The Other Quilt
One day in one month of Ashwin, Ruhul-fakir looked up at the sky, astonished. The last of the Ashwin storms had blown over the day before. Yet there was a strip of cloud that clung to the sky. Puzzled, Ruhul stood rooted to the spot. He had crossed the border, gone to the Kushtiya baul festival on that side, to sing the melodious kirtans from this side. The baul songs of that side lacked the kirtaniya flair but possessed a fakiri simplicity and a lucid lyricism. Such things had been spoken of at the festival. Many other things had been spoken of too, including those fakirs who sat on seats of power. Of how conservative those powerful men were, how evil-minded, how wickedly they deceived their disciples. All these things had been talked of at length. Wherever there is power, there is corruption.
Ruhul was not happy. He shivered in the wind still wet from yesterday’s storm. On this silt-land, the wind’s whip was a ferocious one. Looking up, he could see the thunder and the fire still seething in the heart of the cloud. Its anger had not been fully spent. Every now and then, a soft flash of lightning. The strip of cloud seemed indifferent but its heart was full of grief. Any moment now, it would burst into tears.
Ruhul was standing at the V point. Maulavi Mijan Ali was standing there too, his bicycle facing east. One wheel on that side, one wheel on this. One rim smeared with the mud of India, the other streaked with the soil of Bangladesh. In his mind, Ruhul could not but marvel at the glories of the British administration. Then he glanced at the maulavi’s Karl Marx–type grizzly and stout shape. A black muffler wound round his head, a thick yellow khadi shawl wrapped round his body, he was quite an outlandish figure. Barefoot, his lungi had ridden high above one knee and his feet were covered in mud. The sticky silt-land mud had not fully dried even in the daylong sun. Suddenly, there was a crack in the throat of the cloud. Both men looked up at the sky. All this was Mijan-maulavi’s land. The border had been drawn midway through it, although it was invisible to the naked eye. All that was visible of the demarcation were a few scattered pillars.
This was the V point. The border doesn’t run straight. It wends and winds its way, rises and falls and here creates the shape of an English V. When you stood at the base of the V, then one wheel of your cycle was in Bangladesh, the other in India.
‘Assalamu a’la manittaba’ al-huda!’ the maulavi finally greeted Ruhul.
Ruhul started. What kind of courtesy was this man of Allah showering him with? He could tell that it was a greeting, but only Allah knew what the words meant. Yet the sound of it was friendly, so that was good.
‘Salaam, Maulavi-saheb,’ responded Ruhul.
‘Yes. Assalamu a’la manittaba’ al-huda!’ the maulavi intoned again.
‘Did you go that side to sing, you tuneless fakir?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Ruhul, indifferently. ‘But I could not understand your Arabicana just now, dear maulavi.’
‘Oh, it was nothing, fakir-saheb, merely a greeting.’
‘But I’ve never heard such a greeting before,’ said Ruhul, a bit hurt.
‘How would you? It’s not a common greeting. Not many people know it. It is special, only for non-Muslims. Assaalo-aleikum can’t be offered to them—that is kept only for the Muslims, only for us. So I greeted you with the other one. He who has walked only a part of the Hidayat way of life, not embraced Islam fully or been unable to—this greeting is for such a one.’
‘Good for you,’ replied Ruhul, ‘We’re not Muslims, after all, we fakirs. But that the Qur’an and the hadis have prescribed such great humiliation for us—I had no idea. Never mind. You greeted me properly, yes, but your lungi is above your knee—is that proper?’
‘It’s proper when I’m talking to a shit-eating fakir like you. So, where are you off to? To Harudanga—to Tonu’s place? Really, that girl has such charm! And those charms have so many ploys and ruses! Sixteen charms for the wedded man but sixty-four for the loitering lover! Go, go. That girl, she moans as loud as that cloud in the sky. Floods one aisle, yet the other aisle runs dry. See for yourself, how she floats about and teases us.’
Ruhul looked up—it was truly an incredible sight. It had begun to rain. The sun shone golden in the western sky while rain gently fell on the eastern aisle. One cloud, that kept its rain-shadow curled above India at the same time as it poured its heart out on Bangladesh. Sometimes, it’d be the other way round. Ruhul’s heart was overwhelmed with the wondrous variety of Nature’s ways. See, how one half of the maulavi’s fields were wet, yet the other stricken with arid astonishment!
But the maulavi’s words, like molten lead, had speared and scorched Ruhul’s heart. ‘The Qur’an and the hadis are the property of your community only,’ he thought, ‘And you want to evict us fakirs from it. You utter Bismillah, we say Allah is in every seed. Man is born from seed, the world is aglow and abundant with seed. You can never comprehend its true meaning, you scripture-clutching maulavi! You’ve only seen us eating shit. How can I explain to you
the wondrous workings of form and fluid and seed and soil! I too offer you your Assalamu a’la manittaba’ al-huda. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not a “true Muslim” either.’
Excerpted with permission from ‘The Open-Winged Scorpion and Other Stories’ by Abul Bashar, translated from Bengali by Epsita Halder with Sunandini Banerjee; published by Seagull Books
