| sparsha |
Posted
on 28-Nov-00 10:57 AM
I liked this story. So, I thought of sharing with others.
The Setting Sun
by Gyas Ahmed Gaddi
Translated from the Urdu by Krishna Paul
The rope was taut. He stood on it, poised as if for take-off, his arms tied to a long pole, like an eagle with its wings outstretched ... He knew they would say, "Walk, walk the tight rope! Show off your skill!" But how could he? He had never done anything like this before. And why should he? He was being forced to do this. And even if he could, what if he tried and ...
His eyes fell upon the logs of wood being piled up below. They would soon be set on fire. He knew the slightest distraction could upset his balance and send him tumbling down into the blazing flames and then ...
The sun had begun to slant and turn pale. It seemed glued to the edge of a tall building in the west. In a little while the sun would quietly descend below the horizon and there would be ... darkness.
He had always been afraid of the dark.
Giving him a tight, hard slap on the cheek, his father would say, Be home before sunset. Get the fodder ready and milk the buffaloes. But he was terrified of the dark and the cattleshed was engulfed in shadows even during the day. Night in the shed was darker than the night outside, and worse, there was only one cotton wick dipped in kerosene oil!
Frightened and nervous, he would somehow manage to enter the shed, fill the trough with fodder, pat the buffalo and, forcing his trembling legs forward, he would go sit close to its udders with the bucket. And at that instant, into that darkness a white paper kite would fly out of his mind and float out into the sky. Running behind it like a little child, he would try not to lose sight of the kite’s string, chased always by the large looming fear that some stronger and older boy would suddenly appear, break the string, throw the charkhi at him and run away with his kite. He would not be able to bear it. If this white kite, which saved him from getting lost even in this pitch-dark shed, was snatched away, how could he could stay alive?
And then in the inky dark, a huge rat would brush past his feet. His blood would throb at his temples and his breath would come in gasps. If someone were to shout at him at that moment, he would probably have died.
He was in exactly this state when those five met him a little beyond the crossing, close to the utensil shop. Three strange-looking men and two women. They caught hold of him.
"Abey Fajju, where did you disappear?"
"What Abey, running away from the tight rope?" said the second one, towering over him. "You had gone to piss ... That was three hours ago."
He looked at the first man and then at the other. So scared was he that he could not even protest.
He was not Fajju. His name was not Fajju.
"And these clothes ... Arre Sakhawat, look at our Fajju. Just now when he went to take a leak, his clothes ..."
Before he could reply, the second man said, "Where did you run off to? Do you work for free? You are paid a full five rupees. Come on, it’s time for the tamasha!"
But he was not Fajju. He mustered all his strength and, placing his hand over his beating heart, he said, "Fajju ... me, I ... Fajju ..."
His feeble voice did not seem to reach their ears, yet he kept telling himself that he was not Fajju, but Raffat, with a bloodthirsty father and a tyrant stepmother. He dreads the shadow filled cattleshed more than he does them. Who knows how he had collected all that courage that day to run away from home?
A paper kite severed from its string, for a long time he wandered up and down Hazrat Ganj Chowk. Where could he go? To whom? Zubeda lived too far away – at Masrauli, beyond Sitapur. And he did not have enough money to reach even Sitapur. The mini bus charged three and a half rupees and he had hardly eight annas with him. How could he go to Zubeda? To reach her he had to have three rupees and eight annas. And he would have to buy jaggery worth a rupee or at least a half rupee. Last time Zubeda had said, Raffu, it is ill-mannered to come like this, empty-handed. Is this how you visit your relatives? If nothing else, you could have at least brought gud from Sitapur.
So three rupees and eight annas for the bus, and one rupee for the jaggery, made four and a half rupees. Maybe a rupee or a half extra in his pocket ... how nice that would be! Altogether he would need five and a half rupees!
Raffat was startled. Would he actually be paid five rupees? Mustering up all the strength of his lungs, he boldly asked, "Five rupees?"
"Yes, yes, five rupees, beta, you will get full five rupees," said the big moustached man standing close, resting his hand on Raffat’s shoulder. "Maybe another rupee or eight annas if you want, but first, get on to the job, Fajjuay."
Fajjuay? But he is Raffat ... Where is Fajju? But if he is not Fajju how will he get those five rupees?
And the job? What kind of job was it? He can do only one job – prepare fodder for the cattle, milk them and deliver milk to the customers. That’s all, nothing more.
