This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (57 page)

Hafizji said in approval of the begum’s blessings as he walked to the stairs, ‘She’s a very fine girl. That’s why Allah has sent her to you as a daughter.’

The begum and Khursheed followed him downstairs. Tara stayed upstairs.

They all returned upstairs after a few minutes. Amjad was wearing a grey linen suit, but no hat. He was clean-shaven except for a clipped butterfly moustache. Just by looking at his clothing no one could tell whether he was a Muslim or a Hindu. To Tara he appeared to be clean-cut and educated. She stayed out of his sight, in the kitchen.

Amjad sat on the bed as he began to talk. Tara could hear him in the kitchen, ‘…Khan Sahib Abdul Ghani asked me to stay behind. His wife and kids were with him in Amritsar. We had also detailed six Muslim constables for our protection. Khan Sahib has brought back all his stuff, except for the furniture. I too have managed to bring my clothes and all my other belongings. Most constables, poor fellows, could bring nothing back. That sly Hindu superintendent of police had called a unit of the Dogra military battalion. He ordered all Muslim constables to assemble on a parade, and ordered them to take off their uniforms. We engaged a bus for ourselves. Khan Sahib was carrying two shot guns and two pistols of his own.’

‘What about your police-issue revolver?’ Hafizji wanted to know.

‘All the sub-inspectors were summoned to the main police station early in the morning. That day a Sikh military unit was there, with Tommy guns at the ready. That sly bastard asked the Muslim officers to come into his office one by one. Then he asked them to surrender their side arms and take off their belts, handed them their relieving certificates and sent them out through the other door.’

‘Damn him! Curses be upon him! What depths of trickery! Tauba!’

Khursheed came into the kitchen to ask Tara to take some ghee and make paranthas for Amjad, and went back to listen to her brother-in-law’s story. As she mixed ghee into the flour, Tara too could hear, ‘…Kaul surely was too smart for us in Amritsar. We weren’t expecting him to move so quickly. I’m sure someone put him wise to our plans. That son-of-a-bitch Hasseb, he’s very thick with Kaul. I’m sure it was he. The bastard will neither be happy in this world nor in the next. Ghani sahib was nervous for no reason. He asked us to wait, so that there’d be no cause for suspicion. Otherwise we wouldn’t have left one kafir alive in Amritsar. Who can stop the police from doing what they want?’ Tara, her head bent, heard all this as she kneaded the dough, and felt that she wanted to throw away the kneading tray.

‘When did you arrive in the city? I telephoned Imamdeen several times at the police station.’

‘We left Amritsar at half-past two. We got to the police lines here around four. You know Ghani Sahib, he tries to act like a pucca European. Nothing would do for him but a bungalow in the Civil Lines. We went all over the Civil Lines without result. Then we thought of Model Town. We went and broke open locks on two bungalows there. Ghani sahib occupied one, and the other was taken over by Sattar Sahib. I went back to the police lines to report my arrival. I didn’t think it safe to move around in the city without a vehicle. It took a long time to find a jeep. Two constables came with me up to here.’

Khursheed served the men as they sat talking on the bed. Amjad broke off a piece of a parantha and said, ‘Who’s made these Hindu-style paranthas? Who’s in the kitchen?’ He had caught a glimpse of Tara.

‘It’s a Hindu girl. The poor thing was really in trouble. Since Allah the Merciful has sent her to us in His infinite wisdom, let’s hope she converts to Islam. That act of piety should take place on the fifteenth.’ Hafizji narrated Tara’s story in brief to Amjad.

For the next two days, Hafizji explained to Tara the meaning of the true religion of Islam, and the salvation that would be hers if she embraced it with all her heart, and suggested that she convert to Islam.

Tara, her head bent, replied in a tone of entreaty, ‘Tayaji, I’m deeply obliged to you and maanji, but I don’t know what to do with my mind and thoughts. Neither my heart nor my mind allows me to become a convert. If the God of Islam or the God of the Hindus had me born into one faith, let me go on in the same path to the end of my days. I am always asking myself how I can change myself into anything other than what He made me. I will remember your kindness as long as I live. If you can do so, please be so kind as to send me to some one in the Hindu community. Or give me permission to leave, and I’ll face up to whatever may happen.’

