"And if you feared as they fear, then surely you would have taken the same path they took."
— Al-Nisaa 4:77
“That day I saw Azhar Chacha emptying the canal water as if in a trance, with his eyes closed and yet focused on his work. He looked like a Jinn had possessed him. He paused for a second and looked at me with his eye turned inside out. It was 4.30 AM in the night and I ran as fast as my legs would carry me away”
The village had been agog with the words of young Irfan as he spat out the words, as if trying hard to cast off an evil spell from his entire body.
Irfan was the younger Son of the Muezzin of the village, Rahim. He was fourteen years old. He had never lied about anything that mattered.
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Sheikhpur sat on the western bank of the Chitroptala, a tributary of the Mahanadi that was wide in the monsoon and a brown patch by March. The village had been there long enough to forget exactly how long, which is the mark of a place that has calcified around its own history. The villagers were mostly farmers growing paddy, potatoes, vegetables and jute. Mother earth was very generous in her bounties and gave rich yield to the crops and the villagers were very much grateful and lived a content and happy life.
Everyone in Sheikhpur knew the canal.
It ran through the village like the roots of the banyan tree. In the day it was simply water but at night when the mist engulfed Chitroptala and lay low across the paddies and the lamplight from the houses shimmered on the flowing water in the dark, it became something else; not dark & ominous but also not something you approached unnecessarily.
Azhar had always approached it.
He was the son of Karim and Fatima, who lived in the house near the Sal grove. A grown man who has grown in age but not in accomplishment of men his age – no job, no wife and no ambition. He just sat near the canal and watched the water move without giving any sign that the time was passing. He did and carried out things that others would call odd. He prayed in the field while everyone else offered their prayer in the mosque. To anyone who asked, he replied that Allah can also hear him from the field, which was true and hence nobody argued. He sang to himself in a language that was not Odia and not Bengali and not Udu. When his mother once asked him what he was singing he said he did not know, he was only repeating what he heard.
"From where?" she had demanded.
He looked at the canal and said nothing.
Azhar was an oddball and like other oddballs, the village did not know what to do with him. He was harmless but that knowledge carried a certain degree of unease in the way the knowledge of a deep well carries unease even in someone who has no intention of falling in.
Irfan’s closeness to Azhar was another story in itself. As an infant & child, Irfan was very mischievous. Even when he was unable to walk and could barely crawl, he will manage to drag himself to the edge of the bed and would land headfirst, all the time. This brought intense agony and concern on the part of his mother, Hazra Bi, who was concerned with such incidents on one hand while dreading the anger of her husband on the other.
One day, while she was busy in between washing dish and cooking for Rahim, she completely forgot about the baby. The elder one was away in school and this fact slipped her mind.
“Hai Allah” Shouted someone even as she heard a thud from the outside. She rushed to see what could have happened.
There below the tall verandah was standing Azhar, holding on to the Baby in one hand while dusting off the dirt from his body.
“It’s all Allah’s Fazal that Azhar came timely to catch the baby as he was almost dropping off from the verandah” Observed one passerby.
“Women now a days, I tell you” Said the other. “I say, when you don’t have the quality to become mother, then why do you bring innocent kids to this world” He Said disdainfully even as Hazra Bi came out.
“Tauba, tauba, humein kya” They left disdainfully seeing Hazra Bi come out.
Since that day Azhar became close to the kid as someone who knew him since a longtime and shared some kind of kinship with him, which was inexplicable to others and incoherent to many.
To Irfan, Azhar became Azhar Chacha – the source of many adventure, wonderment and amazing discoveries. Both of them became inseparable as from dawn and seen in every nook and corner of the village; be it the chasing of wild butterflies or the plucking of mangoes from others mango orchard or catching fish from the small Nullas which emanated from the large canal of the village. In him, Azhar found escape from the many taunts and sarcasm of his parents & family members. In Azhar, Irfan found a play partner who was fun, exciting and adventurous; adding colors to his otherwise drab childhood. With a Muezzin father who always insisted on following Islamic rituals, Irfan craved a carefree world with full freedom – something that Azhar provided in abundance.
“What would you do when you grow up” Asked Azhar one day as they were resting against the mango tree one summer afternoon after having a bellyful of the sweet mangoes.
