Basti ends with a dramatic and ambiguous pronouncement. Afzal, one of the circle of friends, calls for everybody to be silent. Then he whispers, “signs always come at just these times… This is the time for a sign.” What this sign may be, whether in fact it will appear — these questions are left hanging. The novel is open-ended. The reader is left in a state of suspense, suspense that reflects the dread felt in so many of its pages but that may also recall, however distantly and dimly, the experience of questioning, of wanting and waiting to find out about the world that is so beautifully evoked in its first luminous pages. In a sense Basti itself is the sign, or at least a sign of the possibility of a sign, just as Zakir is shown to keep faith in the possibility of revelation, a shimmering nearness that evades our grasp even as it hovers within reach.
— ASIF FARRUKHI
BASTI
ONE
When the world was still all new, when the sky was fresh and the earth not yet soiled, when trees breathed through the centuries and ages spoke in the voices of birds, how astonished he was, looking all around, that everything was so new, and yet looked so old. Bluejays, woodpeckers, peacocks, doves, squirrels, parakeets — it seemed that they were as young as he, yet they carried the secrets of the ages. The peacocks’ calls seemed to come not from the forest of Rupnagar, but from Brindaban. When a little woodpecker paused in its flight to rest on a tall neem tree, it seemed that it had just delivered a letter to the Queen of Sheba’s palace, and was on its way back toward Solomon’s castle. When a squirrel, running along the rooftops, suddenly sat up on its tail and chittered at him, he stared at it and reflected with amazement that those black stripes on its back were the marks of Ramchandar-ji’s fingers. And the elephant was a world of wonder. When he stood in the entry hall and saw an elephant approaching from the distance, it looked like a mountain moving. The long trunk, the huge ears waving like fans, the two white tusks sticking out and curving like scimitars — when he saw it all he ran inside, wonderstruck, and went straight to Bi Amma.
“Bi Amma, did elephants once fly?”
“What, have you gone crazy?”
“Bhagat-ji was saying.”
“Well, that Bhagat-ji has rocks in his head! Imagine, such a huge heavy animal, how could it fly in the air?”
“Bi Amma, how were elephants born?”
“How else? Their mommies gave birth to them, and there they were.”
“No, Bi Amma, elephants came out of eggs.”
“What! Have you put your brain out to pasture?”
“Bhagat-ji was saying.”
“That wretched Bhagat has lost his mind. Such a big animal, an elephant — as though it would come out of an egg! Not to speak of coming out — how would it ever fit into an egg in the first place?”
But he had a lot of faith in Bhagat-ji’s knowledge. With his sacred thread around his neck, his caste-mark on his forehead, his whole head shaved except for one tuft, Bhagat-ji sat in his little shop, sold condiments, and told wise stories from the Ramayan and the Mahabharat. The children called out, “Bhagat-ji, a penny’s worth of salt! Bhagat-ji, two pennies’ worth of brown sugar!”
“Children, don’t make a fuss! Be patient.” As he spoke, he weighed out the salt, packed up the brown sugar, and then picked up the story where he had left it. “Children, when Brahma-ji saw this, he said to Shesh, ‘Look, Shesh, the earth is very unsteady these days. You give it some help.’ Shesh answered, ‘Master, lift it up and put it on my hood, then it will stay still.’ Brahma-ji said, ‘Shesh, go inside the earth.’ Shesh saw a hole in the earth. He slipped into it. When he went inside the earth, he spread out his hood, and supported the earth on his hood. When the tortoise saw this, he felt worried, for under Shesh’s tail was nothing but water. He went down under Shesh’s tail and supported it. So, children, the earth rests on Shesh-ji’s hood. Shesh-ji rests on the tortoise’s back. When the tortoise moves, Shesh-ji quivers. When Shesh-ji quivers, the earth shakes, and an earthquake happens.”
But Abba Jan gave a completely different reason for earthquakes. Hakim Bande Ali and Musayyab Husain came every day and sat in the big room — the room with its fringed fan hanging down right in the middle, with its cornice running all around near the high ceiling where wild pigeons, doves, and wrens had built their nests. What difficult questions they used to ask Abba Jan! And without hesitation Abba Jan recited verses from the Quran and recounted sayings of the Prophet, and answered every single question.
“Maulana! How did God Most High make the earth?”
A little reflection, then the answer. “Jabir bin Abdullah Ansari asked, ‘May my mother and father be sacrificed for Your Lordship — From what substance did God the High and Exalted shape the earth?’ The Prophet of God replied, ‘From the expanding of the ocean.’ Then he asked, ‘How did He make the ocean expand?’ He replied, ‘From the waves.’ Then he asked, ‘Where did the waves come from?’ He replied, ‘From water.’ Then he asked, ‘Where did the water come from?’ He replied, ‘From a single pearl.’ Then he asked, ‘Where did the single pearl come from?’ He replied, ‘From the darkness.’ Then Jabir bin Abdullah Ansari said, ‘You have spoken the truth, oh Prophet of God.’”
“Maulana, on what does the earth rest?”
Again a moment of reflection. Then with the same easy elegance, the answer. “The questioner asked, ‘May my mother and father, oh Your Lordship, be sacrificed for you — what holds the earth steady?’ He replied, ‘Mount Qaf.’ Then he asked, ‘What surrounds Mount Qaf?’ He replied, ‘The seven earths.’ Then he asked, ‘What surrounds the seven earths?’ He replied, ‘A serpent.’ Then he asked, ‘What surrounds the serpent?’ He replied, ‘A serpent.’ Then he asked, ‘What is under the earth?’ He replied, ‘A cow with four thousand horns, and the distance between one horn and another is five hundred years’ journey. The seven earths rest on two of her horns. A mosquito sits near the cow’s nostrils, and for fear of him she cannot move. All she can do is change horns, and it causes an earthquake.’ Then he asked, ‘What does she stand on?’ He replied, ‘On the back of a fish.’ Then the questioner was convinced, and he said, ‘You have spoken the truth, oh Prophet of God.’”
Abba Jan fell silent. Then he said, “Hakim Sahib! This whole world comes down to a mosquito sitting near a cow’s nostrils. If the mosquito goes away, where will the world be? So we exist at the mercy and good pleasure of a mosquito, but we don’t realize it, and we’re vainglorious.”
Every day these conversations, every day these stories, as though Bhagat-ji and Abba Jan together were explicating the universe for him. As he listened to the conversations, an image of the world took shape in his mind. Well, the world was born, but what happened after that? Mother Eve wept a great deal. From her tears were born henna and eye shadow. But from her stomach were born Cain and Abel, two sons, and one daughter, Iqlima, who was partly like the sun and partly like the moon. The father bestowed this daughter upon the younger son, Abel. At which the older son, Cain, waxed wroth, and lifted up a rock and smote Abel with it, so that he died. Then Cain arose and lifted up Abel’s corpse on his shoulder and walked all around the earth. And in the spots where Abel’s blood fell, lo, the earth became alkaline. Then Cain began to ponder what he should do with his brother’s corpse, for his shoulder had begun to ache with the burden of it. And it came to pass that he saw two crows fighting, and one of them slew the other. The slayer dug a hole in the earth with its beak, then buried the victim in it, and went and perched on a tree. Then Cain made lament, “Alas for my wretchedness — I could not even do as much as a crow, and bury my brother!” Then the brother buried his brother, following the example of the crow. And that was the first grave that was made on the face of the earth, and that was the first human blood that was shed by human hands, and that was the first brother who was slain by the hand of his brother. He closed the book with its yellowing pages and put it back where he had found it in Abba Jan’s bookshelves; then he went to Bi Amma.