A Thousand Yearnings Read online

  A little later she could hear Tiny moving about in the yard.

  ‘What the devil is she up to now?’ she muttered.‘What b—has she brought home now? Little whore. She’s got to use even the back yard now!’ But when she peered down into the yard, Granny was filled with awe. Tiny was saying her isha prayer.‡ And in the morning she was gone.

  People who return to this place from journeyings far afield sometimes bring news of her. One says that a great lord has made her his mistress and that she is living in fine style like a lady, with a carriage and any amount of gold. Another says she has seen her in the diamond market...others say she has been seen in Faras Road or in Sona Gachi.*

  But Granny’s story is that Tiny had had a sudden attack of cholera and was dead before anyone knew it.

  After her period of mourning for Tiny, Granny’s mind started to wander. People passing her in the street would tease her and make jokes at her expense.

  ‘Granny, why don’t you get married?’ my sister would say.

  Granny would get annoyed.‘Whom to? Your husband?’

  ‘Why not marry the mullah? I tell you he’s crazy about you. By God he is!’

  Then the swearing would begin, and Granny’s swearing was so novel and colourful that people could only stare aghast.

  ‘That pimp! Just see what happens if I get hold of him! If I don’t pull his beard out, you can call me what you like.’ But whenever she met the mullah at the corner of the street, then, believe it or not, she would go all shy.

  Apart from the urchins of the muhalla, Granny’s lifelong memories were the monkeys—‘the confounded, blasted monkeys’. They had been settled in the muhalla for generations and knew all about everyone who lived there. They knew that men were dangerous and children mischievous, but that only women were afraid of them. But then Granny too had spent all her life among them. She’d got hold of some child’s catapult to frighten them with, and when she wound her burqa around her head like a great turban and pounced upon them with her catapult at the ready, the monkeys really did panic for a moment before returning to their usual attitude of indifference towards her.

  Day in and day out, Granny and the monkeys used to fight over her bits and pieces of stale food. Whenever there was a wedding in the muhalla, or a funeral feast, or the celebrations that mark the fortieth day after childbirth, Granny would be there, gathering up the scraps left over as though she were under contract to do so. Where free food was being distributed, she would contrive to come up for her share four times over. In this way she would pile up a regular stack of food, and then she would gaze at it regretfully, wishing that God had arranged her stomach like the camel’s so that she could tuck away four days’ supply. Why should He be so utterly haphazard? Why had He provided her with a machine for eating so defective that if she had more than two meals’ supply at any one time, it simply couldn’t cope with it? So, what she used to do was to spread out the food to dry on bits of sacking and then put them in a pitcher. When she felt hungry she would take some out and crumble it up, add a dash of water and a pinch of chillies and salt, and there was a tasty mash all ready to eat. But during the summer and during the rains this recipe had often given her severe diarrhoea. So when her bits of food got stale and began to smell she would, with the greatest reluctance sell them to people for whatever price she could get to feed to their dogs and goats. The trouble was that generally the stomachs of the dogs and the goats proved less brazen than Granny’s and people would not take her dainties as a gift, let alone buy them. And yet these bits and pieces were dearer to Granny than life itself; she put up with countless kicks and curses to get them and dry them in the sun even though this meant waging holy war against the whole monkey race. She would no sooner spread them out than the news would, as though by wireless, reach the monkey tribes, and band upon band of them would come and take up their positions on the wall or frisk about on the tiles raising a din. They would pull out the straws from the thatch and chatter and scold the passers-by. Granny would take the field against them. Swathing her burqa around her head and taking her catapult in her hand, she would take her stand. The battle would rage all day, Granny scaring the monkeys off again and again. And when evening came she would gather up what was left after their depradations, and cursing them from the bottom of her heart, creep exhausted into her little room to sleep.