“I want to be like you, Azhar Chacha” Said a 6 years old Irfan, beaming.
Azhar’s face fell. He looked up to the young & innocent child and did not know how to explain it to him.
That the world measures the worth of a person by how much he is able to earn, by how useful he makes himself as per the criteria set by the society, of how smartly he speaks and impresses people and how cunning he can be in the affairs of the world where he can amass greater wealth at the cost of others. And how the world also derides someone who choose to not take the path, stay honest, enjoy the bounty of Allah and just look forward to make others and himself happy in the process.
Such is the way of the world and such is its treatment towards people.
To Irfan, he said this simply “study and become a big man like the Sahib at the collectorate so that you can make Azhar Chacha proud”.
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Hazra Bi hurried to leave for home as it was really getting dark.
She had come to meet one of the newly wed bride who hailed from a nearby village in Midnapur. Coming from Midnapur herself, she found the village of Sheikhpur to be boring, dull and lacking life. Although, she was always grateful to Allah Almighty for giving a good husband like Rahim, she could not bear the dreary hours that ensued once Rahim left for the mosque in the morning. The women in the neighborhood were all known to each other for generations and some of them were childhood friends. Hence there existed a coterie of housewives who could not bear to let anyone in, let alone Hazra Bi, who was considered as an outsider.
The interaction with the new bride was invigorating, refreshing and exactly what Hazra Bi’s soul needed at that point in time. The girl narrated story from their village, the local village festival and the fair, which Hazra Bi also knew as a child. How it had become fun and more exciting than what was there in the yesteryears. Time flew in the blink of the eye and before she knew, it was already pitch dark outside. The only feasible route to her home passed through the Kabristaan. The longer route passed through the dense mango orchard which was a much time consuming & riskier proposition.
Now how does she go to her home?
What strange thing may be waiting to pounce on her on the way?
She remembered the many scary story of Jinn & Jinnaat from the village folk. Of apparitions that they have seen in the night at the Kabristaan and how some of them are bloodthirsty and while others craving for the company of women as they had died unmarried. The Kabristaan was a menacing place which treasured in its chest terrors and unspeakable horror which was waiting to be unleashed to someone who may be unfortunate to venture near them in the night.
Hazra Bi panicked.
In her panic, she requested the new girl to accompany her with a lantern and give her company in crossing the Kabristaan. The good-natured girl was willing but was sternly dissuaded by her elder Sister-in-Law who was a premium member of the neighborhood housewife club.
Reluctantly, with much trepidation and absolute mortification, Hazra Bi started on her journey back to her home.
She went past the row of Sal tree and crossed the cluster of Neem tree and came to the boundary of the Kabristaan. A breach has been made in the boundary wall of the Kabristaan which served as an entry point for many of the passerby to take a shortcut rather than the long detour through the mango orchard.
Hazra Bi stood at the boundary wall, staring at the large hole in the wall which will let her in, trying to make a decision whether to go in or not. She thought about her children who she had left with the neighbour and of Rahim returning from mosque as it was past Isha time and how upset he will be not to see her and the kids alone.
She decided to move forward. She entered the hole and let the darkness swallow the rest of her being in to the world of the Kabristaan, its Jinn & Jinnats.
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She slowly started to find her way amongst the graves to what happened to be a beaten path by the day time.
She knew this place. She had attended burials here and read Fatiha for the Magfirat of those who have passed away.
However, in the dark, she was unable to see the way clearly and as such stumbled many times and fell amongst the nettle bush, bruising herself with nettle rash.
She got up, dusted & gathered herself and continued in her journey. That’s when she heard the voice.
It was not like anything she has heard before. It was a deeply baritone voice which was unusually grave and yet had the tremble of someone who seemed to be crying.
“Allahu Akbar”
Hazra Bi turned as the voice was coming from the mosque at the edge of the Kabristaan. She egged on to have a closer look from the faint light of the lamp which was almost reaching its end.
There in the faint flame of the lamp, Hazra Bi saw clearly as the day light, Azhar and a full line of apparitions who were following him in a namaz led by him.
She was about to flee.
That’s when she heard Azhar.
