Jaanta

Maria Bilkis

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n: a stone grinder used for milling and grinding in Bengal villages

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1.

The boy had been missing for a month. Still, Manda would put a plate of food out by the bamboos, and remove it untouched. Twice everyday. Like clockwork. He will be hungry, she would reason in her head. Maybe he will like it today? Lately she had been doing all the talking in the privacy of her head; her mouth clipped shut — each lip supporting the other — fearing the worst if they parted. She had always preferred it to conversations. What if she said something odd? And yet, it wouldn’t be the first time. Odd was how she had been made. Odd was how she had been defined. Always. A true product of the haggard red Rahr earth she had been born out of. Full of knots and angles and unabashed irregularities that inspired only discontent.

A scribble on the outside of margins; created hurriedly, almost thoughtlessly as a last-minute cosmic assignment. She was born with the face of her father. Her narrow forehead foretold her small destiny, kopaal and a general lack of luck. Her small eyes had held no one’s gaze. She kept them strictly to herself and her toes. The crease under her irregular nose was how one located her mouth. No defined lips outlined it. Any flitting vapour of promise ended definitively in the pointy chin jutting a little to the left. No, it wasn’t a face to fall in love with. It wasn’t even a face to hate. It was just a face to take in the passing, and then to forget. What was more, she was half-way deaf and almost dumb. She had all the mechanics but none of the fire. She did not talk. She murmured. She mumbled. Her strongest speeches were mere susurrations as they slipped off her tongue. The village had taken one good look at her and declared her dim. Her skin dark as the night, she might have been a firefly during the day, for all they cared. But with the boy gone, things were different. During the first few days that followed the boy’s disappearance, she had heard voices with her one sound ear — concerned, prophetic, packed with condolence, self-righteous pity — come and go through the house. Unwarranted hauntings. Like Manda, the house wasn’t used to visitors or conversations or kindness.

It was like most other houses in the village. Only stranger. The thick mud plinth rose higher than an average waist giving it the illusion of height. But above it, the jute thatch, propped on bamboo pillars, was pushed down so severely that it dwarfed the entry to the house into a thin horizontal slit. Its roof allowed for only stooping; never to take a stand. From a distance, it looked like a squinting Chinaman with the stairs in front for a beard. The high verandah was bare except for a roll of sitalpati standing against the wall. One of the low doors opened to a room with a thin khat, and two moras near the back wall. It is where the boy used to sleep, and study; where he nearly died; and possibly where he decided to run away. The other was a small room with baskets of grains and full gunny sacks reclining on the sides. It had a small clearing in the middle for the Qu’ran; a jai-namaz sat folded next to it.

In the front yard stood a foot-tall alcove with stacks of jute sticks and a clay stove dug into the ground with its open mouth chewing fire on one side. On the other end stood two man-sized kunthis (mud granary) topped with palm leaf weaves and sealed shut with their lids. Out in the back, lay the lazy stretch of land — bloodred and brooding; unyielding and indifferent. Beyond that, the land was invaded by bamboo, thick and thunderous. Despite being relatively new, the house looked older — creased with worry, pockmarked with handprinted cow dung cakes. It was the last house in the village and didn’t have any incentive for anyone to visit, or even come near. It stood lonely and quiet except for the incessant sound of the jaanta in the old outhouse — between the house and the bamboo grove — that started early in the morning and seldom stopped till sundown. Some said it was haunted. Things go to die there! she exclaimed. Others said it was cursed. It was not unusual for kids to dare one another to climb up the steep verandah and knock on the small door, or steal behind the house and throw stones at it.

Ever since the disappearance, people had been drawn to Manda’s misfortune, and to the house. Outside, they would gather to say, isn’t it a relief, isn’t it a relief such a burden is off her shoulders, and so soon too? in breathy timbres that fought amongst themselves to believe they spoke God’s truth. Believe in Allah’s work, His plans are mysterious but we mustn’t question them, they said. He won’t come back, declared the cold trail of their voices. And then to avoid being the harbinger of doom, they would add the practical supposition of — Must have run off. Would be the first time either. Runs in the family. As the days went by, their tongues split clean in twos. Temporary kindness had contorted them. So it was a relief when they went back to the old, comfortable freedom of malice and gossip. Of course, all this stony face drama is about money, they said. She doesn’t want to spend anything. Why won’t she go through the burial? Take Allah’s name and finish it, they would say dusting off their hands to show the finality of their dismissal. Only if Imam sahab were here, they would lament, holding their tongues from wagging more. Manda had sat through it, talking in her head all the while.

It wasn’t long before their wishes were answered. Bade Imam sahab had finally returned as a Haaji, and as the first course of his Sadaqah he had decided to visit the unfortunate widow who was willfully refusing to give into the will of Allah. Haaji sahab had taken it upon himself to bring the misguided mother to the right path, her al-sirat al-mustaquim.

The morning of his visit the grocer’s wife came in to help around the silent house. Haaji sahab was expected right after the Jummah prayers. And the village would not be left behind. There wasn’t time enough to lose.

Bade Imam sahab will be here any second. Get yourself tidy, she said, trying to get Manda out of her wide-eyed stupor, who was busy tracing the late morning sunlight that filtered through the jute thatch walls of the outhouse. A beetle was jammed in the densely packed mud base of the wall and Manda locked her eyes upon its wiggling brown body. The grocer’s wife had been keeping a watch over the dirt path leading up to the house. After she had cooked the meal, washed Manda’s hair and reminded her to keep a good sense about her, she sat next to her and pulled the saree over her head and tucked it behind both ears for safekeeping of her honour.

There, she said, happy with the effect. Now, do invite him to some sweets and sharbat. Rehmat will bring those in. I will be in the kitchen, she trailed off by way of taking her leave. But, Manda did not move. The grocer’s wife turned around to look at her muted shrunken suffering body. To change the subject, the practical woman smiled and said, They saw the fire. I have it from the proper people. Don’t worry about the money. It’s coming and a lot. These snakes will stop hissing. The funeral can be as big as you… She stopped. She saw that she was reaching nowhere.

Manda, whispered the grocer’s wife in a last ditch effort. Listen to him. You must give in. Do it for the boy. Do it for him.

But Manda continued to sit cross-legged, staring at the stone grinder in front of her, unable to hear anything. For since day-break, only the sound of grinding had settled over her like a fever. At first, regular and slow — and then, getting louder and louder — washing over every other sound in the world. She had felt the usual heaviness settle over her eyelids. It hadn’t been a surprise to her. She had known it to have done so before.

2.

It was a jaanta (a stone grinder) — ancient of age, enormous in size, made of two granite discs — each a foot tall and two feet wide — stacked one on top of the other; rotated using a stiff wooden handle. It had been in Manda’s family for generations and went back way farther than could be remembered or recorded. The edges were dull and the inscription on the top was all but legible under the patina of time, but it bore its age with sombre dignity and proven usefulness. For Manda, it was the first plaything, the first refuge, the first crutch and the first friend. It might have been the centre of the world — immovable, permanent. Born after five puny brothers, each of whom decided to return to their heavenly abode before completing a year around the Sun, Manda had come out shrieking with health against the hopes of her aged mother and a somewhat questionable father. Worse still, she had taken after her father’s unwholesome complexion and form. Even as a baby her mother never found a single thing of beauty in her crying face. Maybe to forget about her existence, or that of her own misfortune, she would often leave Manda alone in the small outhouse with the jaanta to figure out a life that was bound to be hard and friendless. The sooner she learns the better, her mother would mutter to herself as much as to her husband, listening to Manda crawl, fall, bang into things and cry. The blows will teach her. Some nights when her mother threw her father out for coming home drunk or without any money or telling strange tales, Manda’s father would crawl into the outhouse and sleep hugging the jaanta for company. Like Manda, he too had a kindred in the stone discs.

It was in this outhouse that Manda had stood up for the first time holding the wooden handle of the grinder. By age three, she had learnt to put her burning cheeks on its cool flatness when her mother gave way to her frustrations through bruises and burns and whole days and nights without food or water. When such nights coincided with her father’s misdemeanours, the two spent their limited freedom in talking about things that would make sense to no one but them. He called her Krishnokoli, or his black flower bud, and found unparalleled beauty in a face that vaguely resembled his own mother’s. It was beauty only a father’s eye could perceive.

When she started to menstruate her mother folded her few pieces of clothing and put them permanently in the outhouse. She argued that with that arrangement Manda wouldn’t be anyone’s way. Manda did not mind. Her mother’s discontent had so crowded the house that she had to squeeze and bend her way through it in order to pass its walls without accidentally touching a sore spot and triggering things she was too young to understand. She had lost the hearing in one of her ears thanks to one such incident. The old woman lived off doing random chores for the rich families in the village. She had been cheated out of a normal marriage, stuck on a piece of land that neither took anything nor gave anything back, with a fistfull of dead sons and an impractical daughter. She had tried to train her since toddlerhood, putting her to use. But Manda had been a lost cause when it came to folding or cleaning. The only thing she could do was rotate the jaanta. It was a plaything to her. And so that became her designated task. The outhouse was her refuge. There she worked tirelessly on the never ending milling and grinding and threshing and cleaning. Singing songs her father had sung to her.

In a few years, having learnt her alphabet, Manda could touch the faded inscription on the jaanta and decipher that it had been a wedding gift, once upon a time. Maybe there existed a time when stone and wood could be valued over gold. Her father would attest to that. He would tell her of times when Gods as big as the mountains played on the land, and the jaanta was a small ghurghuri they would play with.

Like uncaring children, they laughed and danced to its rhythm and created and destroyed the worlds around them. And like children, those Gods fought among themselves over the smallest things, and this ghurghuri was one such thing. One day, while fighting over the jaanta, one of the Gods pinched their little finger between the two stones. A drop of their blood fell on the ground and the soil turned blood red. They dropped the jaanta. It fell to the ground and there it stood unmoved and unmoveable. The Gods decided that the land had claimed it and stopped fighting over this little ghurghuri, moving on to bigger playthings.

Sometimes his stories would be closer to home and history. You know Maa, only my great grandfather could lift this jaanta. He might have been blind in one eye but his heart was strong as flint. Once when a saheb happened to disrespect our family, he lifted it up and threatened to crush him with it. Hui, hui, hui, he laughed. We never saw his white backside ever again. And why not, why not! Who dares say a thing to us. We are Maatir Manush — the children of the soil. At this point, he would put a curled finger under Manda’s chin and pick up her ordinary face. He would look at it squarely and smile with all of his crumpled face. This, here, Maa, this jaanta can only belong to whoever belongs to the land. It was for your brothers, he would pause here to gulp some of the sadness that he couldn’t share with his wife. But now, it is yours. It is a friend. It will always be there.

If his wife was in the earshot, she would snort repulsively at this recycled tale that had been one of the first her husband had shared on their marriage bed, bemoan her black fate and call him a nincompoop, a chiint, who could not till the land, or put rice in their mouths and always found ways to cut holes in their pockets. But Manda believed in her father’s stories because, not only because no one else did, but because a child needed something to believe in.

