After I left your place, I never found the same leisure.
Only in your company did I find such pleasure.
But there’s another thing. Everyone says he’s a great teacher. Apparently you don’t have to be a scholar to be a good teacher. He even taught for a while at a government school. But when the Department of Education said he had to pass the BT test within three years or he would be demoted, he submitted his resignation, saying, ‘I’m not a patient man. I can’t wait three years. My teachers were all BT-certified, and I always failed!’ After that, he never worked. He did, however, volunteer at a school for the blind. His voice is sweet, tender, and full of patience. It always was. Words communicate meaning, but the tone of voice carries this meaning to your heart. The magic isn’t in the words but in the voice. Saying ‘open sesame’ won’t open the treasure door in the Arabian Nights for every Tom, Dick, and Harry; it has to be Ali Baba’s voice. The key to the heart’s door isn’t a word but a sound. If Mullah Aasi has to repeat himself, or if someone gets confused, his voice becomes even smoother. You feel like you’re swallowing sugar cream. Inside every good teacher is a child sitting with hand raised and head bobbing, indicating whether he has understood or not. Any good teacher is addressing this child. He lets the child keep his innocence.
7.
That Room Talked
It Was Like Going Back In Time
My intense conversations with Mullah Aasi took place in the very room where forty-five years earlier I had said goodbye to him before leaving for Pakistan. Back in those days, everyone was going to Pakistan, leaving behind land, property, houses, jobs, dear friends, and lovers. In that very room, he had hugged me and wished me safe travels, ‘Go, my dear, go. I give you over to Koh-e-Nida.’ To this very day, he cannot understand why any sane person would leave Kanpur. The same ceiling fan hangs from the same unsteady rafter, and it still screeches in the same manner. When I wanted to talk, I would switch off the fan. As soon as it was switched on, a whirlwind sprang up, and the dust that had settled on the books, walls, and carpet would rise into the air, asphyxiating the mosquitos. He uses the fan not to save himself from the heat but rather to save himself from mosquitos. But that’s very infrequently. He’s not worried about saving on electricity. He’s worried about saving the fan. Using it shortens its lifespan. But, God be praised, that fan has grown up! By now it must be forty or forty-five years old! At this rate, it will live to be one hundred. Many sadhus and yogis believe that God has predetermined the exact number of breaths each person can take, and so Mullah Aasi usually sits holding his breath so as to lengthen his life. But from time to time he has no choice but to breathe. His fan lives on in similar fashion.
Stepping into his room made me feel as though I had travelled to another world. It was like going back in time. Everything was just as it had been. In fact, everything was still in the very same positions. By God, I felt as though the cobwebs were the same ones I had known so long ago! I saw only one change. He had shaved his beard again. When I asked about it, he dodged the question. Then he said, ‘I could stand it just so long as it was black.’ Mr Inam winked at me, ‘Mahatma Buddha also shaved.’ The room’s layout was the same as in ’47. The walls were grease-stained; only where the plaster had recently fallen off did they look clean. On the left wall, two feet above the bed, forty-five years ago I had written out in pencil an itemized list for a picnic. Now its first four lines remained. Sir, in those days there were 192 pai in a rupee, and one pai was equal to one rupee of today. I was surprised to see that before I had done the accounting, I had written the number 786! Like your Mirza Abdul Wadud Baig says, back then, Muslim boys considered their failing in math to be the heavenly confirmation of being Muslims! Back then, every job that involved accounting, business, and that brought profits was considered the province of moneylenders, corner-store owners, and Jews. But I had memorized the Chakravarty math tables, and I still know how to multiply by ¼, ¾, and 2½—whatever good that is. It was a good ruse for controlling boys’ passions — no, for controlling them and their passions. Thinking of Muslims brings back another memory. You see this bruise on my forehead that I’ve got from banging my head on the floor five times a day? By the grace of God, I got this when I was twenty-five or so. Even Mian Tajammul’s company and Niaz Fatehpuri’s books couldn’t distract me from my prayers. You won’t believe me, but two-thirds of my hair went white at that age. Anyway, I was about to say that on the wall above the rosewood table, there were his high-school graduation photos. All five years of them. In the fifth year, he managed to steer his ship home when a former classmate passed his BA and started to teach English at the school. In the fifth photo, he stands behind the principal, gripping tightly the back of his chair. It was rumoured that he didn’t want to pass because then he would have to give up being the class monitor. Who has ever heard of a class monitor in college? One photo was sepia. When I saw myself, I was shocked. My God, that’s what we looked like when we were young? How sad we all looked! We promised to be friends forever, work for the welfare of humanity, and write letters to everyone every third day till the end of time. The table was covered with the same green tablecloth. Ninety percent of it had turned blue from ink stains. I could barely control myself from pouring ink on the remaining ten percent so as to get rid of its leucoderma. Back then servants wore uniforms made of the same material as the tablecloth. Sometimes on very cold days, Basheer, the school servant, would scold us and send us back home, ‘Boys, coats and kisses won’t work today! Go home, put on a kamri and a mirzai [cotton-stuffed vest] and then come back.’ He himself came from home in a threadbare mirzai that was so old that there was only one little wad of cotton in each of the vest’s lozenge-shaped patches. But he never went home in his work clothes. It was free of wrinkles and stains. He rang the bell to announce the end of the day in such a way that the bell seemed to giggle.
Big Cause, Small Men