Morning in Delhi: A Story

by AHMED ALI

1

NIGHT lies over the city, covering it up like a blanket. In the dim starlight, roofs and houses and by-lanes lie asleep, wrapped in a restless slumber, breathing heavily as the heat becomes oppressive or shoots through the body like pain. In the courtyards, on the roofs, in the bylanes, on the roads, men lie on their bare beds half naked, tired after the sore day’s labor. A few men still walk on the otherwise deserted roads, hand in hand, talking; and some have jasmine garlands in their hands. The smell from the flowers escapes, scents a few yards of air around them, and dies smothered by the heat. Dogs go about sniffing the gutters in search of offal; and cats slink out of narrow by-lanes, from under the planks jutting out of shops, and lick the earthen cups out of which men have drunk milk and then thrown them away.

Heat exudes from the walls and the earth; and the gutters give out a damp stink which comes in greater gusts where they meet a sewer to eject their dirty water into an underground canal. But men sleep with their beds over the gutters, and the cats and dogs quarrel over heaps of refuse Which lie along the alleys and crossroads.

Here and there in every mohallah the mosques raise their white heads towards the sky, their domes catching the starlight. The minarets point to heaven indicating, as it seems, that God is all-high and one. . . .

Still a few shops of the milk sellers are open, and someone comes and buys a couple of pice worth of milk, drinks it, and throws the earthen cup away to be licked by cats who steal out of dark corners. And still a beggar or two goes by begging alms, singing in a doleful voice his miserable songs, taptapping the slab-paved streets with his bamboo stick, or whining in front of doors, “Give in the name of God, mother, and may thy children live long.” Or a belated flower vendor sells jasmines in a sing-song voice, putting one hand on his ear, holding the basket to his side with the other, shouting in resonant tones, “Buy the flowers of the jasmine.” But the city lies indifferent or asleep, breathing heavily under a hot and dusty sky. And hardly anyone stops the flower vendor to buy jasmines or opens a door to satisfy the beggar. The nymphs have all gone to sleep, and the lovers have departed.

Only narrow by-lanes and alleys, insidious as a game of chess, intersect the streets and the city like the deep gutters which line them on either side, and grow narrower as you plunge into them, giving a feeling of suffocation and death, until they terminate at some house front or meet another net of by-lanes as insidious as before.

Such a net of alleys goes deep down into the city, leading to Mohallah Niyaryan, which has a net of by-lanes of its own. One branch comes straight on, tortuous and winding, growing narrower like the road of Life, and terminates at the house of Mir Nihal. As you look at it only a wall faces you, and in the wall a door. Nothing else. As you enter the house through the vestibule you come into an inner courtyard. Right in front is a low kotha and under it two small rooms. On the left is a raised platform made of bricks, behind it an arched veranda, and behind that a long room. On either side of the veranda and the platform are small rooms, and by the side of the entrance is the lavatory, then a narrow bathroom and the kitchen black with smoke. In the center of the courtyard an old date palm tree raises its head up towards the sky, and its long leaves clustering together conceal a part of the sky from view, and its trunk, curved and sagged in the middle, looks ugly and dark. At the foot of the date palm a henna tree is growing, and sparrows have built their nests in its branches. Two earthen dishes hang from it, one full of water, the other of grain for the sparrows and wild pigeons who have built their nests in the cornices of the veranda and in the thick red and white curtains hanging above the arches.

By the wall of the kotha are wooden couches with a reddish sheet covering them; and on the platform and in the courtyard are some beds covered with white bed sheets which glow in the dim light of a kerosene lantern.

An old lady in her fifties is lying on one of the beds with her head cloth lying near her on the bed. On another bed are lying Mehro Zamani, her youngest daughter, a girl of fourteen, healthy and plump, and Masroor, a, young boy of about thirteen, a nephew.

“It must be eleven o’clock, and your father has not come back yet,” Begam Nihal says to her daughter. “You’d better go to sleep. It is very late.”