The first time Manda was married, her mother pooled in all their savings to commission a new engraving on the jaanta. The family’s poverty was not hidden, and the youth of her daughter had been the only currency that had helped negotiate the match. Adding the jaanta as the dowry only seemed like goodwill, not to mention good riddance from her husband’s strangeness. The marriage, however, was a short one. Her husband, forty years her senior, had succumbed to the unforgiving Rarh winters and drowned away in a hasty pneumonia leaving behind a huge debt that ate away all his worldly possessions and properties, except the two — the jaanta, and Manda. Such was the heft of the granite that even five men could not budge it. So, it had been left behind at her parent’s home along with the child bride who was called too inauspicious to be claimed.

But widowhood couldn’t allow her to be a child anymore. Making herself useful was the only way to earn a life under the roof of her mother. So she pressed herself into every crack and poured herself into every root. She washed and cooked and cleaned the graves of her five dead brothers and sometimes paused in between to look at the red earth around her wishing it was her blood that lent it the shade. Maybe that would explain the condition of her insides that twisted in a strange way till her eyes were filled. She too wanted to be laid in a final sleep among the bamboo.

Within a year, she lost her father. He left home and never came back. Her mother had last seen her run into the bamboo grove in the back yard, drunk as a lord. Bodho-matal, she would say over and over again, shaking her head, beating her chest. She had heard from the sniggers and sharp tongues that he had stolen from one of the houses before making his final exit. The family tarnished, her mother lost all prospective work and fell sick. A year later, she tied Manda to a twenty-year-old of questionable morals — a man as loose with his money as with the back of his hand — who lived in the next town, and passed away with the satisfaction of having settled her with one unlikely to die of old age any time soon. This time, it was man and not nature that put an end to the marriage. Her husband was found stabbed near the train line three years later. Gambling debts, she heard through the whispers. Once again relieved of the burden of matrimony, Manda was left all alone in the world.

Before long, she, with a middling sized goat, was back to her mother’s house. Not much remained of it. Without a caretaker the house had slowly crumbled away in neglect. The Kalbaishakhi had torn down the roof and the flood had washed away the walls. Only the outhouse and within it the jaanta remained. During the day, she looked for work. At night she lay untangled around the circumference of the jaanta, too tired for dreams. In the beginning she had tried her hand at any work she could get. She tried her luck at the jute factory in the town but could not afford the bus fare after a week. She tried sitting at the shop near the bus stop as a helper but the unabashed eyes of the men sent her back home the same day. She went to work as a field-hand but was sent home when she fainted under the sun and was found out to be pregnant. With her insides crowded and her outside empty, she came back to the outhouse and sat in the darkness and dejection. She waited for someone to come and ask and find her out. Didn’t they know she was all alone? Didn’t they know she had nothing? Were these men and women of God who could let her starve as easily as a mangy dog? The world was a big place and she felt smaller than ever. Where could she hide? Where could she be protected? Her stomach growled with hunger. Eat for the baby, the doctor who had checked her after the fainting spell had told her. But he never told her where to get the food from. She contemplated if her day’s labour was enough to buy a bit of rice or a phial of poison. Who cared if she lived or died? How many times had she feared an end at the hands of her last husband? How had she found the will to live the next day? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just hold her breath and stop. An end to all problems. She had sat down at the jaanta and without meaning to, held the wooden handle. Somehow, with her fingers wrapped around it, she felt some strength coming back to her. Like the reassuring grip of an old friend. I am not alone, she had spoken to the darkness. I will not perish from heat or hunger or cold or common cruelty. I will not get crushed, she had mumbled to no one in particular. And then, the movement had taken over her body. She did not know when it had started but when the first rays of sun hit the outhouse, she found herself seated at the jaanta, rotating the top stone the way her mother had shown her a long long time ago, still mumbling, I will not get crushed. I will not get crushed. I will not get crushed. Then she slept for days.

She woke up with startling pain. She had pinched the little finger of her left hand between the granite slabs. Though the pain was excruciating, it had kicked her into clarity. She dressed the wound with a bit of white lime, put on a new saree and walked to the Waqf board behind the Mosque. She demanded to see the Mutawalli sahab and waited for hours and pleaded her case for fiscal aid. She was given a loan of twenty rupees payable by the end of month. Mutawalli sahab was kind enough to explain the mechanics of the deal. She was a nobody, and it was a risk. She closed her eyes and nodded her head. The riba was the least of her worries. It would be their secret.

She took the money and her ration card each clutched in either palm, and brought home a few kilos of wheat. She spent the whole day grinding it. The next day she lugged her mother’s old baskets from behind the outhouse — meticulously cleaned and loaded with the milled flour — to the grocer two bus stops down. The stares and sniffs and smiles slipped off her shoulders. Only the sound of the jaanta hummed in her ears going off to the grocer, off to the grocer. The old, balding middle-aged grocer was a kind man. He had always fought his natural kindness with the cruelty of his trade. Why should he take a chance with a bit of a girl? What if her product tastes like rubbish? Where will he go looking for her? Should he sell his customers garbage? Who will answer for his losses? All valid questions his brain had insisted on asking out aloud while his heart went out to the girl that stood in front of him shrunken with the heat and hunger, hiding her midriff self-consciously with her saree. The grocer’s wife watched Manda from the back of the storeroom and read the movements of her arms, the tilt of her head, the directions her eyes sprinted to, and remained undecided in her feelings towards her. Fond of gossip, she had heard of the girl’s misfortunes but trusted her own methods before bestowing anyone with sympathy.

Life had taught her not to expect kindness or happiness or general politeness. And if she ever were to accidentally stumble over either of those, she should be prepared for it to be short-lived. Beautiful people had claims over such things. Manda had only learnt to shrink and hide. But something inside her was now bigger than all of her shame, all of her doubt. She closed her eyes and imagined her fingers coiled around the wooden handle of the jaanta and she could once again hear its steady grinding noise. She would find her voice. Take them for free. I will come back in two days. If you sell them, you can pay me. If not, return it to me, Manda had said with a straight face.

When she returned two days later, the grocer paid her the dues and placed a bigger order. The flour was fresh and super-fine. It had glided like satin when he pressed it between his thumb and fingers without a single pinchful of coarseness. His enterprising wife called it a miracle flour that made the softest rootis and didn’t need cleaning or sieving of any kind. It was her idea to sell it as a new superfine variety that the city-folks preferred; and so they had measured and packed it neatly in newspaper parcels of half a kilo each and sold it at the weekend market. It had worked. They had sold everything.

That was the start. Small, and purely accidental; a start nonetheless. Every morning Manda would start the milling after a breakfast of old rootis and milk from the goat. With every rotation she would build the future in her head. Unshackled by old age, disease, or debts and the husbands that brought those to her, Manda dreamt dreams all her own, each one folded and stacked neatly, planned efficiently. A house. The boy would need a house. The outhouse is no place for him. A garden in the backyard. Sure the soil is rocky and she would have to pull out all the old roots, but it wasn’t impossible. The old well needed to be cleaned before the rains. A palm thatch for it. A cow may be. Kunthis to store more grains. She would do it all herself. She would build her own world.

Little by little the boy grew inside her. Little by little the orders kept increasing. Little by little the money came. She counted it every night and recounted it again in the morning, and kept it hidden inside the jaanta with the disbelief and anxiety of one who had never owned even the clothes on her back. Most mornings she would wake up breathless fearing it had all been a dream. She would lace her fingers around the handle of the jaanta and gasp for air and steady herself. With her face and her fate she had dared, and somehow it seemed unbelievable. As her grip tightened she would close her eyes and visualise each of her dreams for the boy. She would not allow anyone or anything to ruin it. But the world around her could sniff her out. As her ambitions quietly multiplied, so did the jealousies. At the centre of these was Mutawalli sahab’s begum.

When she applied for a bigger loan for her house, the Waqf board readily agreed. Mutawalli sahab himself was crucial in these decisions, having recovered the previous loans in due time and pocketed the interest. He was a practical man and Manda was a good bet and so what if she were a woman. He only looked good helping out a widow, and more so now that she was orphaned and without any caretakers, and so what if his wife called her a daayni. What did she know! The villagers like Mutawalli sahab’s begum were wary of Manda.

It was unnatural for a woman to do the things she did. Who builds a house herself. Not even asking the menfolk to help. What arrogance! Whispers wafted through the streets on humid days along with vapours. Eater of husbands, they call her. Ritual sacrifices of a witch, they suspected. How else can a woman live as she did? they asked. Someone saw her wearing a sleeveless blouse like the Hindu women at her house, they were ashamed for her. Someone claimed to see her walking with a strange man amidst the bamboo grove. Who knows who comes and goes to that house? Without a man of the house, who was to say? By any law of decency, she should have just died like a woman rather than work like a man, they concluded. Already hard of hearing, Manda had turned her deaf ear to it all, and slowly the house took shape.

One day, someone came to the house in halting steps, wary of awakening things dead, unsure of anyone inside. Manda had just finished her prayers.

Ho! she addressed the young man who must have been in his early twenties.

Salaam walaikum, the young man bowed slightly. Ar-are you Manda? He enquired through a painful shyness.

What do you want?, she cut to the chase with half a bow herself despite her enlarged middle.

The milaad at the Mosque, he said, his torso half turning towards the door as though that was enough to tell her the direction of his purpose. Mutawalli Begum has asked for five kilos of wheat and rice to be threshed and pounded.

When? she enquired.

In a day? he murmured quietly.

In a day? she looked up to see the young man’s face. His shoulders were drooping and he seemed to be scanning the red earth under his feet.

Even the soil here, he said as though to himself, it’s rude. He checked himself the very next second and looked up and then away. Maafi, it was just a thought. So, that is all. Begum would need it in a day.

He must never have seen a pregnant woman.

Clearly, this was a trap. Manda sat down on the steps of the house slightly breathless. The boy was restless inside. She had to take a moment to calm him down and calm herself. Surely she doesn’t think I can do magic? She said before she could contain the thought. The young man looks like he had been caught doing something naughty.

Even with her one ear Manda had picked up the rumblings of the neighbourhood. She knew the various taunts and gossips about her being a witch and a black magician that whirled around her every time she travelled to the grocer’s shop for her deliveries. She knew of those that laughed in cackles behind her, and wondered aloud at her want of beauty. She knew of those whose virulent spit scorched the earth she had walked on, to give a kaat to her evil eye. They were ready to see her fail. They were waiting for her to drop dead or leave — whichever happened sooner. One would say, she hadn’t tried to befriend anyone, and why must they be nice to her? And yes, there is such a thing as being neighbourly, and, there is such a thing as being nice. Only, experience had taught her that she would fail even if she tried. And she would argue that she had always been polite, and that hadn’t worked either. She who had failed to squeeze out a drop of kindness from her own mother, could not hold the rest of the world accountable for one good thing. No, they owed her nothing. And no, she owed nothing to them. Nothing.

She shifted her weight from one buttock to the other looking for relief.

Give my respect to Begum and my wishes too, Manda said slightly breathlessly. But as you can see, in my condition, a day’s notice would be impossible.

The young man was more than prepared to take her excuse and close the matter. However, within an hour, another servant, this time an old cook, had come to her door. A shock of white hair stood on his man’s dark face. When he opened his mouth to speak Manda could see that a few irregular teeth had been knocked about.

