This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach, page 48
Nabbu exhaled a long plume of smoke, then shouted some obscenities at his wife. ‘You want me to grab your plait and beat you? You want your bones broken?’ he threatened her, ‘Make the tea, or else!’
His wife shot back even filthier curses at him.
Nabbu threw down his cigarette, got up and took a step threateningly towards her. His wife quickly reached into a corner for a long thick pestle used for pounding spices, held it in both hands and raised it over her head in self-defence.
It was pitch dark when Tara came to, with her head and body throbbing with pain. Her shoulders seemed to hurt most. Since her hands were tied behind her back, all she could do was draw up or extend her legs, and move her head. Moans came unconsciously from her open mouth, then they too ceased as her throat became bone dry. Nobody seemed to be around to hear her cries. In the dark, she could not be sure whether there was someone in the room, or she was all alone. She had been tied up and left to die, she felt, and so she would, eventually, suffering and thirsting for water.
She was awoken by the sound of shouts and screams, and opened her eyes. There was light in the room. Nabbu, swearing obscenities, rushed towards a woman standing in the room. The woman swung the pestle at his head. Nabbu stepped aside, then again went at her. When the woman swung at him again, he merely moved his head to one side. The pestle struck his shoulder. He threw the woman to the floor, grabbed the pestle from her hand, and dealt her several blows with it.
The woman screamed. She yelled at him that she hoped he might perish, and went on cursing him between her screams. Nabbu too shouted back obscenities at her as he punched and kicked her. Then he sat on the charpoy, gasping for breath.
Tara lay helpless and unmoving as she watched all this. The sound of qawalis drifted in. The woman was wailing, sobbing and bawling by turns. Nabbu sat on the charpoy, and swore at her, ‘You dare to hit me! I’ll break every bone in your body! I’ll skin you alive. You don’t want to make tea? Fine. I’ll go and have tea at Moosa’s shop, but I won’t give you a bite to eat. Whatever’s left over, I’ll throw to the dogs, but I won’t give any to you.’
The bugle call announcing the end of curfew rent the air. Nabbu got up, collected the jewellery he had taken from Tara, and tucked it in a fold of the lungi at his waist. He went to a corner where an aluminium pot lay on top of a trunk made from an old kerosene can, took out some food left over from the night before, and went out. As soon as he stepped out, the whimpering and sobbing woman too got up with some difficulty and effort, and went to the aangan where she resumed her wailing with an occasional cry for help, ‘O Tajo tai, he tried to kill me. Badru bhabhi, look how that butcher beat me up.’ The woman seemed to be crying and, at the same time, telling her story to whoever was willing to listen.
Tara wondered what she should do. Only death could end her suffering and pain. She could try to hang herself by making a noose with her dupatta, but her hands were tied. Then she thought of something. She drew her legs up, and summoning up all her strength, turned to one side and came up to a kneeling position. She inched her body closer to the wall, and with the idea of killing herself, began to pound her head against it.
In the aangan, Rukkan was crying and complaining to Tajo tai, Badru and some other women how the previous night Nabbu had brought a saut to the house. She let out a shriek when she heard the sound of pounding coming from the room. ‘…Hai, that wretched thief is breaking open the lock to my box!’ she yelled, and dashed inside.
She rushed back out, screaming, ‘Hai, she seems to be possessed by some evil jinn! Come and see, she’s calling up a jinn!’
Tajo, Badru and Mehar followed Rukkan into the room. They saw that a woman, naked from the waist down and with her hair flying, was pounding her head against the wall. Her hands were tied behind her back.
‘Hai, she’s trying to kill herself, she’s committing suicide,’ Badru said in alarm, and reached forward to grab her by the shoulders and pull her away from the wall. The woman fell sideways and lay there unconscious.
Rukkan again screamed, ‘Hai, she’s trying to kill herself so that her ghost may come and haunt this house.’
‘Shut up!’ Tajo shouted at her.
She untied the woman’s hands, stretched her out on the floor and gently massaged her chest as she mumbled a prayer. Badru and Mehar began to massage the soles of her feet and her legs. Rukkan was told to bring some water and sprinkle it on the woman’s face.
Tara felt a searing pain in her head. She tried to open her eyes, but could not, because some water seeped in and made them smart. There was a buzzing in her ears, as if bees were lodged inside. Her body felt stiff and painful. She tried moving her head.
