Between Clay and Dust Read online

  After visiting the kotha continuously for three weeks Hayat stopped coming. Malka was unable to disguise her growing unease and disquiet. Her nervous movements betrayed her inner anxiety. Things dropped from her hands. When entering or leaving rooms she would bump into doors and walls like someone unsure of her bearings. She was in a heightened state of anxiety for more than a week, and when Hayat did not return Malka sank into a state of gloom. Her verve and energy were sapped; she became introverted and quiet.

  Gohar Jan, who had smiled to herself at Malka’s restlessness earlier, now regarded her with concern. But even as she worried about Malka, she did not show it.

  In the fifth week after the stranger’s first appearance at the evening mehfil someone knocked at the kotha door and Banday Ali opened the door to find Hayat standing on the landing.

  When he entered and announced Hayat’s presence, Malka was sitting with Gohar Jan. She rose to her feet in a sudden rush of agitation and excitement, her face flushed with happiness. Gohar Jan sent Malka to the adjoining room and asked Banday Ali to send in Hayat. She had been expecting him for the last few weeks. She had found out that he had not left the city.

  She noticed the pallid look on Hayat’s face as he entered. He seemed weak and exhausted. Casting a glance at Banday Ali, Hayat asked Gohar Jan if he might have a word in private. Banday Ali left them alone in the Music Room.

  Hayat remained closeted with Gohar Jan for nearly an hour. At the end of their meeting, Gohar Jan went into the adjoining chamber and led Malka by the hand into the Music Room. Hayat rose as Malka entered. After the two had sat down, Gohar Jan left them together, and went out onto the terrace where she found Banday Ali. She sat down on the sofa and told him of the decision she had made about Malka’s future.

  Banday Ali collapsed on the wooden bench near the flowerpots on the terrace. He stared at Gohar Jan but her categorical silence did not allow him to speak. His opium addiction had dulled Banday Ali’s responses and quieted his emotions. He looked confused and shocked.

  A half-hour later, Hayat came out of the Music Room and had a brief exchange with Gohar Jan. After he left she returned to the Music Room, stopping for a moment to compose herself in the large mirror that hung in the corridor. Banday Ali remained on the terrace.

  Gohar Jan found Malka where she had left her. Her body convulsed gently from her muffled sobs. Tears flowed through her fingers with which she covered her face. Gohar Jan sat down beside her.

  “Why do you want me to leave?” Malka asked, looking uncomprehendingly at Gohar Jan.

  “It was not I who suggested it. But it is for the best. You will be happy with him,” Gohar Jan said. After a brief hesitation she took Malka’s hands into hers and pressed them gently.

  Surprised, Malka looked up.

  “How do you know that?” Malka asked. She left her hands in Gohar Jan’s.

  “You know it yourself. Don’t tell me you don’t.” Gohar Jan spoke with her usual self-control, looking into Malka’s eyes.

  She then averted her gaze and left Malka’s side.

  A change had come over Gohar Jan. Banday Ali saw it as she came out of the Music Room and worried for her.

  ❖

  A week after Malka left the tawaifs’ enclave as Hayat’s bride, an increasingly confused and agitated Banday Ali tried to reconcile himself with the bitter prospect of never seeing her again. While handing Gohar Jan his monthly report on the kotha’s finances, he confronted her.

  “If it was Malka’s happiness you sought, surely you could see how happy it would have made her if you allowed her to perform. You never did.”

  Gohar Jan silently looked through the accounts.

  “Not once, Gohar Jan,” Banday Ali said. “You did not allow her to perform even once. You denied her all she had longed for since she was a child.”

  Gohar Jan now looked up and met Banday Ali’s angry gaze.

  “How could I, Banday Ali?” Gohar Jan said slowly, “How could I impose a destiny on her, or tie her to the kotha with any bonds? Don’t you realize she was given to me in trust.”

  With those words Gohar Jan finally answered every question Banday Ali had asked himself for the last twenty-three years on the subject of the girl who had been abandoned at the kotha’s steps, and Gohar Jan’s treatment of her.

  Gohar Jan’s statement left Banday Ali deeply perplexed. It would have baffled anyone who knew her as well as Banday Ali did, and thought her dedication to the kotha life and her art to be absolute and above all other considerations.

