A Suitable Boy(351)

An old man walked past. It was the Imam of the Debaria mosque.

‘You will drop by tomorrow evening, won’t you, Imam Sahib?’ asked Rasheed’s father in an anxious manner.

‘At this time tomorrow – yes. After the prayer,’ added the Imam in mild rebuke.

‘I wonder where Rasheed is,’ said Maan, looking at his unfinished exercises. ‘He’ll probably be returning any minute.’

‘He is probably taking a walk around the village,’ said his father in an outburst of quite virulent anger, ‘talking to all the low people. That is his style. He should show more sense of discrimination. Tell me, has he taken you to the patwari with him?’

Maan was so taken aback by the tone that he hardly registered the question.

‘The patwari. Have you visited the village patwari?’ There was a touch of iron in the voice as the question was repeated.

‘No,’ said Maan, surprised. ‘Is something the matter?’

‘No,’ said Rasheed’s father. After a pause he said: ‘Please don’t mention that I asked you this.’

‘If you like,’ said Maan readily, but he was still puzzled.

‘Well, I’ve done enough damage to your studies,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘I’d better not disturb you any further.’ And he walked back to the house with Meher in his arms, frowning in the light of the lantern.





10.20


MAAN, quite concerned now, fetched the lantern and tried to get back to reading and copying the words that Rasheed had written out for him. But Rasheed’s father was soon back, this time without Meher.

‘What’s a giggi?’ he asked.

‘A giggi?’

‘You don’t know what a giggi is?’ The disappointment was palpable.

‘No. What is it?’ asked Maan.

‘I don’t know either,’ said Rasheed’s father in distress.

Maan looked at him, mystified. ‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked him.

‘Oh,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘I need one – immediately.’

‘If you don’t know what it is, how do you know you need one?’ said Maan.

‘It’s not for me but for Meher,’ said Rasheed’s father. ‘She woke up and said, “Dada, I want a giggi. Give me a giggi.” And now she’s crying for it, and I can’t find out from her what it is or what it looks like. I’ll have to wait till – well, till Rasheed comes back. Maybe he knows. Sorry to have disturbed you again.’

‘No, not at all,’ said Maan, who hadn’t minded this interruption. For a while he couldn’t get back. to his work. He tried to decide whether a giggi was to be eaten or to be played with or to be ridden on. Finally he picked up his pen again.

Baba, who had returned from the mosque, seeing him sitting by himself in the open courtyard, joined him a minute later. He greeted him, then coughed and spat on the ground.

‘What is a young man like you doing wasting your eyes on a book?’

‘Well, I’m learning to read and write Urdu.’

‘Yes, yes. I remember: seen, sheen… seen, sheen… Why bother?’ said Baba, and cleared his throat again.

‘Why bother?’

‘Yes – tell me what is there in Urdu apart from a few sinful poems?’

‘Now I’ve begun it, I should carry it through,’ said Maan.

It was the right thing to say. Baba approved of this sentiment, then added: ‘Now Arabic, you should learn Arabic. That’s the language to learn. Then you can read the Holy Book. You might stop being a kafir.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Maan cheerfully.

‘Oh, most assuredly,’ said Baba. He added: ‘You aren’t taking what I’ve said badly?’

Maan smiled.

‘One of my best friends is a thakur who lives a few villages away,’ continued Baba reminiscently. ‘In the summer of ’47 around the time of Partition, a crowd gathered on the road to Salimpur in order to attack this village because of us Muslims. And Sagal too. I sent an urgent message to my friend, and he and his men went out with lathis and guns, and told the mob that they’d have to reckon with them first. And a good thing too. Otherwise, I’d have died fighting, but I’d have died all right.’

It suddenly struck Maan that he had become a universal confidant.

‘Rasheed said that you were the terror of the tehsil,’ he told Baba.

Baba nodded his head in vigorous approval. He said emphatically: ‘I was strict with people. I turned him’ – he pointed in the direction of the roof – ‘out of the house, naked in the fields, at the age of seven because he would not study.’