Hafizji did not lose his patience, ‘Beti, the English education that you received in college has obviously affected your mental faculties. That kind of education makes a person vain and misleads him or her. Our human intelligence is limited. The laws of philosophy and the human sciences are ephemeral and transitory. But the laws and philosophy of the Quran are eternal and have never changed, nor will they ever change. The salvation of a soul lies in having faith in the Quran.’

Amjad Ali’s duties as a sub-inspector had begun on the day after his arrival in Lahore. As he waited to be given charge of a police station, he
continued to sleep at his home. On returning home on the evening of the thirteenth, he said that an official notification had been received that the city of Karachi would be the capital of Pakistan. Although Lord Mountbatten was to arrive in Karachi the following morning at 10 o’clock to preside over the investiture of Quaid-e-Azam as the Governor General of Pakistan, the new government would come into effect only after midnight on that day.

Amjad also told them that the inauguration of Pakistan as a new country would not be on the fifteenth, but on the eighteenth, on the propitious day of Eid-ul-Fitr. Quaid-e-Azam has issued an order that there were to be no celebrations during the day, or illuminations at night. The only ceremony to take place would be the unfurling of the new national flag of Pakistan. At the Eid prayers, a special dua would be said for the liberation of millions of Muslims forced to remain behind in Hindustan.

‘That’s right! That’s appropriate!’ Hafizji agreed enthusiastically, and said, ‘Quaid-e-Azam is a devout Muslim. The flame of love for his religion and his community burns in his heart. What better evidence could there be of a man’s religious and patriotic sentiments? Wah, wah!’

He continued to enthuse, ‘That kafir Abdul Gaffar Khan, the Congress leader of the North-west Frontier, and his goondas used to poison the minds of people that Quaid-e-Azam did not follow the Shariah, that he did not wear a beard or dress in accordance with the Islamic law, that he was against women keeping purdah, that he didn’t abstain in matters of eating and drinking, that his daughter had married a Parsee. Those North-west Frontier Congress-wallahs convinced a gullible Pathan to go to Bombay to assassinate Quaid-e-Azam. The door to Quaid-e-Azam’s house was open. What did he have to fear? The Pathan walked straight in. And what did he see but Quaid-e-Azam, kneeling on his
jayenamaz
, prayer mat, deep in devotions, shaking his head and calling on the name of Allah in a trance of ecstasy.

‘The Pathan stood watching, transfixed. Ten minutes passed, then half an hour; the Pathan’s legs got tired from standing there, but Quaid-e-Azam did not come out of his trance. At last, Quaid-e-Azam began to say a dua to
wadahul-shareek khuda
and
rasool-i-khuda
, Peace be upon Him,’ Hafizji stopped in the middle of the sentence so that he and others might kiss their fingers and touch their eyes at the mention of Allah and His Prophet, ‘… asking Him to help and show the right path to Quaid-e-Azam so that he might succeed in helping his people and his brothers in religion. When
Quaid-e-Azam got up from the jayenamaz, the Pathan threw away the dagger he was hiding under his clothes, fell at the feet of Quaid-e-Azam and began to cry and ask for forgiveness.

‘Quaid-e-Azam lovingly embraced the man who had come to murder him, and said to the Pathan, “My brother in Islam, nothing can happen without the will of that
rab-al-alameen,
the Lord-God of the Creation. If Allah has told you to murder me for the sake of Islam and our Muslim brothers, you must carry out His command.” Quaid-e-Azam bared his chest. “What greater blessing can there be than that my blood may be spilled for the sake of Islam and my Muslim brothers?” He has the fear of Allah in his heart. Gandhi doesn’t even come close to him, by comparison. Everything Quaid-e-Azam says is for the good of Muslims. He understands that kafirs and momins, true believers, cannot coexist. His plan for the transfer of the two populations was absolutely right.’

Amjad said, ‘At least two thousand Hindus have left the city since this morning. Probably the same number of Muslims have arrived from the east.’

Hafizji got up from the charpoy and said, ‘I’ll go and sleep. I have to get up for the
tahajjud
prayer at midnight.’ He left.

Amjad gestured with his head in Tara’s direction and said to his mother and bhabhi, ‘What garbage have you been collecting in this house? Others are throwing the kafirs out of the country, but you’ve kept one in your own home.’

