BLASPHEMY

T ehmina Durrani made her sensational

literary debut in 1991 with her
controversial autobiography, My Feudal
Lord. The book was translated into
twenty-two languages, and went on to win
Italy’s prestigious Marissa Bellasario
prize. Blasphemy, her next major work,
promises to generate the same degree of
excitement as her first book.

Set in South Pakistan, the novel, inspired

by a true story, is a searing study of evil;
an uncompromising look at the distortion
of Islam by predatory religious leaders.
In prose of great power and intensity, the
author tells the tragic story of the beautiful
Heer, brutalized and corrupted by Pir Sain,
the man of God, whom she is married to
when barely fifteen. But the nightmare she
is locked into is not hers alone; it affects
the entire clan that owes allegiance to the
pir. In the pir’s haveli, unspeakable horrors
are perpetrated every day and every night,
all in the name of Allah. Sucked into the
fetid hell of her lord’s making, Heer loses
her dignity, her freedom, even her
humanity, till a terrible resolution gives her
back to herself.

An angry and courageous book,

Blasphemy establishes Tehmina Durrani
among the foremost writers of the
subcontinent.

Rs 295
BLASPHEMY

VIKING
Penguin India
Also by Tehmina Durrani

My Feudal Lord
A Mirror to the Blind
BLASPHEMY
a novel

TEHMINA DURRANI

VIKING
VIKING
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 210, Chiranjiv Tower, 43. Nehru Place, New Delhi 110 019. India
Penguin Books Ltd.. 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ. UK
Penguin Books USA Inc.. 375 Hudson Street. New York. NY 10014. USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Ringwood. Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd., 10 Alcorn Avenue, Suite 300, Toronto. Ontario M4V 3B2. Canada
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd., 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Fifst published by Ferozsons (Pvt.) Ltd. 1998

First published in India in Viking by Penguin Books India 1998

Copyright © Tehmina Durrani 1998

All rights reserved

10 9 8 7 65 43 21

Printed at Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi-110020

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not. by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form off
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright
reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned
publisher of this book.
This novel is inspired by a true story.
Names and certain events have been altered to
protect the identity of the woman whose story this is.
~'fl

.
To Heer, who suffered it all
 Contents
Chapter 1 Release 11

Chapter 2 Stepping Out 21

Chapter 3 Stepping In 39

Chapter 4 Jahanum 59

Chapter 5 Unbound 77

Chapter 6 Circling the Square 95

Chapter 7 The Lure of Innocence 109

Chapter 8 Chote Sain 131

Chapter 9 Killer Waves 145

Chapter 10 Heroes 159

Chapter 11 In the Name of Allah 175

Chapter 12 Stripping 185

Chapter 13 Shattering the Myth 205

Epilogue 229
 . . luruiiifii

> '■}<: ■

.
■y- ; • ' ■ - i

fi/ ;2 > ‘ j iff

< a

*i■ \

■■■■ f*A ’io '* » :: j , /. :

£.f 5
>; ’■ H v j• '■5 re!q;:>f )

•■iJSoA
 CHAPTER ONE

r Release
he early morning call to prayer reverberated from the
mosque’s loudspeaker.
Allah ho Akbar, Allah hoAkbar, ashudoan la illaha
ilallah, swept across the sleepy village and rippled
through the sands of the endless desert plain.
I stood in the doorway; my screams lacerated the lilting rhythm
of the holy words. Ashudo an la illaha illallah interspersed with my
cries.
The two together tore the black sky.
It ruptured.
I reached out to Allah.
Day broke.
Haiya las salah, haiya las salah, ordered all to rise and come to
prayer. People were jolted out of their slumber.
In a flash, women swarmed over me like bees. Buzzing. When
they saw the master, shrieks filled the air. I crouched in the midst of
a mad crowd... the noise seemed interminable, until men entered
and the women scampered out.
A natural reflex made me turn my face away from his four brothers.
Their presence was strange even on this occasion. They had never
dared come in front of me before, if ever they did, I would cover my
face and slip away from sight. Now they strode towards the bed
above which the fan was still, still like my husband lying under it.

11
 BLASPHEMY

Dead.
I lifted my eyes surreptitiously. His were wide open. Terrorising?
No, strangely, they looked terrorised themselves.
A thin stream of blood had trickled down his ears and dried into
two small stains on either side of his neck. The Imamzaman he
always wore was still tied around his arm. Many more amulets hung
from a black cord around his neck. On the table beside him, a heavy
gold clock ticked.
The men were silent. When the fierce eyes of one of them met my
frightened gaze, I froze; their foreboding presence made me feel as
though they were going to play an important role in my life. An
uncertain future flashed through my mind before I fainted.
When I recovered, I was lying on a sofa at the other end of the
room, parallel to my husband’s body. With such force did memories
ambush me that I felt him breathing heavily upon me ... and yet the
distance was so absolute. I thought death was an end, but was it?
There were no women in the room. The four formidable brothers
stood around the bed, shook their heads in disbelief, and conferred
among themselves. Conferring so soon after his death? I strained to
hear but could not.
Outside, women hailed Rajaji, our only surviving son, as the heir,
and cried out to him.
‘Your great father is dead. We have been abandoned, orphaned,’
and the door flew open. My son charged in to fall at his father’s
bedside. I swallowed more sedatives, reminding myself incoherently
that I must pull myself together. The family doctor ran in and bent
over my husband’s body.
Rajaji asked me to leave. I staggered out thinking he would soon
be taking over my affairs, like he had taken over his father’s.
The courtyard was swollen with women, looking up at the sky
and howling like wolves. Through the haze of tranquillisers I stopped
to look for any sign of change, other than the noise.
Was it different from the time when he was alive? But they saw me
and with shrill cries of sorrow gravitated towards me. Servants of our

12
 RELEASE

household, old, middle-aged and young. So many of them had

seen me walk in here as a bride. Some had helped me bear my
children, some had raised them and some had played with them. All
of them had known my times of joy and sorrow. They clung to me
and wept, and I was drenched by their tears and their stale, spicy sweat.
I wrenched myself free from the gnawing and clutching mass and
pushed through the crowd into my mother-in-law’s room. AmmA
Sain was propped up in bed with a seal of silence on her lips. Women
reached out to weep on her shoulder and withdrew in the face of no
response. Nor did she respond to me. If it were not the same stony
silence she had maintained for several years, I would have believed
it to be due to this tragedy. But it was not.
Amma Sain had been mistress of the Haveli for many years until
I weaned away that burden. She had known everything and yet
known little, or perhaps it was a feminine intelligence: she knew
more than she let on. I sat down and held her hand. Turning it over
I searched the wayward lines for a clue to break her quietude. But
it was better for her nut to emerge from her silence. In this maze of
thoughts, women came and went. The rhythm of their wails was like
a dirge, which reached a crescendo with Amma Sain, ebbed when
it reached me and faded at the door with ‘What doom, what doom! ’
Old aunts, sisters, stepsisters, my four inseparable sisters-in-law,
their daughters and their innumerable children rushed in together.
One by one they slobbered over me with loud kisses and louder
sobs. Beating their breasts they lamented, ‘May Allah give you
patience to live a long life without a husband!’
The ultimate curse.
A crumpled piece of flesh, my husband’s bent Dai, fumbled
towards me; up close her breath smelt of a lifetime spent in poverty.
She was mourning the loss of achild she had reared and now outlived.
Was it doom for him or for us, or for the change in our lives, or for
what? We did not know. ‘What doom, what doom,’ they all cried out.
When I escaped into the courtyard for a breath of air, there was
a wild stampede. The terrifying shrieks of frightened women filled

13
 BLASPHEMY

the air. At a distance I spotted the widow’s two daughters who had
taken refuge at the Haveli with their mother. My close companions
and confidantes, they stared into my eyes as silent questions drifted
back and forth between us.
What would it be like without the master?
What would become of those who enjoyed his good favour?
My thoughts scattered with the appearance of the widow, who beat
her breast and dropped at my feet, pleading that I not abandon them.
Then, all three of them clung to my ankles until I pushed them away.
At last, I slipped into the bathroom and turned the key. I squatted
on a wooden stool and a flood of memories gushed from the deep
and lacerated wound that was my mind.
A lifetime had passed here.
From my breast I pulled out a packet of cigarettes, another dip
into my brassiere and a disposable lighter appeared. I dragged in
nicotine and smoke curled out of my mouth like a death dance.
Horrors escaped from within. Despite his death, thoughts of him
refused to recede. Random thoughts also ran amok. In the chaos, a
toxic mixture brewed. An image struggled through and sprang at me.
Yathimri, the orphan girl!
The thought of her spread through me like a fever. I tried to
barricade my mind by winding my chunni around my forehead. I
knotted it tight to shut everything out but disjointed thoughts still
throbbed and pulsated within.
The wailing outside intensified.
Somebody very dear to my husband had arrived. The cigarette
was only half smoked when the door banged amid women shouting
over each other.
‘Bibiji, your orphan daughters have come. Bibiji, your daughters
have come.’
Death, the most dramatic event in our part of the world, had made
them all theatrical. They believed that the extent of loss would be
determined by an exaggerated display of emotion.
Before me the mirror distorted the thirty-eight years of my life.

14
 RELEASE

I had borne six children, three sons and three daughters. One son
was stillborn. One died as a young man. The three girls were married,
and I was a grandmother at thirty- three. More than all that, the strain
of last night was carved on my face. To end the banging I opened the
door. My daughters veiled their questions behind their tears as I held
them close, to finally share this strange moment of change.
The loudspeakers at the ancestral Shrine pronounced Pir Sain
dead. I stepped back into the death chamber where his absence from
the world was no longer abstract. So much noise in his room! Nobody
had ever dared enter it before first obtaining his permission. The few who
had, always spoke in hushed and reverent tones. Now a din invaded it.
I thought he might resurrect himself to banish them all to hell.
The man whom nobody dared touch except by bowing low to kiss
his feet, or, if he deigned, to brush their lips across his hand, was
lifted up by his legs and shoulders, placed on a charpai and covered
with a sheet. The charpai was lifted in the air and carried out.
I recalled him walking through the door every morning, regal as
a king.
Now worms awaited him.
Emotions exploded as the charpai emerged. Floating over
hundreds of heads, it disappeared. Rajaji would wash him while his
uncles poured the miraculous waters of Zum zum over him. The
water, which drained off his body, would be distributed among his
privileged devotees who would treasure it as a sacred balm.
The recitation of the Quran commenced. Pir Sain was cleansed
and wrapped in a white cotton kafn to face the Almighty. The scent
of the strong and deathly essence of roses filled the air. When his
charpai was placed in the centre of the courtyard, the wailing became
so loud it seemed as though we had lost Allah.
A sense of disbelief prevailed.
Pir Sain dead?
That was inconceivable.
But he lay under a pile of red roses and women wound circles
round him, circle after circle as far as the eye could see. In all this tumult,

15
 BLASPHEMY

I saw Yathimri, the orphan girl. She noticed me looking, and slunk
away.
The path was cleared for Amma Sain. I staggered up and stood
beside her to stare at her son’s blank face. There was no sign of the
night’s torment.
I saw the orphan girl again. She was drawing my attention as
strongly as she had avoided it all day. Suddenly, her cries undermined
the mass sorrow and she pushed and shoved through the crowd to
grasp Pir Sain’s charpai.
My husband had been Yathimri’s protector since she came to our
home as a three-year-old orphan. At the age of eleven, she became his
personal attendant and steadily grew closer to him than any other.
But she knew it was not right to make a scene. It was not the business
of maidservants to cry louder than the family. A display of such
strong feelings with such abandon angered me. I was in no state to
console her, nor could I offer her a safe future until I felt safe in mine.
Before the sun set, Rajaji said, ‘Amma, say your farewell. It is
time for him to go.’
Amma Sain’s hands lifted in prayer. Pir Sain was lifted in the air.
They were carrying my husband away and I was walking with women
swaying like kites behind the master’s body. He was out of reach.
The door shut us in, but over the walls that separated women from
men, cries mingled and broke the segregation. I noticed Cheel, the
hawk, watching me dangerously from under her hooded eyes. As
always her arms were folded across her chest. As always she was
looking for something to report.
But to whom, now that the master was dead?
Outside, there was shock. As the news spread, followers from
across the country had arrived in droves. The man who interceded
with Allah on their behalf was gone. Now Rajaji would be their
intermediary. I heard the recitation of funeral prayers. I heard
shuffling feet. I heard a man shout, ‘Kalina eh shahadat,’and knew
my husband’s funeral bier was passing from shoulder to shoulder.
‘La illaha ilallah, Mohammed ur rasool Allah,’ hummed in the air.

16
 RELEASE

Although I had never seen the outside of my home, I had imagined

the narrow, winding dirt tracks to be long and thin, like slithering
snakes, and here and there a dry bush. A few shacks, a shop, the
jagirdar’s big house, his mango orchards, and a long sweeping
curve that wiggled all around the Haveli. Passing a hand pump and
a tube well, the procession must have reached the Shrine.
Babaji’s grave was directly under the main dome. Adjoining it,
seven pirs lay dead in a line. At the end of the line was an open grave
for my husband. Some distance away was a slab marked for my son.
Buried under tonnes of earth, my husband would never stir, and
yet, people would soon walk barefoot for miles to beg for his
intercession. Just as they did to the graves of those buried before him.
Now they must be dispersing.
My contract had terminated.
A grip had loosened.
Pir Sain was gone, but it was an idea hard to get used to. While
he lived, his presence had been so overwhelming that to us his
absence had never registered. We were always so unnerved by his
departure from home that every moment was spent anticipating his
return. At the sight of his vehicle, villagers jumped aside and held
their heads in their hands until the dust his car had raised settled. At
home, the women’s quarters would be in a state of restless anxiety.
And I? I would withdraw into myself to listen for his footsteps. As
they drew nearer, I would feel them trampling on my heart.
The day had never been hotter than today. It singed our flesh, as
if all those who remained alive must now burn. Hundreds of women
drenched in sweat waved away flies that stuck or buzzed or lingered
on their faces. We brewed in a cauldron. Smouldering fires rose
from the earth’s pit and burnt our soles.
Is he ablaze? I wondered.
With the master’s death, the kitchen fire was put out for three days.
Food referred to as korah watta, or a hard stone as difficult to digest as
death, would arrive from one of the brothers' havelis. A hundred degs
of mutton curry, piles and piles of chapattis and cauldron after caul-

17
 BLASPHEMY

dron of sweet zarda were urgently consumed.

Guppi, oureldest daughter, touched my shoulder and said, ‘Amma,
you need rest. We’ 11 manage for you,’ and I moved towards his room
thinking of so many things. When the door opened, I forgot every¬
thing.
New monsters reared their heads, those that came from within,
those free to comeand go. I pushed myself against a strong, resisting
force to reach where he had lain.
Ma burst in!
‘My daughter has become a widow in her youth! Envious eyes
have made her pillar fall on her. My child is dead in her lifetime,’
she wailed. Behind her, my sisters, surrounded by dozens of maids,
crowded in and cried out together.
For the women of the Haveli it was a commotion that broke their
routine without consequence. But the interest with which they
watched me was dangerous; they could convert into a beehive of
intrigue. I began to weep louder than all of them.
Ma’s tears were real, so were my sisters’. Talking over each other,
one above the other, they recalled my husband’s magnanimity.
‘Men like him are not born every day. He never forgot to send us
the fruit of the season or a portion of the wheat and rice he received.’
Wailing and weeping they prayed for Allah to rest his soul in peace.
Kubbi, the hunchback maid, consoled them, ‘The master’s grave is
an eternal presence over us. He will look over us forever. For all
times.’ I shuddered.
Ma could not stop praising my late husband even for a moment.
She remembered Rajaji and beat her breast with both her hands.
‘My grandson has been deprived of his father’s presence at his
wedding. What an unrelenting tragedy! What a loss, what a loss,’
and the women found another reason to wail. At last, when they had
expressed enough grief, they withdrew to mourn my husband’s
death with his mother. When the door shut behind them, I ran to it
and turned the key.
Alone again, I forced myself to face fear. I told myself to take it

18
 RELEASE

in like a hot green chilli, sharp, sharper, then gone. Taste it. Feel it,
I advised myself.
My head was on the pillow and a chill was darting up and down
my spine. I squeezed my eyes shut but the reminder of blood stains
on both sides of his neck flashed red in my mind.
My eyes burst open.
Above me, the fan was still, like he had been; now it reflected my
stillness.
I jumped up.
Fumbling at my breast for the cigarettes, I lit one, inhaled deeply,
and at least some fears were exhaled. I lay back and tried again.
‘Keep still... don’t move... don’t be afraid...’ I whispered to myself,
but I was turning into him and jumped out of bed again. Shaking my
head from side to side, I wondered where I could run from my
thoughts. How far could I run inside?
I told myself not to look up or down or right or left.
‘Don’t look out, don’t look in,’ I advised. But the past prevailed;
the present could not break through.
Not yet.
It was impossible until I returned to another time, to what happened
before this happened.

19
 ■ -

,bmm vrn tv hm bari/df) Aovn >iri 1© rtbk fbod /jo

'

:-r/4/j bant b/tfi’>1'. . 0 '.

; 3, . ^oib^rjqHdwr i. as h. ±i .. • torn fn i. H '
nrgnitlnrl?'. ten o , vj imemiffo)ni :r to yizew Ii!/d
-

?obi»4rfkn»oi«T ,/bH .*r^.rf*

liv! rr iri'j/n o ?o -;u too! ito; •■•. \ m-bto*I
ifofimr.fik-; >di w8 i '.ctVJksbt V v to .-3 1 -Ww/V
i ■ i< i h \H . . • s ,,'

*' bitoV^-to tff ,i6T&

'

< .• , V:

&
 CHAPTER TWO

Stepping Out
< ! my friend Chandi shouted from behind me
and I turned. From under the transparent veil of a
U burqa my eyes locked into the magnetic gaze of
L. a man sitting behind a steering wheel.
Chandi distracted me, exclaiming excitedly, ‘Do you like him? He’s
my eldest brother. He saw your picture and thinks you are more
beautiful than the real Heer. He wants to marry you. Isn’t he
handsome?’
Pretending not to hear her, I looked at the ground to conceal a
flush and hide the answer. I tried to be firm, ‘If somebody hears you,
I’ll get a bad reputation.’.
Pushing an envelope into my hands, Chandi laughed.
‘Nobody will know. I promise not to tell. He sent a letter with his
photograph for you, take it.’ I flinched but knew I wanted it.
Soon I was reading: ‘Your beauty is legendary like Heer’s, and
I am your Rartjha. ’
He wanted to marry me after he finished college. I shot a glance
at the photograph and saw him in a red pullover, leaning on a car
against a backdrop of hills. When I noticed Chandi’s searching
gaze, I swiftly replaced everything in the envelope and tried to
reveal nothing, but a thousand stars sparkled in my eyes and my
heart was singing songs that I had never heard before.
All day long, I dreamt of love. Wondering what Ranjha would say
when we were alone, I would turn crimson.

21
 BLASPHEMY

It was getting out of hand. I had to stop. But how could I? He was
everywhere.
At lunch, eating became a distraction and I lost my appetite. In
the classroom my teacher shouted, ‘Wake up, child. Where have
you disappeared to again?’ Another one scolded me, ‘I have been
speaking for ten minutes now and you have not heard a word.’
Finally, I was told to leave the class.
At last, the bell rang and the ordeal was over.
Our flat was in a narrow street at the centre of a congested city.
The alley was never empty of people walking around or leaning
against the walls and talking at all hours of night and day. Children
played hopscotch or wrestled. Women sat outside their doors cleaning
lentils or shelling peas. Everyone here was obviously poor, yet the
perpetual stress of making ends meet did not take away the smiles
from their faces. When my father was alive I had asked him the
reason for their joy and he had replied, ‘They are free from the
distorting pretensions of wealth and power.’
The street where I lived was neither paved nor clean nor level.
When it rained, we lifted our baggy trousers and waded through
puddles of muddy water that were soon converted into mosquito
swamps. While adults tried to overstep flowing drains, little boys
splashed around and pretended to swim in them.
The main door to our house opened on to this street. It always
stood ajar, with a bamboo chik hanging over it to prevent passersby
from looking in. A narrow stairway at the back with chipped and
broken edges wound up to a door that was always bolted. When I
knocked, Chitki, my thirteen-year-old sister, opened it and I ran
across the terrace towards the bathroom.
My mother shouted from somewhere, ‘Come and say salaam to
me before you do anything else.’ Bolting the door, I shouted back, ‘In a
minute, Ma,’ and hurriedly pulled the envelope out of my handbag.
Noticing the fine handwriting, reading Ranjha’s letter carefully, star¬
ing at his face in the photograph from time to time, I forgot everything
else, until the banging on the door tore me away from his hold.

22
 STEPPING OUT

‘Come out quickly. Ma is calling you,’ Chitki instructed.

Wondering when there would be time for us, I shoved my secrets
under everything else in my bag and ran into my room. Stuffing the
bag into the deepest recess of my cupboard, I turned the key and
swung around to face Ma. God knows how long she had been standing
behind me. Furious and suspicious, she blasted me with questions.
‘What are you up to? You are getting out of hand. When I call, it
doesn’t bother you. Is it because I am a widow and you don’t respect
me as you had to when your father was alive?’
Not again, I thought. Ma was paranoid about her status, which
she believed had fallen in everyone’s eyes since Baba’s demise a
year ago. Holding her by the arm, I reassured her and hurriedly
walked her out on to the terrace, away from the ticking bomb.
Thank God Ma’s suspicious mind had not wandered too far. It
was common for her to make me reopen the cupboard so that she
could inspect my handbag.
‘It’s a caution against any form of dishonour that might befall our
future generations from the hazardous actions of the female species—
we women are known to be a curse,’ she would say in one breath.
The house seemed different today, it was tidier than usual. I
noticed the new, embroidered tablecloth under a vase of red roses.
The four chairs, two on each side of the table, looked freshly
polished.Even the torn cane meshing on the seat had been repaired.
My fourteen-year-old brother, Bhai, had his arms laden with boxes
from the bakery. Chitki and our eleven-year-old sister, Nanni,
implored excitedly, ‘Come and help us with the tea trolley, apa.'
‘No,’ shouted our mother, ‘I need to talk to Heer. You lay the
trolley yourselves.’
Tea?
What had happened here?
I had only been away for a few hours. Who was coming to see us?
When I asked Ma, she sat me down opposite her and ordered,
‘Don’t touch the chair, your hands will stain it.’ She became even
firmer when she said, ‘There is a marriage proposal for you. They

23
 BLASPHEMY

are coming to see you this evening.’

My heart missed a beat at the thought of the urgency with which
Ranjha wanted to get engaged to me. I did not dare look up. Surely,
Ma would notice that I was not ignorant of this development. But
I had not expected it this soon. Everything seemed to be happening
today. My whole life was changing in one day.
‘These people are very wealthy. They are far above our status. It
is a great honour that they should even visit us. Look at us,’ she said,
waving her arm around. ‘What do we have to offer them?’
And she answered her question herself, ‘It is because you are so
very beautiful.’
Ma’s ivory skin gleamed around her brilliant amber eyes. We
looked so alike that she was a vision of my old age and I a vision of
her youth.
Ma also announced, ‘It is a blessing from our pir.' She had become
thep/r’.s mareed after hearing innumerable accounts of his miraculous
feats. On her last visit to his far-off village, she had taken all three
of us along with her and told us, ‘You don ’ t need to cover your faces
before Pir Sain. He is too holy for that.’
The pir's room had been full of waiting women and children
squatting on the floor, and so Ma had to tell him as many problems
as she could in the few moments bestowed on her. She cried and
begged him to pray that her daughters get good offers of marriage.
‘Pray that the burden of these girls be lifted from my tired shoul¬
ders, sain, ’ she implored, and the pir had put his hand on our heads,
turn by turn. Staring at me, he had said to Ma, ‘She will not be a
burden to you. Her beauty is a rare asset.’
Ma was ecstatic. The holy man had made a prophecy.
Now she was overwhelmed at it coming true.
‘The family has an impeccable bloodline,’ she exclaimed.
My friend Chandi had told me that.
Ma’s voice was becoming characteristically shrill.
‘He never married because nobody was good enough for him. He
is much older than you, maybe eighteen years or so.’
I did not know that. I had thought Ranjha was much younger

24
 STEPPING OUT

because he was still at college.

‘They observe strict purdah and are deeply religious. They live
in their village. Why should they want to live in this dirty city when
they have a kingdom of their own?’ she declared.
My heart was pounding. I was not listening, only wondering
whether Chandi’s family also observed strict purdah and lived in a
village.
Ma continued, ‘We are extremely lucky. After your father’s death,
people did not think we were worth anything. Your marriage will
restore our dignity in the community. Your sisters will marry well
and your brother will get a good girl and a good job. Our status will
improve tremendously. I even like his name. It sounds so very
powerful.’ And, at last, she uttered it.
I could look up now and hurriedly said, ‘I don’t want to get
married so soon. I want to complete my education.’
By then, I reasoned, Ranjha would propose and Ma might choose
him instead. Ma was furious.
‘How can you be so selfish, child? You must carry your share of
responsibility towards your sisters and brother. You are fifteen years
old, you can’t sit at home forever. As young girls must not remain
unattached, I am going to say yes. Besides, I don’t have the money
to educate you.’
The subject was closed.
Ma had made a choice about the rest of my life.
‘Get dressed and wipe that sullen look off your face. It makes you
look old,’ said Ma, warning me, ‘If you don’t look pretty they will
reject you, and us.’
I returned to my cupboard with a dampened spirit. There was no
way to inform Chandi of the decision. It was already too late. Clutch¬
ing my bag, I locked myself into the bathroom and attempted to delay
Ranjha’s image from fading into a memory by staring at his photo¬
graph. When it was imprinted in my mind, I tore the letter and the pic¬
ture into tiny shreds, flushed my dreams down the toilet and watched
them swirl around in the water before being sucked into the gutter.

25
 BLASPHEMY

Our love was born to die in a day. Destiny beckoned from somewhere
else.
Because they had come for a purpose that did not allow me to
raise my head, I did not look at Pir Sain’s family, but I heard someone
say, ‘She will have to observe strict purdah. Our family traditions are
ancient, they cannot change. She will have to adapt to them.’ Another
proclaimed, ‘Heer is a lucky girl, after all you are a poor widow. Your
daughter will have many maidservants to attend to her every need.’
Ma was not at all insulted.
Another voice said, ‘Pir Sain’s first two wives were from our own
family. It is Allah’s wish that we are here, otherwise we do not marry
outside our family. This is very unusual.’
Ma recognised my shock at being a third wife and quickly
whispered in my ear, ‘They are dead.’
In the kitchen, Ma slapped Nanni across her face for not draining
away the excess oil from the samosas while she asked me excitedly,
‘Did you hear them? Now you know how important they are. You
are marrying into a home blessed by Allah. What an honour. We are
not worthy of so much. Our destiny has taken a turn. We are now
among the privileged few.’
Ma could not get over this, and fussed nervously in arranging the
tea trolley. Between chiding Nanni and accusing Chitki of spilling
milk that she herself had spilt, she worried.
‘How will I sit with him? What will I say? My pir is becoming
my son-in-law! O God, I could not even dream of sitting on a chair
in his presence.’
By the time our guests left, my breathless mother had put her seal
on my fate. Only the date of the marriage remained to be finalised
and we were to confirm that within the next week.
Despite the hundreds of excuses I made to go to school the next
day, Ma did not let me, saying, ‘We have no time for school now. The
weight of a mountain has descended upon our shoulders.’We were
confronted by the innumerable problems that arose from my
bridegroom’s high status. Camouflaging our poverty was difficult

26
 STEPPING OUT

enough, competing with his standards was impossible.

Whatever money Ma had saved was to be spent on the wedding
and there would be nothing left for her to fall back on. The most
important as well as the most exorbitant expenditure was to be on
the gifts for PirSain’s family. His family was large and this amounted
to Ma spending far more on them than on my entire trousseau.
She fretted, ‘.Heer’s worth will be based on her dowry. A girl is
respected for what she brings from her father’s home.’
Although I had come to terms with that not being much, every
time Ma saw the small heap of my possessions piling up against the
wall her blood pressure dropped with embarrassment, which was
almost all the time.
The day Pir Sain’s family came to confirm the date of the wedding
they brought his photograph with them and a giggling young niece
whispered in my ear, ‘He sent it especially for you.’ Soon, I began
to spend much time looking at it. Although Pir Sain looked handsome
in the photograph, I wondered why this was not the impression he
left with me when we had met.
I also wondered how his two wives had died.
A few days later, Pir Sain arrived unannounced at our doorstep
and Ma became hysterical. Through the keyhole in my room, I saw
my fiance standing straight and tall like a tree. A starched black
turban fanned out above his head.
Black kohl rimmed his eyes. I thought I saw a strange light flicker
on and off in his pupils, and his eyeballs move, flicking ominously.
I noticed frown lines, deep vertical slashes between thick black
eyebrows.
An aquiline nose began with a stutter.
His lips were barely visible. The rest of his face was covered with
black hair. There was no sign of happiness.
Meanwhile, Ma ran in and out of the kitchen, preparing refresh¬
ments for him and the dozen men who remained standing downstairs
because there was no appropriate place to seat them. By the time my
fiance left, poor Ma was exhausted.

27
 BLASPHEMY

‘Press my shoulders,’ she demanded. ‘If your father were alive,

I would not have had to bear this burden alone. O God! How I need
your father to deal with this, how well he would have managed.’
I liked my future husband better when I heard that he had kissed
my sisters on their foreheads and had joked with Bhai. Although
they said his humour was dry, I tried to like his solemnity, for I knew
I had to like him for something. When everyone began to tease me
by saying, ‘In a month you will become a princess,’ I found an
excuse to forget his stern demeanour altogether.
Seven days before the wedding, my friends and family gathered
around me to perform the beautification ritual of maiyon. Despite
it being a luxury, they scrubbed me with ubtan, a mixture of crushed
almonds, turmeric powder, rose water, and milk. The paste was
rubbed into my body until it dried and was rolled off, leaving my
skin smoother. Another paste was applied to my face, rinsed off with
milk, and I was fairer. From then until the wedding, every evening,
all the young girls I knew sat around the dholki and sang wedding
songs while I squatted on the floor and squirmed.
There was no mention of Ranjha when Chandi came to join us.
She seemed as happy about this bridegroom as she had been about
the one she had proposed.
Joking and laughing at the turn our life had suddenly taken, every
morning Chitki massaged my head while Nanni held up a saucer of
oil for her. The source of the most spontaneous laughter was Ma,
who was already behaving like somebody important. The rest of the
time we made snide remarks about all the people who had belittled
us in the past because of our poverty.
Of course Ma was correct to feel important. Relatives who were
better off than us had always treated us with contempt and indiffer¬
ence. Now they were trumpeting their close blood ties to us. My
arrogant paternal aunt whose husband owned a flourmill expressed
great concern over my trousseau and added a set of gold jewellery
to it, saying, ‘My brother’s honour must be upheld at all cost.’
We were no longer discarded relatives. They looked at me with un-

28
 STEPPING OUT

concealed envy and even whispered their secret recipes into my ears,
saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone else. This is especially for our princess.’
It was such a contrast from their previous behaviour that I could
not help appreciating Ma’s wisdom.
‘Don’t exert yourself,’ said my rich cousins jumping up at my
every move, ‘you are our guest now. We will do all the work.’
When Baba died, they had come to his funeral like guests and left
hurriedly. They had even forgotten to call us to their marriages. As
my future husband was also becoming handsome in my imagination,
wherever I turned to look, luck seemed to be smiling back at me.
The old lady who had taken up the vocation of a marriage agent,
now came to congratulate us. As she had always extracted more
money from my desperate mother by telling her, ‘The boy’s family
won’t agree easily, i have to work very hard to make them want to
marry a son into a poor family,’ Ma got her own back by saying, ‘I
will get the best proposals for my other daughters without any help
from you. I have a son-in-law whom Allah has sent me for free.’ We
were sure the old lady would claim credit for arranging my marriage
and Ma laughed, ‘Our good luck will ensure her many more clients.
When the bridegroom forbade us from visiting his village for the
henna ceremony, we were disappointed butcomplied with his wishes.
Instead, dozens of shrouded women from Pir Sain’s family arrived
at our doorstep. Trays of henna decorated with flickering candles
floated in behind them, and large cane baskets of sweetmeat and
suitcases wrapped in velvet carried by servant girls on their heads.
Our terrace filled with white shuttlecock burqas, removed only
when there was no risk of a male presence. Even Bhai was not
allowed to enter.
I was taken into the centre of the terrace and seated on a low
peerah. Peeping from under a heavily embroidered red dupatta, I
realised that I had never seen so many clothes and so much jewellery
before. Immediately, I understood that although material gain made
us superior to our own clan, we were still infinitely inferior to his.
I whispered in Ma’s ear, ‘You won’t have to make any dowry for

29
 BLASPHEMY

my sisters. They can share all my new things.’ Ma kissed my head

and mumbled, ‘I know, I know.’
As it is customary to display the bride’s dowry during the henna
ceremony, Ma, in an attempt to make mine look larger than it was,
spread it out all over the room. When the guests were ushered in to
see it, Chitki ran to me, ‘They are looking at it for too long, apa. Ma
is praying for Allah to delude them into seeing double.’When Pir
Sain’s family finally walked out without comment, Ma was relieved
even at that and remarkedr ‘They are generous people because their
stomachs are full.’
The women of my future husband’s family did not sing or dance,
they were permitted that only in their own homes. Here, their family
marasans sang to the beat of the dholki, while the women threw
crisp notes of money at them. Married women picked handfuls of
mixed dry fruits and put them on my lap. No widow or spinster was
permitted to participate in this fertility rite. Standing in front of me,
Pir Sain’s sister chanted prayers, blew her sacred breath on a needle
trailing green thread, and ran it deftly through my pierced nose.
When she knotted it, I flinched, for now I was branded.
Another sister placed a five hundred rupee note under my heel.
When I stood up to return to my room, she gave the money to the old
barber’s wife. I heard somebody behind me explain, ‘Women from
the barber’s clan deliver marriage invitations and receive all the
money showered on the bride to ward off the evil eye.’
The days leading to the wedding were consumed by anxiety over
the standard of the impending feast.
‘Slaughter only young goats, they are more costly, but worth their
price. And cook everything in pure butter oil, otherwise I will lose
face,’ instructed Ma.
Despite the fact that our poverty was visible in everything, Ma
tried desperately to hide it. ‘Every almond in the qorma must be
tasted, or the curry will be bitter and ruin our name.’
As almonds were expensive, somebody suggested plain mutton
curry, but Ma would not hear of it and retorted, ‘Almonds were

30
 STEPPING OUT

cooked in foods prepared forkings. They will make up for the lack
of everything else.’
My dreams transcended these limitations. I would become mis¬
tress of my own home and carry ahusband’s name. In my world, that
was more precious to a woman than anything else she could achieve.
The last two days of my life at home were spent hugging and
kissing everyone. My family’s happiness at my good fortune was so
immense that I constantly fought back tears at leaving them behind
in their poverty.
My last night with them seemed like my last night on earth.
Everyone cried. Happiness and grief mingled. It was like entering
heaven but leaving the world.
Ma lectured me at every opportunity.
‘Uphold your father’s honour by showing good breeding. Always
remain subservient to your husband’s will. Never put yourself in a
position where you need to give explanations or make complaints.’
This did not seem difficult to follow and I promised repeatedly that
I would not fail her. We all cried at Baba’s absence.
Sleep evaded me that night. The more I worried about my face not
looking radiant for want of rest, the more alert I became. In those
moments I relived many childhood memories. Although we were
always poor, we had not felt deprived while Baba lived. Our desires
were limited because we interacted with people who possessed as
little as we did, or only a little more.
I remembered holding Baba’s hand tight, as the butcher chopped
the meat Ma would cook for our dinner. I remembered the colourful
fruit and vegetable stall where Baba carefully pressed everything he
bought to assess its readiness.
Holidays were almost always special. I smiled at the thought of
Bhai and myself tossing and turning all night in anticipation of the
fun Baba might let us have the morning after.
The happy memory of running in the park, cajoling Baba to pay
for at least one boat ride that always seemed to end too soon, now made
me sad. The funfair, the cinema, and the hundreds of crowded shops

31
 BLASPHEMY

that gave Ma the opportunity to achieve a bargain after hours of

haggling, also made me sad.
I thought of Baba and cried for him. I knew that if he were alive,
he would have liked me to go through college.
He used to say, ‘If Heer were born elsewhere, she would be
famous for her fine mind instead of her beauty.’ Baba was so proud
of my report cards from school that he always kept them in his
satchel to show them off to whoever he met.
We all loved each other. Bhai was everybody’s favourite, especially
mine. My eyes welled with tears at parting from him and I wondered
if I would get the same quality of love from my new family.
How would I adjust to their grandeur? I presumed I would have
nothing else to do but look pretty. My duties as a pir’s wife already
fascinated me. I had heard that anyone who came into my presence
would have to touch my feet.
I also thought about the age difference between the pir and 1.1 had
just turned fifteen and Pir Sain was thirty-six, it was rumoured he
was forty-four. When I imagined my husband alone with me, I
blushed.
I was drifting away... why was Ranjha flashing past?
Dawn ushered in a new life for me, one that I knew as little of as
when I had emerged from Ma’s womb. When a suitcase containing
my bridal outfit arrived from Pir Sain’s family, Ma gently placed it
upon her bed and everyone huddled together for a look. The muslin
bundle from the case unfolded to unanimous exclamations of
surprise. The outfit was so ordinary. Ma distracted us, ‘It is in the
tradition of a religious family. It is always simple like this.’
A flutter in my heart asked, will everything be as disappointing?
The arrangements for the reception kept my family occupied and
away from me. That evening, my little world was transformed into
a magical dream. The traditional red and yellow shamianas went
up. Fireworks crackled, coloured lightning burst in the sky, fairy
lights twinkled like fallen stars caught in the leaves of trees. I had
never seen such light, never imagined that all this could be for me.
Just before the baraat's arrival, I was bathed and perfumed. Little

32
 STEPPING OUT

Nanni, looking like afairytale princess in a shimmering pmkpeshwas,

loosely braided my long brown hair with small white chameli buds.
My aunt (of flourmill fame) rubbed ointments into my skin and
transformed me into an ivory carving, then she clapped her hands
and exclaimed, ‘ You are the most beautiful bride I have ever seen.’ In
the mirror I saw the diamond whites and amber centres of my eyes
shine like jewels on my face. Dull red cheekbones sprinkled with
gold dust swept above the slightest hollows. A ruby red mouth
smiled at the reflection.
‘Is this me?’ I asked in wonder.
Unlike the bright red silk frock hanging loose upon my slim and
tall frame, the white cotton chooriclar pyjama clung to my legs. The
bodice, heavy with multicoloured beads and big ugly sequins pulled
my shoulders down. Five gold necklaces pulled them down further.
A gold tikka in the centre of my forehead, a jhumar on its right, a
large nose ring of beaten gold beads, gold bangles and bracelets on
each arm, bejewelled fingers, and I was about to faint. My aunt gave
me water to drink.
I looked down at my painted toes and lifted a foot, heavy gold
anklets weighed it down. The nose ring, the anklets and the dozens
of bangles seemed like fetters to me. I was somewhere else while
someone was slipping high-heeled sandals on my feet.
The drums had been beating for ten minutes before Bhai rushed
in to tell me what a wonderful sight the baraat made.
‘They are dancing the bhangra to the beat of a dhol, in front of
a car covered with red flowers and tinsel, apa. The procession is so
long it will still take some time before all the guests get here.’
Trumpets and bugles ushered Pir Sain in.
Chitki, looking ethereal in silver brocade, swirled in like a wisp
of fresh air to inform me, ‘The courtyard looks like paradise with
people in grand clothes, everyone is wearing their very best, apa.'
To accommodate our guests, we had rented a plot of land behind
our house. We had also prepared a bathroom for the bridegroom to
change into the clothes we had made for him. This was not common. A
bridegroom came dressed, complete with asehra draping his forehe¬
ad. But not mine. Bhai rushed in again, ‘Pir Sain looks great in his

33
 BLASPHEMY

grand turban, but he has worn his own clothes instead of the ones we
made for him. He did not even take ours.’
When I asked, ‘Why?’ Bhai shrugged his shoulders, ‘You know
he does what he likes and gives no explanation.’
The room became crowded and hot.
The maulvi asked me if I accepted Pir Sahib of such and such and
such, son of so and so and so, as my husband.
Thrice I answered ‘yes’ from under my veil. A paper, a pen, a
signature, and I became Pir Sain’s wife.
Chitki, Nanni, and my cousins almost carried me down the narrow
stairway into the women’s shamiana. As soon as I was seated, women
and children ran and pushed and shoved to look at me, fighting and
arguing with each other, they took and retook the positions closest
to me, until, suddenly, a pin drop silence fell upon the crowd.
Pir Sain walked in.
When he sat beside me, my cousins and sisters stepped forward
to perform the traditional ritual of jooti chupai, which meant taking
his shoe off and not returning it until he gave them money. Not
daring to attempt this on him, they stepped back. Handing them a
bundle of notes for doing nothing, he left. The commotion resumed.
Again everyone pushed each other to sit or stand near me, unti 11 was
returned to my room. I hadn't lifted my head or seen a soul.
Ma, wearing her bridal outfit now altered to fit her new shape,
must have looked just like me on her wedding day. Now, she cried
for me like her mother must have cried for her.
‘Just as a fraction of a moment separates the past from the future,
childhood ends as you cross over your father’s threshold,’ she said.
Suddenly, I became aware of the uncertainty. I was afraid that as
the mystery unravelled, I might not want to stay married. Ma carried
on, ‘Sometimes it unravels slowly, sometimes quickly, in both cases
surely.’After more powdering and perfuming, a red muslin veil with
bright yellow block printed flowers was pulled over my head and
dropped right down to my knees. When they sat me down again I
knew this time would also draw to a close.

34
 STEPPING OUT

It was time to leave home.

The piercing, melancholic sound of the shehnai was such a
bittersweet cry of union and separation.
Chorh babul ka ghar rnohe pi ke nagar aaj jana parah were
words that overwhelmed me. They perpetuated the moment. My
eyes filled with tears.
‘You are not going alone, you are going with my prayers. They
will ensure your happiness,’ Ma said reassuringly.
But she was afraid for me; I saw it in her eyes.
Chitki and Nanni were losing their best friend.
Bhai cried as if he were losing everything.
It s eemed that until now nobody, not even I, had quite accepted the
finality of our parting. I was reminded of Baba’s funeral procession.
Clinging to each one of them, torn away from each, I passed
under the Quran and was bundled into a car. My head bowed, I could
see nothing from under the veil and presumed it was the car decorated
with red flowers and tinsel.
When Pir Sain sat beside me I stiffened.
The car moved.
I had to look back one last time and turned.
The fairy lights had been switched off... it was pitch black!
When I dropped my veil over my face it remained pitch black.
The car tilted left and right. Again and again.
The noisy city traffic began to sound distant.
The car raced into the future.
The landscape changed. My life changed.
My husband bent towards me and his words vibrated in the heavy
silence of an unending voyage. His flesh seemed to touch me despite
many layers of clothing.
‘Do not cry. Everything is good by the grace of Allah.’
I could not make out if it were a consolation or a command.
Suddenly I needed to go to the toilet. I just had to go. Remembering
my first day at school, I recognised the same fear of authority. Again
I needed permission to satisfy the most basic need.

