D GENERATION

 H. Mehdi Leghari

Daastan Publishing

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com www.meraqissa.com 

Text copyrights © H. Mehdi Leghari

Book Design copyright © Anum Ameer

Edited by: Nayyab Mushtaq

The moral rights of the writer, illustrator and editor have been asserted.

All rights reserved

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-969-696-855-9

To my mother Khano Mai

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue

The Assassination

1. Two Years Earlier

The Spell

Nine Months Later:

3. Seven Years Earlier

Zubaida

Maryam

4. One Week Later
5. The Alibi
6. 12 Am The Same Night
7. Talk of the Town
8. Revelations
9. The Alarm Bells
10. The Civil Society
11. The Paradox
12. Empty Immensity
13. The Ugly Designs
14. The Dilemmas
15. In the War Zone
16. The Confessions
17. Hallucinations
18. Deadly Resolve
19. Dirty Politics
20. Poor Souls
21. Nemesis
22. Ethos
23. Love and Rape
24. The Break-Up
25. The Governance
26. A Decisive Dinner
27. Fallen from Grace
28. The Hidden Desires
29. Finish It
30. The Kali
31. The Hug
32. Mayday
33. Nostalgia
34. Gone Berserk
35. Honour for Sale
36. Plan Executed
37. Time Has Come

Index 

PROLOGUE

Keeping herds and wandering with the grazing animals was the traditional livelihood of this expanse. It was predestined so, as it happened to be far away from the wet green pastures of the Himalayan foothills. Monsoon was an event and salvation for the whole landscape of being. Fortitude, melancholy, and silence were the antique chemistry of this land and its people. The last unrecorded good days of this land are said to be the days of the bustling ancient city of Rai Dillu Raam on the banks of the mighty Indus…Then came the days of the influx of ravaging hordes of Iron Age hungerstricken westerners…They came from the north…They came from the west…Riding on the backs of their tamed horses and untamed instinct, they kept arriving for centuries to come. The unarmed agrarians and urbanized traders of abundant natural resources; the natives lost their loved ones, homes, bazaars, crops, friends, peace, past, future, potters, sculptures, designers, artisans feature, and rains; The lost moment in time and love imprinted its inscription on the hearts and souls of their generations to come. They phrased it all as Moonjh and Haan Maanda, the ethos of this primitive dwelling.

Just a shout away from the town of Shah Mehrbaan, there was a graveyard with almost everyone buried who lived a hundred years ago in the town. Some graves had no heirs, and some had too many: all were in bad condition. Crisscross passages between the graves indicated the frequency of visitors on some graves; others had difficult access with bushes and hovels in the ground of mysterious creatures. Visitors could belong to any species depending on the background of the dead.

Lonhda Faqeer was a frequent visitor of the unclaimed graves. Wearing a faded-black old fabric turban with few circles covering his head, Lonhda could be seen every other day in the graveyard. Keetpateela believed he could talk to djinns at night when no one was in the cemetery. On some occasions, he claimed, he saw Lonhda talking to no-one at night. But Lonhda won’t mind his claims, and only used to smile and avoid discussing them. However, recently, according to Keetpateela, Malangy himself witnessed it and was trembling with fear. Malangy narrated that he was passing through the graveyard in the evening when he saw Lonhda at a grave with melted bricks: the graves of the cursed brothers. He was talking to a burning shadow of a man erect at the top of the grave. Phapaan, the popcorn seller lady of the town, was the first to see Malangy entering the town from the direction of the graveyard. She was closing her little kiln of popcorn at the end of Pachadhee Street. She told Sonhara, the shopkeeper, that Malangy did not recognize her and was under a spell. But Malangy denied such a meeting with Phapaan. Lonhda himself laughed at Malangy for concocting such stories.

Ghhaiter, along with Phattee, the Chai Wala, reached the Dargah of Shah Mehrbaan on Phattee’s bicycle. The ChaiWala had already told him the story of Malangy on the way

to Dargah. Under the Banyan tree, they were all sitting around Lonhda and jeering at Malangy. But Malangy was adamant that he saw the burning man…On the other hand, Lonhda denied visiting the graveyard that evening. 

“Saen, you were wearing the same clothes you are wearing now and the same turban.” Malangy submitted with shattered belief. 

“But I remained here at the Dargah that day and didn’t leave at all,” stressed Lonhda. “Ok, let us believe you for a moment… tell me what I was talking about to the burning man?” asked Lonhda with not-so-smiling inquiring expressions. 

“You were shouting at him; I couldn’t understand the language you were speaking…. And what about Keetpateela who saw you talking to that ‘no one’?” asked Malangy to save himself from embarrassment. 

“I have already explained I was talking to a passerby he didn’t see.

CHAPTER 1:

THE ASSASSINATION

At the zenith of the eastern lines of the Suleiman Mountains range, a vista of shades was in the making. Sinking slowly into the pool of colours, emanating from the contours of its ancient being, the sun bade farewell to the long hot day— like a painting hanging down from the western skies. The landscape was filled with little grey mounds of sand mixed with earth where shrubs and lizards lived along. Under these orange shadows of the twilight zone, a herd of goats and sheep was on its way back home, making little noise, leaving a big cloud of dust rising behind them…. The taste of dust, the smell of animals, and the feeling of going home in the evening amalgamated so much that Sanwal felt at home, even though he was already at home…. Crows flying towards an unknown destination were passing over his head in scattered flocks with occasional raspy signature calls of ka…kra..ka. Sheep and goats would respond with ba..ba’a’a…. Something gloomy was in the air, in his eyes, and far away at the top of the hills. 

