An Excerpt from Rohzeen                   (forthcoming Urdu novel)                                                                                                                                by Rahman Abbas

First May was the first day of Asrar’s life in Mumbai.

A super fast train takes atleast seven and a half hours to cover the distance between Mumbai and Ratnagiri. His friends Suleiman Vanu and Qasim Dalvi were well versed with this city. They vividly described the hustle and rush of Mumbai through stories to their friends during the journey which made the city a floating dream in their intoxicated eyes. They were impatient to see the city , to embrace its speed and become a part of its business. Asrar had seen so many films made on Mumbai-‘Bombay’, ‘Satya’, and ‘Sadak’ were his favorites. In fact he had seen ‘Bombay’ a lot of times and heard its songs on the tape recorder. He use to hum one song from the film quite often- 

‘you , and only you,

How do I live without you

Come to me,

I am restless.

Oh my life!

Dwell in my breath.

Oh my moon,

Come be one with my heart,or,

Let me be one with the earth.

How will I live without you..’

He intently listened to everything that his friends had to say. The train reached Panvel station at around nine o clock in the night. They deboarded the train, kept their luggage aside , freshened up a little and drank tea at a nearby stall. They got into a local train after that.

Even before he reached the Washi station, tall buildings all around , shopping malls, huge hoardings on the streets and the red, yellow and blue lights started pulling Asrar towards themselves.

Asrar had never seen so many advertisements and the blinding light before! Before he could get completely lost in the magic of this glamorous light, the train entered the Washi station. Through the window he saw an ocean of people on the platform that scared him for a second. Then he immediately recalled the various scenes of Mumbai that he had seen on the television where the mob of Mumbai was beautifully mirrored. Even before the train could stop completely, people started shouting and pushing each other to board it. The coach was overflowing with people. Asrar silently observed them.

A licentious looking boy asked him , “Where are you going ?”

“bombay”, Asrar stared at him.

Wherever his answer was heard in the coach, the tired faces started smiling . some even laughed at it.

A man, with marks of small pox on his face smiled and remarked in a Bombay accent, “This is Bambai!

A gujrati boy who had just come into the coach and had captured the seats for his friends mocked, “ These ‘Bhaiyyas’ are going to ruin Mumbai.”

“I am not a ‘Bhaiyya’!” , Asrar immediately snapped.

This unexpected answer made the Gujrati boys smile, “ The moron must be a Bihari then”

They started laughing loudly.

“I am from Maharashtra”, Asrar clarified. The Gujrati boy spat  the mahwa he was eating out of the window and said, “ Nowadays even Chinese have started calling themselves Marathi!”

The gujrati boys again burst out in laughter.  Sulemaan had to speak now. He said, “apla manus aahe re” loudly. Asrar and his friends started conversing in Konkani delicately dipped in Marathi.

The gujrati boys were now silent. One of them also apologized. “You see it isn’t written on anyone’s face where they belong.”

Asrar did not say anything . As a matter of fact he did not even understand the scenario.

Seeing that Marathi speaking boys were in majority, the gujrati boys were now quite polite.

They offered Suleiman water and said, “ we are true  sainiks too!”

The mob reduced when the train reached Thane. The crowd at Thane made Asraar inquisitive. He asked Qasim, “so many people even at this late hour?”

“Till eleven nearly all stations are crowded.”

“Everything shuts down so early back home.”

“My friend , this is Mumbai. It is overflowing with people. You will get used to this place soon.”

Asrar smiled and resumed looking outside the window. He looked at the slums along the railway tracks with dreamy eyes and craving in the heart. It was already ten in the night, he was amazed to see how there was still music and life in these huts at this hour.  Old men , women , children were sitting outside their houses and were chatting away or busy working. Some houses had dirty old curtains covering their doors. Some doors were open and he could see the light of the television coming out from them. There were few areas where film songs were being played at loud volumes . Young men and kids were dancing away to glory.

