A Suitable Boy(550)
A woman dressed in a black burqa was standing at a booth, distributing sherbet to those who passed by in the tazia processions or who milled about the temporary market. They drank, they handed the glasses back, and these were dumped into a bucket of water by another woman in a brown burqa and given a cursory wash before being re-used. The stand was very popular, probably because it was known who the lady in black was.
‘Quenching the thirst of Karbala,’ added Firoz.
‘Come,’ said Maan.
‘No, no, you go along. That other one’s Bibbo, by the way, the one in a brown burqa. Not Tasneem.’
‘Come with me, Firoz. Please. I really have no business to be here. I feel very awkward.’
‘Nothing like as awkward as I felt when I went to her gathering last night. No, I’m going to see the tazias lined up. Most of them have arrived already, and each year there’s something astonishing to see. Last year there was one in the shape of a double-storeyed peacock with a woman’s head – and only half a dome to tell you it was meant to be a tomb. We’re becoming Hinduized.’
‘Well, if I come with you to see the tazias, will you accompany me to the sherbet-stand?’
‘Oh – all right.’
Maan quickly got bored with the tazias, remarkable though they were. Everyone around him appeared to be engaged in heated discussion about which one was the most elegant, the most elaborate, the most expensive. ‘I recognize that one,’ said Maan with a smile; he had seen it in the Imambara at Baitar House.
‘Well, we’ll probably use it for another fifty years,’ said Firoz. ‘I doubt we’ll be able to afford to make anything like that again.’
‘Come, now, keep your part of the bargain.’
‘All right.’
Firoz and Maan walked over to the sherbet-stand.
‘It’s too unhygienic for words, Maan – you can’t drink from those glasses.’
But Maan had gone forward, pushed his way through the crowd, and now held his hand out for a glass of sherbet. The woman in black handed it to him, but at the last moment, as her eyes suddenly registered who he was, she was so startled that she spilled the sherbet over his hands.
She took her breath in sharply and said, ‘Excuse me, Sir,’ in a low voice. ‘Let me pour you another glass.’
There was no mistaking her voice. ‘No, no, Madam,’ protested Maan. ‘Please do not trouble yourself. What is left in this glass will more than quench my thirst, however terrible.’
The woman in the brown burqa turned towards him upon hearing his voice. Then the two women turned towards each other. Maan sensed their tension, and he allowed himself a smile.
Bibbo may not have been surprised to see Maan, but Saeeda Bai was both surprised and displeased. As Maan had expected, she thought he had no business to be there; certainly he could not pretend to any lavish fondness for the Shia martyrs. But his smile only succeeded in making her angrier. She contrasted the flippancy of Maan’s remark with the terrible thirst of the heroes of Karbala – their tents burning behind them, the river cut off in front of them – and, making no attempt this time to disguise her voice or her indignation, she said to Maan: ‘I am running short of supplies. There is a booth half a mile further on where I would advise you to go when you have finished this glass. It is run by a lady of great piety; the sherbet is sweeter, and you will find the crowd less oppressive.’
And before Maan could respond with an appropriate conciliatory couplet, she had turned to the other thirsty men.
‘Well?’ said Firoz.
Maan scratched his head. ‘No, she wasn’t pleased.’
‘Well, don’t fret; it doesn’t suit you. Let’s see what the market has to offer.’
Maan looked at his watch. ‘No, I can’t. I have to go to watch the Bharat Milaap, or I’ll lose my standing in the eyes of my nephew. Why don’t you come along as well? It’s very affecting. Everyone lines the lanes, cheering and weeping and showering flowers on the procession. Rama and company from the left, Bharat and company from the right. And the two brothers embrace in the middle – just outside the city of Ayodhya.’
‘Well, I suppose there are enough people to manage without me here,’ said Firoz. ‘How far is it?’
‘Misri Mandi – that’s where Ayodhya’s located this year. Only a ten minute walk from here – very close to Veena’s house. She’ll be pleasantly surprised to see you.’
Firoz laughed. ‘That’s what you thought Saeeda Bai would be,’ he said, as they wandered hand in hand through the bazaar in the direction of Misri Mandi.