By now the mob had come closer. In the star spangled sky, their swords, tridents and long metre length curvy knives shone bright. Over a hundred of them, they besieged the entire by lane.
"Kaat do...maaar dalo...saale ek ek ko chun chun ke maaro...Jai Shri Ram....Jai Shri Ram...Jo humse takrayega choor choor ho jayega"
...the shameless high octane ribaldness, the sheer manic intensity of the slogans reverberated and resonated all around the besieged town, lane after frightful lane in its maddening rage. And then a wailed ear splitting heart searing cry of a woman...a mother...please hume mat maro...humne kya bigada hai...finally, followed by a muffled wail of a ten year old ....ABBU...AMMI...AAPI...Yasmeeeeen!!!!"
Irfan woke up in a silent scream. His face was a frightened tangled mass. His chest felt heavy, his head began to pound as if someone had bludgeoned him with a gargantuan mountain rock. A sorrily pulpy sight, Ilyasi sat comatose, absolutely stilled by the nightmarish torture he had just underwent.
There, in the dead of night, in his darkened room, lying in his bed, with his wife sleeping beside him,
Irfan felt defenceless, impotent to the core.
*
Monday morning blues was something Irfan never ever suffered from. And why would he? Earning a fat cat annual pay package, and that too in American currency, with a fancy job and a fancy title to boot at one of the top five consultancies of the world, why would anyone ever be bored at all. Add to that, a loving wife and a winsome 12 year old for a daughter who seemed to carry forth the very grey cells that enabled her erudite father to pick up a much coveted IIT Mumbai degree besides garnering a double gold medal from the redoubtable Princeton University, and what have you!
At 45, life was happening for Irfan Ilyasi, and the world was his oyster. Irfan Ilyasi, the lad from distant Ahmedabad, and now an American citizen, was living the American Dream! Was he, pondered Irfan as he shifted gears and slipped his beetroot red BMW into an inner lane of the choc a bloc Hudson Highway enroute to earn his much envied pay packet in that Mecca of international wheeler dealers New York.
Irfan, for ever since he can remember, and that means for the past 18 years had been commuting back and forth from New Jersey to the Big Apple. A distance of a mere 90 odd minutes or so, but of late a nightmarish experience. The answer came in the form of a massive twelve seater all black monster of a vehicle that zipped past him. As he turned to his right, he saw its occupant, just slightly more than his daughter's age, a burly white American boy, lower the window plane and scream out some ear splitting expletives. As a shell shocked Irfan stared on, absolutely bamboozled by such clearly obnoxious behaviour, came the final nail in the coffin. Flashing a big fat middle finger at him, the offender shouted, his blood shot eyes half popping out of hollowed our sockets: "GET LOST. GO BACK, YOU MOTHER******BLOODY INDIAN". It was as if someone had put a machine gun to your chest and emptied a fusillade of bullets into your heart, reducing to smithereens your liver, kidney, heart, mind and body and soul of any dignity that still remained.
Shaken to the core, and feeing deeply violated, Irfan mentally shut off. And, proceeded to drive the rest of the commute in absolute silence. Then, on reaching his workplace, he silently stepped out, head half bowed, and walked towards his office tower.
There, once inside his 39th New York office cabin, a sullen and chastised Irfan went about his daily business. A quiet all alone lunch followed , and I'm the evening, close to nightfall, he was back on the same highway, taking the return trip back home where awaited his dear wife Indu and their dear daughter Urvi. On seeing them he literally rushed into their arms. And that greatly relieved him of whatever pensiveness he carried in his heart. A happy family dinner followed and then the Ilyasi family called it a day...oops night, the main bread winner exhausted yet ready to battle the vagaries of yet another day living the much touted 'American Dream'.
*
But that night sleep for Irfan was holed up in another Planet. For a long time he lay in his bed, twisting and moving around, his eyes wide open arms staring onto the darkened ceiling. Swati, lying beside him, finally sensed something was amiss. She turned on the bed lamp beside her, and looked at her husband. He didn't disappoint. His response was a staccato "I don't like this new America that we live in".