For shame, woman! Begum is so kind to give you work. She hears about your flour and says to me Haleem, if I wanted I could go for the choicest moodikhanas. But being the begum of Mutawalli sahab, I too have some responsibility. I too have my duty to Allah. Let me help that unfortunate, poor woman. The money will only help her, the cook went about in a hollow monotone. Here, take. It is more than the market price. Take it here.

Manda sat dumbfounded, as the old face looked at hers with an avid distaste and extended a spotted hairy arm clutching some paper money. Take it. You are at the receiving end of Allah’s meher. Mutawalli sahab gave you a start. Saying no to him is as good as saying no to Allah himself.

Assailed by the unwarranted piety of the visitor, Manda took the money. The grains were delivered to her outhouse. It was much more than the five kilos that the young man had originally spoken about. But Manda made no bones about the matter. Once the sun went down, she opened the gunny sacks and realised the trick. The grains were adulterated in a one to one ratio. She poured fistfuls out in wicker baskets to see if it could be salvaged. It was midnight and she was still cleaning the grains by the light of the kerosene taper. Her eyes hurt and so did her back. Oh when will it all be done? she gasped to herself. There is no way. She felt the treachery of it in her bones; felt the unfairness of it all. The outhouse waved and flowed in front of her fatigue laden eyes. She gave in.

The next morning, three men came down to pick up the flour. Manda was still in the kitchen when they showed up.

Sit please. Have some chaa, she said and brought out a few glasses of the steaming hot beverage.

Erm, er, we are a little early, one of the men said haltingly. We are from the madrassa. Begum asked us to check if everything was going as planned. She had been a little uneasy and wanted to see if you needed any help in, er, erm, your er, condition.

Manda shielded her eyes from the sun’s glare to look at the men. Like the young man before them, they too could not look at her straight. Like him, they too were embarrassed by their imposition. Like him, they too thought she could cast a bad spell on either of them.

She is most kind, said Manda. Please allow me a few minutes. I will pack the deliveries.

The man got up before she could take a step. Oh no, why are you taking the pain? I will do it.

Manda did not stop him. She led him to the outhouse where the grains were all ground up into separate baskets and kept ready. She had no memory of how she had done any of it, but when the morning light hit the outhouse, the work had somehow been accomplished. The left one is the flour and the right one the rice flour. Be sure to keep them separate.

Once they were ready and loaded, she stopped the man and took him to a corner. He followed her, hiding his blushes from the other two. I don’t have the wherewithal to do even a tenth of what Mutawalli Begum does for the village, but here is something small, Manda said as she handed him a wad of notes.

The man looked at her wide-eyed for a moment and then they were all gone.

Over the months, as the orders had increased, so had Manda’s closeness to the grocer and his wife. With her advanced pregnancy the grocer had appointed their errand boy Rehmat to pick up the deliveries. Even then, Manda would insist on riding in the van with him to see the old couple. It was her first taste of friendship, familiarity, a family of any kind.

Oh! You should have seen her. Purple as her salma sitara. A bull had its horn up her backside, the grocer’s wife would tell Manda that weekend when she came to oversee a delivery. Manda allowed herself to laugh gently at the mental image of Mutawall Begum’s purple face. The grocer joined them soon and the language turned cleaner.

Is it true, you gave her money back as Zakat? Oh, ho, ho, ho Manda! He guffawed anew, having guffawed the previous night and the night before that and the night before that with his wife over Manda’s twisted hand to Mutawalli’s wife.

What could she have done? She put her name on each note. So Manda returned her a new set with her name on it, reasoned the grocer’s wife. Jaise ko taisa. Tit for tat.

Bad grains, eh? You cleaned every stone? He asked, knowing the facts of the story fully well. Praising the quality of Manda’s flour, the grocer had often joked about her mixing opium in it to make addicts out of his customers.

Why bother? You will make even rubble taste good, he would say with a chuckle.

You will say anything! she would joke back, tucking her earnings snugly in her blouse. Am I so bad to earn Allah’s wrath?

Once they had laughed out their laughs and settled the accounts, the grocer’s wife warned her. Be sure to rest Manda. Don’t take up so much work. Not at this stage.

I will rest when I die, Manda joked but a flinch ran across her face. I have to earn as much as I can before he comes.

At this rate we will have the baby in the outhouse, the grocer’s wife added seriously. I will send Rehmat everyday to check on you.

No clairvoyant could have envisioned the foreshadow clearer. The boy came early, unexpectedly so, a month before his time. Manda was working at the outhouse going over the orders, packed and ready to be picked up by Rehmat in a few hours. The house to her right smelt of a fresh coat of mud and cow dung. She heard a sound in the back and stepped out of the outhouse. There was no wind, and it couldn’t have been the bamboo. Likely an animal that had lost its way. Manda shielded her eyes with her palms to look around. She had never been scared of living at the edge of the bamboo grove all by herself. But the boy inside had made her weary of monsters and demons.

Ke aachish? Bayere aai! She shouted with her throat.

Nothing spoke back.

Manda kept standing. It made sense to call out to the animal, if it were one.

Hei, hei, hei, hei. Tch, tch, tch, tch. Aaah, aaah! She transformed from goat to chicken to a lone cow. Still nothing came through. It must have been the path-kathi (jute sticks) in the wind. Manda took a step back and turned around. The sound reappeared.

Ke okhane? Ke aache? Bero! She challenged the phantom noise.

The small chaos rushed through the cracking bamboo and Manda stood firm waiting to take on whatever emerged from the great beyond. Two small hands parted the bamboo and sprang like a slingshot. Manda felt a sharp pain in her middle. It took her some time to understand that she had been hit with a rock. A few others followed and then jumped out a boy who threw a final rock and ran like the wind chanting Dayni budi, dayni budi, dayni budi. He must have been nine or ten. A prominent birthmark blotted his right elbow. Manda had seen him playing around the mosque — haunting the chickens and the goats. She sat down in folds. The impact had travelled through and she felt as though her back was collapsing from inside. Blood dripped from between her legs — first in drops and then in a steady stream. She got on all fours and crawled towards the outhouse, desperate. She had planned the grocer’s wife to be around when her time came. They had gone over everything that would be required and readied in advance. But now she was ready to die all alone with the boy. The pain came in sharp seconds and everything turned black for those seconds. Then her breath would come back and it would feel possible to live just a moment longer. But the pain would return without fail. She inched towards the low stair of the outhouse and pushed the thatched door with the fading weakness of her hand. It gave way. Manda crawled in and the sound of grinding rose in her ears. She hung her head and looked back and saw the thick bloody trail she had left in her wake.

Somewhere in her mind she heard herself speak — not in pain, not in distress but in a calm voice — recounting what needed to be done. She took off her saree and pushed it together to form a soft spot. She raised her heavy torso to prop it at the jaanta and put the saree in front of her crotch, her legs wrapped around it. She held the wooden handle and pulled at it with all she had and screamed. She pushed the wooden handle with all she had and screamed. The movement took over. The ghrrrr-ghrrr-ghrrr of the jaanta was all she could hear. She was walking home from school. She was cleaning some fish. She was sitting next to her first husband who spoke to her in a kind voice. She was rotating the jaanta. She was crying after her second husband threw her against a wall. She was laughing with the grocer about putting opium in her flour. She was scared of the bamboo. She was rotating the jaanta. She was running from her home holding her bleeding ear afraid she would be caught. She was looking at the cut up body of her second husband. She was hearing the faceless women whisper about her. She was burying her parents. She was rotating the jaanta. Her entire life stretched out tautly in a continuous scream of warm, gushing, dark rage and fire.

When Rehmat came to pick up the order, he had fallen down in shock finding the bloody trail. He had feared fatalities of both mother and child. The floor was red as the soil outside. Manda lay naked and torn. The boy hid in the crumpled saree. It didn’t cry much.

3.

When he was three or four, Manda started to notice that her boy was not like other boys of the village. He did not take any delight in bedevilling older ladies, or pranking the goatsherd. He did not say no to his mother, or throw a tantrum, or jut out a stubborn chin no matter what she fed him. He also did not speak. It was as though he was born only to be agreeable and pliant and absolutely quiet. While he slept she would trace his features with her eyes. It was the beautiful face of her second husband. There was nothing irregular there, and yet it was not a face that would keep her worryfree. Oh, but he had such a difficult birth, the grocer’s wife had said when once or twice Manda had seen her son being made fun of by other boys. He will need some time to come at par with the rest. Privately, the husband and wife would nod collectively saying, The boy needs a father. He doesn’t know what it is to be a man, the grocer would say chewing the wad of tobacco he treated himself to every evening. Better to be fatherless than have the one he had, his wife would add quickly with a tauba-tauba. Give him time. Some calves take longer to stand. They had volunteered to set Manda up near their shop. The land taxes were unpaid and selling the useless bit of land would help the matter. We will be close by, and think of the boy’s future, they had argued. But Manda would not listen to a word of leaving the strange looking house she had built. She had vowed to work double and pay her dues. And by that time the boy would be better.

But the years made no great difference. If anything, the boy got more distant and aloof from his peers with every passing season. He still did not talk. He would sit near his mother while she rotated the jaanta and pour the grains in the hole in the center like an automaton. Not a word passed between them and all anyone could hear was the shared language of the ghrrr-ghrrr of the stone mill. The year he turned ten, he got lost in the bamboo grove in the backyard. It was the first time it had happened. No one knew about it. Not even Manda. She had sent him to the Mosque for a jamaat and told him to stay there. But he could not spend longer than a few minutes away from his mother and his seat by the jaanta. So he had come back. He had not found his mother home. Manda had gone to the next village to purchase grains at wholesale price to get more work. The boy had gotten bored and hungry and then, trying to catch a squirrel, got lost in the bamboo. The next morning when Manda found him lying next to the jaanta, she did not suspect that he had been anywhere but by the jamaat and that he had stayed at home as taught. When he woke up he could talk. And not just talk but talk in a polished and practiced manner of a scholar. In well-formed words he told her that he had pinched his little finger between the stone slabs of the jaanta. To Manda it was an outcome of all her namaz, and rozas and duas. She was right in sending the boy to the jamaat. It was the right place for him. She dressed the wound and waited till the next morning to make sure he still spoke.

And he did. The boy spoke in a rich intonation of a learned one. He spoke about things foreign and strange to Manda. Ancient kings and queens and tombs and dangerous creatures. To Manda it was the rich imagination of a child who up until then had observed and gathered his thoughts. A tapestry of borrowed threads; her late father’s blood and bones. It was her hope that the change in him would make him more social. She encouraged him to play with the boys from the village. But boys that age don’t take to strange stories. The first time he came back home with a bruise on his face, Manda ignored it, calling it roughhousing, an accident. With time, the accidents continued. The boy grew more reluctant to go out. One night while lying next to his mother the boy told her the story of the jaanta that gathered so much speed that its top rose up and flew like a ghurghurri. Manda laughed good humouredly while shielding her annoyance at his unworldly tales that scared her. For the first time, she understood her own mother. She would have been happier if the boy had told her about the mundane things; about rocks and soil and grains and flowers and buses and factories and a dull dream for a future. Her annoyance grew into genuine worry about his future. A boy must be jhorjhore — like the properly cooked grains of rice — fluffy, spare and not stuck to those close by in clumps. Smart enough to stand on his own. The village school was a good way to socialise. Besides, the boy needed an education. So she brought him under the tutelage of the school master hoping the boy would find his station. For some time it seemed like he was happy.