  The monkeys must have acquired a personal grudge against Granny. How else can you explain the fact that they turned their backs on everything else the world had to offer and concentrated all their attacks on Granny’s scraps of food? And how else can you explain the fact that a big rascally, red-behinded monkey ran off with her pillow, which she loved more than her life? Once Tiny had gone, this pillow was the only thing left in the world that was near and dear to her. She fussed and worried over it as much as she did over her burqa. She was forever repairing its seams with stout stitches. Time and again she would sit herself down in some secluded corner and start playing with it as if it were a doll. She had none but the pillow now to tell all her troubles to and so lighten her burden. And the greater the love she felt for her pillow, the stouter the stitches she would put into it to strengthen its seams.

  And now see what trick Fate played on her. She was sitting leaning against the parapet with her burqa wrapped around her, picking the lice out of her waistband, when suddenly a monkey flopped down, whipped up her pillow, and was off. You would have thought that someone had plucked Granny’s heart out of her breast. She wept and screamed and carried on so much that the whole muhalla came flocking.

  You know what monkeys are like. They wait until no one is looking and then run off with a glass or a katora, go and sit on the parapet, and taking it in both hands start rubbing it against the wall. The person it belongs to stands there looking up and making coaxing noises, and holding out bread, or an onion: but the monkey takes his time, and when he has had his bellyful of fun, throws the thing down and goes his own way. Granny poured out the whole contents of a pitcher, but the bastard monkey had set his heart on the pillow, and that was that. She did all she could to coax him, but his heart would not melt and he proceeded with the greatest enjoyment to peel the manifold coverings off the pillow as though he were peeling the successive skins off an onion—those same coverings over which Granny had pored with her weak and watering eyes, trying to hold them together with stitching. As every fresh cover came off, Granny’s hysterical wailing grew louder. And now the last covering was off, and the monkey began bit by bit to throw down the contents...not cotton wadding but... Shabban’s quilted jacket...Bannu the water carrier’s waistcloth... Hasina’s bodice...the baggy trousers belonging to little Munni’s doll...Rahmat’s little dupatta...and Khairati’s knickers...Khairan’s little boy’s pistol...Munshiji’s muffler...the sleeve (with cuff) of Ibrahim’s shirt...a piece of Siddiq’s loin cloth... Amina’s collyrium bottle and Bafatan’s kajal-box...Sakina’s box of tinsel clippings... the big bead of Mullan’s rosary and Baqir Mian’s prayer board... Bismillah’s dried navel string, the knob of turmeric in its satchet from Tiny’s first birthday, some lucky grass, and a silver ring... and Bashir Khan’s gilt medal conferred on him by the government for having returned safe and sound from the war.

  But it was not Granny’s own trinkets that interested the onlookers. What they had their eyes on was her precious stock of stolen goods which Granny had got together by years of raiding.

  ‘Thief!... Swindler!... Old hag!...Turn the old devil out!... Hand her over to the police! Search her bedding: you might find a lot more stuff in it!’ In short, they came straight out with anything they felt like saying.

  Granny’s shrieking suddenly stopped. Her tears dried up, her head drooped, and she stood there stunned and speechless... She passed that night sitting on her haunches, her hands grasping her knees, rocking backwards and forwards, her body shaken by dry sobbing, lamenting and calling now the names of her mother and father, now her husband, now her daughter Bismillah, and her granddaughter Tiny. E
very now and then, just for a moment, she would doze, then wake with a cry, as though ants were stinging an old sore. At times she would laugh and cry hysterically, at times talk to herself, then suddenly, for no reason, break into a smile. Then out of the darkness some old recollection would hurl its spear at her, and like a sick dog howling in a half-human voice, she would rouse the whole muhalla with her cries. Two days passed in this way, and the people of the muhalla gradually began to feel sorry for what they had done. After all, no one had the slightest need for any of these things. They had disappeared years ago, and though there had been weeping and wailing over them at the time, they had long since been forgotten. It was just that they themselves were no millionaires, and sometimes on such occasions a mere straw weighs down upon you like a great beam. But the loss of these things had not killed them. Shabban’s quilted jacket had long since lost any ability to grapple with the cold, and he couldn’t stop himself growing up while he waited for it to be found. Hasina had long felt she was past the age for wearing a bodice. Of what use to Munni were her doll’s baggy trousers? She had long passed the stage of playing with dolls and graduated to toy cooking pots. And none of the people of the muhalla were out for Granny’s blood.