35
 BLASPHEMY

Mercifully, the car finally came to a halt, but we remained seated

while a male voice shouted, ‘Purdah, purdah,’ to clear the way. At
last my sister-in-law clutched my arm and took me out of the car.
I thought we passed through a door. Female forms surrounded us.
Women congratulated her, touched my feet, and prayed for Pir Sain’s
happiness. They walked behind us, beside us, but never in front of us.
Under my feet, I felt soft earth until we passed through another
door. Now I felt a carpet underfoot. I was made to sit but my need
to go to the toilet overwhelmed me. Because Ma would have
disapproved, I tried to control my bladder for her sake until I realised
that this had nothing to do with her. Amid the din, I whispered to the
lady beside me, who to my utter embarrassment, shouted out loud
and graphic instructions. Women lifted me up by my elbows like an
invalid and carried me through the crowd. I passed through a door.
It shut upon me.
Afterwards, I looked into the mirror. Cleaning the kohl that had
run with my tears, I wondered how I had become so lovely. What
was the source of this light filtering from beneath my skin? The
impending intimacy with my husband suddenly made my heart
pound in my chest. When I opened the door, women almost picked
me up again and replaced me on the sofa.
The room was quiet.
Somebody whispered that my husband was present.
Someone else entered.
Pir Sain’s voice ordered me to stand and touch his mother’s right
foot with my right hand. I stood up and bent before Amma Sain, who
stopped me at her knee by applying pressure under my elbow until
I was upright again. She lifted my veil and tilted my chin. Through
my closed eyes I felt her examining my face, and heard her say,
‘May Allah bless your first steps into our home. May He give you
seven sons.’After I had repeated the entrance ritual, she departed
with everyone else.
I heard the bolt drop.
Under my dupatta, I could see nothing except my upturned palms.

36
 STEPPING OUT

Trying to distract myself from my husband’s presence, I searched

the intricate red web of henna stain for my fate line, so cleverly
trapped within the pattern.
Pir Sain sat beside me.
My heart tripped.
His hand crept under my veil and fumbled on my lap.
Lines and patterns disappeared when his hand covered mine, for
ever.

37
 /

.
 CHAPTER THREE

Stepping In
* tripped naked, I felt a mountain of flesh descend on me.
A fisherman, hopeful of profit and safety, had set out to
I sea on a bright day. Suddenly, clouds thickened and
collided. Black rain poured into the ocean. Thunder and
lightening drove the vast expanse of water wild. Its volume and
anger swelled. The noise up above was loud, the noise down below
even louder. The air was solid. There was no escape.
None.
With only the sheer will to be, I remained, alive, barely.
He had commenced our wedding night with an animal haste for
food and ended it satiated. The shrill ring of the early morning alarm
shrieked and I jumped up like a frightened bird.
Did I sleep that night or was it some kind of death? We had cel¬
ebrated it, my loved ones had joyfully sung and danced for it, I had
been beautified days ahead for it, enhanced in every possible way.
Why? To tempt like a sorceress and unleash upon myself this
madness, this cruelty?
It seemed evil now.
The preparation, the rituals, the ceremony and the slaughter. I
had been sacrificed to a god on earth. The contract had signed away
my life. Its terms were specified by our faith, sealed with social and
familial norms and this, our first night, had been its first dawn. Was
this repeated in every corner of the world over and over again? Had

39
 BLASPHEMY

this happened to Ma?

Under my breath, I was whimpering when he asked, ‘Do you say
your prayers?’
I cowered.
I was hurting and I was petrified.
Which was worse, I did not know.
I stuttered, ‘Sometimes,’ and felt ashamed at the confession.
‘There is no excuse for missing them. Bathe and wash your hair
after you have been to me. It is haraam to venture out in an unclean
state. Anything you touch will have to be washed if you do not
cleanse yourself,’ he ordered.
I staggered into the bathroom. Standing under the shower, I
stared as blood mixed with water, turned pink and collected under
my feet. Sobbing for Ma, I felt my aching body and caressed it for
what had happened to it.
‘Ma, my dearest Ma, do you know where you have sent me?’ I
howled. Washing and scrubbing in frenzy, I hated myself with mad¬
ness and loved myself with sadness.
The elaborate green brocade outfit laid out for me to wear no
longer looked beautiful. Jewels looked like stones. I dried and cried
and dressed and painted to emerge as a bride again.
He had left the room.
His sister walked in, removed the white bed sheet splattered with
proof of my virginity and walked out with it. Embarrassed, I sat
down to face a glass of milk, a fried egg, chicken curry and aparatha,
but could not eat.
I looked around the dark and deathly room and noticed that the
bed was like a wide grave. A high headboard rose like a tombstone.
Delicate carvings read like my epitaph. The carpet, intricately
woven with animal emblems, looked like a slaughterhouse. Red
sofas and chairs lined the walls. A table in front of them was heaped
with rose garlands, decomposing, like yesterday's dead things.
My sister-in-law barged in again.
‘Let’s go. Amma Sain is waiting for you,’ she said huddling me

40
 STEPPING IN

up and out like a bundle.

Walking was so painful that whenever my thighs scraped against
each other an unbearable current of agony darted through my body.
In the distance, I saw Amma Sain surrounded by women in colourful
clothes, sitting on charpais in a wide circle around the courtyard. In
the centre of the circle, hundreds of women wearing mud- coloured
rags were squatting on the floor.
My arrival was dramatic.
In a flash, all the women, rich and poor, ran to touch my feet, so
that by the time I reached my mother-in-law, I had already
experienced my new status.
Amma Sain received me with affection and sat me down beside
her. Sitting was impossible. I suffered in silence as marasans sang
wedding songs at the top of their voices to the beat of a dholki while
women seated on charpais threw money at them.
Amma Sain’s presence exuded power. Her voice was as command¬
ing as her towering height and broad shoulders. Her fair skin shone
and her wh ite hair gl i stened through a ch iff on vei 1. S he beckoned with
her hand, and, turn by turn, women came to gaze at my face, circle
my head with crisp notes, and pray for me to have seven sons. Every
time my head bowed too low, my husband’s sisters lifted it up again.
My eyes fell on an eagle-like woman standing in a doorway. She
was watching everyone as if it were her duty, as if everyone was
committing some crime. When one of the guests inquired about my
dowry and Amma Sain firmly silenced her, I was distracted from my
strange observation.
At last the women on the floor were permitted to rise.
Many hours passed before Pir Sain came in for lunch. Everybody
except the eagle-like woman dispersed. Amma Sain gestured to the
maids and an oblong table appeared, within minutes it was laden
with food. My husband sat beside me and lifted his hands in prayer
while I broke a small piece of bread and dipped it into the curry. His
glare was like gravity pulling my head down into my plate.
Why was he staring?

41
 BLASPHEMY

‘Wash your hands before you eat,’ he ordered, and I found myself
racing my heartbeat to the tap beside the boundary wall.
When the ordeal of lunch was over, he said, ‘Come inside,’and
fear replaced the relief of the morning. Head bowed, I followed, but
I wanted to go to Amma Sain, I wanted to go home to Ma, I wanted
to die. I wanted to be somewhere else but I was walking behind him
instead.
In the grip of a nightmare again, I could no longer distinguish
which part of my body was which.
Under him 1 winced, and wondered why if all women went through
this torture they still married off their daughters. No one had ever
discussed the subject in front of me but no one had looked terrorised
either. How did they recover from the madness?
Why did / never see this terror on Ma’s face?
He turned me over on my stomach and I stuffed the bed sheet into
my mouth to control a thousand screams. Pain ripped through me.
Every day of this and a whole week passed by.
I realised that my concept of love was wrong. It had been so diffe¬
rent. I had thought lovers talked to each other and laughed and sang
songs together like in the movies I had seen. Nothing I had read or
learnt in school was true. Poets, passion, and love letters were all false.
Liars, I cursed under my breath, they delude the young. The contrast
between what it should have been and what it was, was too stark.
Where could I run?
I ran inside myself to cry for Ma.
When my flourmill aunt’s daughter came to visit with her six-
year-old son, I was so happy that my face lit up despite the eagle¬
like woman’s sinister presence. With her arms folded over her
chest, her back humped and her head jutting forward, she looked
like a giant vulture ready to swoop down on me.
I realised she was everywhere I turned.
But when my cousin exclaimed, ‘You look so happy, Heer,’ my smile
disappeared. Recovering it quickly for Ma’s sake, I laughed superfi¬
cially and feigned excitement at the gifts she unwrapped for me.

42
 STEPPING IN

Thanking her profusely for the silk suit, the glass bangles and the
ashtray she had brought me, I hugged and kissed her.
Applying soap on my wrists, under the tap beside the boundary
wall, I was slipping on my new glass bangles when Pir Sain walked
in. My cousin and her son touched his feet, stood around
uncomfortably for a while, and left hurriedly. I was still staring
sadly at the door they had vanished through, when Pir Sain’s order
to put my hands on the table jolted me back.
In a flash they were there.
In another flash his hand went up in the air and came down on
them like an axe.
The bangles splintered and scattered. Sharp shards of glass cut
into my wrists. I heard a lion roar and registered fragments of a
sentence about my wretched family and presents.
My head was reeling. Welts blossomed crimson.
My first beating began in full view of everyone and ended inside.
I had also disobeyed Allah by not observing purdah from a male
whom I could marry. But he was only six years old. Why had Ma
not stopped the ashtray from reaching me? Surely, she must have
known the implications of such a liberal present.
Crying under the shower, I remembered Ma’s fear when Baba
lost his temper. The old cleaning woman at home would also
complain of frequent beatings and Ma would ask Baba to scold her
husband. It never mattered that he, too, was guilty of the act.
Ma would promptly defend her own husband with a hundred ex¬
cuses—‘Employment frustrations, financial worries... social
pressures, and misunderstandings trigger off his outbursts.’ But she
always cried out to Allah against his temper.
Nobody hated Baba for it. We felt he only used the privileges
given him by God for having been born a man. He had often said,
‘To protect your honour, you are entitled to exercise authority.’ But
my parents also talked and laughed and joked with each other. Why
was that not happening to me ?
The bangles left scars upon my wrists.

43
 BLASPHEMY

More than that, fear of Pir Sain became ingrained somewhere

deeper. I never dared glimpse at him again, not even when he was
not looking. I only knew his hands were large and square like his
shoulders, but that his fingers were tapered. Signet rings of stones
engraved with holy verses left only his thumbs free. On one wrist he
wore a bronze band engraved with a prayer, on the other, a compli¬
cated watch. In one hand, he carried a white cotton handkerchief,
changed along with everything else in the evening. In the other
hand, dangled prayer beads made from sacred earth. It was said that
on the day of mourning the beads bled. He moved them constantly.
When he was angry he moved them faster, reading the most obscene
abuse and the vilest threats on to them. He would put them down
only at night or when he was beating someone or eating.
Over a starched white shalwcirkcimeez, he always draped a green
c/iarWarembroideredwiththeninety-ninenamesofAllahon his sho¬
ulders. In winter, he wore a woollen shawl under it. Amulets dating
from his forefathers’ time, mounted in silver and strung in black thr¬
ead, were tied around his arms and hung around his neck. Leather shoes
curled up into thin sharp points and looked tight over his white socks.
The musk he sprinkled all over himself was especially prepared
for him. He never changed it. It announced his arrival long before
he appeared and lingered long after he had departed.
Everything smelt of him.
His sinister persona escalated the moment he placed a big black
turban on his head, like a daily crowning of the same king. His back
was so straight that he looked taller than his height, almost as if he
were nearer God than others. He walked so slowly that I could not
imagine him rushing for any reason.
His old nanny, Dai, cleaned the room we shared. Nobody else
could enter it except with his permission.
The drapes were never drawn aside. The windows were never
opened. It was always dark. There was no sign of day. The lights
came on as soon as the early morning alarm shrieked.
Here, it was always night.

44
 STEPPING IN

The discipline of my husband’s timings could be set to a watch.

He would leave the room not a moment later than a time determined
decades ago. At break of dawn, he was out. Back for lunch, in bed
with me, and Pir Sain re-emerged in the courtyard an hour before the
sun set. Outside he drank a cup of tea with supplicants, dined with
the men and returned for me. By midnight, he was snoring.
The world could not penetrate hell.
The walls rose high into the sky and enclosed the square space
I was doomed to inhabit. Along the boundary wall surrounding the
compound was a barren flowerbed, in its centre a tree had broken
out of solid concrete and spread itself in the air. I heard that although
three earlier pirs had tried to uproot it, the tree grew back as nature’s
symbol of resistance to human authority.
There were no openings to the outside except the entrance door and
that, too, was screened from view by a short brick wall. The master’s
chambers, Amma Sain’s quarters, and two empty rooms opened on to
a covered verandah at the far end of the main square. Running along
the left of the courtyard was the kitchen covered with net meshing
under a thatched roof. Store rooms and many empty rooms opened on
to another square courtyard on the far right. The back door was bolted.
The side door led directly to the graves and nowhere else.
I began to circle the mud-plastered square.
Repeating, insisting, and confirming:
'My world is round like God made it. I’ll make it round like
everyone else’s.’
Circle after circle, every day, until I felt my legs moved like the
two hands of a clock.
Like the passage of time.
Soon enough, I had become the second mistress of the Haveli; the
first would always be Amma Sain. Her orders were superseded by
no one other than my husband, which was never necessary. All her
instructions were with his wishes in mind.
She told me, ‘When a woman becomes a widow, her son inherits
her husband’s position. Now you are to reign here and I am to guide

45
 BLASPHEMY

you. A husband likes to see his wife’s efficiency, not his mother's.'
I thought of my own mother’s paranoia. It seemed to be a universal
problem. A woman’s position always depended on a man, whether
she was rich or poor did not matter. She always went from father
to husband to son, and I was at the second stage of this journey.
AmmaSain instructed me to remain in the kitchen until breakfast
was served. Every morning I emerged from my room to find the
eagle-like woman waiting for me, and her whole day passed by
without shifting the weight of her body from one foot to the other.
Without shutting her eyes, or vanishing from before mine, she was
still exactly in the same position when I retired for the night.
My morning duty entailed supervising khaas breakfast trays for
five or ten privileged guests. A fried egg, two parcithcis, meat or
chicken curry and tea were served in bone china on a tray cloth. The
demand for aam trays was always more. Sixty to seventy trays
without tray cloths and only one boiled egg, one chapaati, and a cup
of tea were served to the common people.
A woman at the short brick wall that shielded the entrance door
activated an unbroken human chain to the kitchen and back. ‘Two
khaas, ten aam' she shouted at the top of her voice, and a maid
standing in the centre of the courtyard yelled the order out again.
Another one repeated it at the kitchen door from where two women,
laden with one tray over another, ran out. Behind the entrance door,
men grabbed the trays and another man relayed another order.
Although the maids bickered and fought like merchants in city
wholesale markets, this time of the day was more peaceful than the
dreadful silence which descended upon everyone in my husband’s
presence. I fell into the established order but began to dread the mo¬
notony just as much as the unpredictability of it all. Everything here
was permanent, nothing could be changed. They did not require
new methods, they just needed another person to ensure continuity.
Several months went by sitting on the same low stool, until the
shrill, high-pitched voices of the maidservants began to burst through
my head, and the ache in my sore back would not let me be still.

46
 STEPPING IN

Exhausted by it all, I left the kitchen to cool my body under the shower.
The eagle-like woman called Cheel followed at my heels with
her eyes.
I was braiding my hair when Pir Sain unexpectedly walked in.
‘You were absent from your place of duty,’ he said.
I stammered, ‘I felt very hot, sain. I needed to bathe, sain.’
Gripping my arm he pulled me into the courtyard and pushed me
down. He kicked until I stood up. He pushed until I fell. Pushed
and kicked, I reached the kitchen door.
‘Knead the dough and prepare the meal for lunch and dinner.
Boil the milk and prepare tomorrow’s breakfast, without any
assistance,’ he commanded.
Two maids kept watch over me. At sunset, two others replaced
them. Cheel’s presence was constant.
Humiliation weighed me down. Those who touched my feet
every day now walked past my punishment chamber mockingly. So
many truths dawned, so many dreams shattered, and so many old
ideas vanished. Streams of tears ran down my sore cheeks. I was
thinking of Ma, whose womb I longed to curl up in for safety.
Where had she gone?
Why had she not come to see me?
Why had she not even written?
I called out to Bhai to save me, and reached out in desperation to
Baba. Spirits were everywhere, Baba’s might be right here beside
me. I called out to him, ‘Save me Baba. Please, save me from him.’
The anxiety of preparing a meal of such proportions at such speed
pervaded. Lunch was over. Dinner was also over. Tonight, Pir Sain
was not feasting on me; I was happy about that, then sad again.
Why had Ma not written?
Why had she not come to see me?
Many months ago, I had asked Amma Sain, ‘When can I send a
message for my mother to,come and see me?’
‘When you have settled down your husband will send it,’ she had
replied.

47
 BLASPHEMY

I had asked her repeatedly, ‘Can you speak to him about my

mother now?’
‘Certainly not,’ she had snapped back, ‘your husband will decide
when to let her come.'
The kitchen was hot, the loneliness complete. There seemed
nothing left for me to expect from life and yet it had just begun. Was
this to last for ever? Yes, yes, I cried to myself, kneading a tonne of
dough for tomorrow’s breakfast. Everything confirmed that this
was for ever and not just another night that had passed.
I withdrew from the kitchen for morning prayers and returned to
it in a hurry. He would soon be up, expecting perfection. My
punishment reflected his mood. Silence clung like the risk of death.
Suddenly, I felt him behind me.
When he spoke, I jumped up as if electrocuted, ‘No help will be
provided today. No mistake will be permitted.’
The demand of khaas and aam trays began. At no other time had
I felt the inadequacy of having just two hands. I was racing against
time. Pouring tea with a mug, curry with a ladle, making pcirathas,
burning my hands; frying eggs, or pulling them out of boiling water,
scorching my fingers, and shrieking. Nothing must turn cold,
everything must be fresh and hot and delicious.
Was he tasting everything?
Could I, perhaps, get away with one mistake?
No, no, it was not permitted.
Overhead, the sun climbed the sky and like the fire burning beneath
my face, melted me from up above. Was this hell? Was he entrusted
by God to lift me from a dirty alley, raise me to supremacy and reduce
me to an insect? Was he God? Unpredictable and unaccountable?
The day finally came to an end.
Pir Sain summoned me.
When I entered his room he pulled a face. Another sin? The
stench disgusted him. I stiffened because although I had an
explanation, I could not give it. When he said, ‘Never mind,’ gratitude
overwhelmed me. Today, God was benevolent, merciful, and kind.

48
 STEPPING IN

But his advance triggered off the same shivers as the first night,
thank heaven for the musk that dimmed my senses. Buried in a
thick, black forest where I could not breathe, time stopped.
Decomposing rot rose like vomit from within him. He was getting
up, I was being released, and yet I was trapped.
Even the maids were luckier than me for they could go home.
The five female cats that looked as imprisoned as me were also
luckier for they were able to slink away from Pir Sain’s path and
disappear like I never could. The children got them instead of him.
Pulling them by their tails, they raced around the courtyard to make
up for the lack of any toys to play with. I was shocked when I
discovered that there had never been a tomcat among them.
Dai laughed at my observation and to my horror, informed me,
‘The last time I saw a billa daring to sneak down the chimney into
the women’s quarters, he was set ablaze in the fireplace. The billa
was reduced to ashes and swept into a plastic pan with the burnt
wood that was scattered over dirty toilet holes.’
Although women were a majority in the Haveli, the dictum that
two women were equivalent to one man cut our numbers down to
half. That was further reduced for a thousand other reasons until we
became just a naught.
Amma Sain had made it clear to me that the mistress of the house
kept her distance from the other women, for the master strongly
disapproved of any kind of familiarity between them. The maids,
however, could talk and bicker among themselves. It was their
lowly position that allowed them to do so.
Amma Sain was to be my role model, which left me with nobody
to talk to. News filtered into the Haveli and buzzed around with the
countless flies that arrived at dawn. As I could discuss nothing,
everything churned endlessly in my mind where there were no
restrictions and prohibitions.
I learnt that Pir Sain’s first wife had died of a weak heart that
collapsed in the middle of her wedding night. The second wife lived
to see the day, but come dusk, she had a nervous fit that she seemed

49
 BLASPHEMY

to not want to come out of. Two days later she shuddered and
trembled to death. I also heard that my husband had not wished to
remarry until he saw me under my desperate mother’s wing.
Were there no other women between his wives and me? Was this
just another question on my lips that was destined to buzz forever
in my head... a vault entirely mine? The freedom to think anything
in an environment that allowed nothing came as a surprise that soon
twisted into a jumble of frustrations.
Thoughts without expression fragmented.
New ones piled on old ones and the heap in my head weighed on
my tongue. I became speechless. When many silences passed, I
could feel the strain of carrying paralysed words in my mouth.
Stories of faceless men were also common among the women.
The most regular one was about which village boy had been beaten
for sodomy that day. I was surprised to know that this crime instigated
sharp curses and loud abuses, whereas whenever a gang of boy s tied
up a donkey kicking and braying in protest while boy after boy raped
her in the fields, everyone exclaimed and laughed and made a light
mockery of the perversion.
I went around saying tauba, tauba under my breath.
Amma Sain warned me, ‘You cannot trust anyone here. There is
no one who will not inform Pir Sain of your actions. And I will keep
a watch over you myself.’
My mother-in-law’s spies reported everyone’s slightest error or
mishap to her. She would summon the accused and enforce the
punishment. She said to me, ‘This way every wrong is nipped in the
bud. Only serious matters should be brought to my son’s notice.’
All my failings were serious.
She would conceal nothing concerning me from him and
explained, ‘You are his wife and he will handle his affairs himself.
If you keep his wishes foremost in your mind, you will become
exactly as he wants you to be.’
In a world where there was no friend, there was also no charity.
The maids became my enemies.

50
 STEPPING IN

This was circumstantial, for although we shared the same

adversity, we were not companions in it. Survival meant avoiding
the master’s wrath. Everybody’s loyalty was only to him.
Especially Cheel’s.
She remained aloof and motionless in some shadow, with no
other duty except to watch every move in the courtyard. She talked
to no one, not even to Amma Sain. Her presence was likened to the
dead who would not speak except on Judgement Day.
Before Pir Sain she said all.
When it was time for him to return home, she would take her posi¬
tion by the brick wall shielding the entrance door and as soon as he
stepped in, her lips began to move. Invariably a massacre followed.
I realised that the suppressed derived strength from suppressing
others. It helped them to accept their own imprisonment and was
an easy occupation for the trapped.
For safety, I withdrew further into myself.
But everyday activities were a potent source for violence even when
every caution was taken to avoid the slightest mistake. My husband
would be told of matters that did not concern him at all. Everything
simple was twisted and converted into an issue. Lies were fabricated,
mischief and intrigue were rampant. Anything trivial, like spilling
mi lk, a stain on his clothes, something missing when he needed it, over¬
cooked vegetables, undercooked meat, were offences.
More than the fear of the actual pain was the terror of the anticipa¬
tion. A storm would brew and thicken. Tight bundles of chharris,
the thin wet branches of the khajji, or date tree, were brought in. As
the string that held them together was undone, the culprit often
passed out from fear, until, panting and gasping for breath, she
would come up in waves of madness.
The unpredictability of the direction in which events would pro¬
ceed kept everyone on edge.
Although promiscuous women were commonplace and sex was
rampant, the activity was not to be tolerated. Many evenings began
with the report of a trivial error and ended up conducting moral discipline.

51
 BLASPHEMY

Pir Sain’s black eyes, flicking with strange lights, bulged out:
‘Tell me all before I hang you upside down and peel your skin off,’
he threatened, and one woman led another into the massacre. The
swish of the chharri made them blurt out everything they knew, or
remembered: ‘Moti, the fat one is having an affair with her husband’s
nephew, sain. Her husband found out and beat her, sain.'
Jumping up and down to the chharri’s sting, desperate to gain Pir
Sain’s favour and divert his anger towards Moti, the one in trouble
would say, ‘She couldn’t care less, sain. She plans to run away with
him. I had nothing to do with it, sain. I swear by Allah and his
Prophet.’ Another blistering lash and, ‘I know who pimped for her.
Forgive me for knowing, sain.'
Then the one who had pimped would be brought in.
Trembling like a leaf, the victim immediately converted into a
witness. ‘I am not the only one, sain. Sukki, the thin girl at the
tandoor helps Moti to sleep with every man in your service.’
Both girls would be dragged in and praying for mercy, they would
end up begging for death if it ended the pain.
Amma Sain had informed me, ‘Unintelligent violence makes the
culprit resilient, stubborn, and fearless. My son’s actions are correc¬
tive.’
He was a genius at inventing new methods of reform. Although
I realised that there was no way on earth to avoid his wrath, I compro¬
mised myself even further. Everybody held on to the hope that he
might feel sorry for the victim. That never happened.
When I became pregnant, nothing changed for me, except that
my bearing became heavier, the risk of violence more frightening,
and my duties even more unbearable. Around me, there was only
one prayer from every mouth, when so many were needed. ‘Allah
grant a son to the master and six more after thi s one,’ they said every
time I passed by.
One day, amid the sadness in my heart and the madness in my life,
a girl I had not seen before sauntered into the kitchen. She collected
the dirty dishes, looked up at me and laughed, but without laughing.

52
 STEPPING IN

She winked, as if to say, ‘I’ll be done before you blink your eye,’
and although nobody heard her, I did.
They called her Kaali because of her dark skin. When Amma
Sain made her the cook’s help, she proved herself so efficient that
soon she was required for everything, and although I hated my
supervisory duties, I found myself rushing out to be with her.
Nor did I pine for Ma.
Electric sparks flew every time we stood together. Kaali’s doe
eyes danced. Fireworks burst instead of smiles. Hair fell untidily
over her cheek and a long plait swayed from side to side like a
serpent down her back. Kaali’s reflexes were mercurial. There was
no caution in her actions and no restraint in her reactions.
When Amma Sain involved her with something else, I hated the
old woman but when I heard Kaali’s laughter from far away, the
tinkling sound of bells in her throat momentarily drowned out the
wailing inside me.
Work turned into play.
Kaali played it like a sweet-sounding instrument.
She was poor but rich.
I was rich but poor.
Kaali was what I longed to be.
Realising that all the things that touched us reflected in our eyes,
Kaali and I began to communicate through them, even under Cheel’s
constant watch. When I looked at Kaali as if to ask, ‘You stay to be
near me?’ She cocked up her eyebrows in response: ‘What better
occupation than that?’
I laughed, ‘He’ll know,’and panicked at the thought of him. She
reassured me, ‘A man who cannot enter your heart, cannot enter
your eyes,’ and I sighed with relief.
Sometimes Kaali looked at my grand clothes in a way that made
me want to give them to her there and then. But she deterred me
from the impossible by fanning her arms out, and up and down, as
if to say, ‘You are the peacock. I am just a dull brown peahen.’
We had mastered the language of chores to such perfection that

53
 BLASPHEMY

when I churned the ladle in the cauldron faster and louder I was sure
she understood what I said and Cheel understood nothing.
Every time Kaali had to leave for another chore I would wait for
her to return, then frown at her for being late. If her mood were bad,
she would just pile the dishes on top of her head and walk off without
a care. When she would decide to make up with me, I would become
inconsolable and refuse to thaw until Kaali stacked pots over pans
and kicked the pile so that they crashed noisily and forced my
attention. Summoned to Amma Sain’s chamber and slapped for
misbehaviour, she would be back with me, sulking and holding me
responsible for her suffering.
We even managed to play.
Once, she was filling a pail of water under the tap as I walked by. My
eyes lingering on the flowing water, I thought, ‘Is there no river running
through this village? A place where we can bathe and play?’
In answer, Kaali emptied the pail over a maid’s head. Doubling
up with laughter, she tried to convince the yelling woman, ‘It’s hot.
You are bathing in the river.’ I was laughing too, until Kaali was
dragged off to Amma Sain again. That afternoon my husband beat
her. Despite it she managed to catch my eye and say, ‘Was it not the
only way to bring the river to you?’
Kaali disappeared from my prison.
A week later, 1 heard she was married off to a mureed whose
father swept the Shrine. News spread that her husband was impotent.
Although I knew Kaali would miss nothing by her husband’s inability
to perform, I was angry when women said, ‘No man in the area will
be safe with the black bitch on the prowl.’
I reported them to Amma Sain, who snubbed me, ‘It is an equal
relationship. You can’t expect them to respect her.’
I missed Kaali so much that I hated everyone else with a passion.
Especially Cheel, who seemed to know the deep pain I suffered
from the separation.
I had survived these vultures despite my husband, and yet I began
to feel obliged that he chose me instead of them. My struggle was with

54
 STEPPING IN

the maids. As intimacy with Pir Sain was the only area they could
not compete with me, being his wife was the only reason I was saved
from total annihilation.
Amma Sain had told me, ‘When a wife has secured a hold over
her husband’s bed, she can use it on everyone. It’s an art.’
Oppressed women mastered and excelled in this art; so too had
Amma Sain. It was whispered that she had catered to her husband’s
needs like a professional seductress whose enticing powers used in
the dark of night converted into administrative ones in the day.
Amma Sain confirmed the rumour when she said, ‘All women
know that nothing except sex can hold a man, and yet most fail in
keeping him.’
Realising that Pir Sain’s deathly silence would never let him be¬
come vulnerable to me, I mustered the courage to say, ‘But my hus¬
band speaks of nothing to me.’
Amma Sain brushed the complaint aside, ‘His manner is according
to his position. He is not an ordinary man. He can’t be chattering like
the common folk. You have to involve him with actions, not words.’
It seemed impossible to exploit a bed in which I was reduced to
nothing. But even the privilege of being there was a crack in my
grave, and with Kaali gone I was desperate to widen it as a threat to
those who mocked her. Holding my head high, sneaking glances at
my enemies, stretching my lips into a smile, I followed Pir Sain into
the bedroom. But once the door was shut behind me, I kept my head
bowed and my hands clasped in my lap. When he advanced towards
me, I squeezed my eyes shut to at least avoid their witnessing another
slaughter.
One afternoon, I was on my prayer mat when I heard, ‘Kaali, Kaali,’
and stopped praying to listen. A maid shouted, ‘How many times does
he do it to you, Kaali? You look like a squeezed lemon,’ and another
one yelled above the din Kaali’s presence had created, ‘You look like
a wet cloth, wrung dry.’ Their laughter made me want to cry. I knew
she had returned only for me and rushed to the door. As she came closer,
the women surrounding her faded into the background.

55
 BLASPHEMY

Kaali’s eyes were as dead as mine.

She noticed the look on my face and laughed, but about nothing. The
laughter that had once gushed forth for the slightest reason and from
endless depths was replaced by an expression I recognised. If her
husband was impotent, why did she look so terrorised? Her silence
screamed so loud that it filled all the emptiness in my life. She was
gaunt and thin. Her hair was straggly, her skin dry and craggy. She
limped. Her feet dragged. Her taut posture fell as if gravity pulled at it.
Every day, she came at midday and left at sunset.
Every day, her eyes drooped further down, until she would not lift
them at all.
The maids never stopped mocking her. Kaali no longer reacted.
With their hands on their hips and their feet apart, they sniggered
together, ‘So who is in your bed these days, Kaali?’ One of them
exclaimed, ‘Thank God, my husband is locked up in prison,’ and the
others pretended to worry and fret about theirs.
Everyone seemed to know her problem and yet it never reached
me. I tried listening to everything everywhere, but Kaali’s secret
would not unravel to me. All I knew was that Kaali’s father-in-law
had been washing the graves at the Shrine since he was orphaned as
a child, which accounted for his close association with my husband.
No matter how much I tried to make Kaali respond to my unspo¬
ken questions, she would not. What has happened in your life, my
eyes asked. She gave no answer.
One day, she appeared with a black eye, on the next day she had
two. All day I avoided spies and gestured, ‘Who did it?’Every time
she turned her head away. In the hope that she might speak, I even
looked at her daringly for Cheel to see, but Kaali just covered her
face with a pile of dirty laundry and walked away.
I had tried to transcend my spirit and live in hers, now Kaali’s was
also fading out like mine.
One afternoon, oblivious of Cheel and all the eyes that always
watched me, I walked up to Kaali slouched under the tree. For the first
time,Ispoke to herinmy own voice, ‘Tell me your problem. I will ask

56
 STEPPING IN

Pir Sain to help you.’

Kaali froze at his mention.
So did I.
Eyes were burning us down.
Cheel was staring in disbelief.
Kaali walked away.
Torn out of a trance, I moved off in another direction.
After that, the women made Kaali’s life even more miserable.
Their remarks grew vicious and their allegations harsh. They changed
her name to kaali kuttee, black bitch.
Does Amma Sain know I spoke to her, I wondered. Will Cheel
tell him? Amma Sain had already reprimanded me. ‘A cheap girl
should not concern you. Your husband will not overlook it.’
But nothing happened, and so, on another day, when Kaali’s eyes
were focussed on a point beyond the sky, I was again drawn away
from everything else and promised her, ‘I won’t disclose anything
to my husband. Please tell me your problem quickly.’
Her few words splintered my heart into a thousand shards.
I drew her into my arms and held her to my breast. Where her
head rested, my shirt became wet. Kaali’s hell was more horrific
than mine. Women stared from everywhere. Cheel was about to swoop
down on us. Hurriedly, we parted, and scurried off to different chores.
Night fell, morning came, and one day swept away another until
many days passed. I kept shuddering at the thought of the next massa¬
cre, but again nothing happened. Why has he not been told? Or has
hel I worried and shivered with fright. How could he not know about
Kaali and me when he knew everything? Why was he not reacting?
Cheel could not have said nothing.
The combination of this fear and Kaali’s story burned in my eyes
and kept me wide awake beside the monster snoring in my bed.
Again Kaali disappeared.
They said that she was ill, then that she was pregnant. ‘Whose
child is it?’ they wanted to know/Not an angel’s. Angels don’t
come down for that.’ They mocked and laughed and sniggered

57
 BLASPHEMY

while I burned inside.

I began to cry for Ma again.
She had still not written, or had she? I was so scared of Kaali’s
story that I became desperate for Ma’s comfort.
He said to me himself, ‘I will send for your mother.’
Did Amma Sain tell him or did he read my mind, I wondered.
When many weeks passed without any news of Ma, I took courage
from the idea that he might have forgotten his own words and
reminded him.
‘I will send for her,’ he repeated.
Another month passed.
Why was nothing happening? Should I ask again or not? It had
been difficult enough the first time, more difficult each time.
His method was torturous.
He was choking me.
The thought that here I was not even meant to inquire, made me
asthmatic. When I mustered the courage to ask again, he replied, ‘I
will send for her,’and it dawned upon me that he was playing a game.
He put me at ease, then drove me crazy.
The pain of Kaali’s torment mingled with Ma’s gnawing absence
and the wound in my heart became an abscess.
Every morning I opened my cupboards and felt a souring hatred
for the stacks of clothes over clothes over more clothes. But it was
ordered that they be worn. All day long they nagged me with the
reminder that Ma had sold me for them, and that made me miss
Kaali even more, for I longed for her to have them.

58
 CHAPTER FOUR

r Jahanum
he stray dogs that lived outside our Shrine scrounged
around for food, with their tongues hanging out all
day. Littered like beggars in alleys, they were hated by
people who slept in the same conditions as them, and
were kicked from the time they rose to the time they slept again.
Homeless men were kicked out of the Shrine like dogs were
kicked out of the alley.
Displaced for a few moments, they would slink back and settle
into their old positions. Intoxicated with opium, hashish or heroin,
they sat and ate andsleptall over the sprawling courtyard surrounding
the Shrine, or else they begged for alms from everyone who entered
or left through the main gate.
Pir Sain’s bitch had borne a litter, but she was as different from
her species as her master was different from his. She was descended
from the one he had owned as a child, and the animal’s lineage was
maintained like our own pedigree.
Since most things that had survived the blistering heat lost resil¬
ience and died in the cold, my husband settled the new litter in a
warm room behind the store. Every evening before retiring for the
day he inspected each puppy. He even held and cuddled them. From
behind a window, lights off and curtain lifted, I peeped at him and
wondered why he had never softened towards me or overlooked my
errors. I was baffled by the source that produced this caring for an

59
 BLASPHEMY

animal and nothing but contempt for me.

Dai, the nanny who had raised my husband, was now too old to
do anything else. With ample time to waste, she began telling me
the ‘safe’ family fables. As Cheel was always watching from some
shadow, I asked Dai, ‘Will she not tell on you?’
Dai brushed her aside, ‘She has other things to report. I am not
of any relevance. My stories bother no one. Least of all the master.’
Rubbing my swollen feet with oil, or pressing away the constant
ache in my back from the growing weight of my pregnant belly, she
dared only to tell them in my ear.
‘When Pir Sain was a child, he loved stray dogs,’ she whispered.
‘But dogs are paleet, and so he was not allowed to play with them.
His father, Pir Sain the eighth, felt that his heir was unfit to assist him
with the business unless he abandoned his childish passion.’
Pulling away, looking around, Dai returned to whisper in my ear,
‘In the hope that he might rise to his father’s expectations, Amma
Sain beat the child mercilessly. But the boy was caught playing with
the dogs over and over again until his father decided to teach him a
lesson.’
Dai refused to say anymore. I had to goad and beg her for days
before she summoned the courage to complete the story.
One day she drew me away from under Cheel’s hooded eyes and
said, ‘The child was locked in adark and airless room with seventeen
stray dogs for three days and three nights.’
I gasped in shock.
It was a revelation. The root from which the plant had grown ex¬
plained the torment that gripped our household.
Even when my husband inherited supreme authority, it took him
years to contravene his father’s prohibition. Thereafter, he always
displayed uncommon emotion at the sight of a perfectly pedigreed
animal and participated with deep interest in discussions about which
dog to mate with which bitch.
To keep my mind off the hundreds of reasons I imagined for Ma
neither writing nor visiting me these past eight months, I tried to dis-

60
 JAHANUM

tract myself by following Dai around whenever I could. An endless

stream of hurried questions and answers flowed between us as she
added new stories to old ones in a disjointed collage.
The tales of other feudal gods fascinated me more than the gossip
that dropped into my ears while circulating among the maids in our
Haveli.
Dai reminisced, while I supervised the drying of wheat chaff for
halva.
‘One day, the British rulers visited a hereditary pir who had the
might of a god. Security was tight, armed guards were positioned six
feet apart on the roof of the fort. The foreigners needed to witness the
pir’s power before bestowing favours upon him. To display it, the pir
looked up at a man on the ramparts, motioned with his hand, and the
guard obeyed him by jumping to his death. With foreign patronage, the
pir's powers increased so much that even a century later people jump
to death at the mere motion of his descendants' hands.’
The story of another pir, who gave sons to barren mothers only
to have them taken away and absorbed into the system of his shrine,
made me shudder. At birth, the child’s head was fitted into an iron
cage, so that the body grew while the head did not. Because they
grew up to look like rats they were called chuhas and forced to beg
for alms; an army of deformed beggars was bred.
These stories confirmed that I was not alone. There were so many
others like us. As a member of a similar shrine, I wondered what was
happening to their women. Faceless and nameless, they must all be
trapped like me.
Pir Sain ruled over his trapped people. He could demand and ex¬
tract anything from anyone. Considered to be a direct link between
the Almighty and the wretched, people bel ieved that his intervention
could even alter what Allah had fated for them.
That made them worship him.
Amma Sain had told me, ‘We are the direct descendants of the
Prophet. The power of the Shrine is fourteen hundred years old. It
cannot be challenged.’

61
 BLASPHEMY

A langar distributing free food strongly aligned and attracted the

poor to the Shrine. They travelled with meagre resources for days,
weeks, months, sometimes on foot and sometimes on bullock or don¬
key carts. If Pir Sain was ever sighted, they would run to fall at his feet
and kiss them until the khalifa forcefully pushed them away.
Imploring him to diminish the strength of their enemies or subju¬
gate their oppressor with the power of his word, they gave supplica¬
tions for employment, health, marriage, and every conceivable
human need that they could not fulfil themselves.
Pleading over the limp bodies of their sickly children, people
begged for the water Pir Sain had used for ablution to make them
well. They fell over each other to grab the bones he had chewed the
meat off, so that they could grind them into a sacred medicinal
powder. They collected the earth on which he had stepped and
sprinkled it across their doorsteps for protection.
They even salvaged his sputum when he spat.
My husband never showed any signs of emotion but nobody
thought that he might be devoid of them. The distance he kept from
people was considered godly. Nobody imagined that it could be a
mask. His presence was so powerful that whoever dared to look into
his eyes was hypnotised by their strange lights. They were convinced
it was the light of God.
Sitting on a charpai with a table equipped for any adversity or de¬
sire in front of him, he dipped his bamboo pen into zafran ink and
scribbled on little scraps of paper. Folding them, he blew his sacred
breath on them and instructed the supplicant, ‘Immerse the paper in
water and give the drink to your opponent. He will become your
friend.’ The man would kiss the master’s feet, touch his own forehead
again and again and walk backwards until he was out of his presence.
Blowing his breath on sugar, Pir Sain instructed, ‘Mix it in your
employer’s tea tonight and he will give you a raise in the morning.’
Those of my husband’s prayers that went unanswered were ex¬
plained thus: ‘There is some hidden blessing in the present denial.
Delay is beneficial.’ Sometimes, the delay never ended and my husband

62
 JAHANUM

would say, ‘Allah is annoyed. It is apparent,’ and a lengthy and

expensive procedure would be prescribed for God’s appeasement.
If there was still no respite, my husband would say, ‘Allah tests your
fortitude and patience. You will be rewarded in the next world.’ If,
for some reason, he were annoyed with someone, the person would
remain at his door until he was forgiven. It was said that those who
did not appease him were soon destroyed by Allah’s wrath.
Even influential and wealthy men sat at his feet like ordinary
followers. Pressing his legs in reverence, they implored him to pray
for successful deals, licences, and sanctions to come through.
Keeping him abreast of the developments, they would not let him
neglect their case for a single day. When they achieved the desired
result, they brought him expensive gifts and briefcases full of money
in appreciation.
To gain victories in elections and become ministers or prime minis¬
ters, many aspiring politicians also sought his help. His influence was
not restricted to his own area. Pockets of Pir Sain’s mureeds lived in the
most forsaken places and considered a pilgrimage to him as divine
summons. His followers, scattered across the country, voted where he
instructed them to, and that gave him permanent power in the capital.
Dai told me, ‘The whole country is divided among the pirs, who co¬
operate to strengthen and support each other’s candidates.’
This became obvious to me whenever a neighbouring pir
announced his intention to visit his followers in our area. Shamianas
were pegged into the grounds in front of the Haveli. Chickens
disappeared, as if from the face of the earth. Every coop was emptied,
every field was fi ne- combed, even in our courtyard, women swooped
down on the two-legged runners I had thought were now too old to
be anything but domestic pets. Each bird was slashed at the throat
with a loud chant of Allah huAkbar. Dozens of lambs were donated
for slaughter, cows were skinned and chopped for the poor. The
smell of flesh filled the air. Zafran rice, steamed with almonds and
kishmish was heaped on thaal after thaal after thaal.
Nearing the time of the exalted guest’s arrival, Pir Sain draped the

63
 BLASPHEMY

chaddar embroidered with the ninety-nine names of Allah over his

shoulder, crowned himself like an emperor with his black turban,
and it seemed that a god walked out to receive another god.
People swarmed to the Shrine.
Every villager waited his turn to pay homage to Pir Sain’s divine
guest. Every woman took time off from the Haveli’s gruelling chores
to touch the feet of another holy man. Worshipped enough, the
visiting pir feasted until satiated, retired to a chamber, reclined on
a charpai and listened to the woes of his awestruck followers.
Not only did they seek prayers and taviz to ease off their ever grow¬
ing misery, they also required that their pir solve their problems by
requesting my husband’s intervention. A cow had been stolen and
needed to be recovered. A tonne of wheat had not been paid for. The
promise of a dowry along with the bride was not kept. A girl had dis¬
appeared. Another had been raped. Every matter was immediately re¬
solved. Finally, in cars filled with special gifts and bags full of money
the neighbouring pir drove off, leaving clouds of dust behind.
Pir Sain respected all the pirs and they respected him. None
threatened the other, none was threatened. Each recognised the
other as a pillar of the same system. Each was clear that its
preservation and strength lay in mutual respect and reverence.
Important politicians were usual guests at the partridge shoots and
wild boar hunts that Pir Sain organised at their request. Again the
chickens disappeared. Again the smell of flesh filled the air. Everything
eaten up, everyone piled into jeeps full of guns and drove off to kill the
animals that still ran around in the fields or flew obliviously in the sky.
Many people lived off him. He lived off many.
The wealth we enjoyed was given to us in the name of Allah. No¬
body dared to offer it for our personal use. The Shrine and its gaddi
nashin had a claim to everything that was produced through the
sweat and toil of peasants and tillers. Before the poor took their crop
home they measured and counted our share to the last grain. Cattle
breeding and poultry were no exception. There again we had our
annual share. Apart from this, our stores were full of provisions of every

64
 JAHANUM

conceivable kind. If each person brought a kilo of ghee, there was

an excess. It was the same with things like fabric, crockery, cutlery
and electrical appliances contributed by manufacturers and agents.
Somebody had given him a Land Cruiser, someone else a Lancer,
and yet another follower had gifted him three Pajero jeeps. Those
who owned little dropped whatever they could in the iron moneybox
welded to the floor of the Shrine. Those who owned nothing could
sell themselves to please him.
I realised that my golden anklets came from the labour of men I
had never seen. The brocades I wore were probably snatched from
the rag-covered bodies of shoeless children, deprived further so that
my god would tell their God to clothe them.
Did Pir Sain have supernatural power or was it the faith bestowed
upon him by ignorant people?
Was his life inside the Haveli really not known outside it?
Was the man in my bedroom a man only I knew?
Questions flashed in and out of my mind without answers until,
one day, when I was squashed flat under coarse black hair, I found
an answer to at least one question.
My husband’s persona fell when his clothes were shed.
The truth was camouflaged by a piece of cotton.
Ly ing above me, naked as the day he was born, his evil was manifest.
This was him.
A chill of awareness enveloped me in one continuous throb of un¬
ceasing, unrelenting pain.
Women came in to tell us their stories and be blessed by Amma
Sain, who spent a part of each day sitting under the rebellious tree.
Ordered to sit beside her, I was not allowed to prescribe taviz, a
privilege granted only to those directly descended from the holy
lineage. Every day, Amma Sain scribbled unreadable words with
zafran water on bits of paper, while I wondered if it were really
possible to gain Allah’s attention through little scribbles. Unanswered
prayers were forgotten, answered ones were called miracles. The
crowds never thinned.