Seeing the hurt woman move, Badru put a hand behind her head, lifted it slightly and put a dirty aluminium tumbler to her mouth. When Tara felt the water on her lips, she drained the whole tumbler. Her eyes opened. Feeling that her arms were untied, she tried to raise herself, and sat up with some help from the women. She tried to pull down the hem of her kameez. Mehar picked up Tara’s dupatta lying nearby, and draped it over her knees.
The women sat around Tara. The wife who had been beaten up, was whining and cursing her tormentor as she showed various parts of her body, ‘May his hands drop off; may his body be infested with maggots! I won’t stay here with him any more. I’ll go to my aunt’s who lives in Chuna Mandi. I spent all night crying in the aangan. Look,’ she raised her shalwar to show her bruised thigh, ‘see how he beat me. I’m all full of bruises. I came in just now when I heard the pounding. How do I know what he did to her? That mua was saying that she’d run away from home. What can I do if she has? I’ll not put up with another wife, a saut in this house! You don’t know that bastard of a husband. Never mind a young woman, he can’t even leave a cow or a buffalo or a goat alone. If he wants to keep her, fine! I’m moving to my aunt’s. He pledged me a meher of two thousand rupees as alimony. What do I care?’
Two other women arrived. One held a child on her shoulder; the other had two onions and a knife in her hand. The first one exclaimed as she came in, ‘She’s a Hindani!’ and mouthed a curse that the genitals of all Hindu women be consumed by the fires of hell. ‘So what if one was raped! Those shameless women deserve it!’
‘Phitemunh, damn you! That’s a terrible blasphemy! Say tauba, recant!’ Tajo tai said in rebuke. ‘How’d you feel if a Hindu was to say that about you? One woman should feel for another. God forbid that you fall into the clutches of someone like him. Allah the Almighty has decreed that Hindu and Muslim men should be different, but He has created all women alike.’
Badru said to Rukkan as she placed a wet cloth over Tara’s injured head, ‘Why are you so down on the life of this poor creature? She didn’t come here of her own free will.’
Mehar stopped massaging Tara’s feet and legs. She was sitting with her elbows on her knees, staring sadly and with pity at Tara’s injuries. She said, letting out a sigh, ‘Those dreadful men fight each other, but it’s women they wreck in the process.’
Tajo said by way of explanation, ‘Allah the Great made it men’s duty that they should treat women kindly and protect them, because it is women who give men birth and nurse them …’
‘To hell with their kindness and protection!’ Mehar said angrily. ‘The shameless beasts degrade the very place they come out of. Whether a man is showing his love or his bad temper, he vents his feelings at the same spot. Look how the poor thing’s been trampled all over and beaten, look how her limbs have been scraped! He almost broke her bones by thrashing her too,’ she said, pointing at Rukkan. ‘A man has the strength of an ox. Why wouldn’t this poor creature want to commit suicide? What else can a helpless woman do but kill herself?’ She gave a deep sigh of sadness.
The woman with the onions stood nearby, slicing and storing them into a fold of her dupatta. She said, ‘Whether he has the strength of an ox or an elephant, I’d kill any bastard who did this to me. I’d slit his stomach, I’d bite through his jugular with my teeth!’ She uttered an obscenity, ‘I’d pull his balls out through his mouth.’
Mehar put her hands on her knees and pushed herself up, ‘Wait, let me get her a glass of tea. Bano must have made some.’
‘Tea later, first cover up her nakedness,’ Tajo said.
‘Rukkan, bring whatever old or used shalwar you have.’
‘Hai, where do I have any old shalwar? I barely have enough clothes to cover my own body, as it is,’ Rukkan pleaded. ‘He’s brought another woman into the house, and now you want me to dress her? Some kind of a friend you are giving me such advice!’
Both Tajo and Badru tried to calm her, ‘What are you afraid of? No mullah has married her to him. How can he bring in another wife? Don’t be afraid. Find something for her to cover her legs. Or, give her something now; we’ll make it up to you later on. She can’t stay naked. If one woman is shamed, all women are shamed.’
Rukkan went to get an old, patched-up shalwar from a peg. She gave it to Tara, who put it on while sitting up.
The neighbourhood rang with the azaan, the call to prayer. Tajo said to Rukkan, ‘I’m off for the namaz. Just keep an eye on her and see that she doesn’t try anything foolish. May Allah forgive these sinners; such behaviour during the holy month of Ramadan. They murder, plunder, commit arson and rape. Do you suppose they’ll ever find forgiveness for those sins?’