4.

One day during the month of Chaitra, the grocer’s wife and Manda sat together in the outhouse. Manda had sprained her ankle and hadn’t been able to deliver the flour. The grocer’s wife had come down to see her with Rehmat. She had just come back from the survey of the backyard and was sitting against the mud caked jute walls watching Manda grind and halt in between to complain about the rising expenses. She was learning that it wasn’t enough to own land, one had to pay the government to own it. There had been a murder case in the neighbouring village and it had kept the spirits high. Late night addas discussing the case and likely suspects and visits by the constables had driven sleep away from the village.

Had I known I would have opened a tea shop earlier, mused the grocer’s wife. He says he will be able to buy a plot in the town if there is one murder every few months.

Manda smiled her own smile, keeping her thoughts to herself. This suited her companion who loved to talk. What are you growing next in the backyard? The brinjals look juicy. So do the tomatoes.

I have saved the seeds from last year. I will see how this harvest goes.

Right, right, concurred the grocer’s wife. Only you could get anything out of that land.

Manda felt that she was being closed into a very different conversation.

The grocer’s wife lowered her voice and said, they are buying all sorts of land here. If you want I can talk.

Who?

The grocer’s wife cleared her throat. Your bandhobi? Her brother.

Mutawalli’s brother-in-law? Sharik?

The grocer’s wife nodded while keeping her eyes on Manda. Tale is that he is a contractor. Small fry but he had people from the party backing him.

She drooped her lower lip out in mock dubiousness. Who knows these people?

Manda stopped the jaanta. He wants my land?

The grocer’s wife looked straight at her. He wants all sorts of land. The outskirts.

So my house and everything besides?

The grocer’s wife nodded. So I have heard.

No one else’s house? Manda asked, scoping the flour out into the basket.

Those Majhi and Gayen people, the grocer’s wife, readily supplied.

Oh, so everyone who is poor enough to count the rice in their bowls.

Manda, it is not a bad thing. They are getting good money. They are moving to the town. And, think of the boy. Will he not be better in the town? Your own house?

Manda stayed mum.

Just light your crops on fire as a sign. They would come and do everything else.

Manda got up from her haunches. Well let’s see how much they can give for my life.

Fifty, said the grocer’s wife.

Manda turned, Thousand?

Unn rakh, but. You must relinquish it all and nothing on paper.

Manda looked confused.

Have you heard of Operation Barga? Asked the grocer’s wife? Manda shook her head.

They are taking all lands before that starts. May even ask for papers.

Papers?

Land paper? Proof.

What proof? We have lived here for generations. It is my land. Ask anyone. Ask them!

Something stirred in her as she looked around the ancient room. She could see the face of her unfortunate father clearly. She could hear the rush of the life she had built.

All I am saying is that if you change your mind just light the crops on fire.

No, she said as she got up.

5.

Her name was Rooni. She came to the house out of nowhere one muddy Bhadro morning. Manda was a fresh widow. It was her first time. An untimely storm had ransacked the area the previous night and taken all the gaspable air with it and leaving behind pathways turned into streams, and the village transformed into a collage of broken bits. Manda had been sweeping the muddy, strewn yard with a tilli broom as long as her, when she had found the girl hopping on one foot while holding the other limply above ground. Standing on the other side of the doorway. While anyone else might have looked ridiculous, she had only looked mildly annoyed. Like a warrior on the battle ground reluctant to bow, wearing her armour. A stance Manda didn’t recognise. She held her pajama above her ankles for the fear of muddying the hems. Manda saw the silver skin above the muddy feet that looked like they were soaked in altaa. She had caught a tiny splinter in her foot, she said with a tone of impatience. Who are you? Manda had asked blankly. To her, she seemed like a creature carried in by the storm. Alien. Unknown. Scary. Hand me a path kathi if you are going to interrogate me, said the girl with a voice used to commanding. She was no older than Manda and yet she had an air of a grown up. Manda hurried to get her one without any questions. Won’t you ask me to sit or come in? the girl asked in a chiding voice holding the borrowed prosthetic. Manda had often heard of behrupiyaas, the dreaded creatures of false faces who abducted small children on the pretext of selling something. Her mother, who had gone to the next village, had left Manda with strict instructions to clean the house up, sweep the yard and grind the small sack of grains she had propped against the outhouse that morning. We will need more if we want to survive the winter, she had sighed, more to herself than to Manda. But the girl wasn’t carrying anything to sell and Manda wasn’t a child. She was almost sixteen. Besides, every few seconds the girl would suck some air through her teeth by way of soothing herself. So, Manda had given her a hand and brought her inside. That is how she met Rooni.

What a dirty yard, exclaimed the girl looking around. She was determined to find faults. Manda had propper her food on her knee and was in the process of washing it. I believe you live in a palace, Manda had whispered. But the girl had sharp ears.

You will think so, she promptly replied, clarifying that, I am not from here. I came for a wedding. You know Bano?

Manda nodded. Yes she did know Bano who had just wedded off her second daughter. Her mother had been summoned to help. She was also the first who had come to commiserate with Manda’s mother on her widowhood. The poor, estimable, middle-aged woman had beaten her ample chest and wailed and mourned on all of their behalf, and made Manda wish that she too had been buried with her late husband.

You can say I am a guest. Aaaah! she winced, pulling her foot away and holding Manda’s wrist away in a flash. Manda while washing her foot had accidentally grazed the splinter. Are you blind? Why do you hurt me?

Manda looked at the girl, her hands frozen as a statue’s. Her face was red with exertion. Her chest rose and fell trying to hold together the shock of the splinter reminding her of its existence. In a matter of a moment her bubble of self-command had been pricked into a squeak of pain, complaint, a cry against the injustice. Manda wondered at her. She would have never thought to raise her voice, or pull herself off of the pain. She in all likelihood would have withstood the splinter, even limped over it. Some people were made to withstand the blows. Others, to give them.

Did I hurt you too much? She felt bad. She had gotten careless while washing the foot. It was soft and smooth, and she didn’t know what to do with it. The girl squeezed her face in a pinch. Displeased. Showing it.

Rooni! What are you doing here? came a bulky voice from the doorway. It was a boy of fifteen, putting on the voice of a man.

The girl dropped Manda’s wrist and looked ahead with a mix of pride and hurt.

I am just taking a stroll. Did your mother send you to spy on me? she said with a cutting undercurrent of a laugh.

No! Why, everyone was worried about you, said the little man. Manda could see the girl was used to making him grovel and cry.

I was here with this imbecile, said the girl propping up on her one good foot. You see some of the debris got in my foot and I am hurt.

Manda stood up and tried to put an arm out to help her. The girl declined and looked straight at her designated retriever.

Come over Sharik! Oh now I will never marry you since you don’t have the courtesy to court me properly, she said severely.

Sharik jogged to her and pulled her over his puny shoulders.

Oh, better late than never, I see, she changed her tone. The pair hopped on and left the flooded yard to Manda. As they reached the turn on the road, the boy turned around and made a rude gesture at Manda.

When they first met, Manda never imagined that the proud girl with silver skin would ever return. By dusk she was ready to believe that it had all been her imagination. But they met again and soon. The flooding had caused a world of pain to descend over the village and its residents. But nowhere was it felt more emphatically than in the home and heart of Bano. Allah be merciful! She would cry looking at the solid blue sky, thinking of all the wedding finery that was wasted in the water logged rooms. Lamenting how the groom and the bride had to be sent away trudging through knee deep sludge. Would they remember the weather? She had argued. Oh! No, no, no. They would tie it to my daughter’s neck. I say to Allah why did you do this! And while Allah seemed to get his answer in line, Bano declared another calamity to her growing list of misfortunes. The granary had taken some damage and the lower wall of the house where the rats had found easy access and following them had slithered in a cobra.

When Manda and her father reached the house, they found all the guests standing outside, and Bano slumped on a red plastic chair that was working hard under her bulk. Her husband, a short gentleman with a unibrow and a penchant for silence stood aloof as a witness. Abba is asking where is that snake? Manda relayed in her quiet way. Her father was not much of a talker. That was an invitation enough for the lady of the house. Snake, you call it? It is the angel of doom that has come. A black monster. Binding us in its dark coil and crushing us till there is no breath left. The worst of all omens. Oh the worst! Do you think I am afraid of a snake you girl? It took some time and a few people to hold Bano down. Her youngest daughter sat in her lap and shook with a borrowed alarm.

Manda and her father went in. They had gathered patches of the hullabaloo and pieced it together to march towards the granary. With a wicket basket in one hand and a stick in the other her father looked like an old world soldier to Manda. Maa, see how I catch that monster. He started to hit the ground with the tip of the stick and sit on his haunches to observe the effect. He signalled Manda to quietly check the other two rooms that lay in the same line. Armed with a slim broom, Manda tiptoed through the front yard and peeked into the rooms one by one. She tapped the shelves and nylon bags hanging on hooks pregnant with hidden treasures. But nothing hiss back angrily. She came out of the room and looked at her father who was still sitting on his haunches and whistling outlandish tunes to eek out the creature.

Manda heard a small rustle and slip in the back and walked towards it carefully. It came from one of the backrooms. Careful, she uttered in her mind. Don’t rush. She held her broom and stood right outside to listen. All she heard was irregular breathing. Ragged and desperate. She peeped in and found the snake. It was coiled around the foot of the girl. When she saw Manda she seemed ready to throw herself at her but Manda raised her hand with caution asking her to stay still.

This was the first time Manda had heard the grinding of the jaanta away from the outhouse. When it stopped she found herself sat at the door of the backroom, the snake’s head crushed with a brass urn. The girl lay unconscious, her shoulders and head propped against the wall. Manda rushed on her hands and knees to her to check for puncture marks. She had found none. Shock had claimed her. She blew some air on the bright red face and saw the eye flutter open in two unwilling slits. That good for nothing boy, the girl spat. Ran away leaving me all alone! Barely out of the clutches of death she took time to return to her form. Manda was moved beyond her control and for the first time in her life she laughed. A full throated, belly shaking laugh that would have scared her had she been under normal circumstances. The girl took it as an affront and tried to claw at her. She could only reach her waist which she held on both sides with fire. Manda crawled back from her, falling on her elbow. Both sets of reclined eyes looked at one another. She never thanked her.

About a week later, she found her in the bamboo grove. Manda was cleaning the graves of her brothers. The girl had waited till the house was empty and followed her. Why don’t you have any mangoes? she asked flatly, making Manda jump. She looked up to find her with her proud red face. She had left her hair untied. The breeze swept it around weaving it with the thin bamboos on both sides. Manda got up on her feet and started to walk out of the grove. She did not like the covertness of the conversation. She left the basket and the broom and sat near the well. She took her cupped palm and scooped out water to wash her hands and elbows. The girl followed her. I asked you a question, she persisted. Manda continued with her ablutions. Shakib wanted to show it to me. He said it was the biggest snake he ever saw and that he would kill it for me. She spoke haltingly, carefully choosing her words.