65
 BLASPHEMY

Women cried over their empty stomachs, their barren wombs,

and their hungry children; for similar reasons in different ways.
‘The man I love won’t marry me,’ or, ‘The man I love loves an¬
other,’ or ‘He loved me before we married, now he beats me every¬
day.’ Old women cried that sons kicked them out of their homes at
their wives' bidding, young women cried that husbands kicked them
out at their mothers’ goading.
Black magic was so common that every woman put the burden
of her plight down to it. Stuffed dolls pierced with needles were held
responsible for ailments like heart attacks, epilepsy, and cancer.
Nails drilled into the walls of their homes lost them their livelihoods.
Menstrual blood filled in sweetmeat lost them their husbands.
Porcupine needles scattered at their doorstep made their husbands
beat them up until they landed in hospital. Dead chicken heads
found under beds killed their children.
While they spent more than they could afford on the procedure
Amma Sain prescribed to break the evil spell, I longed to stop them
but dared not. I also noticed that each woman looked like the other
and they all looked like me.
I was surprised when I heard of a rebel in Pir Sain’s domain. The
maids often taunted each other with the example of Tara, the shooting
star. ‘Who do you think you are? Tara?’ one would taunt, and the
other would reply, ‘If I were Tara, I’d take out your liver and feed
it to the dogs.’ Everyone wanted to be like Tara, but no one dared.
Dai told me her story.
‘Although Tara was struck dumb as a child, she grew into a beauti¬
ful young woman. Pale like smooth marble, her body was boneless
like a snake's. When she walked, men followed her like a herd of
lambs. Wherever she turned, they slunk behind her, wherever she
stopped, they gathered. She rolled her eyes flirtatiously at them all
but they dared not grab her.’
My curiosity grew; thank God she continued: ‘When Tara met a
small landholder, love blossomed. Miraculously, her tongue became
fertile, and her womb was impregnated with his seed. But her beloved

66
 JAHANUM

was betrothed to a cousin and could not marry her. There was no
dignity where there was once so much love, and the proud Tara
begged everyone she knew to plead her case with him. “Tell him to
make me his second wife. Tell him I will serve his bride and be her
slave. Tell him not to vanish from my sight, for I cannot live without
him,” she cried and clung to everyone she saw.
‘But her lover was joyous at his marriage and brushed Tara aside
as an old story,’ said Dai, moving closer to me. ‘He laughed shame¬
lessly and retorted, “It’s time to leave other women to other men.”
When Tara heard this, she wept until her tears ignited the love in her
heart and revenge blazed in her eyes. She aborted their sin and stood
up. Villagers dropped their work and followed the tigress to his
house.’
‘At his gate, she yelled for him,’ said Dai raising her voice, ‘ "Show
yourself, you rat. Come out like a man. Face me like you used to
in my bed,” said Tara. The door creaked, the bridegroom stepped
out. Everyone held their breath. Tara’s heart skipped a beat when
she saw him. Then pain enveloped her. He was another woman’s
man. His brothers surrounded him to frighten her away but the
fearless tigress, legs apart, a hand on her hip, the other wound around
the bundle tucked into her narrow waist, had a debt to clear.
‘The group of men closed in to shield the coward. The crowd around
Tara swelled. She thundered, “Allah demands responsibility for your
actions. I have come to hold you to them.” A strong man was weak and
a weak woman was strong as black and white and wrong and right faced
each other. Her lover spat, “I am married. The decision is made in
heaven. Leave me and find another.” Heads turned from him to her.’
Dai paused to heighten the suspence before she continued, ‘A
seething Tara brought forward the bundle tucked into her waist. Her
hand plunged in, went up, swung around, and raw flesh flew like
lightning through the air. Thick muck smashed on her lover’s face,
splattered over his brothers and slithered down. They cringed, spat,
and frantically brushed the sticky unformed foetus from their faces.’
My hand flew to my mouth.

67
 BLASPHEMY

‘Tara roared, “You made this child in the womb of a woman and
forgot? Is it mine only because it grew concealed within me? Share
it now like you shared in making it.” Her lover’s brother pulled his
arm to take him away, “Enough insult from this mad woman. Let’s
go,” he ordered. Tara stepped forward, “The insult grew from your
brother’s seed. He left it to breed in my womb. Why are you insulted
when I return what is his? Our disgrace must spread together. The
people of this village must relate our story to every passer-by forever.
His crime must stick to him,” said Tara, before turning around on her
heels and walking away into folklore.’
I was impressed and longed to see a woman so committed to jus¬
tice, but Dai said, ‘Amma Sain does not let us mingle with her. Tara
is not permitted to enter either the Shrine or the Haveli.’
I wished Kaali had been like Tara instead of like me.
Very few people had special access to the master. Kaali’s father-
in-law was known to share all his secrets. The jagirdar of the area,
a notorious tyrant and a debauch, was also very dear to Pir Sain.
Whenever a young girl disappeared without a trace, the jagirdar’s
name was woven into the scandal, until the threat of death swallowed
the story up.
Although no one talked of my husband’s involvement, I felt him
like a faint tremor in the heart of every scandal. I also noticed that
every new girl who came to work at the Haveli soon vanished. If I
asked where she had gone, no one answered. Nor was Cheel interested
in reporting her absence to the master. When the girl reappeared,
looking terrorised, she would resume her duties without any
explanation, given or taken.
‘Kaali is dead. Kaali is dead,’echoed in the Haveli all day.
Hollowed out, I maintained an indifferent demeanour. Although
everyone said that she had died in childbirth, I believed the quashed
rumour that she had hanged herself as she went into labour.
The dead mother twisted in the wind while the child struggled to
be born.
They were found hanging, one strangled on a rope, the other on the

68
 JAHANUM

umbilical cord.
A black gloom filled me.
Ma had still not written. It was not like her. Although I realised
that she was being kept away from me deliberately, Kaali’s death
consumed me with such longing for Ma’s comfort that I had to ask
him again.
That night, when the devil was coming towards me, I braced
myself and muttered, ‘Did my mother write to me?’
He halted the instant I ended my sentence. I heard a hiss, ‘Who
told you?’
‘Nobody, sain,' I blurted out, but it was too late. The daytime
massacres conducted with his costume on were different from when
he was stark naked. This was another kind of torture.
Mentally, I wrote a hundred letters.

Dearest Ma,
How honoured you were to have Pir Sain in our family. Re¬
member how you sat on your prayer mat and cried ingratitude
to God? A great burden lifted from your shoulders when I
walked out of your door. But I took almost everything with me.
I can give nothing back...
You fell on your prayer mat to beg God not to remove His
abundant blessings, Ma.
You wanted more miracles like mine.
Take your prayers back, Ma.
Take them back.

I recalled the fairy lights.

When they were switched off, it was as dark as my grave-like bed.
Writing letters in my mind, whimpering in my heart, supervising
mad women and missing Kaali so badly, I wrote to Chitki and Nanm
and Bhai, whose plans to spend as much time in my home as Ma
would allow, never materialised.

If you come here, little sisters, you will never laugh again.

69
 BLASPHEMY

And Bhai, my sweet brother, when I was leaving home, you said,
'Apa, if your husband causes you trouble, let me know. Don’t
think there is nobody to protect you.' 1 laughed at you and
asked what you would do. Your chest swelled out. You showed
me the small muscles in your thin arms and declared, 7 will
kill him with my bare hands.'
Dearest Bhcii, you will only lose your life for defending mine.

It was spring; the baby in my womb stirred and hailed the new sea¬
son. Alongside the walls that shut us in, the hardy seeds I had planted
miraculously burst into small yellow flowers. The sight made me long
for home. The flowerpots on Ma’s terrace must also have bloomed,
there must be roses in her vases, and chameli in her hair.
The recollection that my wedding anniversary had come and
gone unnoticed even by me, flashed in my mind. I wanted to howl.
That fateful day, like an unmarked grave, had wiped out my past and
cancelled my future.
When I thought of my baby, spring also died. He was not mine.
I was just producing another god for them. Cheel swooped down
and I quickly wiped my tears away. It was not the first time she had
caught me crying.
That night my hot and sultry room chilled when Pir Sain demanded
to know, ‘Why do you always cry for Kaali?’
He knew!
I was suspected of having had an affair with Kaali. Fear of him
made it seem true even to me. My expression confirmed guilt. My
answers were defensive and incriminating.
He roared, ‘Whose child was Kaali carrying?’
The fear that he might even suspect the child to be mine made me
blurt out, ‘Her father-in-law’s, sain. Her husband married for his
old father’s pleasure, sain.’ By that, I only exposed my intimacy
with Kaali.
He wanted to know more. I wanted not to break another promise to
Kaali, but when the side of his hand hit across my throat like a knife,

70
 JAHANUM

another promise broke.

My throat in his grip, he squeezed out more confessions.
Between coughing and spluttering for breath, I blurted out, ‘He
let men loose on Kaali, sain'
‘More,’ he shouted.
I told him more.
He pushed me to the floor, his foot crushed my face. From under
it I struggled to break another promise, ‘He watched them, sain.
Hour after hour, day after day, sain.’
‘More. More. Tell me more,’ he shouted.
I could not tell him more. I could not dare to say, ‘ You know
everything, sain. You were always there, sain.'
Pir Sain shouted for scissors.
He sat on a chair, pulled me down between his legs and gripped
my temples with his knees. My eyes bulged out at the ceiling.
Time stood still to the sound of snipping.
He shouted for a razor.
Time froze to the sound of scraping.
The razor ran across my scalp, then back and forth across my
brow. Flung across the room, I saw him coil towards me like torrid
lava.
Flat on my back. My stomach protruded. Inside it, my baby kicked.
Over it, the father descended.
Night became day; day became night; another day blazed until
another night came and went and blue broke through black again.
My child pushed against his thrusts. Neither of them tired. He was
still inside and the baby was coming out.
It took an age for him to find out.
I heard a warning.
‘No sound from you is to reach beyond the walls of this room.’
Pain swallowed me and I swallowed it. Stretching and clawing
and clutching the hands of my enemies, the maids, I thrust the baby
out of my battered body.
I did not hear him cry or die.

71
 BLASPHEMY

I dreamt of Ma leaning over me. She was rubbing her hands over
my head. Her fingers were running across my eyebrows, dipping
onto sunken eyes, and circling their black circles. She was lingering
over my cheekbones that jutted out like ridges and dropped into
hollow ditches. Sailing over my protruding gums, her fingers
wandered in my desert, searching for a spring in burning sands. Ma
clasped my face in her hands and rested her cheek against mine. I
felt her warm tears seep into me.
Sometimes, she fed me with a spoon. At other times, she put cold
compresses on my forehead. Always, she vanished beyond my
dreams and I wrote her letters in my mind.

Dearest Ma,
You were convinced that Baba would have agreed to send me
here. Is that true, Baba? Come to me, Ma. Come and see me
here. See what he has done to me. See what has become of me.

Always, she returned.

I knew many seasons had changed. It had all begun in spring, I
had not felt the heat of summer but I had felt the winter chill. When
my eyes fell upon yellow flowers in a vase, I knew it was another
spring.
Clusters of red and pink flowers strewn over green grass? Flowers
of different shapes and sizes scattered on a fabric? Upon it rested
two hands.
Another dream? I looked away. A compulsion to see more made
me turn back.
A lowered head? A woman was asleep in a chair with her head
falling forward. She moved it to shoo away a fly.
Ma!
I turned away to avoid another shattered dream.
Again, I turned to her, again I turned away. My head went back¬
wards and forwards until, at last, my eyes became transfixed to the
vision. The force of my gaze awakened her.
It was Ma.

72
 JAHANUM

Ma was real.
My body was moving up as hers was moving down.
She was real.
I screamed. A needle pricked me. Ma’s vision swayed and disap¬
peared again.
Because peace was absent in health, I hid away tablets in my bras¬
siere, threw up my food, and rejected anything that might return me to
him. Ma was adamant to restore me to my old state and whispered, ‘If
you have health, you’ll have the world. If you are ill, you’ll lose it.’
Did she not see my cropped hair? Did she not see the bruises?
Did she not want to know how my child died?
Telling Ma was not easy.
Every time I tried, she said, ‘Hush, my child. Have faith in Allah.’
Kissing me over and over again, wiping her own tears and wiping
mine, she would not let me tell my story.
One day, I told her.
‘Ma, take me home. He is not a pir. He is the devil. He...’
She stopped my words with her hand. ‘Don’t speak of it, my
child, somebody might hear us.’
I retreated.
Ma, my only saviour, was also afraid. He was in control of her
just as he was in control of everyone else.
Pir Sain walked in. My heart sank.
‘How is she?’ he enquired.
Meekly, Ma replied, ‘By the grace of Allah, she is better, sain.
But she till needs rest.’
When he sat down in the armchair, I shuddered at the familiar
sight. What he said made it worse.
‘You have been inconvenienced by my wife’s illness. Your other
children must need you. Now that she is improving, you may return
to them.’
My heartbeat echoed in Ma’s heart. Hastily, she explained that she
was in no hurry, that my sisters were well looked after and that she was
free to stay. When she wiped her forehead her hand shook, and the

73
 BLASPHEMY

symptoms of fear were all too familiar to him.

‘When will you leave?’he asked firmly.
Ma looked at me. I looked away.
Her voice trembled, ‘I would like to wait for her to recover, sain.
She cannot even walk yet. She is not strong enough.’
He rose, ‘Tomorrow your son will accompany you home.’
Tomorrow? Where was Bhai? I had not seen him.
When my husband left the room, I clung to Ma and cried, ‘Please
take me back with you. I want to go home tomorrow.’
Ma pulled back and pleaded, ‘My child, you must not say that.
You are a married woman. We must not do anything that may
prevent my visiting you again. Do you understand?’
I did not understand.
‘Where is Bhai? Why does he not come in?’ I asked.
‘He insisted on seeing you after we were summoned because
your child was stillborn. When he saw your terrible condition he
insisted on taking you to a hospital in the city. His ideas are dangerous
for us. I have asked him to refrain from interfering in your marriage,’
replied Ma.
The most reliable of relationships are unreliable, I thought. There
is no unity among dogs, no spine in worms, and no integrity in
insects. The weak discard their loved ones when they become a
burden.
My mother was a widow of no influence or consequence. She
had no means to fight my husband’s power. Ma could take me back
through a court but she was not that spirited. She had always
compromised in favour of family honour. A scandal would kill her.
The doors that opened wide for a man slammed shut for a woman.
If she fell out of grace, the society that hated her rise to prosperity
would turn upon her. She could not save me on her own. The system
was too rigid to allow for that. Nor did she have the authority to
interfere in what seemed like my destiny.
I was signed away for life.
He owned me.

74
 JAHANUM

Like the passion of ocean waves breaks upon reaching the shore,
hope died when Ma came to say goodbye. We sat facing each other
on my bed, two women holding frail hands, weak alone and weak
together. When she spoke, I knew I would not be able to hear her
voice this time tomorrow.
‘I am not leaving you alone. Allah is with you,’ she cried. ‘His
love is equivalent to the love of seventy mothers. He is your spirit.
Remember that and you will be near Him.’
Her agony was visible in her disarray, mine in cold withdrawal.
When she hugged me, I stiffened. When she turned to go, I shut
my eyes.
I heard the door open and close.
I listened for signs of her presence outside.
When it grew silent, I faced the emptiness again.

75
'
 CHAPTER FIVE

Unbound
B t was another year and another monsoon.
B Rainwater and earth mingled together at high
B temperatures to create a wild perfume, sohndi, a fragrance
impossible to capture. It transformed me into a bird on the
tree and I flew out and away.
Beyond my village, across my country, over oceans and mountains,
where airplanes flew and birds migrated, there were stories and
pictures and people. I saw the moon reigning over the night and the
sun dominating the day. I was surprised to note that the domain of
the sun was different from the domain of the moon, and yet they
ruled the same world.
At dusk, I would imagine passionate colours splashing far away
across the sky and all the dreams I had dreamt faded into the distance.
Here, the sun only sank.
Exhausted shadows fell over my square world.
When we slept in the courtyard, I woke up drenched in dew.
While everyone else complained of aching bones, I rubbed the
moisture deep into my skin. In winter, sun-blades splitthe cold chill
and my colourless home became brilliant. White sheets glistened
on the clothesline. Tamba gharas, the dazzling bronze pitchers full
of water from the tube well, resting on the hips of women, caught
the light and shot electricity.
I was falling in love with nature for lack of anything else to love.
What I could not see outside came within the four walls of my

77
 BLASPHEMY

prison. I called it a flight into God’s world; a world that existed

around and above and beneath the one my husband had created.
When I tried, I could clasp sunshine and moonlight in a fist... if only
I could also dance with joy.
I stood under the rain that also fell far away on Ma’s roof, and
shared the same dawn and the same sunset, the same night and the
same stars as everyone else... but the fantasy slipped through my fingers.
Dreams without hope were short.
I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy, but this time there
was no expectancy. Only deep depression and uncertainty.
When my first daughter was bom, petrified of Pir Sain’s displea¬
sure at the birth of a girl, I stuffed my mouth with a cloth to control
a cry of anxiety. He did not even glance at the bundle. She would
always be a bundle to him. Ordered into purdah at birth, my daughter
would remain.in that prison till her death. I wanted her to know the
world she would never see, except, perhaps, through the flight I had
discovered within me. I wanted to give her wings like the birds and
speed like the wind.
Ma, Chitki, and Nanni arrived.
When Ma asked, ‘Are you happy now that you have a child to play
with?’ I was not even interested in informing her that here there was
no time to play. She spoke about Chitki's and Nanni’s marriage
proposals, about Bhai’s deteriorating grades at school, and about
small domestic crises. I neither listened nor answered.
My sisters had grown into beautiful young women. Chitki was
like an ethereal being. With saucers for eyes, and a walk as light as
a wisp of breeze, she seemed to be passing through life without a
care. Nanni’s complexion was like satin, her rose-petal lips were
magnetic, and her voice was mesmerising. I knew that Ma had not
told them anything about my life. Had they known, they too would
be suffering.
They were not. They were blooming with the expectancy of life.
Whereas I had aged into a tormented maid at eighteen.
No youth, no love, no hope.

78
 UNBOUND

Chitki and Nanni mimicked our mother, ‘The ghee is pure, from
the milk of my daughter’s own cows. They have so much extra milk
because they have so many extra cows. Servants deliver canisters
to me from so far away and we drink it even before the cock crows.’
Ma must be showing off the brown flour, the sugar, and the rice.
She must be fabricating stories to impress the many new friends she
has amassed after my slaughter, I thought.
Chitki complained, ‘Apa, why couldn’t you come home? Why
can’t you come now? Why can’t we spend more time with you?’
Ma quickly answered for me, ‘I have told you a hundred times
that Heer is a married woman. Her life is not like ours anymore.
We’d need new quarters to accommodate her entourage.’
Ma laughed, but my sisters did not.
Nanni exclaimed, ‘Are we no good for you, apaT Then both my
sisters cried out, ‘Why won’t Ma let us stay? Please let us stay with
you, apaT Ma snapped again, ‘I will not let you. Your sister has
enough responsibilities on her hands.’
This went on and on and my heart broke, again and again. The
time I had for my family was very little and yet it was enough. Cheel
never let me forget where I was. I was as cautious of Ma and my
sisters as I was of the residents of my prison.
Ma commented on that too, ‘Your sister is the wife of a religious
leader and the mother of his child. How can she be carefree like she
was as a child?’
Nor would Ma tire of praising me, and said repeatedly, ‘Your
father would have been so proud of you. This is exactly how he
dreamt of seeing you.’
My clothes, rather than me, were the focus of her attention. She
made them the focus of everyone else’s.
‘Look at this fabric. Come and touch it. It feels like malai. Come
quickly, come and touch.it.’-
Sometimes their colour cancelled any loss she felt for me. ‘I’ve
never seen this colour before. Is it green or blue? It’s so rich you
can’t even tell.’

79
 BLASPHEMY

She would go on and on until I hated the clothes so much that I

felt like tearing them off my body and giving them to her.
But Ma, blind to my disgust, swooned, ‘Most people would keep
a suit like this wrapped in soft muslin. Hardly anyone would ever
take it out to wear.’ Holding my face in her hands Ma would coo
lovingly at me, ‘Only my princess is so blessed as to put them on.’
Sometimes, as soon as I stepped out of my room I would hear
Ma’s shrill voice from the other end of the Haveli, ‘Omy God! O my
God! Come and see your sister’s jewels. I can’t take my eyes off her.’
Pulling Chitki and Nanni and everyone else she saw in her way
towards me, she would exclaim excitedly, ‘Come and see how beauti¬
ful Heer looks. Come and see her iewellery from close.’
Although I felt like asking her why I should be happy with stones
weighing me down, I said nothing.
When my family left, it felt like they had never even come.
Pir Sain continued to send Ma provisions, but that was all he ever
did for her. As Ma could not save these things for Bhai’s education
and two dowries, she sold the provisions in the market but never to
people she knew. To find some way to help her, I had to summon
up courage. Months went by before I managed the nerve to open my
mouth before my husband.
One day, when he sat on the bed, praying under my breath I sat
beside him. My familiarity made him look up.
‘What is it?’ he snapped.
Words I had rehearsed a thousand times spilled out.
‘My sisters have to marry and Ma gave their dowry to me, sain.’
‘Why do I have to know?’ he asked.
I lost my voice.
‘Why do I have.to know?’ he shouted.
I mumbled, ‘You said you must be told everything, sain.'
He did not hear. I fumbled with my words again and heard him
say, ‘Not matters that do not concern me.’
He was transforming into the devil. We were about to leap into
hell and I was dying to talk about Chitki and Nanni’s dowry.

80
 UNBOUND

The next day was lost to bad luck. My sister’s dowries disappeared
from my mind when the crooked maid, Terhi, handed me an envelope
from my youngest brother-in-law. I could not perceive what he
wanted to say to me, and not daring to open the letter, I left it on Pir
Sain’s bedside table.
Although I had never seen any of my husband’s brothers, I had
heard different versions of their stories from their wives and maids.
I chose the most likely ones to believe.
The brother next in age to my husband was a debauch who spent
his days and nights surrounded by young village girls and bottles of
whisky in a government rest house allotted to the Shrine decades
ago by a devoted minister of those times.
The third brother was worse. He had a roaring sexual relationship
with his own daughter who operated so stealthily from behind her
timid demeanour that she earned the name Meesni. Having lost her
virginity, she could not afford a husband and so her engagement to
a cousin was broken off. This, they said, suited Meesni and her
father, for now their relationship could flourish undeterred forever.
The fourth brother had married three middle-aged maidservants
after his marriage to Amma Sain’s young niece. He was also known
to have a long-standing relationship with his wife’s mother, who,
being Amma Sain’s widowed sister, was lodged in his haveli.
Despite these heinous crimes Pir Sain was furious only with the
fifth and youngest brother for damaging his cotton crop by cheating
on the quality of pesticide. Although this brother continued to visit
Amma Sain, my husband had not spoken to him for over a year.
Now he had sent a letter to me.
When Pir Sain’s eyes fell on the envelope, he picked it up and en¬
quired, ‘Who gave this to you?’l told him. He looked astounded.
That was the end of the explanation. Terhi and wet branches from
the date tree were summoned.
Terhi was blessed with old age and her punishment was lighter
than mine. Ordered to lie flat on my stomach, I obeyed instantly.
Two maids held my outstretched arms above my head and another

81
 BLASPHEMY

two grasped my ankles. A lightning swing made the khajji whip hiss
and swish. It was always regulated by his energy, never by how
much I could endure. Fabric slashed, the flesh beneath tore, and I
swallowed the pain through my pursed lips.
To avoid blood clotting, I was instructed to get up and walk
immediately. Wondering what kind of mind could justify such a
severe punishment for no crime, I paced the room on weak and
shaky legs with my little bundle suckling at my breast.
It took weeks for me to recover from wounds that had made me
dependent on my maids to wash and clean and help me in my most
intimate chores.
I also wondered how Pir Sain did nothing to stop the incest flour¬
ishing so blatantly on both sides of our home. I was appalled that even
Amma Sain’s relationship with her criminal sons was not in the least
affected by it. In fact, she showed no sign of disapproval against the
granddaughter who had complied to live in sin with her father, nor
did her sister’s relationship with her son create any hostility between
them.
Here, only small errors were big sins.
Through the side door, into a tunnel, passing through one dark
corridor and then another, I reached the Shrine. I recalled hearing
about the urs of the great Sufi poet Bulleh Shah. There was joyous
singing and ecstatic dancing at the celebration of revolt and freedom.
There was happiness, not gloom. But here, everyone was dead, and
yet, the dead were alive and the living were dead.
At the time allocated for the women of the family to pray, big
wooden doors shut everyone else out.
For some unknown reason, I always quickened my pace as I
moved past the dead women of the Haveli. Powerless in death as in
life; their men ruled even from their graves.
Our graveyard was also segregated.
Inside Babaji’s magnificent tomb surrounded by silver filigree
walls and lit with grand chandeliers, I wondered if he knew what he
had begun. Through the intricate cut-work I could glimpse the
sprawling marble courtyard that spread all around the graves. A line

82
 UNBOUND

of taps, for the purpose of ablution, dripped above a drain running

around the high boundary walls that enclosed the courtyard. My eyes
lingered on Babaji’s banyan tree. Its trunk looked like a million roots
wound and twisted together like the mad idea stolen from under it.
In the Holy month of Ramadan a langar outside the Shrine fed
the poor. Inside, I was kept busy organising sehri and iftari for my
husband’s aam and khaas followers. Everything went wrong as Pir
Sain’s tolerance level fell even lower when he was hungry. But we
were hungry too, and became prone to constant mistakes. Pleasing
and appeasing our master and God at the same time was impossible.
Here, God and master fused together in him.
Straight after the month of fasting was over, I was pregnant and
informed him.
‘Abort the child,’ he barked.
I was shocked that he allowed himself a sin he allowed no one else.
When the foetus bled to death with quinine tablets, Dai explained,
‘Men don’t like to deprive themselves of pleasure when they have
had to abstain for thirty afternoons in Ramadan.’
I wanted to ask her how my husband could observe the order to
fast so strictly and conclude it with a sin. But I refrained because Dai
would not be able to say that the whims of her pir spurned the
message of God. He practised another religion.
There was another period of abstinence that Pir Sain followed
strictly. He never touched me when I was bleeding after childbirth
or during the monthly period. That he regarded as a sin which even
he could not conceive of committing.
In three months, when I was pregnant again, he lifted his hands
in prayer for a son and there was no mention of another abortion.
Contradictions heaped up in my head.
They churned with Kaali’s suicide, Tara’s foetus, Ma’s greed, my
torturous punishments, incest and debauchery, abortions and
pregnancies, and my head began to ache all the time.
When Amma Sain informed me, ‘My son has asked me to order
twenty-four bedding, sixty sets of clothes, six sets of jewellery, and

83
 BLASPHEMY

utensils for two kitchens to be dispatched to your mother,’ I was

stumped.
For the first time, my heart pounded with something other than
fear of him.
I said, ‘This is too much,’ but Amma Sain laughed at me, ‘You
know, we will not be paying for anything. Some mureecl will bring
this and some will bring that.’
When I heard that both my sisters were immediately engaged, I
cried. Chitki ’s fiance was an advocate who sent her a letter suggesting
a rendezvous in the park. She, on the other hand, wanted to give him
a surprise and refused to get acquainted with him before the wedding
night.
Fool, I thought.
Nanni was engaged to a doctor and Ma, of course, was ecstatic.
Despite the fact that I was not allowed to attend either wedding I
heard that Ma could not pray enough for her first son-in-law who
made it all possible.
I cut a hole in a piece of paper and pretended to peep into my
father’s home.
Nanni and Chitki’s dowry was far grander than mine.
Ma looked rich and powerful.
The band played the same songs.
My sisters looked like royal princesses from olden times.
Fairy lights twinkled.
When I removed the paper from my eye, the fairy lights went out.
On my side, in my world, it was pitch black.
I was nearing the time of my second delivery and rushed through
my supervisory duties amid the noise of clanging pots and pans.
When howling children and yelling women made my nerves jump,
I withdrew to a charpai at the furthermost nook of the courtyard
with my daughter Guppi, round like a fluffy ball of cotton. While
I knitted over my protruding tummy she searched for new stories.
A fly froze with its wings spread out.
An old woman I had never seen before touched her hands to her

84
 UNBOUND

forehead, touched my feet with them, and settled on the floor.

When I asked her who she was and where she had come from, she
laughed at me, ‘Bibiji, you should know the people of your ilaaka
better. We have been here longer than the greatpirs. When Babaji’s
body was brought down from the mountains, my family was among
those who received him.’
She was strange.
I could not tell whether she was sixteen or over a hundred years
old. Her hair was silver, her face unwrinkled, and her eyes bright.
Standing, her body bent double, sitting, she was almost invisible.
Her faded clothes had patches that made her look like everyone else
and yet, there was a difference. It was an absence of fear.
I looked around and was relieved that.my companion aroused no
curiosity. Even Cheel was not more watchful than usual.
‘Why were you never here before? How did I not see you at the
celebrations?’ I asked.
‘I live far away with my sister and returned only a week ago,’ she
replied. As there were very few people who left hell to return, she
aroused my interest even more.
She was a storyteller.
Although her fearlessness frightened me, I prodded on, craving
information from the only woman who talked to me, other than Dai.
Every now and then, I looked around for trouble, then back at her,
relieved. Half deaf, the old woman spoke too loudly and had to be
constantly reminded to lower her voice. But that made her whisper
so softly that I could hear nothing.
‘Speak louder,’ I would request, and she would shout again.
The woman told me, ‘Girls are a burden that must be shed as
quickly as possible, but I was so ugly and suffered from a strange
unknown itching disease that nobody wanted to marry me. Because
my father had no family, there was not even a remote chance of
anyone wanting to make a tie of marriage with us. Not until a man
from the mountains appeared and miraculously my itch disappeared.’
The woman became sad.

85
 BLASPHEMY

‘My father was not happy to give me in marriage to an outsider,

but agreed for lack of another bridegroom. I was to be married on
the night he died.’
Although I wished to hear more, Guppi cried for attention and it
was no longer safe to stay. I asked the woman when she would come
again. Standing up in a curl, she replied, ‘Tomorrow. They all know
me here. Nobody will bother you about me. Not even Cheel, she
knows all about me. They all know my story here.’
Waving her hands she dismissed herself as a boring subject, ‘Bibiji,
if you give no importance to our meeting, nobody will ask.’Touching
her forehead and my feet, she bent double and walked away.
The fly fluttered its wings and flew off.
Hurriedly, I collected my things and carried Guppi in.
I was surprised that Amma Sain did not question me about her.
I was even more surprised when Cheel’s lips did not move as Pir
Sain appeared from behind the brick wall.
A half-hour every day, the entire month, and still no signs of disap¬
proval of my new companion. I became suspicious. She could be
my husband’s spy. But she had things to tell me that I longed to hear.
I called her Toti because she talked incessantly like a parrot.
From her I discovered the true story of the Shrine. Amma Sain had
told me a different version.
Toti said, ‘A family of settlers acquired a small piece of land in
the area. One of the sons was a malang who withdrew from everything
to devote himself to deen. When the villagers began to gather
around him under the banyan tree, his brothers called him a madman
and threw him out. Homeless, he wandered around, until one day
he climbed into the mountains and vanished. Ten years later, his
followers brought his body back to the plains with a thousand stories
of miracles attached to his name.’
‘It was during the early days of British rule,’Toti continued. ‘The
foreigners faced constant problems with the stubborn-natured natives
whose simple minds dared to take on powerful foreign rulers but
accepted the excesses of their local masters. The landowners cashed

86
 UNBOUND

in on their temperament and used the poor to blackmail the foreigners.

Extracting grants and allowances for themselves, they swore on
their children that they had nothing to do with the intrigues.
‘When foreign eyes fell upon Babaji’s modest grave humming
with stories of miracles, it struck them that they could control the
area through the magnetic appeal of a shrine. The British, always
looking for loyal allies, believed that those whom they lifted to
prominence from the lower rung of the ladder would remain forever
grateful.’
Toti sniggered, ‘They were in consultation with Babaji’s brothers
before everything changed. The little mound of earth was rebuilt in
marble, and enclosed in a circular room decorated with painted
tiles. Tall green and gold minarets appeared on the roof to attract
people from far away. Adjoining it, a mosque was constructed.
Outside it, food was cooked in huge cauldrons to lure the hungry.’
‘It was opening night,’ she laughed. ‘The man to be proclaimed
saint was the son of Babaji’s late brother, the one who had thrown
him out of his home and usurped his share of land. Important men
from across the country were invited to witness the crowning of the
boy who now wore a long beard and even longer hair. A turban, said
to belong to Babaji, was brought out of a trunk and wound around
his head. The piety and effort that gave Babaji spiritual power was
said to have descended into his heir’s body from the touch of the
pug. The reward for Babaji’s devotion to Allah became his for free.
Allahu, Allahu filled the air. The dastarbancli was rejoiced.
Thousands of currency notes dropped into the money box.’
Every day Toti continued the story.
‘The key to the Shrine was handed over to the pir and the peoples’
fates were sealed. The British ruled over a complacent people and
the Shrine became a prosperous business. When Pir Sain, the second,
died, his heir was better equipped because he was trained for the
profession.’
I asked her what became of Babaji’s followers and Toti said,
‘They tried in vain to dissuade the people from being misled. They

87
 BLASPHEMY

reminded them of how Babaji had been mistreated by his family, but
the people preferred the other story, the one that gave them hope.
Babaji’s followers were banished from his Shrine. Although they mo¬
ved to other villages, it became a tradition for every male member of
that fami ly to make a death trip to the Shrine, where they warned peo¬
ple against the false system perpetuated by Babaji’s family. Each
member was brutally killed, except Cheel whose mi ssion is different.’
‘Cheel, a descendent of Babaji’s followers? What is it? What is
her mission?’ My questions went unanswered. Nor would Toti tell
me why Cheel had betrayed her family’s oath.
After all this information I still needed to ask Toti a very important
question.
‘Are they not directly descended from the Prophet? Are they not
especially blessed by Allah because of their holy ancestry?’
Toti laughed at me and asked a question that gave me the answer.
‘Do their actions in any way reflect our Prophet’s greatness? Do
they, in fact, not resemble the Prophet’s bitterest enemies? They are
impostors, imposed upon our hearts. They exploit our ignorance,
our poverty, our losses and our limitations to rule over us. The
Shrine is mercenary and political, it is not holy.’ I was struck by
Toti’s boldness. She was impertinent like nobody here dared be.
Although I often withdrew from her after she had made some in¬
cendiary remark, I always returned for more.
Toti chattered away, shocking me, making me laugh, and some¬
times depressing me. I wanted to ask her how she expressed her
opinions so fearlessly but avoided the question, for if she became
weary she could clam up.
‘The British had found the code that undid the native mind. If a
head rose, thepir rolled it off,’ she said. ‘Babaji was used as a prosti¬
tute,’ she said, making my hand fly to my mouth.
‘A family of pimps sold him on British licence for ninety years,
while the simple people believed them to be blessed by Allah. If the
Shrine had God’s backing, who would fight?’ she asked as I stared
at her in utter shock.

88
 UNBOUND

Although the British had left, we were still suffering in the hell they
had created, one that did not even serve them any longer. I was also
perplexed, for there was no reaction to my meetings with Toti.
Cheeks lips did not move before Pir Sain and Amma sain never
warned me of doom.
Every time Toti appeared, everything froze wherever it was, until
she left. I wondered if I were perhaps imagining this, or if I was
imagining her.
Toti remained in love with her man.
‘I was sure I would never find another,’ she laughed but she would
not say how he died. Instead, she looked at me with eyes glazed in
sorrow and words that made riddles.
‘A storm lashed at us. It blew our love into the sky. The dust was
never gathered. It never settled. Look at me now. One day I was
young, the next day I was old.’
One day she came jumping with joy.
‘He’s coming to see me on our wedding anniversary, bibiji. I
spend the entire year waiting for this day to dawn.’
My surprise made her giggle. ‘Men are unfaithful bastards, bibiji.
My man is the only faithful one, committed to me even in death.’
I wished I, too, had a dead man instead of a live one.
Toti had dressed up for.her anniversary in a brocade shirt, the gold
threads of which had frayed. The sharp folds spoke of time. A tissue
dupatta was disintegrating on her head and her golden shoes had no
shine left to them. Long chains were strung through her earrings
and fastened with rusty grips in her sparse hair. Under her chin, a
necklace swayed back and forth in front of her stooping frame.
Toti clasped her hands together and spun like a crooked little girl,
exclaiming, ‘He will be here. This afternoon you can see him. I will
let you.'
Poor Toti had gone insane at her irreplaceable loss. I asked her
jokingly, ‘Will the others not see him?’
‘Of course not,’ she replied haughtily, ‘only those whom I approve
of can see my man.’

89
 BLASPHEMY

Toti lit up like an electric bulb.

A chill circulated in my body.
I felt a presence.
He had come.
Undefined and diffused, tall and broad, he had acurled moustache.
I saw him.
I felt the need to scream in reaction to the supernatural, but was
struck dumb.
A strange man was inside the Haveli. Thank God he was dead.
When I snapped back, I was on the same stitch of my knitting.
Toti’s blissful smile converted into a frown, ‘I wait all year to
catch a glimpse of him but he stays only a moment. I wait like a
thirsty crop waiting for rain and a heavy cloud circles above my
head and leaves without raining.’
Toti became angry with me when I advised her to remain brave,
even as shivers of fright ran through my own body.
‘Why do I have to suffer while you give your husband babies? It
is unfair that you do not feel responsible,’ she complained.
This was the first time she had mentioned that we were to blame.
Inadvertently, I asked her, ‘Did we kill your man?’
Doubled up, Toti walked off without answering me. I walked
past Cheel with a big secret.
That night, I went into labour.
Silent pain rose from deep within me, unleashed and waned, over
and over, for sixteen hours at a stretch until, at last, I delivered a son
to the Shrine. Immediate jubilation filtered into my subconscious.
The master remained solemn and returned congratulations with
prayer.
On the fortieth day of my son’s life, I wore gold kimkhab clothes
and draped an exquisite tissue dupatta over my head. Shoes of
golden thread glittered like jewels on my feet, gems glittered in my
ears. With the heir in my arms and an entourage of women behind me,
I went to pray at his ancestral Shrine. On the way, I trembled to think
of my son’s predicament. While everyone thought he was especially

90
 UNBOUND

blessed, I knew he was in great danger of invoking God’s wrath.

At Babaji’s grave, I begged Allah not to judge my childby what
his father would train him to become and prayed, ‘Please let this boy
be the way Babaji was. Please save this child from becoming an
idol, instead, let him be a Muslim.’
I returned to a courtyard ablaze with women in vibrant colours.
Red and green and blue and yellow soaked into my spirit. Women
danced joyously without a hint of yesterday in the air. It seemed like
another world with another people.
Except for Cheel, who was still standing with her arms folded
across her chest.
The wives of wealthy landlords came with gifts of gold; the poor
came with everything they owned. Outside the Haveli, huge baskets
of fruit and sweetmeat, boxes of cakes and dry fruit, tins of butter
and oil, sacks of wheat and sugar, and hundreds of slaughtered
animals piled up into mountains from dawn to dusk. It was a day
like the urs, when death is celebrated as a reunion with Allah.
Ma beamed with pride at her first grandson.
Thereafter, every moment she saw me, she kissed me and prayed
passionately, ‘May God bestow more honour and respect upon you
than he already has. May he make you rule over the whole world.’
Does she not know that this is my whole world, I thought to my¬
self. I was so distant from Ma, but she refused to notice that.
Pir Sain’s brothers’ wives came towards me like a gang of four.
They were always glued together. I had never seen any one of them
alone. Showering their blessings on the new heir to the Shrine, they
congratulated me for producing him. The achievement should have
made me stronger and yet so many other feelings sabotaged that
feeling. When I saw Meesni walk towards me, I wished to shake her
out of her sinful stupor, instead I met her warmly. Every time she was
not looking I examined her from head to toe, and wondered about her.
She was so subdued that she could well be a dead woman walking.
Her feelings were internalised. Her face said nothing. Her eyes
were so terrorised that anyone looking into them was struck with

91
 BLASPHEMY

terror themselves. She was trapped like a rabbit in a hunter’s net.

Her mother was different.
Her face reflected anger, her features were bitterly sharp. She
was the highest authority in her haveli, but only because she
challenged nothing.
I also noticed that Meesni and her mother never spoke directly to
each other. Relatives and maids conveyed their messages.
Sitting among the wives of wealthy men was Sakhi bibi, the wife
of a mill owner called Sakhi baba, the generous.She came and sat
beside me. Ill health had kept her bedridden at her father’s home in
a far-off village for several years. Sakhi bibi lowered her voice and
put an idea into my ear that was already going round in my mind.
‘Read the translation of the Quran. Understand it yourself. The
Holy Book will explain the meaning of our religion to you.’
I saw Amma Sain frown and moved away.
Celebrations overtook me, but my eyes followed Sakhi bibi.
Amma Sain caught me and ordered, ‘Don’t chatter with the mill
owner’s wife. She is not our friend.’ I lied when she asked what she
had said to me.
Instead, Amma Sain introduced me to two sisters married to two
brothers, both farmers, in one of the staunchest families that had
followed the Shrine for decades. The brides had remained childless
until eighteen years ago, when Pir Sain’s prayers had bestowed a
son and a daughter upon them. The farmers had distributed
sweetmeat, sung Pir Sain’s praises, and named the boy and girl
Maharaja and Maharani. They were immediately betrothed.
I noticed that other than Sakhi bibi, the farmers' wives were the
only content women here, and knew that this must have everything
to do with their husbands.
In the meantime, Ma was proudly telling everyone, ‘See how
well Heer manages this grand establishment. See how she has
become a part of this grand establishment.’
To me, she said, ‘Didn’t I tell you that Allah always listens to our
cries. If you had been impatient and lost heart, an impulsive decision

92
 UNBOUND

instead of a Divine blessing would have been the result. See how
Allah has showered His blessings on you?’
I pressed her hand in feigned agreement.
Ma had decided I was happy, or should be, or had better be.
She had the strength to kill the truth but none to face it.
I moved to and fro, still wondering if Baba would have been like
Ma. After all, they both belonged to the same class of weak people,
those who groped at associations with the wealthy and the powerful
for lack of anything else to show off. I felt relieved at Baba’s
absence. To keep up a facade like Ma might not have been possible
for him. But what could he have done? And my mind went racing
back to the possibility that he might have been like Ma. I had not
expected her to abandon me either.
When Sakhi bibi came to take leave, I asked Dai why Amma Sain
disapproved of the lady and she told me. ‘Sakhi bibi was childless
for many years, throughout which period people consistently tried
to convince her to go to Pir Sain who could cure infertility with
prayers. But she refused, saying, “I prefer to remain childless rather
than have faith in the faithless.” Three years ago, she bore a son to
much jubilation and rejoicing. She is not our friend,’ declared Dai.
Bhai could not come in front of the ladies but before my family
left he was brought into an empty room. Seeing him, I could have
howled with the pain of separation.but I did not. I had not seen him
for four years. He looked older. He was taller and thinner. Bhai was
searching my face for something more, I was searching his to know
what he knew. Neither could tell anything.
He prattled on about his studies, his teachers, and his future. Seem¬
ingly oblivious to my predicament, he was talking at a nervous speed.
Suddenly, the facade fell and he blurted out, ‘Don’t tell Ma I
asked, but are you really happy now that you have two children?’
Leaving a loved one to drown must have riddled him with remorse.
Bhai was waiting for a confirmation that only I could give. I wanted
to save him from grief.
When I finished speaking, his face lit up and he said, ‘Thank God, apa.'