“Hazra Bi, why do you roam the night running away from your responsibilities which clings to you like the dead cling to the living? It is I who gets blamed for being irresponsible but I think you are the one who is more irresponsible than I can ever be”.
Hazra Bi was about to run when Azhar looked up from in between the Namaz, in between the sentence.
Hazra Bi froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
He was looking at her.
His eyes were wrong.
Not rolled back but something else. His eyes were present and conscious and entirely directed at her, but the gaze was not that of a man. It was the gaze of something which knew how to use a man's eyes in the way you learn to use a tool you did not make: adequately, but with a slight mismatch that the thing that made the tool would immediately notice.
He gnashed his teeth and ran towards her.
Hazra Bi ran like a frightened deer.
She ran fast, stumbling over stones, falling in to the dirt but never daring to stop. She ran as far as her legs would carry her and did not look back or stop till she reached and collapsed near the ancient Banyan tree Infront of her house.
And in the yellow circle of the lantern on her verandah, she saw Azhar. Playing with her kids.
Her innocent and sweet kids even as they laughed at his jokes. Azhar’s teeth flashed momentarily in the yellow light of the lantern and Hazra Bi could swear, he looked at her with the deviousness of the devil himself waiting to swallow her entire family whole.
She felt her blood turn to ice.
But in that weak moment, something in her did not allow her to give up. Mother’s Instinct. She allowed her to gather herself and collect enough strength to charge towards Azhar with the ferociousness of a lioness out to protect her cub.
She slammed her head straight in to the chest of Azhar even as the children recoiled back in confusion.
Azhar landed with a loud thud and an intense pain his chest which felt like as if a boulder has been driven in to him again & again to crush him under its weight.
There were disbelief, anger and confusion in Azhar’s expression.
“What did I do?” He said exasperated. “Is this how you reward someone for looking after your children?”
By then, Hazra Bi had gotten hold of the Kitchen Knife and have slowly transformed in to the very incarnation of Goddess Kali, in the light of the flickering lantern.
“Run you Devil, run for your life. Or else I will slice you like the Bakra of Bakrid” growled Hazra Bi like a wounded lioness. “Don’t you dare to come anywhere my children and my family”.
Azhar fled the scene even as Hazra Bi gathered her sons and clutched them close to her chest.
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By the next morning the story was a story in making itself.
By the time it passed through three mouths, the inexplicable thing in the story had a name. By the time it had passed through ten, the name had a personality, a history, a motive. By the time it passed through thirty, the village is no longer discussing what Hazra Bi saw. It was discussing what was their interpretation of what they think she saw.
As evening descended, an Ojha was summoned from a distant village – an imposing man with ash smeared across his forehead and eyes that burned like hot coal.
Inside Rahim’s courtyard, Hazra Bi sat hunched against the wall, her hair hanging over her face like a funeral Kaffan.
The Ojha lit a bundle of bitter herbs. Thick black smoke rose through the courtyard, carrying a stench which was so foul that it made the villagers gag. He forced the fumes toward Hazra Bi’s face.
“Why do you come here to torment me?” The voice crawled out of her throat like something rotten which was dragged from a grave and felt coarse, guttural and rattling like loose tin in a storm.
“Why are you troubling this good soul. She has done nothing against you but yet you choose to torture her” Said the Ojha, raising his voice to intimidate and assume a commanding position above the evil spirt.
“It’s all her fault. Why did she pass by my place of rest & disturbed me?” Continued the voice, evil, menacing and chillingly frightening. The whole village was gathered outside.
The Ojha got up, straightened his back and looked intently at the evil spirit and spat on the ground.
“You think you will show your acrobatics and torment this innocent girl & I will sit around watching” Roared the Ojha.
Hazra Bi smiled and then gave out a loud laugh exposing her yellow teeth and bloody eyes. The laugh was so startling that it left some of the villagers scurrying for cover.
“I have seen many louts & vagabonds like you. Your kind does not frighten me. I will come and go wherever I want & as I please.” Said Hazra Bi or whoever was inside her, mirthfully, disdainfully.
This infuriated the Ojha to no end. He took out his broom stick, smeared with the holy ashes of the remains of holy man from the bank of the Ganges and had the incredible power to dispel any evil from anywhere.
