Meinh, Boohay te BaariaN
Rain, Doors, and Windows
by Zubair Ahmed
Translated from Punjabi by Moazzam Sheikh
The rain falls incessantly and I'm glued to the window. Water pours down from the roofs, balconies, awnings, walls, spilling out of drains, flowing and falling, it keeps on moving, keeps on washing our street, washing away soil, mud, straw, rubbish, washing away all, rising waist-high in the main bazaar, where the boys of the neighborhood are taking a dip, jumping in and out, splashing water on each other. Ashraf-saheb of the Yellow House says bathing in muddy water gives sores and pimples, but Hanifa the ice vendor says it cures them.
Don't you think this is the chatter from days gone by? Water doesn't gather in the main bazaar anymore , nor do the boys bathe there since they laid the new sewerage there after our old neighborhood fell into the Prime Minister's voting district.
Soiled water mixed with mud and straw comes down through the roof drain and our rooftop keeps on withering away. I am worried. We'll have to fix it at the end of the day. Our family will be put to work and Auntie will braid her hair in two plaits perched bed like a guest.
I'll have to carry a sack of straw at the back of my bicycle. If I straighten the bicycle, the sack will tilt over, and when I bring the sack back, then, the bicycle won't be straight. Later I'll have to fetch cow dung too in a container from Asghar the Gujjar. As ever he's goin to load up the container more than I can handle and dare me. I won't be able to lift it. The owner of the bullock cart will bring three loads of soil and unload them in the street. After mixing the cow dung and straw with the soil, make a hollow for water in the middle, we are going to put on shorts tojump and dance in the wet clay to forget everything else. From a little opening in the window Auntie will behold the spectacle.
My elder sister and my mother will plaster the whole roof. Auntie will enjoy the sunshine in the winter after having spread her cot on the clean, new rooftop and braid her hair. I have grown up now and Auntie doesn't send me on errands anymore. The younger ones, Chaachi and Kaachi, still have to fend for themselves. [1] But Kaachi went overseas long ago. Auntie could not have even imagined that Kaachi would one day go off to a foreign country. To the country of white women! But Auntie's two sons too have flown away to America. Even she now has settled there. Many people asked me why Auntie had stopped sending me on errands and talking as well. Like love, one has to nourish hatred too. I too have a seventeen-year old hatred reserved for Uncle and Auntie.
After the death of my father we had no choice but to live with our Uncle. I kept nourishing hatred and living a life bubbling with jealousy. Let me come clean. I never quarreled with Auntie, nor talked disrespectfully. All I did was look straight back into her eyes, silently. Auntie was fighting with Mother in the verandah. I stood by the window upstairs. The shadow of my silence must have trudged before her eyes. Irritated, she looked up. "What the hell are you ogling?" I had never lifted an eye before. In that tiny moment of silence, I traversed backward on the path of seventeen-year old fear and didn't blink. And then Auntie shook her head violently and exclaimed, "hunh," before she barged into her room. How could she know my feet were shaking. Since that day she didn't ask me to run any errand, never even bothering to utter a word.
It's been some thirty-five years. The house has been sold, the neighborhood left behind, but the hatred has remained. Comrade Bali used to offer his advice: Turn that hatred around, your sorrow will cease. Look at your Auntie with love. He gave good advice. But who knows how long Auntie is going to live. She looks better and better each time she returns from America, is still alive and kicking.
The rain keeps falling and I keep staring out the window. Right across is Sister Naseem's house and past the alley one can see their verandah. Moments ago Sister Naseem's daughter (who's growing like a vine) went downstairs after collecting clothes hung to dry on the rooftop, all under the spy-gaze of her mother. Her mother knows that I stand in the window. She knows it every time; it is her daughter who is oblivious. A while back I was taking a leak before the front door of our house. As I was tying the cord of my trousers, Sister Naseem happened to appear within the frame of her door. Her nostrils fluttering, she said, "Thank God, you're a grown up now. You don't call bread blett anymore. Relieve yourself inside!"