Manda’s mouth creased with the thought of the day. She continued with her washing. She felt the hands on her waist digging into her flesh with fury of some kind. It wasn’t gentle. Yet it wasn’t meant to harm her. The girl came closer still holding Manda. He ran away when he saw the snake. And left me, she whispered with bitterness that almost reminded her of hatred. Manda began to wash her feet next. She pushed her thumb against her knobbly toes to rub out the dirt and throw water over it. The girl removed her hands. All at once the sky opened and the rivers drained on her. The girl had taken the drawn bucket of water and emptied it on her head. Manda sat drenched, her hair plastered on her face. She threw out a lungful of air and turned around to stand up. The girl was standing close by looking at her daggers in her eyes. Manda put her hands on the girl’s shoulder and meant to push her down. But she could not. She kept holding her shoulder tighter and tighter till she knew she was inflicting pain. The girl blinked and looked straight at her and smiled her proud smile. You are all wet. You will catch a cold.

They met whenever Manda’s mother took her to Bano’s house for some extra work. But most of their time together was spent in the small outhouse. After the afternoon by the well, the girl did not show up again for many weeks. Manda was scared she would. She would not put it beyond her to tease and torment her. Her mother took up a lot of milling work from Bano. And there was work. Every time the sacks from their kitchen landed, Manda half-expected the girl to come along and show up. She was relieved when it turned out to be just their cook but also, her heart fell like a pebble in the water. What she had felt had felt good and so it was strange and disturbing and unnerving, and she half wanted and half feared to feel it all over again. The cold fire she called it. She had felt it run all over through her spine and thighs and out of the tips of her fingers and caves of her nose and droops of her ears. At night she slept around the jaanta and held on to its handle to cope with the waves that flowed through her. Her rough hands travelled to all the places the girl’s smooth one had and she would feel ready to die. No beating ached as much. Her dreams and nightmares had come to be one. And they eventually did come true.

Manda sat in the outhouse grinding the wheat. She pushed and pulled with all her strength. Her thin dark arm bore even darker bruises. She had received those along with her mother’s parting words as she went looking for her mataal husband who had been caught in some mischief in the fields. A regular hum of the grinder surrounded her, and she was lost in the rhythm of the movement. The vapour of earth caught the misty flour and created a fog. It was a stage ready for Manda to fill with her choice of characters.She closed her eyes and she thought of her. The hair and the soft skin and the proud smile that mocked and questioned her. She thought of the girl’s eyes. They laughed and challenged her and yet when their breaths fogged their faces those eyes for a split second were not hers. A change came in them, real, imagined or faked. But a thin film would rise up and Manda could stare into the very sinews of her beating heart, and hear the rush of the blood that travelled fast a light. A thin steam was rising from under her breasts. But she continued to push and pull at the jaanta, unstopped, as her toes and heels went up and down in the ride. How had she never thought of happiness? Not even on her wedding day she had hoped for it. She was only glad to rid her mother off of her burden. Why had no one told her there was a feeling such as this to be had? Her breath quickened. She sucked in lungfuls of the misty floury air. The reverie was broken by a thud of sacks unloading on the doorway. Manda came to a stop mid-breath. She was drenched in sweat. She took the end of her saree and wiped her face. She moved her hips and straightened her back and pulled her feet closer ready to stand up. You look like you need another bath, came a voice. Manda kept sitting. An involuntary exhale found its way out. The girl walked slowly around the room to stand facing her. You seem to be working hard. I am sorry to increase the load but my would-be mother-in-law is all about economy. She sends her regards and five bags of wheat, she said in a steady, not-at-all-sorry, almost excited voice. Manda looked at her and then put her feet in their former position to start the grinding once more. The girl looked around the outhouse and found a short stool and sat facing Manda reading the rhythm of her movements, running her fingers through the ground flour, snatching it in palmfuls. Soon she caught the wooden handle and was driven around with the momentum. She pushed her feet ahead and put both her hands on the handle and began to move. The two of them sat as mirror images of one another, their feet pressed against the other’s, rotating the jaanta, moving in the dizzy dance. The room filled with the white of the flour. Magic dust that settled over them. Transporting them to portals of chosen freedoms, and promises of meetings under the moon where they read the fates hidden in their palms and the infinite beyond.

The mosque was ready to welcome the newly anointed Maulvi sahab. Bano’s family had the final word and so they took the responsibility for the welcome ceremony. Two goats were sanctioned by the board. Calls for extra hands had gone around every neighbourhood, and Manda’s mother had dragged her along for the extra cash. Between the cleaning, and peeling, and washing and grinding the masalas Manda had caught glimpses of the girl. But she was never by herself. Sharik stood close by. He seemed to be shadowing her, talking on her behalf, taking warmhearted digs wherever possible — everything he had learnt in short to show one’s claim over a woman.

When the first fragrance of the stewing mutton reached her nostrils the girl expressed her interest to try some. She had been sucking on a ripe mango and had thrown the seed aside without much thought. She did not have to ask. Sharik had covered the distance between the verandah and the kitchen in a few long strides to fetch her a bowl full. It isn’t ready, said the cook sourly. He had been with the family long enough to know which voice to use for whom. You want to come back in a bit. So Sharik sat down next to the bubbling cauldron, unable to disappoint his intended.

Manda was in one of the inner rooms they kept for storage. She was assigned the task of taking all the brass plates out and cleaning them to an obvious shine. She was in the process of laying them out when a thump on her fingers caused her to give out a small yelp. The girl was kneeling behind her holding a heavy brass goblet. The pain had shaken into Manda boldness. Her finger had started to bleed. You are mad, she said. You deserve to be in this family. The girl took no note of Manda’s apparent rudeness. She hurriedly pressed a cautious finger on her mouth and looked around. Come with me. She got up and pulled Manda by her bleeding finger. Aaaaah! Manda tried to free herself. Outside, Manda’s mother was polishing some of the wooden stools with a oil and an old rag. Seeing her, the girl squeezed her face into a charming smile and beckoned Manda. Come, come. Mashima, she hurt her finger. I’ll get some lime to put on. And before Manda’s mother could ask any further she had vanished with her daughter.

Is he coming? she asked Manda giddily, as they hurried along the corridor. From the corner of her eye Manda spotted the little man blowing air over a bowl of stew. Hurry! Hurry! They ran in and out of the labyrinth of rooms as the earnest lover looked for his future bride. The girl giggled and moved rapidly, and her anklets laughed with her. Uh! What a headache! she said, taking them off and throwing them aside. Her carelessness astounded her captive. In that small window of time, Sharik had seen her. He stepped out of the kitchen, keeping the bowl aside, looking quizzically to catch a proper glimpse of her. Oh! He sees us, run! and they broke into a sprint. The backyard was the only refuge left. Manda scanned and found five or six kunthis standing like fresh monster sized eggs. Behind them, the mango orchard stood heavily laden. A ladder was propped against one of the kunthis. She started to climb in a jig. Hurry hurry! she exclaimed in whispers for Manda to climb in. Once in, she kicked the ladder away gently so it laid on the side of the kunthi close to it. She brought the lid down and everything was dark. Manda realised they were sitting on dehusked bengal grams. Unable to understand what the game was, Manda sat still afraid to make a sound. She heard someone — most likely Sharik — run up and around and call out. He will go to the orchard, whispered the girl and Manda jumped up. In all the excitement she had forgotten that she wasn’t all alone. In the dark she felt her taking her rough hand in her palm. It was like being enveloped by clouds. At least that is how Manda imagined a cloud would feel. Where does it hurt, was asked. Manda pulled up the bleeding finger and felt a ring of warm softness around it. She sucked at it the same way she sucked the ripe mangos from the orchard. The sudden wetness travelled from the tip of her finger down low fast as electricity. Their weight was displacing the grains around and they were sinking in — ever so gently. Hold on, said Manda She held Manda for support. Isn’t it a fun game? She asked. Like two peas in a pod. The grains rolled around their limbs and Manda was suddenly parched. We must go, I have work to finish. I can’t play games, she said. Just a little while more, the girl said without asking. He must be gone in a few minutes. We shall be free. Manda nodded in the dark. Their breaths fogged their faces. When they opened the lid the girl didn’t move to get out. Take some mangos before you go. You have none.

A day before her engagement the girl came to see Manda, along with more inventory — physical and emotional. The house was in disarray, crumbling under the pressures of the upcoming nuptials. Bano had sent all of the grains to be milled to Manda’s mother. The girl had insisted she would have it no other way, and Sharik had insisted, and Bano had listened. Finding Manda in the outhouse, the girl stole in like a cat and held her from the back. Manda’s body flinched and it travelled through the girl’s hands to her face. She turned Manda around and looked at her with warmth. I am not getting married, she said and Manda stared blankly. Can you sit and look at me like that, she asked. Why, I am telling them I can’t and I won’t.

Manda could not find the right thing to say. We can stay together? As friends. I know many women who don’t marry, but she did not. And then for the first time her face, her proud red face broke. Manda saw a tear travel along the rim of her eye and fall down with urgency. I can’t marry that fool. I won’t, they can’t make me, and she hugged Manda. What- I just can- will you? She carried on without a complete thought. She took a breath and said, I want you to say you hear me. I can’t live…. And before the thought completed she found lips searching for the crease of Manda’s mouth with a telling violence.

They parted with a jolt as the high pitched giggly voice of a girl cried out, Oh! Maaa! in the back. It was Bano’s youngest. Manda had fallen off her seat at the jaanta and the girl had rushed out of the outhouse without looking back. Manda ran out to see what had happened. But all she found were workers who were loading and unloading sacks. Manda stood looking at them wondering how much any of them knew. But they continued with their tasks unbothered. Manda waited frozen with fear in the outhouse, unable to work. She expected her mother to come storming in and kill her any moment. But her mother did not return that night. Manda crouched around the jaanta wide awake trying to seek some comfort in its flinty embrace. She prayed for the girl to forget her and marry the little man. Even as she imagined it, something in her chest burnt acridly. She closed her eyes and squeezed out bitter tears hoping to lighten her insides. But nothing changed. She knew it would not make either of them happy but she had not expected to be happy. She could not hope to be happy. The world was not made that way, and it was not fair. But in her mind there was nowhere to run from the inevitability of it. So she lay awake and prayed and tried to soothe the burn in her chest. She only wished the girl was close by. She imagined her lying next to her, looking at her with those laughing eyes and found some rest.

Her mother returned the next morning and asked her to pack up and leave with her. She was a woman of a few words except when it came to bemoaning her ill fate. But she looked more serious than usual. Manda wondered if her father had finally broken the camel’s back. She half expected him to be in the police lockup and her mother worrying her about her friendliness with the useless man. But she never said anything other than for her to pack up and leave with her. She walked barefoot next to her mother’s slippers slapping into the soft mud of the road. The air was thick and she heard her mother wheeze as she made her way ahead. They were walking towards Bano’s house. Manda was relieved at the turn of events. The wedding, she thought, it must be happening then. Her prayers had been answered. She would go and help with the cooking and serving, and try to be happy for the couple.

The closer they went the more the air felt heavier with misgivings. There was a general hubbub around that promised celebrations but there seemed to be no movement. Manda and her mother entered the doorway. Throngs of people from the village and out stood and moved as slow as molasses. Their eyes looked stoned. Their lips plastered. And yet, they spoke. She heard them. She looked around for some sign of the girl, her ears pointed to catch her laugh, or the sound of her anklet. But maybe after yesterday she didn’t have much laughter in her. I can’t marry that fool. I won’t, resounded in her ears. In the yard stood a few high backed wooden chairs. Bano’s husband, and Sharik sat in two of them. The third one was occupied by the new Maulvi sahab who was vaguely running his fingers through his dense hennaed beard. A firozi on his ring finger peeked through the foliage. None of the other family members were out. Were they late? Wondered Manda. There was so much to be done.