He could not even ride a bicycle. Coming out of the dark shed, if he happened to see Vakil Saheb’s waist-high child cycling with ease, he would stare, amazed. Such a puny little fellow and riding a cycle! Such big vehicles right in front of him and he was not one bit scared! Smiling and swinging cheerfully, the boy would grip the handlebar and weave between the huge trucks, safe and swift. If he, Raffat, were to handle a cycle, he and the cycle both would be gone ... crushed under a truck.
One day Vakil Saheb’s son came right up to him, got down from his cycle and asked with a smile, "Oye Raffat, want to bike?"
"Me? Ride a cycle?" He was startled.
"Abey, say yes."
"But I don’t know how to, Shambu Bhaiya."
"Then I shall teach you, in an hour or so."
"No, Shambu Bhaiya, I know how to tend the cattle, nothing else."
"After all, what can I do? I know nothing. What will I do in the show?"
But one of those men stepped forward and put his arm around his neck and coaxed him towards the tamasha. "You will do what you have been doing every day. If you don’t, how will you eat? And you won’t get your five rupees."
Only if he got five rupees could he board the bus for Masrauli. The bus halts at Sitapur for a while. He would buy jaggery for one rupee at the bus stand. But five rupees is a big sum. He has moved around with buffaloes all day and taking them to the pond, preparing their fodder, milking them, sweeping out their dung, washing the empty buckets. Why talk of five rupees, all this work had not got him even five annas, not in months, not even in years. At Eid each year he got a rupee, that was all.
In the end those strange-looking men managed to drag him right up to the spot in the chowk where the thick rope lay stretched between two bamboo poles. He was to walk on this.
At Durga Puja, wonder-struck and wide-eyed, he used to eagerly watch such roadside shows. He has gasped as the boy walked on the taut rope and as the boy’s feet trembled, he has trembled too ... and that blazing fire below! A small slip and down he would come into the flames. The fellow would be roasted in no time. It was not as if the boy was walking with ease. Both his hands were tied to a stick, his eyes blindfolded. Raffat had always felt that the boy walking nervously on the stretched rope was none other than himself!
Every time he walked in the darkness of the cattleshed he was sure that he was the boy walking on the tightrope with his eyes blindfolded. Who knew why his heart beat so violently when he was inside the shed and why he felt as if he was about to fall into the leaping flames as his foot slipped. He remembered how his blood would gush to his ankles and he would feel stifled. And then one day finally, he told his father he would not go inside the shadow-filled shed anymore.
"What? And the buffaloes?"
"I will not give them their fodder either."
"What do you intend to do then, you bastard?" His father screamed at him so loudly that Raffat had lost whatever courage he had gathered over the months. He was once again empty-handed.
Abbu had risen from his charpai and, inducing softness into his voice, had asked, "But why don't you want to, child? What is the reason? Why won’t you go inside the shed?"
"I am frightened."
Sharp came the slap on his cheek. "Saala, and you a gaddi’s son."
So? Can’t a gaddi’s son be scared? he asked himself over and over again, Why shouldn’t a gaddi’s son feel scared, while others can?
He was reminded of Zubeda and how she had tried so hard to persuade him to run on the long railway track. When he talked about falling she scolded him. "Fear, fear. Raffu, why do you feel so afraid?"
Why? Am I scared because I want to be scared? If someone were to ask Zubeda why she is not afraid and why she laughs all the time, how would you reply?
For a long time Zubeda was silent, her head bowed, her eyes fixed on the floor. And then she burst out laughing. He looked up startled, sure that the paper kite had swooped down to sail past his head.
"What are you looking at, Raffu?"
"The kite ..." the words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. He turned suddenly sheepish. It was not the kite that had made him look up. It was Zubeda’s laughter!
Zubeda burst into laughter again and she continued laughing for a long, long time. .Then almost as suddenly she grew silent. Looking sweetly at him, she said conspiratorially, "You want the paper kite, don’t you ... that white one, up there in the sky?"
"Yes," he said immediately. "I really love it." He looked up, his gaze fixed on the kite soaring in the open sky. In a moment he was lost, and Zubeda stared at him, wonderstruck.
"You won’t get the kite this way," she said, shaking him gently.
"Then?"
"First run with me on the rails and then you’ll see." She jumped on to the rail track. "Like this. Climb up and spread out your arms, like an eagle before she takes off. Cut through the air with your arms, like the eagle does with her wings."