After the 5th strike of the broom, everyone could hear a voice, that of a little girl, crying.
“Don’t hit me, please. I will do as you say and I will leave her.” It pleaded in whimpering voice.
“So, leave her now. Off you go to wherever that you had come” Said the Ojha, now looking ferocious with the ashes from the broom all over him and his hair and beard flying in all directions – a living incarnation of the Mahakaal indeed.
With the last swooping hit, the Ojha jumped and literally stood over Hazra Bi.
Hazra Bi began convulsing violently.
Her body arched unnaturally backward and a piercing shriek tore through the night; a shriek sharp enough for several villagers to cover their ears and fall to their knee in supplication.
She fainted & fell to the ground.
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Inside the sleep, she was neither here nor there. She was in the Kabristaan again, and again, and the light in the old mosque, and Azhar was always at its centre, and she could never get close enough to see clearly what stood behind him in the rows.
On the third day, she heard Irfan crying.
“Ammi, Ammi, please eat something”. Said Irfan. Rahim and the boys had been worried sick seeing Hazra Bi’s condition. However, they just followed what the Ojha had said. She passed in and out of the delirium and was fed the jadi butti given by the Ojha. The Ojha had said that she will recover by the 3rd day but then Hazra Bi showed no sign of it.
“It’s all because of me. Since I am close to Azhar Bhai, he had come to our house to play with us. If he didn't come to our house, Ammi wouldn't—"” wailed Irfan.
Something stirred within Hazra Bi.
It woke up the same maternal instinct she had shown when fighting off Azhar. She dragged herself from within and willed herself to open her eyes to comfort her child. She pulled Irfan close to her chest and comforted him in a way she did when he was a child. She cried softly and sobbed heavily as she drew her two sons closer to her and let her motherly love soak them to the core.
Rahim looked lovingly at his beautiful family, forever grateful to Allah for his bounty and mercy for bringing Hazra Bi back to her senses and hoped & prayed that normalcy will soon return to his home.
He was vexed too and that vexation was much beyond the family issue and bordered on his job.
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And it had to do with Barkat Sahib, the Imam of the mosque and his boss.
Barkat Sahib had been, once, a man of genuine learning. He was a bright scholar who passed out of the Madrasa with flying colors. His understanding of Fiqh was excellent, his recitation was beautiful, his knowledge of hadith was wide.
There were many local mosques vying to take him up as their Imam to lead the congregation. He had chosen the Ajmalpura mosque as he found the people to be god fearing, faint hearted and willing to listen to an authority figure. This suited him very well as he always wanted to be the best and have people fawn over him for his scholarly knowledge & superiority. He distributed charms, amulets & Tabizs in gay abundance as the flock gathered to him for guidance, healing and liberation.
What made things difficult for him was Hussain Sahib who took over as the Chairman of the Mosque Committee. Hussain Sahib was a man of letter and science. He retired as the principal of the local Midnapur Govt. College. To him the machination & detailed set up that the Imam was doing appeared bogus, a scheme in self-aggrandization and an ego trip. Things came to a point when Barkat Sahib was caught mid-way in to an exorcism, where extreme torture was playing out in plain sight in the mosque quadrangle. Hussain Sahib was furious and immediately expelled him from the position & warned him not to be seen anywhere closer to the mosque or the community. This was done very publicly and without any ceremony and what had broken for Barkat Sahib was not his career but his image as a respectable Imam. He was desperate to make a comeback and was looking for an answer to his bruised ego.
Sheikhpur had been an answer.
A village community which was deep in its superstitions and craving the authority of a man who could interpret the invisible world. This was a field in which Barkat Sahib had mastery and a gift which had no competition. He had planted himself carefully by issuing his charms, his amulets, conducted his jhaar-phunks and made himself indispensable to enough families so that his position felt permanent. He had built a congregation that believed what he told it to believe.
And now his own Muezzin's wife had been possessed by a Jinn, and the family had called an Ojha.
Not him.
Not the Imam.
An Ojha who is a Hindu practitioner. A man with ash & tilak on his forehead.
He sat in his room the evening after, not speak to his wife and did not eat his dinner and did not pray the Isha prayer on time, which he had not missed in twenty years. He sat and he felt his well cultivated prestige and in a large way the fear in the community to his authority, quietly slipping away. What he felt was not grief, nor anger but the chilling cold clarity of a man who has decided that an example must be set.
