M. Sarmad
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English translation of "Gandasa" (Urdu short story by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi) on which "Maula Jatt" was based:
Gandasa[1]
Author: Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi (20/11/1916 – 10/07/2006)
Translation: Shehzad Ashiq Ali
The ring had been set. The spectators had chosen their seats. The players of “Parkoddi”[2], glistening with the oil rubbed on their bodies were circling around the beating “Dhol”[3]. They wore brightly coloured loin clothes that had been tightly fastened around their bodies. Faint white straps had been run under their oiled locks towards their heads to resemble lotus flower petals.
Everywhere in the vast field there was the hustle and bustle of people talking and the bubbling of “Hookas”[4]. The form of past and present players was being analysed and opinions about their merits and faults discussed. The famous wrestling pairs had not entered the ring yet. Surrounded by their friends and fans, these renowned athletes were being massaged with oil with such vigour and fervour that their bodies shone in the fading rays of the sun as if they had transformed into copper statues. They then entered the ring, circled around the beating “Dhol” and then went to their corners jumping and dancing, warming themselves up for the impeding battle.
Suddenly a whisper went through the crowd which spiralled into a whirlwind as it went around, “Where is Maula?” All these spectators had come from far-afield, having travelled from distant fields to see the skills of Maula. “Maula’s best friend is not here either”. Another whirlwind now begun to form as the spectators left the ringside and started heading towards the exits. They formed a crowd that surged and pushed towards the exits.
The tournament organisers beat the grounds with their sticks, making dust clouds desperately trying to stop the crowd, they knew the dispersion of the crowd was not a good sign. However, suddenly all the crowd went silent as if a bomb had exploded far away, and returned to the ringside silently when somebody whispered into their ears, “Maula has entered the ring with his best friend”.
In the middle of the ring, lay a Dhol that had been heavily decorated with strings and knots. Maula circled gracefully around the Dhol three times and then touched the Dhol. He had just raised his hands in the air to shout “Ya Ali” when a cry pierced through the beating sound of the Dhol and hit him on his chest like a “Gandasa” whipping through the air, “Mauley, Mauleya my son, your father has been murdered!”
Maula’s raised hand swirled like a cobra taking aim and then as if in an instant it seemed his feet had grown wings. “Ranga gutted your father with his Gandasa” his mother’s voice pursued him as he ran.
Pandemonium broke out as the ringside crowd broke up, dhols stopped playing, wrestlers quickly got dressed. The crowd had begun to panic and stampeded in their haste to exit. Maula stamped through the streets, blowing dust through the air as if he were a whirlwind. Far behind him his best friend Taaja followed carrying his and Maula’s clothes wrapped in a bundle which he clung to his chest. Even further behind Taaja a terrified crowd followed anxious to see what would happen. In the village where nobody dared to walk bare headed Maula walked wearing only his pink loincloth, piercing through the crowds of people, sheep and flocks of lambs. When he had reached in front of the courtyard of Ranga, he saw a crowd was gathered there. From the crowd that faced him “Peer” Noor Shah emerged and shouted challengingly, “Maula, stop there”.
Maula seemed to leap but then almost as if his feet had been rooted to the ground stood still and seemed to transform into a statue. “Peer”[5] Noor Shah came up to him and said in his loud, booming voice, “You will go no further Maula”. Maula stood panting and looked straight into Peer Noor Shah’s eyes for a while. After a long pause he said, “If I don’t go any further Peer Jee then why should I live?”
“Because I say so”, Peer Jee said authoritatively, emphasising and stressing the I in his sentence.
Despite panting, Maula spoke breathlessly without breaking his stride, “Then rub coal on my face and cut off my nose. I have to avenge my father’s death Peer Jee. If it had been the killing of an animal then I would have turned back on your command”. Maula shook his neck violently and looked at Ranga’s “Chopal[6]“. Ranga and his son “Bhatto” stood chests puffed out, holding their Gandasa’s. The Gandasa blades glistened in the glare of the sun.
Ranga’s elder son spoke, “Come son, come. If I don’t spill your intestines out with one blow of my Gandasa then my name is not Qada. My Gandasa is rash and does not think where it strikes. Pampered sons who play Kabbadi don’t avenge their father’s death, they weep and go searching for a shroud to wrap his corpse in”.
It seemed as if Maula had just been waiting for him to finish speaking. He surged towards the stair of the “Chopal” however, now the crowd from the Kabbadi field had reached there too and stood in his way. Maula’s body was slippery from the oil rubbed on his body so he managed to slip out of the hands that tried to grab him, however, the crowd crowded around him like a steel fence which he could not break through.
One part of the crowd had also surrounded Ranga and his three sons and stopped them from advancing. The blades of four Gandasas shone in the fading sunlight as if they were pearls and kept waving menacingly when suddenly the crowd went into pin-drop silence. Peer Noor Shah wove through the crowd, his hands aloft holding the Quran. He slowly climbed the stairs of the chopal and then shouted out, his voice reaching the heaven above, “For the sake of Allah’s book go to your homes, otherwise, whole villages will be devastated you fools. Go, for the sake of God and his prophet, for the sake of the Holy Quran, go, leave here”
The crowd begun to disperse with their heads bowed. Maula hurriedly took his “laacha[7]” from Taaja and walked off the chopal. Peer Sahib, walked to Maula holding the Quran and said, “May Allah, give you patience and reward you for the good deed that you did today”.
