘The boy won’t take any lessons,’ said Mahmdoo going up to him by the door in an attempt to put him off the scent and to see if he would go away. ‘Gula thinks it is all a holiday
. . .
’

Mahmdoo had never been known to be inhospitable. In fact, his cookshop kept an open-door policy and many, who could not afford to buy food, came there and ate without paying. The teacher almost lived on Mahmdoo eating in lieu of the tuitions he gave to Gula.

As he sensed the coldness in Mahmdoo’s voice, Ishaq felt that there was some special reason for his words. This made him explore the room. And with his uncanny squint eye, he saw Maqbool Sherwani sitting there.

Extending his right arm to wish Mahmdoo out of his way, he advanced, taciturn and paler than usual towards the stranger. And, with a pat of bonhomie, he uttered a loud greeting: ‘Say Maqbool Sahib — have your leaders accepted defeat yet or not?’

Maqbool knew this school teacher to be a fanatical pro-Pakistani.

With an affected air of casual indifference, he answered: ‘Come Ishaq Sahib, come
. . .
’

Ishaq came and sat down, followed by Mahmdoo whose padded face reflected the worst fears after these men had come face to face with each other.

‘Our brethren from Pakistan have completely liberated Baramula,’ Ishaq began challengingly. ‘And they have spread out in two flanks towards Srinagar. I hear they are attacking the main town from the aerodrome side on the one hand and from Gandarbal side on the other. They have taken the Electric Power house. Srinagar is in darkness tonight. And we expect them to be in Pattan tonight or tomorrow morning.’

‘Babu Ishaq, how do you know all this?’ Mahmdoo asked, partly because he did not believe that Ishaq could know and partly out of pity for Maqbool Sherwani whose morale would surely break down after this talk.

‘Our brothers in the holy war have trust in me,’ said Ishaq almost in a whispered undertone. ‘I did not come to teach Gula. I came to ask you to prepare food for them. Sardar Muhammad Jilani has sent orders that everything be done to welcome them when they arrive in Pattan.’ And then, turning his gaze towards Maqbool without seeming to turn that way, he said: ‘Deign to join our reception committee, Maqbool Sahib. You will see that your leaders will also accept the inevitable.’

‘Never!’ answered Maqbool. ‘It is a question of principle. Do we believe in Kashmir first, or religion first?’

‘In religion — in the religion of our Prophet, (may peace be upon his soul), and of our holy Koran.’

‘And when did the Prophet, or the Koran, say that brother must kill brother.’

‘It is not true that our brothers have done this,’ said Ishaq in a shrill voice.

‘Babu Ishaq,’ put in Mahmdoo. ‘But there are rumours from Baramula
. . .
’

‘And they murdered the troops of General Rajinder Singh, whom they took prisoner at Uri, to a man!’ put in Maqbool.

‘Against infidels in a holy war, there is no avail!’ Ishaq said showing his yellow teeth. ‘Have not the Hindu Maharaja and the Dogras crushed us all this time? We cannot surely join with the Hindus in the defence of Kashmir against our own kith and kin!’

‘Against murder — one must join even with Shaitan,’ said Mahmdoo with his uncanny wisdom.

‘And you people talk of principles,’ taunted Ishaq.

‘Maqbool Sahib does not say what I say,’ said Mahmdoo defending the silent guest.

‘Then why does not the worthy Maqbool Sherwani answer?’ insisted Ishaq.

‘I have seen the raiders in Baramula with my own eyes,’ said Maqbool in a husky whisper. ‘Besides, I am for Kashmir. Not for its usurpation by force, but for its freedom to choose where it wants to go. And Nehru can be trusted more than Jinnah. In Karachi they still rely on foreign friends and
. . .
’

‘These are lies,’ said Ishaq, shaking like the branch of a willow tree. ‘And your life will not be safe if you talk like this.’

‘Babu Ishaq!’ shouted Mahmdoo. ‘Maqbool Sahib is my guest.’

‘As for you, greasy cookshopkeeper!’ snarled Ishaq. ‘I shall see about you
. . .
!’ And saying this, he got up and turned towards the door with a peculiar alacrity, nearly running into Gula who was bringing the tea tray.

The boy came and, placing the tray on the floor, began to cry.

‘You know your school teacher gets angry very quickly, because he is so thin,’ Mahmdoo said to console his son.

Maqbool patted Gula on the head and then said to his host: ‘I have brought you trouble.’

‘I will bring all the troubles you have brought me, as well as mine own to you,’ he said with a slightly forced humour. ‘I and Gula will have to come with you to Baramula now!’ He paused for a brief moment to explore Maqbool’s face for reassurance, and then began: ‘I know a track through the fields. And once we reach the outskirts of Baramula, in the dark we can walk to the house of Juma, the baker. He is my cousin. Now drink up the hot tea and let’s go. That snake may crawl back here.’

The cold frosty air of the late October night had been thickened by the smoke of burning wooden houses as Maqbool and his two companions pushed with aching feet towards a small haystack about half a mile or so out of Baramula.

For nearly four hours they had struggled forward, through the mud and the slush of the fields. And Maqbool looked haggard and worn with the strain of walking in such terrain with Mahmdoo and Gula. Because, though the talk of Ishaq had converted Mahmdoo from the shopkeeper cynic to the side of the innocents, nothing could eradicate the deep fears aroused in him by Ishaq’s fateful announcements about the expected attack on Pattan by the ‘Brethren’. Mahmdoo would mistake every bush to be a tribesman and every heightened beat of the reverberating crickets in the wet fields for machine gun fire. Gula was sleepy and had to be carried in turn by Maqbool and Mahmdoo.

Maqbool too had felt during this journey into the unknown that, at any moment, they may come across sentinels or the advance guard of the raiders; for he too had been affected by Ishaq’s words. But he surmised that if they had encircled Pattan, they would already have got them, even though he and Mahmdoo had come through a circuitous path in the fields.

What had actually happened in Baramula since he left he did not know. Perhaps they were under good military leadership. And they were waiting for reinforcements before proceeding further. Or they were cautiously fanning out on the flanks of Srinagar from strategic points, as Ishaq had suggested, to probe the situation and then to attack the capital with full force. If the miracle happened, which everyone in Srinagar hoped for, and the Indian army arrived, then the situation may be saved. Otherwise
. . .

He felt a certain pity for the poor cookshop-keeper and his son, to be coming with him on this desperate expedition. Some kind of decision was necessary now about these two.

‘I am hungry, Father,’ Gula whined even as he crumpled up and lay down at the foot of the haystack.

‘Keep quiet, Hatto, be a man!’ Mahmdoo rebuked him.

That gave Maqbool a cue. For a moment, he stood there listening to the audible darkness, replete with the sounds of vegetation and distant human voices. It seemed to him as though, with the exhaustion, the weight of his body had increased. He sat down and began to speak, before Mahmdoo may have the chance to say anything:

‘So far we have been lucky, Mahmdoo. And I am grateful for this. I would not have liked anything to happen to you and Gula on the way, as you chose to come with me rather than stay in Pattan. Now I cannot ask you to endanger your lives any more.’