The man who would be remembered
by Abbas Zaidi
[ fiction - april 05 ]
The moment Lahore-to-Islamabad bus broke down half way - about 200 kilometers either side - there was a wild ruckus as passengers dashed out to take refuge under trees. It was a midsummer noon. The temperature was typical: around 47 Celsius. Men were cursing the bus and its driver, children were crying with thirst, and women were shouting complaints that it was not heat but fire that God was pouring from the sky. Within seconds poor village boys and girls appeared selling water. Everyone scrambled for a drink. In this rush only a depressed-looking gentleman was indifferent to the heat. Standing on the road-side across the broken-down bus, he did not seem lost in thoughts. His name was Asad Ali. He was on his way back to Lahore after being kicked out most unceremoniously by Aaliya, his cousin. A strong but unsteady heat wave carried a portion of a sad Punjabi song from a far off village,
Don’t forget me my love
You’re the hope of my darkest night
Without you I’m nothing
But a pair of eyes without light
The song made him even more depressed. His eyes were filled with tears. As everything around him was getting blurred, a scene began to materialize on the highway,
”Hold on, hold on! a woman was screaming. This, this is Asad Ali, my Asad Ali! Look at the blood! God, my husband-to-be! How did he die?’ the wailing woman tried to force her way through the crowd while simultaneously tearing her clothes and hair. But the cameramen, the reporters, the policemen, and a mob of people were too much for her desperate struggle. Almost all the vehicles on the highway had stopped. In the middle of the road was lying Asad Ali’s corpse. People were expressing their shock and sorrow,
What a terrible accident!
All spared, save for one luckless individual!
Such a tragic death at such a tender age!
How handsome!
For his mother to bear the news!
Who will ever forget this death?
Meanwhile the woman had fainted. It was Aaliya who had only hours before rejected Asad Ali’s marriage proposal calling him a good-for-nothing freeloader, a lazy idler and much more.
“Come on shortie!” startled Asad Ali, “Are you sleeping or what?” “You taking a sunbath?” the passengers were shouting furiously at him.
It took Asad Ali a while to get back to reality. The bus had been fixed, and Asad Ali was the only one remaining outside the bus. He took his seat indifferent to the taunts people were hurling at him for not boarding the bus sooner. As the bus moved on, he looked back at the scene of the accident that he had just imagined. The tarred road was shining with mirages that looked like distant mirrors. He pressed his palm over his lips to stop them from quivering, but he could not stop his tears.
He had day-dreamed and visualized his death so many times and in so many situations that at times he had to feel different parts of his body to make sure that he was flesh and blood, and not a ghost. Once assured he was alive, he wanted to die a newsworthy death so that everyone would mourn him forever, and the memory of his untimely death would outlast his mourners right into posterity: There used to be a man amongst our forefathers, so full of youth and promise!
He had even consulted astrologers and palmists who gave him a confusing picture of how long he would last. That confusion only strengthened Asad Ali’s presentiment that his death, how soon or late, would be very dramatic and memorable. Sometimes while in the bathroom or the attic he would not respond to a call till the caller got concerned and thought God forbid something terrible might have happened to him. Even as a child when guests arrived, he would hide till everyone, including the guests, were worried to death about his safety, and would be greatly relieved after finding him alive! He nostalgically remembered the morning when his sister, his twin, came first in the state school examination, and people flooded the house with congratulations, gifts and newspapers that carried her photograph on the front page. That morning Asad Ali - he never sat for the examination in the first place - lay in the balcony, a white sheet pulled over him. He did not catch anyone’s attention until a prying elderly relation drifted in, pulled the sheet and discovered Asad Ali lying straight and stationary, his eyes wide open. She gave a loud death cry. All rushed to the scene and were relieved to find him sitting up and yawning, his eyes wet. The elderly woman prayed for his long life. Asad Ali, short and underweight, had not felt lighter in his life.
Was anything missing in life making him desire death? Apparently all was fine. Being the youngest child in the family - he was born seven hours after his sister - he was an apple of everyone’s eye: parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, relatives, neighbors. His birthday was celebrated with more fanfare than any other of his siblings’. He hated books and school. His grandfather, an influential elder of the area, had clearly told Ali Asad’s teachers not to hit him whether or not he did his homework. He was never reproached or ridiculed for his failures as a student, sportsman, or else. By the time he was fifteen he had stopped going to school and joined his father once a month to visit their lands that yielded lots of crops every year. Around that time he had kissed most of the housemaids without getting caught or complained of, given a lot of jewelry to Aaliya bought with his own pocket money and the money he stole from his parents and uncles, and been to the holy Mukkah with his grandparents. All along this dolce vita he kept deliberating death, which culminated, on his seventeenth birthday, in his resolve to commit suicide. But he quickly dismissed the idea. What if people thought I was a coward who could not suffer problems like a man? Besides, suicide was forbidden in religion.