Maula strove ahead with Taaja by his side. When he reached the corner of the narrow street that headed towards his home, he turned back and glanced at Ranga’s Chopal. “Maula, are you crying?” Taaja asked very sadly. Maula wiped his tears by rubbing his bare arm on his eyes, “So, should I not even cry now?”
“What will people say?” Taaja advised him. “Yes, Taajey”, Maula rubbed his eyes again with his arm, “That’s just what I am thinking that what will people say. The flies are feasting on my father’s blood and here I am running through the streets like a dog with its tail between its legs to go and cry on my mother’s shoulder”.
However Maula did not cry on his mother’s shoulder. He entered his house just as his relatives had decided to take his father’s body to the police station. His mother wailing and beating her chest came to him, looked at him and then said, “You’re shameless”. She turned her face away from him and went weeping to her husband’s body. Maula did not react and looked on with his face fixed in a scowl. He lifted his father’s bier and left with his family.
The body had not reached the police station yet when all hell broke loose at Ranga’s chopal. Ranga had descended from the chopal’s stairs and was about to enter his house when a Gandasa appeared from nowhere and sliced his stomach like a hot knife through butter. His intestines spilled on to his door step in a steaming pile. For a while there was pandemonium as people panicked, however, Ranga’s sons managed to collect their senses enough to mount their horses and gallop towards the police station.
They entered the police station yard but were shocked to see that the person they had come to report as their father’s killer was already there. Maula sat next to his father’s body reading prayers on a rosary bead. They tried to file an FIR[8] with Maula named as the killer by hook or crook but the constable persuaded them to not do so, otherwise, they would end up losing the real killer of their father. Now was the time for them to act sensibly and not give in to their rage, “He came here some time ago to report his own father’s death. How could he have killed your father at your house with a Gandasa?”
Eventually cases for both murders were registered, however, due to there being no eye witnesses, the accused were released without charge. The day Maula was released, the first thing after he duly received a loving kiss on his forehead from his mother was to go straight to Taaja’s house. He embraced him and said, “If I had not had you and your horse to help me that day, today I would have been swinging from the gallows with a noose around my neck. I swear on your life that after I had cut open Ranga’s stomach and mounted your horse I became like the wind. My father’s body had not even reached the police station and I managed to slip back into the procession without my absence being noticed.”
Everyone in the village knew that Maula was Ranga’s killer but apart from Taaja and a few close relatives nobody knew how it had happened. Everything quietened down but then one day a rumour begun to spread in the village that Maula’s father had actually been killed by Ranga’s son Qadir. Ranga had only been bragging. At the meeting points, in the sitting rooms, cafes, wherever people gathered, this was the only topic on everyone’s lips. In the morning, everyone heard that Qadir had been found dead on his rooftop in such a state that when his brothers Phulla and Ghulla had tried lifting his body, his head had rolled off and kept rolling till it fell into the gutter.
A report was filed and Maula was arrested again. The police tried everything in their power to make him confess to the murder. He inhaled the fumes of burning chillies, stood in the burning sun on a sheet of steel. God knows how many sleepless nights he endured when as soon as he slumbered, he was poked with a stick till he woke up. Maula withstood all these torments and stood firm. He did not confess to the murder. Despite the best efforts of the Maliks who had pressurised the police constantly, he was reluctantly released after many months.
Maula returned to his village a free man. When he entered his house’s courtyard his mother came running, kissed him on the forehead and said, “Two still remain my son. Only when you leave nobody behind who will bear Ranga’s name will I call you my son. Repay the debt of the milk I have fed you which has nourished you. Through your veins flows your father’s blood too. Prove yourself worthy of bearing his name. See here I did not let your Gandasa rust, it still shines”.
Maula now became the terror of his neighbourhood. His moustache grew until it curled at each end, in his ears hung large golden earrings, his long hair smelt with fragranced oil. A crescent shaped comb made from ivory shone on his forehead. When he walked through the streets, at least half a metre of his cummerbund trailed behind him marking wherever he went. A thin cotton scarf hung on his shoulder. Often one end of it would fall on the floor and scrape on the floor and would keep scraping till it wore thin. In Maula’s hand there was always a long stick that stood taller than him and whenever he sat on the street corner or crossroad he rested this stick on his knee. No passer by dared to ask Maula to move the stick aside.
If at any time the stick became wedged between two opposing walls, people would come, look at the stick, look at Maula and then turn on their heels and go another way. Men and children no longer even went near the streets where Maula would usually be found. The problem became even worse because nobody even dared to jump over Maula’s stick.