  Banday Ali did not say anything. He needed time to mull over in silence what Gohar Jan had said. But as he turned to go something occurred to him. He stopped, looked at Gohar Jan, and asked, “What if the promise of happiness turns out to be false for her? What if she returns, Gohar Jan?”

  Gohar Jan spoke softly and reluctantly, as if uttering the words might make the dreaded thing happen. “If she returned, Banday Ali…she could have what is not allowed any tawaif in the same circumstances: she could have the life she thought she wanted.”

  Challenge

  About a month before Ustad Ramzi’s scheduled bout, Tamami took along some trainees and visited Imama’s neighborhood. There they ran into a group of pahalwans from Imama’s clan. The exchange of taunts between the two rival groups became heated.

  The noise reached Imama’s nearby akhara, and Imama came out with his son and clan members to investigate. He tried to break up the quarrel but Tamami used the opportunity to challenge him to a bout. The trainees in Tamami’s group started shouting with joy. Imama’s son pushed forward to accept the challenge instead, but Tamami refused, claiming his right to fight Imama as the blood brother of the title holder.

  This unexpected challenge surprised Imama and his clan. They smelled a conspiracy in Tamami’s visit. They had heard rumors that Ustad Ramzi was using turmeric poultices on his knees to alleviate pain, and was not doing some of the leg exercises usually included in the preparations for a bout. They suspected Ustad Ramzi was afraid of facing Imama and had tried to evade the showdown by setting up Imama against Tamami.

  Tamami had challenged Imama before his clan. Imama could have used his authority as a senior pahalwan to spurn the challenge, but by refusing the challenge of Ustad Ramzi’s blood brother he risked losing face.

  Imama nodded to his trainers. They told Tamami that the next morning their clan elders would call on Ustad Ramzi to settle the details of the bout.

  In a jubilant mood, Tamami started for his akhara with his retinue of trainees. One of the pahalwans in their group borrowed a bicycle from a friend and pedaled away to take the news to Ustad Ramzi.

  When Tamami and his friends, and a few other trainees who had joined them on their way, drew close to the akhara, they found Ustad Ramzi waiting for them at the gate.

  “Who gave you permission to go to Imama’s akhara and challenge him? Who gave you leave?”

  Everyone became silent.

  “Ustad…” Tamami looked stupefied by Ustad Ramzi’s outburst. “I was just passing by when…”

  “Don’t lie to me!” Ustad Ramzi roared.

  Tamami’s jubilant spirits died. Sensing that he had committed something unforgivable, he decided to confess.

  “I went there to challenge him, Ustad,” Tamami said softly.

  “You do not have the freedom to challenge Imama. You are no match for him. You will bring disgrace to the clan if you fight him.” Ustad Ramzi’s words rang in the akhara.

  “I did it for the clan,” Tamami retorted, mustering his failing courage. “I can defeat Imama!”

  “It was not your place. I am the head of the clan. Never again interfere in matters that are my responsibility. I am not dead yet.”

  Tamami made an effort to sound confident. “I can defeat Imama!”

  One of the trainees shouted, “Tamami will defeat Imama, Ustad Ramzi,
you’ll see.”

  “Go back to your rooms, you idiots! You have to wake up early tomorrow morning,” Ustad Ramzi shouted at the trainees.

  Leaving them standing there, Ustad Ramzi returned to his room and the trainees retired to their quarters with Tamami. When they had recovered from the outburst they tried to cheer Tamami up, but Ustad Ramzi’s rebuke had crushed him. He slept in the trainees’ quarters that night.

  The next day Imama’s clan elders called on Ustad Ramzi to settle the details. The bout was to be held within ten days at an industrial plot rented for the purpose. A man named Gulab Deen who had recently set himself up as a sports promoter agreed to publicize the event.

  ❖

  Tamami’s enthusiasm for the fight with Imama had begun to wane from the moment Ustad Ramzi rebuked him. He made his preparations for the encounter but his heart was no longer in it, even though he wished to prove his brother wrong.