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The following Friday he climbed the mimbar.
“When we think of Allah and his pre-ordained righteous path” he began, his voice at its richest, most certain and the voice of a man who has rehearsed this speech in the privacy of his own chest for a week. “we must understand that this path is narrow, meant only for the righteous and can only be attained by those who have the right guide by their side to guide them through it. That’s where the role of the Imam comes in”.
He paused.
He had been smarting from the indignity inflicted by Rahim & his family. Now to add insult to injury, his Son has seen the devil but yet the same person is not even approached him for a solution. Instead, he’s being counseled by Nasir Sahib, whose Son works as the ward boy in the big hospital in Cuttack, that this is a mental condition and that his son can arrange for consultations with a Angrezi Dawai Wala Doctor who could treat him and make him well.
“As if the Devil himself could be cured by the Angrezi Medicine!” Barkat Sahib had laughed to himself.
“But some people think that they are above Allah and His way of life and that they don’t need an Imam in their life.” Continued Barkat Sahib. “Nauzobillah.” He roared. “That the wisdom of the mosque is less than the wisdom of a Hindu witch-man with ash on his face. These are the types of people whom the Satan are more prone to capture and hold captive & for them is the way of hell” He said now fully charged up and going on full blast.
“However, as a Jamaat & a congregation we should not be bothered by these things as long as our faith is pure. But what such disobedience does to your faith & Imaan is that it casts an ugly shadow on you & the family. This is so as you have accepted this evil way of life to fester in your community without any objection and have forsaken the ways of Allah. Allah Paak will make you accountable for treading this evil path and fry you in boiling oils in large cauldron on Yom -e- Qayamat. But I will have none of it.” His voice had dropped, which was more frightening than when it was raised. "This is kufr. This is the door through which the Shaitan walks into a family's heart and makes his home there."
“Hence, I have come here to tell you that from now on I have decided not be your Imam anymore.” Barkat said, his voice breaking artfully on the word decided.
“I will no longer be part of the devilry and the naked dance of Satan that you are part of and hence this will be my last Juma with you as Imam” He concluded with a tone of finality as he sat down for the customary pause before the Khutba Saaniya after the Friday sermon. He tried to look and gauge people’s reaction from the corner of his eye.
What he saw pleased him very much. Many of the people were agitated and were talking to each other animatedly.
The arrow had found its mark. Now let the games begin.
He stood up innocently, completed his Khutba Saaniya and led the congregation for the Friday prayer.
After the closure of the Friday prayer, he ensured that he forced few drops of tears from his eye and turned to leave the crowd even as wiping his eyes.
“Aap ko hum Jaane nahin denge” Said a chunk of the crowd which gathered around him and hugged him so tight that it was difficult for him to breath.
“Tell us what we have to do to amend our mistakes and we will do as you say” Thundered the crowd which resembled like a mob now.
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Barkat Sahib’s golden moment had come.
The investments that he had made in keeping the community dogmatic, full of blind believes and a complete blind faith in him, has started earning rich dividends.
Religion, which our early fathers of Independent India realized, is a matter of faith and hence a very personal feeling & practice for every individual. Mixing religion, fanaticism and blind faith with power, influence and governance, they had warned, will always have an adverse & detrimental effect if one was to choose riding the wave.
However, Barkat Sahib, blinded by his personal gain & to satisfy his large ego, decided to ride the wave.
So, the plan was hatched. The strongmen identified. The hour set and the stage was prepared to taken down & eradicate evil from the face of Sheikhpur.
Outside, the sky was entirely clear. Not a cloud. Not a sign. Just the flat blue certainty of an afternoon in late October.
The men of Sheikhpur looked at one another.
Then they nodded.
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Rahim’s family slept peacefully with the moon on top and the night thick like a dark blanket. The family breathed deeply & sonorously, oblivious of the happenings of outside.
Barkat Sahib was leading the mob.
The mob was wild, angry and boiling over trying to correct a mistake that they had done in their ignorance.
They broke through Rahim’s door.