93
 BLASPHEMY

I went to him and held his head against my stomach, ‘Don’t

worry about me, Bhai. You must feel as proud of me as Ma. My
marriage is not a thing to be ashamed of.’
And all the time Bhai was sobbing.
I reassured him, ‘Don’t judge my life by the fact that I can’t come
home and you can’t stay here. Some traditions are difficult for us
but they don’t negate everything else.’
Bhai looked up at my face and pleaded, ‘Swear to me that this is
the whole truth, apciT
I did but wondered how he could forget my shaved head.
Bhai’s concern hurt me more than Ma’s blind eyes.
I had to protect my poor family from my mal ignant pain. Expecting
reassurances of their love was now selfish on my part. Loving me
would kill them. I rushed out to where my mother sat and hugged
and kissed her again and again while she wondered what had ended
the distance between us.

94
 CHAPTER SIX

Circling the Square

E veryone had left.

Exhausted from celebrations and contradictions, I
lay in the children’s room with my son beside me. Guppi
played at my feet with a little rubber dollwhich looked
just like her and me and all the other women in the Haveli. I wondered
if she realised the difference between her brother and herself.
Toti walked right in.
Bewildered, I asked her, ‘How did you come in?’
She swore nobody had seen her and chided me for being afraid
even of my own shadow. I wanted to tell her about the danger, about
Kaali’s fate, instead I feigned anger.
‘Where have you been, you old cow? I didn’t see you at my son’s
celebration. Do you only celebrate your own anniversary and nothing
else?’
She made a million excuses that sounded like lies.
Dancing around the little master, called Chote Sain, Toti chanted
asong for him, and although Guppi loved anyone singing anything,
she took no interest in the activity.
Toti had come to say goodbye. She was leaving the village again.
Dreading her absence, I said, ‘But you are the only woman whom
they don’t object my speaking to here. If you go away there will be
no one for me to talk to.’
Kissing my hand a hundred times, Toti promised me, ‘I’ll soon

95
 BLASPHEMY

return. I’ll come back and tell you Kaali’s story.’

Why had she not mentioned that she knew of it before? Now she
was too rushed. I tried to make her stay.
‘Tell me quickly before you go. Otherwise I’ll have to wait and
I don’t have the patience.’
Toti tried to send the story into the future by leaving it for next
time as she walked towards the door. ‘Tell me something. One thing.
Anything,’ I pleaded until she said, ‘A part of the virility serum
injected into your husband’s horses to ensure a productive mating
season was injected into the boys that were let loose upon Kaali.
The wild beasts scavenged Kaali’s pregnant body. She could no
longer rise from her bed, The only time she did was when she
hanged herself.'
I was horrified.
‘That’s enough for now. But it’s not all,’she said, opening the door
and slipping out. Her head reappeared from the other side of the door.
‘Your husband was the master of this story,’ she said, and the door
shut her out. Although I already knew this, I became so disturbed
that I began to howl.
Guppi cuddled up against me and tried to distract me from my
sorrow. She wanted me to stop crying and sing her a new lullaby
instead. Between my sobs I asked her, ‘What about the one Toti was
singing? Did you like that?’
‘I never heard it,’ she replied.
I reminded her, ‘The one the old lady was just singing, Guppi.’
She remembered nothing.
Surprised, I sat up.
‘Guppi, you remember the woman outside? The one who used
to sit beside me before your brother was born?’
She said, ‘No’.
Perhaps she could not remember as far back as that. I tried again.
‘Did you see her here, a little while ago?’
Shaking her head, she said, ‘I didn’t see anyone, here or there.’
Was she losing her hearing or her eyesight?

96
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

Petrified of drawing attention to Toti, I called for Dai.

‘Can you see Dai Amria, Guppi?’ She could. I called one woman
after another and she could see them all. How then had she missed
seeing Toti?
I kept testing her strange ailment until, after a week of anxiety,
I decided to take a risk and ask Amma Sain to summon the family
doctor.
‘Which one of the old maids can’t she see?’Amma Sain laughed.
‘The one who used to sit with me before my delivery,’ I replied
cautiously.
‘Which one was that?’ she enquired.
O God! How could I avoid drawing attention to Toti? The issue
could twist and turn and blow up in my face. A sleeping snake could
raise his head and strike. But I had to find out what was wrong with
Guppi and blurted out, ‘She was young. No she was old. No. She
was crooked.’
Amma Sain interrupted me in a stern tone, ‘Who else saw her?’
‘Everyone, I would have thought,’ I replied.
Amma Sain called in all the women whose names I gave and they
all denied seeing Toti. I reminded them of little things they might
recall. They did not.
‘Ask Cheel,’ I suggested, ‘she should know.’
She knew nothing.
How had Toti come inside then? Was I going insane? Were the
maids saving me from Pir Sain? Was Cheel protecting me? This
was impossible. How could Guppi follow their line? Little Guppi
was like everyone else. I was different.
When I said, ‘Her fiance died a long time ago and she waits all
year to see his ghost on their anniversary,’ there was a commotion
in the room.
Amma Sain clapped for silence and declared, ‘She died fifty
years ago.’
I protested, ‘She was alive. I am sure of it.’
But Amma Sain was giving a million instructions to the maids.

97
 BLASPHEMY

‘Bring water for clum. Hurry up, you slow donkeys, run,’ and I was
trembling, remembering the frozen fly.
When Dai whispered in my ear, ‘She was called Budrung because
she was ugly,’I nearly fainted with fright. Dai whispered again,
‘Only the master can keep her spirit away.’
Fear of the master and fear of Toti collided.
Then the ghost took over. She had entered my room without
opening the door. She could come anywhere.
Fear gripped me. Pir Sain’s dread tightened the grip.
She was worse. No, he was worse...
Was it my fault? How could I have avoided a spirit?
Amma Sain was furious. ‘Every winter she returns to seduce
those of weak faith. She lies against our forefathers and instigates
sacrilege against us.’
Blowing prayers on me, she said, ‘You are very lucky to have es¬
caped her. Since her death, Budrung has become visible to every
woman of weak faith. She is the one who pushed Kaali and many
others to their deaths. Your husband will not be pleased at all.’
When my husband heard, his face contorted with rage and his
tone became sinister.
‘Allah has exposed the mother of my son. He has revealed an evil
to beware of.’
Why had God sent a ghost to cause me more trouble than I already
had? A sharp slap stung my cheek and threw me to the other end of
Amma Sain’s room. Pulling my hair, Pir Sain dragged me to the death
chamber, our bedroom. A kick brought a sharp pain to my groin and
my legs curled up. His foot pressed hard on my throat. My eyes
bulged out of their sockets, like his paunch bulged out of his body.
He demanded to know all, ‘I want to hear it from you, even if it
takes your life.’
It seemed a lifetime had lapsed before the ordeal was over.
Amma Sain tied many amulets around my neck and blew her sa¬
cred breath on me, while all the time I prayed for safety from Toti.
Nor did I stray to the backyard again or even dare to be alone. But

98
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

much as I tried to wipe her out from my memory, I never could.

Dai told me Toti’s story.
‘Toti’s Baluch fiance was accused of picking the pocket of a guest
of Pir Sain the third's. He did not belong to the area and it was
unlikely that a local, aware of the consequences, would dare rob the
pir's guest. “If the act is alien, the thief is foreign,” they said. The
Baluch was dragged to the pir, before whom he denied the crime.
But his desire to marry a reject like Budrung became evidence
against him. “A strong and handsome man cannot choose such a
bride,” the pir judged, and declared, “It is a mere excuse to gain
access to our area.” That the choice was based on compassion did
not sell in a society devoid of the emotion.
‘It was the month in which the cotton crop is cut. The pir, reclined
on a charpai around which his cronies, their frozen hearts buried be¬
neath tattered chacldars, squatted on the floor. Budrang’s man was
tied with ropes around a tree they called the thana and a perfect
setting for torture was created.
‘For a Baluch, his moustache is his honour. The pir ordered,
“Pluck it off.” Two men rubbed their fingertips with the bitter juice
of neem leaves and tore the man’s moustache out from its roots,
while he howled like a wolf.
‘Pir Sain the third was not satisfied. He ordered his men to untie
the Baluch, pull off his clothes and tie him up with his back exposed.
Khcijji whips slashed his bare flesh. They inserted crushed chilli
into his rectum, he yelped like a mad dog and fainted. Untied, he
slipped to the ground. Trembling like a fish, he thrashed about with
hundreds of red insects that infest the cotton crop running amok on
his wounds and stinging like wasps. His cries for mercy made
everyone, everywhere sit up.
‘Budrung, dressed in her bridal outfit, heard his cries and ran out
screaming. Her old father pulled her back into their crumbling
shack and slapped her into silence. He took a vow from her, “Never
speak about this man again. He’s dead and by the grace of Allah
we’re alive.” But nobody could stop Budrung. She ran to the thana

99
 BLASPHEMY

to save her tortured man. The pir’s men caught her and dragged her
to the master. She splayed her legs and resisted. Dust rose around
her body and marked the earth with her protest. The bride’s defiant
posture contradicted the fear running riot in her eyes. When they
flung her on the floor, she screamed, “Let Satan send me to Allah
today. Let Satan do his will.”
‘Nothing the pir could do to her was too much. The whip lashed
across the soles of her feet, the agony shot into her head which vi¬
brated madly without a sound from her mouth. The khajji 's ceaseless
hiss was adamant at breaking its victim’s spirit. Outside, her helpless
father beat his chest like the bloodletting chain beaters on Ashura.'
While Dai paused to refill her mouth with nasvar, I thought that
in our own lives, we re-enacted the ancient tragedy.
‘Crying out, Budrung’s father beseeched his pir, “In the name of
Allah and His Prophet, sain. In the name of Fatima, Ali, Hassan and
Hussain, spare my child, sain. In the name of your saint, your pir,
your forefathers, your mother, your future sons, your health, your
honour, the day of Judgement, the day of the urs, please sain, forgive
my child in the name of Allah.”
‘He did not.
‘Budrung was taken away on a charpai to her father’s house.
When she did not regain consciousness, the hakeem, who was as
scared of the pir as the women of his Haveli, was summoned.’
‘Her buttocks were minced. Herbal antiseptic powder was applied
every few minutes to stop the flow of blood; as it could not be
staunched, the hakeem stuffed the wounds with cloth. When her old
father put his hand on his daughter’s head to comfort her, she looked
up with pained eyes that had lost and yet won.
‘Saavan, the season of romance, of monsoon rains and purple-
red jamun fruit trees set the barren landscape and its inhabitants
ablaze. Casual sex and elopements became as common as the people
them-selves. It was also a time when wounds would not heal.
Humidity bred nits, which multiplied and rapidly ate away Budrung’s
flesh. She was infested, cut, reinfected, cleaned, and stuffed, over

too
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

and over again until she died.

‘There was a storm that night. Budrung’s spirit ran into it with
the wind, it swept herto the edge of aridge and blew heroff. She be¬
came the dust that never settled, for her love was never consummated
and her desire neverfulfilled. Her soul hovered around the Shrine for¬
ever,’ said Dai, sighing with sorrow and concluding the story with ano¬
ther twist, ‘Nobody dared condole the death of a blasphemer. There
was no question of compassion when it concerned the pir’s authority.
Kindness raised questions and bred rebels who mutinied. The rumour
about Budrung’s death spread fast, and farther and farther away from
the truth. The people said, “The girl dared to defile our Prophet. We
heard her speak of him in a derogatory way. She laughed and joked
about him. We heard her with our own ears.” Others swore, “She burnt
the Holy Book. She blasphemed. We saw her. We were there when she
was burning the holy pages.” Everyone who heard the allegations praised
the pir for putting her to death. Everyone forgot the Baluch.’
Dai suddenly remembered her ingrained loyalty to the Shrine
and quickly added, ‘The pir was the chosen one. He knew how to
save the faith from blasphemers.’
I wondered how a great religion could be destroyed at the hands
of a hapless girl craving love. I also wondered why the people did
not see the Holy Book burning in the hands of their pir and shuddered
at my own association with the Shrine.
I believed Toti.
She was as good as they were evil.
That winter I waited for her at our meeting place and called out
softly, ‘Come back, Toti, no one will know. I want to console you.
I am your sister, Toti. Comeback!’
But she never did, not then, not ever.
Trying to achieve perfection in so many areas knocked the breath
out of me. I had no time. When I was not under my husband’s
pressure to perform in every way, I was under my own, that of my
two children bearing down on me the hardest. I felt every moment
spent away from them was wasted and, yet, everything else was

101
 BLASPHEMY

made out to be far more important. Mostly, they played with maids
and cousins, using the servants’ children as toys.
Amma Sain had lived a life similar to mine. The same violence
and fear, the same demands for perfection, and the same
imprisonment. But Amma Sain had lived only for her husband while
her children grew up in the laps of maidservants. A story goes that
she became so unfamiliar with her progeny that once when she
caught her adolescent son cuddling a maid, she created a ruckus
about a strange male in the women’s quarters.
In the hope that Guppi and Chote Sain might remember me, I
kissed them hard and loud whenever I could snatch a moment away
from my never-ending duties. I longed to watch them grow, hear
their first words, help them with their first steps, but it never happened.
I wanted to talk to Guppi about the world I knew before coming
here. I wanted her to know flight, to be creative, imaginative, so that
she might be able to find some joy, in some way. Whenever I had
the opportunity to supervise a chore that did not preoccupy my mind
completely, and most of them did, I talked to Guppi. I noted the
decisions she chose for herself at such a young age and realised that
she was very balanced.
Her father’s only act of affection, unfortunately, was that when¬
ever he came upon her he pinched her cheek as if he wished to twist
a piece of flesh off. Guppi never as much as lifted her eyes. But
because she came into his presence so seldom, if she were playing
among other children, he did not even recognise her.
To my son, I dared teach nothing.
Sometimes, when he lay asleep, I searched the black thread wound
around his little wrist, wondering if it really had the power to protect
him from evil, from his inherited destiny. 1 was terrified for him.
The best time in my life became the seven days of freedom that
my period granted me. Excitedly anticipating my two children
cuddled beside me in bed, I imagined talking to them all night. But
by the time I reached them, they were fast asleep. When I awoke for
morning prayers, they would still be sleeping and I would have to

102
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

leave for the breakfast ritual. When I caught up with them in the day,
I tried to convince them, ‘I slept with you last night. I promise I’ll
be doing so again tonight.’
The only other way to make them know my presence was to keep
kissing them in their sleep, in the hope that I could filter into their
little dreams.
When Pir Sain left for the mushaikh conference in the Capital, I
was unexpectedly free and could have danced with joy, instead I
wondered about him. Religious leaders from across the country had
assembled to discuss which injunctions of Islam best suited their
interest.
I imagined them in stiff turbans standing high above their heads.
Some among them represented smaller houses and were lesser gods
than others. Pir Sain, of course, was among the most powerful and
his opinions held much weight.
Flat on the floor with Guppi perched on my ankles, I lifted my
legs up in the air and brought her down to peels of laughter while I
thought about the devil’s counsel.
It had reduced Islam to fit into the palms of pygmies.
They played with it like putty.
Middlemen and salesmen had converted Muslims into grave wor¬
shippers. They led us back to the time of jahalia, back to the condi¬
tions our Prophet had freed us from, back to the very reasons that
had called for Islam.
Swinging around in circles, my hands clasping Guppi’s, I thought
of how the custodians of law, above the law themselves, had made
each one of us spin. Heirs were attached to old men’s corpses like
bloodsucking leeches and another bead was strung into the tasbi
that bled from the bloody business.
My routine never changed.
By the time I turned thirty, I was the mother of five children.
Guppi was eleven years old and Chote Sain, ten. After him, I bore
another son, Rajaji, and two more daughters, Diya and Munni.
Although as the mother of two sons my position was stronger, I
never felt any change in my status.

103
 BLASPHEMY

But being mother to Guppi was elevating.

She was a soul mate. A strength to my spirit.
Her curiosity, like mine, made her eyes twinkle and sparkle at al¬
most everything.
‘How does a bulb come on by pressing a switch, ammaT she asked,
and a hundred questions followed in her wandering eyes, moving
back and forth between the bulb and its faraway control button.
When Pir Sain saw any of the three girls on his way out or on his way
in, he pinched their cheeks, one by one, and made them wince.
Except for Guppi, who just swallowed the pain without any expres¬
sion of it.
But her nature was different to this submission. As the only
education Guppi had been permitted was the Arabic recitation of the
Quran, she had asked me why I hid in the dressing room to read the
Urdu translation. I had not answered her.
Without betraying me, she had dared to question Amma Sain
about having to read the Quran in a language she did not understand.
‘It is unnecessary. Only the original words are divine. Only they
will give you sawab,’ said her grandmother.
Guppi argued with her, ‘But I don’t understand Arabic. How can
I commit myself to Allah without knowing what I commit to? How
can I make a promise without knowing what to keep? Allah knows
that I don’t understand what I read.’
At first Amma Sain had explained patiently, ‘Allah knows your in¬
tention. When you read His word with good intention, He accepts it.’
But Guppi was not convinced and argued on just like I used to ar¬
gue endlessly with Baba, ‘Did Allah reveal the Holy Book for us to
gain sawab for reading? Was His aim not to instruct us? To give us
direction? To tell us what to be?’
By now, Amma Sain who was not used to arguments was exasper¬
ated and became furious. Guppi had to follow her orders irrespective
of what she thought.
But my daughter did not want to follow an order she did not under¬
stand, ‘I think Allah expects to be taken seriously. Unless His word

104
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

is meaningful to me, it cannot possibly be meaningful for Him that

I read the Quran.’
Amma Sain warned Guppi, ‘It is a shame you don’t listen. I will
have to tell your father about this.’
And that threat made Guppi somersault.
She promised to read only the Arabic version. She swore she
agreed with Amma Sain from the core of her heart. She begged her
not to tell her father this one time. She lifted the Quran on her head,
and took an oath that she would never question a rule again.
I wished to tell Guppi that if our Holy Book was understood, it
would cause an uprising. Its content was dangerous. It exposed those
who exploited it. The translation could make a revolution. But it was
not good for Guppi to be involved in these matters and I said nothing.
Guppi settled into the intricate and complicated female net she
was born into. It was natural for her. Unlike me, she knew nothing else.
I had fought and struggled in every way I could to adjust to the wily
women around me. With the passage of time, and enough incidents
and events behind us, I had proved to them that I, like Guppi, was not
their enemy. In fact, I was as unhappy at their humiliation as I was at
my own. Not only did I give them something extra from the stores, I
often covered up for their absence by delegating their work to others.
This was so unusual that they dropped their defences in front of me.
Cheel was still watching me.
Although I had never seen her face, which was almost always
covered with a chaddar serving as a mask, something in the way her
eyes followed me made me feel she was sorry for me. Something
also told me that she liked me better than she liked the man for
whom she had broken her family’s sworn oath.
None of us, however, lied to Pir Sain to protect anyone else.
Fear of him remained supreme. I merely became the weak leader
of a weaker pack.
Like me, in reality these women had no freedom. Although they
could go home, their poverty imprisoned them to the Shrine so se¬
curely that even if any dared to flee, their kith and kin were trapped

105
 BLASPHEMY

in the master’s gripping net. Leaving here meant risking the lives
of many. Entire clans were held to ransom until the lone absconder
returned. So they learnt not to think of freedom. The price was too
high. They could not even afford the idea. Resignation was all they
could afford. They were poor to that extent.
No one had ever told them that the Shrine was powerless without
them. That they were bonded only by blackmail.
Suddenly, Sakhi bibi’s story took the place of their own unthought
thoughts and everyone became involved with what was happening
in the mill owner’s life.
Sakhi bibi’s only child had contracted a disease that sapped him
of all his strength, and no doctor was able to diagnose the ailment.
People warned Sakhi baba, ‘It is the curse of the Shrine. Go to
Pir Sain.’ But he remained staunch in his belief and refused, saying,
‘I have faith only in Allah.’
Now the child was dying and his mother was desperate.
Flinging him over her shoulder, she ran out barefoot and
bareheaded towards the Shrine.
Breathless, she arrived at Pir Sain’s court and cried out, ‘I beseech
you to save my child, sain. Everyone’s faith in you will strengthen
if he survives, sain. I swear to become your most ardent follower.
I will spread your name across the world, sain. My son and his sons
will never forget your mercy, sain.'
Pir Sain put his hand on the boy’s head, closed his eyes and mut¬
tered under his breath for an interminable period. Sakhi bibi searched
his face for an answer. When he opened his eyes, she jumped.
‘You have come too late,’ he said, declaring, ‘It is the will of
Allah.’ Sakhi bibi beseeched him to beseech Allah.
‘There must be some prayer you know. God will listen to you if you
say it from your heart. Please, sain, I beg you to help me. Do some¬
thing for my child. Forgive us for not believing in your divine powers
before this. I promise to make up for our arrogance. Our ignorance.’
Pir Sain gripped the child’s burning forehead in his hand and tried
again. When he shook his head and said, ‘Take him home, it is time

106
 CIRCLING THE SQUARE

for him to go,’ the distraught mother ran through the throngs of
waiting people, wailing and crying out, ‘Forgive me for coming
here, O Allah! Save my child, O Master! Save him to show these
people that no man can determine your will.’
The people touched their ears for safety against God’s wrath and
exclaimed, ‘Has the curse of the Shrine not fallen upon her home
yet? Has she not yet learnt her lesson? The woman is mad.’
The marasans informed Dai that Sakhi baba had severely repri¬
manded his wife for her visit to the Shrine, saying, ‘Graves cannot
bestow life. Nor can men who fleece the poor and oppress the meek
reach God.’
When the child became unconscious, Sakhi bibi fell in sajda on
her prayer mat and did not lift her forehead from the floor, until, on
the fourth day, the child stirred. On the fifth, he opened his eyes.
Shamianas were erected.
Under them, free food was distributed among the poor, who
stuffed rice into deep folds in their chaddars and clasped them tight
against their chests for their children. With gaping eyes and open
mouths, they listened to Sakhi baba’s sermon.
Rustling leaves sounded like rattlesnakes in the silence.
The paper circulated among the few who could read, arrived in
my kitchen wrapped around river fish.
It read:

By giving our son life, Allah confirms that those at the

Shrine are impostors revelling in lies. Saints need no money,
no favour, and no subjugation to pray for you.
The rulers of the Shrine run a business in Allah’s name. You
have made it lucrative.
You are the source of their power.
You strengthen Satan.
You distort Islam.
Do not walk barefoot with your meagre resources to worship
graves instead of Allah.

107
 BLASPHEMY

God is where you are.

The god the pir worships is one who approves of him.
Our God does not.

I dropped the paper into the kitchen fire.

Everyone was whispering. Everyone’s family had been to the
feast. Nobody was an exception.
Thank God, Pir Sain could not wipe out the entire population.
But he was furious. I wondered what he would do.
He did nothing.
‘May Allah forgive them and bless them, for He does what He
pleases. My prayers are not always answered,’ he said humbly to
anyone who dared broach the subject.
His attitude diluted Sakhi baba’s preaching. The rebellion against
the Shrine was like a wild seed that fell on parched land, germinated,
took root, sprouted, struggled up, and died.
Anything that coincided with Toti’s concept of this house
interested me. I longed to see Sakhi bibi, but knew she would never
come to the Haveli again.

108
 CHAPTER SEVEN

The Lure of Innocence

G uppi was twelve years old.
She had turned into the little girl I used to be.
Although puppy fat still cushioned her cheekbones, I
saw in them the miracle of my maternal grandmother,
Ma, and me, descending from generation’to generation.
Guppi had an uncanny sense of my feelings without my having
to say anything at all.
I, however, prodded her many times.
‘Do you not feel claustrophobic here, as if something as great as
life is trapped in a tiny needle-box? Do you not feel like bursting out
of it?’
Guppi, serene like a gentle river whose path is old and set, said,
‘I don’t want to fight against my life.’
‘But are you happy?’ I asked.
She took a long time to reply aptly, ‘What should I be happy
about?’ As an afterthought, she hugged me and kissed me and tried
to convince me, ‘I’m happy that you are my mother. About that I’m
very happy.’ .
She kept away from her father.
When summer ended, the leaves on the tree turned orange and the
seasons blended into a perfect climate. At this time of the year, we
slept on charpais in the centre of the courtyard, while pedestal fans
swirled cool breeze around us. Guppi, Chote Sain, and the three

109
 BLASPHEMY

other children slept beside me. Right in front of us was Cheel’s

charpai. Away on our right was Amma Sain's. Behind her slept
several other female relatives. Near the veranda was Pir Sain’s lone
charpai. On a table beside it, a piece of crochet net covered his jug
of water and a saucer covered his glass.
Little stars blinked and pranced around in the square patch, repre¬
senting the whole sky. When the moon was full, it splashed its light
across the white sheets that covered us and the colourless courtyard,
the doors and windows and every leaf on the rebellious tree became
illuminated.
Sometimes, the round ball of light descended so low that I could
hold up my hand and touch it. I whispered to Guppi, ‘Hold it in your
hands,’ and Guppi, aglow with moonlight and joy, held up her palms
to clasp the moon, exclaiming in wonder, ‘If only we could jump up
on it and go where it goes, amma.'
The moon faded with all its stories.
Pir Sain was walking towards us.
Pretending to be asleep, I sniffed his musk to determine his dis¬
tance. My heart tripped when I smelt him over Guppi.
What did he want? Why did he not say anything?
Had he discovered her flight? What had she done?
I sensed him turning away and her rising. My eyes opened and
leapt behind them, but I was as helpless as Ma. They disappeared
behind the bedroom door.
Guppi screamed.
Here, the women slept so soundly that many storms had come
and gone without awakening them.
Guppi screamed again.
I held my heart as though it might explode.
At last, her father shouted, ‘Get out,’ and she stumbled into the
veranda. I dropped back at the sight of his shadow on the wall. When
the ropes on Guppi’s charpai creaked, I sensed her body curl and
sniffed for him. Without moving my head, I aimed my eyes at Pir
Sain’s bed. Relieved, I turned to Guppi.

no
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

She feigned sleep.

At daybreak, moist with dew and ambushed by hordes of droning
flies, we awoke and dispersed.
When there was no risk of danger, I asked Guppi, ‘Why was your
father angry with you? What had you done?’
She was afraid of my questions and evaded my eyes.
I insisted, ‘Why was he angry? Did he pinch your cheek too hard?’
She shook her head.
‘Then why was he angry, Guppi?’
‘Because I screamed,’ she replied evasively.
‘Why did you scream, Guppi?’ She would not answer.
‘Why, Guppi? Tell me quickly. Why?’
My daughter said, ‘He put his hand inside my shalwar. He also
put it in my shirt and pressed me hard.’
‘Where?’ I asked stupidly.
Guppi touched her breast.
Guppi had not yet become a woman but her shape was changing.
Fear, shock, anger and confusion spread from my head, through my
body, into my feet, and darted back up again. Meesni’s secret life,
buried in her father’s haveli, had always haunted ours like a ghost.
Now it came alive.
Or was it the birth of its twin? I recalled the resignation on Meesni’s
mother’s face and every nerve in my body pulled. Her only hope had
been to turn a blind eye. My only hope was... what? The killer storm
that had engulfed me since my marriage swept me into its midst.
Now it was about to swallow me.
I pulled myself up with the weight of Guppi’s added burden.
Every moment henceforth would be a risk; every night would be a
threat. But she had kept well away from him.
When had he noticed her?
I recalled him asking me, ‘How old is your daughter?’Now I
understood the look in his eyes.
Evil was behind the question. Evil was to follow the answer.
I told Guppi, ‘Stay as far away from your father as possible.

111
 BLASPHEMY

Unless he calls for you, keep out of his sight at all times.’
Inadvertently, my eye fell upon a group of children playing under
the clothesline and focussed upon the frail, unloved body of an
orphan girl, changing shape, just like Guppi’s
I gave Yathimri a clean pair of clothes and instructed her to bathe.
I ordered a maid to brush her hair and plait it neatly. That night, he
was in the bath and I was waiting in the room.
He snapped, ‘What is this girl doing here?’
‘She is for you, sain,' I muttered.
His fury became shock. When my chores were done, he said,
‘You can leave.’
I wondered about her, and he answered as though he heard me,
‘Leave her.’
Relieved at his acceptance, I shut the door behind me. Before me,
the image of Yathimri’s dead mother flashed. I smothered my guilt.
Compassion in the eye of a storm was impossible. Child rape was
a lesser evil than incest.
Or was it?
Lying under the sky, next to Guppi, I tried not to think of my wed¬
ding night. Straining my ears to hear some sound coming from his
room, I thought of nothing else.
I heard nothing. Had he done nothing?
Maybe Guppi had misunderstood his actions. O Allah, what had
I done? Perhaps the little girl had died from fear of him.
An interminable hour later, Pir Sain’s door opened and he shouted
for me. I ran to the room.
A wounded baby deer with frightened eyes lay on the floor. Her
mouth was stuffed with his handkerchief, her torso was naked, and
her child-like breasts bore teeth marks. The rest of her was covered
with a sheet.
I moved out of my stupor.
His eyes bored into me, searching to catch a glimpse of sympathy
for her and disapproval of him.
He saw nothing.

112
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

Squatting beside her, I pulled out the handkerchief from her

mouth and released a small sigh of condensed hysteria. When I lifted
the sheet, my heart bled onto the red stain that had spread beneath her.
Oh God, I thought, if it were not she, would it have been Guppi?
I guided her to an empty room.
Yathimri clutched the bloo-stained sheet around her body until
I managed to tug it away from her. His evil was tattooed all over her
little form. Her legs shook like of the aged. Between them, blood
trickled and dried. When she saw me looking, she pulled them
together. I put a pillow on the floor for her to rest, she covered her
head with the blanket, without once meeting my eye. Fighting visions
of her mother with thoughts of Guppi, I walked out.
There was no choice.
It could not be Guppi.
She could not become another Meesni.
Glancing sideways at my husband’s fattened body heaving on his
charpai, I fastened my pace and crept into bed.
Searching the sky for an answer, I asked the Almighty, ‘Who is this
man, God? Is he exonerated because one of his ancestors was good?’
I dug into my frayed mind for a solution. Where could I send the
girl? Whom could I trust? I also wondered if Meesni’s mother had tried
to protect her child before giving up. Would Guppi’s father approach
her again? For now I had satiated the lion’s appetite, but how long would it
be before he hungered again? Whom would I throw to him next?
I thought I could send Yathimri to Sakhi bibi. I could bribe the
marasan to take a note from me, swear her to secrecy, and save the
girl from Pir Sain.
But no. I could not let her go.
He would turn on Guppi again. Guppi could go nowhere.
The reason for the sacrifice was alive and kicking. Only another
girl could keep him away. Who would that be?
Why had he shifted the venue of his evil desires from the jagirdar’s
home to his own? Why had he chosen Guppi when there were so
many other little girls disappearing every day?

113
 BLASPHEMY

Why had he involved me ?

How many more little girls would I have to slaughter to save my
own little girl?
All day long, I racked my mind over the issue, and turned it
around in every possible way until I finally decided to keep Yathimri.
There was nobody to ask after her. She was safe. She had been
through the worst the first time. I would feed her well and make her
strong to face the rest. My heart softened towards her, but hardened
when it softened towards Guppi.
On my prayer mat, I cried out to Allah, ‘Why is a mother’s com¬
passion all-consuming? Why does it leave nothing for anyone else?
Am I to turn a blind eye like Meesni’s mother? Or am I not to turn
away?’
That evening, a madness in Yathimri’s eyes made her seem like
a wild beast and I was afraid that she might expose me. This sin was
mine. Fortunately, the maids thought an evil spirit or jinn had pos¬
sessed her, but in a home devoid of kindness and affection, my con¬
cern for her surprised them.
Like a she-devil in the garb of a godmother, when I tried to clasp
her little hand, she wriggled it out from my hold. What she must
think of me was an idea I could not bear to entertain. I was the devil’s
wife, yet my heart was not hardening.
But it must.
The two sides of me were in deep conflict.
When Pir Sain suggested, ‘Give her milk and a raw egg. It will
revive her energy,’ I whispered in the hope that he might not hurt her
again, ‘She is deathly, sain.’ His answer filled the empty gaps and
resolved the many riddles.
‘I have seen many before her,’ he said and so many girls who had
vanished from the scene came back to mind.
‘She will get used to this fever,’ he added and I thought, Kaali had
died but had not got used to it.
His evil activities had come right into the Haveli.
Right into his own hujra.

114
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

Right before my eyes.

I looked at my hands, sweating on my lap for the last fifteen
years. Evil had carved itself into the fate-line once obscured by the
henna web. I knew these hands would deliver the child again and
again to the master.
‘O Allah,’I worried, ‘will she sustain his lust until all my daugh¬
ters are married? Will I sustain the evil?’
While Guppi kept as far away from her father as possible and also
kept Diya and Munni away without my ever telling her to, Yathimri
recovered and reverted to playing with the children.
The following month when my period began, he ordered, ‘Bring
Yathimri.’ Two days later, he summoned her again. Four out of the
seven days of my absence were spent with the little girl.
I was alarmed, but could ask her nothing. Nor could I understand
why she was no longer afraid. Marked and bruised, her eyes became
glazed and her pace slowed, but that did not deter her from playing
with the innocent children around her. As my own three weeks with
him were as grotesque as ever, I wondered what permitted Yathimri
to play and laugh the morning after. Perhaps, he was gentler to her?
I rejected that. Caring had little place in this deed.
One afternoon I heard Yathimri laugh. She was happy with my
husband’s attentions.
Anger invaded my body.
I chilled towards the other woman.
Ma came charging back to mind: surely, she would say, ‘Stupid
girl, he married you from an alley. Why won’t he marry her?’ She
would have shaken me, ‘You hate him? Become a maid then, for you
can never leave his home and your children.’
And where was the choice? What about Guppi?
At least she was now so out of his mind that it seemed she did not
even exist. And I was envious of a girl I had pushed into my hell. I
was jealous that she shared my filth. What confusion. Although there
had never been a change in my husband’s attitude towards me, over
the years, my position had stabilised somewhat. Now a child was

115
 BLASPHEMY

superseding me. My humiliation had more to do with her than with

him; the innumerable stories of old masters and young maidservants
took root and grew wildly inside my head.
When my husband ordered, ‘Make Yathimri new clothes and do
not overwork her,’ I was surprised that she remained on his mind.
At least, Pir Sain had reason to speak to me.
But the victory subsided.
The subject was a threat.
‘What do you think of her?’ he asked, smiling for the first time
since I had seen him, increasing my surprise. Unsure of what to say
I rubbed the perspiration into my palms harder and muttered, ‘She
is very young, sain. I know her only as a child.’
When he declared, ‘Youth has no substitute,’ I realised that I was
challenged by all the little girls in my home. How could I compete
with them when age could not flow backwards?
He left me numb.
Chote Sain noisily tumbled in to pick up his father’s papers and
ran out. My heart melted for my older son, whom I had hardly seen
since the time that he had begun to walk. They had taken him away
from me just as I had expected. Chote Sain spent the entire day at
the Shrine under his father’s tyrannical eye. When they returned
home, I was so caught up with serving my husband that even a
glimpse of my son was impossible.
Although Chote Sain’s ambition was to gain his father’s approval,
it was an unachievable task. It was heart wrenching for me because
the pressure under which he grew up made him a very sad and
frightened child.
My mind forcibly swept Chote Sain away and returned to confront
the feelings that Yathimri had stirred.
For the first two months, my husband only summoned her during
my period. But she bathed and dressed and waited every single night
in anticipation. By the third month, he asked for her every few days
and she jumped to be with a madman. When she emerged from the
room, she staggered past me with lowered eyes and quickened steps.

116
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

It was obvious, she was the favourite and I the discarded wife. The
maids began to whisper and the whispers became drumbeats in my
ears. Wherever I turned, I felt a sharp slap.
Wherever I turned I also saw Cheel, watching knowingly.
One day, Yathimri abused a maidservant for eating in her plate,
another time, she slapped a girl for wearing her new slippers.
I heard her yell, ‘I’ll report you to the master. He’ 11 thrash you for
stealing my things.’
A middle-aged maid stepped forward and lashed back, ‘Who do
you think you are, you little whore! We know all about you.’
Yathimri howled, ‘Wait until I tell the master. He’ll beat you for
saying this about me.’
Other women pulled the middle-aged maid away and warned her
of the consequences, ‘She has the master’s ear. She’ll tell him what
you dared to imply.’
Furious that their fear of Yathimri was more than their fear of me,
I walked up to the group and without asking for an explanation, took
off my shoe and hit her with it despite Cheel, who would tell him
every truth.
Following Pir Sain into the room, I lied anyway.
‘Yathimri told the maids about your interest in her, sain. I had to
beat her so that she won’t dare again. I hope my action has not
angered you, sain.’
His silence made my heart leap in all directions.
When he said, ‘You acted promptly,’ I sighed. He had accepted
my story.
I mustered the courage to push further, ‘Sain, the girl abuses the
maids as if she is special. Her behaviour is causing suspicion.’
‘Summon her,’ he ordered.
I stepped out and Yathimri was right outside the door. Triumph
glowed on her face; she, too, had something to report. That his sum¬
mons did not frighten her was less important to me than the expression
that said, ‘No matter what you say to him it will go in my favour.’
The door shut me out but the loud crack of his hand sounded in-

117
 BLASPHEMY

stantly. I gloated over my victory. Expectation, shock and fear

shattered together on her cheeky face.
When he threw the girl out, she landed at my feet and the same
frightened eyes stared up. This time my heart did not bleed. Realising
that Cheel saw the change in me, I walked away wondering what she
thought of her master’s crime.
Did her devout belief in the Shrine take away her sight, her hearing
and henvoice? She knew every evil here. Did she not believe there
should be any good?
Because Yathimri was a threat to me for as long as she had access
to the master’s bed, I tried to break her spirit whenever possible.
Although the girl kept away from me like Guppi kept away from her
father, unlike him, I could not keep my eyes from following her
around all day long.
Only Guppi sensed the frustration of a million feelings bubbling
in my heart when I swooped down to catch Yathimri’s smallest
mistakes. Invariably I reported her to the master for something. But
Pir Sain’s days never affected his nights and his lust for the girl grew
despite her errors.
One day Guppi said to me, 'Amina, when there is no choice, it is
better to do nothing. Let it all be as it is. However it is. Don’t make
yourself sad about Yathimri in such a special way.’
Holding my hand, young though she was, she asked like an old
woman, ‘Or is my father special to you?’ He was not and yet he was
a paradox that made up my whole life.
A week before Eid, he gave me an expensive set of clothes, with
a similar set for her. Although I remembered Guppi’s words and
gulped down my protest, I could not bring myself to forward the gift
to Yathimri. Instead, I gave her what all the other maids received.
She was with him when I was summoned.
‘Did you give the girl what I gave for her?’ he asked.
I stammered with fear, ‘I gave her another, sain. I thought the
maids might become suspicious, sain.'
His hand flung me across the room. It was her turn to gloat.

118
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

Humiliation overpowered fear. After months of subjugating her,

defeat was impossible to accept, and so, when he came at me again,
her presence made me scream.
‘You scream?’ he roared.
‘Yes, yes,’ I wished to say, ‘do something that will end my life.’
Thank God, he threw the girl out.
I landed in the dressing room.
Lifting the charpai, he commanded, ‘Put your hands under it.’
Heavy wooden bars descended on them.
I winced. My eyes rolled up. My lips pursed. I swallowed explosion
after explosion of pain.
‘One sound and I’ll break your neck and crack your skull in two,’
he warned.
My toes curled between upturned palms, my head hung between my
knees. There was no way to kneel, sit, or squat. The position was
impossible.
Every movement was insufferable. The slightest twitch created
a current of excruciating agony. Strug-gling with the position and
the pain, avoiding one or the other, I saw him sit on the charpai.
Wooden bars pushed deeper.
My bones crushed.
He strained to hear a moan and increase the sentence.
He heard nothing.
He lifted his legs up. He was flat on his back.
Wooden bars pushed deeper.
I could not seal the pain within. It passed from my palms, through
my body, into my head, and out.
I was staring at the grotesque scene from the ceiling.
A monster snored. Beneath his feet, a woman crouched with her
arms spread out and her palms upturned on the floor like a tortured
devil worshipper.
He stirred.
A split second of hope ... and it was gone.
Nothing would change until he awoke. I was struggling with

119
 BLASPHEMY

time, it was not passing, and yet so many soundless hours passed.
At last, he pulled up and over. The pain did not lessen when his
weight lifted, nor did it cease when the wooden bars were lifted.
‘Get up,’ he commanded and my soul hinged back with a jerk.
Had I died for a while?
When his feet appeared before my eyes, I fell on them in relief.
I began to look to my detached soul to save me from circumstances
I could not otherwise escape. Whenever there was trouble, I was no¬
where to be found. At times, I felt my head contained nothing at all.
It was rumoured that I had lost my mind. Always struggling inwardly,
1 had struggled openly in the case ofYathimri.
Now, I withdrew.
Before Eid, the chooriwaali brought colourful glass bangles to
the Haveli. Not only were the maids too poor to buy them, Amma
Sain never allowed them to decorate themselves. ‘They forget their
place and begin to compete with the mistress,’ she would say.
But Yathimri decided to spend the money given to her by Pir Sain
on bangles similar to those I had bought for Guppi. When the matter
reached Amma Sain, she slapped the girl across her face and confis¬
cated the bangles.
Fearing the consequences, she returned them, saying, ‘This time
I am letting you off, next time I will report your insolence to the
master. He does not allow servants to compete with his family. Not
for any reason at all.’
I did not care anymore. But the girl seemed adamant in forcing
my attention back by appearing before me whichever way I turned.
Despite not wanting to, I noticed how much older than Guppi she
had begun to look. The reason was obvious to everyone but it ceased
to bother me.
Amma Sain noticed my resignation and sat me down to explain.
‘This is common among men here. Almost all wives go through
the humiliation of their husband’s attachment to maidservants. It is
difficult to keep these women in their place. They forget their station
very quickly. Not believing their good luck, they become convinced

120
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

they do not belong to the lowly.’

She advised me, ‘You must replace her. You have many children
and are well entrenched. You must make your husband notice you.’
She wagged her finger at me, ‘Do not be so foolish as to waste the
precious time you have with him. Find out what pleases him and do
it. Why should he want a sick woman? Look at yourself. Lifeless
and dull as you are, no man can want you. Why should he not turn
to a young girl?’
But my spirit failed me. Guppi’s advice to accept things as they
were was gentler on my nerves. Amma Sain was guiding me into a
dark jungle. Longing for peace more than victory, I asked my mother-
in-law if her son could marry Yathimri. ‘He can marry whomsoever
he pleases. It is his prerogative. The only way to keep him is to be¬
come indispensable to him in bed.’
My eyes began to follow the orphan girl again.
Again, I was wondering how she coped with my husband’s satanic
lust, how she did not die every time.
Chandraat, the night the Eid moon is sighted, brought back sweet
memories of Ma’s home, where happiness meant new clothes,
bangles, henna and eidi. We used to iron our clothes, cook vermicelli,
arrange sweetmeat and decorate our flat. It had all changed. Every
year my thoughts returned to Eid at home, but that memory was also
fading with the passage of time.
Only the fairy lights stayed.
Always, they were switched off, and my life became pitch black.
That image never waned.
I could not apply henna on my bandaged palms, nor did I want
to. Instead, Guppi changed the dressing on my hands while I,
forgetting the path my little girl had shown me, was again preoccupied
with Yathimri’s resilience to the evil I had thrust upon her. She was
taking the place I hated, but I could not afford to let her take it.
Bright orange clothes sprung at me from here or there and set my
heart on fire. Her red lipstick made me turn crimson. Her eyes glowed
on her brown skin like two black beetles kicking in a mud puddle.

