❖
Ustad Ramzi continued sitting long after the shovels were put away, and the trainees and few neighbors had left the cemetery in Ustad Ramzi’s enclosure where all the graves had been filled.
When Gohar Jan’s bier was brought there and Ustad Ramzi stepped forward to lead the funeral prayer, most of the trainees of his clan lined up behind him. A few men who had thronged the gates of the enclosure to watch the spectacle and gossip quickly cleared out at one look from him.
After the burial, Banday Ali pressed Ustad Ramzi’s shoulder for a while quietly before taking his leave.
He was left alone in the cemetery.
He remained there in the growing silence, as darkness fell over the inner city.
About the Author
Musharraf Ali Farooqi was born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan. His previous novel, The Story of a Widow (2009), was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. He is the highly acclaimed translator of the Urdu classics Hoshruba (2009) and The Adventures of Amir Hamza (2007), contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed’s volume of selected poetry Rococo and Other Worlds (2010) and Urdu writer Syed Muhammad Ashraf ‘s novel The Beast (2010). His fiction for children includes Tik-Tik, The Master of Time (2012), The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander the Iron Man and Other Stories (2011), which was shortlisted for Comic Con India’s Best Publication for Children Award, and the picture book The Cobbler’s Holiday Or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes (2008). You can visit him at www.mafarooqi.com