With a cloud of dust, the smell of animals, and a little noise of the tiny hooves of sheep and goats, Sanwal entered his mud house built in the middle of nowhere in this semidesert landscape. Diverting the first row of animals towards

the shed, which was a little hedge of shrubs, Sanwal went straight to the wooden stand of pitchers, poured water in the sunbaked clay glass, drank and washed his face, looked at Bakhtawer for a moment, she was busy in baking bread at the oven; he stepped back to a charpoy lying near the wall of the compound. It was a compound surrounded by low mud walls. In a corner of the compound, there was a raised platform with an oven and a handmade argillaceous cooktop in the center of this mud platform, and adjacent was a hut built of unbacked mud with palm branches roof, covered with dried up hay and vegetation.  

His mother, Jindwadi, had herself helped his father, Gaman, build this mud house. Jindwadi had been taking care of this house for the last fifty years. Now in her seventies, she hardly was able to take care of herself. She had been married to his father, Gaman, more than half a century ago. Bringing Sanwal up was the only ecstasy of her existence…even before his birth. She waited for seventeen long years to conceive. Shah Mehrbaan was the only hope to let her dream come true. She visited the Dargah of Shah Mehrbaan several times with her husband Gaman. However, fate played a game with her then…. “Exchanging her husband for her son,” she used to say after the death of her husband. “Souls are swapped; they never die.” It was her conviction. 

Once, a religious man told her that it was a sin to think so as it was against the laws of God. She replied with a straight face that she couldn’t afford to think of dearly departed souls in any other way. “Let me live with this sin; God should be grander than his laws.” Thus, she was living in this cursed poverty for her convictions…the neighboring wife of a religious husband would put it…this ‘husband’ was pious among these commoners as he used to lead prayer in the mosque built by someone called Hajji Sahib.

“Bakhto, my daughter, look, your husband is tired and hungry.” Mother Jindwadi called from her charpoy. Bakhtawer responded with a node that Jindwadi couldn’t see. Bakhtawer, the unwanted wife of Sanwal, in her twenties, was slim, undernourished, pale, and tall, of course; she was living here simply because she could not live anywhere else as she was married to the man who lived here. “She never complained of anything!” her mother-in-law would proudly say. Marriage at the age of sixteen was fun. She enjoyed it for months. Later they both fell prey to the dullness of being married at sixteen in an ambiance of monotony. She could not conceive for years to come. Mother-in-law, along with other mothers-in-law from the neighborhood, began to question her fertility. Sanwal remained tense for months for fear of being asked the same question. He was lucky; nobody was interested in his fecundity.

It was a plain happenstance that her infertility was timed to coincide with a deadly drought all through the expanse, but neighboring wives of the fertile fortune would believe otherwise. Monsoon stopped visiting this seclusion for many years to come. The landscape changed its outlook. Grass, shrubs, and herbs withered in the scorching heat of the dry summer. Winters wore a deserted chilling emptiness. Herds and dreams shattered. Vultures replaced the singing, tweeting, and peeping birds. Wild past woke up in the instinct of the domesticated dogs. Hunger danced in the garb of a whirlwind. Sanwal decided to leave this troubled abode. 

Sanwal, along with other young men of the hamlet, left for the town in search of some labor work. Sanwal was a drop-out child from a primary school. As he could read, write, and communicate better among the laborers, he was picked up by a local Hakeem^[1] as his assistant. He began to earn a few hundred rupees to feed Jindwadi and Bakhtawer. 

After serving Hakeem for ten long years, one night, he broke into his own house along with a woman and her daughter. He introduced the newcomers as his guests. Mother Jindwadi and Bakhtawer quietly accepted whatever he told. After shifting the guests to a nearby deserted mud house, he started his life again as a shepherd. Rain, shrubs, and herds had staged a comeback a couple of years before his return. Therefore, it was not difficult to maintain the cost of survival. 

Bakhtawer was sure that the woman was Sanwal’s second wife, and mother Jindwadi was worried about his safety and wellbeing. He had told them precisely that life of the women was in danger; therefore, he brought them with him. 

Dusk descends on these isolated locales with unforeseen fears, and silence gives way to these fears to penetrate the lonely hearts…. Jindwadi tried to break the spell of silence and aloneness; she told Sanwal in a submissive tenor that she was worried about his safety and she wanted him to stay with his wife. Sanwal didn’t reply directly to her questions and said that he was tired and would talk to her later.

“But you aren’t looking tired, at least.” Mother was not satisfied with his answer. Anyhow the dialogue was over, and the meeting too.

“Third night of the second moon,” Bakhtawer started her own lunar calendar to calculate the stays of Sanwal with the stranger women. In the meantime, she served the meal to Sanwal. As it was a bit dark, he took advantage of it, held Bakhtawer from her wrist, and asked her to sit and eat with him. But she refused and went back to the oven. 

Although she never complained, yet she could not sleep well from the day when Sanwal left the house. She wanted to tell someone that she loved him so much, but there was no one to listen to her. She was an echo of her own musings. She desired to tell Sanwal that she cared a lot for him and his wellbeing, but Sanwal never let her tell him private things. In her arms, he slept last time nearly six months ago. In his arms, she slept last time almost six years ago - the lapsed time was a black hole of Moonjh^[2] and Haan Maanda^[3]. 

It was a love affair between two strangers who never spoke of their love in private or in public…. Too strange to be called a love affair. She had never been in love before. She used to think about love when she was not married. She kept up thinking about love when she got married. Love for her was a dream or a theme of a love story that she used to listen to from her mother in her childhood. Her childhood was living adjacent to her adulthood. They never parted ways. First, they were living together in the house of her mother, then they both moved to a charpoy right in the middle of everyone. No one ever noticed anyone else living with her in her bed. But she knew it was there with her. The child, her bedfellow, tried to reconcile with the newcomer. The newcomer hardly felt its presence. Finally, old fellows decided to live side by side forever without a desire to be felt by anyone else. 