There was a dilapidated house near the track. He could see four or five eunuchs , wearing bright ,provocative clothes standing there in the dark. At a little distance near the senghat tree , he noticed a few shadows. Asrar wanted to see the scene closely but the train moved forward.    For sometime their bright clothes and makeup on unattractive faces wandered in his eyes and later slept in his unconscious. When the train stopped at the Kurla station , Asrar saw many burqa clad women and bearded men. The men were dressed in white kurta –pajama . Asrar immediately enquired from his friend, “Is this ‘our’ area?”

“yes, this is Kurla, this is the area of the qasais.”

”What do you mean?”

“I mean that this area has a good population of qasais.”

“But in our village they generally wear lungis. Do they wear white clothes here in Bombay?”

“no no. Th ones that you see on the station are chilyas. “ , Dalvi tried explaining.

Asrar was inquisitive, “Who are chilyas?

”They don’t watch television. They belong to Gujrat. Initially they were in taxi business but now they have entered the hospitality and hotel line as well.”

Asrar didn’t say anything. He resumed looking outside the train.

He was lost in the grandeur of Mumbai. He stared at every tree, house, building, road, hoarding and flyover. The city seemed like an ocean to him which has a lot of hidden secrets in its heart.

The thought of ocean reminded him of the how a day before he was sitting on the sea shore. The music of the waves had slowly entered his soul and merged with it. For a few seconds he could no longer see Mumbai because his eyes had beautiful images of water in them. He saw the disturbed sea. The sea that was hitting its head on the shores as if in anger. And in an instant it fell silent.  But this silence had much mre to it. It was a mysterious silence with a hidden propaganda.  He saw that on the surface of the ilent waters, the ‘queen of the sea’ was foating slowly. Her father was engrossed in a conversation with his friends. Suddenly, the silent waters roared and one could see water till the end of vision. A whirlpool opened its mouth right under the boat. It whirled and took seven spins before the water swallowed it.

Only Abid parkar did not drown.

 ……..

First of May was a general holiday. It was Maharashtra Day.

The inhabitants of the jamaat house were lost in deep sleep. At fajr, the muezzin coughed thrice into the mike and began reciting the azaan when Asraar woke up. It was Bangi’s regular habbit to check the mike by coughing to ensure that his voice is audible and clear.

It so happened that in the madrasa where he had studied , every Thursday evening, his master –Maulvi Abdul HAq Bijnori would feed him strawberry flavoured icecream and would say ,”la yajub, la hujub”

As an after effect  of the ice cream his throat was always in a bad condition the next day and his voice was terrible too. He had stopped eating icecreams but the permanent sore in the throat had made his life difficult. Hence, it was in routine to ckeck his voice an throat every morning.

Asrar was amazed that as soon as the sound of azaan from the nearby mosque rose , he could also her some clear and some not so clear azaans merging into each other from near and far and falling on his ears. Some voices were shrill, some strong, few from the throat and some were nasal. This collage of voices continued for a long time. One voice overpowered another and the one from far away felt close. The mike system of one muezzin got stuck at the ‘meem’ of “alsalaat khairum alnum” . it continued buzzing and competing with other sounds.

……

The curiosity of seeing Mumbai in the daylight was dancing in his chest. This was the reason which woke him up a couple of times during the night. Right in the centre of the room was a faint zero watt bulb that was lighting up the place. The light reflected in the Asrar’s eye show was continuously staring ta it. The curtain between grandeur and desire is sometimes drawn suddenly, without being noticed. This is exactly what Asrar felt , lying under the bulb. The films had carved images of Mumbi on his heart. He was soon going to face the reality that Mumbai was. His brain was going through a chemical, hormonal reaction which discouraged sleep from overpowering him. He was awake even in his sleep. His eyes were fixed to the ceiling. He noticed that the building was quite old.  Two big plans of wood were carrying the weight of the small planks.

Near the window was a small drain. On top of which was a steel water tank. A mud pot was kept right next to it with a steel glass on top. He stared at the pot for some time in the yellow light then got distracted and looked away. There was a hanger on the door on which properly folded pants were hanging. For a moment his imagination made him believe that the clothes on the hanger were actually people and it was their soul that slept on the beds. This triggered a smile on his face. “So many rubbish thoughts cross my mind!”

