Excerpt from Novel 𝒃𝒚 Khalid Fateh Muhammad

When you entered the lounge, you were feeling sleepy but you didn’t want to sleep. All the life you had slept on a cot and later a double bed was the piece of furniture where you started sleeping; you had only read that people used sofas to sleep upon. You were tired mentally but you didn’t want to concede that your tiredness. You never tired in your life or hunger or sleep ever bothered you. The most important aspect of your life was that you never let anybody dominate you. You always did whatever you wanted to do — even if it was extra coaching by your uncle. Whenever you wanted to run away — irrespective of the beatings later on — you did. Now you felt that you were being dominated. Even the maid looked at you with her eyes full of sympathy. At times she looked at you as if she felt sorry for the man whom she had built with her silence had now started opting to go for a change.

You had two desires in your life. You wanted to become a famous writer and secondly to live a life that had all the possible comforts. You did not have a friend with whom you could share your thoughts and experiences. You thought that feelings are your own, very personal, how can you share them with others? Your experiences were also inadequate, so limited that you could not discuss them even with your friends. So chances of your becoming a famous writer had become remote thought.

Had Rabia changed you?  No. You yourself were very definite reason for the change. You wanted to live an unallied life. Now every deprivation was standing before you, opening its arms. It is not advisable to fix responsibility of your deprivation on someone because the responsibility falls entirely upon you. Not getting married was your biggest deprivation. You didn’t get married because of any pressures on you or any compulsion. You had wished it that way because you wanted to follow in the foot prints of your uncle. Had you married would it have been possible for you not to come face to face with any deprivation? May be you would have faced many other deprivations of your wife or children and if there was any deprivation now, it’s solely because of only you for which nobody could be held responsible. You knew that you had been living an aloof life and if it was your failure it was your success also. You were not answerable to anyone — not even to your brother with whom you always felt very close attachment and felt yourself to be incomplete without him. Why was he suddenly in your mind now?

You were in a sound and peaceful sleep — a sleep that had deserted you long time back. You were in search of this sleep and once it came — it came in such a way that you even fell asleep in an uncomfortable position. In that uneasy position you were sleeping a very deep and sound sleep.

          Was the reason for that sound sleep the satisfaction that you had got after a long writing? You believed Rabia to be reason for this change whereas you had written each and every word from the depths of your own thoughts. No one had dictated you; Rabia was not there so how could she dictate you?  You had written each and every word, when you sat down to write, you had nothing to express.  According to a theory, a human speaks thirty two thousand words a day and you had made Rabia to listen to your share of the words, may be you had borrowed them from your next day’s account of words. It was also possible that all those many words that had been left unspoken, you had also written all of them.

You didn’t sleep in the bed room. You must have slept there. The maid also wanted it. She was upset as your act had disturbed the years followed routine. But she couldn’t stop you and compromised supposing it a beginning of a new routine. If she felt pain at the breakage of old routine, she had a pleasant expectation that it could be the beginning of a new era — a life in which there was no trace of past traditions. She perhaps wanted to live a new life.

Did you also want to live a new life? Only those people wanted to live a new life who got fed up with old one — or you had set new goals and aims for yourself. You had not fixed any new goals; you were tramping the old path and wanted to continue doing so. You knew that woman is like a mirage. She shows a glimpse of something invisible to makes one’s life miserable for as long as one lives. You were more than satisfied after meeting Rabia and you were not sure when you would meet with her again. You were never so keen to meet any one earlier and this keenness was precursor to your failure. You wanted to meet with Rabia all the time. But not with the intensity as if you were missing something vital. You were not missing anything. You should had to go to the park as per your routine.

You were running short of possibilities.  Instead of going to the park if you set out to search Rabia, you will be left with only one prospect — to tell Rabia not to see you. Was it necessary to go in search of Rabia? Not at all. It was just like re-writing the depressing scene of Doctor Zhivago. That scene was of the movie that was based on the novel.  Meeting with Rabia was unreal in spite of being very real because woman hardly reveals herself. It is possible that she does not live in that house. That being her house would you knock and say that you want to see Rabia? If this was not her real name and she does not live there?

You were sleeping with a book on your chest — so deep a sleep that you had not even removed your reading glasses. You had never slept this kind of a deep slumber before. You were always apprehensive that uncle might ask if you had learnt your lesson or you’ll put your finger on the alarm button on time piece before it rang. You always considered it fear of uncle but it was love, respect and to keep his memory alive. You always slept sideways but here on sofa you could not turn side and when you wake up in the morning there could be pain due to sprain in your neck and back.

You always felt that you have not been able to set a course of action for yourself. You were a writer and nobody had been able to determine whether you were a better novelist or a short story writer?   You also had not been able to decide it for yourself. When you were writing a short story you felt that you are only a short story writer, novel writing was only an additional activity and after finishing you always felt embarrassed for writing such an ordinary story and now you would shift your attention towards novel writing. For a few years you would write and rewrite it, make changes in it and when it got published, it would appear ordinary fiction to you and your whole attention would shift towards a new novel. You wrote under a compulsion, you felt that if you did not write you will fall ill and you were afraid of any kind of sickness. Uncle had always made you understand that only a healthy man succeeded in life. You wrote that is why you were healthy and you were healthy because you wrote.

Your topics were always controversial. Open minded people liked your writings and topics. According to them you are a fearless writer whereas a few thought that you derived only sensual pleasures. You should avoid both these angels and should adopt a path where there should be aggression and should not care about dangers. Narrow minded people considered you to be a vulgar writer and at times enemy of humanity. You enjoyed their opinions.

You were fast asleep and at times it appeared as if you are awake. Your eyes seemed open behind the glasses, giving a concerted impression that you had fixed your gaze in some direction and you would start talking anytime. But there was nothing like that. You were perhaps watching a mirage that had reached you after travelling long distances and there should be no mention of Rabia because she was in the form of an illusion or a dream.  Apparently both of you liked each other but one meeting does not carry any importance and both of you had not been able to develop any relationship.

You wanted to live but a desire to experience death was taking deep roots in you. You wanted to be alive after death.  You remembered the statement of Kerry Packer that he made after a few minutes’ of his death due to heart attack while playing polo. You considered Kerry Packer to be fortunate that he experienced both life and death. He had gone through few moments of death after life and got the life back after a few moments’ death.

You did not want to die but wanted to feel death. Not the death that is eternal but the death that will bring life back or that life in which after putting you in a bucket should be lowered in the well of life and after one dip should be pulled back. If life could not pull you out?

          You were snoring lightly and continuously. You were not dreaming. It is said that when you snore the dreams keep away from you; they also need quietness, they need level ground to stroll about. A tired sleeper suits to dreams — they can seduce a tired mind in any direction effortlessly. Your snoring stopped suddenly. There was a smile on your lips. You took off your glasses, looked around in uncertainly, smiling again on getting acquaintance with his surroundings. You pressed your bladder. You always had the feeling that it was much overloaded. You got up to go to the bathroom. After so many nights you felt reinvigorated.

….

(Self-translation from URDU)

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