Zubeda started running on the rails, faster than he could run even on a flat maidan. She had run quite a distance before she took a turn and, pushing the air with both her arms, came running back to him.
"Like this! Understand?"
Surely one couldn’t get the white kite by running like this. Zubeda talked such nonsense. She kept talking. It’s a habit of hers.
That day Zubeda had tried very hard to make him run on the rails but he just wouldn’t. How could he? He was bound to fall and make a fool of himself.
"Make a fool of yourself in whose presence? Only mine, na!" Zubeda had stared deep into his eyes and said, "Look, tell me, who am I?"
He remained silent for a long time. He could not understand her question.
She asked again, "Tell me, who am I?"
"Zubeda, who else?"
"Yes, yes ... Zubeda. But what am I to you?"
"I don’t know," he paused, "Mamu’s daughter. My Mamu’s daughter."
"That I am, but who am I to you?"
Who is Zubeda to me? It was a difficult question. An uncle’s daughter is, after all, a sister, and Zubeda knows this quite well. But Khursheed Appa too is my Mamu’s daughter. Why is she not like this? Why does she snub me for every little thing?
But whatever Zubeda might be to him, he just could not walk on the rail line. He would fall. Is it wise to break one’s teeth in the process?
Finally he said, "I just cannot do it."
"But why can’t you?" The old woman sitting there, her cheeks ballooned with paan, spat out red juice – pchak, "Why? A scorpion stung you today?"
Voice raised, like a scorpion’s tail before it stings, the man with the big mustache screamed, "You will have to walk, and so will your father, saale, or ..." and pounced upon him.
"I won’t."
"Tell us why not, beta?" The other man came forward and held the moustached man back. "Don’t threaten him this way, he will get frightened and if he is frightened, he will slip and fall."
"Yes, he is right, Chacha," the third man advised. "Treat him with affection and kindness and he will surely walk, won’t you beta?"
"I ask you to walk with me on the rails with such affection. But you never do." Zubeda turned away, angry. "Allah Kasam, call me a bastard if I talk to you again." She sat there, looking sullen, while he stared, first at the shiny rail track, then at Zubeda and then deep into himself. Finally she came around and turning to him she murmured very sweetly, "Come with me. You will, won’t you?"
He stepped forward and looked into Zubeda’s eyes. He saw distant expanses of blue sky in which floated shreds of light, white clouds. The sudden sheen in her eyes overwhelmed him.
He heard himself say, "Yes, I shall do what you say."
The old man with the grey beard and stained black teeth leapt up to embrace him and kissed him with his dirty, salivating lips. "Wah! beta Fajju! That’s spoken like a man."
By now the sun was slanted even more, its bloodred rays spreading across the sky. He looked up and found the sun resting on the tall building, staring at him in a mysterious way. What was that pale dying sun, entering his heart through the prism of his eyes, saying? Every day as it sank into the river, what did it say? He tried hard to understand but it made no sense to him. What did it say, every day, before setting?
"Does the sun really convey a message to you before setting?" Zubeda asked, curious.
"Yes, yes, Zubeda, I feel somehow that it does, only I can’t figure out what. It carries something in its eyes which reaches my eyes first and then sinks into my heart, as if through a clenched fist ... I really can’t make out what it means. As I drive my buffaloes along the river bank, I start to think, and I suddenly find myself bent down, and then ..." he stopped.
"And then what?" Zubeda asked, bewildered and attentive.
"Then darkness descends. And ..."
"And what?"
"And I don’t know what takes over. In the veins around my ankles a creepy, crawly worm begins to wriggle and my heart beats wildly." He halted. As if he had no words to express himself further.
"And you just keep quiet?" Zubeda was diving deep, trying to extract a pearl. "If I were you, I would jump up and grab the sun in my hands, and not allow it to set until it told me clearly what it had to say."
"You would grab the sun?"
"What else? And I would not let it set, ever!"
But Raffat saw the sun, which had for so long been stuck on that tall building, finally begin to descend to where the river flowed and the low hills stood. The sky was flushed red – as if somebody had lit a blazing fire below.
The fire was lit! "Yes, it has caught on," said the old man’s youthful son with the golden rings in his ears. Beating the nagada, "Fajju," he called out, "keep standing against the pole a little longer, just a little!"
Soon the sun would fall with a bang, into the lap of the hills and darkness ...