Its presence was the only delight of her life. Love was still a dream and a theme of a love story: the love story that was still in the air like a colorful bird, hovering over a dried-up lagoon in a distant land. Her mother passed away. She lost a storyteller. The heroine of the love story was left alone in the middle of the story.

After a while, when mother went to bed…the bed she remained in throughout the day; he left his charpoy and joined Bakhtawer in her cot. She stayed motionless for a while. A fragile smile spread on her lips without any palpable motive. He hugged her after a long time: six long years. She closed her eyes and stopped breathing. She could not afford to let this moment pass, realizing its intensity and morbidity. He kissed her on her lips. She opened her eyes…could not see his features, and closed her eyes again. The heroine of the love story was found. A rider on horseback was holding her to his chest. The heroin spread her wings like a fairy and began to fly high into the unknown skies. She was lost again in a moment. She found her alone in the middle of bewilderment. The rider on the horseback, her hero, shriveled into a shining star glowing in her eyes. A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and froze at the tip of her chin. It was dark. He was nowhere. 

“Third night of the second moon,” Bakhtawer mused again.

She imagined naked Zubaida at the other end of the little inhabitation of a few families clustered together due to bloodline. She envisioned her fears; folded legs, jerking hips and lips on. She stood up, and went straight near to the stove, grabbed a green chili from the shelf carved out into the mud wall, and began to chew it. While pouring water from the pitcher, the wooden stand of the pitcher fell on her legs, but she managed to hold it, and Jindwadi did not wake up. She had mastery in teasing herself and then saving the accused by enduring the pain. Her love and hatred both were dumb.  

Zubaida was living at the other end of the village in another house along with her daughter. Sanwal had been living there since the day he brought them from Shah Mehrbaan. One and all in the village were convinced that she was living on her own expenses. Some people believed that she liquidated some of her jewelry which she brought from her former husband’s house. The point of discussion among the fellow villagers was why she opted to go along with a poor man like Sanwal, who had served her at her former husband’s house as a loyal servant for ten years. Some were of the view that it was the sexual lust that brought her to the threshold of a poor man. However, there was a contradiction in this theory. They all had a consensus that before opting for Sanwal, another young man was involved with her in her village. Nonetheless, they were all convinced that it must have been sex that played a decisive role in her life. The crux of the story was that she had been wedded against her will to a man 20 years older than her. The man was a renowned Hakeem in the area and a widower. He was well off but notso-well off in his manhood. It is not clear what the reason behind these serious estimations was. Whether it was her beauty or the thrill of mystery, one thing was obvious that it gave life to the chitchat of the village sittings.

It was roughly dawn. Things began to show up in the shape of shadows. Bakhtawer woke up with a sound of fury coming out of her throat. She was dreaming. It was a nightmare. She tried to recollect. It was baffling. It was as if she was at the top of the hills: right at the top of the hills where the Sun used to set in the summer evenings.

Among other strange creatures, a flying wolf was hovering over her little boy named Sanwal, who was lying in the open, and it began to rain. She wanted to pick this child from beneath the thundering clouds and hovering wolf. She found herself planted into the ground. She could not move. She wanted to scream, but her voice refused to come out of her throat…. The wolf came down with the body of a woman and the face of a wolf. To her utter amazement, she found one adult Sanwal, whispering to the wolf woman and instigating her to attack, Sanwal, the child. Meanwhile, a beam of lightning flashed down to earth and engulfed, Sanwal, the man. 

Now the characters changed their sides. All of a sudden, Sanwal, the child, Jindwadi, and the wolf woman began to beg the light beam to spare, Sanwal, the man. In an instant, Sanwal, the child, disappeared from the scene along with the beam of lightning.

She was breathing heavily. Her frenzy was hardly over. Her heart was beating at an alarming pace. Haan Maanda began to penetrate her chest and spread down to her belly. Her legs refused to carry her mass…knock at the door was the last thing she wanted to hear.

Now she was deaf too. Someone was talking to mother Jindwadi, who woke up and replied to the thump. She was stunned. Her throat was choking with some fluid oozing from every direction in her mouth. She kept up swallowing the fluid…could not keep it up… Bakhtawer fell unconscious near the charpoy. 

Jindwadi fell on her knees and began to beat her chest. She was wailing and moaning in pain. Women from the neighborhood began to gather at the house. Everyone was crying with the mother and the wife of Sanwal. Men sat outside the house under a Jaal tree, on mats. Sanwal’s first cousins, neighbors, and people from other clans gathered at the place. His dead body was lying on a cot in the center of the gathering of wailing women and playing children. Someone was sent to the nearby graveyard to dig a grave; others were busy placing orders to the kiln to arrange bricks to cover the grave.  Around noon, some daring men stood up to fetch his body from inside the house. A collective howl of moans rose from inside the house. Mother Jindwadi was too weak to stand up, so she could only beat her chest and thighs, and she did. Bakhtawer clinging to the cot, refused to let them pick the dead body. She was wailing without stop. She was uttering words full of grievances against the dead man. 

“Look, finally, he is leaving me. Anyone, ask him to stay…. Please let him realize my pain and love. Who will compensate for my loss? Live! Wherever you want to, but live at least. I promise you not to say a word. Have I ever uttered a word? O’ my protector, O’ my reason to live, please be with me. O’ you betrayer, don’t betray me. Waiting for you was my destiny…Wailing for you is my future.” She felt relieved of dumbness and guilty of relief at the same time.

