I forgot to mention that the dog went in with Basharat for the interview. Basharat had tried his best to get it to stay away, but to no avail. The servant told him he couldn’t take the unclean thing in, and this gave Basharat the opportunity to say that the dog wasn’t his. ‘Then why have you two been acting like bosom buddies for the past two hours?’ the servant asked.
Picking up a clump of dirt, the servant made like he was going to strike the dog, but the dog sprang upon his calf. The servant began screaming. Basharat called off the dog, and it obeyed. The servant didn’t thank him.
‘You’re still going to insist it isn’t yours?’
So he went in, and the dog with him. Forget barring the way, the servant didn’t have enough courage even to look at the dog.
As soon as they got inside, chaos erupted. The committee members started yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, but when the dog barked even louder, they all got scared and shut up, making sure they raised their legs up onto their chairs.
‘Gentlemen,’ Basharat said, ‘if you remain quiet and motionless, the dog won’t bark.’
‘Why did you bring this dog in?’ someone asked.
‘I swear it’s not mine.’
‘But if it isn’t yours,’ the man replied, ‘how come you know the ins and outs of its shameless behaviour?’
Basharat sat down on the stool, and the dog took up residence at his feet. Basharat didn’t want him to move because his presence was reassuring. Twice during the interview, Moli Mujjan laughed contemptuously at Basharat, and the dog started barking over him. He became frightened and immediately switched off his cackling. How much Basharat loved that dog!
What’s There to Say about Me?
The interview began. The County Treasurer cleared his throat to quiet everyone, and the silence that spread through the room was so deep they could hear not only the tick-tock of the wall clock but also Maulvi Muzaffar’s rasping breath. The barrage of questions was just about to begin when the clock struck eleven, and everyone again fell silent: living in Dhiraj Ganj would soon teach Basharat that whenever the clock struck the hour, then according to a countryside custom, everyone would sit in respectful silence to consider whether the clock had struck the right hour or not.
The interview began in earnest. The man he had thought was the servant went and sat on the edge of the cot. It turned out he was the theology teacher who was temporarily doubling as the Urdu teacher. This man ended up being the one who grilled him, whereas Maulvi Muzaffar and another man, a retired reader for a circuit court judge, ended up blabbering nonsense. The country treasurer, on the other hand, gave small bits of encouragement and supported Basharat’s candidacy throughout the interview. Here’s a sample Q&A, so you can get a sense of the strengths of the respective speakers.
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: (caressing the The Winehouse of Makhmur from Kanpur and Lucknow) Please explain the benefits of poetry.
BASHARAT: (with an expression that implied the question was out-of-line) Poetry? I mean couplets. Or I mean its meaning… its devotees… actually, I like poetry…
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: Excellent! Recite something from Khaliq-e-Bari.
BASHARAT: God alone is the Creator. / And He is the Actor Supreme.
COURT READER: Your father and grandfathers did what sort of work?
BASHARAT: Nothing, really.
COURT READER: Then how can you be fit to work? It takes four generations of gut-wrenching labour to create a man capable of holding a job!
BASHARAT: (naively) Sir, I’ve already had a hernia operation!
THEOLOGY TEACHER: Please show us the scar.
COUNTY TREASURER: Have you ever caned anyone?
BASHARAT: No, sir.
COUNTY TREASURER: Has anyone ever caned you?
BASHARAT: Regularly.
COUNTY TREASURER: Good, then you’ll be able to maintain discipline.
COURT READER: So tell us — why is the Earth round?
(Basharat looks at the court reader with the defeated look of a wrestler pinned to the mat.)
COUNTY TREASURER: (to the court reader) Sir, we asked him here because we need an Urdu teacher. The interviews for the geography teacher are on Thursday.
THEOLOGY TEACHER: Please write something on the blackboard to demonstrate your good penmanship.
COURT READER: Why are you against beards?
BASHARAT: I’m not.
COURT READER: Then why don’t you have one?
THEOLOGY TEACHER: Do you love your maternal or paternal uncle more?
BASHARAT: I’ve never thought about it.
THEOLOGY TEACHER: Please answer the question.
BASHARAT: I don’t have a paternal uncle.
THEOLOGY TEACHER: You know how to pray, right? Please recite your father’s funeral prayer.
BASHARAT: He’s still living.
THEOLOGY TEACHER: God have mercy on me! Your face seemed so sad, I just assumed… then please recite your grandfather’s, or is he too drawing breath?
BASHARAT: (in a sad whisper) He’s passed away.
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: Please recite something from Hali’s Musaddas.
BASHARAT: I can’t recall anything at the moment, but I can recite some couplets from his poem The Supplication of the Widow.’ 1
COUNTY TREASURER: Fine, then recite some of your favourite couplets that have nothing to do with widowhood.
BASHARAT:
Ripped apart — all our ties — strangled in death’s straightjacket.
On the tomb’s throw cushions lies the wrestler — he’s nothing now at all.
COUNTY TREASURER: Whose poetry is that?
BASHARAT: It’s Urdu poetry!
COUNTY TREASURER: That’s amazing! Simply brilliant! What wonderful wordplay! The bonds of life are ripped apart, and then the ties of death’s straightjacket strangle you. So the word ‘throw’ could be both the wrestling move and then the soft pillows of death’s eternal rest — as though God has ‘thrown you’ in a wrestling match! Then the world’s impermanence is summed up in a short phrase, ‘he’s nothing now at all.’ It’s a marvel that so many things could be hidden in just two lines of poetry! Only a true master is capable of composing a throwaway couplet like this.
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: Are your tastes simple or extravagant?
BASHARAT: Simple.
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: Are you married or still footloose and fancy-free?
BASHARAT: I haven’t married yet.
MAULVI MUZAFFAR: Then what are you going to do with your whole salary?! How much will you give each month to the orphanage?
COUNTY TREASURER: When did you first become interested in poetry? Please recite the first couplet you ever wrote.
BASHARAT:
Watching and waiting, I saw the corpse jumping for joy.
And yet the Alley of the Beloved is still so far.
COUNTY TREASURER: Bravo! To turn the couplet on ‘and yet’ is a stroke of genius! My God! The corpse was happy too soon! And ‘still so far’… it hardly says anything and yet it says so much!
BASHARAT: Thank you very much. Truly.
COUNTY TREASURER: Such a great couplet from such an unexpected place? Besides economy in language, the couplet also shows parsimony in thought!
BASHARAT: Thank you.
COUNTY TREASURER: (The dog starts to bark.) I’m sorry to interrupt your dog’s barking, but what is your goal in life?
BASHARAT: To get this job.
COUNTY TREASURER: Well, then, consider it yours. Tomorrow morning bring all your stuff. I’ll need your paperwork completed on my desk by eleven thirty. Your salary will be forty rupees a month.