Swati smirked. Knew what that meant. Not for nothing was she married to him for the past 15 years. She knew what was troubling her husband. It was something she too was deeply bothered about.
The couple had over the years realised that there were two kinds of Americans. White Americans that is! One that hated Indians, and the larger Asian community, (read anyone non-white) and secondly those that at best tolerated non-whites and hence, maintained a cool non-commital distance from them.
The first Irfan and Swati could understand. I mean, the couple, both highly educated and coming from broader inclusive communities in India, knew that there would always be in society, a section, the majority who would be antagonistic towards the minorities be they of any ilk.
But such sheer obduracy from the so called 'all American alpha' kind was something the Ilyasis had never ever fathomed. As Irfan used to always tell his wife whenever she used to get upset over the lack of good neighbours or a well defined support group or even a set of friends who she could call her own and sit down with without feeling a sense of alienation.
"We are rich, and successful, and American Indians, and living in the most developed nation in the world, isn't that enough for us to be happy?" Swati's response to that was to simply nod in acquiescence.
For a long time, the two sat in silence, a picture of inaction. Finally, it was Swati's voice that scythed through the emptiness. "Enough. I know what you want. You want to go back to India." And before a befuddled Irfan could even think over framing an appropriate response, Swati helped him to firm his decision. "Even I want to leave this country and settle in India."
Irfan stared at his wife just long enough to realise she was right. She had always been right. Right about the fact that America was no longer the inclusive place that it once was. That one may be super rich and successful and have a fancy house and fancy car and a bulging at the seams bank balance, but here one would always be second nee even third class citizens.
As Swati used to always say, "We may have become American citizens, but we and our children will always be the outsiders, the second class citizens."
"Yes," "You're right. Here we will always remain Children of a Lessor God. Two halves don't make a whole. Let's leave for our motherland India", volleyed Irfan in a tone of finality.
*
THREE MONTHS LATER...INDIA
The flight from JFK Airport landed in the wee hours of Friday morning at New Delhi International Airport. Minutes before a sonorous voice had announced the landing of the long haul flight in Delhi. She needn't have. Even before the plane touched down, one knew very well that the bird had landed in Delhi. Irfan raised himself, extricated his suitcase from the baggage hold above, and slowly made his way towards the exit. Unknown to him, the unexpected lay in wait. His luggage, the bigger one, the one that carried his office attire, besides his gadgets including his latest buy- a bespoke Apple mean machine that he had snapped at a very high premium within an hour of its commercial arrival at High Street, went incommunicado.
Missing, misplaced, or misplaced? He really couldn't decipher what exactly happened. All Irfan knew was that it was yet another hour and a half later that he was able to emerge out of the airport, the said luggage tightly clinging to his arm, his rucksack firmly tucked behind.
'Welcome to India Sir. I am Ashraf", exclaimed the portly bald though chubby faced man as he led Irfan towards a parked enclosure. There, once seated inside the comfy back seat of a Maruti Ertiga that pretended itself to be the long lost middle son of a run down Ford, Irfan heaved a sigh of relief. And muttered his extreme distaste albeit silently. He somehow knew many more were to follow.
Unknown to the Man Friday his about to join new office had deputed to fetch him, Irfan knew the reason why his luggage got delayed. After searching at all the carousels, and after scouring every single nook and corner of the several acres long Airport, he had finally been directed to a corner space that for some reason was labelled simply as "Lost & Found". There a uniformed man handed him over his suitcase but not before asking for and going through a fine comb his identifications papers.
Then followed the ubiquitous Q &A Round.
What's your name? IRFAN ILYASI.
INDIAN OR PAKISTANI?
INDIAN
PURPOSE OF YOUR VISIT?
Was that a question? What Indian is asked the purpose of his visit by another Indian when visiting his homeland, the country of his birth? More such inane and utterly degrading questions followed. Every single question was an inquisition, an assault to his dignity, an utter violation of all that a person holds dear.
