Two Short Novels (16 page)

‘You are not God!’ challenged Maqbool, desperate, like an animal at bay and boiling with a violent inner fury.

‘No, but listen — I give you a choice: You can have as honourable a place in the brotherhood of Islam as Ghulam Jilani and Ahmed Shah here. Or you will be handed over to our forces to meet the justice due to spies and traitors!’

‘I am neither spy nor traitor! I put Kashmir above everything. I have some principles. And you —’

‘It is no use talking to him,’ intervened Ahmed Shah. ‘A petty, conceited creature. He has not the vision to see anything beyond Baramula. He has never even been to Lahore! And he will not be grateful if you show him mercy. He will want to stab you in the back. A low cur
. . .
!’

This abuse cut into the generous spirit of Ghulam Jilani who objected: ‘Ahmed Shah Sahib, please do not use such language, Maqbool has been our friend. And as he says, it is a question of his principles. He has chosen his side, as you have chosen yours — ’

‘Where do you stand, Mr. Jilani?’ asked Khurshid Anwar, unnerved, by what seemed like the defection of his host. ‘Your father has already decided!’

‘To be sure, I am with my father,’ said Ghulam Jilani sheepishly. ‘But I believe in friendship. I think you can talk to Maqbool and make him see reason. And once he sees it and promises to be with you, he will keep his word — that I can assure you!’

Having no tact, Khurshid Anwar was persuaded by the superior tact of the landlord’s son, seasoned in the courtesies of the court. He knew that the approach suggested by Ghulam Jilani would have been better than the argumentation of Ahmed Shah. He himself had tried to keep calm, but the impetuosity of the lawyer had thrust him into the debate.

‘You know your friend better,’ conceded Khurshid. ‘But you realise that we are living in a time of decision. We cannot just leave things vague. We have to choose!’

‘Maqbool is my guest, as you are,’ Ghulam Jilani urged, ‘And I would not like to misuse the fact of his visit here to impose a decision on him. Nor to ask him to choose immediately. He need not commit himself. He can think things over and see reason — ’

‘I could only see reason in a reasonable world,’ Maqbool said. ‘But after this sudden invasion and the murders — ’

‘This is a war of liberation!’ protested Ahmed Shah. ‘A war! An historic event! We are passing through times which will decide our destiny forever. And everyone has to choose now!’

‘I will certainly not be bullied up by you,’ interrupted Maqbool. ‘I don’t believe in this historic event — we were living peacefully enough and struggling against wrongs. And then these people came, with guns pointed at us, demanding accession by force — ’

‘I shall have you arrested, if you don’t hold your tongue!’ shouted Khurshid Anwar.

The ring of truth in Maqbool’s voice seemed to threaten the outer edge of Khurshid Anwar’s complacency. So he reacted before his words could penetrate any further into the areas of doubt. For he had his own reasons for being in on this affray, and these were only thinly garbed in the veneer of patriotism.

‘Khurshid Sahib, you cannot do anything to my guest,’ protested Jilani, beckoning courage from his fat body and reddening in the attempt to do so.

‘Ghulam Jilani,’ Khurshid answered disclosing the crudeness of his bandit’s soul. ‘I was going to let you off with the payment of only one lakh as conscience money. It may now become two lakhs —’

‘I don’t mind the money,’ said Ghulam Jilani, ‘But you will allow Maqbool to leave.’

‘What are you doing and saying?’ protested Ahmed Shah turning to Ghulam Jilani. ‘Don’t you see
. . .
?’

‘I am saying or doing nothing which is not according to the traditions of Islam,’ said Jilani. ‘A guest is sacred to me
. . .
’

Maqbool touched Ghulam Jilani’s arm tenderly. At this Ghulam got up, with a strange dignity in his roly-poly frame, shook his friend’s hand and took him into his arms.

Khurshid looked at this phenomena and was strangely moved.

Maqbool dislocated himself from Ghulam’s embrace, and, without heeding Ahmed Shah, walked away towards the door.

‘May God be with you!’ he mumbled and began to go down the stairs.

‘Your cycle,’ called Ghulam Jilani.

‘It is too dangerous to ride it,’ said Maqbool. ‘I shall leave it with Ibil downstairs. Send it to the convent to my aunt Rahti. I will have to go through the by-lanes and not on the highway
. . . .
’ And he added bitterly: ‘I shall leave the main roads for Ahmed Shah when he goes on the victory parade
. . .
’

As Maqbool descended the stairs, old Ibil greeted him with a solemn face, which was made more profound by the fingers that he had put on his lips, indicating not a whisper. And he led the young man towards the inner hallway leading to the zenana.

‘The Pakistanis are outside, asking for you,’ Ibil said.

Maqbool felt very foolish standing there like that with the bicycle under his right arm. Ibil had realised his predicament and, with the tact of the useful uncle, he took the machine from him and put it in the alcove where the fuel wood was stored. Then he came and stood towering over Maqbool and said with a dry wit peculiar to him: ‘It is better for a man to ride the machine than for a machine to ride the man.’

Maqbool sensed that old Ibil, having lived through same experiences as everyone else in Baramula, had dropped the opiate insouciance of the servant of the feudal household and seemed to cherish the same simple desire for action and the same anxieties. He was not surprised, therefore, when the man suggested:

‘We have to evolve a stratagem by which we can contrive to get you out of this place to some safe hideout. And it has occurred to me that the only way to get you out of here is to lend you the Begum’s burqah, also a female attendant. Then the Pathans will not dare to look your way. They still have some respect for the wife of the landlord.’