“No, mother,” her daughter says to her, “the story you were telling us was so good. I am not sleepy. Tell us another.”

The old lady fans herself and says, “You have heard enough for today.”

“But, aunt, do tell us the story of the king who had turned into a snake,” says Masroor, turning on his stomach and looking at his aunt expectantly.

“We have heard that,” says Mehro Zamani as she fans herself. “ Amma, tell us what happened in the Mutiny. You were once telling us how the Farangis had turned all the Mussulmans out of the city. Why had they done that ?”

“It’s a long story. I will tell you some other day,” the old lady replies. “Your father will be coming soon. And the heat is so oppressive. . . .”

The young folk feel disappointed. But it is late and they are sleepy.

Mehro lies on her bed and looks up at the stars, and vague thoughts come into her mind, thoughts of kings and princes and soldiers. She thinks of a man far away whose proposal has come for her hand. What can he be like? She wonders. She has never seen him. But they are extremely rich people, she has heard; and Meraj — that is his name — is very fond of shooting. And she associates him with the prince in the story with whom the princess was in love. But the thought of leaving the home, her father and mother, brothers and relations, comes into her mind. She heaves a sigh, and feeling dejected and downcast closes her eyes.

Masroor has already gone to sleep.

Begam Nihal sits up, finds her dome-shaped paan case, puts lime and katha on a betel leaf, then adds finely cut areca nut, some cardamom, a little tobacco, rolls it up and puts it in her mouth. Then she lies down again and begins to fan herself, occasionally fanning her daughter too. . . .

2

HAI, HAI, what has happened to my fan? Bi Anjum, are you awake? Have you seen my fan?” comes a voice from the kotha.

“What do I know of your fan?” the other voice replies. “It must be on your bed.”

“It is not here.”

“Then it must have fallen down. . . .”

Then silence descends upon the house. A gust of hot wind blows, and the leaves of the date palm rustle. The lantern flickers, but the flame steadies again.

Shams’ newly married wife, the granddaughterin-law of the house, who sleeps on the platform with her husband, wakes up, and taking a bowl fills it with water from the earthen pot. As she goes back and lies down, the front door creaks and a man clears his throat in the vestibule, Begam Nihal sits up on the bed, covers her head with her head cloth, and calls to the maidservant, “Dilchain, O Dilchain, get up. The master has come.”

Dilchain gets up with a start as Mir Nihal comes in. He is tall and well built. He is wearing a while muslin coat reaching down to the knees and an embroidered round cap is set at a rakish angle on his bobbed head. His while and well-combed beard is parted in the middle, giving his noble face a majestic look.

“You went out today without taking your food,” Begam Nihal says to him in a slightly annoyed tone, “and have kept me waiting. It must be past midnight.”

“It is only eleven,” he replies in an apologetic way. “I heard the clock strike just at the corner of the by-lane.”

Dilchain brings the food from the kitchen. Begem Nihal spreads the food cloth on the wooden couch. Mir Nihal takes off his coat, washes his hands, and sits down on his feet, not cross-legged, to take his food. Begam Nihal begins to fan him.

From the pigeon house in the corner comes a sudden fluttering of wings.

“What, is that?” Mir Nihal asks.

“It must be a cat.”

The pigeons flutter again. Mir Nihal gets up and, picking up the lantern, rushes to the pigeon house. He raises the lantern high and throws light inside through the bamboo wall of the pigeon house. He sees nothing wrong and comes away. But in a moment the pigeons flutter, more frightened than before.

Mir Nihal goes back, opens the door of the pigeon house, and putting the lantern inside looks all around. Something like a black rope creeps behind a wooden pigeon box. “It’s a snake. Bring my stick, Dilchain,” Mir Nihal shouts to the maidservant who rushes into one of the low rooms under the kotha. As she goes in the noise of a pot falling comes from the room and a woman’s frightened “Ooi.” The snake creeps from behind one pigeon box to another.