Once, a young stranger walked through a street, where Maula was sitting. Maula was idly poking the wall opposite with his stick. The stranger came and jumped over Maula’s stick. Instantly Maula became enraged, took the Gandasa blade from his pocket and fit it to the stick. He then called out the stranger, “Stop boy, do you know whose stick you have leapt over? This is Maula’s. Maula the Gandasa-Wielder.”
The stranger became pale when he heard Maula’s name and he hesitantly replied, “I did not know, Maula.” Maula took off the blade and put it in his pocket. He then tapped the strangers’ stomach lightly with one end of his stick, “Be on your way then.” He then laid his stick again from one end of the street to the other and sat down.
Maula’s clothes, his gait, his moustache and above all his cavalier attitude became the fashion of his village and from there spread to the entire area. One aspect however of Maula that did not become fashionable was his long stick. Glistened with oil, decorated with lotus flowers, sealed at each end by steel caps that played tunes on the street pebbles as it hit them, which spread with all its length nobody dared to cross. On it he often adorned the Gandasa blade, which was in his pocket. The blade on which his mother could not tolerate a speck of rust lest it dull Maula’s thirst for revenge.
The villagers said that Maula sat in the streets with his stick outstretched, Gandasa blade hidden seeking Ghulla and Phulla. After Qada’s death and Maula’s release, Phulla had enlisted in the army and moved away while Ghulla had sought protection from the area’s famous rope pulling champion Chauhdary Muzaffar Ilahee. Like Chauhdary’s other servants, Ghulla would scour the banks of Chenab and Ravi to steal cows and buffaloes. Chauhdary Muzaffar would sell them and from the proceeds host lavish parties for the rich, ministers and politicians with whom he had photos taken that would be published in the newspapers and magazines with his name emblazoned under them.
The trail finders of Ravi and Chenab that investigated the missing livestock would start following their trail. As these tracks would approach Chauhdary Muzaffar’s village, the trail finders would think to themselves, “I had already guessed this.” They knew that if they followed the trails to the Chauhdary’s house then after a while people would instead be trying to track the trail finders’ last movements themselves but would not be able to find them. Afraid of the Chauhdary, they would walk through to the coast and then return saying, “Their trail goes cold here.”
Maula had heard of Chauhdary Muzaffar and his long reaching arms. He thought that in this whole area only Chauhdary Muzaffar had the courage to leap over his stick, however, for the moment he was awaiting the reappearance of Ranga’s both sons.
Taaja told Maula off like a big brother that if nothing else he should look after his lands. What was the point of sitting from dawn till sunset with his stick in the streets, servants and lackies running around him, at his beck and call. Perhaps you don’t know it but you should know it for your own good that mothers have been using you to scare their children. Girls spit when they hear your name, if a girl wants to curse another she says, “May Allah marry you to Maula.” Are you listening?
“Oh Taaja, leave me alone”. The fire that Maula had been forged in had transformed him. He asked, “Have you gathered all the insults from the village to lay at my feet? Fulfilling friendship is a hard task, not everyone can do it. If you can longer bear the burden of friendship then why have you come to mislead me? The thirst of my Gandasa has not been quenched yet. Go.” He struck the floor with his Gandasa and called a servant from the house opposite. “You have not refilled the hookah yet fool. Had you fallen asleep? Bring the Hookah bowl.”
Taaja turned away. At the corner of the street he turned and looked at Maula as if he would burst crying at his young death. Maula was looking at him from the corner of his eyes. He got up and walked over to Taaja dragging his stick behind him. He stood next to him and said, “Taaja it seems as if you are pitying me because once upon a time I was your friend. Our friendship is over now though. If you cannot support me then of what use is your friendship to me? My father’s blood is not so cheap that it can be avenged by the death of just Ranga and his son. My Gandasa has yet to smite his granddaughters and grandsons. Our ways have parted. Don’t pity me, if someone pities me it dulls my Gandasa’s blade. Go.”
Maula returned and sat down. When he took the hookah bowl from his servant the embers blew and scattered. A glowing ember fell on his hand and glowed there for a moment. The servant tried to dust it off Maula’s hand but Maula swatted his hand away with such force that he doubled over in pain. He squeezed his hand tightly between his thighs and backed away to a side. Maula roared, “He pities me, the bastard.” He picked the hookah bowl and flung it at the wall. He then stormed off carrying his stick.
When people saw Maula sitting at a new street corner, they were surprised and whispered amongst one another. They then thought it best to turn away and scatter from where he sat. Women who were carrying pitchers on their return from the well saw his stick spread across the narrow street and could only exclaim in despair because they knew they could not pass it. Everyone thought Maula was out for Blood. While people around him were wondering what Maula was doing, Maula was observing an eagle sitting on the mosque’s minaret.
He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of his stick striking the pebbles. Startled, he saw a young girl had picked his stick up and rested it against the wall. She was now busy gathering up the red, long chillies which had fallen from the bundle on her head when she had bent over. Maula was dumbstruck by her audacity. Forget jumping over the stick, she a woman had laid his stick aside as if it were a filthy rag and was now sitting contently in front of him picking her chillies.
