SHORT STORY 𝒃𝒚 Khalid Fateh Muhammad

He had been awake for several nights, waiting for rain. And Papiha¹ had also been crying for several nights!

He had heard that Papiha does not drink water; he has a cranny in his cranium, and when rain drops fill this chink, his thirst is slaked. Fareed felt Papiha’s thirst spiking his throat. He drank many glasses of water during the night, but Papiha’s beseeching cooing made him thirsty again. He had also learned that Papiha exclusively perches on thorny trees. In that small village, there were only two acacia trees. Apart from these two trees, the village was packed full of Shisham²
, Poplar, Mulberry, Mango, Jamun³ and Bakain⁴ trees. He could not make out why Papiha sits on a thorny tree. His thirst and perching on thorny trees was a riddle to him. He was never really interested in such things. He had never pondered over the village trees. He was merely living there. Trees and sumps, grown due to drain of houses and rain on three sides of the village, had no significances for him at all. He liked two things in life — rain and insouciance.

He was about fifty and rather affluent. He never got married so that he could maintain his way of life. Sometime, he felt he should have had his ties with others. His life was like that muddy water which could only be used when clean. Seeing the opaqueness, nobody now thinks to clean him and the opacity was increasing day by day.

The rain looked him like his life — quite like his own life but reluctant! As long as it rained, it looked him as part of his life. He bethought that jingle of clouds, zephyr gusts and raindrops encircled not only him but also whole the universe. He felt desolation of his being filled and complete. His inner burgeoning revolt against him died, and he pacified. Then rain stopped, clouds cleared, and rays of sun peeked through chinks of the door. His imaginative sketch filled with vapid colors of reality. He wished splits in clouds be fused, the magic after rain put a spell on him, but it didn’t happen. The clouds dissolved in the heavens, and expanded in his inner emptiness. Once again, he was left at his own mercy, thinking: Is he self-nemesis who desires to destroy him?

This was the time when Papiha satisfied and calmed down. Perhaps, raindrops had filled the cranny in his pate. Suddenly, he would feel loathing for the Papiha. He picked his gun, and went out to shoot the bird. Then an idea would strike him that his hostility to Papiha was, in fact, a bond of amity between them. Papiha got fulfillment after the rain stopped, and he found serenity during the rain.

Fareed’s perplexity became agony for him. He waited for rain, but scattered white clouds often floated away in the sky. He knew that those clouds were also empty like his life. In the blue ocean of sky, they looked like those sails whose boats had sunk. They also seemed to be waiting for the rain to merge with dense clouds to make their existence worthwhile. Fareed always thought how to make his being worthy as he was used to nonchalance. After breakfast, he used to go the cloth weavers neighborhood, where he watched movement of shuttle in the loom frame. The sound of hand-run-loom created bizarre undulations in his chest and he would close his eyes to enjoy the melody. Then, he moved to the cobblers’ shops. There, three brothers worked in a shop. He used to watch them working with stitching awl, spike, pincer, and thread. It the weavers’ gossip was sweet and logical, the cobblers always uttered profanities when pushed the awl to stitch. He often asked them why they always cuss? They replied, profaning the cuss, they cannot perforate the awl through piece of leather without it. So, Fareed felt those curses were a part of their work. By then, the sun ascended higher in the sky, casting shadows shorter. Then, he got up to go home for his lunch and siesta, where he found the housemaid waiting for him. After lunch, he took a nap. This was his habit which he could never quit. He felt that this habit bonded him to life. It was like the hole in Papiha’s cranium that only raindrops filled. This very habit had made him sluggish. A profane needed to get the thread across the leather with awl but he had no guts to cuss. So, he took a nap in the afternoon.

Later, he visited Blacksmith’s shop, and watched him sharpening the sickles’ teeth and honing hoes and Picks on the anvil. The blacksmith never talked but only blowing a whistle when he took out red hot ploughshare from the furnace and struck it with a hammer. When the blacksmith smiled to the people around, watching him to wrought iron several times to give it the proper shape of ploughshare blade. He also cheered up, feeling it was he who himself had done the entire work. In the evening, people visited him, and he would read stories for them from the books that ultimately turned into a late night vigil.

And then gradually, the things started to change. The weavers moved to towns, and they adopted other business; the cobblers joined the factories, quitting the shoe making; the blacksmith became iron merchant in the town; and those who listened to stories from the books started watching television at night in their homes. But despite this massive transformation, there was no change in Fareed. He was left alone with his rain obsession. Probably, Papiha had also migrated to rainy areas. A final thrust was made by mustering the strength of the body to take the crotch

Then, he began feeling wistful longing for pulsates of weavers’ loom, swearing of cobblers and smile of blacksmith, and call of the Papiha: ka, ka, ka, kow, kow, kowlp, kowlp.  He made up his mind to do anything, but the pattern of his life did not allow him do anything. He felt that he had crossed yet another threshold alone and started to move towards the border of old age. He felt himself stationed at the intersection of light and dusk. He remembered the dreams when his body numbed and he could not turn sideways even struggled hard and when he made a final thrust by mustering full strength of his body he woke up. Then, he felt the need of one last turn over.