The sound and melee woke up the family. Startled and confused to what was happening, they offered very little resistance to the mob’s might. Rahim was easily overpowered. Hazra Bi and Irfan were tied as they were the evil incarnate.
They were taken to the mosque.
The walk through the village is the only thing Hazra Bi would remember longest, in the years to come. The lanterns in the houses they passed, the inquisitive faces at the windows of women mostly, the wives and daughters of the men who were walking around her, watching without expression.
The coldness, the indifference and if someone looked closely, hatred.
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The whole village had gathered in the mosque. Those who came early and got a place, were inside the mosque courtyard. Others climbed up on the roof of nearby houses and on the boundary wall of the mosque to see what is yet to unfold.
Barkat Sahib like a ringmaster took the centre stage. At the centre of the courtyard, sat on the ground Hazra Bi & Irfan.
Confused, bewildered and not having a clue of what was happening around them.
“These two infidels have sinned and wronged their soul. As a result, the devil has taken over them. They have also transgressed in not taking the help of the Imam but took help of a Kafir. What do you think we should do with them” Roared Barkat Sahib.
“Beat them” said one.
“beat the living daylight out of them” said the other.
“make an example of them,” said another.
The crowd roared as if they were in a colosseum watching the bloody sport of the gladiators with glee.
Barkat Sahib came forward with a Zanjeer-Zani. It was a cluster of chains attached to a handle, which often have small knives or blades tied to the ends. It was used by mourners during the Tazia festival to strike their backs while chanting & mourning the passing away of Hussain & Hassan, the Grandson of the Prophet (PBUH).
Barkat Sahib lifted the Zanjeer Zani and brought it will all might on the mother & son.
The crowd gasped.
The tiny knives & blades stuck at lightning speed on the back of Hazra Bi and Irfan.
Piteous cry forced out of the mouth of both the mother & the son and filled the ground & the sky with heart rendering plea.
Unabashed and untouched, Barkat again lifted the Zanjeer Zani and brought it down with all his might.
“Oof, gah”, sharp grunts could be heard above the crowd’s noise as the mother & son tried to protect each other amidst the inhuman onslaught.
The ground around was smeared with blood as if it was Holi. Holi smearing did not have the luster & shine that human blood had.
Especially the blood of human who is poor, lacks a voice and agency.
Barkat went on in his onslaught without a let up.
“You think you are the only wise & holy person here who can do as he wishes” The voice was raspy & grating, shards of glass sliding across sandpaper.
The crowd suddenly went silent.
Hazra Bi looked up as she spoke, from where she was sitting.
Suddenly the sun went behind a dark cloud and what was a bright & sunny day suddenly turned in to a dark and ominous timeless zone. Birds flew off the branches in large numbers loudly chirping, cawing and squawking even as domestic animals looked confused and bewildered. Ther was a dust storm which arose amidst this confusion. Visibility greatly reduced, with the villagers now a shifting shadow in the veil of the sand particle.
“If you dare to, untie me first and then let me show you what I am capable of and what is your worth” Said the voice, now shrill & high pitched, rupturing the unnatural silence that had descended.
Beyond the veil of dust, Rahim saw his wife look up, her face bloodied from the Zanjeer and hair disheveled. she looked up to Barkat and gave him a devious smile exposing her bloodied teeth.
She spat the blood out.
“Arrey Karna Namard, Mard ka bacha hai to kholna haath. Phir mein dikhati hun main kaun hun”. Hazra Bi continued now her voice getting in to guttural & terrifying pitch.
For a moment Barkat was taken aback.
Though he had handled many such cases in the past he was taken aback by the resistance and the comeback by this entity.
However, he was now infuriated as this Randi called him Namard and challenged his masculinity.
Swoop, swash.
Down came the Zanjeer and even before it could strike, he felt a sharp punch near his rib cage which threw him off as if he was hit by a 1000-volt electric shock.
“Don’t you ever dare to touch them” Roared a voice with a booming majesticity which was unheard of in Sheikhpur before.
As Barkat lied writhing in pain, Hussain Sahib towered above him like a colossus and pinned his right hand with his foot even as he was trying to get up.
Keeping one eye on Barkat, he turned to the crowd.