Time went on and many things happened: His parents and grandparents died, he survived his suicidal teens and adolescence, Aaliya jilted him for a rich businessman, and his own siblings - three brothers and three sisters - became examples of success and prosperity. But they never forgot Asad Ali. They tried to help him settle down in every way that seemed possible but nothing happened. Their last attempt was to set up a grocery store for him, close to home. But the business could never take off, his sudden deaths and prolonged disappearances from the store lasted more than the freshness of the vegetables and the patience of the customers...
Marriage was a blessing, especially because his wife was totally illiterate. Being a village woman - a distant relation who was discovered by Asad Ali’s twin sister - she did not know the world beyond the household chores. To her, a husband was God by proxy, and she never stepped outside the house if she thought he would not like it. He faked death many times, but would revive before she could go out beating her chest and calling out to the neighbors. Having children was even a greater blessing: They were all girls, five in all: robust, healthy and pretty, they cared for him a great deal. He also loved them intensely. He died many times in the act of saving his daughters from a fierce tiger let loose in the Lahore Zoo, alligators in the Changa Manga marshes, a stray killer shark while rowing on the Ravi River, robbers, mobsters, psychos, pythons.
Life became even better turn for Asad Ali. The daughters turned out academically brilliant like their uncles and aunts. But Asad Ali’s death toll had to come to an end because the sharp-minded daughters were growing up now. Although his wife remained in constant fear of one morning waking up widowed, he began to feel more and more irrelevant, which made him pay minimal attention to his appearance. Soon he had grown a long beard that sported a silver lining. A day after the results of his daughters’ ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels were announced - they all got outstanding results - Asad Ali left for Burki, a village at the India-Pakistan border. He wanted to see a well-known hakim, the traditional physician, because he felt a lump developing in one of his lungs. He did not tell anyone about that fearing his brothers and sisters would take him to a specialist that would mean countless tests without conclusive results.
The hakim, a wise old man, was as good a palmist as a man of traditional medicine. He charged Asad Ali the fee before taking his pulse. After feeling the pulse he read his palm for some time and told Asad Ali that cancer could come anytime, but there was no possibility of a sudden death.
Asad Ali left the hakim. Nearby was the gate that formally demarcated the Pakistan-India border. A huge crowd of Pakistanis was protesting there against some alleged anti-Islamic remarks made by a prominent Indian politician. Asad Ali joined them for fun. Things got out of hand when some people began pelting rocks at the Indian side. An Indian soldier fired in the air. There was a sudden stampede. Asad Ali was caught in the rush. His dress was torn, wallet lost, and he got cuts on his face. After a while the stampede was over. Ambulances carried the seriously hurt away to hospital. The less seriously hurt, a score of them, Asad Ali included, walked to a nearby dispensary. The medic had to shave Asad Ali’s beard and moustache before applying a dressing. He then asked him to wait for antibiotics. Meanwhile, the entire national media was condemning the firing incident from the Indian side. It was reported that hundreds were seriously hurt and one man dead, a bullet in his chest. Smashed in the stampede, he could not be identified. Asad Ali along with other patients and the dispensary staff was glued to the TV. After the latest commentary on the incident, the TV showed interviews with Asad Ali’s wife, daughters, bothers, sisters and neighbors who had been devastated over his sudden death, and yet they were all proud that he had taken the bullet in the chest, and not in the back. “Not just you, but the entire nation is so proud today!” the interviewer added tearfully showing Asad Ali’s blood-stained identity card to the nation.
Asad Ali’s death wish and the cancer premonition were gone all of a sudden. Why die when life can give all you have dreamed of? Accounts of Asad Ali’s death became the dominant theme in the media. He had become a symbol of bravery for everyone. From the state governor to everyone of substance either visited his family or sent their condolences. His kids were nominated for special government scholarships; his wife was given a beautiful new house in a respectable area (later aptly named “Asad Mansion”); his brothers serving elsewhere were transferred back to Lahore so that they could stay close to Asad Ali’s family. The Kashmir Liberation Front and the Soldiers of Islam - two jihadi outfits - established a special Asad Ali the Martyr Trust. His martyrdom was to be celebrated in the time to come.