Outraged Maula shouted, “Do you know whose stick you have touched? Do you know who I am?” She raised her hands and while stuffing the chillies in her bundle said, “You seem to be some grouch.”
Enraged Maula stood up. She too arose and looking into his eyes said softly, “That’s why I did not hit your stick on your head, you looked so lost and lonely I felt pity for you”. “You felt pity for me?” Maula screamed. “Maula?” the girl held her bundles with both hands and was slightly surprised.
“Yes, Maula the Gandasa-wielder” Maula said with pride. She smiled faintly and moved into the street. Maula stood there a while quietly, took a deep sigh and then sat down against the wall. When he had spread his stick against the opposing wall he saw an elderly lady coming from the other side. She saw Maula and stopped. Maula raised his stick, put it to one side and called her, “Come Aunty, come I won’t bite you.” Shocked the woman came and as she passed by him said, “What lies people tell, people say that wherever Maula sits even a mad dog dare not go there. Yet for me you picked up your stick…”
“Who says that?” Maula stood up and asked quizzically. “Everyone says it, the whole village says it. I was at the well just now and this is all they could talk about. I, however, have seen with my very own eyes that Maula Bukhsh…”
However, by now Maula was too far away to listen. He had leapt into the street where the young girl had just gone. He walked at a brisk pace until he finally saw her walking slowly at the end of a street. He begun to ran, women sitting in their courtyards came to their doorsteps and children climbed on to their roofs. Maula’s running in the street was interpreted as the prelude to some cataclysm. The girl had heard the sound of Maula’s footsteps; she turned around and stood where she was. All she did was to hold her bundle with both her hands; a few chillies fell from it onto her feet like smouldering embers.
“I won’t do anything to you” Maula cried out, “I will not harm you don’t be afraid”.
The girl replied, “I did not stop in fear, may my enemies be frightened.”
Maula stopped, he then walked up to her slowly and said, “Just tell me that, who are you?” A smile delicately spread across her face. From behind him he heard an old woman’s voice, “Maula Bukhsh, She is Ranga’s youngest son’s fiancé, Rajo.”
Maula stared at Rajo in shock. He saw Ranga and Ranga’s entire family standing near Rajo. His hand went to the pocket where his Gandasa was but then fell down limp. Rajo turned and walked away slowly.
Maula threw his stick to one side and said, “Rajo wait, here, take your chillies”. Rajo stopped; Maula bent and picked up every single chilli he could find. As he stuffed them into Rajo’s bundle he asked, “You felt pity for me, didn’t you Rajo?”
Rajo’s face hardened and she walked away. Maula turned and went his way. He had walked a short distance when the old woman called him, “Maula Bakhsh, you have left your stick behind, here it is”. Maula returned and as he took his stick from the old woman asked, “Aunty, this girl Rajo does she live around here? I have never seen her here before.”
“She is from here and not from here too”, the old woman replied. When her father realised after the death of his two young sons that he could no longer carry the plough every day from his house to the fields he built a small hut in the fields 2-3 furlongs from here. Rajo lives there with her father. She only comes to the village every three, four days to buy goods and that’s about it.”
Maula could only reply with, “Hmm” and returned. The news that Maula had left his stick somewhere and forgot it there spread through the village like wildfire. In these conversations Rajo’s name was mentioned a few times but it was instantly suppressed. After all, the only relation between Maula and Ranga’s household was that of the Gandasa and Rajo was after all Ranga’s son’s fiancé. Nobody wanted either side to accuse them of slandering them because above all when who did not hold their life dear?
After this event, Maula disappeared from the streets. All day long he would sit at home and dig the flowerbed’s soil with his stick. If he did go outside at all, he would wander around in the fields and grazing pastures for a bit and then return home. His mother was surprised by his behaviour but said nothing to him. She knew that Maula’s head was filled with rage and that he was weighed under the weight of murders. Of those that he committed and those he had been unable to commit.
It was the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. The drums heralding its arrival had beaten and fallen silent. Houses throughout the village were preparing for Sehri[9]. The sound of yoghurt being churned and Rotis being cooked on girdles filled the air, like the mysterious bells that rang in temples.
Maula’s mother too had turned on the stove was cooking Roti. Maula lay on a Charpai[10] on the roof staring at the sky. Suddenly, in a nearby street, a commotion broke out. Maula armed his stick with the Gandasa and leapt from the roof into the street. He ran towards where the noise was coming from. Along the way from every house people emerged with lanterns and the noise only grew louder. When Maula reached where the commotion was he saw three strangers armed with spears and swords shepherding a herd of cows and buffaloes through the village streets. The village guard had tried to stop them but they had swore at him and said, “This herd belongs to Chauhdary Muzaffar Illahi. This is only a lowly village, when his herds pass through the streets of Lahore even there nobody dares to whimper”
Maula felt as if Chahudary Muzaffar himself had arrived in the village street and was trying to snatch his Gandasa from him. Maula snapped, “This herd of Chauhdary will not pass through my village no matter whether this herd belongs to Chauhdary Muzaffar or some minister himself. Leave the animals here and be on your way quietly, if you know what’s best for you.” He lowered his stick, the Gandasa blade shone in the lanterns light. “Go” Maula ordered.