They left the wailing women and stunned children behind. The group of men, after saying a funeral prayer on the way towards the graveyard which was at a distance of stone’s throw from where the living people lived (the only demarcation of the graveyard was the aching hush), buried him under the huge mound of earth and left with an empty charpoy…. They used to call every charpoy a deathbed -

Marran Manja. Moty, the dog, couldn’t leave the graveyard.

“All was well, and then they cheated on their mother’s lap. They betrayed the bosoms they were fed upon,” someone was wailing over the graves of the cursed brothers. “Clear your conscious and be your bygone. Past of the purest is an utter delusion. Come my fathers, come my sons, lo and behold, what we have done. Mothers of the sinners and sisters of the brothers flock together. See them off to the oven of the troubles. See them off to the gorges of the nights. No! No! No! ‘Wail wail not’ O our halves! Half of us rumored; we were filled. Fated to fail. God is time; thus, he is watching, and doesn’t watch in vain”. Phapaan, the corn seller, turned back her head without moving her body and stared at the Malang with bloody burning eyes. The Malang fell unconscious on the ground with wide-open eyes.

CHAPTER 2:

TWO YEARS EARLIER

A fresh, cool breeze was blowing gently…. Calm prevailed the entire seclusion of the Dargah of Shah Mehrbaan under the shadows of an old Banyan tree. Clouds were moving in from every direction - a prelude to the first monsoon rain after a long spell of heat in Shah Mehrbaan village. Life began to feel more protected than without rain. “Something ancient is involved with rain,” said Lonhda Faqeer. “Hail, Saawan! Hail!” Rhymed the Faqeer. With a familiar sound, downpour like a herd of wild horses running in a row, broke the silence in the Dargah. Everyone in the shrine burst out, some to watch and some to let the rain caress…. Lonhda started, and others joined a chorus, a Saraiki children’s rhyme song filled the Dargah with melody: 

Lorha devaan,

Pani devaan,

Phul Phul, wadray thewo…

Grow, grow O’ flowers, let me hedgerow O’ flowers, and let me water thee… Yo’ O’ flower.

With the rhythm of the song, the shrubs began to rise above their length and only Lonhda was witness to it. Malangy, the drumbeater, woke up from his deep slumber of Bhang and began to beat his rhythm of being (Jeevan di jog...as he put it). It was as if everything was moving on the back of a camel with a perpetual to-and-fro motion. With the drum sticks up, the hands and footwork of every participant of this bonanza went in the same course at the same pace, like they were breathing in a dancing mode…. Malangy and Ghhaiter joined together to add mouth music, putting their heads together and looking into each other’s eyes;

Oonh oonh, ttaannuk..dhinn, dhin..oo nuk oonh ttanuk….

‘We are dancing’ mused Lonhda Faqeer with a musical curl of hands and head.

‘We are raining with the rain…We are blowing with the wind.’

Lorha devaan, Pani devaan Phul Phul wadrray thewo….

Ghhaiter looked up in to the skies, closing his eyes, and remembered his mother, who would sing to Ghhaiter in her lap as a lullaby song. 

Moty, the dog, was watching from his peaceful wet eyes, a pair of sparrows was sitting wet at a nearby branch of the Banyan tree, and a sheep was sitting beside a pitcher of water, bugs were creeping from inside their holes: miniaturizing nature.

“It smells so close; love is in the air.” Faqeer inhaled the aroma of earth mixed with rain.

“Love is a snare.” chanted Maghna in an intriguing tenor.

“Hush!” whispered Ghhaiter, “Love is a song sung by nature.”

“Where is nature?” probed the drumbeater Malangy.

“Where is the Banyan tree?” counter-questioned the Faqeer. 

Swinging with a nearby root, Keetpateela murmured, “Here is a Banyan tree.”  

“No! Its mere branch of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree?” 

Sonhara sitting with the stem, patting the girth, muttered, “Here is the Banyan tree!”

“Hahaha… it’s the stem of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree?” 

And then Malangy began to complete the rest of the matrix, “Leaves of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree; shade of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree, age of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree; scent of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree, love of the Banyan tree; where is the Banyan tree?”

“Whole is the Banyan tree,” proclaimed Lonhda Faqeer.

“Haq is the Banyan tree; the universe is the Banyan tree.

Haq is you cannot see, Haq is me, they and thee.”

“Lonhda is committing sin; Lonhda is an infidel.” 

A meteorite of fear fell into the Dargah and love evaporated. It was the voice of a passerby Hajji Sahib, the builder of the mosque where pious men used to say prayers…not the ones who lived under the Banyan tree near Dargah of the saint Shah Mehrbaan.

Ghhaiter, Keetpateela, Malangy, Sonhara, Maghna, the sheep, the sparrows, the dog, and the Banyan tree gathered around Lonhda Faqeer. The Faqeer began to recite,  ‘Lorha devaan pani devaan phul phul wadray thewo.’ Silence crept back into the air under the Banyan tree. 

“The Banyan tree looks more ancient, like silence in the evening.” Maghna tried to retreat into an unknown past. 

Everyone left the Dargah except Lonhda Faqeer, who crept closer to the tree. It was time for Haan Maanda: gloomy feelings in the chest near the heart and in the air flowed in. 

“It is as ancient as Banyan trees.” mused the Faqeer. 

A bit bright, a little dark, it was twilight. Fear, darkness, solitude, silence, and the unguarded self of the Faqeer, all led to a state of being that is Haan Maanda. “Let’s sleep!” wished the ethos of the shrine.

THE SPELL

A stray dog was licking the dead body of Lonhda. Dog’s tongue was searching the soft tissue of his dead flesh.

