They had come to Amritsar from Lahore after seven-and-a-half years. Attending the hockey match was an excuse, they were more interested in seeing those houses and bazaars that had become foreign to them seven-and-a-half years ago. You could see groups of Muslims wandering around the different streets. They gazed at every little thing with such enthusiasm, it was as though the city was not just an ordinary city but a full-fledged attraction centre.

Going through narrow bazaars, they reminded each other of all the old, familiar things—Look, Fatehdina, there are fewer sugar shops in the bazaar! Sukkhi bhatiyarin used to have a furnace in that corner, right there where a paanwallah is sitting now…look at the salt market, Khan sahib! Every lalain here has so much salt in her that…!

Ornate plumed turbans and red Turki caps were seen in the bazaars after a long time. Many of the Muslims who had come from Lahore had been forced to leave Amritsar during Partition. Seeing the inevitable changes that seven-and-a-half years had wrought, their eyes either filled with astonishment or clouded with regret. Vallah! How did Katra Jaimalsingh become so wide? Did all the houses on this side burn down? Wasn’t Hakim Asif Ali’s shop here? Now a cobbler has usurped it?

Snatches of such conversations could also be heard—Wali, the masjid is still there, as it was! They haven’t turned it into a gurdwara!

Wherever the Pakistanis went in the city, people looked at them with eager curiosity. Some fearful folk still stepped aside when they saw the Muslims walking towards them, but others went forward to embrace them. Mostly they asked the visitors questions such as: What is Lahore like these days? Is Anarkali as lively as it used to be? We’ve heard that the Shah Almi Gate Bazaar has been built anew? Has there been any special change in Krishan Nagar? Has the Rishwatpura there really been built from money got from bribes? They say that the burqa has completely vanished from Pakistan, is this true? There was such affection in these questions, it was as if Lahore was not a city, but a close relative of thousands of people, and they longed to hear about the well-being of that dear relation. The visitors from Lahore were the guests of the entire city for that day and people were thrilled to meet them and chat with them.

Bazaar Baansa was a derelict bazaar in Amritsar that had largely been inhabited by lower-class Muslims before Partition. It mostly had shops selling bamboo and wooden roof beams, all had been destroyed in a fire. The Bazaar Baansa fire was Amritsar’s most terrifying fire and for a while there was the fear that the entire city might burn down. The fire had consumed many of Bazaar Baansa’s neighbourhoods. It had eventually been brought under control, but for every Muslim home that was burnt, four to six Hindu homes had also been reduced to ashes. Now seven-and-a-half years later, many new buildings had come up in their place, but there were still piles of rubble here and there. These little hills of debris sitting next to new buildings created a strange ambience.

But even on such a day, Bazaar Baansa saw no hustle and bustle, no excited throngs, because most of the people who lived there had perished along with their houses, and as for those who’d survived and left, perhaps none of them had the courage to return. There was only a thin old Muslim man who ventured into the deserted bazaar that day. Looking at the new buildings and burnt houses, he felt he had strayed into a maze. When he reached the lane that turned left, he made as if to enter, but then hesitated and remained standing. As if he couldn’t believe that this was the lane where he wanted to go. On one side of the lane, a few children were playing and a little further, two women were screaming abuses at each other at the tops of their voices.

‘Everything has changed but the way people talk hasn’t changed!’ said the old Muslim softly to himself. He stood where he was, leaning on his walking stick. His knees stuck out of his pyjamas. There were three or four patches sewn on his sherwani, just above his knees. A small child came crying out of the lane. He called out to him cajolingly, ‘Come here, bete! Come, I’ll give you something, come.’ And he put his hand inside his pocket, looking for something he could give to the child. For an instant, the child stopped crying, but then he pursed his lips again and began wailing. A young girl, around sixteen or seventeen, came running out of the lane, caught the child’s arm and took him back into the lane. Now the child squirmed, trying to free his arm even as he continued crying. The girl picked him up, gathered him tightly to her, kissed him and said, ‘Keep quiet, khasam-khane! If you keep crying, that Muslim man will grab you and take you away! Keep quiet, I tell you!’