Tajo, Badru and Mehar helped Tara to the charpoy. They went out for the farz, the first prayer of the day, leaving Tara and Rukkan behind in the room. Tara held her head in her hands, thinking, ‘What have I been through? Can’t I just die? What hate do these women have for me that they didn’t let me kill myself.’ She remembered something she had heard thousands of times: Mere mortals may wish for whatever they wish, but everything happens according to His will! ‘What more does He wish for me? What more punishment does He want to give me? Is this the penalty for the acts of my past life? Or is it the result of refusing to marry Somraj? Or of my wish to elope with Asad? But I was married to Somraj! What’s next for me to suffer, when I can’t even die? Maybe I’ll be sent to hell, to be tortured there, to be burned alive, to be put in a vat of boiling oil, to be sawn in two. Whatever it is, let it happen soon.’
The men of the neighbourhood learned from Tajo tai, Badru bhabhi, Mehar and Laila that Nabbu had abducted a young Hindu woman, that he had dishonoured her, and was keeping her until he could sell her off to some lowlife. Tajo tai tried to put the fear of God into her neighbours, ‘This is the holy month of Ramadan. Such sins are being committed in our mohalla …’
The men gathered to decide on the course of action.
A little after the namaz, Tajo returned to Tara’s side with a glass of tea in her hand. Women and girls from the mohalla would come to inspect and stare at Tara. At Tajo’s repeated insistence, Tara had a few sips of tea. Tajo was continuously muttering some prayer or hymn. She’d tell Tara over and again, ‘Think of Allah, beti. He is our only hope in all our troubles. May Allah have mercy upon you. May the Almighty be kind to you.’
When Nabbu returned home about an hour after sunrise, his neighbours were waiting for him. Rebukes and reproaches were showered at him from all sides. Men crowded onto the roofs that overlooked Nabbu’s aangan, and women, to keep purdah, spoke from behind the doors and windows of their homes, ‘How can you justify such sinful behaviour? You’re known to the police as a bad character, a real number ten, and even then you don’t desist. How long can we put up bail for you? You’re giving our mohalla a bad name!’
Nabbu was not intimidated by his neighbours’ disapproval. ‘What business is this of yours? I’ve not done any bad to a Muslim woman. This one’s a Hindu. Aren’t those people violating our women too? They set fire to our homes, they explode bombs every day. The mullahs have issued the fatwa for a jihad!’
Tajo held the status of tai or elder aunt to the children and the young people of the mohalla, and of bebe, elder sister, to everyone else. She could face up to anyone. She came forward and shouted in reprimand, ‘Keep quiet, you vermin. To rape women is jihad? Everyone knows you’re a criminal. You utter blasphemies in the name of religion. Your tongue will drop off in punishment.’
Nabbu sensed the mood and changed his tone, ‘You can’t say I kidnapped her. She was running away, anyway.’
‘If she was running away, what concern was that of yours? Who do you think you are that you had to abduct her? You’ll bring down shame on the entire mohalla,’ another voice shouted.
Nabbu gave in and said that he’d let the woman go.
Rukkan saw her chance to exact her revenge. She called out from behind her door, ‘He’s lying. He was saying that he’d sell the woman to Khalifa for twenty-five rupees.’
So what was to be done with the woman? Now nobody wanted to believe Nabbu. If the woman was handed over to the police, they would charge Nabbu. He was, after all, a Muslim. It was decided, after some deliberation, that Hafizji should be informed, and his advice should be followed.
When Nabbu heard about Hafizji being told, he slipped out of the house, taking Tara’s jewellery with him.
In the Muslim neighbourhood around Bhati Gate, the name of Hafiz Inayat Ali carried a lot of weight and influence. Hafizji had served in the Government Intelligence Department for over thirty years, and had retired from a senior position. He was addressed as Hafiz because he could recite the whole of the Quran from memory. He had a good knowledge of Arabic, and had worked, under an assumed name, for his British masters as a spy in Arabia for several years. As a reward for his loyalty to the Crown, his elder son had been given a good job in the Public Works Department, and his younger son had been posted to Amritsar as a sub-inspector, after passing out from the Police Training School at Phillor.