  Ustad Ramzi had changed the time for his exercises and removed his exercise equipment from the center of the akhara so that Tamami could have the place in the morning hours. But he did not supervise Tamami’s exercises as some had expected. When approached by his clan elders, Ustad Ramzi refused. He made no secret of his reasons for doing so either: “To train him myself for this fight,” he said, “would be the same as to approve his actions. I will not be able to show Imama my face if I did.”

  The clan elders no longer pressed Ustad Ramzi. Kabira, a senior pahalwan, was appointed as Tamami’s trainer instead.

  Disdain

  On the day of the bout, Ustad Ramzi did not accompany Tamami to the akhara. When Kabira came to request his attendance, Ustad Ramzi only replied: “I will not go to witness my clan’s humiliation!”

  After consulting with the elders of both clans, promoter Gulab Deen had made admissions free. Although few people turned up to see the fight, the stout promoter looked happy. Promoters were a new phenomenon in the sport. When the introductions were made, Gulab Deen used the occasion to talk about his work.

  Imama stood calmly with his trainer, but his son glared at Tamami with ill-concealed hostility.

  The fight itself barely lasted a few minutes. As Tamami was making an attempt to secure a hold, Imama threw him off balance. Following with a powerful sweep of his legs Imama toppled him over. As he fell, both of Tamami’s shoulders touched the ground. Only when Tamami saw Kabira entering the akhara did he understand that it was over. It all happened so quickly that he did not even have time to realize that he had lost.

  Imama’s jubilant clan surrounded him. His son stepped toward Tamami, but Imama stopped him, and pulled him away. Tamami was galled by the triumphant and disdainful look in his eyes.

  Imama was carried in a procession to his akhara, on the shoulders of his clan members.

  Feeling too ashamed to return to the akhara, Tamami spent the night at Kabira’s house. Later in the afternoon of the next day, when he knew Ustad Ramzi would be taking his rest, Tamami returned to the enclosure.

  A few trainees were exercising in the akhara. Ustad Ramzi came out of his room but ignored him. Tamami noticed that Ustad Ramzi’s exercise equipment had been returned to the center of the akhara.

  ❖

  When Imama and his clan did not see Ustad Ramzi at the bout, they realized that Tamami’s challenge to Imama was not orchestrated by him. Nevertheless, rumors about a conspiracy hatched by Ustad Ramzi continued to spread.

  “Ustad Ramzi may have defeated Imama in the past but now he is too old to wrestle with him. He used Tamami to stop him but failed.”

  “Ustad Ramzi planned it so that Tamami could avoid fighting Imama’s son. Now, neither Ustad Ramzi nor Tamami have a chance against them.”

  “Ustad Ramzi had carefully thought it out. He wanted Tamami to earn some prestige by taking on a safe bet. He miscalculated badly in thinking that old Imama would cede easily to an inexperienced pahalwan like Tamami.”

  If there was anything that bothered Ustad Ramzi more than the rumors, it was the thought that he had to listen to these imprecations on account of Tamami. Ustad Ramzi was glad that finally he did not have to see Tamami’s face during his own preparations. Tamami kept away from the akhara while he exercised.

  Only a few days remained before his bout with Imama.

  Closure

  Nearly half the furniture of Gohar Jan’s kotha had been sold. The rooms from which it had been removed were locked up so that the visitors did not witness the bare walls and floors. But the void and bareness spilled out of the rooms and compounded the emptiness Banday Ali felt from Malka’s absence.

  It was only after Malka had left that Banday Ali truly understood how hard it had been for Gohar Jan to constantly wear a mask of indifference and curb the least expression of affection and warmth towards Malka to make sure she did not become emotionally attached to her or the kotha in any way. Atonement was never possible for Gohar Jan. But after Malka’s departure, the guilt of denying her the love she sought exacted a great emotional cost on her; within a fortnight she seemed to have aged many years.

  She asked Banday Ali to remove everything that might remind her of Malka. All of Malka’s furniture was locked away in the girl’s room.

  Then Gohar Jan took ill and the mehfils at the kotha were cancelled for the first time. Gohar Jan’s physical illness was perhaps her body’s way to staunch her inner suffering. She slowly recuperated and resumed her mehfils. Banday Ali noticed, though, that there were days when she became very quiet and spent hours lying in bed, deep in reflection.