Maula begun to herd the animals with his stick to one side, “Go tell your Chahudary Muzaffar that Maula the Gandasa wielder sends his greetings. Now be on your way.” The strangers saw the expressions on the crowds faces had changed because of Maula and were now full of rage. They thought it best to quietly slip away. Maula brought the herd to his house and while eating Sehri said to his mother, “These dumb animals are our guests, their owners will come from somewhere in a couple of days. The village’s honour is my honour too mother.”
The owners arrived the very next day. They were poor farmers and farmhands who had travelled countless miles entreating their trail finders until they had eventually arrived at Maula’s village. All the way the owners had been wondering about what they would do if their animals had ended up in Chauhdary Muzaffar’s area. When Maula returned their animals to them, the entire village had gathered in his street. Among them was Rajo too, she had fastened a cloth around her head upon which she had balanced a clay pot. As the crowd scattered Rajo too began to leave. As she passed by Maula he asked, “You have come to the village after many days”(Is this a a question??)
“Why?” She said it in such a manner, as if she were trying to show him that she feared no one. “I came yesterday, the day before that and the day before that too. I came early in the week to buy some garlic. The day before yesterday I brought Baba to the Hakeem[11]. I came yesterday for no reason and today I have come to sell ghee.”
“Why did you come yesterday for no reason?” Maula asked eagerly.
“Well, I felt like coming so I met my friends and left. Why?”
“No reason” Maula answered dejectedly. He then suddenly had an idea. “Will you sell this ghee?”
“Yes, I have to sell it but I won’t sell it to you.”
“Why?”
“Your hands are covered with the blood of my relatives.”
Maula remembered that he had left his stick in the corridor and that he had forgotten his Gandasa under his pillow. His hands begun to itch, he picked up a pebble and from the street and begun to rub it with his fingers. As Rajo turned to leave, Maula spoke hurriedly, “Look Rajo, my hands are covered with blood and goodness knows how much more blood they are yet to be covered in but you have to sell your ghee and I need to buy ghee. Don’t sell it to me if you don’t want to but you can sell it to my mother.” Rajo thought for a bit and said, “Ok, let’s go.”
Maula walked ahead of her. As he walked he felt as if Rajo was staring at his back and muscles. He looked back and saw that she was observing chicks pecking at birdfeed in the street, he immediately said, “These chicks are mine.”
“They could be”, Rajo replied. Maula had now entered the courtyard, “Mother, buy all this ghee. I will have guests arriving in a few days.”
Rajo took the pot off her head and removed the cloth covering it a bit so that the old woman could smell the ghee. Maula’s mother however had gone inside to bring the scales. Maula saw that Rajo had golden locks on her temples; her eyelashes were bent like longbows and could touch her eyebrows if she raised them. Her eyelashes had specks of dirt on them and there were small drops, the size of pinheads, of sweat on her nose. Her nostrils were in such a state that it did not seem as if she smelt ghee but instead the fragrance of roses. On the bridge of her lips there was sweat too and between her lower lip and chin there was a mole, stuck as if it would blow away if you blew on it.
There were silver chandelier earrings in her ear that swung like grape bunches on a vine. A lock had become tangled in an earring. Maula the Gandasa-wielder felt like delicately untangling and either placing it behind her ear or letting it just hang there or perhaps spreading it on his palm and counting every hair in it or… Maula was lost in his thoughts when his mother brought the scales out and sat down next to Rajo.
“Check the ghee first Aunty either by smelling it or rubbing it. It was freshly prepared this morning. It’s still warm from the boiling but you should still smell it”, Rajo said.
“No daughter, I won’t smell it” his mother said, “My fast will be nullified”. She then looked at Rajo closely and begun to stare intensely at Rajo. After a while she asked, “You are Ghulam Ali’s daughter aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of here” Maula’s mother picked the scales up, stood up and flung them away. “How dare you set foot inside my house? You have the audacity to trade ghee with us when the only trade that can happen between us is that of blood. Leave.” She then turned towards Maula and said, “My dear you, don’t buy Ghee from those who you should smite with your Gandasa. This is Ghulla’s fiancé. Ranga’s son Ghulla’s”
Rajo’s face had turned red with anger, she covered her pot quickly, picked it up and asked, “Do you have hearts in your breasts or poppy seeds?”
Maula felt as if he had been slapped on his face on one side by his mother and the other side by Rajo. He felt humiliated and when Rajo left he went and lay down on the charpai on the roof under the sheltering sun. He lay there for hours. When his mother came to call him down he was crying. “Maula, are you crying?” his mother asked in surprise and Maula replied, “Should I not even cry then?”
His mother’s head started spinning and she sat down dizzily. She was trying to find in her son’s question an answer to her own question. Now Maula no longer even stayed at his home. All day long he would sit at Noora’s tea stall at the bus station. Every day before sunset when the coach from the city would arrive, the entire village’s youth and children would crowd around there. Everyone would drink tea at Noora’s and ask the drivers about the latest news from the city.
