SHORT STORY
The tomb
SHIV K. KUMAR
For Kuldip Nayar
I WAS then about four. I can still recall that gelid winter morning, with the cold wind whistling around my ears. Bundled up in heavy woollens, I walked behind mother, down the zigzag gravel path of our farmhouse. She stopped near a tomb that looked like a dilapidated bench. My first impulse was to ask her to rest on it for a while so that I could sit on her lap. That's when I always felt transported to a fairyland where there were no teachers, no homework, no caning. Where children just played, pelting flowers or paper arrows at each other.
Mother now unzipped her handbag, pulled out a green silk chadar, which she first kissed, then spread out on the tomb.
"It's the grave of some Muslim saint, a Pir," she said as she saw me looking curiously at her. "Whenever I come here alone, he sometimes rises from his grave and speaks to me. He has a long white beard, and his eyes sparkle like glow worms." She paused. "He'd grant you any boon if you prayed, earnestly."
Just as we were about to turn back, a stranger walked in from the front gate. Handsome he indeed was — tall, fair, with dark brown hair and a scar on his left cheek that looked like a strawberry. As he drew close, he put his arms around mother's waist. But, immediately disengaging herself, she whispered something into his ears, and he walked away.
Temperamentally, my parents were poles apart from each other. Whereas father was a staunch Hindu who prayed only to Lord Krishna, she had in her puja room pictures of the saints of all religions, even a bronze plaque with the words "Allah-ho-Akbar" engraved on it. Also, while father was always lost to his business, she often talked to me about spirits and dreams. She believed that when the wind howled, it was nature's way of mourning the death of some man, bird or beast — that flowers and trees dreamt at night, like humans. Years later, I learnt that when father bought the farmhouse in Lahore, it was at mother's insistence that the tomb was not demolished.
I was in my eighth class when I first decided to try out the Pir. I was to take a test in math, a subject I dreaded the most. As I went down on my knees to pray, a spirit appeared before me — with a long, white beard and eyes that sparkled like glowworms. Then a little miracle happened. Not only did I clear the test but also picked up the highest score in my class.
Six years later, as a graduate student in Islamia College, I again felt tempted to seek the Pir's blessings. I'd decided to stand for the college presidentship, although I was quite aware of the heavy odds against me. A Hindu pitted against a Mullah's son! Would the Muslim saint answer my prayers this time as well, I wondered. "It's like provoking the gods," mother said. But I was determined to move into the fray, whatever the consequences.
But as the spirit appeared, during my prayer, I felt surprised to notice its brow darkened and its forehead wrinkled. It was stroking its long, white beard as if wrestling with something within itself. This deepened my misgiving about its response to my supplication this time. To my great surprise, however, the miracle happened again. My rival was trounced, utterly. I felt as if I was riding the high wind.
I'd just graduated when the Indian subcontinent plunged into an unprecedented communal frenzy, in the wake of the emergence of India and Pakistan as two separate countries. If the Hindus now felt unsafe in Pakistan, the Muslims in India decided to migrate to their new homeland — Pakistan. The trauma that my family faced that broiling August would always linger in my memory.
Father drove into the house one afternoon, tensed up.
"This is the end," he stuttered. "My own Muslim employees have threatened to kill me, and take over my steel business." He paused, almost gasping for breath. "So we must leave tonight — for Delhi."
At once, we started to load a few essentials into the car — and then waited for the sunset. We'd hardly finished our tea when we heard a great commotion at the front gate.
"It's those monsters of death, I know," father said. "We're done for!"
That moment something flashed through my mind. Why not invoke the Pir's help, once again? Quietly, I walked over to my room, lay prostrate on the floor and then, closing my eyes, began to pray. I opened my eyes only when I felt something brushing against my head. There it stood, the Spirit — its long, white beard touching my head and a benign smile playing on its face.
"Don't worry, child," I heard its voice, gentle as a whisper in the air. "Allah will carry you all to safety."
I gathered myself up to kiss its feet, but it had already vanished.