His mind involuntarily started thinking about those who were sleeping in that room. There were fourteen of them. Their beds were right next to each other with very little space in between. Some were snoring in their sleep. He stared at them and thought- are they alive? What if one of them has died and no one gets to know about it till dawn? Uncontrollable thoughts took birth in his mind. but he had a lot of control over his tongue. Though he did laugh at a lot f idiotic imaginations and thought his brain went through.

Now his eyes were fixed on the watch. Infact in the faint light, he could just feel the presence of the watch and time. The hands of the watch were not visible at all. He was sure that the watch did have hands. Can there be a watch without those? If so, it can’t be called a watch!

“The intoxication of seeing Mumbai has driven you out of your mind.”

He commented on himself. Asraar was about to search his thoughts for something else when he felt people passing by his door.  Before he could hear anything, their voices drowned. He was reminded of seventh grade when so many times he used to feel that someone used to peep in the classroom and disappear without being noticed. He failed to see that person each time. A couple of times when he used to turn pages of his notebook while the master was away, he felt that someone crossed the door but by the time he ran to look, there was not a soul to be seen. One day, after much disappointment, he shared this little secret with Aslam Dhamaskar ,his old friend since first grade. Aslam claimed, “I know everything”

“what do you know?”, Asrar enquired with hidden amazement.

Aslam started talking discreetly in a secretive tone. He used words and phrases from thelibrary books that he had read. These books spoke about the world of magic and magicians. They had mentioned stories of djinns and devils. Aslam said that in the library and in the area to the left of the building where tall grass grew during monsoons where squirrels lived, he had felt someone’s presence who simply passed by the classroom.  It is just a feeling, no one can see that person. Sometimes one wondered that the mysterious person was covered in white, had a long white beard and is face shone brightly. Aslam had also told his father about this. His father use to clean up the mosque and head the prayers in the absence of the imam.  Aslam said that because his father knew every person in the village and in surrounding villages and went for congregational prayers, he knew of many such incidents. Asraar seemed interested and agreed with Aslam thereby giving him confidence to speak further. He put his hands around Asrar’s shoulders and told him that there used to be a small mosque hundred years ago on the land where the school stands now. Djinns offered namaaz in that mosque. The British rendered it  empty and useless and gave it away to one of their rich loyalists who claimed to be Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan’s friend to build a school. The year the school was innaugrated the man died a painful and mysterious death. Some say that the djinns took him to the hills near the sea and threw him in the eep waters. His dead body was found after many days on the shores of Mabad morfo. The elderly say that his entire body had no wounds or any other signs except a huge hole in the place of heart. Police was called. They sent his body to the Government Hospital.Some villagers went to the hospital and on returning told everyone that the heart was missing from the body. This traumatized the villagers.

There was a wise old man who lived in the village during that time. After his death, his mazaar was built adjoining the school. Everyone in the village called him pir sahib . They related the story of the rich man to him. He remained silent for some time and then quietly said, “the djinns eat the hearts of those hwo destroy their dwelling”

This sentence spread like wild fire and reached the house of the rich man.  Before the fortieth day of his death, his family constructed a mosque in the school campus. For many years, people kept offering namaaz In that building. A few years back the mosque was taken down and a bigger one was built to accommodate the growing population of the village. And this is the mosque where good djinns live. We see them sometimes but they never harm anyone. After hearing Aslam’s story, Asrar regretted not offering namaaz I that mosque ever. After this piece of information, he offering namaaz In that mosque every Friday and instead of listening to the sermons,  he would stare at the walls, theceiling and the chandeliers. He felt that it was possible that a djinn is sitting somewhere around listening to maulana’s sermon.

When this story of the past crossed his mind, he was forced to think that was it the dins who just crossed the door of his room?

“ why will Mumbai have djinns, it’ll have ghosts!”, these words involuntarily fell out of his mouth.

Aslam was lying right next to Asrar. He turned towards him and said, “ Get up, it is nearly morning!”

“Aslam, are you listening to me?”

Aslam did not open his eyes. Asrar understood that he was in deep sleep, an attempt to wake him up would be futile. He turned over and closed his eyes. Coincidentally he fell asleep. When he woke up, he was the only one lying down. The rest were having breakfast.

Translated into English by Sabika Abbas