121
 BLASPHEMY

Her hips swung from side to side and paused seductively in the middle.
That night, I noticed how coy she became in his presence. She
even flashed a smile when she bent to touch his feet. Hastening to
take off his shoes, running for his sandals, slipping them on his feet,
she was as fast as I was, but whereas she seemed happy, I did not.
Pir Sain was staring at me, at her, at me.
At her... at me.
Was he noting the difference and rejecting me?
Humiliation flooded into me from a source I had thought had
dried up. Jealousy awoke like a green snake sleeping in my heart.
Discomfort from his gaze made me want to disappear, instead, I
lingered at the door until he said, ‘Stay.’
She had the key to his cupboard and brought out a bottle of
whisky. Pouring it into two glasses, she added some syrup from a
dropper into each and handed one to me.
I felt forced to drink it, while she seemed to relish it.
Now I understood why the girl always reeled out of the room.
Another contradiction sprung at me... Pir Sain's wife was drinking
alcohol while he was drinking fresh goat’s milk.
Yathimri was already a part of my life, that she would be linked
to me thus had never crossed my mind.
Did my curiosity manifest itself this night?
The girl’s flesh sent a chill down my spine. Her familiarity repulsed
me, she was not at all averse to mine. Her body was compact and hard,
mine was plump and soft. There was tenderness in her that reminded
me of Kaali, but she was not Kaali. That contradiction was stark
even in the midst of this madness.
The punishment for my closeness to Kaali had meant nothing.
Despite the growing haze, I felt his eyes upon me, more upon me
than upon her. Then my head began to spin and everything became
unreal.
Alert and stone sober, he began to orchestrate our drunken bodies.
We were no longer Satan and his victims. The wife he had gripped
in a prison as tight as her own body, broke free.
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

Passion stirred.
Fear disappeared.
I lost the sense to remember rules. So did she.
If I forsook the title of mistress, Yathimri ended the distance be¬
tween a servant and myself. The night was fed to flesh, or the flesh
to the night.
When it was over I was sick, later I was tormented.
If Amma Sain’s advice was correct, nights of agony and fear
could end. As hell was the only place my husband wanted to share
with me, I could enjoy the fire that previously burnt me, but the
torment after emerging into reality was unbearable.
It became impossible to resume the role of a decent woman.
‘O Allah,’ I cried on my prayer mat, ‘how many lives can a spirit
live at one time? How many feelings can it feel at one time? How
many people can it be?’
That I had to be two women made me want to strangle the guilt-
ridden one.
A conscience had no place in my life.
When I thought of Guppi’s involvement in this development, any
doubt I had, vanished.
A corrupted mistress celebrated Eid. Guppi, thank God, missed
recognising that. She kissed my bandaged hands and to my disbelief
said instead, ‘The goodness of your heart is apparent on your face,
amma. You look more and more like an angel from heaven.’ Laugh¬
ing, she added mischievously, ‘And it’s not to do with the blessed
Shrine.’
When I announced I was five months pregnant, Amma Sain ad¬
vised, ‘This is the wrong time to confine yourself. Yathimri will pos¬
sess him wholly.’
Pir Sain growled at the impending protrusion in my belly and or¬
dered me to abort the obstacle. But the foetus would not drop despite
the twenty tablets of quinine I took every day for a whole week. My
skin dried up like an old date. My head became as hard as a rock.
When at last I began to bleed profusely, the girl fully replaced me.

123
 BLASPHEMY

My heart sank. I was only vaguely conscious when the maids car¬
ried me to a car that drove me to the village hospital. With my face
concealed under a bed sheet and my stomach exposed to the doctor’s
scalpel they diagnosed a hole in my womb, a crater from excessive
doses of quinine. Two weeks of blood transfusions in a sealed hospital
room, and I was in the car again. Thickly curtained windows, a
leather partition segregating me from the driver, not a glimpse of the
world I craved to see, and I was returned to my lock-up.
The maids ran to congratulate me. Guppi had had her first period
and become a woman at fourteen years of age. Pir Sain had decided
to marry her to Meesni’s brother.
My daughter’s future loomed too close. The boy frightened me.
His background left no doubt in my mind that she was walking into
danger.
Her uncle might succeed in what her father had desired.
Her husband might reconcile like his mother.
Her sister-in-law, Meesni, might encourage the sin.
I wished to tell my husband not to expose Guppi to a house where
incest was a way of life. I wished to stop him from sending her into
the very trap I had protected her from being ensnared in. But my
thoughts could not become words and my burden would not lift.
I heard that the boy had led a life of such indulgence as to become a
complete wastrel. The rules of marriage were ingrained in him. Here,
the more control a man had over his women, the louder he was hailed.
A long-faded memory flashed before my eyes and I wondered
where it had been stored.
Ranjha must have married.
I felt a deep ache at his loss.
While I was sad at Guppi’s departure to an animal, Amma Sain
was thrilled. ‘By the grace of God, we have many boys in the family
and will not have to give our daughters to outsiders,’ she explained
chirpily.
My younger daughter, Diya, was ten years old. We called her so
because she wore a perpetual smile. She and her younger sister

124
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

Munni were devoid of Guppi’s spirit and intellect. When I had tried
to teach them how to fly, they asked no questions for they had no
curiosity and I was too entangled with my own life to improve their
minds. Amma Sain loved them as much as I neglected them and so,
Diya and Munni spent more time in their grandmother’s room than
anywhere else. They were happy orchestrating the cooking of halva,
the cleaning of lentils, or the sieving of flour.
Lying in the children’s room, which was where I lay during all my
illnesses and my monthly periods, I looked at Guppi’s beautifully
sculpted face. She was nothing like her father. Everything about her
was like me. Pale and regal, she held her head and shoulders straight
up even when she was looking down.
I asked her, ‘What do you feel about marriage, Guppi, about being
mistress of your own home?’ ‘Will it be different from being here
in any way?’ she asked wisely, and I remembered my own marriage.
The happiness my engagement had created was the excitement of
a gamble. Early signs of success had conjured up illusions of victory.
Then fairy lights had twinkled.
When they went out, reality had struck.
Guppi’s marriage generated no happiness at all.
When the date was set, we rushed around doing nothing. Her
dowry was complete. Amma Sain had been setting aside an amount
from the annual income since the day she was bom. Jewellery that
I had stopped wearing and that which Amma Sain had not distributed
among the rest of her chi ldren was brought out for Guppi .There was
no gift of a television or a radio but there was a car.
To go where, I wondered.
All that was left of Guppi’s wedding preparation was checking
and completing the guest list. I remembered my own dowry and
thanked God for saving me from becoming a burden to ma; from at
least one problem. Here, we were so well prepared that Guppi's
father decided to marry her off within a week.
When my three daughters walked towards me, the dying memory
of Chitki, Nanni and myself came alive. Separation followed at my

125
 BLASPHEMY

daughters’ heels so predictably that it was not even a prediction.

Allah had preserved their purity and transferred the evil on to me.
It was an acceptable pact.
Guppi put her arms around me and consoled me. ‘Amma, don’t
worry about me. My life will not be worse than yours and I am used
to the way things are here.’ When I told her to find a way to be happy,
she laughed, ‘I’ll explore the whole world. Easily I’ll escape my
husband’s haveli and travel.’
Then she broke my heart,1 Amnia, don’t feel guilty of the choice
you made. You replaced the impossible with the possible. Whereas
Yathimri is jaiz for my father, I am not. She can be halal, for he can
marry her. I can only be haraarn.'
What preventing that sin had led to made me wish the ground
would open up and swallow me. My flesh burnt with the lingering
reminder of Yathimri’s touch. Shame charred my soul. Guppi kept
the fire ablaze, ‘Amma, accepting this is better than accepting what
Meesni and her mother have. Allah has saved us from that fate, don’t
you think?’ I could not think of safety as a finality until Diya and
Munni were married.
That afternoon, a middle-aged widow with her two angelic-
looking daughters stepped out from among the women gathered
around Amma Sain under the rebellious tree and I was reminded of
Ma’s first visit to Pir Sain.
The widow wept and wailed, ‘I have nobody in the world, bibiji.
Allah sent me here for protection. My girls are reaching puberty. It
is difficult to keep them from the lusting eyes of men. We have
nobody to take care of us except you.’
In an attempt to make her flee from this more dangerous zone
than she had yet experienced, my eyes pierced through hers as I said
in my heart, ‘Leave at once. Never return. Go away quickly. Go
before the devil snatches your babies.’ But she stayed.
When Pir Sain asked me if I had met the widow, I nodded.
‘What do you think of the girl?’ he asked. Taken aback, I stam¬
mered, ‘I did not see her well, sain'

126
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

A dagger stabbed my heart when he ordered, ‘Prepare her tonight.

The elder one, of course. The younger girl is too young even for me.’
I was horrified at his black humour. But when he instructed, ‘Do not
letYathimri know. She will be irresponsible,’ I recalled Amma Sain’s
advice. Become indispensable if you want Yathimri out.
This seemed achievable only by becoming an accomplice in crime.
By now I had realised that human beings have a natural reserve
of evil and that it only takes circumstances for it to surface. Some
people’s circumstances make smaller demands on their dormant evil.
Mine were arousing all the evil in my spirit, so that I felt as if the
devil was tampering with my nature. The deeper I plunged into my
husband’s hell, the greater were my chances of survival, but the
toxins there made me toss and turn without reprieve.
Thinking of all this, I gave the three new entrants sedatives in
their tea and sent them to sleep in the room behind the store.
Pir Sain was waiting in our room and I was on my way to theirs.
The three slept in a heap. The child I had to take was huddled
between her mother and her sister. It was impossible to extricate her
without waking up the whole lot.
On my knees, I shook her arm until the child awoke. Recognising
me, she called out to her mother. ‘Leave her. Come and press my legs,’
I whispered, and the drowsy child wriggled out of their arms and legs.
I made her walk in front of me. There was no shape to her body.
She was even younger than Yathimri had been, perhaps only twelve
years old.
Guilt knocked on my mind.
I kicked it out.
Diya and Munni were growing up and I was leading the widow’s
lamb for slaughter instead of slaughtering my own lambs.
Pir Sain was'sitting cross-legged on the bed. When the girl touched
his feet, he smiled. The little fairy must have thought God’s eye had
fallen upon her. When he handed her a glass, her eyes filled with
gratitude, she could not wait to tell her mother the good fortune that
had befallen them.

127
 BLASPHEMY

I gulped the bitter drink, anxious that it fog everything around

me. The child sipped hers and nearly threw up.
‘Swallow it,’ he shouted, and she did.
He lay down on the charpai and told her to press his feet. Kneeling
on the floor, she used all the strength in her little hands to please him.
She was smaller than Diya.
Holding her, I was the devil mother.
When the pleasure of purgatory was over, he slept and snored and
grunted.
I took the child into the empty room where she vomited from the
drink and trembled from her restored memory. That the potion could
not kill recollection was a terrible flaw. The trauma after was unbear¬
able. Forcibly, I tried to encapsulate the night and make it drift away
into another time.
The next morning, Pir Sain gave me a thousand rupees for the
widow. ‘Also give her clothes, wheat, and sugar,’ he ordered as he
draped the chacldar embroidered with the ninety-nine names of
Allah over his shoulders. I shuddered at the garb, at Allah exploited,
at my purdah concealing evil, at sin becoming routine, and at the
changing faces of little girls panting in my arms.
The widow pleaded, ‘Bibiji, I have so many problems that this
money will not help me. If you give us work, we will never tire of
pleasing you. I have two young girls and the world is very cruel. We
need your protection. Please let us stay.’
I wanted her to leave at once, but knew he would discover that I
had sabotaged his pleasure. When she said, ‘Bibiji, my daughter
will press your legs every night,’ I blushed. Had the child told her?
Ma, Nanni and Chitki arrived for Guppi’s wedding. The grand
dowry was enough to make my family believe everything else was
also perfect. Outside, where the men sat, I knew my sisters’ husbands
bowed and crawled and buttered Pir Sain far more than was even
necessary.
It was autumn. Guppi’s yellow clothes matched the yellow leaves
on the tree. When she became a bride in red, I cried at sacrificing a

128
 THE LURE OF INNOCENCE

woman to a man. Chote Sain cried in his sister’s arms, just like Bhai
had cried in mine. Rajaji was different. The only emotion that I had
ever seen wash over his face was an undisguised glee when he
walked in or out of the Haveli at his father’s side.
Was this a day of celebration or mourning?
In my husband’s family, the marriage of a daughter is not
celebrated with song and dance, for it is considered shameful to
rejoice at a daughter’s departure to a man’s bed.
Surrounded by her sisters and cousins, Guppi left her room to
make the short journey to the brick wall in front of the entrance door.
I did not know when she would return, for none of the married
women of this family came visiting, except at a celebration or a
tragedy. Walking behind her, I recalled a seedling growing inside my
womb. I recalled her birth, the pain of labour, suckling her, making
her survive the perils of being a woman, sustaining her in my own
weakness, teaching her to turn her back on suicide, to take flight.
Now she was leaving me.
At the brick wall, we clung together and wept. Over Guppi’s
shoulder my eyes fell on Cheel staring at us without a smile or a tear.
She did not even unfold her arms to say goodbye to Guppi. My
attention returned to my daughter’s sad moment of departure. She
was moving just a mile away, but to such a great distance from me.
When she stepped out with Chote Sain and the door shut between
us, one fear ended. For that, I wished to sing and dance, but I had sent
my child to another criminal’s home and for that I wished to wail,
beat my breast, and tear my heart out.
That night, the Haveli was littered with women sleeping in every
available space. Ma slept in the children’s room with my sisters. Fa¬
tigue made me take the liberty of failing asleep on the sofa before
Pir Sain came in.
‘Are you drugged?’ he shouted. I jumped up. ‘It is not a night to
sleep like the dead. Go, call Yathimri.’ My eyes filled with tears as
I remembered Guppi’s question, ‘Amma, will it stop or will you
have to do it for Diya and Munni too?’ Dear Guppi, even if I did not

129
 BLASPHEMY

fear for you and your sisters, I would not know how to reverse what
I had begun. I would not know how to refuse.
Yathimri was missing from her bed. I looked over all the bodies
that lay as if slaughtered in a battlefield, thinking that all hell would
break lose upon her. But his wrath was unbearable even if it was
directed at somebody else. Nor was I sure that somehow it would not
be twisted into my crime.
Undressed, he had the potion in his hand, and the next step in his
programme was missing. When the chain broke, he growled. Fury
made him froth at the mouth. He had no patience. I suggested the
widow’s younger daughter, the one who he had thought was too
young even for him. ‘Get her,’ he screamed, and I ran.
Jumping over littered bodies, rushing back with the sleepy little
girl behind me, I thought of Guppi’s first night, with no time to fear
for her survival. My own was still at stake. Pir Sain calmed down at
the sight of a new lamb.
The room became hazy. Numbness replaced fear. Madness
replaced numbness.
We spun in a tornado of fire. I heard the sounds of wolves and felt
the heat of hell.
Again, it was over, and I struggled out with the limping child.

130
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Chote Sain
he early morning call to prayer corresponded with Pir
Sain’s summons to Yathimri. ‘Where were you?’ he
growled. She stammered, wiping sweat beads from
her forehead, ‘I was asleep, sain. Bibiji, did not wake
me, sain.'
Shocked, I blurted out my defence; she blurted out hers, until our
voices became indistinguishable from one another.
His face was calm like a resting sea.
‘I cannot have an invalid wife entertain my guests. Tonight I will
settle the issue once and for all,’ he said and walked out.
Immediately, I stepped forward to slap the girl but she sprung
back screaming, ‘Don’t touch me. I’ll tell the master.’ Seething with
rage, I told her to get out of my room at once. It was time to dress
up and arrange food for hundreds of guests. It was also time to send
an elaborate breakfast to the newlyweds. Again, I brushed away the
horror of what must have happened to Guppi. It was time to kiss Ma
and my sisters again, to swallow my tears, and hide my fears. There
was no time to find out and prove where Yathimri had been. Cheel
should know the truth, I thought. But why was she not informing Pir
Sain? I rushed to Amma Sain; she alone had the time and the authority
to speak to Cheel and hold an inquiry.
Moments before my husband returned, his mother sent for me,
‘Yathimri was asleep next to the washerwoman and her daughters.

131
 BLASPHEMY

They swear she was there because they talked among themselves
way into the night.’
She had an alibi and I had trouble.
Waiting for him magnified the terror. The future sprung backwards
and gobbled up the present.
When he asked, ‘What happened last night?’ My mind took a
turn. A miracle occurred. I smiled at him. Fidgeting with the veil on
my head like Yathimri did, I said, ‘I’m sorry, sain, I wanted you to
have a new girl, sain. Yathimri has nothing new to offer.’
His anger subsided as my explanation progressed. ‘A lie? I gave
you no option to tell a lie.’ he shouted, but I had averted the disaster.
Next morning, when I saw Ma walk towards me with my sisters,
I breathed a sigh of relief. A punishment would have been catastrophic
while they were guests. Bhai was still not convinced of my happiness.
That my family were living off the dividends of my imprisonment
was too obvious to him.
Ma said to me, ‘You must ease your brother’s worry. Every time
we talk of the great blessing Allah has bestowed upon us with your
marriage, he stalks out of the room. He never talks of your husband.
Even during your sisters’ marriages he remained aloof, causing a lot
of embarassment and shame. Our enemies, who have grown in
numbers because of our success, are sniggering and gossiping. People
think we are liars. You must speak to him before we leave.’
I was sad to hear that Bhai was no longer interested in an education.
He had always nurtured the dream of specialising in some economi¬
cally viable field. Instead, he found work in a shop but was not com¬
mitted even to that. He stayed away from home and returned as late
at night as possible.
Of course, Ma was upset. Her only son was turning out to be a bad
egg. The disappointment made her pick on him all the time. ‘When
a girl is born we mourn her as a risk to our honour,’ she would
lament. ‘When a son is born, we celebrate, because a protector has
arrived. I bore three sons and one daughter. You are the fear, the risk
and the shame. Why didn’t you die when you were born?’ She would

132
 CHOTE SAIN

taunt, and the insult would make my brother disappear from sight
for many days.
When Bhai came into the empty room, I tried to lessen his anxiety,
‘Look how lucky we are. Your niece has been married off with such
grandeur. Our sisters have married well. Now, keep up our father’s
good name and don’t waste your life. Family burdens are off your
shoulders.’
He gave a mock laugh, lApa, nobody has the eye to see the burden
on my shoulders. Those that were lifted are the only ones they see.’
‘What troubles you, Bhai?’ I asked. He shook his head firmly and
said, ‘You have enough problems yourself, those that Ma finds too
inconvenient to see. Those that replaced the ones your marriage lifted.’
Bhai was like Baba.
Although I was worried for my brother, I was also relieved that
he had not become greedy like Ma and vague like my sisters. What
could I do for him, though? What could I do for Guppi, or Chote
Sain, or myself, or anyone else?
Bhai left. The room and I were empty until the greedy face of the
widow appeared.
‘Bibiji, we are your well - wishers. We pray for your sain to be for¬
ever present over you and your children.’
I snapped at her, ‘Get on with it, I don’t have time for your butter¬
ing.’ She made a face and sat down. Bending close, sending wafts
of bad breath into my nostrils, she whispered, ‘Yathimri was with
Chote Sain last night. He gave money to the washerwoman to lie that
she slept beside her.’
I gasped, ‘But he is only thirteen years old.’
She cocked up her eyebrows, ‘She is only fourteen. Better for her
to be with a young boy than with an old man.'
‘O Allah! Have mercy on us,’ I prayed in my heart. If Pir Sain
found out he would kill Chote Sain.
‘You must not speak to anyone about this. Who else knows? Does
Cheel know? How do you know?’ I asked. She had overheard them
make the deal and watched Yathimri slip into my son’s room.

133
 BLASPHEMY

Whenever I survived one ki Her wave, another one lashed out at me.
I wanted to be buried in the deep but had to save my son. The widow
was talking of difficulties, asking for more money, complaining, sub¬
tly blackmailing. I gave her a thousand rupees. She said it was too
little. I gave her five hundred more and knew that this transaction
would be ongoing^She had her ears and eyes open to all the dangers
lurking in my home; I wondered if she were aware of her daughters’
changing bodies. Surely, she knew that too. The thought eased my
gui It at cheating another mother, even though I knew that we exploited
the needy.
Chote Sain came two hours after I sent for him. That gave me
enough time to think of a hundred ways to frighten him of his father,
even though nobody was as afraid of Pir Sain as he.
My son was too soft for the cruel system that sustained the Shrine.
Every time a servant was being thrashed, unlike Rajaji Chote Sain
hollered and screamed until he was banished to the women’s quarters
as punishment. There, he was almost happy until he was spotted and
dragged out to his father’s world again. His frightened demeanour
was the result of having failed every test Pir Sain put him through.
Chote Sain was the star that broke, the sun that sank, the moon that
never became full. A joy had turned to sorrow. The pain of his life
ate at me. I could not lessen it because I could not alter the child’s
temperament. Nor did I want to.
He was like Babaji, an answer to my prayer.
But I had to save my son, just as I had to save my daughters. I bade
him to sit at my feet and spoke to him, ‘The pressure under which you
1 ive is my pressure, too. I could not protect you from it just as I could
not protect myself.’ His big brown eyes looked so sad as I continued,
‘Nobody is able to come up to your father’s expectations, except, per¬
haps, Rajaji. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If you are soft hear¬
ted, it does not mean you are not strong. You have other strengths, those
that Babaji had, those that God likes. Use that gift in Allah’s name.
It was given to you in a home where little is done in His obedience.’
Of course, my son was shocked to hear me speak like this. Nor

134
 CHOTE SAIN

would I have done so if it were not for the danger he had walked into.
‘Your life should be dedicated to Allah. One day you might be¬
come the pir people have been waiting for, but stay away from your
father’s path. Stay away from the path of the cronies who crawl at
his feet.’
He understood me. I did not understand how this angelic child
had strayed.
‘Beware of arousing your father’s wrath,’ I warned him. ‘Stay
away from the women he has lodged in his home. If he ever finds
out you have been near a woman other than the one you marry, he
won’t spare your life.’ Chote Sain stiffened.
Had his simple mind made him forget the repercussions of his ac¬
tions? Did he need a reminder, even though warnings were always
in the air?
‘The girl you took to your bed is your father’s companion,’ I said
firmly. ‘The woman you paid was overheard.’Now he was sweating,
crying, blaming the girl, ‘I paid no one. She was after me. She forced
herself into my room. I swear on Allah, I tried to push her out. She
overpowered me. I didn’t want her there.’
It was impossible to prove.
I pacified him, ‘I have handled the crisis for now. You never know
who will tell on you the next time. Somebody may want to win Pir
Sain’s favour by informing on you. Another girl might also try the
same trick. God will protect you only if you take refuge in Him.’
Embarrassed to meet my eye, Chote Sain touched my feet and
left. I sat in the silence and wondered how a boy was expected to be
chaste in'a home where daughters lived under the constant threat of
their father’s lust.
At least Guppi ’s marriage turned out to be a blessing. Her husband
was a lazy man who spent his days eating, gossiping, and joking
with his cronies. Always staggering into the room in a state of
drunkenness, he sometimes tried to seduce his wife, but was happier
if she did not oblige him. Instead, Guppi wanted pictures of foreign
lands from him. He thought she was crazy but did not mind her

135
 BLASPHEMY

gazing at trees and flowers and turquoise-coloured oceans.

Images of men, their voices, and their shadows were banned.
Even their mention was prohibited. But Guppi had been heard saying,
‘I could not suffer another one of them. Trees and flowers will suffice.’
As for me, like day and night, I was split into two. When the three
girls had discovered each other in our bed, they were bewildered,
but their subservience to the master was an instant remedy against
shame. Every night my soul descended into hell, every morning it
rose with Chote Sain’s voice chanting a message from the Quran.
I walked in a trance to cleanse myself from the night’s evil. Facing
Allah on the prayer mat, I begged to know, ‘Whose sin is this? Mine?
Whose world is this? Yours?’
Pir Sain, instead of hearing about Chote Sain’s crime, heard that
his son was a ‘real’ saint. Word spread that Babaji’s true heir had
become apparent. He was pointing in a direction that my husband
could not stop people from following. Now, father and son were
both speaking in the name of Allah, both were prescribing verses
from His Book, both were writing taviz in zafran water, and both
were blowing their sacred breath on the suffering multitude that
clamoured to them for relief. But whereas one sat at the Shrine like
a king, the other stooped like a beggar under the bunyan tree. One
walked with majesty and the other quietly slipped away. Soon, the
crowd under Babaji’s tree began to thicken.
Politics infested our already infected home. My husband came
home angrier every day until he screamed all the time. Even the little
girls could not hold his interest any longer.
One night agonizing cries tore me off my prayer mat and pulled
me to the window where I froze.
Every window framed a frozen shadow.
Women hid behind the tree. I saw a hand holding a door slightly
ajar, an image diffused behind the kitchen netting. Eyes peeped from
the other side of a window, feet protruded from under the clothesline.
Chote Sain was tied with ropes to the rebellious tree. Khajji
whips slashed his bare back.

136
 CHOTE SAIN

Nobody dared help my son.

Nobody dared stop my husband.
Pir Sain’s lethal poison was vented only when Chote Sain’s painful
cries died. I saw him walk away. I saw the maids emerge from their
hideouts and charge from all directions. I saw them untie Chote
Sain, cover him with a blanket, splash water on his face and mumble
desperate-sounding prayers.
When my husband shouted, ‘Heer,’ I snapped out of the window
frame. ‘Your son dared to rape Yathimri,’ he spat, and my heart sank.
‘Out,’ he ordered and I controlled each step to the door. When it shut
behind me, I ran like a mother.
Chote Sain was on his stomach with a cloth around his waist, and
so many girls had lain the same way in the same room. Swollen red
lines from the khajji made a pattern of his father’s madness on his
back. When he vomited blood, he was shifted to the hospital.
That morning’s call to prayer stood witness to my son’s absent
defence and yet, the day was filled with loud exclamations at the
rape of the orphan girl. Yathimri swore on the Quran that Chote Sain
had pulled her into his room, drugged her with sedatives, and forced
himself upon her. Whether people realised Pir Sain’s game or not
was not important. My husband had axed a threat.
Amma Sain, unable to punish the churael that Yathimri had now
become for her, instructed the maids to keep her away from her sight
with a stern warning, ‘Tell her that if I see her face. I’ll not be able
to control myself from breaking it.’ The twelve-year-old Rajaji
proudly replaced his elder brother at his father’s side. I did not
blame him. It was his training.
Chote Sain remained in a coma at the hospital for two months.
When he returned home, he was good for nothing. He sat under
Babaji’s bunyan tree and spoke to no one. While this did not disturb his
father, I thought that God had struck him deaf to the silence I heard.
As much as I became livid with Yathimri, the master became ob¬
sessed with her. Midday to sunset, after dinner, and all night, he was
over her or under her or with her. I never saw him without her. The

137
 BLASPHEMY

widow’s two daughters ran to and from the kitchen, fetching things
and carrying out orders. The house was now run from the bed. Any
laxity in supervision converted an orgy into a massacre’
Amma Sain was old and feeble and always depressed about Chote
Sain. Guppi had gone. The Haveli was without an administrator. It
was no longer organised like when I had first arrived. Now the
kitchen was never clean and the rooms were unkempt like their
mistress. The red polish on my nails was chipped like the ground in
the courtyard. Dried earth cracked under my feet, like nail polish
cracked on my toes. As Pir Sain’s work never suffered, nobody
noticed the deterioration.
Sex infested my husband’s brain.
The room reeked of a stale mixture of semen, alcohol and musk.
All the hateful clothes in my cupboard smelt of it. I bathed with
odorous water. I dried myself and the towel stank. Sticking my shoe
under my nostrils, I inhaled the same pungent smell. It was in my
hair and in my hands, it was even on my breath.
Pir Sain spoke, but only of sex. Planning the next act, discussing
the last one, seeking opinions on a new one, checking and rechecking
the effects of an old one, comparing it to another one, until the
matter took up my entire-life. That I only answered in a ‘yes’or an
occasional ‘no’ did not deter him from devising new stratagems.
Like a wild boar or a mad wolf, he ate red meat, drank jugs of con¬
densed milk, slurped big bowls of yoghurt, and devoured dozens of
mangoes. He was fat like apregnant pig. He gulped down tablets for
virility that made all dimensions of life other than sex fade out from
his mind. Passion ran riot, until like a satiated devil he collapsed,
and life escaped him for a little while.
I thought he was losing his mind. He even began to miss his pray¬
ers. On some days, he did not step out at all. That day was like a moun¬
tain which did not shift. Keeping Pir Sain occupied was impossible.
He lost his temper at the first sign of boredom. Creating as well as
sustaining his interest drove me from one catastrophe to another.
New clothes arrived from the city. Yathimri emerged from the

138
 CHOTE SAIN

dressing room in tight black pants, a transparent white blouse, high-

heeled shoes, and a big golden bow in her hair. She looked strange
and probably felt stranger as she wobbled and stumbled many times
before reaching him. I had lost my shape. My tummy bulged out of
a tight red skirt that ended far above my knees. My bosom plunged
out of a sheer black blouse and wobbled like my knees as I paraded
up and down the room for him. Subjugation was complete.
The five times I bowed before Allah was a mere ritual. Why I
faced the Qibla, I did not know, I should have turned towards my
husband instead.
The next morning, when Bhai arrived with mithai to celebrate the
new job he had landed at the railway station, he was made to wait
behind the brick wall. Pir Sain was walking out of the room.When
he felt a sticky substance on the clean handkerchief I handed him,
he licked it and rolled his tongue to taste it and a black shadow fell
across his face.
‘What is this?’ he asked me. How could I know? I neither dared
touch it nor ask a question about it. Suddenly, his bejewelled hand
sent me reeling into the veranda. A kipk flung me into the courtyard,
another one deposited me in its centre.
I looked up and saw Bhai’s face ... it disappeared.
A month later, I heard that Bhai was in hospital suffering from a
nervous breakdown.
In the midst of all these horrific and painful events, Guppi came
to deliver her first child in the Haveli. She at least was happy enough
and explained, ‘My world is too dark to grow in but not dark enough
to die in.’ I added pensively, ‘Life is either still or a raging storm.
Yours is the former and mine the latter. As you lose control in a
storm, you have to ride the waves to survive, but drowning is easier
than riding the waves.’
Chote Sain, who had drifted away from everyone, was drawn to
Guppi’s newborn son like a magnet. He cradled him in his arms and
circled the square courtyard for hours. I noticed how he, like me,
was desperate to make his world round like everybody else’s. While

139
 BLASPHEMY

Guppi watched her brother walking round and round like a mad man
and cried at what had become of him, I shuddered at the thought of
what could have become of him had he been like his father instead
of like Babaji.
Sometimes, Chote Sain would remember to bring us corn from
the field or dead roses from the graves. But whenever he spotted his
father, he would run away. Breathless and exhausted, miles away
from home, he would crouch into a corner and freeze in the cold.
To distract Guppi and myself from Chote Sam’s heartbreaking
condition I asked her about Meesni.
‘Her mother abhors her as much as her father loves her,’ she said.
‘Meesni gets away with everything because she has his ear. They say
she does black magic to keep him under her control. But her mother
says black magic is not needed by those who pleasure a man with sin
Guppi touched her ears and exclaimed, ‘Tauba, tauba, amma.
She is not even ashamed that everyone knows.’ I asked Guppi if her
husband ever spoke of it to her and she said, ‘ When once I mentioned
it, he slapped me so hard that I slit my tongue and could not eat for
a whole month.’
The little time Guppi and I had to talk about ourselves was gobbled
up by another old story. Now it had become new again. Changed by
events, the story of Maharaja and Maharani, born, from Pir Sain’s
miraculous prayers, to the two sisters married to the farmer sons,
grew and spread and circulated in the Haveli like a suspense thriller.
Maharaja and Maharani, betrothed at birth, had set a date for the
wedding, and the two families arrived at the Shrine for Pir Sain’s
blessing. Unexpectedly, he refused to give it.
The young lovers were heartbroken. Their mothers had become
daily visitors. ‘Please sain, accept our supplication. Please tell us why
it does not make you happy,’ they pleaded, but Pir Sain gave his deci¬
sion, ‘Nothing will displease me more.The marriage will be adisaster.’
A few days later we heard that Maharaja’s mother, Waddi malkani,
threw her veil at Pir Sain’s feet and cried out in front of everybody,
‘This matter has disturbed our entire family, sain. The happiness we

140
 CHOTE SAIN

enjoyed has vanished. Please, sain, give your blessings. Please

soften to our desire.’ But he remained stoic and ordered her out of
his pres-ence.
A few days later we heard she had pushed her way into his room,
crying and pleading, ‘The son you gifted me is ill. He doesn’t eat
anything or talk to anyone. Please, sain, give your consent.’When
Pir Sain remained adamant and refused, Waddi malkani wanted to
know why. She said she would not leave until he told her. She waited
all day for him to tell her, until, Pir Sain, angered by her persistence,
took her aside.
Soon we heard another twist in the event. The marasan told Dai,
‘Pir Sain’s words have convinced Waddi malkani that the marriage
is impossible. And although her family is now prepared to break
from their pir for the happiness of their children, Waddi malkani has
warned them that if the pir who granted them these children foresaw
an impending disaster, they would be fools to disobey him.’
We heard that Maharaja had tried to convince Maharani to elope
with him but she too was afraid of Pir Sain’s prophecy. Then we
heard he threatened suicide. His mother would not thaw and told
him, ‘We have to obey Pir Sain’s order even if you die.’
Guppi and I wondered why Pir Sain had refused to give his consent
in the first place. What could he have told Waddi malkani? Guppi
thought her father saw a bad omen in the union.
I thought differently, ‘Your father does not have the power to see
bad omens. I think it is nothing but a whim to exercise control.’
Dai had her own opinion, ‘The master’s prayers granted these
children to their mothers, bibiji. He has every authority to decide
their fates.’
Like Ma had decided mine, I thought.
Like the pir who clamped iron frames on the heads of children
and converted them into mindless rats.
The inevitable happened. Maharaja slit his wrists and bled to
death in an isolated shed. The whole village cried in sorrow.
The Haveli fell into a gloom.

141
 BLASPHEMY

Forty days had flown by. It was also time for Guppi to leave for
her husband’s home again and we were parting on this tragic day in
the farmers’ fami ly. I was walking with her to the brick wall when sud¬
denly, an order announced purdah and everyone instantly dispersed,
Running back into Amma Sain’s room, I wondered aloud to Guppi,
‘Except for the local doctor, men never enter the courtyard. Who’s
coming here?’
Shrill cries of sorrow pierced the walls of Amma Sain’s room.
Grief exploded in our prison. Guppi and I looked at each other in
bewilderment but did not dare open the door until the order for
purdah was withdrawn. Then I heard someone scream.
‘We’ve been robbed. We’ve been abandoned.’My ears strained to
hear more. They cried out, ‘God give us patience. Allah help us.’
I clutched Guppi’s arm, ‘Who is it? What is it?’ Suddenly, we
were running out without thinking, pushing through the crowd of
wailing women. My heart was tripping.
I wanted to know.
No, I did not want to know.
Chote Sain was dead.
I felt grateful that he had found peace. Now, he could speak and
sing and be free, like Kaali and Toti. Guppi felt only the physical loss
of her brother and was overcome with grief. My younger daughters,
along with everyone else, were fainting or screaming or tearing
their hair out in hysteria. When I saw Rajaji, I ran to embrace him.
His body trembled and shook as he tried to control his grief. Holding
him tight, I never wanted to let him go. Over his shoulder I saw
Cheel watching us mourn our loss without a tear in her eye and her
arms folded dispassionately across her chest. I hated her.
Amma Sain froze into sakta. Her silence was the loudest protest
against her grandson’s murder. She faced the Qiblci without ever
turning around to face her world again.
Pir Sain remained sombre and solemnly conducted the funeral
proceedings. There were no visible signs of sorrow on his face. Nor
did he condole with me. Although I did not raise my head to look at

142
 CHOTE SAIN

him, I could have torn his heart out and thrown it to the vultures. I
could have torn out his eyes so that he could never see another
orphan girl to lust after again.
It was said that Chote Sain had died of a snakebite in the fields. I
wondered if it might not have been from his father’s poisonous heart.
To me, my husband was my son’s murderer.
He was also my daughter’s molester.
A parasite nibbling on the Holy Book, he was Lucifer, holding
me by the throat and driving me to sin every night. He was Bhai’s
destroyer, Amma Sain’s tormentor. He had humbled Ma, exploited
the people. He was the rapist of orphans and the fiend that fed on the
weak. But over and above all this, he was known to be the man
closest to Allah, the one who could reach Him and save us.
Rajaji became the little god that my eldest could never be.
I had often seen him play-acting the role of a pir among the
servants’ children. Now the act had turned real.
He had the required ability to rule over people. Although he was
attentive towards those stooping at his feet, he had the sense not to feel
their pain. He understood the doctrine of Islam but also had the tradi¬
tional aptitude to doctor it. He was nothing of the fool that Chote Sain
was. Instead, Rajaji made his brother an example of failure. He took
the path Chote Sain had rejected, the one that led only to the graves.
Those who could not imagine the saintly Chote Sain committing
rape remained puzzled over the whole matter until they brushed it
away in apathy. Soon his memory would also fade from the minds
of the already erased people.
Guppi and Chote Sain, who had brought me happiness and grief,
were gone. Those who had come to celebrate the birth of my grand¬
son and mourn the death of my son left. Waddi malkani did not come
to condole my son’s murder with me. 1 could not go to condole the
murder of her’s.
I sat still like the air in the courtyard.
Here and there, the stooping lengths of female shadows fell in
long stretches beyond which was nothing.

143
 BLASPHEMY

The scene of death and pain turned into somebody else’s life.
Green grass glistened beneath my feet.
Tall trees from other countries splashed pink and white and orange
flowers across the sky. Branches pregnant with purple grapes hung
low. Women in vibrant colours of red and yellow and blue swayed
with gharas at their hips, or babies in their arms.
Kaali threw her head back and bells tinkled in her throat.
Toti dressed as abride and danced into bliss with her bridegroom.
Amma Sain told long stories to fascinated children.
Guppi’s husband tucked a flower in her hair and made her blush.
Chote Sain was still a baby gurgling in my arms.
A stream. The sound of a river. My feet were splashing in the
water and everything was diffusing in the mist.
I was breathing in the air and it was becoming an ache for Chandi’s
brother, Ranjha.
Love wove into my fate line. My gaze fixed on the spot from
where he would appear. I heard footsteps much before they could be
heard at all. I counted them until the world was at my feet. Ranjha
slipped into my heart.
A moment came and went.
There was a past and a future, in between was a black ditch.
A black chill descended and I whirled in its currents behind Pir
Sain.
The door shut me in with him.
‘Were you thinking of another man?’ he asked. I gasped. How did
he know? My fear was so obvious that he shouted, ‘Do you think of
other men?’ I thought he would kill me.
‘Do you want another man like I want another woman?’ he roared,
while the mention of a man drove terror into me. I flung myself at
his feet and swore on everything that he held holy and sacred that
I had never thought of another.
‘Speak. I do not accept lies,’ he shouted, but no answer ensured
safety. Inwardly, I cried to Chote Sain to get help from Allah.

144
 CHAPTER NINE

Killer Waves
hile my life was this turbulent and erratic, Diya and
Munni’s lives were static. At fourteen and thirteen
years of age they were married off to the two sons of
their debauch uncle. When the time for the girls to
depart into another haveli with the same madness, the same risk and
the same kind of women and men arrived, the never-fading memory
pf magical fairy lights twinkled and switched off in my mind.
Afterwards it was so dark.
With Chote Sain and my three daughters gone, I was left with
Rajaji and his father, one a reflection of the other.
Three years went by fencing him on the subject of other men.
On some nights, he very nearly pleaded with me to tell him I
wanted another man, on others he was ferocious and insisted, ‘You
want another man. Say it, or I’ll wring your neck like a chicken. Do
you want another man?’ I had answered the question a thousand
times but he was not satisfied.
My husband’s obsession, however, managed to ignite the dormant
dreams I had of Ranjha, whose story had ended abruptly behind the
steering wheel of his car. Trying to imagine more, I pushed the story
further, tried to fly, swing from star to star or float endlessly in the
sky, even as my husband sapped the marrow from my bones and the
life from my soul.
One day he announced, ‘I have brought something new.’

145
 BLASPHEMY

Every new thing that he introduced into my life had turned out to
be a nightmare, always impossible to accept, and with no time given
to adjust. Two cartons, one larger than the other, were opened in our
room. To my great surprise they contained a television and a video
machine, which for the maids was no less alarming than the presence
of a strange man in the women’s quarters. But the master’s decisions
could cancel the very principles he had established without a question
raised or an explanation given. When Pir Sain disappeared into the
bathroom, I ran to the machine that enclosed the world and touched
it all over to reassure myself.
After fixing wires and plugs to the equipment, Pir Sain banished
the women from his hujra and settled in his chair. Bidding me to sit
beside him on the floor, he pressed a button and the screen flashed
on. My eyes became glued to it. I saw a street, it led to a house, a
woman opened the door to a man and my hands flew to cover my
eyes. My husband pulled them away. The man took off his clothes
and became stark naked. The woman became shameless. I could not
look but I could not look away either. I burned and blushed and
squirmed with shame while all the time my husband stared only at me.
Every morning at sehri I concealed the machines with a white
sheet but the images lingered on in my mind and made me say
‘Tauba, tauba’ under my breath all day long.
When he introduced the three girls to the show they were just as
shocked as I had been. Men and women became intertwined like
weeds. Lust, like ocean waves, rose and fell and crept and quivered,
then receded.
The film orchestrated us throughout the holy month of Ramadan,
then the crescendo died down and he shut the machines off.
Our purdah had broken.
But the morning after, nothing had changed.
The bolts to the Haveli were not unlatched and the patch of sky
above our heads did not expand. That four women from this prison
watched naked men all night and fell on their prayer mats at dawn
did not confuse my husband at all. He was not inclined to think of

146
 KILLER WAVES

time as a whole. He lived his life as if it was made up of the lives of

different people. He juggled the contradictions in his life like the
Almighty juggled the world.
‘What do you think of the shepherd for Yathimri?’ he asked me one
day. I was unsure of what to say. Dai had explained the tradition of the
pir’s uthni to me, which was that the pir’s she-camel would be left
to wander around the village freely until it chose a house before which
it sat down. This signalled that the unwed daughter of the house was to
be dressed as a bride and offered to thepir. Deflowered, the girl would
be sent back home to live untouched by another man for as long as
she lived. What was halal for the p/r became haraam foreveryone else.
Pir Sain mumbled, ‘Yathimri cannot grow into an old maid in my
attendance. It is my duty to Allah that I find her a husband.’ When
he added, ‘Because the boy is impotent, his first wife ran away with
a traveller,’ the purpose of the marriage became clearer. But he was
wracked by doubts. ‘Yathimri might also run away with a traveller.
I will not risk it. She cannot marry,’and the subject died down for a
few days ... only to be resurrected again.
Sometimes, he would question her, but she dared not comment
on her choice of fate. Finally, after many months of indecision, he
decided to let Yathimri become the shepherd’s wife as long as she
remained in the Haveli. His insecurity stabbed me like a sharp knife.
I had not realised the extent of his attachment to the girl who had
caused my son’s death. I had imagined that his relationships with all
three girls were somehow dependent on me. I had become
indispensable to him, just like Amma Sain had said, but I was only
an accomplice. Nor could I ask Amma Sain for further advice, for
she had sworn herself into a life of silence after Chote Sain’s death.
My husband gave the girl gold jewellery, clothes, bedding and all
the necessary kitchen utensils. A bed and a sofa-set were also moved
into a room on the premises. Outside the Haveli, people applauded
Pir Sain’s kindness to an orphan raped by his son. Inside it, everyone
envied her.
Pir Sain moaned and groaned every night until the last night came

147
 BLASPHEMY

upon us. Nor was anyone allowed to be happy on the wedding day. His
mood condemned everything. Women prowled around like cautious
cats with stiff bodies and alert eyes, while Pir Sain kept the girl locked
inside his room all morning. When, at last, he ordered her to dress
for the occasion, a terrified bride emerged from my dressing room.
Anything could have happened to the bright red statue perched
at the foot of his bed. Pir Sain stared at her, twiddled his toes, rubbed
his hand over his beard, and over his paunch, inhaled and exhaled
deeply, and a whole hour silently went by. Suddenly, he jumped up
shouting, ‘Out. Out. Out,’and banished us both from his presence. We
ran through the door. When it was shut behind us, we breathed again.
Just as Pir Sain had instructed, marasans burst into song as soon
as the baraatemerged in the courtyard. The groom’s family was awe¬
struck. The widow’s daughters were overjoyed. Their own prospects
looked bright. Cheel as always was standing with her arms folded
across her chest. I was confused and gave away the bride, or the other
woman. When she touched my feet and walked out, my heart melted
towards her, but it hardened again when I remembered Chote Sain.
That night, Pir Sain could talk of nothing except what must be hap¬
pening to the girl. When I dared suggest her husband’s impotence
as a consolation, he nearly smashed my face, shouting, ‘Happy to
be rid of her? Happy at your victory ?’ And all his pent up anger was
released on me. I had disrupted the pattern. He wanted to know why.
Then, abruptly, he returned to pining and worrying about what must
be happening to Yathimri, until he jumped up again like a man
possessed. Thank God, the girl returned at dawn. He ordered her
husband to stand at the Haveli gate, and her to remain inside.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
He had spent me without replenishing anything. My eyes had be¬
come like stagnant swamps sunk in on themselves. My mouth had
lost its words. My body felt senseless. It seemed like debris had
collected in a dirt dump. The flesh would soon shift from my bones,
then the skin would shift from the flesh, and yet the master required
eternal youth. In the mirror, youth was speeding away.