Then, like someone possessed, I walked out of the house and stood behind a peepal tree, a few yards away from the front gate. Surprisingly, the commotion had subsided. I now saw a man standing on the wall near the gate, his right hand raised.
"No, friends, they are not kafirs," I heard him say to the crowd, "but ardent followers of Pir Allah Baksh... So if we kill them, his curse will be upon us." He paused; then, pointing his finger towards a spot inside our farm, he added, "There lies his tomb."
As the man's face turned towards me, I recognised him, instantly. The same man I'd seen that freezing winter morning, years ago — tall, fair, handsome, with the strawberry scar on his left cheek.
Immediately, a hush fell upon the crowd, and it melted away in the deepening shades of that afternoon.
I decided not to tell my parents anything about what I'd done, seen and heard.
"Where had you gone?" mother asked me anxiously, as I came up the hallway.
"I was in the puja room, mom."
"Praying?"
"Yes."
I saw an enigmatic smile flickering on her face.
"So God listened to your prayer," father interjected, "and sent those monsters away."
It was a smooth drive all the way. Unlike other summer nights, this one was pitch dark as if the sky's canopy had been covered with a black chadar.
By dawn we had made it to Amritsar, where we rested for the day before another night's drive to Delhi. I marvelled to see how father had stayed at the steering wheel so long without showing any signs of exhaustion. In Delhi, my maternal uncle, an influential politician, helped us into a house abandoned by a Muslim family which had migrated to Lahore.
The next few years ran an even course. While father was back to his business, I took to journalism as a career. But after brief stints at a couple of national dailies in Delhi, I came to realise that it was the media barons who dictated their policies to the scribes. So I decided to freelance. In about five years, I was running a syndicated column that appeared in several national papers.
Just when I saw myself soaring high as a successful journalist, I felt knocked down to the earth. Mother had a stroke the day I was to attend a very important press conference.
"It was a mild cardiac arrest," the doctor said. "All she needs is a month's rest in bed."
Now I began to spend a lot of time with her. We often talked about the good old days in Lahore. Then, one day, she sounded very low when she asked me to fetch her Gita from the puja room. As I picked up the book, something slipped out of it. It was a faded photograph. Instantly I recognised the man — tall and fair. I put it back into the book before handing it to mother. She placed it under her pillow, and looked at me, directly:
"Now that there's a little thaw between India and Pakistan, why don't you work out a visit to Lahore? If ever it comes through, don't forget to carry a green silk chadar as my offering to the tomb."
That sounded like her last wish.
It wasn't at all difficult for me to manipulate a visit to Pakistan. I told the Pakistan High Commissioner in Delhi that I'd like to do a series of articles to build bridges between the two nations — "Hands Across the Border".
The very next week I was in Islamabad, from where I dashed off to my farmhouse in Lahore. When I walked in and introduced myself to the new occupant, I was received with great warmth. "You must stay for at least a night on your old farmhouse," he said. But I excused myself. It was during a brief tea that I explained to him the real purpose of my visit.
"Ya Allah!" the man exclaimed. "But we had to demolish that tomb to extend our lawn... I'm awfully sorry."
I felt shattered. I picked up my bag with the chadar in it, and returned immediately to Delhi.
To mother, however, I lied.
"It's been done, mom."
"God bless you, son."
A week later, she again complained of chest pain. This time, the doctor looked a little worried. But as he was examining her, I slipped out to my room — to invoke the Pir's blessings for my mother's recovery. I prayed very fervently. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. But, to my great amazement, the Spirit didn't appear this time. As I kept looking blankly into space, I heard the wind howling outside. A bad omen, I said to myself. Then I heard a cry. But before I could get to her bed, she was gone.
For three days and three nights, I haven't slept or eaten. It's now past midnight. Sitting alone at my desk, I hear the potted rose plant at the windowsill tapping against the glass pane. As if it's punctuating my wandering thoughts. Several questions are bobbing in my mind.
Who was the man I'd first seen at the tomb, and again that traumatic afternoon? Had he faked the name of the Pir, as Allah Baksh? What was the bond between him and my mother? And, above all, why did the Spirit let me down this time?
I may never have the answers to these questions. Never.
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