“Hurry, Dilchain. Hurry up!” Mir Nihal shouts, excited.

Before Dilchain arrives with the stick the snake has moved to the bamboo wall. Kicking against a bowl which is lying in her way Dilchain hurries with the stick. Mir Nihal moves a box from its position to get the snake into open ground in order to hit it with the stick. But it wriggles out into the courtyard. Mir Nihal hurriedly comes out of the pigeon house and rushes after it. Before he can strike, the snake creeps into a gutter. Throwing away the stick Mir Nihal puts his hand into the gutter. From the wooden couch Begam Nihal shouts, “What are you doing? Look out!”

But Mir Nihal has managed to catch hold of the snake’s tail, and pulling it out with all his force he jerks his hand backwards with a quick movement. The snake is seen flying in the air and the next moment Mir Nihal strikes it on the ground and leaves it. It lies there trying to move, but it is only the front half of the snake which is curling and twisting. The back half wriggles but cannot move forward. Its spine is broken. Taking the stick, he crushes the hood, and, wriggling and moving painfully for a while, it becomes motionless and dies.

From the kotha Begam Jamal, Mir Nihal’s widowed sister-in-law, shouts, “Hai, hai, what was it?”

“Just a snake. I have killed it,” Mir Nihal replies in a laughing voice, and the flesh on his cheek quivers with pleasure, and there is a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Thanks be to God. He saved your life. . .”

Shams also gets up disturbed by the noise, and comes to see the snake. Dilchain, who is still inspecting the reptile and poking it with the stick, relates to him the whole story, emphasizing how the master brought it out of the gutter with his hand and broke its back.

Mir Nihal smiles and goes to the pigeon house. He finds that one of the young ones of his rare Shirazi pigeons has died. The snake had tried to swallow it but had failed. This pigeon house contains Mir Nihal’s breeding pigeons. His flying pigeons are housed on the kotha of the adjoining house which belongs to the widow of his late brother-in-law, and is lying vacant.

He feels sorry for the young pigeon, which had been reared after a great many from the same pair had died. But he throws it on the heap of refuse, and washing his hands comes back to finish his meal.

Having finished his meal, he picks up his coat and goes out to the men’s part of the house. As he reaches the vestibule Asghar enters quietly walking on tiptoe. He is a tall and handsome young man with his hair well oiled and his red Turkish cap placed at a rakish angle on his head. The upper buttons of his sherwani are open and show the collar of the English shirt that he is wearing under it. He has an aesthetic look, and a somewhat effeminate grace about him. And round his wrist is wrapped a jasmine garland.

Mir Nihal stops and turns to Asghar and says in an angry tone, “Where have you been so late in the night? I have told you I don’t like your friendship with Bundoo. Do you hear? Don’t let me find you going there again.”

But he is not in a very bad mood and goes out. Asghar takes the lantern and goes into a room, leaving the house in the dark, lit only by the dim and hazy starlight. Asghar comes out of the room, and all becomes quiet again. The date palm leaves quiver in the wind, and a shooting star leaps and is seen falling towards the earth, but is soon lost to sight behind the date palm leaves. Night holds sway over the sleeping earth.

3

A SGHAR sleeps on the roof all by himself. He goes up, lost in thought, and lies on the bed, first turning from side to side on account of the heat, then as a cool breeze begins to blow, for the night is on the wane, he fixes his gaze at the sky.

The stars shine in clusters, so many of them, ever so many, little bunches of light, twinkling away with a white radiance, holding court, as it were. And there are big stars and small stars, stars shining with a lonely luster, and stars glowing in bunches like pearls strung together in a necklace or like the forehead ornament of a beautiful brow. There are bunches of them shaped like a semicircular purse, and stars shaped like a nose ring studded on a delicate nostril. There are stars and stars, and inside the stars are cool, green worlds, and every star is a lovely maid.