148
 KILLER WAVES

Was this woman me?

Who was she?
Who was I?
Love’s absence ailed me. I could not imagine loving my husband.
He was a superior and I did not know how to love and be subservient
together. Nor had he ever thought of me as a human being, let alone
a woman. For no reason had he ever softened towards me, I had
stirred him that little. I could not pierce his heart and touch its core
as Yathimri had done.
My attention was forcefully diverted from my reflection in the
mirror. I heard women shouting, ‘Sakhi baba’s house is on fire.
Everyone is dead. Fire! Fire! The whole family is on fire.’
The inevitable had happened. I ran out to find out why and how.
But information that came into the Haveli from outside changed
and was exaggerated as it passed from one mouth to another all day
long. First I heard that every member of the family was trapped
inside the house, then I heard that all were safe for no one had been
at home. I heard that the house was set ablaze by a stove that burst
in the kitchen; until it changed to a strange fire having sprung out
of Sakhi baba’s hukkah, like a jinn. Someone brought news that an
eyewitness had seen everyone burn to ashes, until another woman
was told that peasants had rescued the family and controlled the fire
by spraying water from pipes connected to the tube wel 1. The malshan
insisted she had brought the most accurate account, ‘Sakhi baba is
at work, his wife is praying, and their son is playing.’
Every woman was weaving her own words into the tragedy. Every
woman was exclaiming, ‘It’s acurse from Allah. Sakhi baba’s rejec¬
tion of the Shrine is being punished.’ They touched their ears and
shook their heads as if they knew for sure that in defiling the blessed
ones, Babaji’s wrath had come upon the cursed lot.
Dai made an observation that clarified the matter at least for me,
‘Every person living in the vicinity of the Shrine is bound to observe
a demeanour of respect for it. Whenever somebody has broken that
rule, sooner or later he has faced a terrible catastrophe. If the common

149
 BLASPHEMY

folk are not punished for blaspheming, the power of the Shrine will
diminish.’
Cautious of not being caught committing the sin myself, I chose
my words carefully and asked Dai, ‘But blasphemy is about defiling
the faith, the Prophet, his companions and Allah, not other people.’
My husband’s old nanny was as cautious as I was when she said,
‘God’s man cannot be defiled either.’
At last the time came when rumours vanished in the face of
reality. Sakhi baba’s charred body was identifiable only by the metal
frame of his spectacles. Sakhi bibi, badly burnt, was moved to the
hospital. Her child was buried beside his father. Seven members of
the family were buried in the same graveyard.
My eyes filled with tears. I saw Cheel and moved away from
under herdangerous gaze, thinking, ‘Herforefathers must be turning
in their graves at her silent attendance to a criminal.’
It seemed that Sakhi bibi had survived all her loved ones to spend
the rest of her life listening to stories of Allah’s violent lesson, as all
those who might have wished to defile His blessed ones were now
silenced. Thoughts against the Shrine were crushed in the hearts and
minds of the people. The effect of the lesson was complete.
But life went on despite the constant pain of living. And in a
world where dreams meant nothing, a dream came true in the middle
of a nightmare. A guest from another country was announced. We
were told to clear the courtyard of clutter, chairs were brought out
of the rooms, and food was cooked without spices. Although it
seemed inappropriate even to me, to escalate my own excitement
and distract myself from Sakhi baba’s tragic end as well as the
jealous feelings surging in my heart against Yathimri, I slipped into
brocade clothes and fancy shoes in the middle of the day.
My eyes were fixed on the brick wall in anticipation.
Gori stepped into a courtyard full of captive women.
She must have flown on an airplane, from beyond the ocean, in the
freedom of the sky, I thought. She must have driven across the desert
to reach us. Where did she live? If she was married, how did her hus-

150
 KILLER WAVES

band let her go free and if not, how did her father permit it?
When she removed her chaddar she appeared naked to the gaping
eyes staring at her bare legs.
Cheel gawked.
Even I gawked, despite having seen such legs over and over again
on the television screen. We smiled at each other and shook hands.
When she said something in a language I had half learnt and long
forgotten, I nodded back in reply.
I noticed that Gori’s fair skin was too delicate. Surely, it would
char in the heat of our summer. It seemed to have borne kind winters
with discomfort, in the sharp winds here, it would tear. Nor had she
tasted the venom ofa man, the poison inside Pir Sain would kill her.
Gori seemed frail and helpless to me.
Her world had made her weak.
Mine had made me strong.
When she asked me if any one here was educated, I remembered
AmmaSain’swise words aboutus and repeated them: ‘Assiparhe hoe
nai, pur assi karhey hoi han. ’ Her translator told her, ‘She says that
although we are not educated, we are condensed with experience.’
Gori thought I was very intelligent.
I wanted to know if she was intelligent too.
Noticing her every movement, I followed every word she said
and discovered that she was a journalist.
‘But I’ve sworn not to write about Pir Sain’s women,’ she
explained, ‘Pir Sain allowed me to write only about the men.’ That
made me ask her what she had understood about the Shrine. I wanted
to know how perceptive her wide exposure had made her; I also
wanted to know what its lack had made me.
Gori’s skin gleamed, ‘The people love your husband. I see it in
the way their eyes light up when they catch a glimpse of him.’ I
pricked up my ears. She was not looking deep enough.
‘They are so devoted to him,’ she swooned, and I thought, that she
had passed ajudgement and drawn aconclusion without realising that
there is always a cruel method behind undying devotion. Could she

151
 BLASPHEMY

not see the terror in our eyes?

‘Your husband is so humble despite being all powerful. It’s such
an honour to have met him,’ she declared. ‘What else?’ I inquired
and she had more words of praise for him. ‘There is purity on his
face. He is serene and peaceful. He works miracles. I’ve heard it
from so many of his supplicants.’ I couldn’t help glaring at her when
she exclaimed, ‘So much tranquillity in the midst of poverty can
only mean one thing. He provides the people with something divine.’
Fool, I thought.
She was, after all, English. Her ancestors had cleverly converted
Muslims into grave-worshippers and vanished from the scene. Did
she not know about that? I wanted to tell herToti’s story but did not
dare. My mood blackened with the frustration of having to keep
silent despite having so much to say. I shrivelled up like a dried leaf
and slumped deep into my chair to mourn for Sakhi baba and burn
with jealousy against Yathimri again.
Her departure was of little consequence to anyone, except myself.
The world was a fool and Gori represented it. She killed my need to
fly. She severed my lifeline to the outside world.
My mind howled, ‘You are here for ever, with nowhere to go,
nothing to see, and nothing to dream about.’ I panicked at the fear
of losing even that illusion and avoided thinking about the world
like I avoided stepping on the chickens that ran between my feet.
I had to revert indoors again, but everything inside bored me.
I knew the exact timing of the moon’s arrival and the exact time
when the sun set. The seasons had played games of colour and
desolation in the rebellious tree for twenty-five years. Overhead, I
could count how many clouds would fit into the patch of sky at one
ti me. I had always wished that the tree would multiply into thousands,
that the space above would widen into different skies, and that I
might sprout wings to fly away into the big world.
But not anymore.
Sometimes, I felt I was losing my mind, but that was when I wasn’t
feeling something worse. If it was not the terror of my husband it

152
 KILLER WAVES

was the terror of my mind. Baba had always said it was too sensitive.
Crazed, it was a source of constant headaches, and in an attempt to
hold it together I kept my chunni tightly wound around it. Within it,
I was lost in a realm where space and time were not a concept, where
tales were so long that I needed to be in a sickbed to listen to myself.
Sometimes, I felt like whimpering and crawling and curling into a
frightened ball of nothing. Then I could deal with nothing.
Because an alternate world to the one Gori destroyed was not to
be found, I tried to fill the vacuum with nicotine. I recalled my first
beating for having received an ashtray as a gift, and so many years
later found myself wondering why I was beaten for that. Almost all
the women of the family smoked. Cigarettes were easy to obtain
through the maids, who rolled paper around tambaacoo and made
their own bidis to puff on whenever they could. Now they became
a part of my body. Tucked into my brassiere were a lighter, a tiny box
of tobacco and a wrapped-up betel leaf with bits of betelnut. I
replenished my supplies as soon as any were depleted. Soon, they
too were not enough to keep me from being swallowed by nothingness.
Desperate for something to keep me from going insane, I began
to hover around Cheel standing silently with her arms folded across
her chest since the day I first stepped into the Haveli. Before that and
after that, year after year, she said nothing, did nothing, and was
nothing. It seemed as if she had been created with the sole purpose
of keeping a watch on us and reporting our errors to the master.
I wanted to ask her why.
I wanted to hear her story, hear a word from her mouth, the sound
of her voice.
I wanted to make her tongue slip.
I wanted to know why she had betrayed her family’s oath. When
all my efforts to find out about her failed, I asked Dai to at least tell
me something about her. She told me nothing new.
‘Thirty years ago she became the first member of her family to
swear allegiance to the Shrine,’ said Dai. ‘That’s why Pir Sain trusts
her. Her presence here proves that the gacldi nashin is authentic. But

153
 BLASPHEMY

she has never talked about the reason that led her here, nor has she
ever had a visitor. She is a deep well from which only Pir Sain can
draw something out.’
Still baffled, I asked Dai, ‘Why does she live like.this? Does she
not have a friend? Did she not marry?’ Dai laughed at me, ‘Do you
see her wiggling in the arms of a man?’ I could not even imagine it.
My interest in Cheel grew; there must be more to her decision than
anyone here knew. But the iron wall around her was so impermeable
that I moved on.
Desperate for something to quickly capture my interest, I tried to
seduce Amma Sain to speak again. I wanted to know the secrets of
her life; those that had accumulated until Chote Sain’s death froze
them. But Cheel and Amma Sain were both mute.
I moved on to Pir Sain’s elder sister who had replaced Amma Sain
in the dispensation of taviz to supplicants gathered under the tree.
But she had never even married. Her life had begun and would end
on the same note. My eyes began to search the faces of women I had
been seeing here decade after decade, those that told the same stories
over and over, again and again. Nothing had changed.
It seemed impossible to find anything new here, until suddenly,
I remembered the widow. I had not heard her story.
Thank God she had one.
‘My father was a kulli at the railway station,’ she recalled as she
settled down at my feet. ‘I was twelve years old when he sold me for
four thousand rupees to a tribal badmaash who locked me in a room
on a hill. He sold me to anyone who would pay, by barter if not cur¬
rency.’
Her tale was similar and yet different to everyone else’s. At last
something aroused my interest. My troubled mind disconnected from
Gori and focussed on the widow who rubbed her palm over her heart
as if that might ease the horrific recollections I ordered her to relive.
‘I was then sold to a man called Reech who looked like a wild
bear. He offered me to the entire village for free until a man, to
whom Reech owed a debt, borrowed me and refused to give me back

154
 KILLER WAVES

to my master.’ The widow cried, but without pain. She had suffered it
already. The same pain cannot sustain the same level of intensity. Time
heals it. Other pains replace it; perhaps even supersede it, I thought.
‘This man worked me in the fields all day and in his bed all night.
One day, he sold me for a hukkah to another man and my worth was
reduced to the cow dung I burnt and plastered on the walls.’ I wanted
to know how she escaped the clutches of her tormentors. Cursing
and abusing the bad spirits that had possessed her from birth, she
said, ‘By now I was desperate, bibiji. So, when my new master
loaded four suitcases on my back and made me follow him to another
village, I dropped my burden and jumped into the tumbling waters
of a spring. Swimming off, I bolted and ran without stopping for
breath until I reached a deserted shrine.’
Disappointed at this being the end, I asked her, ‘Our Shrine?’
Thank God she said, ‘No. A deserted shrine in another village.’
Hoping that the story had no end, I asked her to go on. ‘For many
months, I lay concealed among beggars, eating from their scraps,
and sleeping with them on the stairs. One day, a woman came to pray
for a bride for her son and a miracle occurred. She chose me.’
‘What was he like? What did you wear on your wedding? Who
came to it?’ I wanted to know every detai 1. She laughed at me, ‘ I thought
the lady had come from Allah to save me, but,’ holding her head she
took a deep breath and shocked me, ‘there was no bridegroom.’
‘No bridegroom?’ I asked. She shook her head from side to side
and said. ‘No, bibiji, there was only the woman. When I was not
cooking or cleaning or washing for the claen, she kept me chained
and freed me only to become imprisoned in the arms of strange men.
I did not even know whose seeds festered in my womb.’
Surprised, I asked her, ‘Then why do you call yourself a widow
if you were never married?’ With a wily smile she explained, ‘It’s
respectable.’
Not for Ma, I thought; Expecting her to lie, I asked the widow,
‘How many men?’ Searching herself she was honest, ‘Perhaps as
many as inhabit a village, bibiji.’ I was stunned.

155
 BLASPHEMY

The widow continued her horrendous tale. ‘Chewed dry like

sugarcane, I was spat out. The daen tried to push me out of the house,
but I had nowhere to go with two growing daughters. She was tilting
a tin of kerosene oil over me and in the struggle it tilted over her
instead. I lit a match. It set her on fire. She was ablaze and I was free.’
I sighed with relief until she said, ‘But that was not destined,
bibiji. I was hiding from the police with two girls in my arms when
I ran into Reech again.’ O God! I thought.
The widow’s story was disrupted.
Another had begun.
Rajaji had fallen in love with Maharani. When Pir Sain refused
to give his blessing to the marriage, Rajaji became curious and
wanted to know why. Could Maharani marry no one? He was not
giving up till he found the answer.
Thoughts of Gori, the widow, Cheel, the fire, my splitting head and
Pir Sain’s crowded bed, were all shelved. Everything seemed unim¬
portant except Rajaji, who was now hurriedly guiding me into an em¬
pty room. He asked me to sit down and locked the door behind him.
I jumped up with worry, ‘Why are you locking the door? Your fa¬
ther will not understand a secret meeting.’ He forced me down, ‘Do
you know why my father did not let Maharani marry Maharaja?’ I
shook my head. He said, ‘I’ll tell you soon.’ Pir Sain had more to do
with this family than I was aware of. Whatever it was, I prayed to
Allah to protect my son from his father’s wrath, for Rajaji’s whim
had turned into an obsession.
My husband was raving mad and roared, ‘He is the first son of
this family to question a decision that his father has taken. A sinner
has raised his head. He is unfit to be my heir.’ 1 wanted to warn my
husband not to do to my younger son what he had done to the elder
one. I wanted to remind him of the pups his father had made him
forsake. I wanted to tell him to let somebody be happy here, but I
dared not utter so much as a word.
That night, 1 was turned out of the room and stood shivering in
the veranda. An hour passed. 1 did not know how to avoid the danger

156
 KILLER WAVES

that had loomed over me for two and a half years. The same old
subject and the same perverse demand to sleep with other men.
At the beginning, fearing that he might be testing me for signs of
adultery, I had doubted my husband’s intention and dared not agree.
I dared not refuse anymore. Both were risks. So many times I said
to him, ‘Allah will not forgive me, sain.’ But never was I able to say
‘no’. That never even came to mind.
He demanded my assent.
Allah commanded my dissent.
Rajaji needed my prayers.
Pir Sain and Allah were opposite extremes to follow.
Another hour went by before he summoned me. Afraid of the
next moment as one is afraid of death, begging for Allah’s forgiveness,
pleading that at least He not punish me by not protecting my son, I
said to my husband, ‘Sain, I will do as you command.’
The great mountain that should have fallen on him did not. He did
not even stir.
Lying beside him I thought of my future. What kind of men
would they be? He had spent years answering this question. I knew
that they would be young, always young. I knew they would be
brought to me, under black burqas, from the back door, through the
bathroom, and into the bedroom.
My husband’s days of boredom were over again. My fear of
facing the world’s dissipated illusion transformed into fears of what
was to unravel inside my square. Rajaji’s stubbornness added to it.
As though the day had nothing to do with the night, in the morning
Pir Sain was furious with me at finding his slipper wet. ‘How did
you not notice it?’ was unanswerable in every way. The price I had
to pay for the transgression made the impending fear of strange men
disappear from my mind.
That afternoon, Pir Sain returned seething and flushed. It was
Rajaji again. ‘If you had borne me more sons instead of brainless
donkeys, I would have banished him from the Shrine. But he must
know whom he disobeys.’

157
 BLASPHEMY

Chote Sain’s ghost descended. I forgot that I was not permitted

to support those whom he opposed and blurted out, ‘I will talk to
him, sain. I will make him swear against it. Please forgive him this
once, sain.' He stared at me as if I had struck him with a whip. His
voice shook, ‘You claim to have more control over my son than I,
and dare to profess it?’With my hair in his grip, he pulled my head
back, glared into my eyes, and commanded, ‘Stay away from Rajaji
or prepare for his burial. I prohibit you from coming in his presence.’
The new crisis made me forget that night follows day.
I was reminded when it came like a flash flood.
Pir Sain ordered me to retire to the bedroom and walked off with
Cheel towards the back door.
My eyes fell on a newspaper cutting lying on his bedside table.
Gori grinned foolishly at me from the page. Pir Sain’s gaze evaded
the camera.
The caption read:
A LIVING SAINT. HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS.
REFUGE FOR THE MEEK AND LOWLY.
Disgusted, I turned the paper upside down.
Scared to death, I got into bed for safety ... or slaughter.
Pulling the quilt over my head I shut my eyes and pretended to
die.

158
 CHAPTER TEN

Heroes
B felt the presence of a stranger.
B An unfamiliar hand was creeping up my thigh. I strangled
B ascream and clutched the quilt. Pir Sain flung it off. I shut my
eyes and strangled another scream.
A body descended over mine.
It’s breath smelt of teeth that had never been cleaned. It stank
from never having bathed.
It was hairy and damp.
It tasted sour.
It’s scalp was oily.
It’s hair was stringy.
When the madness ended, I knew its odour would stay with me
for ever. Ordering me not to move, Pir Sain took the boy out. In a
flash he was back and drooling over me, whispering in my ear, ‘The
boy was only eighteen. He left his youth with you, for mo.’ When
he had sapped it, the devil reverted to screaming about Rajaji again.
I told myself that nothing had happened. But the putrid smell of
hero number one penetrated my skin. No amount of scrubbing rid
me of it. My hands perspired like his. Thick saliva wet my lips, its
sour taste lingered on my tongue. I breathed it in and breathed it out,
all the time. When I washed for ablution, the air filled with the stale
smell of his groin. It clung. Even when I flew into an illusionary
realm, it reeked of him.

159
 BLASPHEMY

Introduced as Piyari, a whore from the city, the truth died while
it was being perpetuated. My husband said to me, ‘Where will he
ever see you?’
Nor did he let the girls know our secret. It was the only one he
shared with me alone. But no, I thought. This one he shared with Cheek
The option that my husband had forced upon me soon became a
noose around my neck. He abhorred my weak character and took to
calling me a bad-blooded whore. A black mark on my father’s name.
And yet, hero number one’s odour mixed with the heavy smells of
other men and sank deep into the marrow of my bones as I fell in and
out of unknown arms only to please the master.
‘Wear the red dress,’ my husband ordered, and I returned looking
like a vampire, to a slug sprawled on the bed. He abstained from
drinking the whisky that he was thrilled to see in my hand.
His senses were always sharp.
On the other hand, I tipped back a third glass to fog mine and
passed out. When I awoke, I was in a corner of the room and Pir Sain
was asleep on the bed.
What had happened?
I remembered Cheel enter through the dressing room with a
black boy. I remembered falling on the floor when the beast came
towards me. I heard Pir Sain shout, ‘Get up before I break your neck! ’
Now he woke up.
‘You drank too much last night,’he said and the tone surprised
me. He mumbled something, I think he said, ‘Drink milk.’
I was on edge, expecting him to turn on me at any moment, but
he did not.
That night, I was turning the key to the cupboard when he com¬
manded, ‘STOP!’
What an accurate aim. I turned away on trembling knees.
Suppressing the craving was maddening.
Without the magic potion and whisky, reality became as stark as
the nakedness of my body.
Hero number five's weatherbeaten hide represented the landscape

160
 HEROES

he inhabited. Layers of dead skin, calluses and corns, lumps and

bumps, jagged elbows, and a lifetime of neglect descended over me.
Every pore in my body cringed.
I swallowed breath heavy with garlic and onions while his hard
and dusty heels scraped across my skin like cracked clay over afresh
wound. My eyes focussed on an uncut toenail. Chipped and damaged
and filthy, it magnified and filled my mind. He groped and plucked
and clawed. An irony struck me even in the midst of this horror.
What law prohibited me from seeing my son when a strange man
could mount me?
Pir Sain was filming us.
He was looming over and around us.
Sometimes above us, sometimes below us.
He was orchestrating, directing, losing his temper, repeating his or¬
ders, and arranging our bodies. Forcing every conceivable possibility.
Cool tumbling water made my burning flesh sizzle like smoulder¬
ing coal under the shower. Is this contract with the devil sanctified
by Allah, I wondered and cried and cursed my fate. Did God bind
me to Satan?
Whose follower was I?
Pir Sain made a film of the two girls one night and I vomited be¬
cause I was sober. I saw humans slithering in a pigsty and felt flesh
cooking in a tandoor. I fell to the bottom of a gutter. I drew upon all
my powers to keep myself going, until, at last, when he had shot us
in every conceivable way, for an entire month, the camera was
locked away and the television was shut off.
Rajaji finally caught me behind the well and insisted upon knowing
the truth.
‘What extent of evil is my father capable of?’ he asked outright.
His words signalled impendingdoom. I was silentfor more than one
reason.
‘You don’t need time to think, amma. You know.’
The stress was on the word know, and on my nerves. I pondered
over my son’s question but shied away from answering it. Suddenly

161
 BLASPHEMY

all the heroes flashed before my eyes and an urge to reveal my

husband’s true identity made me want to blurt out, ‘Your father is
capable of the devil’s work,’ but I said nothing. Instead I begged my
son not to indulge in anything that could upset the master.
‘He will crack your skull and mince your brain so that you wander
around in the same daze as your brother did,’ I warned. When Rajaji
walked away, the foreboding lingered in my mind.
I begged and cried to Allah. Often, I felt Him so close to me, that
I asked, ‘ Why do you seem so far away that people turn to the graves
of men? As the spirits of the Shrine will not assist me against their
own hell, I don’t even have that option. Answer my prayer yourself,
Allah. Answer it now.’
Allah seemingly had no control over Pir Sain. This despite the
fact that he was believed to be His envoy. I wondered why God
allowed him to misuse His name. Even ordinary mortals would not
allow the misuse of theirs. I could not fathom why Allah preserved
and protected tyrants.
Dai made a statement that could have been an answer when she
said, ‘As Yazid, the tyrant of Karbala, never suffered even from a
headache, people believed that he was blessed by Allah. But that
was a misinterpretation. In reality, Allah had abandoned him
completely. He wanted nothing to do with him.’
When I asked her, ‘Why does He bestow upon tyrants such author¬
ity that they can be cruel to those He loves?’
Dai said, ‘It is a perfect scale before Judgement Day, when the
strong will be judged by their interaction with the weak.’
I was not convinced, and went back to wondering whether my
suffering had Allah’s blessing, or did Pir Sain’s prosperity have it?
Or was it all happening for no reason?
Religious confusion intensified in my mind.
Where could I go?
To Allah?
Allah’s door was also shut. Suicide was denied.
I begged for mercy with a passion that should have transported

162
 HEROES

me to the seventh heaven, but He did not listen. I prayed and prayed,
until I turned away from His Almighty’s silence. Allah, who had
been everywhere, was suddenly nowhere. There is no God, I thought.
The entire world is misinformed like Gori, I concluded.
That night, I changed into my red costume free of Islam. God had
been a moral hindrance. Religious guilt was blackmail. No God
meant no sin.
As Allah had not stopped the crimes against me or would not or
could not stop them, then it was clear that at least for me He was not
there. I could swoop down on the young and preserve myself until
doomsday, only then might Allah appear. According to me, He still
might not.
Although I could not respond truly to any hero and moved like
a machine with every hand that worked me, hero number six was
taken aback. I justified my response.
Pir Sain was thrilled. He gloated over me with his tongue hanging
out like a mad dog’s. Neither did the smell bother me, nor did the
sweat make me cringe. And the saliva? I just licked it up.
When my husband asked, ‘What kind of man do you want now
that you know the difference?’I replied carefully, ‘One who does not
smell bad, sain' From then onwards, I inhaled stale smells of early
morning mouths mixed with talcum powder drenched in acid sweat
that made the air unbreathable. Pir Sain abused them all, ‘I’ll fix them
so they never forget the meaning of a bath.’ When the next hero smelt
of soap, I wondered how my husband had conducted his punishment.
After the first seven heroes, the variety ended, and they swapped
places until I could no longer distinguish between them. When my
husband outgrew the boys, he watched their films instead. When
they bored him, he brought in the widow’s two girls. When he was fed
up with the novelty of bedding two sisters, I had to labour for hours
to keep him amused. When everything failed, Yathimri succeeded.
Mercifully, the Prime Minister sent a trusted confidant to Pir Sain
and he left urgently for the Capital. But he returned only two days
later laden with more clothes and strange objects, which made me

163
 BLASPHEMY

blush. He ordered me to. bring the films out of the suitcase, and there
were enough of them to last us a lifetime.
‘A corridor leads from the Shrine to the guest house,’ he announced,
‘tonight you will go with me.’ I was so excited at stepping out that
the reason did not matter.
Sadly, stepping out meant nothing. Cheel’s presence, my
husband’s company, the darkness of a tunnel, and the two small net
holes in my burqa let nothing through. I counted five hundred and
sixty-two steps to our destination.
We passed a room with an intricate-patterned carpet below and
a crystal chandelier above. Before we went through another door,
Pir Sain told me to remove my burqa. I held my breath as a fat man
with a big curled moustache jumped off the bed. He walked towards
me, exclaiming loudly to my husband, 'Sain, baadshah, you are the
greatest. What a find! What a rare jewel!’ His big hairy arm circled
my waist like an octopus’s. His drunken eyes rolled as he drooled
and slurred around my neck, mumbling, ‘Where did the master
discoveryou, my jewel? Where wereyou all my life?’My husband’s
laughter repulsed me even more than his friend’s blubbery lips.
He was the jagirdar.
A man commanding the respect of a king.
These custodians of the people, revered for adherence to the
faith, were concealing their sins under my burqa. It allowed them
to introduce me as a whore from the city because no one had ever
laid eyes on the venerable wife of the pir.
While the jagirdar's fat fingers ran like black rats over my naked
body, my mind was consumed with the idea of purdah. From behind
it no call for help could be heard. An abandoned species was trapped
in a forbidden world. Everything corrupt happened under the shroud,
when it was off, a faceless and nameless woman appeared.
The jagirdar’s thick lips slurped around my ear and I shouted and
screamed inside, ‘ Know who I am, you son of a pi g! See who I am! ’
I was up and down and over the craggy mountain of flesh, thinking
only of purdah draping the sins of men. The burqa had become a li-

164
 HEROES

cence for corrupt men. A tonne of flesh compressed me and I thought

of so many more women buried under the same crimes. I cried
inside myself to the jagirdar, ‘Open your eyes, you idiot! I’m the
master’s wife. The mother of his children. See me. I’m naked enough.
Know me.'
I thought I was brain dead until, one day, out of the blue, my hus¬
band said, ‘The drink can come back.’ I was relieved beyond expres¬
sion. He also announced that guests from the Capital were arriving
that night. He was talking about entertainment, he was giving them im¬
portance, and I knew that he only gave that to matters related to sex.
Kohl helped disguise my glazed eyes.
Talcum powder cracked in my cleavage.
The black nightdress was so sheer that it served no purpose.
Red lipstick, pencilled eyebrows, a heavy perfume and I took on
the persona of a legalised prostitute.
Again I was standing under the roof I had shared with the jagirdar
Even when my husband left me to wait in the grand drawing room, the
atmosphere reeked of an overpowering overdose of musk. I looked up
at the crystal chandelier and saw myself multiplied into a thousand
more whores. Pir Sain walked in with two strangers. I held my breath.
Amanwholookedlikeabullwalkedstraightuptome.He grabbed me
and I nearly fainted. ‘Say you’re mine. Say you want to be only with
me. Okay, my beauty?’ he said greedily. When he let go, I noticed that
the other man was very handsome. He looked intensely at me when
Pir Sain called me Piyari and instructed me to pleasure his friends.
‘I have given them a guarantee that you can even raise the dead,’
he laughed.
I moved against the man who looked at me so solemnly but he
stiffened and pulled away. My husband summoned me. Drunkenly,
I staggered to him and felt his hot breath in my ear as he whispered,
‘Do it now.’
The tape recorder played a tantalising song. I stepped into the cen¬
tre of the room and began to discard my jewels to the rhythm of the
music.

165
 BLASPHEMY

My husband watched like an emperor at a show.

Wondering why he had not draped himself in the chaddarembroi-
dered with the ninety-nine names of Allah, I dropped the sheer sheath.
The bull, excited to the point of madness, gulped down glass after
glass of whisky, made vulgar noises of appreciation and threw loud
kisses at me. Swaying my arms like the wings of the bird I longed
to be, I glided round and. round the room, and returned to face the
men again.
My husband’s hand circled his paunch.
I danced around the room again and again, until at last his hand
stopped moving and I could stop.
In the next act, I fell here and fell there, arched backwards and
bowed forwards, then lay flat on my back. When I came up I saw the
handsome man staring. My eyes tried piercing his.
He turned away.
Seductively, I dragged myself on the floor towards him and touched
his leg with my foot.
He pulled away.
Wondering why, I searched him between one obscene movement
and another, until, suddenly, an electric current charged through my
body. I pulled myself together.
My heartbeat raced.
Pir Sain had surely noticed his friend’s strange behaviour. He saw
me recoiling and summoned me with his finger. I turned to him in
horror and scraped the floor with my body to reach him.
I felt the handsome man’s eyes burn my back.
My husband whispered new instructions. Gripped between fear
of Pir Sain and shame of the staring man, I forced myself to seduce
the bull. My soul squirmed.
He was on top of me, saying, ‘You are the best,’ and the religious
leader made a divine prophecy, ‘This is the stuff you will have in
heaven, my friend.’
The handsome man slipped out.
Around me, there were ugly noises, inside me there was a storm.

166
 HEROES

Afterwards, when the bull tried to give me money, I pulled my

hand away. Pinching my cheek and pushing the bundle of notes into
my palm, he coaxed, ‘I would never give it without Pir Sain’s
permission, Piyari. It’s a reward for your heavenly services.’
I could not count my steps back to the Haveli. This time, I could
not concentrate on anything. Not even on Cheel waiting beside the
back door without a question in her eye.
Pir Sain was fast asleep and snoring. When the truth dawned, I
had jammed it deep into my heart. Now I let it out. The handsome
face belonged to Chandi’s brother.
To Ranjha.
Apart from greying hair and a wiser face, he was exactly like the
photograph I had imprinted in my mind. The doors of the Haveli had
opened. I had walked into his arms without the fear and caution that
nag a lover’s meeting. We could have met all night if he had so de¬
sired.
But the love story had twisted beyond belief.
A photograph had become a nightmare.
He had met a prostitute.
He had recognised me. I was the woman he might have married. He
knew my identity. Just one glance so many years ago and the security
of purdah had gone. The seal had broken. The truth was revealed.
A wound had opened.
Corruption was proven. But how was I to ever expl ain the vulgarity
when there was no evident sign of fear or coercion?
I also wondered why, of all the men in the world, it had to be
Ranjha. I thought of the many impossible ways to meet him and
knew the only one was through another orgy with Pir Sain watching.
That made the desire disappear.
I hoped he would come again.
I hoped he would not.
My image in his eyes made me want to die. My mind goaded me
to give up. My spirit would not flee. I felt the need to see Ranjha
more than I needed to live or die.

167
 BLASPHEMY

‘What should I do? What can I do?’ went on and on in my head.

Like a senile woman, I became deaf to any call. There was no
other thought in my mind, everything led straight back to the same
horror. Two months passed. Claustrophobia made me breathless
and I choked and gasped and wheezed for air even in the open
courtyard. The idiot doctor diagnosed it as asthma.
Every night, the potion activated me for a while but the aftermath
made me limp like a rubber doll. Exhausted, Pir Sain fell asleep,
while I lay awake thinking of Ranjha, of love in the midst of lust.
Surely, evil could not be so pervasive.
Suddenly, I needed Allah.
I was shuddering at my sins, at Allah turning away from me. No
man could help me. Only Allah could work a miracle in my life.
The Almighty? I had abandoned Him because He had abandoned
me.
He was back.
But how could I please Him here, where longing to be good could
only be a longing? Where there was no escape from sin.
Allah pulled.
Pir Sain pulled.
Pir Sain was stronger.
But only Allah could give me Ranjha.
I needed only Him.
I thought of other waysto freedom. Could I run away? But where?
To Ma’s house? She would not keep me. Somewhere else, then? The
master would catch me. Was I condemned to another night with the
heroes? Allah would not forgive me. Allah would not help me.
Ranjha would not want me.
Allah’s return did nothing more than slacken my performance
and make Pir Sain growl. Riddled with guilt, now I felt the opposite
of what divine absence had let me feel. Every day I turned to Allah,
every night the devil sucked me back into his black hole.
‘You have aged,’ my husband taunted me, and in my heart I asked
him what had happened to all the youth potions.

168
 HEROES

Squatting in front of the stove, concentrating on making his

thandai, tasting each almond, and measuring the ingredients, I noticed
two black spiders mating on the floor and focussed on them with
Guppi’s curiosity. The thought of collecting pairs of insects for Pir
Sain’s pleasure made me giggle, even as I cried.
The spider wriggled out from under its mate and ran away. Sud¬
denly it turned, charged back, and stung its unsuspecting partner to
death. When its victim flopped upside down, the black widow spider
raced away on a hundred legs.
With it, raced my mind.
Unlike Chote Sain, my younger son had managed to manoeuvre
a return to his father’s side by renouncing his desire to marry
Maharani. Pir Sain overlooked his earlier disobedience only for
lack of another heir. He also withdrew the sentence on us and we
were at last allowed to meet again. My son looked older but not from
wisdom. He had a remarkable resemblance to his father, but he did
not have his cool. Perhaps, it was authority he lacked.
‘Don’t you have peace now that you have won your father’s
favour?’ I asked him.
‘Do you have peace in pleasing him?’ he enquired in reply.
I had no answer to this.
I suggested marriage, ‘A wife will fulfil you and I’ll have grand¬
children to play with.’
He laughed sarcastically, ‘While he lives, you cannot play, amma. ’
I was taken aback. His insinuation reflected my own thoughts at
the time of the spider’s death.
‘What are you saying?’l asked him. In Rajaji’s eyes, I saw my
own answer.
‘I know all about the playthings that you suffer, amma. It will not
end while he lives.’
We shared a part of the truth!
‘Have you seen how his feet drag?’ my son enquired. I nodded,
I had.
Pir Sain’s death had never come to my mind. It seemed impossible.

169
 BLASPHEMY

Now, I felt it was a possibility. Rajaji had talked of it. The death of
the spider was an omen. A door opened and light came through. The
more I thought of Ranjha, the more I saw the light.
When my husband began to feel faint, he told Rajaji, ‘My energy
escapes from the soles of my feet even as I sleep.’ Soon, he withdrew
from all his daily activities to rest.
I prayed that he never rise from his bed.
If my son and I had thought he was dying, Pir Sain’s hakeem
quashed the thought. He conjured up a kushta of crushed pearls and
diamonds and my husband rose as if from the dead. He resumed his
duties at the Shrine. His nights were refilled with wobbling girls in
high heeled shoes, and burqa-clad men following Cheel to the
bathroom door.
When I told Rajaji about the kushta, he said, ‘That will surely kill
him.’ In our hearts, we both knew that a natural death could not over¬
power the devil.
Under the shower, I cried out aloud to Allah, ‘Grant my prayer
like you did for the girl whose bridegroom drowned before he could
reach her.’ The girl had sat at the riverbank for twelve years, pleading
with God for a miracle to let her marriage party emerge from the
water. One day it did.
‘Listen to me like you listened to her, O Allah. Make a miracle
happen for me, too,’ I implored.
On the twenty-sixth night of Ramadan, the loudspeakers at the
mosque relayed naats and chanted prayers throughout the day.
Everyone’s hearts and minds filled with surrender to the Almighty.
That night I was leaving for Amma Sain’s room when Pir Sain walked
in and asked me sarcastically, ‘Do you think you are going for Hap.'
I reminded him of the special night of prayer.
‘Every day is the same for Allah. You can pray to Him tomorrow.
He will hear you even then,’ he declared.
Allah remained silentas the holy nightconvertedintoadrunken orgy.
I had secret thoughts of prayer.
‘O Allah, notice me. Ask me why I am not on a prayer mat.

170
 HEROES

‘See me now.
‘See me here.’
My body prostrated before Pir Sain.
My soul bowed to the Almighty.
‘Free us from Satan, Allah. Free us like our Prophet freed the
people of Mecca from the curse of jahalia. Awaken us. Tell the
people you have no envoy. Tell them you need no envoy. Restore my
faith. Take him away. Take him up,’ I cried inside.
When my eyes welled with tears it was Pir Sain who noticed, in¬
stead of Allah.
Here, there could be no intruder.
On the twenty-seventh fast, the Shrine was lit with divas but
smelt only of death. I passed along the gold jaali covered with little
black leers knotted all over its filigree work and wondered: Visitors
tie them as manats in the hope that when their prayers are answered,
they will untie them. But the gold jaali is forever black. The black
leers are dusty and old. Their prayers are never answered, and yet
they return to tie one leer over another, for ever and ever.
At the grave of the pir who killed Toti’s Baluch, I lifted my hands
high, ‘O Allah, make this man suffer Toti’s pain. Pull his moustache
out. Whip him with a charhhi. Fill him with red chillis. Let the nits
that eat the cotton crop nibble at his heart. Make him know this plea
comes from his own house, from the mother of the next pir.'
Passing each grave, I prayed for doom to all except Babaj i whose
grave had become a cover for a brothel, just like my burqa had be¬
come a cover for a whore.
Chote Sain had been like him. That is why he had been mistreated
like him. With my head buried in my arms, I spilt my heart out to
Babaji, ‘What good is faith for those too weak to follow it? What
good is Allah’s command when there is no option but to disobey it?’
A chill circulated in my body. I felt a strange presence.
Blinking out of the darkness in my lap, I received a shock.
A figure in white robes with a muslin cloth draped over his head
and wound round his face stood before me!

171
 BLASPHEMY

When he murmured, ‘What do you want?’ my tongue knotted up.

‘What do you want?’ he asked in a muffled voice. I wished to es¬
cape, but the dangers of the Haveli equalled no other and instead I
blurted out, ‘I want my husband’s death.’
‘Meet me at the same time next Jumeraat,’ he murmured. How
did he know I was permitted to come here only on Jumeraat? Was
he Pir Sain’s spy? Was he Pir Sain himself? He turned around and
vanished. Or did he go into the Haveli?
Walking back, I was filled with terror. This secret was too close
to home to miss Cheel’s detective eye. But who was the robed
figure? Whoever he was, he was my only hope. I was resigned to
finding peace either in my own, or in my husband’s death.
The last three days of Ramadan were spent preparing food all
day, while the nights were spent in madness.
Eid came. This time I wondered all day, Is this my last Eid or his?
And I prayed, ‘O Allah, if I am to die, make it quick and painless.’
When I thought of Jumeraat, I panicked. Could I be convicted for
a murder that never happened?
At other times, I imagined myself running up two stairs at a time
to my room in Ma’s home and bolting to Ranjha’s photograph in the
cupboard.
There were no locks on the doors and no shutters on the windows.
I was ironing out the creases in Bhai’s life.
My uncles and aunts, my friends and their children, were all hug¬
ging me.
I was kissing my cousin’s six-feet-tall son, for whom I had been
beaten when he was only six.
I was walking in the park, eating chana at the cinema, skipping
home and jumping across overflowing drains and mosquito swamps.
I was lying on my bed and long-forgotten songs were playing on
the radio.
Waking and sleeping when I wished, dressing as I pleased, watch¬
ing television all night, touring the world in an airplane. I imagined
I was sitting by a river.

172
 HEROES

Splashing my feet in the water, I was telling Ranjha my story.

But he did not believe me! I was searching for heroes as witnesses.
On Jumeraat, my appointment with the robed figure was in jeop¬
ardy. I got my period. During the menstrual cycle, visiting shrines
is forbidden to women, like sex with them is forbidden to men. As
it was impossible to keep the bloody secret from Pir Sain, dreams
of freedom splintered before my eyes.
A girl so small that even he must have found it difficult to think
of her as a woman, followed him in.
‘Bathe the child and bring her to me,’ he ordered, and I rushed her
into the bathroom, thinking that I had to go to the Shrine, no matter
what.
On the floor, the naked child huddled and covered her flat chest
with her arms. When his clothes dropped, she whimpered. I asked
him if I should give her the potion. ‘No,’ he snapped. The child
began to yelp like a puppy. ‘Shut up,’ he growled, ‘or I’ll pull your
tongue out with a chimta.'
His voice had been such that words did not matter. Her wild,
fearful eyes stared up at me. I can do nothing for you, little one, I
thought, but if you can keep him today, tomorrow / might save you.
Looking at me he ordered, ‘Don’t dare move.’
His hand pressed so hard over her mouth that it stifled my voice
with hers.
The child became different children and they became my three
daughters and all the frightened heroes and the raunchy friends. I
snapped back when he pulled up. The little girl opened her eyes to
sigh and die and vanish like all his sins.
Pir Sain shouted for Cheek She came in, flung the child over her
shoulder, covered the little body with her chaddar and slunk out.
When snores exploded in the devil’s throat, I slipped out and
walked briskly with Dai to the side gate. Walking through the long,
dark corridor I kept wondering where Cheel would bury the child,
and why she was so committed to serving Satan instead of God.
Despite the fear that the robed figure could only be my husband’s

173
 BLASPHEMY

spy, for no one here was not, my heart continued to thump with
expectation. Something about the robed figure made me trust him,
although something also warned me of the danger in trusting him.
But I was desperate.
I moved away from the women, went from grave to grave, halted
at each, and looked around for the only ray of hope.
At Babaji’s graveside, I lifted my hands in prayer.
‘A fire burns in me, O Allah. Free us from the grip of Satan today.
Lift from us the crimes he piles upon us in your name. Grant your
blessings for the sake of a child’s sacrifice.’
My time was up.
The robed figure did not appear.
Breaking into a sweat, I turned back wondering whom I had been
foolish enough to trust.