Lonhda was motionless as a corpse should be…. The dog selected the flesh of his neck. Sharp teeth of the dog struck into the neck of Lonhda, but could not penetrate so deep…. Something strange got in the way of his teeth…. The dog began to pull the object, or whatever it was, out…. The flesh of the skin refused to split. The dog began to howl on the primitive pitch without any effort and will. Leaving the corpse, raising its head towards the canopy of the Banyan tree, a long and painful howl came out of its mouth. The dog was no longer at Shah Mehrbaan…. It seemed to be a thick rainforest in the darkness of ages. 

A pack of wild dogs encircled an ancient monster. The dog was right in the middle of the circle confronting the monster…. The monster was so huge that the stray dog was unable to reach its neck…. The monster was furious, continuously turning on its feet. Her big eyes were focused on the stray dog, which attacked with full force. The stray dog was quick enough to slip away from underneath the monster’s big feet, and very quickly turned back, jumped in the air, and landed at the hump of the monster, struck its teeth into its thick ages-old skin. The monster’s attention was diverted by the attack of two more furious wild dogs. The stray dog was unable to penetrate the ages-old skin of the monster. It jumped back into the ages-old darkness. The stray dog suddenly metamorphosed into the shape of Lonhda. This time, he was facing the fury of other human beings like Lonhda himself. They looked like Lonhda, but their skin was thicker than him. They encircled the almost naked Lonhda. 

Lonhda was in continuous motion, turning on his feet…they were getting closer…with their mouth full of long wild teeth. Lonhda was staggered to find himself among the hunters of his own race. They were squeezing

Lonhda…space for his movement was being eaten up by the six-fingered feet cannibals. A wild and quick thought came into his mind in a lightning mod. Lonhda began to transform into the body of a woman. His hair began to stretch…his breasts started swelling…organs began to retreat inside his body and vanished into an opening between his legs. The cannibals were getting closer, but this time without showing their teeth. Now, they were on their knees, hands on the ground like four-legged animals. They were sniffing around Lonhda, the woman. The scene changed in a moment. Half of the cannibals could not remain in the circle as they were squeezing around Lonhda, the woman. The left-out cannibals began to push those who were in the circle. A fight broke out among them. They were attacking each other with their lethal jaws. Lonhda, the woman left the fighting cannibals in the middle of the jungle and retreated into the ages-old depth of the woods, and the woods caught fire.

Lonhda came out of the spell with the wet touch of the tongue of Moty, the dog. It was trying to lick the bare feet of

Lonhda. Usually, with the first light showing up at the eastern horizon, Moty would lick his feet to wake him up. He could not determine whether it was a dream or an out-ofbody experience. But it was obvious that something heavier had been on his mind. Although he slept well throughout the night, yet he was feeling exhausted. He scratched his neck; it was burning.

NINE MONTHS LATER:

THE BLAST

Lonhda Faqeer started his day with a dip into the freshwater of the well - poured out with string attached to a bucket under the shadow of the Banyan tree. A little cool, a bit cozy: spring comes on horseback in this region and vanishes quickly to give way to a hot wind blowing from the south to make the wheat crop look golden…and to make dwellers dance with the wind to assure themselves of the food available for the year ahead. Wesaakhi is the name of the fair that starts at Darbar of Sakhisarwer. Men and women visit the Darbar to fall in love and to cure diseases while dancing.... Lonhda was ready to seek love. 

Ghhaiter entered the Dargah with a shopper’s bag full of curried chickpeas. Then, Keetpateela came in with a bundle of stale bread. Maghna was already there…just before breakfast, a boy came from the house of Sonhara and handed over a pot of fresh lassy^[4]. A ball of butter was floating on the surface of the lassy. Butter spread on the bread, and loaves of bread were filled with the curry: the first and only formal meal throughout the day…. The rest of the two meals had never been bothered for or assured of. Ants began to trail down to the leftovers of bread and the curry, picking and going back by the same passage. Maghna was watching them with curiosity. 

“What are you watching, Ustad? (Ghhaiter used to call someone Ustad whenever he felt something strange being done by people, as a taunt or praise for a teacher or an expert). 

“Power of the ants to sniff out the food.” replied Maghna without moving his gaze. 

“You know,” Keetpateela entered the chat, “it’s not the hunger that brings them to the food. It’s the will to remain alive.”

“Fear of death or will to remain alive?” questioned Lonhda. 

“No! Neither it’s fear nor the will to survive; it’s the way they have been intended to behave by God,” Malangy floated a thesis. “Malngy look at ants, it is said in Saraiki that even an ant is braver when at home, you must learn something from these ants. Someone slipped your wife from your home and you did nothing.” Ghhaiter used to tease Malangy in a lighter mood.

“You know what?” Malangy turned to Ghhaiter, “My wife left me when I was young, and she was beautiful. She ran away with a landlord who was not so young and was even beydikha^[5]. You wouldn’t see an ant using her body for food and shelter; only women do.”

Lonhda raised his head and turned to Malangy, “My dear Malangy, it’s not exactly woman or ant; it is fear and love that make everyone make the mess. For love, she was with you; out of fear, she left you. Fear prevails when love is stagnant. Love should be as alarming as fear is.”  

Malangy, after a pause, looked into Ghhaiter’s eyes and announced a mystery statement: “A beautiful woman is an insatiable soul.”

“Oh, then she must have come back or gone ahead?” Ghhaiter was not ready to spare him. 

“Yes, once she sent me a message that the wish we made together at the Dargah of Shah Mehrbaan for a beautiful son had been fulfilled. She required me to play a Dhamal tune at the shrine.”

“Means you had to celebrate the disloyalty of your wife?” Ghhaiter teased him. 