Maula would sit aloof, far away from everyone on his charpai and gaze at the sky. Everyone had become used to Maula by now; they would even bring the hookah from near him. However nobody would dare touch his stick or leap over where it was spread taut from his charpai to the coach near it.
One day when the evening coach arrived and as the passengers disembarked a hush fell over the station. Slowly everyone had gone quiet as if death itself had arrived. Ranga’s son Ghulla got off the coach, four tall, broad, muscular men followed him. The five then went to a side and talked amongst themselves.
Maula noticed the silence around him and sat up on his Charpai. He saw that the crowd had flattened itself near Noora’s shop and opposite him was Ghulla pointing at him. He quickly swung his legs off the charpai and removed his Gandasa from his pocket. He fit it on his stick, “Noora bring the hookah here” he called. Noora bought the hookah over and with trembling hands placed it near him and then ran into his shop.
The five newcomers stood a distance from the coach and stared at Maula. Maula laconically/casually took a long drag on the hookah and blew its smoke in the air.
“Mauley” Gulla called out to him.
“Speak” Maula took another drag and blew its smoke towards Ghulla.
“We have come to tell you something”
“Go on then, say it.”
“Put your Gandasa aside, we are unarmed”
“Here,” Maula there his stick to one side. The five slowly advanced towards him. The crowd was almost as if it had stuck itself to the wall. The children had gone further back and climbed on the potters stoop to see above the crowd.
“What is it?” Maula asked Ghulla. Ghulla who had now reached near Maula asked, “Did you stop Chauhdary’s herd?”
“Yes”, Maula replied indifferently, “So?”
Ghulla looked out of the corner of his eyes toward his companion and cleared his throat. “Chauhdary Muzaffar has sent you a reward for this. He told us to hand over this reward to you in front of the entire village.”
“Reward?” Maula was surprised. “What’s this about?”
“This is what it’s about” Gulla smacked Maula’s face with a crack that echoed through the crowd and then moved back at a lightning pace.
Maula leapt back as if he had been electrocuted, he then lunged towards the charpai and picked up his stick in one fluid movement. The Gandasa shone like a flame in the setting sun’s light. The five newcomers retreated at non-human pace but Ghulla slipped on the loose pebbles near the coaches. Maula was upon him in an instant. The leaping Maula stopped, he raised his Gandasa and brought it down but then stopped it at an angle near Ghulla. The entranced crowd came forward slowly, the children too had left the stoop to get a better view. Noora had left his shop mouth agape.
Ghulla had dug his fingers and feet into the ground as if he wanted to bury himself deep into the ground to hide as far away from Maula as possible. As everyone watched Maula who had seemed to go into shock, took a step forward and flung his Gandasa away towards his charpai. He picked up Ghulla very carefully from the ground and said, “Give Chauhdary my greetings and tell him I have received his reward, I will come to give him the receipt for it myself”
Slowly, he dusted down Ghullas’s clothes, straightened his turban’s broken crest and said, “I would have given the receipt to you but you are yet to become a bridegroom. So go, be on your way, do whatever you have to do.”
Head bowed, Ghulla walked away slowly and turned into the streets. Maula slowly walked towards his charpai. As he moved forward, the crowd moved backward. As he tried to sit down his mother came running from the direction of the potter’s house, screaming like a banshee and beating her head. She came near Maula and spoke in an uncontrollable rage, “Ghulla slapped you and you did nothing to him. You used to be my brave son. Why didn’t your Gandasa strike him down? You….” She stopped beating her head suddenly and spoke very softly as if she were speaking from a land far away, “Maula, but are you crying?”
Maula the Gandasa-wielder sat down on the charpai and rubbed his eyes with his arm. Then with quivering lips spoke just like an innocent child, “So, should I not even cry now?”
Post-Script
[2] An Indian form of wrestling
[3] Traditional Indian drum
[4] Water-pipe of middle-eastern origin
[5] Title of a holy man
[6] A raised platform
[7] Punjabi equivalent of a sarong
[8] (First Information Report)
[9] The pre-dawn meal eaten before fasting
[10] Traditional Indian bed made from vine or rope wrapped around a wooden frame
Gandasa[1]
Author: Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi (20/11/1916 – 10/07/2006)
Translation: Shehzad Ashiq Ali
The ring had been set. The spectators had chosen their seats. The players of “Parkoddi”[2], glistening with the oil rubbed on their bodies were circling around the beating “Dhol”[3]. They wore brightly coloured loin clothes that had been tightly fastened around their bodies. Faint white straps had been run under their oiled locks towards their heads to resemble lotus flower petals.
Everywhere in the vast field there was the hustle and bustle of people talking and the bubbling of “Hookas”[4]. The form of past and present players was being analysed and opinions about their merits and faults discussed. The famous wrestling pairs had not entered the ring yet. Surrounded by their friends and fans, these renowned athletes were being massaged with oil with such vigour and fervour that their bodies shone in the fading rays of the sun as if they had transformed into copper statues. They then entered the ring, circled around the beating “Dhol” and then went to their corners jumping and dancing, warming themselves up for the impeding battle.