After retiring on pension, Hafiz Inayat Ali found that his heart was filled with great remorse because, for the sake of earning a living, he had betrayed his brothers in religion. As atonement for his sins, he became a volunteer in the Jamayat-e-Islami organization, and began to devote all his time and effort to prove that Islam was a scientific religion, to convert the non-believers to Islam, and to make Muslims into observant and pious practitioners of their religion. People in the Muslim community, as well as Muslim officials, held him in high regard.
Around ten in the morning, an old woman escorted by two police constables came to Nabbu’s house. She had come, the old woman said, to take the Hindu woman to the residence of Hafizji.
Tajo tai gave her assurance to Tara that she could go with the old woman without any fear. Hafizji was a respectable, God-fearing and well-meaning person, she said.
Tara refused to budge. She said, ‘I won’t move. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to remain here and die.’
Rukkan begged and pleaded with Tara, asking her to leave her home, but Tara refused to listen to her. ‘If I can’t be allowed to die here, why was I brought here? I didn’t come here on my own. I’m already as good as dead. If you want to get rid of me, have me thrown into the river. Or, throw my body out once I stop breathing.’
Someone came to say that Hafizji himself was on his way. Badru got up and left. Tajo tai sent for her burka, and asked that a stool be brought over from next door. Rukkan became very flustered, and not knowing what to do, went out of the room. Tajo put on her burka and stood beside Tara.
Two constables in uniform entered the room, followed by Hafizji. He wore a Peshawari-style short turban tied around an embroidered kulha cap, a Turkish-style long coat and well-polished shoes. His shalwar, as stipulated by Shariah or Islamic law, stopped at his ankles so as not to become contaminated by the filth on the ground. He carried a walking stick. A carefully clipped beard adorned his well-fed face; his moustache too was clipped along the lips. He came and sat on the stool next to Tara’s charpoy, just like a doctor at the bedside of a patient. Tara gave him one glance, and closed her eyes.
Hafizji told the constables to wait outside in the aangan. He put his stick down beside Tara’s bed. His face took on a grave expression. He put his hollowed hands on his knees in a praying posture, closed his eyes and began to recite a silent prayer. When he finished, he blew his breath towards Tara. He said the prayer three times, each time blowing out his prayer-rich breath on Tara, and giving her a blessing, ‘May all your troubles be over. May Allah bestow His mercy on you.’
Hafizji looked closely at Tara’s wounded head. He addressed her as daughter, and explained the need for medical attention to her wounds. He said, ‘Beti, come to my house. Let a doctor take care of your injuries. Then you’ll be sent wherever you wish.’
Tara shook her head to indicate that she neither wanted to leave, nor to hear anything more.
Hafizji spoke with a little more feeling, ‘Beti, you seem to come from a good family. You look intelligent too. I have daughters and sons, grandsons and granddaughters of my own. Have trust in His powers. Faith in Him helps persons in all their troubles. He looks after His flock, no one escapes His notice. The same Allah the Blessed One has sent me to help you and to be of service to you.’
Tara closed her eyes, and declined with a waggle of her head as before.
Hafizji tried again, with even more sympathy and affection, ‘Beti, if you don’t want to go back to your home, we can send you to any of your relatives or anywhere you say. If you don’t want that, we’ll take you to a hospital and you can stay there until your wounds heal. If that’s not acceptable to you, stay at the home of this humble servant of God. There will be a mother and sisters to look after you. Beti, this place is not suitable for you. You can’t get medical attention here. You can’t be comfortable here.’
Despite his entreaties, Tara refused in a quiet voice, ‘I just want to die where I am now. I’m already dead. If you don’t want me to remain here, or if you really want to be kind to me, just have my body thrown into the river.’
Hafizji continued to speak patiently and soothingly, ‘Beti, your speech shows that you’re well-educated and cultured. Beti, be sensible. It was God’s will that I come to help you. Otherwise how would I be here? Beti, what’s the use of being stubborn? I’ve told you that you can’t get medical attention here. Your remaining here is neither proper, nor can it be allowed. If you don’t leave willingly, the police will make you leave. How can the police let you remain with the notorious badmaash who abducted you? He brought you here by force, and you couldn’t do anything. In the same way you won’t be able to do anything if the police want to take you away. It’s trouble for you if you fall into the hands of the police. If you agree to come to my place, you can leave whenever you want, and go wherever you want. I’ll have nothing to say about that. When I heard about you, I saw it as my duty to come to your aid; God sent me to help you. Meaning, it was ordered by God. Beti, you’ll be in constant danger if you stay among these savages. Why invite danger knowingly?’