“No! It’s not the question. It’s the way she has been intended to behave. And I have been intended to behave. The Dargah has been premeditated to behave. And Ghhaiter, you, who has been designed to behave the way you are behaving,” taunted Malang. 

“We are children of the earth; we don’t have honour if love is not an honour. We do not care about the guilt if loving another one is guilt. We are aimed so. We are loyal to the life itself. We don’t kill, we can’t kill, we remain in a perpetual phase of moonjh that makes us singers, dancers, and we can fall in love again and again.” Malangy gagged Ghhaiter. Lonhda was busy feeding the sparrows gathered at the other end of the sanctuary under the Banyan tree shelter. 

“All is going on under the Banyan tree shelter…bound to happen as it is happening. We are here to beautify or to brutalize the narration of the already written story of life.” Lonhda was talking to sparrows. 

“What really compels you to feed these creatures?” inquired Sonhara, who had just entered the sanctuary. 

“You are found more interested where food is involved,” jested Lonhda. 

“Original in their form, they sing the song of the ancient memories…least adulterated by the revolutions of man…harmonized with the rhythm of the universe. Sonhara, do you remember the old days of wesakhi, when we used to go with the Sangh?” 

Lonhda began to meditate…: A series of camels entering the vicinity of the town…the inhabitants of the town were attentive to the jingles of the bells hanging from the long curved necks of the camels…the riders of the camels with spotless white turbans and well-trimmed mustaches…swinging with the gait of the camels…someone in the caravan, playing the flute in intoxicating tunes.

A sudden noise of a lorry disrupted the melodious meditation of the Faqeer. Ghhaiter was running for his clothes. All were ready to move in a few minutes as per the finalized plan to attend Wesakhi fair as pilgrims for the anniversary of Sultan Sakhi Sarwer…concluding days of the fair. The lorry left the sanctuary immediately. On the way, all were singing, “aakho jhoolay laal^[6].” Sonhara and Maghna were left behind to facilitate Dr. Zameer in his free medical camp due that day, and the venue was, as usual, the shrine. 

Lonhda, sitting by the window of the bus, was peeping through the window pane…in a row Keekar trees were running backward as the bus moved ahead…on every branch of the trees, many birds were sitting, flying, feeding offspring…Gaira^[7], Dadherra⁸, Chanh Pakhee^[8], Tateehar^[9], Darkhaan Pakhee^[10], Lali^[11], Barri Kabooter^[12], Kaan^[13] and

Gijh^[14]…. Lonhda felt frightened as a Gijh stared back at him. They passed by a point called Aadhi Wala Khu, where a lamp post was in deteriorated condition. That point was once a resting place of the caravans on the way to the Darbar of Sakhi Sarwer. Finally, they could see a distant wall of dried mountains shaped like camels, sheep, and mammoth beasts with brown skin. The bus was approaching the first mount of the Suleiman Range, the Mount Trutee Rohree: a distant mount from the Main Range… a few kilometers away from the mountains of Sakhi Sarwer. 

Within an hour, as they crossed a dried bed of hill torrent, they were entering the sanctuary of Sultan Sakhi Sarwer. At the end of the street leading to the darbar, there were shops of multicolor sweets, bangles, garlands, colorful rings, green scarves, flutes, and everything that could add to the festive mood of the darbar. A group of men and women were dancing in a circle around the drum beater. Advancing and dancing in the moving mode was a unique way of entering the shrine. There were men, women, and children with eyes full of hopes and joys. They were here to make a wish or to say thanks to the saint for fulfilling their wishes. They were all expectant. Mainly they were from the lower middle class of the plains of five rivers, agrarian by profession or dependent on agriculture. Disease, poverty, helplessness, and belief made them akin. Love, ethos, we-feeling, and a sense of contact with the one who could mend, brought them together here, for the ambiance of the shrines simply accepts all without questioning their cast and creeds. The only thing they knew was to dance with the vibes of ecstasy, but dance and ecstasy are freedom, and freedom defies the rules.

BANG. 

Lonhda was trying to get up…blood oozing from his right elbow. He could not understand the situation for a while. It was a little dark. No, it wasn’t; perhaps a cloud of smoke made it feel so. What is this noise...rather screams and moans? What happened? Lonhda was trying to grab the situation. Where is Ghhaiter? The first question, after coming into senses, he put to Phatee. 

“What’s going on? What is this noise? Who is crying? Oh, my God, whose arm is this? What is this flesh? Who has torn his shirt? Why is she hanging from the pole? Why is her body torn apart? Whose child is this? What is this smoke?” Lonhda was hysterically questioning Phatee. Phatee was dumbfounded. Colorful sweets were scattered everywhere, mostly, wearing the color of blood. A ring was lying near a tiny halffinger of a child. Keetpateela came out of the smoke. He was inside the darbar. As he stepped forward, he trampled a flute lying in a pool of blood. A dancing hand, with curved fingers, was lying near the broken stick of the drum.  

“Where is Ghhaiter?” he asked Keetpateela. He raised a finger, pointing towards a pool of blood where Ghhaiter was trying to breathe with much difficulty. Lonhda and Keetpateela ran to Ghhaiter. They helped him to stand up, but his legs were wounded badly. He was bleeding from his temple; his eyes began to close. They rushed him to somewhere; they could not identify the direction. Someone took hold of them and put them all into an ambulance.