As Asghar lies on his bed he feels as if he is rising, slowly, on the unseen wings of the air. He is lifted up and up towards the sky, floating in the stratosphere, free like a bird which floats without effort or difficulty. He goes up just as he is, lying on his bed, with his back towards the earth and his face towards the sky. But suddenly an unknown fear shoots through his brain. He sees the stars grow big and come down towards him from their places, huge green rocks of incandescent stone. They come down until they grow so big that he cannot see the sky. Fear overcomes him. He is hurled back and falls through empty space, and a sinking sensation comes upon him. He falls and cannot feel anything solid under his back and he is mightily afraid.

Then he falls no more, and moves up again instead. He becomes light and travels with ease up towards the sky. He flies upwards and the stars do not seem big, nor do they come down. At last he is up there, and one by one the stars seem to move and begin to dance, and out of every star a beautiful maiden is born, and the starry maidens dance around him. Their glowing bodies are shapely. As they dance, round and round, their long dark hair waves in the breeze. They all come towards him, and with beautiful twinkling eyes tempt him towards them. He resists, but unconsciously, against his will, he too begins to dance and moves his legs and arms in the graceful gestures of the dance, until he finds that he is dancing all alone with his erstwhile sweetheart, Mushtari Bai, the dancing girl. He is oblivious of the other stars, oblivious of himself and of Mushtari Bai who comes near him dancing around, but he turns away, and is interested in his own body, in love with his own flesh and the movements of his own arms. . . .

But as slowly as it had come upon him the vision vanishes, and when he awakes he finds himself on his bed gazing at the stars. But where is the Milky Way? It used to be here just over his head. Where has it gone? Thinking of the Milky Way, he falls asleep.

But he awakes again. Or is it a continuation of the vision? He looks up at the sky. There is the Milky Way back again, stretched out from one end of the sky to the other, a bright line of incandescence, broadening out or narrowing to a straight line, going on and on and on until it fades in the far distance near the horizon.

He thinks how the Prophet Mohammed once walked on the Milky Way for that eternal moment in Paradise, consecrating the very path on which he walked, making it holy and pure and white with his feet that trod to God. And he feels that he too is walking on the Milky Way, on and on and on, until he becomes conscious of another presence, a lithe and handsome figure walking ahead of him on the other white track. He recognizes the figure to be Bilqeece, his friend Bundoo’s sister, walking with a heavenly grace, her hair spread out and her gaze fixed in front of her. His heart begins to beat and he follows her until he overtakes her, and arm in arm they go on. But soon the road comes to an end, and in front there is a void, deep and dark and dim. As he looks down its abysmal depth his head begins to reel, and beads of perspiration come upon his brow. He turns to say something to the girl, but she is not there. Upon the brink of that void he finds himself alone, and an unknown fear grips his heart.

As he turns, a big star, greener and brighter than any he has seen, floats before his vision. He moves towards it and the star smiles. Arms and legs form themselves out of the star. They become a beautiful woman and she begins to dance. He also starts dancing. As they dance they come near, and he sees in the star the face of Bilqeece; dancing they fall into each other’s arms. Their mouths search each other and meet in a kiss. The star vanishes and the sky melts, and he is one with his sweetheart, knowing a heavenly bliss which is not of this earth. . . .

Asghar opens his eyes for a while and sees the Milky Way stretched out above him, and by the side of the Milky Way a big, green star, twinkling bright; and he falls asleep with the picture of the star dancing before his eyes. . .

4

THE WORLD came to consciousness with the resonant voice of Nisar Ahmad calling the morning azaan. Far and wide his golden voice rang, calling the faithful to prayer, calling them to leave their beds and arise from sleep — a rippling voice full of the glory of a summer dawn. As yet it was dark and the stars twinkled in the cool and restful sky. Only on the eastern horizon there was a sense of birth, as yet far away, hidden from the prying eyes of men. But the azaan carried forth a message of joy and hope, penetrating into the by-lanes and the courtyards, echoing in the silent atmosphere.

