I thought of all my friends, but I couldn’t think of anyone as loving, cheerful, and intent on making others happy as you. So I bought a ticket and went to Karachi. Everything else was just to pass the time. All the days I spent with you were extra days added to my life. May God keep you so cheerful and attentive to me. Apologizing to you for the hardships I caused would be a type of Lucknavi grace, which is beyond the likes of unsophisticated men like me. These sorts of things happen between friends. My grandfather used to say, ‘There’s a saying in Persian that goes either don’t make friends with mahouts, or build your house so strong that it can withstand the blows of elephants.’
I’m sending with a truck driver ten kilos of fresh jaggery from Mardan with newly harvested walnuts set in them like jewels, three organic honeycombs from Swat complete with their real wax and dead bees, and twenty quails in a thin-necked basket. For Yousufi Sahib, I’m sending in a delicate basket two kilos of his favourite paneer from Peshawar Cantt, along with Pindi’s hunter beef. When I was leaving, he asked me to send a couple good artifacts from the Gandhara Civilization. I got caught up in the commotion of leaving, and forgot to ask him what exactly he wanted. I asked a couple of my ignorant friends here. They sent me to some Gandhara store. They said, ‘We sell top-quality trucks and genuine parts. What are you looking for?’ On Monday, the secretary of a construction foreman came back from the Takht Bhai Mardan site with four exquisite statues of black stone wrapped up in a sheet. But when I asked a big-time smuggler here who sends larger-than-life statues to America, he said that they weren’t the Buddha but they were his lackeys (for them there’s a real bad word in Pashto), yes men, and suck-ups because the Buddha was never so muscular. I’ve heard that the Buddha, after he reached nirvana, looked as bad as Yousufi does now — all skin and bones. Anyway, I’m still looking. Greet him for me, and then tell him it would be better to hang up a photo of the man from Kabul.23
To hell with this disease! The goblet of life is spilling over before it has been filled. Even in dictating this letter, I ran out of breath. I don’t dare cough properly for fear it will make you-know-who start crying. She hides herself in a corner and cries and cries. I keep explaining to her, ‘Hey, now, as long as I’m still conscious, I’m not going to let this disease beat me.’ Basharat, my friend, there’s a real bad word in Pashto for men like that. Last week, I started construction on a new house on University Road. We’ll be able to sit fifty poets from Peshawar, or one hundred from Karachi, on its verandah.
Everything else is going well. Khalifa begs to say hello. I’ve got him a job as a servant at Muslim Commercial Bank. He rides the black stallion in the evening and over the holidays. He’s in great shape. He’s learned how to curse out the stallion in Pashto. But he hasn’t learned which nouns are masculine and which are feminine. People break out laughing when they hear him talk. Just yesterday, I gave him a good trick — that is to conjugate as feminine whatever nouns he thinks are masculine. Then it will be Pashto. Greetings, love, and chastisements to all, each as they deserve.
Yours, lovingly,
The Man from Kabul
PS: When I returned, I saw that there were some miscellaneous accounts still to be settled. But I can’t travel. Please find some time to come and set right your friend’s accounts, and your man from Kabul will hang on for a couple more days.
PSS: Moreover, it’s hard to wait patiently for the house and verandah to be completed! I’ve already arranged for one white sheet without holes and five poets — all for you — may you live in peace.
Basharat left for Peshawar on the morning’s first train.
1The Man from Kabuclass="underline" In almost every big city before the partition of the subcontinent, you could find Afghanis who gave loans on interest. They usually set interest at more than 100 % and their ways of collecting were even more despotic. The people who took loans from them were usually the poor and or working class: once you took the loan, you would be paying off its interest until your dying day; that is, until your dying day, the principal of the loan and the Man from Kabul would be standing over you. In Bengal and other regions as well, these Afghanis were known as the men from Kabul. Tagore wrote a very beautiful story by this title that has nothing to do with my problematic story.
2 It’s sad that we’re quickly losing track of the old and beautiful names of colours. Tomorrow who will be able to recognize them? Vermillion, nut brown, aloeswood, jujube, cotton, azure, camel, emerald, red onion, scarlet, grass, dark purple, chicory, nacre, pearl, lotus, light green, pale yellow, falsa-berry purple, jamun-fruit mauve, tobacco, golden, watermelon, earthen, ochre, mung dal, mulberry, orange, grape, raisin, dove, deep purple, pistachio, peach, peacock, ebony, ambergris, henna, violet, saffron, pale purple, as well as mystical and vulgar. If we’ve buried our word-hoards in the earth, then that’s one thing. But we’ve also buried the rainbows that sprang from the womb of our land.
3The Lampless Aladdin: Basharat’s old and permanently sick father couldn’t remember names. So he called all his servants ‘Aladdin.’ This is Aladdin, the Ninth, whose extended introduction I’ve given already in ‘A Schoolteacher’s Dream.’ He thought of himself as a jack of all trades. But he ruined everything he put his hands on. He often said, ‘I have magic in my hands. If I touch gold, it becomes brass.’ Mirza sarcastically called him the Lampless Aladdin.
4 In those days, you had to run a radio with a car battery and not the batteries you put in a flashlight; you had to charge it every day. Where he lived in Bihar Colony, there was still no electricity.
5 Marconi: the inventor of the radio.
6 Herpes and syphilis, or the gifts of foreigners. Some people say that along with the gifts of potatoes, tobacco, trains, horseracing, European flowers, Shakespeare, gin and tonics, tea, cricket, and countless others, the British brought with them these STD ‘gifts.’ Only God knows if this is true or not.
7 Natni: the lowest class of prostitute, also called a ‘takhiyai’ because her customers couldn’t pay more than a taka [old coin worth 1/32 of a rupee] — as though the real reason for their ridicule and disgrace wasn’t their profession but their low wages!
Wheeclass="underline" a type of small firework that moves very spastically in circles across the ground.
8 In the summer, people mix chia seeds with faloodah.
9 This line really isn’t about horses but about the beloved. I took the liberty of changing ‘fragrant tresses’ to ‘black horse.’ This proves my ignorance about ghazals, beloveds, and poetic metre. I’ve read a thousand couplets like this, that, if no one tells me whom they are about, my mind will automatically go to horses and not women.
10 Facing west: Because, in Karachi, there is a cool breeze that comes off the ocean, meaning, from the west, that’s why people prefer houses facing west. But they cost a lot.
11 ‘My Bread…’: A line from Baba Fareed.
12 In those days, a constable made seventeen rupees, and an ASI made seventy, which was equivalent to what a servant at a bank made.
13 ‘Half-tearful’ because his other eye was smiling.
14 This is old news. How sad it is that Karachi is now suffering the comeuppance for its previous vainglory.