“what has come over you guys. You are all followers of Islam and believe in Allah & the prophet. Where have you read or heard that Islam allows for such public torture & shame to take place. This is Gunah -e- Azim and whoever partake of this shall be dealt most severely in Yom-e- Qayamat and go to hell” Hussian Sahib’s voice boomed as the crowd cast away their eyes from meeting his.
“And as for this fellow, he is a useless and good for nothing guy who is only concerned about his ego and blind beliefs and want to run a parallel religion based on Biddat (making unlawful changes). I had dealt with him in Ajmalpura and drove him away because of his such misdeeds. I had come visiting my daughter & just reached today and that’s when I heard about all this tamasha that this man had created and came right away” Said Hussain Sahib, now breathless with white rage and seething anger at Barkat.
By then the police had arrived along with an ambulance. Barkat was arrested, taken in to police custody and bundled in to the police jeep. The ambulance took Hazra Bi & Irfan for treatment.
“We live in the modern world and a world which is driven by science & evidence. There is nothing like spirits, witch or demons, as one may think. What you see as demonic or Satanic activity is due to mental conditions and a manifestation of past events & incidents which may not have been pleasant. To take this behaviour as supernatural and ghost phenomenon is what encourages lumpen elements like Barkat to exploit the situation and rule over you”. Husaain Sahib paused.
By this time, the crowd was properly chastised and realized their foolishness & naivety. Many had gathered to see the fun and the real time action of what will unfold – the promise of excitement & adrenalin rush which had brought them to the scene. Many went to the ambulance where the first aid of Hazra Bi & her Son was taking place and enquired after her health.
From the open door of the ambulance, beyond the veil of dust & crowd and the melee in between, stood Hussain Sahib, like an angel sent by Allah to save her and her son.
Hazra Bi looked up and for a brief moment their gaze met and both of them nodded.
A man who was a tired crusader against the blind beliefs in the society and a woman who was a mother and had to do whatever it took to protect and save her children, each time and every time.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, she lifted her hand, folded it in gratitude, supplication & eternal gratefulness.
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Nobody could find Azhar.
This was not unusual as he had always been difficult to locate when the village was looking for him. However, in the days after the mosque courtyard incident, his absence took on a different character. People walked past the house near the Sal grove and saw Karim and Fatima moving behind the windows and did not go in, because they did not know what they would say, or what they feared to be told.
Imran, the elder one, went looking alone, on the third day.
He found him at the canal.
This was not surprising. The canal was where Azhar always went when he needed to be alone. He was sitting at its bank with his feet in the water and his eyes open, watching the surface move.
He looked up when Imran sat down beside him.
"You're all right," Azhar asked.
"Ammi and Irfan are better now." Imran paused. "What were you doing at the canal that night? The night Irfan saw you."
Azhar looked at the water for a while.
"I was emptying it," he said.
"Emptying it of what?"
"Of what's in it." He looked at Imran. "Of the clay & dirt which accumulates and finally chokes it if you don’t clean and move it on."
Imran looked at the canal. The brown water moved in its old way toward the river.
"Did you go to the old mosque that night?" he asked. "Were you leading prayer?"
Azhar's expression did not change.
"I pray where I pray," he said.
"Were your eyes wrong? Irfan said—"
"Irfan is fourteen," Azhar said gently. "And it was 4:30 in the morning and very dark. What a boy sees at 4:30 in the morning in the dark is not always real."
He said this with a quiet certainty, in a way that Imran could find no logical gap in it. It was either the truth or the most complete version of an untruth he had ever encountered, and he could not tell which was what.
"People think you're—" Imran started.
"People think many things," Azhar said. "They have always been like that" He took his feet out of the water. He stood and dried them carefully on the grass. "How is your mother?"
"She's all right," Imran said. "She's all right, but she won't go near the—" He stopped. "She won't cross the Kabristaan anymore. Even in the day."
Azhar was quiet for a moment.
"She is right not to," he said softly. "Some places should be treated with respect."
He walked away along the canal bank, and Imran watched him go.
And the canal moved on toward the Chitroptala, carrying everything given to it, as it has always done. Unhurried, unremarkable, carrying the water & something more, something ancient than water, all the way to the river, and from the river to the sea, and from the sea to wherever it is that such things finally go to rest...