The old Muslim had taken out a coin to give the child, now he put it back in his pocket. He removed his cap, scratched his head a little, then tucked the cap under his arm. His throat was dry and his knees were trembling a little. Taking the support of a wooden platform of a closed shop just outside the lane, he put his cap back on his head. In front of the lane was a three-storeyed house. Once that space had been used for storing tall piles of wooden beams. On an electric wire in front sat two plump eagles, inert and unmoving. There was a patch of sun near the electric pole. For a while, he gazed at the tiny specks of dust floating in the sunshine. Then the words ‘Ya malik!’ escaped from his mouth.

A young man swinging a bunch of keys came towards the lane.S eeing the old man, he said, ‘Why are you standing here, miyanji?’ The old man felt a faint quiver in his chest and arms. He moistened his lips with his tongue, looked at the young man carefully and said, ‘Bete, your name is Manori, isn’t it?’

The young man stopped twirling the bunch of keys, closed his fist around them and asked in some astonishment, ‘How do you know my name?’

‘Seven-and-a-half years ago you were this high,’ said the old man, trying to smile.

‘You’ve come from Pakistan today?’

‘Yes! We used to stay in this very lane,’ said the old man. ‘My son Chiragdin was your tailor. We had built a new house here six months before Partition.’

‘Oh, Ghani miyan!’ Manori said, recognizing him.

‘Yes, bete, I am your Ghani miyan! I can’t meet Chirag, his wife and children, but let me at least see the house once!’ The old man removed his cap, rubbed his head, and controlled his tears.

‘You left much before, didn’t you?’ said Manori, his voice full of sympathy.

‘Yes, bete, it was my cursed bad luck that I left alone, much earlier. If I had stayed here, then along with him, I too….’ As he spoke, he felt he should not have said this. He stopped the words from coming out of his mouth but let the tears that had gathered in his eyes flow.

‘Let it be, Ghani miyan, what is the point of remembering all that?’ Manori took Ghani’s arm. ‘Come, let me show you your house.’

The news travelled all over the lane that a Muslim standing outside had been about to grab Ramdasi’s little boy. His sister reached in the nick of time, otherwise that Muslim would have taken him away. As soon as they heard this, all the women who had been sitting on their little stools in the lane, picked them up and went inside their homes. They called out to the children playing outside and brought them indoors. When Manori entered the lane with Ghani, it was empty save for a hawker and Rakkha pehelwan, the wrestler, who was sprawled out in the shade of the peepal tree at the well, fast asleep. Yes, there were many faces peeping out from the windows and from behind doors. A soft whispering began when they saw Manori and Ghani together. Even though his beard had turned white, no one had any difficulty in recognizing Chiragdin’s father, Abdul Ghani.

‘That was your house,’ Manori gestured towards a pile of rubble, some distance away. Ghani stumbled for a moment and looked at it with anguished eyes. He had accepted the death of Chirag and Chirag’s wife and children long ago. But he was not prepared for the tremors that shook his body when he looked at the condition of his new house. His tongue dried up and his knees trembled even more violently.

‘This rubble?’ he asked in disbelief.

Manori saw the changed expression on his face. Holding Ghani’sarm more firmly to give better support, he replied in a flat tone, ‘Your house burnt down then itself.’

Leaning heavily on his walking stick, Ghani walked towards the rubble. It was mostly just mud, with bits of broken and burnt bricks peeping out here and there. Anything that had been made of iron or wood had been taken away long ago. Only a charred door frame had somehow been left behind. At the far end were two burnt almirahs, a faint white coating covering their blackened surface. Coming close to the rubble, Ghani said, ‘This is what’s left? This?’ And it was as if his knees gave way; clutching the burnt door frame, he sat down right there. A few seconds later he rested his head on the door and a sob escaped him, ‘Haye, oye, Chiragdina!’

The charred door frame had stood, head held high, for seven-and- a-half years, but its wood had completely rotted. As Ghani’s head touched it, fragments fell off all around him. Some fell on Ghani’s cap and hair. Along with the shards of wood, an earthworm too fell down and started crawling on the bricks that lined the side of the open drain, just six or eight inches away from Ghani’s feet. It was searching for a hole where it could hide, but finding nothing, it thumped its head on the ground a couple of times, then veered the other way.