He looked at the roaring fire and then glanced all around him. Hundreds of curious eyes. The noise of the nagada had attracted crowds of people who surrounded him, even people standing at the Hazrat Ganj rickshaw stand stared at him, anxious to cheer him on heartily. The entire area was ablaze with the light of the fire.
But he was not Fajju, so how was he going to perform the act? Soon now those people will tell me to walk on the rope. And how could he? He ... he had never ...
"But Zubeda, how can I convince you that I have never walked on the rails?" he had said in exasperation, looking at her with pleading eyes.
"Like this. Like me."
"You have been doing it all the time, Zubeda. You are ..."
"Listen, I too took the first step one day, didn't I? I thought I would fall. But I didn’t think I would die, like you do. So what if I fell? Where’s the question of dying?"
Yes, if I fall, I’ll only just fall. Why die with fright? And then, he would receive five rupees and with these five rupees he could go to Zubeda.
Now everything was in order, yes everything was all right. He looked at the setting sun.
"All is set, Fajjuay," called out the old man from below, "Tell us beta, is everything all right?"
"Yes it is, yes."
He raised his eyes towards the sky. There, stuck to the tall building, the lifeless sun was peering at him.
Saying what? What was it saying? He looked at the stiff, taut rope in front of him. As soon as he stepped on it, the soles of his bare feet would feel tickled and as his weight rested on the taut rope, it would sag. Mustering up all his confidence he looked at the sun, and at the hundreds of people around, especially those five persons who had mistaken him for Fajju and had forcefully brought him here. He ignored them, as also the blazing fire below and forgot about the creeping worm in his ankles and slowly, happily he stretched his arms. In a low, whispering tone, he said to the setting sun, Just for a little while, only a little while, hold my hand and then I ... And then ...
From somewhere, a boy came running, piercing through the crowds. He wore a soiled, red-striped shirt. He caught hold of the old man’s nagada-playing hand.
"Arre, wait boy."
He looked at the old man, startled.
"Why, what’s the matter?" he asked, his heart beating loudly, fast.
"Abey, you are not Fajju, are you? You were telling the truth, beta. We made a mistake. Here, come down. Carefully."
Raffat saw that the white kite he was running after through the entire city, had brought him into a horrible jungle. As for the white kite, it was there almost within reach, in his grasp.
"No! I am Fajju!" I am Fajju. I can run on the rope ...
His nerves tensed and all the blood in his body rushed to his eyes. With his lips pressed hard under his teeth he ran across the stretched rope. He was about to reach the other end, when the young man with black teeth grabbed his waist and pulled him down.
"I am telling the truth, the real truth," he whined in a shrill, doleful voice. "I am Fajju. It’s me who is Fajju."
"What happened then, Raffu?" Her eyes fixed on the rose-like rising sun of the morning, Zubeda placed her hand gently on Raffat’s back, as he lay on the bare floor of the roof. Full of love she asked, "What happened after that, Raffu?"
"I grappled with that saala haramkhor, Fajju, and gave him blow after blow. I said, You son of a swine, how have you become Fajju? What do you know about this kind of walking? But they were too many for me, Zabbi. Those five persons with strange faces, they surrounded me and began beating me so so badly ..." his voice was choked, "... and then, Zabbi, darkness spread in my eyes, a dense, complete darkness."
He continued to sob and Zubeda, sitting close to him, caressed his back. In a very strange voice she said, "So what Raffat, there's tomorrow again, and another tomorrow ..."
She spoke in such an odd, sharp voice that Raffat turned and looked up, fixing his eyes on her face for a long time, feeling as if ... as if ...
Gyas Ahmed Gaddi was born on 17 February 1928, in Dhanbad, Jharia district, Bihar. Though he did not receive any formal education, for a year, he learnt elementary Arabic from Maulvi Fazl-ul-Haq at Gaddi Madrisa, Jharia. Thereafter, for about two years, he learnt Urdu, English and Arithmetic from Maulvi Qasim. It was in a small library at Jharia, which received well-known literary Urdu magazines such as Humayun, Alamgir, Khayyam and Adabi Duniya, that he developed an interest in reading. Under the influence of Krishen Chander’s writing, Gyas Ahmed Gaddi began his writing career. His published works include Baba Lok and Parinda Pakadnewali Gadi, two collections of short stories and, Sara Din Dhup, a novella. He has served as the editor of Meeras, a journal of short stories. Gyas Ahmed Gaddi died in 1986 in Jharia, Bihar.
Doob Jane Wala Suraj was first published in his book of stories, Parinda Pakadnewali Gadi.
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