Asad Ali stayed on in the village. For some time he worked as a waiter in a small village restaurant, enjoying every moment of his new-found status and prestige. But soon he wanted to go home and live. But wouldn’t that be an anti-climax? A shame and embarrassment to me, my family and my memory! Why live when death can give all you have dreamed of? He decided to stay on. He set up a bicycle service facility under the shade of a large tali tree, and rented a tiny room in a mud house. He barely managed to make ends meet. After finishing his work he would stay in a small, dingy restaurant where he watched popular Indian romantic tragedies, sports and international channels till late into the night. There was nothing else in his uneventful life. And yet he was a happy man. Even when a rustic customer or a rude policeman misbehaved with him he would just smile forgivingly at their ignorance: They don’t know who they are dealing with! This is the man, the Martyr, whose memory they cherish! Once in while he was afraid to die: What if a chunk of bread is stuck in my throat? What if the mud ceiling caves in? Or a stray bullet kills me? But life went on.
With the passage of time, Pakistan and India began talking peace, and soon his memory faded. But he was still a happy man. He cleverly kept track of his family; they were doing fine. Countless times he saw his daughters in their colleges, universities, at work and near Asad Mansion. One of them became a doctor, another one a university lecturer while the three others were still studying. His wife looked old now: This is premature ageing; definitely because of my sudden and untimely death! He was sure everyone, family or friend, remembered and cried for him.
One day Asad Ali realized that for a very long time he had not gone to see Asad Mansion or any of his family members. He also realized that slowly - imperceptibly - he had been reduced to a nullity: that his was a forgotten story; that he had practically died. He was sad: After a long time he was sad. He decided once again to pass by Asad Mansion in order to espy his family. It was just before dusk when he reached Asad Mansion. Every inch of it was colorfully lit. Just a few meters away from the Mansion, big cooking pots, called daighs, were placed on make-shift brick stoves and the fragrance of rice biriyani, goat shorba and sweet zarda had taken over the entire area. There was no one around except for a tall, bulky and well-dressed cook supervising his helpers. But given the layout of the furniture that spanned the better part of the playground nearby, it appeared that it was going to be a big event. It was so silent that the simmering of the daighs and the cracking of the fires underneath them were clearly audible. Asad Ali approached the cook and asked what was going on.
“Madame’s daughter is getting married tonight,” the cook said indifferently.
”Tonight?”
”Guests should start arriving in an hour’s time,” said the cook looking at his watch.
”Where’s everyone?”
”Inside, getting ready,” he said pointing towards the Mansion with his index finger.
”Which daughter is getting married and with who?”
The cook critically looked down at the shabbily dressed Asad Ali. He thought about chasing him off the property, but held himself back. He said with some irritation, “Dr Zainab is getting married with her cousin.”
”With who?” Asad Ali beseeched.
The cook replied without looking at him, “Dr Karim.”
”Aaliya’s son?”
”Yes.”
The cook gave a start as he replied. Before he could say anything, Asad Ali had moved away from him, and towards the Mansion.
Zainab marrying Aaliya’s boy? Without her father’s permission? The world might have forgotten who Aaliya is but I have not! Can this marriage take place without my approval?
At that moment Asad Ali experienced the same earth-shaking excitement as he had experienced when he first learned about his death at the Pakistan-India border long time ago.
And my wife! Look at her! She never did a thing without my permission and now she is giving Zainab’s hand to Aaliya’s idiotic boy on her own! I am not dead! Not yet!
”But where have you been all these years?” shouted a woman.
Asad Ali looked back. He recognized her. She was an American journalist he had often seen on a satellite channel. But to his horror, she was not the only one. He was actually surrounded by a legion of journalists, cameramen, and TV crews. They were not the only ones. Countless people had filled the playground, the rooftops of the houses, streets and the road, raising slogans and wanting to hear from him, including the VIPs that he had seen on TV on the day of his death on the border. There was a rumor that he had been abducted by the aliens; another rumor was that he had died but returned to life after all those years, and still another had it that all those years he had been fighting jihad in foreign lands. The official version, though, was that all those years he had been languishing in Indian jails, and was able to escape after a brave encounter with the jailors. The constant flashing of cameras was hurting his eyes. The journalists were vying with one another to get close to him and shouting question after question about his prolonged disappearance, his courage, and his ultimate survival. The noise and the crush were becoming unbearable. He felt he was being bullied.
”No yet! Zainab’s marriage is a matter of principle that rises above aliens, jails, jihad and dying and living!” he shouted as he made his way into Asad Mansion.