The near 45 minute verbal and visual questioning assaulted Irfan with the kinetic force of a 100 tonne truck ramming into a stationary truck. He felt naked, violated to the core, as if someone had cruelly, most insensitively, yanked his clothes off from his body. A wave of molten red hot blood ran through his veins. As his blood boiled with hurt fuelled anger and humiliation, the 45 year old Docrorate in International Business had trouble controlling himself. His clenched fists, the growing knot at the nape of his neck and the searing pain that bamboozled through every single pore of his lithe frame was a sight in itself. With great difficulty, he somehow refrained himself; instead quietly, picked up his suitcase and breezed out of the room. Once outside, the IITian with a double degree and years of experience and considerable expertise funed in indignation muttering, 'Bloody Lost & Found Room! An euphemism for interrogation and humiliation would have been a better much in sync nomenclature.'
*
The taxi driver, a thinly young man who wore a plain white shirt with its top three buttons and jet black trousers wryly nodded at him. The car skirted through the rush hour morning traffic.
Irfan checked his watch. Half past nine.
At the instant, he felt something smash against his back. Involuntarily, he shuddered while looking back. It wasn't his back as he had initially feared but his back did receive a jolt from the impact. A SUV was cheek by jowl behind his vehicle, it's lone occupant glaring and gesticulating wildly. And then, something else also happened. Even before he anyone could fathom what was happening, the offending vehicle driver, got out of his car The meeting was to take place at 10 sharp Back in New York, this distance would have been covered in a jiffy, minus the drama that he was witnessing. A hand thrust through open window and grabbed the collar of the driver. Before anyone could fathom anything, the intruder slapped Ashraf hard, a hairy hand smashing onto his left ear. Ashraf screamed in pain. His attacker, held out a hockey bat, shoved it in his face. Then, his eyes filled with hatred, he spat out, "Haramzada. Gaadi nahin chalen aata, musalman saàla".
And then he was gone as he had come, waving the stick in the sky as a shell shocked Delhi morning traffic looked on in utter nonchalance. Irfan, who was watching all this happening in front of his eyes, was momentarily stunned. He simply didn't know how to react. As the two sat, suffering the humiliation in silence, a battery of cars honked all around them. As Ashraf turned on the ignition and the vehicle inched forward, through the open windows some more choicest expletives were thrown at the duo. Shocked to the core, the two merely downed the car windows and moved on. An hour later, having met his new office colleagues, Irfan excused himself for the next couple of days. His excuse: I need some time to visit my hometown.
12 HOURS LATER...MUMBAI
The flight landed in Mumbai, an hour late, as expected. Once outside, Irfan hailed a cab. "Jogeshwari (West)", he said perfunctory.
As Irfan settled in the back seat, he caught himself once again staring at the guy. The man still had his dry smirk intact. A huge locket with a strident Lord Ram pointing a blood smeared arrow shone bright and towards him. Momentarily rattled, Irfan let the thought ride, and looked through the window. As the car whizzed past the peak afternoon Mumbai traffic, it swept past sky high buildings, mega sized structures with shiny chrome and glass frontages. And they were everywhere. He turned towards his left, then right, and then left___all over, everywhere, as far as the eye could see, the place was choc a bloc with steel and concrete. He knew within them housed mega office complexes, firms, both, international and multi-national companies. As well as several blue chip Indian companies. As the kilometres sped away, and the car sped past the eye catching kilometres' length Bandra Worli Sea Link he gazed with wonderment at the cookie jar sky kissing residential buildings, almost all no less than 30 stories high, he knew he was coming back to his Mumbai. A Mumbai of dreams, of unaccountable wealth, a city whose pathways were swept with good as the well bandied about cliche went. And then, something else happened. As the vehicle cruised past Bandra and half entered Malad, the demarcation began to become clearer and clearer. He had left town, the glitzy glam filled South Mumbai where the creme de la creme of society lived and where money flowed like water. He had stepped into the outskirts. Here, though still in Mumbai, but clearly delineated boundaries lived and breathed. Here, the air, the people, the place and even the vibes were a polar opposite. The rich, the stinky rich were missing here; instead, here cohabitation the middle classes, the backbone of any civilised society. 'Saab, Jogeshwari mein kahan jaan hai"? The voice in the front seat intoned. Irfan looked out of the window. They had reached a fork end. From here, one could either take the highway and go beyond, or slip into any one of the umpteen open pulleys whose mouths lay bare open as if extending an invitation, or was that extending a threat that screamed : TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED, OR WORSE FIRED UPON The last bit thought made Irfan shudder. After a nano second worth of contemplation, Irfan quickly exited from the cab, paid the still smirk heavy driver off and crossed the road to the other end. He had spotted the signage ABDUL TAILOR SHOP from far. He ducked inside the roadside shop, and came face to face with a man he thought he would never see again in this lifetime.