Fareed felt that the hush settled inside him for years had started to die, turning the whispers into screams. The woodland, stretching for miles along the banks of the canal, evoked in his mind. Thirty years ago, whenever there was a probability of rain, he would go into the forestry and sit under a peepal tree. He enjoyed melody of rain drops, falling on the leaves of peepal tree, and then their gliding down the leaves lulled him into the dream where the body falls asleep, listening and watching the rain dumbfounded.

Then, he stopped going to the woods. He kept enjoying the rain but the surrounding quietness started getting heavy on his nerves. He got frightened by that stillness and started enjoying the rain in the village. One day, when there was no probability of rain but he felt that peepal tree was calling him out. He told the maid that he was leaving for somewhere. She was shocked because Fareed had gone nowhere all these years. She grew old cooking for him but Fareed never gave her a single day off.

Fareed went to the jungle without having his lunch. There was no change there in the forest. The trees stood in their place and seemed to welcome him. He also bowed and greeted them in turn. He slowly walked up to the peepal tree. He felt that the tree was stepping into his youth after thirty years. Its leaves had become brighter and wider than before. Somebody had built a podium around the tree. He looked around, sitting on the dais. He felt the strength of peepal tree within him. He knew that the woodland was a safe haven for thieves, robbers, murderers, sadhus, ascetics, lovers and destitute people. He joined them with all of his solitude.

Till evening jackals, foxes, hares, squirrels and mongooses gawked at him with wonder, fear and curiosity and then fled. He also watched them all with the same curiosity. He did not realize when dusk fell. Suddenly, he realized that soon there would be an onslaught of mosquitos. He collected dry and fresh leaves, and then grabbed the match box. It occurred to him that he did not smoked after coming to the forest, if he could stay away without cigarettes so long, why not for the rest of his life! Thereupon, he took out the cigarette pack from his pocket, threw it away and then he rubbed matchstick to put the leaves to fire. The dry leaves caught fire while fresh ones emitted smoke. He stayed on the podium for full night. Breeze and stillness whispered around him and finally he fell asleep, listening their tête-à-tête.

Next morning, hunger awoke him. He had not eaten anything for last twenty-four hours. He ambled around the peepal tree to wake up his sleeping numb legs, and he felt like needles prickling in his shins. He returned to his seat. In the distance, a mongoose was stood on his hind legs, staring at him intently. Fareed kept watching him motionlessly, lest he should run away. But, the mongoose moved a few paces forward cautiously, and then he started to gaze him, again standing on his hind legs. He came quite closer. Fareed could see rapidly moving pupils in his eyes. The blink less stare made him dizzy. He got up, but he had to lean on to the peepal tree to avoid a stumble. He felt awful thirst and thorns in his throat. Suddenly, he remembered Papiha. He longed to hear his supplication, feeling as if the same suit crying in his throat. He tried to wet his throat, swallowing the spittle, but….

Fareed felt a haze before his eyes and he closed his eyes. He felt the villagers standing around and requesting him to read a story for them. This looked him bizarre: Why they all have come there in the woodland to listen to him, leaving their TVs? What story should he tell them? — Of weavers, of cobblers, of ironsmiths or of Papihas! They all have started their own stories. How can they be touched by his stories? He opened wide his eyes to look into theirs’ but couldn’t. He felt chill. He thought there was overcast in the sky. He held he made the right choice to come to the forest. Now, he would be able to watch and listen to the rain falling on the peepal tree. Then he felt the tactile of against his body and then immediately he felt shaking of the peepal leaves. He could see the rain drops falling on the leaves. Among those sounds, he heard the Papiha coo: ka, ka, ka, kow, kow, kowlp, kowlp. The cooing was coming from far off. It seemed to him that the Papiha was perched on an acacia tree on the other side of the village. 

….

[1] The Rain Cuckoo (Jacobin Cuckoo, Pied Cuckoo, or Pied Crested Cuckoo, Calamator Jabcobinus).

[2] Dalbergia sissoo (or Dalbergia latifolia), also known commonly as North Indian rosewood.

[3] Syzygium cumini, commonly known as Malabar Plum, Java Plum, or Black Plum.

[4] Melia Azedarach, commonly known as China Berry, Bead-tree, Cape Lilac, Syringa Berry-tree, Persian Lilac, Indian Lilac, or White Cedar.