A Suitable Boy(529)

But it was difficult to get the holiday-making crowd to hurry up. Some people, certainly, were performing their ritual ablutions by the edge of the tank; but most of them were milling around the stalls and the improvised market that had formed just outside the school gates along the length of the earthen embankment. Trinkets, bangles, mirrors, balloons – and, best of all, food of all kinds from alu tikkis to chholé to jalebis extruded spluttering into hot tawas, barfis, laddus, flossy pink candy, paan, fruit – everything that Mr Biscuit could have dreamed of in his least constrained imaginings. Indeed, Mr Biscuit was loitering near a stand with half a barfi in his hand. Meher, who had been given some sweets by her grandfather, was sharing them with other children. Moazzam, on the other hand, was busy befriending various vulnerable children – ‘for their money’, as the shaven but mustachioed Netaji pointed out to Maan.

The women and girls disappeared into the school building, from where they would watch and participate in the proceedings, while the men and boys arranged themselves in rows on long rolls of cloth in the compound outside. There were more than a thousand men present. Maan saw among them several of the elders of Sagal who had given Rasheed so much trouble outside the mosque, but he did not see the sick old man whom Rasheed and he had gone to visit – not that in such a large gathering it was possible to be certain about who was not there. He was asked to sit on the edge of the verandah next to two bored policemen of the P.P. Police Constabulary, who lounged about in greenish khaki and surveyed the scene. They were there to see that order was maintained and to act as witnesses in case the Imam’s sermon contained anything inflammatory, but their presence was resented, and their manner betrayed that they knew it.

The Imam began the prayers, and the people stood up and knelt down as required with the awesome unanimity of the Islamic service. In the middle of the two snatches of prayers, however, there was a sound of distant thunder. By the time the Imam had begun his sermon, the congregation appeared to be paying more attention to the sky than to his words.

It began to drizzle, and the people started getting restless. Eventually they settled down, but only after the Imam had interrupted his sermon to upbraid them:

‘You! Don’t you have any patience in the sight of God – on the day we have met to remember the sacrifice of Ibrahim and Ismail? You put up with rain in the fields, and yet on this day you act as if a few drops of water will dissolve you away. Don’t you know how those who are doing the pilgrimage this year are suffering on the scorching sands in Arabia? Some of them have even died of heat-stroke – and you are in terror of a few drops from the sky. Here I am talking about Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and all you are thinking of is keeping dry – you will not even sacrifice a few minutes of your time. You are like the impatient ones who would not come to prayer because the merchants had arrived. In the Surah al-Baqarah, the very surah after which this festival is named, it says:

Who therefore shrinks from the religion

of Abraham, except he be foolish-minded?



And later it says:

We will serve thy God and the God of thy fathers

Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, One God;

to him we surrender.



Is this the quality of your surrender? Stop it, stop it, good people; be still, and do not fidget!

Surely, Abraham was a nation

obedient unto God, a man of pure faith

and no idolater,

showing thankfulness for His blessings;

He chose him, and He guided him

to a straight path.

And We gave him in this world good,

and in the world to come he shall be

among the righteous.

Then We revealed to thee: “Follow thou

the creed of Abraham, a man of pure faith

and no idolater.” ’



The Imam got quite carried away with his quotations in Arabic, but after a while he returned to his quieter discourse in Urdu. He talked about the greatness of God and his Prophet, and how everyone should be good and devout in the spirit of Abraham and the other prophets of God.

When it was over, everyone joined in asking for God’s blessings, and, after a few minutes, dispersed to their villages, making sure they returned by a different route from the one they had taken to arrive.

‘And tomorrow, being Friday, we’ll get another sermon,’ some of them grumbled. But others thought that the Imam had been at his best.





14.23


AS HE WALKED back into the village, Maan bumped into the Football, who drew him aside.

‘Where have you been?’ asked the Football.

‘To the Idgah.’

The Football looked unhappy. ‘That is not a place for us,’ he said.

‘I suppose not,’ said Maan indifferently. ‘Still, no one made me feel unwelcome.’