174
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the Name of Allah

M y husband’s health see-sawed. Sometimes he was
like an energetic young man with three women in
his bed, three times a day, and it seemed then that
he would live beyond forever. At other times, he
collapsed like a hundred-year-old man.
Every Jumeraat, I stood at Babaji’s grave and pretended to pray
for my husband’s health. Instead, I prayed that I return to find him
dead. The robed figure to whom I had revealed my darkest desire
had vanished. Although I was relieved that neither Cheel nor my
husband showed any sign of knowing about him, when I remembered
my husband’s delayed and calculated reaction to my friendship
with Kaali, I expected him to kill me at any time, all the time.
One night, Pir Sain brought in a pink and white boy whose hands
made a sensation on my skin that was more compelling than anything
I had known before. I imagined we were at the foot of Babaji ’s grave
and the desecration was strangely fulfilling. Pir Sain, thrilled at my
response, brought the same boy in every night for one whole week.
The boy murmured in my ear, ‘Why is it not possible to see you
anywhere else, Piyari?’
Petrified, I whispered back, ‘He will kill you. Never try.’
But he carried on, ‘Where do you live? I have to see you. I can’t
eat or sleep anymore.’
Was this love?

175
 BLASPHEMY

I was sailing in the air with a reason to fly.

A few days later, my husband shouted, ‘No one must go to the back¬
yard or else I’ll break their legs.’ While a maid ran around warning
everyone of the danger, Cheel took up her position as guard. Pir Sain
and I walked past the bolted door, past the opening to the Shrine, arou¬
nd the washerwoman’s well, to the back veranda, and on to a mattress.
He is immortal. He can never die, I thought to myself.
His clothes dropped together with mine. There was movement on
the other side of the wall. I heard shuffling feet and men’s voices.
The khajji whip hissed.
A man howled.
I was on my back and my husband was on top of me.
The victim’s, torment fuelled Pir sain’s desire. He slurred in my ear,
‘Do you like it?’And pressed his ear to my breast to hear the answer.
Shrieks far more painful than the khajji could ever induce resounded
in the air. Pir Sain’s voice punctuated them, ‘Tell me you like it.
What do you think is happening? Who do you think is screaming?’
The agony was interminable. When, at last, the horrific cries
died, Pir Sain stood up.
Dai told me later, ‘Bibiji, last night they thrashed the fauji’s son
for raping a girl,’ and my heart missed a beat. ‘Pir Sain had him
castrated,’ she said and I nearly choked.
‘What did he look like?’ I asked her.
Dai’s words pierced my heart like a knife that twisted and turned
inside it, ‘He was pink and white like an angel.’
That Jumeraat, I wailed and wept uncontrollably at Babaji’s
grave and the robed figure appeared out of nowhere!
‘Leave the door that the boys use open,’ he murmured, in a voice
muffled under a chaddar.
He knew about them?
‘Leave three yards of muslin on the bedpost. Give your husband
a double dose of sedatives. I will come after midnight, on the first
day of the coming month.’ He turned away and I thought, it’s Ranjha!
No. It’s Babaji’s ghost!

176
 IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

The figure disappeared. My heart told me to follow him. My

mind told me to stay.
Following Dai out of the Shrine I wondered why I trusted the
figure? Why did I feel he was a friend? Walking back, I thought of
the first day of the next month and from then onwards I thought of
nothing else.
My death wish for Pir Sain overwhelmed my senses. Every mo¬
ment that passed was a relief and every moment to come an ordeal.
That he breathed the air I breathed made it toxic for me. That he ate
the food I ate poisoned my stomach. His ablutions turned water into
blood. His prayers to Allah hailed Satan. Before Rajaji could inherit
the prayer mat, I wished it burnt. I wished the prayer beads would
break and the yellow zafran papers scatter in the wind.
Hovering over him, I tried to seduce death to love him. When he
swallowed food I prayed for it to stick in his throat. When he drank,
I prayed that he choke. When he slept, I stayed awake; hoping his heart
would stop. But I was only dreaming. Always he awoke with the shrill
ring of the early morning alarm and the lights came on at break of day.
When Raj aj i began arriving every day at the same time, to prepare
his tea, my husband remarked, ‘You are sharp, like me, not dense
like that eunuch, your brother.’My heart twisted with hatred for his
father and my face tensed at the disrespect to Chote Sain.
Rajaji began to enquire, ‘Do you feel his health improves or dete¬
riorates?’ I was never sure, but whenever I said ‘He’s worse,’ my son
seemed to smile. One afternoon, shortly after taking the tea Rajaji
prepared for him, Pir Sain shook, trembled like a fish, and fell. As
Pir Sain was too powerful for anyone to entertain attempts on his
life, especially by those whose throats he gripped, the idiot doctor
diagnosed epilepsy.
Specialists arrived from all over the country and they all diagnosed
epilepsy. My eyes did not meet my son’s eyes again. Who avoided
whom, I did not know, but we both knew Pir Sain was not suffering
from epilepsy.
Pir Sain stopped Rajaji from preparing his tea. Rajaji suspected

177
 BLASPHEMY

someone had forewarned him. I knew that my husband was a man

of action, by making the drink himself, he was now monitoring his
health and testing his suspicion. Soon, he was back on his feet.
Crushing three sedatives into a fine powder, I mixed them into his
tea and within half an hour of consuming it, Pir Sain was drowsy and
incoherent again. ‘I don’t know what ails me,’ he slurred, until after
three days of sedation, my husband rejected Rajaji’s involvement.
With one week left for the month to end, my dreams of freedom
became frightening.
I began to count the hours.
Rajaji began to pace the floor.
As the consequences of Pir Sain’s murder were too immense
even to contemplate, my nerves jumped at the slightest sound. I
became afraid of my own shadow. The robed figure stood at every
corner and every face looked like his. Even Amma Sain, with her
eyes fixed in the direction of the Qibla, seemed to stare only at me.
I ran from everyone and everything. Always, I ran into Cheek
When my son asked, ‘Is my father better or worse?’ to simplify
the complication and unravel its mystery, I said, ‘Why do you ask?’
Embarrassed, he turned his face away and mumbled, ‘I can’t
marry Maharani while he lives.’
Surprised that he still wanted to, I asked him, ‘Do you plan to dis¬
obey your father’s order?’ He looked straight at me and announced,
‘I plan to marry whomsoever I desire.’
When he left, I knew Rajaji wanted his father dead.
I began to look carefully for familiarities between the robed
figure and Rajaji. Sometimes he moved like him, sometimes not.
Sometimes he spoke with the robed figure’s voice, sometimes he
did not. Could the figure at the Shrine be Toti’s ghost-lover? Or was
he Babaji, come to free our souls from Satan’s grip? Was he Chote
Sain, avenging us? Or Ranjha, saving me? Was Rajaji poisoning his
father? Would I kill him in his bed? Is it I? Is it him? This went on
and on in my mind, until my eyes fell on Cheek She was least likely
to be the robed figure and yet something in my gut said that even she

178
 IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

could be him. Why, why?

Perhaps I had imagined it all. Perhaps, murder was never on the
cards. I was hallucinating. The robed figure was a figment of my
imagination. An idea invented by my crazy mind. When the fantasy
disappeared, I fell into a deep gloom.
In it, Rajaji despairingly blurted out, ‘Do you know why my
father won’t let me marry Maharani?’ How was I to know?
‘Ask Kubbi,’ he suggested. ‘Tell her I order her to speak.’
The bent maid, Kubbi, was cleaning lentils under the tree and al¬
though she shook with fright when she heard Rajaji’s command, she
looked around and whispered so softly that I had to put my ear to her
mouth.
‘ Waddi malkani walked back from the Shrine with the information
Pir Sain had given her. She tried to recall the day when, eighteen
years ago, the two sisters had accompanied their husbands to the
Shrine for special prayers. Waddi malkani and her husband had
entered a dark room where an intoxicating essence had instantly
made them lighthearted. The cups of liquid they drank were too
sweet to forget. Pir Sain had prayed fast and loud until their heads
began to roll. She recalled nothing more, nor did her husband. When
she awoke from a deep sleep, she was lying in her husband’s arms.
Something had happened to her body. Her bones ached. Soon after,
both the sisters became pregnant.’
Kubbi pulled back to gauge my reaction before finally dropping
the sword on my head. Her words felt as hot in my heart as her breath
felt in my ear,
‘Maharaja and Maharani are the master’s offspring. They are
sister and brother.’ I was stumped.
Kubbi continued, ‘Waddi malkani buried the shameful secret
with her son’s body, but when Rajaji fell in love with Maharani and
Pir Sain refused to bless the marriage, Maharani became even more
terrified. Her pir had proclaimed her a symbol of misfortune, an
unworthy bride for any man. It was better that her suitors die than
marry her. Waddi malkani, distraught over her niece’s fate, told

179
 BLASPHEMY

Sakhi bibi the story behind the girl’s curse. Sakhi bibi told Rajaji.’
This was a crisis.
Rajaji had said he still planned to marry Maharani.
I tried to dissuade him, ‘You’ll find another girl. I’ll chose one
myself.’
But my son shook his head and said, ‘I’ 11 marry no one but Maha¬
rani.’
I was bleating like a sheep, ‘But she’s your sister. It’s a sin out of
all proportions. Your children will be cursed. They will be born from
incest.’
Rajaji had made up his mind.
‘Waddi malkani andChoti malkani were drugged,’he justified, ‘they
remember nothing. It could have been any one of my father’s men.’
I pleaded that it was a risk. If his father had prohibited it, he would
know. But Rajaji’s eyes were stone hard. Sin was not on his mind.
He was obsessed.
My life somersaulted. The future converted into a nightmare even
before it arrived. Pir Sain’s life could save my son from committing
a heinous sin, his death would unleash an unacceptable situation.
Two days and it would be the first of the month.
My heart craved his removal from the face of the earth, while
Rajaji’s plans tempered the craving. The danger of a trap wracked
my nerves. Would the robed figure appear or had he vanished like
last time? My heart pounded in my chest. Should I wait or not? I
decided not to wait but waited anyway.
On the last day of the month, I mingled with the basest kind of
man and responded to the smelly pig above me as if he might be my
lost Ranjha. I prayed that this demon meet the same fate as the pink
and white boy, or that I eject the black widow’s venom and sting him
to death. Death remained on my mind while Pir Sain slept. To¬
morrow, he could be dead.
As only nicotine could stop my nerves from jumping, I was
smoking three packets of cigarettes a day. The lighter only lit the
first one, after that, one cigarette lit the other. Fumes escaped my

180
 IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

nostrils long after the cigarette was stubbed out. My nails and
fingertips had turned yellow, my lungs had burnt out, but this fire
extinguished other fires. When the tambaccoo in the betel leaf mixed
with the saliva in my mouth, my head spun. When I gulped the
intoxicant without caution, the earth moved. Without it, reality came
into sharp focus, and that I could not bear.
Because this last day was different, or worse, or better, I smoked
a fourth packet of cigarettes outside the bathroom. I stayed awake
all night to witness his last dawn through the crack in the window.
Afterwards, nothing would be the same. The birds on the tree were
singing. For him, it might be the last of everything. Fate was unpredic¬
table. This time, his was too. But when I thought of my own throat
in his hands, or else in the hands of the law, I choked on the smoke.
Although Pir Sain’s duties had been reduced to sending messages
of blessings to supplicants, people believed that even from this
action, he could clear their debts, heal their illnesses, enliven their
barren wombs and grow their crops. This, after twelve decades of
not a single sign of improvement in their lives. Poverty prevailed
whichever way they turned. Tattered souls lived in empty hovels
like dark graves, no different from their final burial place. But they
flocked and crawled to his empty charpcii at the Shrine, grovelling
before him and losing something more every time they turned to leave.
Contemplating the murder of a religious leader of thousands of
illiterate people needed supernatural courage. Transforming myself
from a slave to master of my own destiny needed a miracle.
Pir Sain was a symbol of munafiqat.
I was a soldier.
This was a jehacl.
In my eyes, the only thing happening here according to the injunc¬
tions of Islam was about to happen now. The only thing truly in the
name of Allah was Pir Sain’s death.
But this war could not end with the exit of one pir. That is why
they valued their heirs who preserved the evil.
The day passed.

181
 BLASPHEMY

Everything dimmed until it was pitch dark.

That night, an eerie wind blew at our doors and windows and tore
many of them out. I slumped down on a chair in the veranda. Rain
lashed against the walls surrounding the courtyard, thunder and
lightning exploded on the patch of sky above.
The Haveli bubbled with venom.
Again, I recalled the fairy lights, again I recalled the darkness
when they were switched off. It was a warning.
An indication of today.
‘Murder, murder, murder,’ resounded in my head. Spirits lurked
everywhere.
I swallowed two sedatives, smoked seven cigarettes, and chewed
a heavily loaded paan, but my hands still shook. Cheel was moving to¬
wards the door that led to the Shrine. Her white chaddar was bundled
up on her shoulder. I stopped breathing when she looked at me, as if
to say, ‘I know what you are waiting for.’ It took an age forme to recover.
When Pir Sain called for Rajaji, my son grimaced at the summons.
Looking me up and down he asked, ‘Why do you tremble, ammaT
And I thought, why does he pinch his cigarette so tight, why does
he drag on nicotine so deeply, why does his hand shake? Is it him
or is it me? I imagined beads of blood instead of drops of sweat
dripping from his forehead.
Rajaji was worried and informed me, ‘Pir Sain knows of my
meetings with Waddi malkani. God knows what will happen next.’
The information wrenched my heart out. It slipped into a dirty
rain puddle at my feet and screamed into the thunderstorm, ‘Will I
be imprisoned here for ever? Who will murder Pir Sain? Not Rajaji.
He is about to be murdered himself.’
Pir Sain must have postponed the matter, for my son came out cal mer.
‘I won’t be tied to the tree tonight,’ he laughed. ‘It’s not a night
to spend in captivity. Tomorrow we’ll see.’
Is he the murderer? I wondered again. O Allah, I beseeched, let
us all die if we have to, but let death come to someone. Even if it
comes as a famine or a plague, or the explosion of the sun on doomsday.

182
 IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

Please let it come tonight.

Because I had my period, he summoned Yathimri.
‘Should I send the widow’s daughters as well, sainT I asked stu¬
pidly.
‘Why?’ he wanted to know, and for the next half hour he spewed
out a hundred vile abuses. At last he banished me from the room.
The slip shook me. Tambaccoo and sedatives played on my mind.
I heard the trumpet of death call for someone.
But whom? When? How? Who would live to know the answer?
It was past eleven when the rain stopped. I pulled myself out of
the chair in the veranda to attend to the kitchen. My heart pounded
and thumped while I counted eggs, re-wrapped cooked chapaatis,
and boiled extra milk for morning tea. In the storage rooms, I snapped
the locks on the tin trunks and covered them with sheets to keep
thieves away.
Then I walked briskly around my square world, cutting corners,
stepping over rain puddles, making circles, saying aloud, ‘I’ll make
my world round like everyone else’s. I’ll make it round like God
made it.’ Exhausted, I fell in the chair again.
At last, I was summoned, for the final time, I hoped.
Carrying three sedatives crushed in a glass of milk, I walked to
my husband. When I entered, the drunken girl removed herself from
my bed and retired to her mat on the floor. Pir Sain gulped down the
milk. When he was drugged and Yathimri was fast asleep, I hung the
muslin on the headboard as the robed figure had instructed.
Lying beside him, I counted the snores of a man who was about
to die. It was as yet uncertain. Nothing might happen. If it did, I
could be caught and hanged.
‘Save me from this world,O Allah,’ I prayed, ‘its concept of
justice is as wrong as Pir Sain’s. But in life, or in death, freedom
must come. This story must end.’ It was past midnight when I turned
my back to him. Sleep made the crossroads vanish from before me.
I awoke with a start.
There was a sharp crack.

183
 \
BLASPHEMY

I felt my husband’s weight lift off the bed and come down hard
behind my back.
Up again and down with a thud. What was happening?
I felt the same presence. A chill circulated in my body. There was
someone in the room.
After a long silence, the door creaked and shut softly.
I hardly breathed while the clock ticked on and on for so long. At
last I dared to roll over, as if turning in my sleep.
The clock ticked in my head again, until I dared to peep from
under my arm. Pir Sain was flat on his back.
Was he awake or asleep, or dead?
His face was turned away from me. My eyes began to wander.
A trail of blood!
There was a stain on the pillowcase. My nerves began to jump
with the ticking clock.
At last I mustered the courage to rise on an elbow and look over.
His eye was open!
The sight took my breath away. I slumped back. It took another
age to gather the courage to get out of bed. Cautiously, I stepped over
Yathimri. Slowly, I reached the other side.
Pir Sain’s mouth was open like his eyes!
I stepped closer and moved back. He could spring on me. I braced
myself again and stretched out a hand to touch his pulse.
There was no beat!
With a finger, I tipped his face and it flopped to the other side.
Another blood stain! Two! One on either side of his head.
Pir Sain was dead.
I sat down in his armchair. I had never seen him this close. He had
never let me. Now, I stared at his dead face.
It was over.
I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
The storm that had raged without respite or mercy had finally
thrown me on the shore.

184
 CHAPTER TWELVE

Stripping
r he shrill ring of the early morning alarm woke me up at
the same time as it had done for the last twenty-four
years. I fluttered out of bed like a frightened bird, just
like I had done on the first day of my marriage.
Now I turned the alarm off like my husband had always done.
Instead of Yathimri, Guppi, Diya, and Munni, slept on the floor.
I lit a cigarette. When I recalled the horror of the night he had died,
I nearly choked on the smoke. Light filtered in through the crack in
the window and I recalled the many dawns I had seen creep in like
this. I leapt out of bed and pushed the shutter open.
Sunlight flooded in. I breathed new air.
Light spread evenly in the room that had been dark all my married
life.
Then I had another panic attack.
Forcing out dark thoughts from my mind, I tried to tell myself
stories of freedom, but old methods were no longer working. I tried
to see a clearer picture of my present circumstances. Was I a
murderess or a widow?
When I choked on tobacco again, Guppi woke up and ran to me.
‘Are you all right, animal' she asked, and we looked at each other
and away. Free from him for the first time in our lives, we did not
even know what to say.
I asked about Yathimri.

185
 BLASPHEMY

Guppi replied, ‘She behaved as if my father’s death was an injus¬

tice to her.’
She had, after all, become just another servant girl. Guppi was
telling me small details of the qul arrangements and Rajaji’s dastar-
bandi, both due to take place tomorrow, but I was more interested in
Yathimri. The man who used her to kill my son was now dead. I was
determined to see that she was entitled to nothing more after him.
Without my customary duties to worry about, I was still stretched
out on his bed. No preparations were to be made for his bath and
none for his breakfast. It was strange without him, like a killer
disease had disappeared without a trace. My daughters now used
the bathroom that they had never entered in their father’s life. His
absence left no vacuum in ours.
Outside, I sat with my pounding head wound tightly with the
chunni, and buried my face in my arms for most of the day. Only
when someone relevant came to condole, did I stand up, fall into her
arms and weep at the life this man they mourned had inflicted upon
me. Crying was always easier under the influence of drugs.
Waddi malkani, Choti malkani, andMaharani arrived, but from some¬
where behind me screams tore away all thoughts of Rajaji’s horren¬
dous future. Yathimri had become hysterical. Because itwasa house
in mourning, her behaviour could be explained, but that she suffered
a loss greater than any of us was an insult to the family. It was well
known that she was the pir’s woman but that knowledge should have
been buried with him. Instead she was establishing it by flouting it.
I summoned the widow and told her, ‘Find out what she wants.
Act on your own behalf, not on mine.’
I had not seen Cheel since the funeral, and wondered if her duty
to watch over us had ended with him. When Ma asked me if we
could talk alone, I walked behind her despite not wanting to.
Sitting down on his bed, she clasped my hands in hers and whis¬
pered, ‘There is not one prayer, nor any shrine, where I have not begged
our Lord to release you from your bondage, in safety and without pain.’
Was she telling me that my freedom had come from her?

186
 STRIPPING

Ma wept, ‘I did not want you to depend on my love. Expecting

help from me or from anyone else was more dangerous for you than
living here. I withdrew so that you could survive on your own
strength. I could offer you nothing, but I knew everything.’
Now she was telling me? Now that / was free? I turned my face
away from her. She turned it back.
‘Your father often comes to me in my dreams. He is always dis¬
turbed and unhappy. I have been begging his forgiveness for the past
twenty-four years, but he does not forgive me,’ she cried and sobbed
into her veil.
Ma was so weak that she had preferred to vanish from my life, so
strong that she was able to murder motherhood. Was she weak or
was she strong?
As though she heard me, she pleaded, ‘Forgive me, my child. The
faintest sympathy would have made you lean on a dry twig. When
your uncle went for Haj, I told him the truth and swore him to
secrecy. “Free my daughter from Satan, tell Allah to take him, only
He can punish him,” I prayed.’
At last, the pain she had curbed deep in her heart surfaced in her
eyes. Had it been patience or greed?
I thought about what she had done to Bhai, and as if she heard,
she answered, ‘Because I knew your brother was faint-hearted, I
tried my best to convince him of your well -being. When he saw you
being beaten, all my efforts went to waste. Today is the first day that
he has found a reason to smile.’
Had his'dilemma never concerned her only because it did not
serve her interests at that time? Ma wiped her tear-stained face with
her veil and all the time her eyes were on me. Mine were on her.
Ma had aged. She was hanging on like a loose tooth. As a mother
she gambled away my life; the outcome was etched on her forehead.
My long absence had settled in her lines. I noticed another agony.
She ached at my distance from her. Spontaneously, I hugged her and
felt a weight lift off her old body. It did not matter anymore.
The widow came running in, ‘Bibiji, I have to speak to you alone.

187
 BLASPHEMY

It’s urgent.’
Ma left the room and the woman settled at my feet. Looking
around, she whispered, ‘ Yathimri is saying that Pir Sain was going
to marry her on the morning of his funeral. She was becoming the
mistress of the Haveli. That is why she was so distraught.’
Shocked, I sent for the girl and sat down on the sofa like my hus¬
band. I wanted to beat her like he did but on the second day of his
death it seemed inappropriate. It could fan the scandal ... or turn
into something worse.
The girl came in looking so defiant that better sense could not
prevail and I charged at her. Pulling her head back by her hair, I
glared into her eyes. Hers blazed back as she hissed nastily at me,
‘I wasn’t asleep when Pir Sain died, bibiji.’
My grip loosened. I could have acted as frightened as I felt,
instead I gave her a sharp slap. She cried out loud and ran from me,
pausing at the door she smiled wickedly.
It took an age for me to recover. What did she know? What had
she seen? I recollected the moments I most wanted to forget. I had
thought that the girl would be my alibi, because she remembered
nothing, she would become my natural support. Instead my bitterest
enemy now shared my most dangerous secret.
Rajaji’s joyous dastarbandi on the day of Pir Sain’s solemn qul
confused and contradicted one emotion with the other. Like Satan,
pirs reappeared in many different forms, for ever. One was dead
and the other was bom. For me, fear of what Yathimri had seen
surpassed both.
Inside, Rajaji’s grand aunts, too old to even stand up, bent low to
touch the feet of the new pir. The maids fell on the floor before him.
Outside, shamianas were pegged down and a stage was set under them.
Mureeds arrived from everywhere on everything in every way. Money
filled the coffers. Rajaji settled on his throne. Behind him, seven
hundred and thirty other gods settled in, row after row after row.
Babaji’s disintegrating pug was once again lifted out of the iron
trunk, placed on Rajaji’s head, and loud chants of lAllahu, Allahu’

188
 STRIPPING

rung through the air.

Another pir was crowned.
Another god was found.
People sighed and cried out, Thank Allah, for the benevolent
hand He puts upon our heads. Thank Allah, for covering our great
loss with a great gain, for He continues to bestow His blessings upon
us through His chosen ones.’
Forty days went by wiping sweat beads from my brow. Now,
Yathimri instead of Cheel stared at me from every corner. Recalling
her I asked Dai where Cheel had gone.
She replied in jest, ‘The master kept her in such a state of watchful¬
ness that she’s making up for lost sleep. Rajaji will depute his own
hawk.’ Dai became serious when she said, ‘She is also unwell and
needs to rest.’
Suddenly Cheel appeared before me. I observed her carefully as
she walked towards me, and stopped. She opened her mouth as if
to speak, but turned away instead. My eyes glued to her back. When
she disappeared at the door leading to the Shrine, I thought, ‘O
Allah! Who is she? Why is she so strange?’
My attention was diverted by Sakhi bibi and Waddi malkani who
had succeeded in warding off an impending evil. Maharani was
married off to a cousin. I was relieved that the girl, now bonded in
marriage, was distanced by space from Rajaji. My son, furious but
helpless, drove himself to a state no different to his debauch uncle’s.
1 did not reprimand him for it was better for him this way.
I set the widow on Yathimri. A month passed by before she had
anything to report, ‘Bibiji, I saw the girl say something to Dai who
touched her ears and said ‘tauba, tauba'. When I drew near, they
fell silent. They don’t trust me.’
Every nerve in my body stiffened with tension. Shaking with
fright at the information, I scolded her, ‘Dispel the notion that you
can’t be trusted. What use are you to me if you can’t extract anything?’
But I was also afraid of the widow finding out Yathimri’s secret.
Pir Sain’s grave was still fresh. I did not shudder. He could not

189
 BLASPHEMY

emerge.^. except for a post-mortem. That fear turned me to Babaji’s

grave again, and I cried to him about the new threat confronting me.
‘Satan left his little girl to haunt me,’ I wept, ‘his heart beats in
her breast. She looks at me with his eyes.’
The same chill circulated in my body. I felt the same presence.
My head lifted to someone who seemed from another world, and
yet, was one of us.
‘What do you want?’ the figure murmured in a muffled voice.
The wish was at the tip of my tongue, ‘I want Yathimri’s death.’
Before the figure could turn around to vanish again, I asked
quickly, ‘Who are you?’
Instead I was told, ‘On the first day of the coming month the deed
will be done.’
The figure walked away ... with a limp?
Again, I was asking the same question, again there was no answer.
Worse still, again I was waiting for a murder.
Although I desperately wanted to know what Yathimri had seen
on the night of the murder, I did not want her to tell me or anyone
else. Instead I began to treat her better, so that she would not reveal
anything to anyone before the first day of the coming month.
One day when she was placing my breakfast tray on the table I
said to her, ‘You thought me your enemy but I had no choice in the
matter. We lived the master’s life. Everything done here was for him.’
Every day, when we were alone, I would say something nice to
her, until soon, Yathimri, happy at finding my favour despite the
master’s absence, was running back and forth with my errands.
Squatting on the floor before me, she wept into her veil, ‘Bibiji,
we were all in the master’s service. Things I thought I could never
do happened at my hands. Like you, I had no choice either. If you
give me achance, I will serve you with my life.’ Sobbing inconsolably,
she fell on my feet.
I wanted to embrace her but remembered Chote Sain. She was
not trustworthy.
I told her to look at me, ‘What is done is done. We must forget

190
 STRIPPING

the past. Now we have a choice and a chance/

Yathimri wailed, ‘I had a nightmare on the night the master died,
bibiji. A person in white robes strangled the master with a muslin
cloth. Our master rose in the air and fell hard on the bed. Blood
oozed out of his ears.’
My heart thumping in my breast, I asked her if she had seen the
murderer.
‘I saw a robed figure leave the room,’ she said, wanting to say
something more but hesitating. Petrified of what it was, I told her
to speak up. She would not.
‘Do you know who it was?’ I asked. She nodded.
I insisted she tell me who.
‘It was Cheel, bibiji,’ she said and my heart stopped.
‘Cheel?’
‘Yes, bibiji. I saw her limp in and stand behind the master’s bed.
I saw her back when she limped out.’ I was about to faint.
Cheel! Was it Cheel? No, no. That was improbable. Yathimri
was hallucinating. But the limp? The robed figure had limped. Did
Cheel limp?
‘When you woke me the dream was true, bibiji. The nightmare
was real. The master had been murdered. Cheel killed him. She
betrayed his trust. I know for sure. I swear it was her,’Yathimri cried
while I tried to recover from the revelation.
Shaken, I told her to forget it.
‘The past will poison the present and kill the future. Rajaji will
murder you for not protecting the master. You will be hung for keep¬
ing silent. They will convict you for being an accomplice. No one
will believe Cheel could betray her master. Wipe it out of your mind
immediately. Immediately! The master is dead and we are still
alive. It was a dream. Nothing more than a dream,’ I commanded.
A thought came rushing to my mind: if the mysterious man was
Cheel, she must have been burying the dead child on the night the
robed figure had not appeared as promised. When Yathimri left I
dried the perspiration from my brow wondering if she should live

191
 BLASPHEMY

or die, if it was Cheel or someone else?

For the next three weeks I was too afraid to even ask for Cheel
whose constant presence had vanished from before my eyes. Now
an image limped in my mind. Why I rushed to the Shrine to cancel
Yathimri’s murder every single evening, I do not know. But the
limping figure did not reappear.
The night marked for the murder did.
Desperate and unsure of what I must do, I rushed to Dai in search
of Cheel but was told that she was too ill to get out of bed. Relieved
that if it were she, she was bedridden for today, I bolted my door. I
swallowed many tranquillisers, but the robed figure limped in my
mind all night.
At dawn I was jolted out of my restless slumber by the loud bang¬
ing on the door. I opened it to wailing maids, crying together, above
one another, over and over, ‘Yathimri is dead, £>/£>//?'. The orphan girl
is dead. She’s dead. She’s dead,’ they repeated.
She had climbed to the top of a haystack and fallen in. When stray
dogs started barking around the hay, people became curious and
pulled the stack down.
Yathimiri had suffocated to death.
The murder of my husband was a jehad. I had broken an idol. He
was an impostor. ButYathimri? Her blood stained my soul. PirSain
had not gone. He had gotten away with everything by burying
himself deep in the earth, while every evil act of his was twirling like
a poisonous snake deep inside my heart.
I called Dai and asked her, ‘Where is Cheel? Why does she not
come into the courtyard anymore? Has she not rested enough?’
Dai, oblivious to the pounding in my breast, told me, ‘The doctor
says her disease has spread to every part of her body. She can die
from it if she is not careful, bibiji’
‘What is it that ails her?’ I asked and her words began to untangle
the riddle. ‘Years ago, earth ants entered her foot and began to
rapidly breed in her body. As her duty was to stand watch, she could
never spare the time to get the illness treated. For years, she was

192
 STRIPPING

not in any condition to even stand on her feet, but her master demanded
otherwise.’
I asked Dai if she limped and she confirmed Yathimri’s allegation,
‘The pain became unbearable a few days before the master died,
otherwise she would have controlled herself from succumbing to
even that symptom.’
My mind shifted from Yathimri to Cheel.
I walked straight into her room. She was lying on acotton mattress
spread on the floor. Cheel looked up at me with shocked eyes and
tried to rise, but with difficulty. I pressed her shoulder down, ‘Don’t
get up. I’ll sit with you.’
The silence was uncomfortable.
Her eyes were swollen from crying and not hooded like an eagle’s.
Her head jutted forward, but the angle did not make her resemble the
vulture I had always thought she was. Neither did she seem to be
the woman I was scared of, nor did she resemble the robed figure
anymore. Today, Cheel was the woman I had missed seeing. Cheel
was in pain, now as always, and yet I had not noticed this before. I
was surprised that in all the observations I had made here, I had not
realised that Cheel’s life was no better than my hell. That she must
hate the master as much as I did.
Neither of us could speak, nor did I know what to call her. Refer¬
ring to her as Cheel now sounded mean.
I started the conversation, ‘Did you hear about Yathimri’s death ? ’
She nodded.
I said, ‘She was murdered.’ She nodded again.
I asked her, ‘Should I speak to Rajaji to get you better treatment
for your leg?’ She shook her head.
‘What kind of pain do you feel?’ I prodded on hoping she would
speak so that I could hear her voice and reconfirm what was no
longer a mystery in my mind. But she only shrugged her shoulders.
I visited her again and again but never did I hear a word from her
mouth.
When a maid mentioned to Dai who was sitting at my door that

193
 BLASPHEMY

Cheel was very ill, I ran straight off my prayer mat to her room.
Cheel was dying. It seemed to me as if my whole life was slipping
away in front of my eyes. I held her hand and pleaded with her, ‘If
you don’t tell me about yourself now, I’ll never know. Please speak
to me today or it might be too late.’
She opened her mouth. She spoke. I heard her voice. Muffled
by a chaddar, it was the voice of the robed figure.
A chill swept through my body.
She said, ‘Since the time my forefathers brought Babaji’s body
down from the hills, every male member in my family has been
killed. I lost my grandfather, my father, and all my brothers to their
scared mission. That is why I took beith from the master. Over a
lifetime I gained his trust.’
I recalled Toti mentioning Cheel with affection. Of course she
must have known.
Brave despite the earth ants nibbling every organ in her body, pa¬
tient like no one else could be, Cheel had a mission that Pir Sain
could not detect. But I still needed to know more and asked her,
‘Why did you wait all your life?’
She looked at me and deliberately muffled her voice with her
chaddar, saying more by that than by the words.
‘You were not ready before now, bibiji.’
I no longer needed to ask. She did not need to answer.
That night I waited in my room for news of Cheeks death and
soon it came.
‘O God!’ I cried on my prayer mat, ‘I did not see this tormented
soul even though she stood before my eyes all my life. How could
I have not seen her suffering?’
I cried for her terrible life as much, if not more, as I had cried for
Kaali and Yathimri’s lives. I cried, for all Cheel had achieved in the
world was one pair of crying eyes and one pained heart. But she had
dedicated her life to accomplishing the mission of her forefathers.
She dared what none of the male members of her family had dared.
Six months went by hatingPir Sain for Cheel’s life and Yathimri’s

194
 STRIPPING

death until suddenly, one day, I realised that guilt was a trap. It had to
die before I could live. Under the shower, I connected to the Divine and
thought of every possible way to rid myself of my husband’s cling¬
ing curse, until I was left with only one option. Had I been able to an¬
nounce that I was once Piyari on the mosque’s loudspeaker, I would
not have decided upon the course I chose. But the faintest hint of such
an explosive and unholy exposure would have been quashed by Rajaji
and his uncles. I would be dead before the faintest whisper of the
name Piyari was heard. And there could be no peace, except in revenge.
No change without exposing Piyari.
The decision was taken in my heart, the path was chalked in my
mind. The fog cleared up. I closed my eyes and long years of
torment eased.
My heart thumped another beat.
New plans assembled.
Healed, I stepped into clothes that clung to me like another skin.
In the courtyard, I shouted, ‘SEND FOR TARA.’
A tigress strode across my square world. Her regal head stood
high on a long neck, broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist,
thighs and legs seemed to know no end, and at last, the legend stood
before me. Tara bent down to touch my feet with a stiffness that
came from disapproval of the gesture.
I employed her as a tailor and took her to my room where her eyes
moved like a silverfish. Even when she took my measurements, her
eyes were not on my body. When I gestured for her to sit down, Tara
crossed her legs to squat at my feet, but her eyes kept flitting here
and there and everywhere. I tried to establish a connection by
staring into them.
‘We are bonded together in suffering, you and I,’ I said to her, ‘we
are captives of a false and evil system. A poisonous octopus grips
us. Its tentacles usurped the strength of Islam to exploit us in every
possible way. Its grip tightens but never lets us die.’
Although Tara’s eyes never stayed still, I knew that she listened.
‘They allow us to breathe just enough for them to feed upon us until

195
 BLASPHEMY

our flesh is gone. We survived, you and I. That is why I trust you.’
Suddenly, she focused on me. Nobody had looked so deeply into
my eyes. I became uneasy.
Her look was fierce, but her words were wise, ‘Bibiji, although
avenging injustice is the only emotion left in me, how will we fight
decades of established thought? They will brand us kafir and bum
us at the stake. Their propaganda is deep rooted. Our protest is
weak. It will not even take root.’
Although a deep sigh exposed a well-concealed vulnerability,
she committed herself to me.
‘I am ready to stay beside you, in whatever way you seek to use
me.’
Relieved, I explained my purpose to Tara, ‘The Shrine is a symbol
of all exploitation. If men can use Allah against the weak, all other
means are lesser and easier to exploit. If we make a war against this
Shrine, every truth will be served,’
Many nights passed before I unbolted the latch on the back gate
and hastened to my room to unlock the bathroom door. Through it,
Tara accompanied hero number one. Shocked to still find me in
Satan’s den, he nearly fainted with fright when I told him, ‘l am not
Piyari. I am Heer, Pir Sain’s wife. Rajaji’s mother. When last we
met, you did not lose faith in your pir. Lose it now.’
Hero number one shivered and shook but desecrated the holy
myth implanted in his mind. When he left, my heart felt like a
feather lashed by a violent wind.
My longing to step out of the Haveli was perhaps as great as my
need to expose the evil behind the garb of divinity. Tara encouraged
me, ‘Fear is the only demon standing in our way, bibiji. If heroes
can come in, we can go out.’
‘How?’ I asked my friend in disbelief.
‘Lock your room and retire for the night. Because no one expects
you to walk out of the back door, no one will bother to check. I’ll
take you out under a burqa. We can go where you wish for an hour
or two,’ she suggested.

196
 STRIPPING

In my mind I was excited, in my heart I was afraid.

While Tara made a list, I wished, ‘O Allah, my morality serves
nothing. My person means nothing. Allow me atransgression. Allow
me to use myself to expose the evil this Shrine conceals behind your
name. Allow me to take a course that will condemn me but expose
the distortion of your message at the hands of your enemies.’
My heart thumping loudly, afraid of everything and nothing at
the same time, I painted and powdered and perfumed myself. Slipping
into the tight clothes that Tara had fitted on to my body or it into
them, I covered myself with my burqa and followed Tara.
The black night swallowed us up and made us invisible as we
walked briskly from my room to the back door. The chil 1 outside was
countered by the mounting excitement within me. But my perfume
lingered wherever I passed and my high heels clip-clopped noisily.
Tara giggled, ‘Bibiji, whereas I can slip anywhere without trace,
too many things announce your crime.’
We stepped out.
I smelt freedom.
Winter was harsh that year and people hid from it in their houses
like children hide from a monster. Women huddled away from the
chilly winds as they did from men. Men buried themselves under
all the warm clothes they possessed. Even when they heard something
they ignored it. I threw back my burqa to at last examine the
surroundings outside my prison. Walking through barren stretches
of land with bare trees, I forgot the purpose of my trip. We turned
left into more barrenness. I saw a cluster of shabby huts. Outside
the Haveli, everything was as wretched as I was.
When we reached a small house, Tara kicked the door open with
her foot. Two men jumped out of their chairs. Tara had told them
who I was. With the burqa removed, my bosom bulged out of a
plunging neckline, and the men nearly fell over in fright. Small
landholders dared not look at Rajaji, leave alone become intimate
with his mother. Fears from the past also re-emerged within me. A
stiff drink overcame them.

197
 BLASPHEMY

They called me Bibi Sain and promised to keep my secret. By the

time I was ready to leave, we were talking like my late husband’s
friends; shattering the myth of the Shrine. From then on, it shattered at
many a door until all the heroes who once knew me as Piyari, a whore
from the city, had now bedded Pir Sain’s wife, Heer, and knew it.
These were the men whose worship had elevated Pir Sain into a
god. Exposing myself as a whore exposed him as a pimp. The only
way to establish this was to pull him out of the garb embroidered
with the ninety-nine names of Allah. The only way for that was to
throw off my own clothes. After every desecration, I stood over my
husband’s grave and spat on it.
When the jagirdar heard the spreading whisper, he did not believe
it. ‘It is impossible. I want to meet this impostor. She will have to
pay the price for this blasphemy,’ he snarled.
Tara thought it better we stay away from him, but the urge to tear
down my purdah and expose what it had hidden from him in Pir
Sain’s lifetime overwhelmed me.
Sprinkling my husband’s musk over my body, I explained to my
confidante, ‘This time I will not be Piyari, the prostitute. I will be
Heer, the wife. We will become one.’
I was taking off my burqa when the fat man entered the room.
Shaken by the memory, I collected myself and said, ‘Do you re¬
member me, sain? Then Pir Sain conducted my affairs himself, now
I am alone.’
The pig was visibly stumped. His mouth hung open under his
twisted moustache and his eyes were catatonic.
When I asked for a drink the statue snapped out of a trance and
poured it. Suddenly, he laughed, ‘Now I understand. It’s you. The
woman from the city.’ He became serious, ‘Why do you say you are
the master’s wife? You can be killed for this crime.’
At that, I laughed out louder than he did. Rolling my eyes like
Tara had taught me, I said, 'Sain, I have shared Pir Sain’s bed for
twenty-four years.’ Furious, he shouted at me, ‘Say it again and you
will be hanged in the street.’

198
 STRIPPING

I swore on Allah, TamRajaji’smother. Call in your women, they

will confirm it.’
The blubber on his black face shook.
‘Call any maid to confirm my identity. Let her be a loyal one, lest
my son hears of it and kills you,’ I advised. Smiling sweetly, I cooed,
‘Like me, sain, you cannot afford a scandal that threatens to rise like
a demon from under my burqa.'
He threw back one drink after another, then ran out of the room.
A worried Tara warned me of danger.
‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her, ‘hurdles come in the way of every
great mission. If you turn from the future, you only run into the past.’
Tara understood. She was like me and Kaali and Toti, even Cheel
and Yathimri had been like us.
My victim returned with an old maid. ‘ Do you know this woman?’
he shouted as she gawked at me.
My body was barely concealed by the tight shirt, I flicked the
cigarette in one hand and the ice in the glass of whisky tinkled in the
other. Her hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes popped out.
She fell at my feet, exclaiming, ‘Bibiji. The pirzadi.’
I lifted her up by her elbow and wagged my finger at her, ‘If you
tell anyone I was here, I’ll destroy your future generations.’
Nodding like Guppi’s battery-operated doll, she swore, ‘Bibiji,
how can I bring my pir’s honour to my foul lips? I am too small to
talk of people so exalted.’
The fat jagirdar ordered her out and staggered to his chair.
He lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘Are you really Pir Sain’s
wife? Are you really not Piyari from the city?’
What my burqa had concealed was now revealed to him. That
should have been enough, I could have walked out. But I had to
make him commit the act he believed was sacrilege.
‘Do you feel differently about me now that you know I am his
wife? If the association was permitted in Pir Sain ’ s life, what prohibits
it now?’
My dead husband’s friend could not adjust to my real identity

199
 BLASPHEMY

until he drank himself into forgetting it. My business concluded, I left.