  In the old days there lived a giant. This giant’s life was in a big black bee. Across the seven seas in a cave there was a big chest, and in it another chest, and inside that was a little box, in which there was a big black bee. A brave prince came...and first he tore off the bee’s legs and, by the power of the spell, one of the giant’s legs broke. Then the prince broke another leg, and the giant’s other leg broke. And then he crushed the bee, and the giant died.

  Granny’s life was in the pillow, and the monkey had torn the enchanted pillow with his teeth, and so thrust a red-hot iron bar into Granny’s heart.

  There was no sorrow in the world, no humiliation, no disgrace, which Fate had not brought to Granny. When her husband died and her bangles were broken, Granny had thought she had not many more days to live; when Bismillah was wrapped in her shroud, she felt certain that this was the last straw on the camel’s back. And when Tiny brought disgrace upon her and ran away, Granny had thought that this was the death-blow.

  From the day of her birth onwards, every conceivable illness had assailed her. Small pox had left its marks upon her face. Every year at some festival she would contract severe diarrhoea.

  Her fingers were worn to the bone by years of cleaning up other people’s filth, and she had scoured pots and pans until her hands were all pitted and marked. Some time every year she would fall down the stairs in the dark, take to bed for a day or two and then start dragging herself about again. In her last birth Granny surely must have been a dog-tick; that’s why she was so hard to kill. It seemed as though death always gave her a wide berth. She’d wander about with her clothes hanging in tatters, but she would never accept the clothes of anyone who had died, nor even let them come into contact with her. The dead person might have hidden death in the seams to jump out and grab the delicately nurtured Granny. Who could have imagined that in the end it would be the monkeys who would settle her account? Early in the morning, when the water carrier came with his water skin, he saw that Granny was sitting on her haunches on the steps. Her mouth was open and flies were crawling in the corners of her half-closed eyes.

  People had often seen Granny asleep just like this, and had feared she was dead. But Granny had always started up, cleared her throat and spat out the phlegm, and poured out a shower of abuse on the person who had disturbed her. But that day Granny remained sitting on her haunches on the stairs. Fixed in death, she showered continuous abuse upon the world. Through her whole life she had never known a moment’s ease and wherever she had laid herself down there had been thorns. Granny was shrouded just as she was, squatting on her haunches. Her body had set fast, and no amount of pulling and tugging could straighten it.

  On Judgement Day the trumpet sounded, and Granny woke with a start and got up coughing and clearing her throat, as though her ears had caught the sound of free food being doled out... Cursing and swearing at the angels, she dragged herself somehow or other, doubled up as she was over the Bridge of Sirat* and burst into the presence of God the All Powerful and All Kind... And God, beholding the degradation of humanity, bowed His head in shame and wept tears, and those divine tears of blood fell upon Granny’s rough grave, and bright red poppies sprang up there and began to dance in the breeze.

  * Hakim: A practitioner of the traditional Greek medicine, transmitted by the Arabs to the rest of the world.

  * i.e.‘Deputy Collector’, second in command to the ‘Collector’ (District Magistrate), the government officer in charge of one of the districts into which an Indian province was divided.

  * Vaids: Those who practice the ancient traditional (Indian) system of medicine.

  * Mullah: A Muslim divine, not generally highly educated, or highly respected.

  * Cutting off the nose was the traditional punishment inflicted on a loose woman. In this context, it would be the act of a jealous lover, punishing her for her promiscuity.

  †Part of the words recited at each of the five times of prayer.

  ‡ Isha: Last of the five daily prayers prescribed by Islam.

  * Prostitutes’ quarters in various Indian cities.

  * In Islamic belief, a bridge thin as a hair and sharp as a sword, over which the true believer must pass to enter paradise.