Men heard his voice in their sleep, as if far away in a happy dream. Some woke up for a while then turned on their sides and curling once more about themselves fell into a fresh slumber. Or they got up from their beds and, rubbing their eyes, groped for their bowls and went to wash.

In response to the azaan, as it were, the sparrows began to twitter one by one, in twos and threes, in dozens and scores, until at last their cries mingled and swelled into a loud and unending chorus. The dogs were awakened from sleep and began a useless search for refuse and offal, going about sniffing the very earth in search of food.

A cool green light crept over the sky. The stars paled, twinkled awhile, then hid their shy faces behind the veil of dawn which opened out gradually and the waxing light of day began to illumine the dark corners of the earth. A forward sun peeped over the world and its light colored the waters of the Jamuna, dyed them rose and mauve and pink. Its rays were caught by the tall minarets of the Jama Masjid, glinted across t he surface of its marble domes, and flooded the city with a warm and overbearing light.

The sky was covered with the wings of pigeons which flew in flocks. These flocks met other flocks, expanded into a huge, dark patch, flew awhile, then folded their wings, nose-dived, and descended upon a roof. The air was filled with the shouts of the pigeon fliers who were rending the atmosphere with their cries of “Aao, Koo, Haa!”

This went on in the air and on the housetops. Down below on the earth the parched gram vendors cried their loud cries and, dressed in dark and dirty rags, wont about the streets and the by-lanes, with their bags slung across their backs, selling gram from door to door. And the beggars began to whine, begging in ones and twos or in a chorus. They stood before the doors and sang a verse or just shouted for bread or pice or, tinkling their bowls together, they waved their heads in a frenzy, beating time with their feet, singing for all they were worth:

They were ever so many, young ones and old ones, fair ones and dark ones, beggars with whiteflowing beards and beggars with shaved chins. They wore long and pointed caps, round caps and oval caps, or turbans on their heads. And there were beggars in tattered rags and beggars in long robes reaching down to the knees. There were beggars in patched clothes and beggars in white ones. But they had deep and resonant voices and all looked hale and hearty. The house doors creaked, the gunny-bag curtains hanging in front of them moved aside, the tender hand of some pale beauty came out and gave a pice or emptied the contents of a plate into their bowls and dishes, and satisfied they went away praying for the souls of those within. . . .

Men went about their work with hurried steps; and from the lanes the peculiar noise of silver leaf beating silver and gold shot forth like so many bottles being opened at the same time. And to cap it all the tinsmiths began to hammer away on corrugated iron sheets with all their might. And the city hummed with activity and noise, beginning its life of struggle and care.

5

BEGAM NIHAL had already got up, and, having finished her prayers, sat on a small wooden couch reading the Koran in rhythmic tones, moving gently to and fro. Mehro had also got up and sat on the platform performing her ablutions; and Masroor was getting ready to go to school. Shams was still asleep; but his wife was up. And from the kotha could be heard the voice of Begam Jamal saying angrily to her widowed sister-in-law who lived with her, “You have made my life a misery, Bi Anjum. I have neither rest nor peace . . .”

As the parched gram vendor came near the house Begam Nihal turned round and without opening her lips began to attract Dilchain’s attention by muttering something like the dumb. One who was not accustomed to her habit could not have made head or tail of what she said. But Dilchain understood her. She was cleansing the pots in the kitchen, fumbling with her hands in the ashes, then crunching the inside of the pot with the help of hemp string made into a knot. As Begam Nihal mumbled again Dilchain dipped her hands in a bowl of water and murmured, “There is no peace for me, O God.”

But she got up and came near her mistress, who took out a pice from under her prayer cloth and gave it to Dilchain, asking her to buy gram.

Masroor came out of the room, books under his arm, wearing a dirty sherwani, dirt and oil on the lower part of his Turkish cap, and quietly went out by the door. Mehro, having finished her ablutions, was busy at prayer.