The ambulance reached a deserted local hospital; a doctor and a dispenser were trying to read the pulse of Ghhaiter. They shifted him to a stretcher and then into the operation theatre, just another room of the hospital with a table. All entered the theatre. Within a few minutes, many wounded people were brought to the hospital. The only doctor was running from one wounded patient to another. Many were dying in haste. They didn’t have time to wait for the doctor to attend to their wounds. Meanwhile, Dr. Zameer got the news and rushed to the Dargah all the way from Shah Mehrbaan on the ambulance he had brought with him for the medical camp and joined the hospital staff to help the wounded. He ran tirelessly from stretcher to stretcher, but Life betrayed him badly on that very day.

They were from the very core of the circle of the dancing party. Some were brought breathless. After a little treatment, including some injections and some stitches, Ghhaiter was shifted outside the theatre. He was put on a charpoy. All the attendants, including Keetpateela, Phatee, and Lonhda, were silently sitting on a bench. Ghhaiter, for a while, opened his eyes; his eyeballs stopped moving. He was staring into the depths of limitless blue sky. His body was motionless, except for the muscles of his tummy. Lonhda stood up and walked up to the charpoy of Ghhaiter. He bent over him, whispered gently, “Get up yar.”

In a blurred visual, something familiar began to show up: a layer of yellow mustard flowers, a stratum of bright yellow color moving to and fro up to the horizon, a face just above the yellow bright layer moving with the mustard flowers - a face so familiar, so soft, so soothing. Departed Mother Taggi standing tall above the mustard flower field, flying like a fairy over the yellow floating layer, smiling with extended arms, she was moving up to him. In her lap---perfect to fit in, a familiar scent, a nipple, a light sweet taste, the taste buds, warmth, and love. Ghhatu closed his eyes. “Lorha devan pani devan phul phul wadray thevo,” Taggi was wailing melodiously. Her Ghhatu was back in her lap.

Lonhda turned around, looked at Keetpateela, pulled him into his arms, and wept loudly. It was the twenty-sixth death within an hour in the hospital. Malangy was later brought on a stretcher. He had lost his left foot under the debris. He was unconscious. After first aid, he was shifted to the hospital in the city with other critically injured people. 

Ghhaiter’s dead body was shifted to the Dargah of Shah Mehrbaan after some rituals at his home. Ghhaiter’s only heir was his 16-year-old son, Sultan, who would inherit genes only because Ghhaiter’s sole property was his bloodsoaked clothing. Sultan was called from school.... His fast friend Fareed was holding Sultan in his arms. He was crying like a child because a child he was. The only reference to his existence except his own entity was gone. Something heavily depressing stuck in his chest, near the heart over the tummy…imagining living without Ghhaiter…being the only child of Ghhaiter, he often would complain of being alone.

Now he could differentiate between “being alone and feeling alone.”

CHAPTER 3:

SEVEN YEARS EARLIER

Zubaida

Hakeem Abdul Saboor was busy preparing some rare types of herbal solutions for Ehsaan Elahi. “This time, he should feel the strength of seventeen years old boy.” Hakeem remembered the last words of Ehsan Elahi’s man who came to place the order for this magic solution. This solution was well known among the men of this area since the days of Hakeem’s father. Gossip in the region was that the actual income of Hakeem sahib was the income from this special solution. Men from far-flung areas used to come to Hakeem sahib for treatment of some secret illness. The patients of this illness were otherwise healthy-looking men. They usually belonged to well-off agrarian-middle-class men. Women of the town seldom visited Hakeem sahib’s clinic on their own. Typically, men-of-honor (as they would like to identify themselves) would not visit Hakeem sahib’s clinic…they used to send trusted messengers. Something awfully mysterious was attached to the reputation of the pharmacy.  

Zubaida, in an armchair, with captivating black eyes, was watching him doing the job, sitting on a carpet. Hakeem looked at her and smiled mysteriously. Whether her tan complexion was enough to impress anyone or not, but the way she used to be comfortable in her own skin made her beautiful enough to make anyone long for her. She was an average attractive woman in her twenties with an average height of five feet, as any other young woman could be, but her specialty was her liberal smile and confident gait. She was a young, charming wife of an aged man, which was sufficient to induce some of the men around her to fall in love just for fun. 

Hakeem sahib was above fifty. Zubaida was Hakeem’s second wife. She was the daughter of Hakeem’s eldest brother-in-law, who, after his sister’s death, offered the hand of Zubaida, the daughter of his second wife and stepdaughter of Hakeem’s sister, for it was a good available option in the town. Hakeem’s in-laws had migrated from India and had no blood relations in the neighborhood. A decade ago, when Zubaida was just entering puberty, Hakeem accepted the offer immediately, and the proposal was executed within two weeks. Zubaida was badly perturbed by the decision but knew nothing of saying no in these matters. So she gave in. In fact, it was Zahid, the son of Ehsan Elahi, a famous figure in the town who was in love with Zubaida. She acquired ten years of education from the only high school in the town. Her innocent looks and simplicity attracted every boy in the village. Zahid was the only serious case who went to the extent of writing love letters to her. Although these love letters were never answered, albeit verbal contact on the way to school was the only interaction between them. The two souls kept up thinking about their future when the unexplained death of Zubaida’s aunt, the wife of Hakeem, disrupted the peaceful love affair between Zahid and

Zubaida. Within one month of her death, the proposal was in the air. Zubaida, a sixteen years old girl full of life, but a viable-swapping-wife for the dead old one, couldn’t agree or disagree: the agreement she signed didn’t carry the burden of proof of social duress. Death sometimes kickstarts a chain reaction of several other deaths…. 