More and more people peeped out of their windows. They whispered that something was going to happen today…. Chiragdin’s father, Ghani, has come, and so the truth will come out as to what happened seven-and-a-half years ago, everything will come out in the open. People felt that the rubble itself would narrate the whole story to Ghani.

Chirag was eating his dinner upstairs in the evening when Rakkha pehelwan called him—he asked Chirag to come down for a minute as he had something to say to him. Those days the pehelwan was the king of the lane. He had a great deal of influence among the Hindus. And Chirag was Muslim. Chirag got up in the middle of his meal, and went downstairs. His wife, Zubeida, and daughters, Kishwar and Sultana, peered down from the windows. Chirag had barely crossed the threshold when the pehelwan grabbed him by his shirt collar, pulled him close, threw him down and clambered on to his chest. Chirag caught his hand, the one that held a knife, and shouted, ‘Rakhe pehelwan, don’t kill me! Hai, help me someone!’ Upstairs, Zubeida, Kishwar, and Sultana screamed in terror and, still screaming, ran downstairs to the door. One of Rakhe’s disciples seized Chirag’s flailing arms and Rakha, pinioning Chirag’s thighs with his knees, said, ‘Why are you screaming, you sister… I’m giving you Pakistan, here is Pakistan, take it!’ And by the time Zubeida, Kishwar, and Sultana reached the spot, Chirag had got Pakistan.

The windows of the nearby houses had shut by then. Those who had witnessed the scene closed their doors, to absolve themselves of any responsibility for what had happened. Even through closed doors they could hear Zubeida, Kishwar, and Sultana screaming for a long time. That night Rakhe pehelwan and his companions sent them to Pakistan too, but through another route. Their dead bodies were not found at Chirag’s house, but recovered later from the canal.

For two days, Chirag’s house was ransacked. After everything had been looted, someone—no one knows who—set the house on fire. Rakhe pehelwan vowed that he would bury the arsonist alive since he had decided to kill Chirag only because he wanted the house. He had even bought the necessary ingredients to purify the house. But till today, no one had discovered who lit the fire. For seven-and-a-half years Rakkha regarded the rubble as his property and wouldn’t allow anyone to tie their cows or buffaloes there or set up a stall of any kind. No one could remove a single brick from that rubble without his permission.

People hoped that Ghani would come to know what had happened just by looking at the rubble. And Ghani was scrabbling at the mud of the rubble with his nails, throwing it on himself, cradling the door frame in his arms and weeping, ‘Say something, Chiragdina, say something! Where have you gone, oye? Oh Kishwar! Oh Sultana! Haye, my children, oye! Why did you leave Ghani behind, oye!’

And fragments of wood from the door frame kept falling.

Rakkhe pehelwan who was sleeping under the peepul tree, woke up, either at someone’s prodding or of his own accord. As soon as he came to know that Abdul Ghani was here from Pakistan and was sitting on the rubble of his house, a little phlegm bubbled up in his throat and he had to cough and spit it out on the ground near the well. He looked towards the rubble, as wheezing, laboured breaths emerged from his chest, and his lower lip stuck out.

‘Ghani is sitting on his rubble,’ his disciple Lachche pehelwan said, sitting down next to him.

‘How is it his rubble? It is our rubble!’ said the pehelwan, in a  voice hoarse with phlegm.

‘But he is sitting there,’ said Lachche said, a furtive, significant look in his eyes.

‘If he is sitting, let him sit. You make the chillum!’ Rakkhe spread his legs out a little and patted his bare thighs with his hands.

‘Suppose Manori has told him something?’ Lachche said in the same significant manner as he got up to fill the chillum.

‘Will Manori invite trouble upon himself?’

Lachcha went away.