*
His was the face that could get itself lost in a crowd. Save for the ubiquitous skull cap, and a head of hair heenaed a beetroot red. Plus, the de rigeur starch white kurta and the almost knee length pyjama. Minus the above set of accoutrements, he would be near invisible in a mass. But add the above features, and you will find an Abdul Gafoor in every India city, town, mahalla, kasba, galli et al. Correction, every other Indian old city that's majoritated by Muslims. "Kaise ho Abba"? Ever since I can recall I have been calling him that. He must be eighty something, I guess. He hadn't heard me, I thought for a moment. For he sported the same quizzical expression that I had noticed when I arrived. I was about to repeat my question when he adjusted his spectacles. I noticed his hands were shaking, his lips trembling while he did so. Then, he blinked twice, before replying in broken Urdu, albeit haltingly. 'Aap Usman Ilyasi saheb ke shehzade ho na?"
It was less a question, more of an affirmation. I nodded my head in the affirmative.
And the floodgates opened. I had seen quite many women cry. A few men as well. But I hadn't ever witnessed an old man, that too this old she'd years. As I watched on helplessly, Abdul Gafoor eyes went wet, and then he cried a river. His pockmarked visage, a melange of criss cross lines was flooded with tears. I felt utterly helpless as I watched impotency the full intensity of human sorrow and pain unleash itself before my stupefied eyes. After seemed an eternity; the man wiped his face with an awkward swipe of his left hand. Then, with a voice choking with emotions, "They're killed us all, all of us, wiped the entire basti." I knew what he was speaking. He was talking about his basti, my basti, our basti...the plane where we all lived...like brothers and sisters ..Hindus and Muslims and Parsis and Christians...all. I felt a loss of words. I got up, awkwardly hugged him, and then begged his leave. What else could I do? What else could someone do who lived all his childhood next door Gafoor's chacha's humble hutment. What words of consolation could one make whose childhood friends---Riaz, Imran, Ilyas, Arshad, Rashid and Shiraz were all dead. The last Gafoor Chacha's son's, all three of them. What words of empathy could knew give another whose own family was wiped out, obliterated, brutally hacked to death, a few burnt alive, others shot dead, a fusillade of bullets piercing through their hearts, silencing their breaths for ever? I just sat there in silence, and heard the old man cry his lungs out. Gafoor Chacha cried and cried until the well of tears dried out. I then hugged him one last time, and stepped out. My steps now headed towards Aman Vihar My birthplace...Aman Nagar. The Abode of Peace...Now turned Hell's Mansion. The Place of the Dead and the Living Dead.