“Why don’t people admit they are impotent?” Zubaida was teasing Hakeem’s ego. Hakeem left the grinding work of some leaves of a ‘life-giving’ shrub and hugged Zubaida. Suddenly Hakeem felt the loss of his stance. “Damn it!” he babbled, “It happens, with or without reason, or it can be the exhaustion.” Hakeem was struggling. “You know it’s the skill of the woman to arouse her man,” Hakeem spoke in a vindictive tone. “Something is missing in your sensual self, nowadays.” Hakeem, after slipping from his manhood citadel, was stoning her sensual ego to death to humble her wild age down. Her puffy lips with Mona Lisa smile refused to surrender and retreated miles away from Hakeem’s shaken fortress of manhood.

“Man gives meaning to the existence of a woman.” A whisper echoed while her eyes were closed. He was all over her, caressing, kissing, breathing…tears came into her man’s eyes…which one…she bothered least. “I love you so much!” groan of a man and the wetness of lips turning repulsive broke the magic charm. She opened her eyes. Her thighs were wet with the dead old sperms of Hakeem. How can he do it without an erection? It always baffled her. Man gives meaning to the existence of a woman! Was it Hakeem or her thoughts of Zahid...tears in whose eyes…or in her own? She could not sort it out.

Sanwal was in the garden, where he used to sleep on a charpoy. She dropped the curtains off the window, which she picked up to locate Sanwal. She left Hakeem Sahib asleep and opened the back door of the veranda noiselessly. Sanwal was already on his toes to fetch Zahid from the mud wall of the backyard garden. He gave him a hand, and Zahid jumped into the garden. After leaving Sanwal in the open, they joined in the servant room of Sanwal.  

Darkness was the blanket, and hands were the eyes…tightly combed hairs, forehead a bit warm, eyelashes a little wet, and tip of the nose in the loose grip of the lips, fingers on the pulse of the domes - fleshy, spongy, soft and hot of course. “She is still hard,” was the passing thought of the hands on the tip of the dome…flowing curve of the hips, cleave like a deep thought…urge flew high. She folded herself into her own arms…the limbs vanished…matter transformed into energy and energy into feelings. She commanded the moves; he responded like a slave. Life took charge, and they both were desired away into a postorgasmic silence: language no more required; words no more suitable.  

“It is false dawn!” Sanwal whispered from the cracks of the door. Sanwal lied; it was midnight. They concluded the silence, composed their belongings, and left. Sanwal couldn’t leave the garden. There at the charpoy, he couldn’t sleep the rest of the night…another type of Haan Maanda,

like a moment before dying, of those who don’t want to die but die anyway.  

In the shadows along the empty darkness of the shrine across the canopy of the Banyan tree, the mangoes garden in Hakeem’s backyard was sending out fragrances and whispers of surreptitious affairs. Lonhda Faqeer, following the trail of the whispering fragrances, barefooted, approached a peeping canopy of a tall mango tree. Caressing the dome of the earth, the night frenzied the creatures, and Lonhda fell in love with the night (again). 

“Slaves do love the masters and sufferers,” a painful whisper echoed in the air. “Grief is a lurking monster hiding in the tiny seeds of time, waiting to grow louder than the laughter of life.” mused Lonhda, and the echo stopped. Walls started moving back, or Lonhda was floating ahead, smoke screening the ambiance, a wind with ancient smells of skeletons blowing from behind pushed him to the graveyard, and Lonhda fell on the mounds of the melted bricks graves: graves of the cursed brothers. “Posthumous repentance burns you forever. Burn yourself in the fire of truth, repent not for the generations to come.” resurrected skeleton burning in flares preached the Faqeer. “Gloomy are nights and sours are days, truth or falsehood belittles the ethos. Nothing is true; nothing is false!” the Faqeer replied, staring away above the flickers as if he was reading something written in the air. “We are sons of this soil, gone and forsaken; we refused to obey.” The burning skeleton spoke in the language of cyphers through dancing flares. “Rebellion is the beginning of a people and culmination of an individual.” Lonhda read the invisible lines in the air.

Maryam

Fareed signaled with his right hand while holding the handle of the bicycle with his left one. The bicycle was dancing on the road. She got the signal and turned left towards a deserted passage leading to an old cast-off kiln. Furious and fledgling, Maryam was turning seventeen with all the audacity and truthfulness of youth. She had long black flowing hairs down to her hips, black-brown eyes with thick eyebrows, a short forehead, and an Indo-Aryan nose, like her mother, curved and awfully generous lips.

With a tinge of authority, she had a temperament that leads to high treason if poorly tamed. Fareed was kissing her frantically. She pushed him away (after taking some time) in a way that he could not understand what exactly she wanted. She grabbed him from his shirt and stared directly into his eyes. 

“Will you stand by me if I decide to kill you?” Fareed frowned. 

“You mean you want to kill me?” asked Fareed, trying to smile. 

“No, not at all, but if I need to, will you stand by me?” 

“Don’t be stupid. What type of question is this?” shrieked Fareed. 

“This is a question between you and me, between love and life. I need you at my service. Be my slave!” she pulled Fareed from his hair and sucked his lips so hard that he almost screamed. 

“What is wrong with you?” Fareed tried to shout at her in a loving tone. 

It was the way she welcomed Fareed in these bewilderments. She always puzzled Fareed with her strange questions and stupid demands. She was the bitter fruit of Zubaida. 

“Let’s run away!” she suggested as if it came to her mind suddenly. 

“Why, why should we run away?” Fareed was again in trouble. 

“Just to be together.”

“But, we are together.” 

“No, it winds me up that I can’t call you at home as my mother does.”

“What your mother does?”

“Leave it, c’mon, let’s run away!” 

“But where to?” 

“Somewhere, I do not know where to. We shall go to the city. We shall earn together.” She was insisting, and Fareed was trying to run away alone. 

“Ok, let’s move. We are getting late, or Sanwal will tell your mother.” 

“No, he will not. He is used to it.”