Old peepul leaves were scattered on the base of the well. Rakkha kept picking them up and crushing them in his hands. When Lachche handed him the chillum with a cloth wrapped around its base, he took a drag and asked, ‘Did Ghani talk to anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘Here, take this.’ Coughing, he handed the chillum to Lachcha. Holding Ghani’s arm, Manori was coming towards them from the rubble site. Squatting on the ground, Lachcha began taking deep drags of the chillum. His gaze flitted from Rakkha’s face to Ghani’s.

Holding Ghani’s arm, Manori was walking a step ahead of him—as if trying to ensure that Ghani would walk past the well without seeing Rakkhe. But given the way Rakkha was sitting sprawled out, Ghani had spotted him from far away. As he reached the well, he spread out his arms and said, ‘Rakkhe pehelwan!’

Rakkhe lifted his head and looked at him with narrowed eyes. An indistinct wheezing sound came from his throat, but he didn’t say anything.

‘Rakkhe pehelwan, don’t you recognize me?’ Ghani said, lowering his arms. ‘I’m Ghani, Abdul Ghani, Chiragdin’s father!’

The pehelwan examined him from top to bottom. Abdul Ghani’s eyes had acquired a sort of shine on seeing him. His wrinkles smoothened out a little beneath the white beard. Rakkhe’s lower lip quivered. Then a heavy voice emerged from his chest, ‘How are you, Ghaniya!’

Ghani again made as if to raise his arms but seeing no reaction from the pehelwan, he stopped. Taking the support of the peepul tree, he sat down on the base of the well.

The whispers from the windows above grew even more urgent now that the two of them were face to face. Surely the story will come out…then maybe there will be some sort of abusive exchange between the two…. Now Rakkha can’t do anything to Ghani. Times have changed now…look at him, fancying himself the owner of that rubble! Actually, that rubble is neither his, nor Ghani’s. That rubble is the property of the government! That wretched man doesn’t even let anyone tie their cow there! Manori is also a coward. Why didn’t he tell Ghani that Rakkhe was the one who killed Chirag and Chirag’s wife and children? Rakkha is not a man, he’s a bull! All day he wanders about the lane like a bull! Poor Ghani has become so thin! The hair on his beard has turned completely white!

Ghani sat on the stone base of the well and said, ‘See Rakkhe pehelwan, see how the world changed overnight! I had left behind a complete, happy family and today I have come here, to see this mud! This is the only memory left of a once flourishing household! But to tell you the truth, I don’t feel like leaving this mud and going away!’ And his eyes glistened with tears again.

The pehelwan drew his legs together, picked up his towel from the parapet of the well and threw it over his shoulder. Lachche passed the chillum to him. He began taking drags.

‘You tell me, Rakkhe, how did it all happen?’ asked Ghani, somehow arresting the flow of his tears. ‘You people were close to him. There was a brotherly love between all of you. If he wanted, couldn’t he have taken refuge in any of your homes? Why didn’t he have that much sense?’

‘That’s how it was,’ Rakkhe himself felt that his voice had an unnatural kind of echo. Dribbles of thick saliva stuck to his lips. Sweat was trickling down from his moustache into his mouth. He felt as if his forehead were being pressed down by an unknown weight and his spine craved some support.

‘How is it with all of you in Pakistan?’ he asked. There was tension in the nerves of his neck. He wiped the sides of his body with his towel and spat out the phlegm clogging his throat.

‘What can I tell you, Rakkhe?’ said Ghani, stooped over his walking stick which he held with both his hands for support. ‘Only my God knows how I’m going on. If Chirag had been with me, things would have been different…. I had told him so many times to leave with me. But he was stubborn, he kept saying he wouldn’t leave the new house and go—this is our lane, there is no danger here. The innocent little dove didn’t think that there may be no danger from the lane, but there could be danger from outside! All four lost their lives trying to guard the house! Rakkhe, he set great store by you. He used to say that as long as Rakkhe is there, no one can do anything to me. But when there was a threat to his life, not even Rakkhe could stop it.’

Rakkhe tried to straighten himself because his spine was hurting badly. He felt a severe pressure on the joints of his waist and thighs. It was as if something deep inside his intestines was preventing him from breathing. His entire body was soaked in sweat and the soles of his feet were smarting. Blue lights, like the lights of sparklers, swam in front of his eyes and floated away. He felt a gulf between his tongue and his lips. He wiped the edges of his lips with his towel. And prayed, ‘Dear God, you are the only one, you are the only one, you are the only one.’