  Behind the Veil

  RASHID JAHAN

  Translator’s Note:

  This is described as ‘a one-act play’. Western readers may perhaps regard it as a play only in the sense that it is dialogue, with an occasional stage direction. The description of the room where the conversation takes place would at once tell an Urdu speaking reader what kind of women the participants are. They belong to the traditional, respectable Muslim population of Old Delhi, families pride themselves on being sharif—‘of good family’—and on maintaining the old-fashioned standards. In families of this kind elder relatives are not referred to by name but by relationship names, and English doesn’t have the range of words for these that Urdu does. For example, Urdu has different words for ‘uncle’ showing specifically the relationship: father’s younger brother is ‘chacha’, mother’s brother is ‘mamu’, etc. In a traditional joint family household there may be the parents with all the grown-up sons and their families, so cousins grow up virtually as brothers and sisters. So someone referred to as a ‘brother’ may well be a cousin. Terms such as these recur in the dialogue, and in translating I have had to find other means to make clear who is who.

  The setting: a house of this kind is enclosed on all sides, with one or more small courtyard. There are separate parts for the men and the women so that purdah can be observed, and they have several servants attending them. The living room floors are carpeted, and over the carpets, lighter carpets, often embroidered, are laid which keep the heavier carpet clean. There are no chairs and tables. People sit on the floor, and lean on a rather hard bolster. There may be beds in the room so that people can lie down when they want to. Both men and women habitually chew paan—betel leaf, wrapped around other ingredients often including betel nut and tobacco—and spittoons are at hand because the liquor from the paan is not swallowed but spat out. There are earthenware pitchers of water, each covered with a lid and with a drinking bowl on top of it. Shelves are not common; small arch-shaped recesses in the wall serve the same purpose. The fan is a long piece of heavy cloth, often with a fringe, fastened to a long piece of wood, hung from the ceiling and one of the servants is there to pull the rope to and fro when needed.

  ~

  A lady [Muhammadi Begum] is tired and depressed. An older lady [Aftab Begum], about forty years of age, is sitting facing her, slicing betel nut into a small draw-string bag. On one side of her is a small box and on the other side a spittoon. There are doors in front, and niches and shelves with pans and lids arranged on them on the other walls. In the middle of the r
oom a fan with a pink fringe hangs from the ceiling. In one corner of the room is a bed with a bedspread on it. On the other side of the room is a small embroidered carpet, a bolster, and a spittoon.

  Muhammadi: Oh, sister. I’ve nothing left to live for. Much of my life has passed, and God will get me through the rest somehow. I’m so tired of life that if it weren’t for the little ones I swear by God I’d have taken poison.

  Aftab: Have you gone mad? You’re no age yet. Why talk of taking poison? These are the best days of your life. The children, bless them, are growing up, and now you want to take poison! Look at me...

  Muhammadi: Why should I look at you? It’s not a question of age. Is it only old people that get tired of life? I’ve seen more zest for life in old people than in young ones. Everyone’s dying. Why don’t I die? And children soon forget; after a few days everything’s all right again.

  Aftab: Come to your senses, girl, come to your senses. You’re no age at all and here you are wanting to die. You’re ten to twelve years younger than me. The year you were born they were talking about getting me married. That was the year that the queen [Victoria] died. I remember it well. Aunty, God bless her—as pleased as if you’d been a boy. It was all of thirty years after she was married that you were born. A feast, and dancing to watch, and domnis.* And how happy she was when you were married! How she’d longed for that day! All Delhi welcomed it! No one can match your luck. And look at me, how unlucky I am. You, God keep you, have everything—husband, children, home, everything...

  Muhammadi: You’re right; husband, children, home, everything. But young? Who would think me young? I look like an old woman of seventy—always ill, always under the hakim or the doctor, and every year a baby. Yes, no one can match my luck!

  Her eyes fill with tears. She wipes them with her handkerchief, spits into the spittoon, and goes on.