She whispered to her mother if they had to start with the turmeric but her mother only gave her an arch look and continued to walk. They were now moving to the back of the house where the bathrooms stood. Despite the heaviness of her heart the prospect of seeing the girl caused her some trepidation. She had to remind herself to keep breathing. A few women stood with covered heads on either side of the bath and signed Manda’s mother to keep the bags on the verandah. They did as asked and packed their sarees tightly around their waists in preparation for the tasks ahead. Now come for the wazu, the women called to them. She was beginning to understand that this would be a serious wedding.

Manda and her mother entered the washroom where two other women perched on wooden stools. They looked drawn and their lips moved silently in fervent prayers. They nodded at them to sit down. But something started bothering Manda. She became acutely aware of the ache of sleeplessness in her lower back. Her stomach, empty since yesterday, was twisting in itself and she felt a wave of nausea overcoming her. Handle the khatun, she might give in, warned one of the elderly women. A knock sounded at the frame of the bath door. They are bringing her, someone said. Manda stuck to the wall behind her looking for a place to sneak in. Four people held and handled a plank on which was kept the shrouded figure. Manda closed her eyes shut. The elderly woman was upset with her. She broke her prayer to warn Manda once more. Steady khatun, the work beckons, she said with poor patience. Aren’t you a widow? Why look so pale? Say a prayer and start. Manda felt a fever taking hold of her and shaking her from the tips of her fingers to the roots of her hair. The door to the bath was closed and the shroud removed. The girl lay with eyes closed in deep sleep. Her lips were grey and a small drop of blood coated the base of her nostrils. With Bismillah we start the Ghusl-al-Mayyit for our dear daughter Mehrunnissa who Allah has called to His bosom before the world could tarnish her, said the elderly woman in a monotone. She explained the three washes and the process of keeping the dignity of the deceased in death. Someone handed a camphor lamp to be kept inside. Manda continued to look at her face, no longer red, and ever so often her mother would nudge her with a sharp elbow to keep the wash at hand going. Seated at the entrance of the door she held the feet of the girl. The soft smooth feet of the girl. They now held some of the roughness done by the world. A few callouses of experience. She washed them time after time, half expecting her to cry out, Why do you hurt me? hiding prideful tears. But this one last time, Manda was careful.

When they left in the evening Sharik was standing with Maulvi sahab. He saw Manda walking away and sent a small boy to her with a note of five rupees. Manda walked back home with the crumpled paper and threw it with all her energy before entering the outhouse. There her mother found it in the morning and gave her a sound bashing for wasting good money. Go make some rootis, she commanded her once spent. Manda took the beating quietly, glad that the unbearable pain inside her now made sense. She got up and walked to the kitchen holding her bruised arms with a smile.

6.

The boy had come to hate school. His initial enthusiasm had evaporated with the rote learning under the cane of his master. One day, after he returned from his classes, the boy went to his room and shut the door. Manda — distracted by her work (for she was working to quadruple the produce to keep the wolves at bay) — had not looked for him. Within a week of attending school, the boy had come with excuses to stay back home. Her mother’s heart had collapsed looking at his sad face, but then she remembered that he must survive. He must learn to take the blows, she would mutter to herself never doubting that the words were not hers. So she had pulled herself back from being overtly affectionate, overtly concerned. Like any other day, she had expected him to freshen up, have his lunch and take his nap. But when he did not wake for Maghrib, she went to his room and found the door locked from inside. She called out to him while performing her ablutions, but he did not come out. She banged on the wood with a sharp knuckle, asking him not to risk being a faasiq. Still, the door remained closed. Angrily, she went to the outhouse to finish her prayers. She knew that once she was done, she would find him standing holding the frame of the door, looking guilty and morose at his laziness. But even after she had blown the last dua on her rapidly constricting chest, there was no sign of the boy. She stood up and almost tripped trying to reach the door. She banged on it loudly and then took a brick to hit it. After several attempts the door gave way. She found the boy lying senseless in his vomit. He had drunk from the old bottle of urea. She picked him up and rushed out screaming all the way. Several men who were passing through heard her and helped take the boy to the pharmacy. They would later tell others that the inhuman shrieks had shaken their souls, and made them go cold with fear.

The boy had tried to poison himself but the poison being old had not been swift to act. They pumped his stomach with black powder. The doctor told Manda that he would survive. While cleaning him, Manda found that there were long, thin red lesions on the boy’s back. Once the doctor had given her enough confidence that the boy would survive, she left him to lock up the house. On her way, she visited the school and cancelled the boy’s name from the roster.

He needs a friend, Manda was telling the grocer’s wife, who had come to visit the recuperating boy at home. I thought through school he would find some. And this….

Oh, but masters beat children. He is too sensitive. He will be fifteen this year, said the grocer. Manda understood her well meaning friends but she alone knew her boy. She alone knew that fifteen or twenty or a hundred and five won’t make a difference to him. She had made up her mind against schools. The boy could get started at the grocer’s shop after he got better. The grocer had initially welcomed an extra hand but within a week he had figured that it was a raw deal. He doesn’t have a head for numbers, he complained to his wife. It’s full of garbage. Strange stories and questions I could not start to ask let alone answer.

Thereafter, the boy had been back to his place next to his mother at the jaanta, pouring the grains in the opening, like always. He looked at peace, and for Manda it was a matter of relief.

By the time he turned fifteen, the boy had gone missing a few times. Each time, he would return from the bamboos unaffected after a few days. Manda had told no one. When she finally confided in the grocer’s wife, she realised her own fears. Is it sleepwalking? Is it a jinn? What is it? Oh what is ailing that boy? He comes back and acts like he had always been there. It — it — it’s like him. Almost like him, cried Manda. The grocer’s wife suggested meeting with the new Mua’zzin. Son of Bade Imam sahab. He is young. Closer to his age. There might be merit in seeking his help.

Before she had the occasion to do so, the young Mua’zzin sahab showed up at her doorstep. The boy was with him. It was Eid. Earlier in the morning, Manda had dressed the boy up in a crisp new set of kurta-pyjamas and sent him with his prayer cap to the mosque. She had finished her namaz and been sitting by the payesh for the last half hour breathing its sweetness and imagining the look on the boy’s face when she served him a bowl full with chopped nuts on top. The boy was struggling to stand. The kurta-pyjama was muddy, so was his face and limbs. Without a thought, Manda rushed to the yard.

What happened? Did you fall? Did you break anything? flowed her volley of questions. Hai Allah!

Mohtarma, if I may, could help me get him seated and fetch a bucket of water. Manda rushed to do the needful. The bucket was duly emptied over the weak form of the boy. Once the mud was washed off, Manda could see the bruises.

Ohh! What — who did this?, she stammered.

A few boys. I am sorry to say I could not be of much help. Only if I had seen them sooner, said the stranger. Then realising that he hadn’t introduced himself, he said, I am the new Mua’zzin. I started a month ago.

Manda stood up and covered herself.

Oh please don’t mind me, said the Mua’zzin sahab. I think he should lie down.

Once the boy was in bed, he dozed off without protest. Manda checked his washed body. These were not marks left by finger or fists. He had been stoned. Her throat constricted thinking of the boy standing alone against the wave of discontent. It took guts being him, and deciding to continue being him. When she came out of the room she found that the Mua’zzin sahab had still not left. He seemed to be looking around.

Social mannerisms did not come naturally to her. As a girl she practised smiling and saying nice things when she was all alone. Like everything else it was a difficult practice but at the time she was still hopeful of pleasing her mother. But her awkward smile only drew her mother’s anger. What are you smirking about, she would say with bitterness. And if she said those practised, polite things in front of strangers, her mother would call it out. Kaaydaa! She would sniff. What is that affectation I hear in your voice? Don’t pretend to be some polished princess of the palace. Know your place.

So Manda had spent her life folding herself into the smallest possible form till she was ready to break. If you were invisible you could not give an affront. And now here was this young man.

I used to play here a long time back. Was deserted if I remember it right, said the young Mua’zzin by way of his excuse for lingering.

Let me get you a cup of chaa, she hurried to cover her head. Or better, some payesh. It is Eid.

So, it is. So it is, he muttered.

Bade Imam sahab….began Manda.

Abba returns from Hajj and his Ziyarah in a few months, he said, accepting the bowl and spooning it clean in a matter of minutes. That was my ab-ye-hayat. You are a witch, he said before checking himself. I meant, in a good way. You have magical hands that could make this heavenly nectar.

Manda tried to smile awkwardly but the worry broke through the lightly drawn lines.

What happened? she blurted.

The Mua’zzin sahab looked up, surprised at her direct line of interrogation.

Oh, well, you know how kids are, he tried to be gentle. He seemed to smile as he said it despite his intention. Bodmaish. It did not fit entirely. The more she looked at him the more his face looked like a painted mask. The brows, the lips, the stretch of the smile, the eyes all picked and chosen for the occasion.

They… Manda hesitated between the truth and peace of mind

They stoned him, a slight breeze had caught her dark sweat drenched skin that peeped though the breaks in her clothing, and she shivered.

The Mua’zzin sahab was on his feet.

Does he go to school?

Manda shook her head.

Maybe it is better to send him, he suggested.

Manda shook her head again, her query yet unanswered.

Then you must send him to the madrasa. Leave him under the guidance of Allah, and me. I shall keep an eye on him and those other boys.

Manda stayed still.

He needs the guidance. Or…

Manda looked at him uneasily.

Look, I am from the neighbouring village but the mutawalli sahab was the one who chose me as Mua’zzin and abba as Bade Imam years ago. Goes without saying I hold a deep respect for him. He told me about you. As a mother it is your duty to protect him from all evils. Especially of the mind and spirit, he paused. I must take your leave. You can send him as soon as he is better.

Something about the mask on his face shifted again.

What happened? She asked lost to everything else. Why did they do it?

He was telling lies to the boys. Sacrilegious lies. Now I am told that it runs in your bloodline. Something about your father. Not his fault or your son’s. But those other boys are innocents too. They won’t stand and hear blasphemy. They shouldn’t. It is up to parents to be responsible for the souls of their children.

Manda now stood in complete comprehension. The boy and his stories. She had feared it for him, as her mother had feared it for her father.

Within a week, the boy could sit without wincing. Manda told him about the Mua’zzin sahab, and his advice. The boy kept looking through the door. You must get better, Manda said, losing restraint, her frustration cracking the surface. In her mind she thought about the money she had kept hidden in the jaanta. The money she had to pay in taxes and for the cow. Weren’t her worries enough? Shouldn’t a boy this age be off her hands? Even as she thought of it her heart broke in despair and anger. You must become a man. Learn and become smart and earn a pay. You are fifteen. Fifteen! Do you want to be tied to your mother’s saree? Do you want me to wash your ass and clean your teeth? Do you? Her hands had lost control and they hit the edge of the bed. A sharp pain ran through her. The boy looked at her with concern. She sucked in her breath sharply and slapped him hard across the face.