  When she informed Banday Ali of her decision to discontinue the mehfils, Banday Ali could only nod silently. Especially in her condition, the long recitals were too exhausting.

  Ustad Ramzi was kept away by his preparations for the bout on the day Gohar Jan made the announcement to end the mehfils at her kotha, and he was still away when the last mehfil was held. Banday Ali did not have an opportunity to inform Ustad Ramzi of the change. For a moment he considered sending him a message, but he thought that sooner or later the report would reach him.

  Encounter

  Tamami’s defeat by Imama and rumors about the imminent downfall of Ustad Ramzi’s clan seemed to have revived people’s interest in the bout. In contrast to Tamami’s fight with Imama, a bigger crowd had gathered at the exhibition grounds a day before Ustad Ramzi and Imama’s fight to see the trainees from both clans prepare the akhara.

  They had cleared the debris from the field and sprinkled the grounds with water to settle the dust. The akhara clay had been turned several times to remove lumps, and later kneaded with turmeric and aromatic herbs. The area was roped off and covered with jute sacks. In the evening the rings for spectators were marked around the akhara with powdered limestone.

  The elders of the two clans had decided to keep the entry open for the bout to encourage maximum attendance. Gulab Deen, who visited the site, walked around with a martyr’s look since his services were not engaged for the event.

  On the morning of the bout pitchers of sardai, prepared with almonds, milk and herbs, and platters of dried dates were taken to the grounds to be served to the spectators.

  In the enclosure Ustad Ramzi put on his fighting drawers. A white turban fumigated with incense was tied on his head by an elder of the clan and his shoulders were draped with a coverlet embroidered with Quranic verses. Tamami and the trainees carried him to the exhibition ground on their shoulders, reciting the qasida burda to solicit an auspicious outcome.

  Ustad Ramzi felt a vague foreboding as the procession approached the akhara, but he was pleased to see the large crowd that had gathered to witness the bout.

  People filled the expanse of the exhibition grounds and some had climbed on to the boundary walls and the trees to have a better view. A festive mood prevailed among the trainees of the two clans. The two champions entered the exhibition grounds at the same time amid the uproar of their supporter
s and the crowd. The noisy crowd gradually became silent as the competitors were called for introductions.

  When the bout began, Imama opened with defensive play. Ustad Ramzi’s clan cheered at this apparent hint of weakness, but Ustad Ramzi immediately saw Imama’s intention of protracting the fight. A longer bout would be to Imama’s advantage as his younger body would get progressively warmer, more limber, and feel less pain. Ustad Ramzi knew his own stamina would decline in the same proportion, and if he tried to hasten the pace he would spend his energies sooner and make mistakes. He relaxed his mind and prepared himself for a prolonged fight knowing well that his days of epic contests, when he could grapple with opponents for hours, were behind him.

  Both pahalwans were tired by the end of the first half-hour. Imama had applied two takedowns successfully, though he came very close to being pinned down once by his rival. Ustad Ramzi had decided not to resist Imama’s strategy for the first several moves, hoping Imama might make mistakes if he realized that Ustad Ramzi had seen through his plan and was not unnerved. But instead of changing his strategy Imama fortified it with prolonged, defensive moves.

  Imama was drenched in perspiration, but his breathing was unaffected. Ustad Ramzi’s breath came unevenly now and he knew that it couldn’t have escaped Imama’s notice.

  Their next few movements succeeded each other in a flash. Imama lunged forward to apply a takedown. Ustad Ramzi countered it and gripped his rival’s neck. Imama answered with a defensive lock.

  After a few moments of remaining thus engaged, Ustad Ramzi felt a severe throbbing in his temples. It became progressively painful. He knew he would not be able to maintain his lock much longer.

  Meanwhile, seeing that Imama was unable to break Ustad Ramzi’s hold, the referee conferred with the judges and came over to ask Imama if he wished to disengage. If either of the pahalwans had chosen to disengage, the fight would have been declared a tie. Imama waved his arm angrily in refusal. Respecting his adversary’s wishes, Ustad Ramzi also refused.