Ghani saw that the pehelwan’s lips were drying up and the circles around his eyes had deepened. He put his hand on his shoulder and said, ‘What had to happen, happened, Rakhiya! No one can undo it. May God protect the wisdom of a wise man and pardon the foolishness of a fool. I came and saw all of you, and it is as if I have seen Chirag. May Allah keep you well!’ And, pressing down on his stick for support, he hauled himself up. As he made to leave, he said, ‘All right, Rakkhe pehelwan!’

A low sound came from Rakkhe’s throat. He folded his hands together, still clutching the towel. Looking around him with grief and a sense of longing, Ghani slowly made his way out of the lane.

In the windows above, the whispers continued for a while—after leaving the lane Manori must have definitely told Ghani everything…. See how Rakkhe’s mouth dried up in front of Ghani! How will Rakkha face people now? He’ll stop a cow from being tied to the rubble, will he? Poor Zubeida! She was so good! A forsaken fellow like Rakkhe with no home to call his own, what respect would he have for anyone’s mother or sister?

After some time, the women came down from their houses into the lane. The children began playing gilli danda. Two girls of about twelve or thirteen started quarrelling over something.

Rakkha kept sitting at the well till late in the evening, puffing at his chillum, clearing his throat and spitting out phlegm all the while. Many passers-by asked him, ‘Rakkhe shah, we heard that Ghani had come from Pakistan today?’

‘Yes, he had come,’ was the reply Rakkhe gave every time.

‘Then?’

‘Then nothing. He went away.’

At night, like every night, Rakkha went and sat down on the wooden bench in front of the shop outside, to the left of the lane. Every day, he would call out to people he knew who happened to be walking by, ask them to sit next to him and give them advice on market speculation and tips on matters of health. But that day he sat there and gave Lachche an account of the journey he had made to Vaishno Devi fifteen years ago. Sending Lachche away, he entered the lane and found that Loku Pandit had tethered his bull near the pile of rubble and, as was his habit, he started pushing it and shooing it away, ‘Tat-tat-tat…tat-tat!’

After having chased the bull away, he slumped down lethargically in front of the rubble. The lane was deserted. The municipality hadn’t put up any lights, so it got dark when evening fell. Water flowed in the open drain below the rubble, making a faint sound. Cutting through the silence of the night were indistinct noises from the rubble…chiu-chiu-chiu…chik-chik-chik…kirrrr-rrrr-ririririchirrrr…. A lone crow flew in from somewhere and perched on the door frame, causing fragments of wood to scatter. The crow’s activities made a dog, lying in the corner, growl and get up and start barking loudly—bow-wow-wow! The crow sat timidly on the door frame for a while, then, flapping its wings, flew off to the peepul tree. The crow having flown away, the dog came down to where the pehelwan was sleeping and started barking at him. Trying to make him go away, the pehelwan said loudly, ‘Durr, durr, durr… durre!’ But the dog came closer and continued barking—bow-wowbow-wow-bow-wow….

The pehelwan picked up a clod of mud and threw it at the dog. The dog stepped back a little but didn’t stop barking. The pehelwan shouted abuses at him, then got up, slowly made his way to the well and lay down there, on the base of the well. As soon as he moved away, the dog went down the lane, turned towards the well, and continued barking. When, after barking for a long time, he couldn’t spot anyone moving around in the lane, he shook his ears once, went back to the rubble, sat down in a corner, and began growling.

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Selected and translated by Poonam Saxena, the twenty-five stories in The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told represent the finest  short fiction in Hindi literature. Selected and translated by editor, writer, and translator Poonam Saxena, and ranging from early literary masters of the form such as Premchand, Chandradhar Sharma Guleri, Bhisham Sahni, Harishankar Parsai, Mannu Bhandari, and Shivani to contemporary greats such as Asghar Wajahat, Uday Prakash, Sara Rai, and others, the collection has stories of darkness, hope, triumph, anger, and irony.

 

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