7.

For six months, the boy woke up religiously at 4 to kneel at Fajr. He scrubbed his face till raw and red, poured a little pool of oil in the middle of his palm and rumpled his hair with it from roots to tip. He then diligently ran the fine toothed comb through it several times and wiped the excess oil from his forehead with his wrist. He loaded the cotton jhola on his shoulder and walked the two miles to the madrassa. He was determined to make his mother happy. He had decided not to create any more problems for her no matter how awful it felt. The Mua’zzin sahab had promised him that if he was good and believed in Allah’s word he too could be the chosen one, His favourite. When the boy thought of it he felt no great happiness, no great satisfaction even. But when he thought of it being told to his mother, he felt entirely differently. And so, he took up the tasks given to him without complaint. He washed and swept the courtyard of the madrasa before the first prayers. He carried the shoes of the elders and respected people as pointed out by the Mua’zzin sahab. He spent hours oscillating with the class in a forward and backward, forward and backward rhythm — like kash flowers in the late September breeze — memorizing the Hifz. The boy found it difficult to concentrate on the page at the end of his nose. His mind wandered to the bamboo grove behind his home. He thought of his mother and calculated what she might be doing just that very minute. A sharp snap on the back of his neck would bring him back to reality, but its impact would seldom last. The boy was used to the knocks. So, the Maulvi sahab found a better way to tie him down. For every indiscretion of the boy, he would punish the whole class. Naturally, this didn’t make him any more popular with the other boys who took to their own methods of disciplining him whenever needed. Once the boys tied his wrists and threw him in the pond. But the Mua’zzin sahab had been close by. He had lent him a towel to dry his head and his slippers to walk home in.

Many-a-times, when he spent a long time sweeping the courtyard or cleaning the toilet feeling cast away from the world, the Mua’zzin sahab would come and stand close by asking him about his home and life. The first time it happened the boy had stared at the Mua’zzin sahab. All his life he had been advised to keep his tongue and stories tightly between his jaws. He had been nearly killed for it. Here then was a person admired by everyone who was encouraging him to do the opposite. So the boy told him about his dreams. He told him about the ancient Gods, about the jaanta, about the things he had seen deep inside the dense bamboo grove. After he had spoken, he expected the Mua’zzin sahab to scold him for talking about demons and giving face and form to the omnipresent God, or just spewing nonsense, or worse, of laughing at it all. But the Mua’zzin sahab had looked at him and nodded seriously, and the boy did not feel all that lonely anymore.

That is how the friendship started. The days Maulvi sahab was absent, the Mua’zzin sahab would take the classes. He would help them memorize the text, and tell them the stories of Adam and Hawa, Habil and Qabil, the wondrous cave of Ashab al-Kahf, and the boy would listen captivated. When the Mua’zzin sahab rattled off the eight gates of Jaanah, the boy could visualise the rivers of milk and honey, he could see his mother wrapped in silk, laden with gold, walking like a princess, and tears would come to his eyes. He would do anything to be with her in Jannat Adn, he would tell the Mua’zzin sahab. The other students would laugh at his annoying naivete, but the Mua’zzin sahab kept a straight face and encourage him.

Why, you should just try to be good, walk on the path of Allah and listen to those chosen by him, the Mua’zzin sahab would advise.

Here the boy would look around and ask how he could identify a man of God, and the Mua’zzin sahab would smile.

As time passed, the Mua’zzin sahab started to give the boy more responsibilities. A week before Milad-un-Nabi he called the boy aside and told him to learn his Naats. You and I will be delivering them together, he said.

The boy looked at him dumbfounded.

I? Why? Babar or Kaifu will be better. I have trouble learning the lines, the boy muttered nervously.

Mua’zzin sahab held his wrists strongly. You don’t mean to say no to your elders, do you? Now learn these, he said, giving him the thin pamphlet with the text.

The boy took the pamphlet and started to walk away when a thought buzzed through his mind.

Bhaijaan, he said. Does that mean I too am a man of God?

Don’t you know that already? Mua’zzin sahab said. If you listen to me, you are on the path of Allah.

The boy nodded vigorously ready to please his only friend.

Soon, the young Mua’zzin sahab took the boy under his wings. The boy was told that he was special. And he was unique and he was chosen. The other boys weren’t special enough. He was taken for bike rides to run errands within the village. He was given a taste of the batasha or laadoo before it was distributed during Milads. Sometimes when something special was cooked, Mua’zzin sahab would keep a portion of it aside. He would look at the boy with his kind eyes and sign him to not tell anyone. Our secret. He would tell him about people and how their minds worked. Most people had bad thoughts and bad intentions. The germ of corruption that could eat the soul away from inside. It would scare the boy who would ask Mua’zzin sahab if these people were the K’afir? His friend would take a deep breath and shrug, and the boy would not dare ask him more. He could not lose him. Not only did Mua’zzin sahab encourage the boy to share his new stories, but in return he too would tell him about his life. He would tell the boy that he had fought many demons within him and sometimes he was afraid of what lay asleep inside. The boy would think of real demons, and imagine what they would look like. When the young Muz’zzin told him that as a boy he had run away to go to Bombay city to become a film star, the boy did not laugh. He wondered what amazing sights his friend must have encountered and how brave he would have been. Mua’zzin sahab would drop him close to the house when the boy’s chores kept him late. The boy, on his end, would steal a bit of this or that — whatever was available in their scant household — to bring to the Mua’zzin sahab. A few brinjals, or a handful of dried fish, or a couple of sweet mango drying in the sun. Each time the Mua’zzin sahab would admire the boy’s gifts, and call him a generous friend as though his puny supply was beyond gratification. The boy never told his mother any of it. He feared she might worry.

When the winters brought the wave of travelling melas, and the boys at the madrassas spoke about wanting to go see one in the next village in low, guarded voices. A plan ran among their coordinated ranks. The boy was not one of them. The boy did not mind. He had known enough to consider himself safe when the other boys did not include him. By the next day, however, the plan had metamorphosed. Maulvi sahab had shown an inclination to visit the Mazar nearby and that had been pretext enough. The boy was excited. His mother would not mind if he went to visit a Mazar under the supervision of Maulvi sahab. He had never been anywhere outside of the village. His friend’s story about running away from home had weavilled his focus. He could hardly keep his thoughts steady during the class and was caned several times before being thrown out. However, after the class when Maulvi sahab asked them all to bring back a rupee for the conveyance, he knew his hopes were dashed.

Won’t your mother give you the money? asked the Mua’zzin sahab, when the boy told him that he could not accompany him.

The boy shook his head. He knew how hard his mother worked, and how little she spent on herself to save it all.

But who is she saving it all for, asked the Mua’zzin sahab. You are her only child. Come now. I did not take her for a miser.

Though he had again nodded vigorously to show that he had taken his friend’s advice, the boy knew he could not ask his mother for the money. The words sat in his stomach undigested. So the next day in front of the Mua’zzin sahab, he pretended that he had dropped the money somewhere along the way. He had hoped that it would resolve the matter. But the Mua’zzin sahab offered to walk back with him to look for the lost bounty.

No matter, I will tell her that I went to the mela, said the boy trying to satisfy the young Mua’zzin.

That wouldn’t do. Let’s go back home. I will talk to her and tell her, he insisted.

No you can’t, the boy said more loudly than he had intended to. Mua’zzin sahab looked around.

You lied? He asked.

My mother does not have much money. She is saving for the house. Besides, she is not home. I can’t ask her now!

The Mua’zzin sahab looked at the boy and then at the strange looking house a few minutes away. He then straightened up and marched towards the house. The boy followed him on a jog.

The house was open and Manda was not around. She had taken her flour to the market in the next town. The boy had been instructed to take care of the house and close everything up at night. The Mua’zzin sahab moved around and looked at the outhouse.

She really isn’t there? he asked.

The boy felt a strange fear like something pure was being sullied. His mother and he had always lived a solitary life. He was not used to having eyes all over it. He had never noticed that all that they owned was old, reused or patched up. Amidst it all, his friend stood out like the sun in his attar perfumed kurta and sturdy leather chappals.

Oh! I am sure it must be here, said the Mua’zzin sahab following the boy’s gaze. He moved the thatched door of the outhouse.

Don’t go there, my mother will not like it, the boy blurted out.

The Mua’zzin sahab did not pay any heed to him. There was a strange energy about him. As though away from the mosque and the madrassa he was someone else. He walked different, talked different, and as the boy noticed, he even looked different. More relaxed, and with a potential for damage. In a skip or two he stepped inside the outhouse. The heavy jaanta sat gravely in its place. Several wicker baskets were stacked one top of the other. A broom was kept in the corner.

What are you looking for? inquired the boy in desperation. He was terribly scared of his mother finding out.

Your money, said the young Mua’zzin sahab. He held the boy’s hands together and for a moment looked at him in his usual way. I will not have you miss the fun.

But Allah would…. started the boy. Mua’zzin sahab looked at him and said, I am the chosen one and so are you. Is there any dirt in your heart?

The boy shook his head.

So then with a clean heart we take this money for the right cause, concluded Mua’zzin sahab.

He unbuttoned the cuffs of his kurta and rolled them up. The boy saw that on his right elbow was a huge birthmark. For some reason it set the boy’s heart to a faster beat. Mua’zzin sahab looked everywhere before the boy pointed to the jaanta.

Inside? he asked. The boy nodded. Mua’zzin sahab pushed his fingers inside the opening on top and felt around. The boy worried that he would end up pinching his fingers. He nearly jumped when his friend screamed, Oh! What a find! clasping the roll of notes inside a cloth bundle. He picked it out.

Just a rupee though, reminded the boy, feeling strange at having to play the responsible, grown up. I will tell mother once I am back and apologise for it.

So it is. So it is, said Mua’zzin sahab and put the rest of the money back inside the jaanta.

They stepped out of the outhouse and put the thatched door in its place.

The young Mua’zzin looked around and asked him to check everywhere in case the doors were locked properly. After they made sure of the security they left for the madrasa where the group had already assembled for the excursion. The boy paid his rupee and all were loaded in a partially secure van and taken away. The boy stood at the edge, his elbow hooked through the bar on the side. His heart buoyed with each bump on the bad road. The young Mua’zzin rode his motorcycle and after following the van for a few minutes rode past them. The morning was forgotten. All was forgiven. The boy was terribly proud to be his friend. When they reached the neighbouring village after what seemed like a long time, the boy did not find the Mua’zzin waiting for them. Maulvi sahab made them all stand in a single file and counted his inventory. They were made to walk in a straight line and led to the old Mazaar. Still no sign of the Mua’zzin. The boy was beginning to get nervous finding himself far from home without his friend. Maulvi sahab on the other hand had run into his old friend, now a preacher in the village school. And so it was only an opportune coincidence. They followed the preacher to the dilapidated old school which had been — what smelt like very recently — an animal shed of some kind. The boys sat on the floor and the unwarranted class began. The flies droned around them. So did the preacher till the boys had to be whipped back to alertness. When the pious man finally concluded his good word, it was already late afternoon, and the boys were losing hope in their plans. So they tried another route. They heaped praise on the preacher and Maulvi sahab and rattled off the lines of the day and offered to pay their respects by taking them to the mela nearby. Maulvi sahab who had himself been struggling to stay awake allowed it to be so.