The sparrows chattered on the henna tree, and from the date palm a crow croaked in a hoarse and heart-rending way his monotonous cries. . . .

Mir Nihal went to the kotha where his flying pigeons were kept. He released the birds, and as they all came out he rushed at them with a flag tied to a bamboo stick in one hand. He shouted at the birds, “Haa, koo!” and off they went. They were ever so many, black ones and white ones, red ones and blue ones, dappled and gray, beautiful wings stretched out in flight.

The pigeons circled over the roof, then seeing their master’s flag pointing towards the east where Khwaja Ashraf Ali’s flock of rare, dappled pigeons was circling, they flew in a straight line shooting like an arrow. As they neared the Khwaja’s flock they took a dip and suddenly rose upwards from below the other flock, mixed with the pigeons, and took a wide detour. They would have come home, but Mir Nihal put two fingers in his mouth and blew a loud whistle, and the pigeons flew away in one straight line.

Khwaja Ashraf Ali began to rend the air with his cries of “Aao, aao,” but to no purpose. Mir Nihal’s flock along with Khwaja Sahib’s flew far away, mixing and intermixing with other flocks, forming a huge mass which grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The other pigeon fliers were also howling and shouting, calling their pigeons home. Many pigeons separated from the flock and, joining their wings together, shot towards the roofs. Only a few of Khwaja Sahib’s pigeons came home in ones and twos; the others were still flying with the rest, far away. Mir Nihal stopped whistling and sat looking in the direction where his flock had flown. Khwaja Ashraf Ali stood there peeping over the protection wall, still shouting to his pigeons to come back home.

After a long time, as it seemed, a dark patch appeared over the house tops in the distance, growing bigger and bigger as it neared. With its approach the noises increased and became more hysterical. As it drew near Mir Nihal’s house, Khwaja Ashraf Ali bellowed and howled, calling his pigeons home. He could be seen standing there, shouting and waving his hands. He was throwing handfuls of grain in the air to attract the attention of the birds. But as the flock drew near home from the west it had to pass over Mir Nihal’s roof. He put his hand in an earthen pot which was full of water and grain and threw some water in the air. His pigeons descended on the roof; but many other pigeons, recognizing that it was not their home, separated. A small flock went towards Khwaja Sahib’s house, and many others flew away in other directions.

As Mir Nihal’s pigeons sat on the roof picking grain he saw that some new pigeons were also there, and a few of them were dappled. Mir Nihal smiled to himself, a smile of satisfaction and victory. He threw a little grain inside the loft and the pigeons rushed in, the new ones included. He shut the door, then catching the new ones he put them in another loft and released his flock.

Khwaja Ashraf Ali stood there and his closecropped head could be seen peeping over his wall towards Mir Nihal’s house. Now and then as some pigeon of his which had gone astray came into sight he shouted. But Mir Nihal sat there happy beyond measure, giving his pigeons grain mixed with clarified butter. Other pigeon fliers were shouting, and the sky was full of wings, ever so many. . . .

But as the heat became intense and a hot wind began to blow, the voices died down one by one, and the pigeons were not seen in such great numbers. The sky became bronzed and gray, dirty with the dust and sand which floated in the air. The kites cried shrilly, and the grating noise of tram cars far away sounded more dreary and dull. A heart-rending monotony and a blinding glare crept over the earth. People went inside the rooms and closed the doors. Drowsiness came upon every living thing. The dogs hid in cool corners, and the sparrows found shelter in the shade of trees or inside their nests in the walls. Only now and then the wild pigeons flew in and out of the veranda, cooed awhile, and added to the feeling of monotony.

Even when the sun stood lower down in the sky, the heat remained intense, and the glare hurt the eyes. The wind moaned through the houses and the by-lanes and rustled heavily through the desolate trees, and the sound of tinsmiths beating iron sheets and the cries of vendors and ice-cream sellers sounded more disquieting and dull. But as the sun went still lower down people came out and went about their work.