Suddenly a whisper went through the crowd which spiralled into a whirlwind as it went around, “Where is Maula?” All these spectators had come from far-afield, having travelled from distant fields to see the skills of Maula. “Maula’s best friend is not here either”. Another whirlwind now begun to form as the spectators left the ringside and started heading towards the exits. They formed a crowd that surged and pushed towards the exits.
The tournament organisers beat the grounds with their sticks, making dust clouds desperately trying to stop the crowd, they knew the dispersion of the crowd was not a good sign. However, suddenly all the crowd went silent as if a bomb had exploded far away, and returned to the ringside silently when somebody whispered into their ears, “Maula has entered the ring with his best friend”.
In the middle of the ring, lay a Dhol that had been heavily decorated with strings and knots. Maula circled gracefully around the Dhol three times and then touched the Dhol. He had just raised his hands in the air to shout “Ya Ali” when a cry pierced through the beating sound of the Dhol and hit him on his chest like a “Gandasa” whipping through the air, “Mauley, Mauleya my son, your father has been murdered!”
Maula’s raised hand swirled like a cobra taking aim and then as if in an instant it seemed his feet had grown wings. “Ranga gutted your father with his Gandasa” his mother’s voice pursued him as he ran.
Pandemonium broke out as the ringside crowd broke up, dhols stopped playing, wrestlers quickly got dressed. The crowd had begun to panic and stampeded in their haste to exit. Maula stamped through the streets, blowing dust through the air as if he were a whirlwind. Far behind him his best friend Taaja followed carrying his and Maula’s clothes wrapped in a bundle which he clung to his chest. Even further behind Taaja a terrified crowd followed anxious to see what would happen. In the village where nobody dared to walk bare headed Maula walked wearing only his pink loincloth, piercing through the crowds of people, sheep and flocks of lambs. When he had reached in front of the courtyard of Ranga, he saw a crowd was gathered there. From the crowd that faced him “Peer” Noor Shah emerged and shouted challengingly, “Maula, stop there”.
Maula seemed to leap but then almost as if his feet had been rooted to the ground stood still and seemed to transform into a statue. “Peer”[5] Noor Shah came up to him and said in his loud, booming voice, “You will go no further Maula”. Maula stood panting and looked straight into Peer Noor Shah’s eyes for a while. After a long pause he said, “If I don’t go any further Peer Jee then why should I live?”
“Because I say so”, Peer Jee said authoritatively, emphasising and stressing the I in his sentence.
Despite panting, Maula spoke breathlessly without breaking his stride, “Then rub coal on my face and cut off my nose. I have to avenge my father’s death Peer Jee. If it had been the killing of an animal then I would have turned back on your command”. Maula shook his neck violently and looked at Ranga’s “Chopal[6]“. Ranga and his son “Bhatto” stood chests puffed out, holding their Gandasa’s. The Gandasa blades glistened in the glare of the sun.
Ranga’s elder son spoke, “Come son, come. If I don’t spill your intestines out with one blow of my Gandasa then my name is not Qada. My Gandasa is rash and does not think where it strikes. Pampered sons who play Kabbadi don’t avenge their father’s death, they weep and go searching for a shroud to wrap his corpse in”.
It seemed as if Maula had just been waiting for him to finish speaking. He surged towards the stair of the “Chopal” however, now the crowd from the Kabbadi field had reached there too and stood in his way. Maula’s body was slippery from the oil rubbed on his body so he managed to slip out of the hands that tried to grab him, however, the crowd crowded around him like a steel fence which he could not break through.
One part of the crowd had also surrounded Ranga and his three sons and stopped them from advancing. The blades of four Gandasas shone in the fading sunlight as if they were pearls and kept waving menacingly when suddenly the crowd went into pin-drop silence. Peer Noor Shah wove through the crowd, his hands aloft holding the Quran. He slowly climbed the stairs of the chopal and then shouted out, his voice reaching the heaven above, “For the sake of Allah’s book go to your homes, otherwise, whole villages will be devastated you fools. Go, for the sake of God and his prophet, for the sake of the Holy Quran, go, leave here”
The crowd begun to disperse with their heads bowed. Maula hurriedly took his “laacha[7]” from Taaja and walked off the chopal. Peer Sahib, walked to Maula holding the Quran and said, “May Allah, give you patience and reward you for the good deed that you did today”.
Maula strove ahead with Taaja by his side. When he reached the corner of the narrow street that headed towards his home, he turned back and glanced at Ranga’s Chopal. “Maula, are you crying?” Taaja asked very sadly. Maula wiped his tears by rubbing his bare arm on his eyes, “So, should I not even cry now?”
“What will people say?” Taaja advised him. “Yes, Taajey”, Maula rubbed his eyes again with his arm, “That’s just what I am thinking that what will people say. The flies are feasting on my father’s blood and here I am running through the streets like a dog with its tail between its legs to go and cry on my mother’s shoulder”.
