Back in the day, the police chief used to rule the town, including the criminals. I mean, he could do anything to anyone. Sir, Mirza’s right. After studying one hundred and fifty years of public records, he decided that three city departments have been corrupt since Day 1. First, the police. Second, the PWD [Public Welfare Department]. Third, the Income Tax Office. For my part, I’d add the Anti-Corruption Department. They accept bribes only from those who accept bribes. Corruption is rife in India as well, and I’ve a little experience with this. But, sir, even when a Hindu accepts a bribe, he does it with such humility and forbearance that, I swear to God, I feel like giving him another!
And, sir, no matter if an Indian is Hindu or Muslim, young or old, they are the epitome of humility when they fold their hands together in greeting. The most famous politicians do so before and after their speeches, just as the most respected musicians do before and after they play. Once at a poetry festival, I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears the great Ali Sardar Jafri recite a dozen or so long poems, put his hands together contritely, then leave the stage. (Well, in this case, I can understand why he begged for forgiveness.)
3.
What Happened to the Red-Light District
And, sir, when I saw Mool Ganj, I got very sad. There used to be a red-light district there. You must think I’m a strange character. I’ve done the hajj twice, I’ve a permanent tattoo on my forehead from praying so much, and yet in every story I tell I’m sure to sing the praises of prostitutes. What can I do? Our generation suffered from all sorts of unrequited passions. In the old days, prostitutes ruled our bodies and minds. You couldn’t tell a story without one, nor could you become a man without one. And bear in mind as well that a whore was the only woman you could look at for as long as you liked; women suitable for marriage always wore veils. I’ve noticed that today’s prostitutes act and look like housewives. Someone needs to explain to them, ‘You’re well behaved, but good behavior was what drove miserable husbands to you in the first place!’ The purity and monotony of the household bored them to the point that they came night after night to stay at the Exotic Body Inn. Now this refuge is no more.
So I was saying there used to be a red-light district in Mool Ganj. After being pushed further and further out, prostitutes are now hidden back in Bakers Alley. Mool Ganj is nothing more than a filthy gutter. I also went back to where Mian Tajammul Hussain and I used to eat kebabs right off the skewers as we hunkered in shame next to the wall. That was fifty years ago. I’ve never found kebabs as good as the spicy ones we got back then in the red-light district. Except in Lucknow’s Maulvi Ganj. Mool Ganj had good flower bracelets too! Oh, and I’ve discovered an excellent kebab cook on Aslam Road. Before you leave for London, I’ll get you some. Sir, I always went out to eat kebabs but chewed homemade paan. Have you ever eaten paan made by a prostitute? But you’ve said that you haven’t seen a prostitute dance since your circumcision ceremony, and for years you remained under the impression that before watching anyone dance you would have to undergo the same trial! A prostitute’s paan doesn’t stain your lips. I’ve noticed that paan doesn’t stain the lips of old people, babblers, and poets. But now you’re looking at my lips! Thank you! Before going home, Mian Tajammul would vigorously wipe his lips and swallow some jintan pills to mask the odour of the kebabs and onions. Haji Sahib, his father, had recently come from Chiniot, and he considered kebabs and paan to be among the debaucheries of UP. He would say, ‘Son, whatever you do, do it in front of me.’ But, for the sake of argument, if Mian Tajammul had indulged in these things in front of him, his father would have split his head with an axe, and this would have been a piece of cake because for years he had held to an exercise regimen of chopping ten kilos of wood after morning prayers. If there was a storm, he would go to the men’s section of the house and swing around his colourful, ten-kilo mace. When he left Chiniot to look for a job, his father, meaning Mian Tajammul’s grandfather, gave him a thousand-bead rosary, a set of maces, an axe, and a wife to keep him from straying from the straight and narrow. And this was all well and good. Putting all these tools to use saved him from doing bad, even if they didn’t amount to much good.
But for God’s sake! Please don’t take my words the wrong way. I keep bringing up prostitutes and brothels, and yet it’s not like I believe all your problems get solved at a whorehouse. With God as my witness, I never did anything more than eat paan and kebabs and stare with envy at the stream of men going inside. Mian Tajammul would say, sighing, ‘Look how lucky these men are! Their ancestors are either dead or blind!’
It was another era altogether. As the young grew into their bodies, the old lost their minds. Everyone in town thought it was their duty to keep track of the bad behaviour of everyone else.
We watch over them, and they watch over us. .
At each and every turn, the old generation was making sure that our youthfulness couldn’t be put to use. I mean, all the old people spent their lives bent over like prayerful wicketkeepers trying to expose our missteps and mistakes. I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of youth was if it had to be like that!
Sir, I spent my entire youth doing push-ups and drinking buffalo milk. If that’s not madness, then what is?
Listening to Music with Eyes Wide Open
My father, God forgive him, was a connoisseur of the theatre and the music hall. And it wasn’t a passing fancy. When the mood overcame him, and he pulled out the harmonium, people walking by in the street would stop to listen. He would play with his eyes closed. In those days, the true aficionados always listened to music with their eyes closed because that allowed them to concentrate solely on the melody. That said, it was considered permissible to listen to prostitutes’ singing with eyes wide open. Like the great musician Bundhu Khan, my father would sometimes start singing spontaneously. It was very pleasing. In fact, he sang concerts too but only for singers. That was how the elite did things back then. Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi was also like this. You saw my father only when he was bed-ridden and clinging to life. When he was young, he loved Heera Bai’s singing. She was a dadar kanthiya; she could cast a spell by singing two notes simultaneously. She would sing mujrai — I mean, she sang while seated. If she was going to sing within a hundred miles, he would leave work and go. If for any reason he wasn’t able to get there, she wouldn’t enjoy herself as much. She sang Rajasthani mand and bhairav thath only for him. When she sang dhyut and rakhab, her halting rendition was a beautiful rubato. She was as active in her singing as she was otherwise. When singing darbari, if she added a special flourish, the entire crowd erupted in delight. You know very well that my father wasn’t rich. He had a lumber store a fourth the size of mine. It was just enough to get by. In the market, if someone’s store remained closed for three days, it meant that there was a death in the family. If it remained closed for four days, it meant the merchant himself had died. But if my father’s store remained closed for a full week, no one worried. It meant that he’d gone to exchange loving glances with Heera Bai. That said, his customers bought only from him. They would wait for a week. In the end, he managed to get some hooked as well. They began to go with him to hear her sing. After they were thoroughly addicted, he made them arrange for everyone’s transportation. He also entrusted to them the task of giving her a love-token when she sang a sehra, or some money when she sang a good couplet or murki. She would take the money from them and thank my father. I don’t know if these unfortunate souls ever learned anything about music from all this, but they ended up without any money to buy lumber. After emerging from bankruptcy, one opened up a harmonium repair shop. Another couldn’t even manage that. To save himself from his creditors, he fled to Bombay where he went to the theatre every day and took in Mukhtar Begum and Master Nisar concerts and yet never bought a ticket. I mean, he earned the honorary duty of opening and closing the stage-curtain. During the day he sold the tassels that hang from fez hats. I heard that Dawood Seth too sold tassels in Bombay back then, but, for his part, he had never heard Heera Bai sing.