On another night, Tara and I ran across the cornfield to meet a
Pathan who sold smuggled fabric, hashish, and heroin. Breathless,
I sat hidden in the fields and said to my friend, standing like a
watchtower beside me, ‘Why is it that I can only see the world by
night? When will I see it in daylight?’
Tara warned me, "Bibiji, crave not for more, or everything you
have done will return to destroy you.’
But I was desperate.
Exasperated by my tantrum, Tara reminded me, ‘If your actions
are not about pleasure, why bother with day and night? If you
avenge a ghost, it is possible to do so only in the dark. If your
intentions have changed, tell me. I will do as you say.’
But I needed to see far into the distance even more than I needed
to avenge myself. Tara gave up trying to convince me and settled
down beside me.
I noticed tears in her eyes and asked, ‘What is this pain that makes
a stone weep?’And her armour suddenly fell. Tara crumpled up like
paper.
Turning her face away from me she tried to control her sobs, ‘It’s a
story that happened long before the one you’ve heard about me, bibiji, ’
she said and something told me that we avenged the same ghost.
I insisted she tell me about it. Tara wept inconsolably before she
could bring herself to speak about the demons in her heart.
‘I.was orphaned at the age of six,’ she cried, ‘I had no one in the
world. Someone left me at the Shrine; someone else took me to the
Haveli. Pir Sain held me by my hand and took me to his hujra.'
I recalled her bewildered eyes resurrecting the past in my room.
I pressed my hand over Tara’s mouth to stop her from telling me
more. I knew the rest. I did not want to hear another story.
She struggled out of my palm and cried out, ‘Hear me out. Let
me speak . I need to speak at last. Your husband pulled off my
clothes. I tried to pull them on. He slapped me. I screamed. He
stuffed a rag into my mouth and pushed me down on the floor. He

200
 STRIPPING

was on top of me. His weight crushed me. The hair on his chest
filled my mouth and suffocated me. I was trying to struggle out...
cry out. He boxed my head, twisted my ears, pummelled me with
both his fists... and it seemed as if my whole life passed by. Suddenly,
he jumped up. I saw a giant towering over me. His foot pressed hard
on my face. His words drilled through my ears. They imprinted on
my mind, “If I hear a word from you again. I’ll skin you alive. If I
hear you have spoken a word to a single soul, ever again, I’ll cut you
with a knife into little pieces and cook you.” He held me up by my
hair and I dangled in the air. With his other hand, he squeezed my
throat in his grip and I sputtered and choked. When I heard him say,
“Out, Out, Out,” I ran for my life.’
‘An old labourer found me hiding in a shrub and took me home
to his wife. I never dared to speak again until, many years later, I
met a man to whom I could say, I love you.’
Filled with hatred, I asked Tara why the master had not pursued
her when she grew up into a beautiful young woman.
She shrugged, wondering herself, ‘I guess I reminded him of his
failure, bibiji.'
Tara and I hugged each other and wept until our tears dried out,
then we silently continued our journey to the Pathan ’s house to rein¬
force our pledge to destroy the Shrine.
The Pathan, who carried a lethal-looking rifle like I carried my
purse, haggled over the priceless items I offered him. When we
came to an agreement, I sold him copies of Pir Sain’s video films.
They would spread the truth like germs spread a virus.
That night, just as Tara and I stepped into the Haveli through the
back door, the distant cries of a woman tore through the air and made
us run for safety to my room.
Everyone else ran into the courtyard.
Everyone called out, ‘Who is it? Who screams in such grief?’
Tara and Ijoined the stampede charging towards the brick wall.
The shrieks came closer and became more terrifying. The cries
could split the earth, and yet seemed not to express enough grief. All

201
 BLASPHEMY

eyes were glued to the brick wall, from behind which the widow
crawled in ... ankles bleeding.
She saw us and tore her hair, beat her breast and screamed at the
top of her voice until Dai slapped her and she passed out. When Dai
slapped her again, she revived.
Whiling uncontrollably, between bouts of breathlessness and cries
of hopelessness came sentences of pain, ‘Reech stalked me down in
the fields. He pressed.rags drenched in chloroform over my
daughters’ noses and stuffed them into a sack.’
She could not suffer the pain. She could not contain it. She could
not express it enough, and so she hit her forehead against the floor
until it turned blue.
‘Tell us what happened after that. What happened? What
happened?’ Everyone wanted to know.
She could not speak. Her words were swallowed by sobs. We
tried to make out what she said. Reech loaded her daughters on his
donkey cart. She tried to pull the sack down. He cut the veins on
her ankles. She could not follow the cart.
The widow shook off anyone who attempted to console her, ‘Leave
me alone. Leave me alone. Nobody can help me,’ she wailed.
Dai shook her hard, ‘Take control of yourself before Rajaji kills
you for making such a noise.’
The widow cried softly, ‘I beseeched the devil in vain, Dai. I
crawled behind the animals. But one beast flayed the other and
trotted away, around a bend, and out of my sight. My daughters have
gone for ever. They’ve gone for ever. I’ll never see them again.
Never again,’ she lamented hopelessly. Rightly.
Lrom that day on, the widow crawled to the field to wait for her
daughters at dawn and crawled back home at dusk. Back and forth,
every day, and nothing else happened in her life anymore. The maids
began to call her the wailing widow. Rajaji ordered that she be
removed to a room in the dilapidated outhouse. I was sad at events
that never became lessons and rectified no wrongs. My blood surged
as if its pressure rose with the need to redeem everyone’s loss.

202
 STRIPPING

The beginning of the end had come.

Gossip of two vampires on the prow] reached Rajaji even before
his father’s first death anniversary.
He staggered into my room in a state of drunkenness and fumed,
‘Never has a finger been pointed at a woman from this house like it
has been at my mother.’ I denied any knowledge of the matter and
expressed my own shock at the wildness of the rumour. He did not
believe me.
His voice thundered, ‘I will investigate this. It will destroy a lot
of people, for I will kill to extract the truth.’
I straightened up and asked my son to sit down so that I could
tower over him. When I finished telling him about his father’s sins,
he was shaking.
‘What shame do you feel now that you know the extent of my vio¬
lation at your father’s hands?’ I asked him.
We struggled with the same pain, he and I, except that he was des¬
perate to contain it and I was committed to spill it all out.
‘Tell me if you have exposed yourself as my mother,’ he snapped.
I denied any claim to my own reputation. I denied my actions just
as my husband had concealed his.
‘They discuss the past. It was happening inside the Haveli. Many
people must have known or suspected something. How could I dare
to step out? How could I keep such a dangerous secret in a place full
of spies? Believe me. I am your mother. I’m telling the truth.’If
my denial had relieved him, my shameful story had shattered him.
When Maharani’s husband was shot dead, something in my heart
told me that Rajaji was involved in this twist of her fate. Something
also told me that I had pulled the trigger in his brain.
Rajaji rushed into my room with a red face and bulging eyes. But
he was disturbed by rumours instead of by the murder.
His accusations tumbled over one another. ‘It was always you,
a serpent living in my father’s sleeve. If you dare to malign his good
name again, I will make an example out of you.’
When he announced, ‘I am marrying Maharani,’ I cried out, ‘You

203
 BLASPHEMY

cannot. She’s your sister.’

He hissed at me like his father, ‘You have no right to interfere in
my life. I can look up at no man because my mother is a whore. I
keep my eyes down, in case the face I gaze at is her lover’s.’
He instructed me to take my old place in the kitchen, slammed the
door in my face and left me trembling with fear and fury.
From then on, his abuses, like his father’s musk, filled the air
every day until he took on Pir Sain’s mantle completely. It numbed
me to know that Rajaji had erased the knowledge of his father’s
unforgivable crimes. He had etched only mine on his mind. He
began to treat me like a disreputable maidservant. I feared that if he
could abuse me so openly, he could also beat me with the khajji
whip. His anger struck on a deep wound that had never healed.
The loudspeakers at the mosque blasted my husband’s praises on
his first bar si. As I could not bear to chant prayers for his soul to rest
in peace, I announced that I was ill, shut my bedroom door and se¬
dated myself into a deep sleep.

204
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Shattering the Myth

ocked in my room with Tara pretending to take my
measurements, I faced a new crisis. The Pathan had
told her that Pir Sain was nowhere in the film and I was
everywhere.
She advised me, ‘Only you can stop him from circulating it. Pir
Sain looms only as a shadow in it. The film will be used as evidence
against you alone.’
I told her to arrange another meeting with the Pathan.
‘Arrange it for tomorrow. Come at midnight. As you must not risk
coming in that late. I’ll try to leave here by myself. Wait for me on
the other side of the back door.’
The face in the miror had hardened. It was the sort of face I did not
like. Painted and powdered until it was white, cracks split the plaster.
Red lipstick bled around my lips and black kohl spread across my
eyes. A madpirni stared back at me. I looked the part, but was I also
the person? The woman in the mirror had seduced the district. Piyari
the whore had done what I, Heer, the pure, could never have imagined
doing. Ablaze in the flames of Pir Sain’s karma, I had run in all direc¬
tions to burn my surroundings. God and Satan, wrong and right,
black and white, had all become entangled in my life and in my mind.
As always, I locked the bedroom door from the inside and the
bathroom from the outside. Briskly, I walked to the back door. It was
barricaded with wooden boards. Nailed.

205
 BLASPHEMY

Trapped, I turned away.

Hysterical, I rubbed and scrubbed the paint off my face. They
were on to me. Nobody blamed Pir Sain. Everyone talked of my
present, never of my past, which he had defiled. As in the video
films, he was nowhere to be seen. Disgrace was not falling upon the
Shrine as I had imagined, it was falling only on me.
When my son delegated his trousseau management to a paternal
aunt instead of me, the insult was much talked about.
He screamed at me instead, ‘You are unworthy of living among
us. My wife will stay away from your influence.’
I asked him calmly, ‘How can you forget the sins your father ex¬
posed me to? How do mine outweigh his and now yours?’
‘You lie about my father,’ he shot back, ‘you are capable of any¬
thing. You can make shoes from the skins of your own babies.’
His words hurt me deeply but that was of little importance to him.
He was yelling.
I told him to keep his voice down, ‘I have done nothing. Gossip is
born from rumours of the past. How could I dare walk out of the Haveli?
How do the women here not know that I was absent at any time?’
He banged his feet on the floor, kicked the table, and clenched
his fists at me.
‘You liar. You did dare. You sneaked out like a bitch on heat
through the back door exclusive to my father’s use. You shamed me
in front of the jagirdar. You went to every door, announcing yourself
as Heer, mistress of the Haveli, honour of the Shrine.’
Struck with shock at all the information he had, I shouted louder
than him, ‘But I told you that the jagirdar knew me before your
father died. Ask him. The woman you curse was born in your Shrine,
not in a mother’s womb. I pleased your father beyond my duty. I
owe nobody here anything.’
He could not accept his father’s part in my scandal and was ada¬
mant to kill its root in my memory.
Tara was stopped at the Haveli door.
I was struck but preoccupied.

206
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

Although everyone knew that Rajaji did not have Pir Sain’s bless¬
ings to marry Maharani, nobody dared question his actions anymore.
Perhaps, like me, but unknown even to him, Rajaji was also shattering
the myth. Perhaps the truth would spread through Rajaji’s impending
act of incest. Perhaps that would loosen the tongues of men against
the Shrine instead of against me. Rajaji s sin could well explode the
tranquillity of the long line of graves.
When Guppi and her sisters arrived for their brother’s wedding,
there was tension between us.
Guppi said, ‘Amma, my sisters-in-law speak badly of you. They
say things that shame me. What is happening to us?’
I did not answer her.
Diya and Munni were also suffering, ‘Our husbands beat us
when we defend you. Why is this happening, amma?'
My heart was ready to melt, but I froze it and snapped back at
them, ‘Learn to cope with your own lives. You have been through
nothing yourself, yet you bleat like sheep. You are the daughters of
a woman who lives the aftermath of her husband’s life. I know no
other way. No one can stop the gossip, nor can I.’
Guppi nodded and tried to explain this to her sisters. When they
nodded too, I did not think any one had understood anything.
Ma and my sisters arrived.
In the privacy of my bedroom, Ma beat her chest with both her
hands and cried out, ‘What have you done to yourself, my child?
What have you done to us? While your husband lived, we hid our
sorrows behind his status and suffered in silence. Now you throw his
filth on us. Don’t you see how I protected my children from the
dangers of your life? You have thrown yours into its midst.’
Although Bhai did not mention the shameful stories that now
stalked my childhood alleys, he met me with the same restraint as
my sisters and daughters. Like everyone else, Bhai did not seem to
understand my predicament. Like Ma he believed that Pir Sain
should have died without leaving a trace of evil behind.
Sakhi bibi also arrived.

207
 BLASPHEMY

This was her first visit to the Haveli after the fire that destroyed
her life. Although she did not mention it, her burnt skin had etched
a sharp map on her face, her hands and her feet, I imagined the same
map over the rest of her body. She was not cordial to me like before
and spoke in a voice laced with disapproval.
‘I have heard many stories about you. You could have spent your
old age in prostration before Allah for granting you respite from a
cruel husband. Instead, people are calling you a woman of ill repute.’
Angrily, I told her to keep to her purpose and stay away from my
affairs.
She changed the subject, ‘Maharani’s husband was murdered by
Rajaji’s thugs. Waddi malkani can’t disclose the shameful secret
buried in her heart to her family. The dishonour will leave them with
no option other than suicide. But I am duty bound to stop this
marriage and you must help me stop it. Today. That i s why I am here.’
Calmly, I replied to her, ‘My son is a link in a satanic chain. Why
do you expect him to adhere to Allah’s will? Which law of Islam is
observed here that this one should not be broken? This is not the only
sin, nor is it the worst. Let the myth shatter and the filth spill over.’
She recognised no logic in my statement and exclaimed, ‘The
curse of Allah will fall upon you for permitting this crime!’
I shook my head from side to side, ‘No, it will not. His curse will
only fall upon me if I prevent the evil from showing itself. Only if
it is visible can the people see that this twisted system is opposed to
Islamic teaching. When the people see it, they will uproot it
themselves. They can.’
I tried to clear her opinion about me, ‘Can you not see what I do?
The filth is out because I flung off my burqa. I exposed my body to
reveal the truth.’
Sakhi bibi stared at me in disbelief, ‘But you went beyond the call
of Allah. Committing sins in His name is following the same evil way.’
I stood up and walked off.
Her argument was the same as everyone else’s.
To me, burying the evil and preserving my reputation meant pre-

208
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

serving the evil. No exposure meant maintaining the status quo.

That meant no change. I knew I had done the wrong thing for the
right reason. The truth was already simmering. It would rise like
lava from the graves of mad men.
Everyone celebrated Rajaji’s sin.
If anybody whispered incest, others brushed it aside like dust.
‘Surely the marriage would not be taking place if the story were
true. Surely Rajaji would know,’they said, putting the rumour to death.
When Maharani became mistress of the Haveli, I cried for and
against my son. She was told to keep away from me. I swallowed
the humiliation only because she herself was just another loop in the
chain that would strangle the myth.
Tara was ill.
The information made my mind recede into the square cage.
Fighting old feelings of fear, I sent Tara many messages through a
maid she trusted but heard that she was too ill to even reply. The
passion for everything died. The urge to destroy the Shrine vanished
like my craving for pickle in the first months of pregnancy.
Tara’s absence crippled me.
Tranquillisers made me sleep away the days, when I awoke I
swallowed more tablets to escape whatever was left of them.
I had been wild with hatred. Like a wounded bird I had flown
without direction, but it was impossible to sustain such a flight;
Rajaji felled me.
Thoughts of Pir Sain, the girls and the heroes, Ma, Bhai, and my
daughters, Chote Sain, the maids, Cheel and Yathimri, even Sakhi
bibi and the jagirdar, were pounding in my head when Rajaji barged
into my room and flung Tara’s trusted maid at my feet.
Rajaji had replaced his father.
Straight and tall like a tree. The same frown lines slashed the
centre of his brow. His eyes shone with the same strange lights. He
looked up without looking up. His lips pursed into a straight line and
the rest of his face was covered with black hair. He even moved the
same prayer beads in his hand. His voice made me snap back to the

209
 BLASPHEMY

present, to him, to my son.

‘I am the highest authority here. No woman, especially my mother,
should forget that I find out everything,’ he said kicking the frightened
maid.
Caught red-handed, I begged for mercy, ‘Your father ruined my
life. He was the one who ruined us all. I have done nothing. The
rumours are old, people are talking about the past.’
I fell at his feet.
He did not even move them away.
Instead, he shouted the maid out and screamed at me, ‘My father did
not parade you naked in the street and introduce you as my mother.
Whatever his ailment, he kept it away from us. He did not throw his
filth at his descendants. He behaved selfishly only with you. You have
been selfish with all of us. I will protect my heirs from your shadow.’
I promised not to cause him any more shame.
I begged Rajaji to forgive me but he stood up to go.
I pleaded with him, ‘Don’t turn away from me. I promise not to
stain the Shrine. I’11 pray for ever that the scandals that are circulating
die a sudden death. Give me one more chance to be a good mother.’
Stopping at the door he announced, ‘Your accomplice, the whore,
is dead.’
Tara was dead?
Tara?
I held my heart from falling deeper into its black hole. Shock
equalled sorrow. He broke in, ‘Before dying, she disclosed all. I
know how to make a woman talk.’
He was in the courtyard when I called out for him to return. He
was standing in the centre of the room and I was throwing things out
of the cupboard, crying out loudly, ‘Pir Sain did nothing to protect
your mother’s or your honour. Everyone knows everything. Nothing
is hidden from anyone. They just don’t speak about him.’
Although I knew that my evidence was incriminating and proved
nothing against his father, I armed myself with the video films and
thrust them in front of his eyes.

210
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

‘You insult me? Sit with your wife, who is your sister, and watch
the films your father made of your mother. You will see many men
you recognise and whom I do not know.’
Rajaji snatched the films away from my hands. His words took
my breath away.
‘The whore led me to the Pathan. I had him beaten to a pulp. By
the grace of Allah, my father has nothing to do with these films. He
is nowhere to be seen. My mother is the one who is shameless.’
/ was shameless? I?
He stalked out while I shouted desperately behind him, ‘What
about the constant shadow? Whose is that?’
He halted as if someone had struck him with a brick.
But then he walked away because shadows are insubstantial.
My cries alerted all the women of the Haveli to my door. I scattered
them with abuse. Tara was gone. I needed no one else. I winced at
how cruelly he must have tortured her, otherwise she would not have
led him to the Pathan. I also winced at the thought that Rajaji knew
everything about me.
Dawn was grey and hopeless.
The walls closed in on me.
My world was square again. My children had gone even further
away from me than if I had actually died. Strangely, everything had
been better when Pir Sain was alive. The weight of life without
Satan pinned me down to God. Reciting the Quran, crying for Chote
Sain, facing the Qibla, I was turning to stone like Amma Sain.
Maharani became pregnant and my son, who had activated this
rot, now asked himself a delayed question. Was he to become a
father or an uncle? When the heinous sin turned in his brain like a
worm, he screamed and shouted his wife away, and drank himself
out of the horrendous reality. When that did not help, he tried to
escape into the arms of every young maidservant he laid his eyes on.
Or else, he locked himself up and abused his mother and his wife at
the top of his voice while supplicants waited patiently at the Shrine,
praying for his recovery from the fever that gripped him.
 BLASPHEMY

The growing seed of evil in Maharani’s womb tormented Waddi

malkani to death. Choti malkani howled from under the tragedies
piling on top of her.
‘What is happening to us? Something evil is happening to us.
Why is it happening? What is it?’she cried out to everyone who
came to condole her sister’s death.
Sakhi bibi blurted out the secret that Waddi malkani had buried
in her heart and taken to the grave. Choti malkani ran to tell her
husband who ran to tell Waddi malkani’s husband.
‘Our children are not our children. Maharaja was not your son
and Maharani is not my daughter.’
The brothers hittheir heads against the wall in despair. Distraught
and dishonoured, they cut their wrists and bled to death. Choti
malkani’s corpse followed them to the graveyard.
Maharani, on hearing that her husband was in fact her brother,
lost her mental balance even before she delivered the murderous
monster in her womb to the Shrine. She pulled her hair and slapped
her face with both her hands until she went into labour.
I stared at my twin grandsons and wondered what to feel for
them. Satanic blood meandered through their bodies. They were
clones of their grandfather. The same stutter on their noses, the
same slash between their brows, a line for a mouth, and the blackest
of hair covered their heads. Soon it would cover their faces. I smelt
the same smell that rose from their grandfather’s grave rise from
their cradles. I did not touch them.
I had not seen Rajaji since Tara’s death. When I sent for him, he
did not come until the fifteenth day.
‘You have a problem and I want to assist you,’ I began, but he cut
me short and drunkenly turned around to leave. I shouted after him,
‘Your marriage is a sin. Let Maharani go with her children.’
He sniggered at me, ‘You have some nerve to tell me about sin.
Keep away from me or I’ll burn you at the stake some day.’
Staggering away, he shouted, ‘Better still, I’ 11 speak to my uncles.’
My heartbeat stopped.

212
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

His uncles’methods were no different to my husband’s. As much

as it seemed possible to deal with Rajaji, I could not deal with them.
Soon enough Rajaji marched into Amma Sain’s room with all his
uncles. Dai served them tea and overheard their conversation,
otherwise there would have been no way of knowing their minds.
Even after several months of confinement, rumours about me
had not ceased to circulate in the area. Mingling with gossip about
Rajaji’s marriage, they twisted with stories about the tragic deaths
of his in-laws, and spread with the deathly smell of his sons. But the
brothers were furious only with me.
‘Never before has an exalted and revered family such as ours
been shamed like this. There can be nothing more grim. We walk
like thieves instead of pirs. Soon, we will be buried in scandals
instead of in holy tombs,’ they growled.
Rajaji’s words broke my heart, ‘If I could put her to death, it
would give me great pleasure.’
Why did he not want to kill his uncle for a lifetime spent in incest?
I thought.
Instead, that very uncle countered my son’s extreme sentiment
by saying, ‘Death will not wash away people’s memories. Scandals
spread like a bushfire. People are making lists of the homes she
visited with Tara, the whore. Men are comparing notes.’
The pesticide-thieving uncle shook his head, ‘It is impossible.
She could not possibly have left the Haveli,’ and the debauched one
jumped at him for doubting it, ‘There is no smoke without fire.
Nothing grows without a root.’
I thought helplessly but furiously about why they were not looking
at the toxic fumes arising from their own havelis. Why did Rajaji not
tell them about the heroes who accompanied Pir Sain to his? Why
was there no mention of the shadow looming in the films?
The brothers discussed how the story had spread under their
noses, who had encouraged it, who spoke of it, and who assisted in
its endless circulation. They mentioned names of men, some true
and some false, which was usual when a subject reached the public.

213
 BLASPHEMY

But they were not interested in the truth, especially now when their
divinity was being questioned in the dirty hovels of their kingdom.
They advised my son to lock me up and declare me mad.
They warned him, ‘We will confine her if you don’t. People will
respect us for it instead of reducing us to pimps.’
Is their power slipping away? I thought.
They advised my son, ‘There is too much at stake here and only
one chance. Utilise it with caution.’
Are divine sanctions being withdrawn ? I wondered.
‘The power of the Shrine will dissipate if it is once questioned.
Convert the insult into sympathy, otherwise you will be ousted,’ an¬
nounced his uncles.
Rajaji’s face turned red at that.
Dai predicted my future, ‘Bibiji, you are doomed. Nobody will
help you. Nobody can. When Rajaji was alone in his anger there was
not so much to fear. Now the elders are involved and they are even
more ruthless than my master was.’
If I was pleased that the Shrine was collapsing, I was also sure
that I would go down with it. I thanked Dai for telling me. She
prayed for me, wiped her tear-stained face dry, and left me thinking
that if I could use up all my bad luck today, perhaps I’d have better luck
tomorrow. Then I’d dare once more to hope. For now I felt hopeless.
I had imagined Rajaji as the only authority and not taken into account
all those I threatened. I had taken on a legacy. It was now arrayed
against me. I hastened to the cupboard to pour myself a drink, even
though I knew my supply had run out. I sat down and forced myself
to think of corrective methods, instead of consequences.
The faces of my husband’s brothers flashed by in my memory.
Intuitively, I had felt that they would play a role in my life when Pir
Sain died.
But what would they do?
My life had been like a beggar’s winter. I wondered about its pur¬
pose. What would be the conclusion?
Questions raced after each other in circles ... like the world I

214
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

could never inhabit. There were no answers. Cigarette fumes filled the
room. Heavily sedated, I passed out while pacing the floor. When I
awoke, all the ideas of the previous night had vanished from my memory.
At last I made a decision.
As I could not fight them, I would try to fight them off.
With the Quran in my hands, I ran to Rajaji to swear that I would
remain in my room forever. Waiting in the veranda adjoining his
rooms, my eyes fell on a newspaper lying on the table. I held my breath.
When the door creaked, I moved away from the paper like a flash
of lightening. Rajaji staggered in, picked it up, shoved it in the bin,
and snapped at me, ‘Why did you come here?’
I answered with new joy, ‘I have been to see you here before. You
had not disapproved then.’
He appeared rushed for time, I, too, needed time and without
saying what I had come to say, I left with a new dilemma.
It was now impossible to commit to anything.
When Rajaji left on business, I slipped back into his veranda,
rushed for the bin, hid the paper in my chacldar and stepped out like
a thief. The newspaper was two days old. Ranjha must have left. I
noted the address of the rest house where he was staying.
I had to see Raniha before they locked me away. I had to tell him
my story.
‘Tara, Tara,’ I cried out. Blinded by the desire to reduce the Shrine
to debris, I had been consumed with seeking revenge. When the
Haveli doors had opened, Ranjha had vanished from my mind.
‘O Allah! What is this game you play with me?’ I sobbed on the
prayer mat. ‘You made me reconcile with death and called me back
to life again?’
Beating the mat with my fists I shouted at Him, ‘How should I
stop myself from racing after love? If my body cannot, my soul will
make it.’
I had to see my Ranjha once, even if the price was life Without
meeting him, living in this square was now impossible.
‘Hear me, Allah. Hear me, please,’ I cried and sobbed and wailed.

215
 BLASPHEMY

Prostrate on my prayer mat I implored Allah, ‘Why do you play with

me? Did you bring him to my notice for nothing? Tell me why you
brought him to my notice? Answer at least one question. Some
question.’
I cried and begged and insisted, ‘I will not become Amma Sain
without clearing myself in Ranjha’s eyes. Imprisoned in the vulgar
vision of myself in his eyes, I will die anyway. Hear me, Allah. Hear
me, please.’
On my way back to Rajaji’s rooms, I drifted past the back door
and missed Tara badly. The door was barricaded with wooden planks.
It marked the tomb of a woman possessed. A symbol of war or fate
or of just another whore. More than all that, it was a seal upon my
flight to Ranjha. Breaking through was impossible, accepting it was
worse. I wished the clock would turn back to the days of Tara. I
longed for those free nights when I could have met my Ranjha
instead of the jagirdar. I dropped the paper into the bin in Rajaji’s
room and walked back fast.
It could happen.
It was happening.
I would will it with the power of my mind.
I knew I could. I must.
Desperate, I called for Dai, she was my last and only hope. I seated
her in front of me so that she saw my face clearly and I saw hers.
‘Dai, I feel I am going to die soon and want to restore my respect
before I go.’ She held her chin and moved her mouth around the
nasvar buried in her gums. A look of suspicion on her face reminded
me of my reputation. I carried on despite it.
‘I need your support. I need to convey a message to a very learned
scholar of Islam who can guide me.’
She was startled and looked away. I told her to look at me when
I talked. Not moving my eyes from hers, I tried to hypnotise her into
running my errand.
‘Don’t worry, Dai,’ I pacified her, ‘I will not force you to help me,
but my heart tells me that you will.’

216
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

Predictably she shook her head, ‘Bibiji, I am an old woman. We

have lived under the authority of the Shrine since the time of our
forefathers. Do not ask of me a favour that will curse the spirits of
my ancestors with disloyalty, and my last years with their wrath.
They will skin me alive.’
Joining her hands together she begged, ‘Please, spare me this er¬
rand. It will kill us both. Allah will restore your respect and return
your peace of mind Himself.’
It was not working and I could trust no one else. My messages to
Tara had been intercepted. Dai was the only one they did not suspect.
She was also the only one who might not tell on me. But time was
short; Ranjha might be leaving even as we spoke. I had to make her
agree.
I feigned excitement, ‘Dai, I dreamt of Kaaba and saw you and
myself performing Haj.’
Her old eyes widened as I continued, ‘I was praying for help and
a voice from the sky said, turn around and see the angel deputed for
this work. When I turned, I saw a woman in sajda. When she lifted
her head, it was you.’
Dai, who did not think herself fit to ever reach the Kaaba, leave
alone be referred to as an angel by Allah, began to cry.
I raised my voice above her sobs, ‘I asked for your help because
Allah instructed me to. I do not want to trouble you in your old age.
Allah tests you. Perhaps He wants to see whether you fear Him, or
them.’
I had Dai where I wanted her.
She did not dare refuse anymore and said, ‘If this is the way Allah
desires my end, then I will go, bibiji. May the Almighty take me
away before they do. In His name, I will go.’
I jumped up. Time was short.
‘Come back in ten minutes. I will prepare a message for him,’ I
said, chirping like a bird and flying up to heaven without wings.
I wrote to Ranjha asking him to meet me in the Shrine at sunset
on Jumeraat and signed it ‘Heef. The rest house was not far from us,

217
 BLASPHEMY

even at a slow pace Dai could reach it in fifteen minutes. Only when
she left did I realise that I had used the method employed by thepirs,
with Allah as bait for the innocent.
She was gone too long. I walked up and down the room, rubbing
my palms against each other, until, at last, the door opened and Dai
reappeared.
‘Did you find him? Was he there?’ I asked.
She shook her head and shattered my hopes. I hated her empty re¬
turn. Exhausted by the exercise, Dai crossed her legs, squatted on the
floor, and whispered, ‘He will return at midday. He leaves tonight. I
did not risk leaving your note.’ I was dying to know whether she would
make another effort, thank God she said, ‘I will return in an hour.’
This time she returned victorious.
‘I met him,’ she said and I laughed unstoppably with joy.
‘He read the note and asked a hundred questions which I answered,’
she said looking suspiciously at me.
‘Bibiji, who told you he is a holy man? I asked people about him
and they said he is a minister, not a saint. When I insisted that he was,
they thought I was mad and directed me towards the Shrine. I didn’t
tell them that I came from there. Who told you of his power, bibijil’
I wajs too happy for words. She had done the deed.
‘Allah told me, Dai,’ I chirped, ‘Allah sent him, like He sent you.’
Happiness sprang out of the black hole in my heart. Henna cooled
my burning head and coloured my greying hair. Chickpea paste
smoothed my face and every day I rubbed and scrubbed myself until
it was Jumeraat.
If the world lay at anyone’s feet, it was at the feet of lovers about
to be united.
If circles were squares, it did not matter.
Love created a magic that encompassed the universe and beyond.
Every pain disappeared from behind my eyes.
I applied no perfume or paint. Today, I went backwards in time,
over my marriage, to the joy that Ma had not allowed me to have.
Remembering Tara’s advice not to create unnecessary noise, I re-

218
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

moved my bangles and slipped my feet into soft slippers.

The image in the mirror was new, and yet it was old.
At last Heer was smiling back at me.
Without telling Dai the purpose of my visit, I followed her to the
Shrine. Already, I felt the greed for more, already, I planned another
meeting.
‘Is it real? Is it real?’ went on and on in my head.
I held my breath against the stench of decomposed flesh still
rising from my husband’s grave. I quickened my steps towards
Babaji’s tomb and sat down beside it to wait.
I heard the sound of crunching leaves, or was it crisp cotton?
My heartbeat raced.
I heard the sound of feet.
They led straight into my heart and stopped... with its beat.
Rajaji?
His uncle?
I was staring at all his uncles!
It was time to die.
Love had made me feel sixteen years old. Now I felt a hundred.
It seemed another lifetime had passed before I drew another breath.
They locked me in the room behind the store, where I wrote and
read my own letters.
My beloved Heer,
The dawn that tipped away the night died and spread the dark¬
ness of your life over the remainder of mine. I fumbled like a
blind man to find out more about you. A madness swallowed
me and I was submerged in it for days. When I fought my way
out I burned like 1 saw you burn. There was no way to help you.
None that allowed me to reach you.
How could I approach another man’s wife? How could I step
behind a woman’s veil, where a husband is permitted all and I
nothing? I could not see you in the way he offered. 1 could not
humiliate you again.
Your Ranjha

219
 BLASPHEMY

As the heap of letters grew under the unused clothes in the tin
trunk, I wondered why my love was always locked away. Why was
he who was right, so wrong? Why was the only relationship that had
been sustained the one that could not be consummated?
Unreal moments became real. I had lived an illusion. Reality
faded into fantasy, and fantasy into reality. I tried to paint the shadows,
always looming, but so insubstantial.
Drenched in my tears, paper winced and curled up like my
tormented soul. On it, my mind played music. Sometimes, I wrote
poetry; at other times I fell into despair and wrote my obituary:

HEER: WIFE OF SATAN.

A WHORE: IN PRISON.
RETURNED: TO HELL.

I wrote about my mind and about survival in hell.

The rest of the time I paced the tiny square in circles, still muttering
aloud, ‘I’ll make my world round like everyone else’s. My world is
round like God made it. I’ll make it round like He made it.’
I wrote a hopeless letter, then I wrote a hopeful one. There was
no way to meet my love except by a miracle. But another door could
open and another chance could come.
Every day, I wrote to him.
Every night, I scratched out hope.
Love turned into a maddening frustration. Ranjha might never
have thought about me. He might never have cared. Heer might
have been erased from his memory. Even Piyari might have faded.
The correspondence ended.
I was tired of old games. Songs of freedom and stories of love
were only songs and stories. I circled the room goading my soul to
flee, I tried wrenching it out of concrete, like the rebellious tree; but
life and death had long been synonymous for me.

220
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

My head began to pound to the beat of Ranjha, Pir Sain, Ranjha,

Pir Sain. Nor could I stop the pounding jumbles of theories, old and
worn and failed. To keep my head from splitting I tightened the
cloth around it.
Inside it, I cried, die, die.
The master’s voice said, rise, rise. Rise to heaven on the wings
of magic potions.
I threw up at the reminder. Please God, shut his voice up, I begged
and pleaded to His ever-growing silence.
Chitki walked into my prison. Immediately she began to wail.
‘O God! O my God! What have they done to you, apal Who has
locked you here? Rajaji sent for Ma because you were ill, but she
could not imagine you were so ill and sent me. What have they done
to you? What have they done?’
Holding my face in her palms and kissing it all over, she could
not stop crying. I was not interested and implored her like I had long
ago implored Dai.
‘Will you do me a favour I can ask nobody else? Will you help me?’
My sister swore between her sobs to do anything for me.
‘Deliver my letter to a learned scholar at the guesthouse. Bring
me a reply today. The place is only fifteen minutes away,’ I said,
desperate for another chance.
Chitki wouldn’t leave me alone.
I begged her to go straight away. ‘Go now. This can’t wait. There’s
no time. I’ll die here if you don’t go,’ I cried, shoving another note
for Ranjha in her hand.
Drying her tears with my chunni, I pushed her out with my letter,
shouting behind her, ‘Go. Go. Hurry up and go. Come soon or I’ll
die here.’
Chitki ran.
My mind went around in circles as I paced the small square.
When Chitki returned, my world became square for ever. Ranjha
was not there. Promising to bring Ma to me, my sister left. I wrote
and read my last letter.

221
 BLASPHEMY

My dearest Heer,
l cannot meet you at the cost of your life. It is such a selfish
desire that it mars the purity of my love. Your life is under
threat. You challenge the Shrine. You break their epitaphs and
chop the hands that rise before the graves of mad men. The
matter is not a simple domestic one. You did not understand the
consequences of taking on the devil in his private domain and
as a member of his hell.
How can I help you at this stage ? I cannot claim that which does
not belong to me. I cannot marry a pir’s mother and you
cannot remarry. Nor is there another way for a man to keep
a woman.
Nothing can change our circumstances.
Except, if you become someone else...
if you become someone else...
someone else...

The arteries in my temples were throbbing with the words, except

'if you become someone else.
Kaali and Tara and Toti. Yathimri, Cheel and me. Women, as
sisters, daughters, wives and mothers, transformed into bubbles and
burst.
A needle pricked me.
I opened my eyes in Pir Sain’s bed.
Ma was speaking in my ear, ‘Where are the keys to the cupboards?
Let me have the keys. Let them not find more letters.’
Bhai bent over me and spoke softly, lApa, give us the keys before
Rajaji gets them.’
My eyes were seeing, my ears were hearing, my mind was
working, but I could neither move nor speak.
The door opened.
Daylight blinded me.
Rajaji stood over me and growled, ‘She is a curse. She gave our
family nothing but shame. I pray she dies before she can sting us like
a snake again.’
222
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

Daylight blinded me and Rajaji was gone.

I saw my keys dangling in Ma’s hand.
Guppi was touching my face and crying, 'Amina, come back. The
days of wandering on the moon were so beautiful. What happened
to you? You were always so strong, so brave, so patient, so good.’
I was swelling or stretching or solid or condensed. A fire blazed
within me as I yelled for them to leave me alone. You come too late.
I need no one anymore. I was speaking without speaking and a sharp
needle was pricking me. Big, wide, open spaces grew and reduced
into tiny dots in my head.
When I woke up Ma was reading my letters and crying out,
‘Thank Allah for saving us from more disgrace. See the mess your
sister got into? See the havoc?’
My sisters were reading the letters from Ranjha and weeping. I
tried to tell them that they were mine.
Only mine. Not Ranjha’s. From me to me.
There was always only me.
Only me.
Guppi was putting empty bottles of whisky into a carton. Bhai
was walking out with it. Chitki had the films. Ma snatched them
away before they transformed into rocks to stone me with. She
wrapped them in the folds of clothes. Bhai pulled them out again.
Ma pulled them back and stuffed them into her bag.
My family faded just as they had always done. Just as Kaali and
Tara and Yathimri had faded. Even Cheel and the widow’s daughters
had gone. Toti had never come back.
I called out to her from somewhere far away and asked, ‘Is the
other world worse or is it better, Toti? Where is the master? If I die
will I be with him?’
No, no, no, I shouted inside the black hole in my heart until the
door opened and the room flooded with light. Rajaji was back. He
sat down and shouted at Ma. Then she sat down and shouted. Guppi
covered her face with her hands and cried. More sobbing came from
another direction. I wanted to turn to the sound, but could not.

223
 BLASPHEMY

Who was it?

Nanni and Chitki were huddled with someone between them, the
sobs came from there, from open taps on Diya’s face. Why was Diya
crying?
My head was dizzy, my vision swayed, I saw a large cow walking
up and down my room. Who let it in? The cow mooed. Everyone
seemed to be mooing. Ma kissed the cow, and my vision cleared.
Munni was pregnant again and again and again.
Ma was wiping her tears and talking about a funeral.
Was I dead? Peace cascaded from the top of my head, through my
body, and down into the tips of my toes. Life was over.
But why was heaven like home?
Women barged in and wailed about Amma Sain’s soul.
It was Amma Sain who was dead.
She revolved in my mind until she jumbled up with other things
and vanished.
Was it a day, a month, a year, or was it a lifetime? I was either
boiling like hot milk or chilling like ice. Pictures moved at such
speed that I was spinning on a merry-go-round. Sometimes, I was
sailing in the sky. Halting and dropping into the black hole in my
heart, splintering and splattering across the world, each splinter
became a little woman running for her life.
Rajaji charged in and said something about Ranjha. I remembered
loving him. What happened after that? I strained my memory to
recall something more but there was nothing there.
Bhai screamed at Rajaji, ‘My sister is dying. She cannot survive
in this room for another day.’
Rajaji shouted about graves dying, ‘If she dies, she is not even
worthy of a burial place in our graveyard. Her epitaph will be a black
mark on the Shrine. I want no reminder of her.’
My brother threatened my son’s life for saying that. Everyone
wailed. Rajaji banged the door in my head.
The room was silent again but its noise collected inside me where
all the dead screamed with the living.

224
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

Ma lamented like Kaali, ‘I can stay here with Heer. He will not
let her go. We have no choice. We can all stay here with her.’
Bhai cried like Chote Sain, ‘I am taking my sister away. I will not
give her up again. She cannot stay here another day.’
Chitki howled like Toti, ‘Rajaji will not let her go. We will have
to stay here with her.’
Bhai screamed like Toti’s Baluch.
‘Then we’ll say she’s dead. Isn’t she almost dead? We’ll announce
her dead and take her with us. We’ll give her a new identity, make
her someone else.’
Light filled the black hole in my heart: except if you were someone
else, except if you were someone else reverberated in my ears.
Not a pir’s widow and not a pir’s mother but someone else.
Rajaji walked in.
Bhai said, ‘My sister has died. Do you understand? She is dead.
I’ll bury her next to her fathen She will only fade from the memory
of your people if she has no grave in your Shrine. Announce her
dead on your mosque’s loudspeakers.’
Ma pleaded with her grandson, ‘Don’t announce it if it shames
you, she’ll drift away from every mind if you just let us take her.’
Chitki fell on her nephew’s feet and cried, ‘Let us take her away.
Let her vanish from your Shrine. You’ll never hear of her again.’
Rajaji walked up to me and stared.
I looked straight back at him... and yet he pronounced me dead.
Like a god.
Suitcases. Pir Sain’s alarm clock. My slippers. They were sending
me to him. They were handing me back to Pir Sain. It was promised
in the Quran that wives and husbands would reunite in death.
I wanted Chote Sain and called out to him for help. My heart
pounded loudly as Guppi and Chitki wound their arms around me
and carried me to the bathroom. Nanni pulled off my clothes. I
slipped. They screamed. I was lying on a choki.
It was my last bath.
They rubbed soap, poured water, and chanted prayers. Cotton

225
 BLASPHEMY

wool filled my mouth. A bandage braced my face. A sheet went

over my head. From under it, I heard wailing, ‘She’s dead. She’s
dead. Heer is dead.’
Pir Sain would get me in my grave. I rose from the dead and
refused to go.
But the charpai was lifted and I drifted in the air. I knew Guppi’s
face was at my side, Diya’s and Munni’s on the other.
It was my wedding day! Not again, not again, I screamed in
silence. Don’t let him take me. Don’t let him marry me. Don’t let
him see me here, I begged everyone but no one heard me. Pir Sain
pushed them all away. I died again.
Instead of Pir Sain, Rajaji stepped forward.
He pulled the sheet away from my face and our eyes stared at each
other. His filled with tears as he said, ‘Farewell, amma.'
Guppi, Diya, Munni and Rajaji were fading away and I was
shouting for my children to come back.
Come back. Come back. Please forgive me and come back, I
screamed inside myself. The charpai floated around the brick wall
and out through the door.
I was in a van. Crossing from life to death... or from death to life,
sliding into the depths of darkness, until...
My eyes opened. The sheet was off my face. Hundreds of lights
glittered. Men walked. Women talked. People went in and came out
of doors. Where were they and where was I?
We were passing a familiar gate from another life, or was it from
a long-ago dream of Ranjha?
Turning here, turning there, stopping, moving again, turning again
and halting, Ma was getting out.
Where was I going?
I was drifting through an alley on a charpai, then sailing up a
narrow staircase with Bhai whispering softly in my ear.
Til never leave you again, apa. I’ll never let anyone take you
away again. I’ll do everything to make up to you.’
Ma’s voice trailed behind us, ‘You are home, my child. You are

226
 SHATTERING THE MYTH

home.’
I heard Ma’s prayer, ‘May Allah forgive me for sending my child
to hell. May Allah reward her patience and give her another chance
to live. One chance. Some chance. Any chance, O Allah.’
A padlocked door opened.
I remembered a little girl with pigtails playing hopscotch in the
courtyard.
I looked up into the sky, at Baba smiling down at me, his face ap¬
pearing and disappearing like a mist. At last he had come.
It was heaven.

227
 Epilogue
J ■ ne year later.
K Concealed under a white shuttlecock burqa, I stood
H before a grave covered with fresh flowers, and through
the net patch over my eyes I stared at the simple tomb¬
stone that read, ‘HEER’.
A family of peasants walked up to it. They threw rose petals, lit
agarbatis, and stuck small green paper flags on the mound of earth.
I heard a woman’s prayer, ‘O Allah, bless this soul for exposing
the decadence of Shrine-worship. Bless her for bringing us closer
to you.’
My eyes filled with tears. Someone had understood.
But it was the birth of another Shrine.
Stunned, I walked back to Ranjha, waiting behind the steering
wheel of his car.

229
T ehmina Durrani is the author of My
Feudal Lord, her autobiography,
which won Italy’s Marissa Bellasario
prize and has been translated into
twenty-two languages; and Abdul Sattar
Edhi’s biography, A Mirror to the Blind.
Blasphemy is her first novel. She lives
in Lahore, Pakistan.

The cover shows a painting by

Tehmina Durrani
Photograph of Tehmina Durrani by
Ather Shahzad

ISBN 0-670-88371-9

9 780670 883714
 To me, my husband was
my son’s murderer.
He was also my daughter’s molester.
A parasite nibbling
on the Holy Book,
he was Lucifer,
holding me by the throat
and driving me to sin every night.
He was the rapist of orphans
and the fiend that fed on the weak.
But
over and above all this,
he was known to be
the man closest to Allah,
the one who could reach Him
and save us.