The boy was already lost. The colors and sounds and smells around him were intoxicating. He felt thirsty and went to the one or two stalls that seemed to answer his needs. But he was sent away with rough words. Fly like the birds! Fly like the birds! Come along! a voice reverberated. The boy felt his head buzzing with a strange sing-song. He followed the voice among the sweating, steaming throngs to the giant wheel. A boy in a red shirt — younger than him — was shoving people into wooden baskets and pushing the wheel forward. The boy looked up. Can I see my village from here? He asked the boy in red who looked at him with annoyance. Why not! he said, Hand me a rupee and see the whole world.

What? asked the boy in red. In or out? Stop stalling others.

The boy shook his head and got out of the line. Before he had taken many steps someone held him by the wrist.

Not ready to fly? asked Mua’zzin sahab. He looked jovial and quite red. He was sweating profusely.

You’re back? I thought you would come back. You wouldn’t desert your friend, the boy rattled off.

The young Mua’zzin sahab smiled. Come now.

The boy in the red almost snapped at him but the Mua’zzin sahab ducked and found his seat in the wooden basket. He pulled the boy in too but the boy in red held him back.

Money! he clamoured.

Mua’zzin sahab furnished two one rupee notes and he and the boy got in the wooden basket next to his friend.

As the wheel turned the boy felt his insides churn. I will pay you back, he murmured to the Muz’zzin.

What? He shouted.

The money, for this ride, said the boy in a low voice, afraid that any loud expression could throw him off balance.

Don’t worry! Hold on! It will move like a pendulum, warned the Mua’zzin.

The wheel moved slowly first, and then faster and faster and faster till it became too loud and too big for him to breathe. The Mua’zzin sahab next to him sat easily. The ground below got farther and farther. They moved up and up and up till they reached the very top and stopped. The people became small, the trees and houses and even their school van looked like toys.

Oh! exclaimed the boy breathlessly. Imagine what Allah must feel like! From heaven we must look even smaller than toys.

But the Mua’zzin sahab was not looking down. He was looking right ahead. His eyes ran wild over the land.

Look up, he said in a low voice. We are flying.

The boy picked his face up and looked straight ahead and exhaled from his mouth.

Now look at me, asked the Mua’zzin sahab.

I can’t, he said, afraid he might fall if his eyes aren’t glued in one direction.

Oh you and your can’t! Life is not that tough, the young Mua’zzin laughed strangely. Don’t quake like a leaf. Be a man.

The boy was stung by the words. He gradually turned his head to look at Mua’zzin sahab. His eyes were red and he smelled bad. Though the wheel was stationary the young Mua’zzin started to make it sway back and forth, and back and forth. The boy shrunk in fear. Stop! he pleaded.

Why? Don’t you want to fly? Come look around you, you might see the Gods you talk about, said the Mua’zzin continuing to sway.

The boy sat frozen as he heard the creaking of the bolts.

Oh, oh oh! I am falling, save me, said the Mua’zzin in mock dread and then threw his head and laughed. Hey! Don’t you want to go to Bombay?

We will fall, stop please, begged the boy, his throat parched. Why are you doing this?

The Mua’zzin stopped for a moment and took out a wad of cash. Don’t worry, I paid him extra to keep us here for a bit. I will pay more. It was the money he had taken from the outhouse. His mother’s hard earned money. The money she had saved for over a year.

That’s my mother’s money, he said suddenly numb.

The young Mua’zzin looked at him as though he could not focus. Nonsense! I paid for this ride. Your mother’s money? Is her name written on it? He looked at it blearly-eyed, and then laughed, Oh! She writes her name on the notes.

Give it back to me, demanded the boy in a low voice.

Come to Bombay with me, said the Mua’zzin. This village is not for us.

Give it back, said the boy. It’s my mother’s.

The Mua’zzin kept laughing till he held his sides. You are pathetic! You are pathetic!

The wheel suddenly came back to life and the boy hurried to catch hold of something. It was the side of the Mua’zzin sahab’s kurta. There was a bottle in it. The Mua’zzin sahab looked at him and laughed. The air around began to change, and so did the boy’s view. The boy could not understand what came over him but all he could see was his mother grinding and grinding and grinding the grains at the jaanta. The sound drowned out everything. He got lost in the face next to his, and he read it for the first time. The wheel was now moving faster, and faster.

Everything was becoming a blur.

8.

It was a dream. Manda had dreamt it so many times. Ever since the boy went missing. She comes home. It is day, still. Yet, it looks stark. Like she was looking at an old picture of it in a photo album. The world has gone dumb or she has gone deaf for nothing made a sound except the jaanta. It has waited an eternity. It isn’t ready to wait for another. Somewhere deep within the entrails of her home, hidden behind the house it makes its usual sound. Perhaps a little impatient. Only this time Manda isn’t caught up in it. A sudden gust of wind catches her off balance and her heart breaks because both heaven and earth have abandoned her. She knows she is all alone. But she needs to see it. She needs to put one foot in front of the other and see it. The doors are locked but she passes through them like chimera or a premonition. The outhouse is bright. The sound of the jaanta grows stronger. It claws at her limbs and breasts welcoming her to the final act. Without opening the thatched door she finds the boy lying next to the whirling granite. He looks pale. Manda stands above him. Something about his feet looks strange. Are they turned backwards like in that old witch’s tale? No. Just his slippers turned so. She remains standing, taller than ever, her fingers unable to reach the boy. Yet, she can feel the chill of his skin. Then the boy turns, and she sees Rooni’s face — her grey lips, the dried blood choking her nostrils. Aaah! A kick to her ribs. She almost falls back but her nails dig through the wall. Steadying her. The boy opens his eyes and croaks in a tongue that is beyond her. The drawstring of his pajamas are undone. Like he had tried to crawl out of them. The blood! The blood! Oh what happened to him? His eyes are glued shut. She grows bigger and bigger till she can feel her head and shoulders craning under the roof. Wake up! Wake up! But he doesn’t. Neither does she. Still he croaks in that strange tongue. She is not scared. She is not worried. She knows it’s done. I am done for! he croaks. I will die but not marry that food, she croaks. Manda hears a sound.

A glass bottled falling and tinkling and rolling. The sky outside is blood red with streaks of black. Someone waits outside. Hides in the bamboo grove. Dayni budi! Dayni Budi! She hears him. The bottle rolls to her feet. He appears. She sees him.

He has a tongue that often stretches a foot or two long, lapping up gossip and secrets. He keeps it rolled snug between the two rows of irregular yellow teeth — ready to spill out on the slightest provocation. With her eyes closed Manda can see those yellow teeth and the calamities that wait behind them. And here he is. Looking like an animal. Caught. He can barely stand. The bottle has taken his senses away. He sniffs and says Dayni Budi!

The wind once more sweeps her off. The animal stumbles and paper flies around. Curled. Used. Dirty. Oh! The money! The tax money! All gone! Vultures, they circle my home. The animal kneels and looks up. Sharik. The animal puts a hand on a knee and stands. Mua’zzin. The animal rolls its sleeves. A stone hits Manda in the stomach. She is bleeding. Her pregnant midriff melting off like soft wax.

The jaanta grows louder and louder. It speaks to her. Calling out to her blood. She sees those before her stand up from the soil they nourished with the red of their blood. A generation of men and women. All too mad for the world. She answers. The handle and the granite are light as air. It floats. Her hand catches hold of it. She raises it above her head with ease. Her father, made of the red soil, speaks, This, here, Maa, this jaanta can only belong to whoever belongs to the land. She nods. Stop! Cries the animal. But like the God’s before, she plays with the jaanta. The handle, the disc, the light, the eyes, the splatter, the crack, a whirl of rainbows. Such a celebration of red. The madness of her blood covers her. Red from head to toe. The grocer’s wife says, Just light your crops on fire as a sign. She nods. A fire follows, its tongues reaching the skies wiping its lips, its greed quenched finally with the animal in its belly. And what of the bones? The grocer says, You will make even rubble taste good. She nods. The jaanta keeps going in the back, grinding. Rooni takes her place in front. Moving like mirror images of one another. The ghrrrrrr-ghrrrrr-ghrrrrrr-ghrrrrrr of real life.

9.

Manda wakes up from the reverie with a quiet jolt. Bade Imam sahab was finishing his piece. …come out of a bad seed. But Allah sees us. He knows all. Take this as His blessing. He was wiping his lips with the air of self-satisfaction. His eyes looked at the others that had gathered, questioning if he had been heard. The grocer’s wife sat next to Manda. She has heard you Imam sahab, haven’t you Manda?

Very well then, I will ask the men to start the funeral process for the coming Jumma, said the Bade Imam sahab.

As you say, replied the grocer’s wife holding Manda’s shoulders like a ventriloquist.

Then I must take you leave, the old man made a move.

The grocer’s wife pinched Manda on her arm. She stirred from within. Your son, she blurted, her eyes glued to the floor.

The Imam looked curiously at her. His fingers passed through his beard more fiercely. His eyes cloaked the momentary lapse.

The grocer’s wife tried to hold her back. Mua’zzin sahab had grown very close to the boy, she said by way of explanation.

Bade Imam sahab nodded with a small smile of understanding. He must be doing good. On his path to Umrah. We should receive a letter from him any day.

Bless him. Bless him. Resounded the outhouse.

Now, I must take your leave, said the old man.

Manda looked up. You must eat something.

The grocer’s wife smiled. I will ask Rehmat to fetch the refreshments.

Bade Imam raised a hand halfway by way of refusal in a practised manner, but the grocer’s wife plied him with enough forceful requests to finally relent to them as he had always wanted to.

Where can I do my wazu? Let me finish the Asr, said the learned man. Rehmant, bent in half, ushered him out.

The show was nearly over. The audience who had come with the promise of histrionics or iron-willed rebellion had been deeply disappointed, and then started to clear out in streams. Once the last of them had made their exits, the two women breathed in unison.

It was the right thing to do, Manda, said the grocer’s wife. The boy’s soul needs to meet its maker. After a pause she added, But what was it about the Mua’zzin?

Manda looked at her dully. He ran away, whispered the grocer’s wife. They could not find him or the money for the Milaad they kept at the Mosque treasury. Apparently, he had been siphoning it off little by little. To go to Bombay, can you believe it? A man of God!

The jaanta ghrrrred and Manda jumped. A sudden flashback of her dream haunted her. The fire, the cries, the rotating handle, the bone crushing jolts. The fine flour.

Anyway, continued the grocer’s wife. Bade Imam sahab paid to Mutawalli sahab for rafa-dafa. It’s an open secret. Now, don’t go asking him about his son again. He is gone.

Manda stood up, but she kept holding on to her wrists.

You sit down, she said. I will ask Rehmat to do it.

Manda released her wrists and said in a small voice. I am grateful for all you have done. When the land money comes I mean for you to have a share.

The grocer’s wife looked at her dumbfounded. But, you need it Manda.

It is decided, she said with finality.

Rehmat entered. Baa ji, should I bring the refreshments here?

Manda looked at him and shook her head. No. I will make him fresh rootis. She looked at the jaanta sitting at the centre of the room. I have made a final batch of flour specially for him. He will like it.

-The End -