Dumb-struck, I kept staring and blinking at her. Sister Naseem's eyes are so huge and dark. Her man's been in some Arab country for many years. Each time he comes, he leaves her with another child. As far back as two years she used to ask me to do her household shopping for her, but now she only gives me the look. Yet I don't look at her or at her soon-to-be grown up girl. Their house just happened to be right across from ours and one can look right into theirs. Besides, her daughter doesn't look at anyone. Everyone looks at her though. All she likes to do is to look at a mirror. Or better said: the mirror looks at her. Both the mother and the daughter have such long hair. Sister Naseem's father-in-law sits in the verandah and dyes his hair black or washes his old bicycle. Every other month or so he buys a packet of black color and paints his bicycle which is too high for him. God knows how old it is. The neighborhood boys tease him, "pehli vaddi laam di aye". [2] I have heard he was married three times, but now no one is around.
I have no idea where Sister Naseem has gone. They left the house abruptly. I have heard that they rented this place and there was a case pending in the court. Who are the new tenants?
The rain keeps pouring and I have been sitting by window. The water will collect in front of Sister Naseem's house. Outside Sharif's general store as well. The open space belonging to the Gujjars' will fill up too and they will have to milk their cows out in the alley. Aunty Maasy's courtyard will turn into a pond and the frogs will croak all night. People say that Aunty Maasy's husband became a faqir. Others say they have seen him begging at such and such place. A few say he's taken to getting high and wastes his life away at various shrines. I have not seen him though. There are some plants and a tree of dhrek and guava in Aunty Maasy's courtyard. Aunty raises chicken and makes her ends meet by selling eggs.
Baba Sharif has put bricks down on the street in front of his store. The children will reach his store hip-hopping and hop around the bricks and into the water, but if Uncle Jamil goes to the shop he won't be able make himself jump from one brick to another. Watching, the children will wait for a bit, then forge ahead splashing water, drenching him for sure, inviting his curse, "Bastard puppies, devil's children, I have yet to offer my maghreb prayers!" Be it a storm or rain, he must go to the mosque with his old umbrella. The umbrella is from the British time. It is patched up all over. Why doesn't Sister Naseem's father-in-law give up his bicycle and Uncle Jamil his umbrella?
The rain pours down and I know Soniah and her younger sister must be bathing on the rooftop next to ours. But what excuse can I use to go to our rooftop? We have already brought our cots down, and God forbid, if her sister Bushra caught even a whiff of me she's going to kick up a storm. Also, what can one do about Soniah? Only if she could stick to one! Anyone who has a bit of money, a few pairs of pants, keeps himself clean and spiffy, wears dark glasses, can command her attention. Now look at Bushra. She won't give the time of her day to anyone until she gets married. No doubt she was attractive. All Kashmiris are attractive. How gaga she was over her marriage! As if she were going to the heavens! She got married all right but couldn't stick it out. Six months into her marriage, she was back; he hasn't bothered to come to take her back. She was loose lips from the start. Now she quarrels all day long, quarrels with every vendor who ventures to our alley, messes with shopkeepers at the bazaar. They are our neighbors; we share a wall. If I went to their house in the summer, I'd find their mother with a wet duppata covering her shirtless torso. Kashmiris don't like to be constrained by clothes. The boys of the neighborhood claim that the grown up brothers and sisters of the house change clothes in front of each other without inhibition. I have wished many times for someone to tell Bushra that she's still good-looking. She has managed the entire household's chores but she creates friction with everyone, is easily irritated; messing with every person, she quarrels and quarrels.
Who said Bushra's been married off again?! I wonder how she is now. It's been so many years. I haven't had any news of her. I haven't been to their house either.
Translator's Notes
1. Chaachi and Kaachi would be pronounced "CHaaCHi" and "KaaCHi". As such, Chaachi here does not refer to the word for paternal aunt; these are affectionate petnames or dimunitives, perhaps for names such as Shahid and Kamal. (back to the text)
2. This translates roughly as "from the First World War". (back to the text)