*
Some places grow with time. They turn better. Better roads, better drainage, better visual appeal, better lifestyles, better vibes et al. And some turn worse. As I entered the narrow muddy lane I was met with the latter. A sensory assault awaited me. My eyes saw filth, dirt, open man holes that when I looked into were full to the brim with floating objects---a used tyre, acid bottles, torn condoms etc. Every hole, crevice, drain, opening was a veritable repository of all that was wrong, or had gone wrong with Aman Vihar. I couldn't proceed an inch further as besides the visual assault, my other senses were also brutally attacked. My ears went near deaf assailed as they were by a continual asynchronous cacophony. I was like the clash of titans- several lions, elephants, goats, dogs, giraffes, donkeys, monkeys and a myriad others voices were all in a no holds barred world championship tussle to determine who shouted nee harangued the loudest, the harshest and the most shrill. If this was no less a discomfiture, then to add to the misery were the people all around. Every inch of human body was brushed, pushed, pulled, squeezed, pressed and even compressed as men, women, children completed with cycle, two wheeler, three wheeler, four wheeler, even mini trucks and almost all machines that the human mind could imagine and innovate. And to rub the misery manifold, all shops, be they hole in the wall cigarette, tailor, carpentry, coaching institute, barber etc looked the same.
Most didn't have any signboards, mostly because they didn't have any place to be hung. Those shops that did have signages were either were too small and hung so precariously from sundry wires and hooks and nooks and corner edges that one just wouldn't be able to distinguish which shop ended and which began. Clearly, Aman Nagar had become worse with time. Time ut seemed had stopped here and modernity and along with development had given it the cold You can call it a ghetto not unlike one that's visible in every single town and city across all geographies, especially and more in India, a country now badly scarred and polarised beyond redemption. Was all this a shock to me? Yes, and no. Yes, because while moving around my birthplace I witnessed several saddening realities. I saw a lot of men, young boys, several under a decade younger that I was, and all killing time. Saw outside in the backalleys, hanging around at the roundabouts, just whiling away their time. There were either drunk, stoned, or fighting, arguing, quarrelling, or simply staring into spare. Zombies all! And then I knew. They were all this because there was nothing to do Aman Nagar. There was no place to go to, no one to visit, none to come, nowhere to go, and even if they wanted or desired to do so, they didn't have the money to indulge and actualize their dreams, desires and fantasies. Basically, Aman Nagar, the place I was born some four decades ago, was exactly the same that I had left it at. IT'S PROGRESS: ZILCH. CIPHER. ZERO
"Beta, don't you want to see your house"? The question was a bolt; I felt as if someone had pierced and punctured my lungs and I was left gasping for air. I turned around and stared straight into the face of Faroukh Shaikh, and that was when my tears welled up. I was meeting my English teacher, the only person who knew the Queen's language in the entire basti, my first and the only teacher who believed that I was destined to do bigger things in life. I still remember his words when i had cracked the All India entrance test and bagged a seat in IIT, Mumbbai. Farrukh sir had then said the very prophetic words: Beta, you will come back one day and make us very proud. I touched his feet. And then didn't know what came over me but i cried like a child. After a while, he hugged me and then holding my arm led me into an inner lane. We walked I'm silence for the next five minutes or so, and then he retreated leaving me alone to come face to face with FATIMA MANZIL- my ancestral house, the three stories twelve room Mansion where I was born, where I lived and grew up alongwith with a baker's dozen of my brothers, sisters, cousins and extended relatives and the ilk. And the memories came flooding back, an avalanche of waves swept through my mindscape. 'I was twelve. I remember the day very well. It was my birthday. The entire family had gathered at the ground floor DASTAKHANA, an interior hall accessible only to close relatives. Abbu had come an hour earlier. Imtiyaz and Dilshad, and two others whose names, all three his staff at the wholesale ittar shop that he ran just adjacent to the Jama Masjid also were there.
So were my three sisters Ruby, Urvi and Yasmeen; also my brothers Bablu, Ashish, and Saudagar. Gathered too were my cousins, aunts and uncles and a few neighbours. At exactly five we all stood up and I was about to cut the cake. That's when someone shouted, "Bhago, bhago...bheed ehan aa rahi."
Helter skelter broke out. The women grabbed the young and rushed upstairs, hiding themselves in one or the other of the several rooms. My uncle, Abbu's younger brother, Adil Chacha screamed as he turned around towards the main entrance. Shut all the entrances. The mob is here." Abbu and other men too ran madly, rushing to close all doors and windows. It was then that I heard the first several screams. The voices outside became louder and louder. I heard footsteps and that's when I made the mistake of peeping out of the window. The sight that I saw shall remain etched in my memory for ever. A man I knew as the sweets hop owner from whom I bought my favourite daily fix of gulab jamun was leading the crowd.