‘Once she joins the
ummah
, the community of believers, she won’t be a kafir any more. Your father, and we too, will reap that sawab. Doing something in the name of his religion is so important to your father. You know he’s converted many kafirs—I know of at least nine—to Islam. On fifteenth of this month or on the auspicious day of Eid, his wish may well be realized,’ Amjad’s mother said to pacify him.

‘Father’s worry is always that jannat won’t have enough people in it. If all the Hindus of Punjab converted to Islam and stayed on here, what good would that do for the poorer classes of Muslims?’

Tara had expressed her unwillingness to convert to Islam, but Hafizji did not give up hope. He marshalled all the spiritual resources at his disposal into another campaign of persuasion. To his ceremony of conferring the purifying breath after the first namaz of the day, he added similar ministrations after each prayer, by making Tara sit next to him as he chanted
a mantra from the Quran to ward off the influence of the devil and evil spirits from her mind. He increased the number of duas he said each day to Allah the All-Holy that Tara might eventually see the light. For Tara, the feel of another’s person’s breath on her face was disgusting.

She was growing increasingly restive to get away from her place of confinement, but she did not want to fall again into wrong hands such as those of Nabbu. She hoped that by not antagonizing Hafizji she might some day be able to find a safe haven for herself. In some moments of extreme despair she even thought of quietly leaving their house, regardless of the danger. If she ever had to face a similar situation, she had decided, she’d fight to the death rather than allow herself to be abducted. She remembered how Rukkan had swung the pestle at Nabbu in self-defence. She also recalled what those women at Rukkan’s house had said about doing to a man to ward off his attack.

The last day of Ramadan fell on 17 August. Hafizji had been in a jubilant mood since morning. The next day was not only the occasion for the Eid festival, but also for thanksgiving to Allah for creating Pakistan for Muslims. When he came home from saying the evening magharib prayer at the mosque, Hafizji asked Tara to come and sit beside him. He recited a dua that Allah might shower His kindness on her, and began speaking with Amjad’s mother so that Tara too could listen.

‘Our daughter Badru is about the same age as her, maybe even a few months younger. By the grace of Allah she has two children. And what lovely kids! It befits a young woman to be a mother. I have a couple of men in mind who have good jobs. But,’ he pointed at Tara, ‘the problem is that she’s already married. In accordance with the Shariah law, a woman may not be married again as long as her lawfully wedded husband is alive. If she accepted Islam as her faith, her first marriage would be annulled automatically. How, otherwise, would a God-fearing Muslim agree to marry her?’

From what he said, it came out that he had already rescued three oppressed and persecuted Hindu women and given them a new and better lease on life by getting them married off to bright and able young Muslim men. One young woman had been well educated like Tara, and had left home after being ill-treated by her husband. Hafizji had her nikah performed with a Muslim who worked as a registry clerk under his elder son Ahmed Ali. Not only was she happy and content in her new life, but Allah had also blessed her with children.

Amjad’s mother said, stroking Tara’s shoulder affectionately, ‘This poor young thing has none of those uncivilized kafir traits. In features and build she looks and behaves so much like our Badru. She’s been eating with us whatever we eat. She has even kept thirteen Ramadan fasts with us. Allah had sent her to be here, she’s almost like one of us now. And she’s not a child; we should think of her own likes and dislikes. Show her some men from behind the purdah, and she’ll select one herself.’

Hafizji said, ‘Yes, why not? You’re right. That can be arranged. But before that, it’s necessary for her to accept the Faith and become a part of the ummah.’

Tara was sitting with downcast eyes. She said slowly, fingering the edge of her toenail, ‘Tayaji, I have no such intention now, nor did I ever have. Whatever was destined for me, happened, and whatever Allah or Ishwar wanted, that too happened. There’s nothing left for me to want. But if there’s any other way I can please this Allah or Ishwar, I’m willing to take it.’

‘Tut! Tut! Tut! You speak like that because you’re under stress,’ Hafizji stopped her from going on. ‘Beti, it’s all because of mental stress. It’s wrong to go against the laws of nature. The law of God stipulates that a woman must marry. Allah has given woman the face of an angel, but the devil is always misleading her. That’s why the Shariah stipulates that she should always remain in the custody of a male, of her father in childhood, of her husband when she becomes a woman, and of her sons when she is old …’

Tara sat seething inwardly. When it comes to women, Islam is no less repressive than Hindu society, she was thinking.