Before such logic Maqbool could only bow respectfully, though he tried to make sure.

‘But the Begum Sahib — ’

‘I have already told the Begum Sahib you are upstairs. And she has expressed the wish to see you. So you come with me. I shall get my wife, Habiba, to escort you by way of the sub-lane to the main bazaar to your house.’

Maqbool watched the old man’s wizened face and saw the warmth which transfused it. As he looked steadily, tears came into his own eyes. And, before they became obvious, he began to walk towards the zenana as Ibil followed.

‘The Begum Sahib may be in her bath,’ said Ibil coming forward. ‘I shall go ahead of you.’ And immediately, he called out: ‘Habiba — Maqbool Sahib is here. Will the Begum Sahib
. . .
?’

There was a fluttering of forms and confused whispers, so that both Maqbool and Ibil halted deliberately to wait and give the females time for cover. At length Habiba answered: ‘Come in. I am just putting henna on Begum Sahiba’s head!’

Maqbool stepped forward, with his head bent. But he was able to take in the situation. Begum Mehtab Jilani was seated on her diwan, while Habiba was plastering the red dye on her hair.

‘Maqbool, son, there is no purdah from you,’ the Begum said. ‘But what a time you have chosen to arrive!’

‘I am unlucky,’ Maqbool said realising that, apart from her hospitality, she too, like her son, wished he had not embarrassed her household with his awkward presence.

‘Come and sit down by me,’ the Begum said.

Maqbool obeyed as docilely as he had always done as a child.

‘Habiba,’ Ibil beckoned to his wife.

The maid looked at the Begum and the mistress nodded her head.

‘Life is cruel,’ the Begum began philosophically. ‘As a woman I have known this truth. We have to accept, because in the eyes of Allah, we deserve the punishment. The only way, son, in which this cruelty can be offset is by obedience to destiny. What is written in one’s fate will be
. . .
I was born a woman. So it was no use my protesting against fate. I had to accept, but acceptance brought contentment. I must admit that, when I came, as a young woman, to the house of Sardar Jilani, I was afraid. I decided to obey him. I could not do certain things, and yet everything was really in my hands. He ruled me, but I ruled the household. Now these new rulers demand obedience. But, perhaps, if we accept their rule, we will be free to do what we like in our own households. Only Allah, the just, knows everything
. . .
’

‘If I may say so, respectfully,’ said Maqbool, ‘when death is opposed to life then life must oppose death. I know there will be much bloodshed, and ruin in this way, but the urge for freedom cannot be suppressed.’

‘I know that you are as determined as all the young are,’ Begum Mehtab conceded. ‘And I always pointed you to my son as an example of sacrifice. But you will understand that my husband and I, and our son, have bigger responsibilities than most people.’

‘I know — ,’ said Maqbool bitterly.

‘Son,’ she said briefly. ‘We have to take refuge in our love for our family — and in our belief in God.’

There was silence between them.

‘I know you opinion, son,’ the Begum continued. ‘But we have treated all our tenants as our children. Only, they are people who cannot rule themselves. They need a gentle, wise father. And Sardar Sahib has always been that at heart, however harsh he may have seemed at times — ’

The words jarred on Maqbool’s ears, because in his consciousness, poverty, and even the abject acceptance of that poverty by the peasantry, had become the root of all evil in Kashmir. All the hierarchy of the feudal order, from the Maharaja downwards, through his courtiers and landlords, represented a chain of humiliations which had only to be seen and lived through to be believed, of course, in the sequestered shades of the zenana of the landlord’s house, the whole array seemed a permanent god-given order which had to be accepted and obeyed.

‘Mother,’ he said with a trace of impatience in his voice. ‘We can never decide this argument. Some day perhaps you will realise that I didn’t lead your son astray as you always thought I did. But he and I have been like brothers. And, even now, at the risk of the displeasure of Khurshid Anwar, he has protected me from the invaders. You have always been to me like a mother . . . I want to go from your presence, as a good son and not a quarrelsome
shaitan
boy.’

Begum Mehtab put her left hand on his head and said: ‘But you better stay here now. Where can you go at this time, with them on all sides?’

‘Begum Sahiba,’ said Ibil coming forward. ‘I have a plan if you will permit it. Maqbool Sahib will go in your burqah and Habiba will go with him, from the door in the small lane where there are no enemies.’

‘Ibil!’ said the Begum imperiously. ‘Do not call them enemies. It is not seemly. But perhaps Maqbool’s only way home is the way you suggest. You better ask Abdul, to yoke the horse to the tonga, and escort them yourself. To be sure, this is the best — ’

She did not finish her sentence. But her heavy jaw fell with the painful pull between her humanity and the instinct for the preservation of her family.

Maqbool bowed very low to her as he rose and followed Ibil.

‘I will go into the inner room,’ the Begum said to enable them to carry out the arrangement without being actually involved in them. ‘Habiba, come back quickly. I shall be anxious about you . . . .’ And she went into the inner sanctums of the zenana.

Seated beside Habiba, huddled like a ghost in the burqah with the
jallied
aperture, before his eyes in the hood of the veil, disclosing nothing but the blue curtain at the back of the tonga to guard female decorum against the intrusion of strangers’ stares. Maqbool went through the queerest experience of all his life. That he, Maqbool Sherwani, should go in a woman’s veil seemed humiliating and foolishly histrionic. And yet it was an old stratagem of the feudal households. But wouldn’t the Pakistanis be reckless enough to look in to make sure . . . ?