He was shouting something, his eyes were glaring at us, and in his hands was a silver coloured gleaming sword. He had something else in his other hand...a can, perhaps. I looked beyond and I saw that there were at least a dozen others like him. At that instant, someone pulled me away. The next moment I saw myself dragged out through the backdoor and was running through the fields towards the creek. Behind me the war cries turned more vociferous. Jai Shri Ram...maaro sallon ko...Kato sabke...ek ko nahin zinda chodna...were words some of the most heart searing words I’d ever heard...words that woukd stay with me for the rest of my life." And then I heard the deathly wails...the last terror filled gasps of air. That's when i knew it was all over. Today, after all those years, those horrendous cries...of my mother, father, chachas, cousins, brothers, sisters...all of them gone but their last dying images are still alive.
I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a longtime ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws it's way back".
*
When the tears had dried up, when there was nothing more to feel, think or even act upon, I felt a strange quietitude. I closed my eyes and sat there in utter silence for a long long time. For the next God knows how much time I simply sat, my mind, my senses absolutely oblivious to the world around me, to everything.
Then, something happened. I saw my Ammi's face, yet again. This time she was smiling. I was sitting on her lap. Her hands were gently holding my hand. Then she looked up to me and said, "Irfu, you are Allah's blessed one. You are most different from all others. You have my heart. You value relations, your heart is very pure. Promise me beta that one day when you become a big man and earn a living of money that you will do something for your brothers and sisters. That you will help them bag the same chances, avail of the same opportunities that you got. That you will build a school...'
And then her voice, as angelic and as gentle as it were trailed off...her ethereal face slowly fading away. Irfan sat quiet, his mind struck by what he had just now experienced. His own dear mother, the one person who loved him the most, the one who hadn't ever seen the inside of an elementary school, the woman who kept a house, gave birth to five other children, the supposedly unlettered woman whose life and happiness revolved in and around Aman Manzil--she was telling him something.
She had just come in his dream and was telling him all was not lost. Was telling him that he was the beacon of hope for all around Aman Nagar. That he should light up the path and pull his community out of the dungeons of backwardness, darkness and ignorance. That he should take it upon himself to light the lamp of enlightenment and ensure its flames reach far and wide. That he was the Chosen One, Allah's emissary on earth. That was his mission, his life goal. To help Aman Nagar rise from the ashes, Phoenix-like, and rebuild it, but this with love, care and tenderness.
*
And the work had to start right away. That night he slept all alone, in the riot scarred, fire damaged half torn down bedroom of his parents. And as he lay down on the muddy flea infested floor and slept, he knew he would sleep well. For, finally, after years of mere existence in an alien land peopled with alien hearts and closed minds, Irfan was at last among his own, his own people. He knew from henceforth he would never be alone, never feel bereft. His Ammi, his Abbu, Anwar, Nishad, Fatima, Tasleem and all his childhood friends were with him. They hadn't ever gone. They were now residing in his heart.
The next morning, Irfan got up, fully awake after one of the best peaceful sleeps he had had for as long as he could remember. And the first thing he did was to call up Swati. He needn't have gone into the details. He knew her. She knew him. They were one and the same. The two would bid goodbye to America and make Aman Manzil their new abode.
The only difference, it would no longer be called so. Instead, it would be a grand, built anew SHAGUFTA SCHÒOL OF VOCATIONAL STUDIES...A MECCA OF LEARNING FOR ALL.
The dream turned into a reality and six months later as the first batch of tiny tots and their mothers and fathers and the young and the old all stepped in and headed to one or the other state of the art classrooms to receive a class of education the denizens of Aman Nagar could never even imagine, Irfan and Swati watched them from the sidelines, huge smiles writ large on their happy faces.
Aman Nagar was finally making peace with itself and taking those initial baby steps, moving away from darkness to bright light.
***