However Maula did not cry on his mother’s shoulder. He entered his house just as his relatives had decided to take his father’s body to the police station. His mother wailing and beating her chest came to him, looked at him and then said, “You’re shameless”. She turned her face away from him and went weeping to her husband’s body. Maula did not react and looked on with his face fixed in a scowl. He lifted his father’s bier and left with his family.
The body had not reached the police station yet when all hell broke loose at Ranga’s chopal. Ranga had descended from the chopal’s stairs and was about to enter his house when a Gandasa appeared from nowhere and sliced his stomach like a hot knife through butter. His intestines spilled on to his door step in a steaming pile. For a while there was pandemonium as people panicked, however, Ranga’s sons managed to collect their senses enough to mount their horses and gallop towards the police station.
They entered the police station yard but were shocked to see that the person they had come to report as their father’s killer was already there. Maula sat next to his father’s body reading prayers on a rosary bead. They tried to file an FIR[8] with Maula named as the killer by hook or crook but the constable persuaded them to not do so, otherwise, they would end up losing the real killer of their father. Now was the time for them to act sensibly and not give in to their rage, “He came here some time ago to report his own father’s death. How could he have killed your father at your house with a Gandasa?”
Eventually cases for both murders were registered, however, due to there being no eye witnesses, the accused were released without charge. The day Maula was released, the first thing after he duly received a loving kiss on his forehead from his mother was to go straight to Taaja’s house. He embraced him and said, “If I had not had you and your horse to help me that day, today I would have been swinging from the gallows with a noose around my neck. I swear on your life that after I had cut open Ranga’s stomach and mounted your horse I became like the wind. My father’s body had not even reached the police station and I managed to slip back into the procession without my absence being noticed.”
Everyone in the village knew that Maula was Ranga’s killer but apart from Taaja and a few close relatives nobody knew how it had happened. Everything quietened down but then one day a rumour begun to spread in the village that Maula’s father had actually been killed by Ranga’s son Qadir. Ranga had only been bragging. At the meeting points, in the sitting rooms, cafes, wherever people gathered, this was the only topic on everyone’s lips. In the morning, everyone heard that Qadir had been found dead on his rooftop in such a state that when his brothers Phulla and Ghulla had tried lifting his body, his head had rolled off and kept rolling till it fell into the gutter.
A report was filed and Maula was arrested again. The police tried everything in their power to make him confess to the murder. He inhaled the fumes of burning chillies, stood in the burning sun on a sheet of steel. God knows how many sleepless nights he endured when as soon as he slumbered, he was poked with a stick till he woke up. Maula withstood all these torments and stood firm. He did not confess to the murder. Despite the best efforts of the Maliks who had pressurised the police constantly, he was reluctantly released after many months.
Maula returned to his village a free man. When he entered his house’s courtyard his mother came running, kissed him on the forehead and said, “Two still remain my son. Only when you leave nobody behind who will bear Ranga’s name will I call you my son. Repay the debt of the milk I have fed you which has nourished you. Through your veins flows your father’s blood too. Prove yourself worthy of bearing his name. See here I did not let your Gandasa rust, it still shines”.
Maula now became the terror of his neighbourhood. His moustache grew until it curled at each end, in his ears hung large golden earrings, his long hair smelt with fragranced oil. A crescent shaped comb made from ivory shone on his forehead. When he walked through the streets, at least half a metre of his cummerbund trailed behind him marking wherever he went. A thin cotton scarf hung on his shoulder. Often one end of it would fall on the floor and scrape on the floor and would keep scraping till it wore thin. In Maula’s hand there was always a long stick that stood taller than him and whenever he sat on the street corner or crossroad he rested this stick on his knee. No passer by dared to ask Maula to move the stick aside.
If at any time the stick became wedged between two opposing walls, people would come, look at the stick, look at Maula and then turn on their heels and go another way. Men and children no longer even went near the streets where Maula would usually be found. The problem became even worse because nobody even dared to jump over Maula’s stick.
Once, a young stranger walked through a street, where Maula was sitting. Maula was idly poking the wall opposite with his stick. The stranger came and jumped over Maula’s stick. Instantly Maula became enraged, took the Gandasa blade from his pocket and fit it to the stick. He then called out the stranger, “Stop boy, do you know whose stick you have leapt over? This is Maula’s. Maula the Gandasa-Wielder.”
The stranger became pale when he heard Maula’s name and he hesitantly replied, “I did not know, Maula.” Maula took off the blade and put it in his pocket. He then tapped the strangers’ stomach lightly with one end of his stick, “Be on your way then.” He then laid his stick again from one end of the street to the other and sat down.
Maula’s clothes, his gait, his moustache and above all his cavalier attitude became the fashion of his village and from there spread to the entire area. One aspect however of Maula that did not become fashionable was his long stick. Glistened with oil, decorated with lotus flowers, sealed at each end by steel caps that played tunes on the street pebbles as it hit them, which spread with all its length nobody dared to cross. On it he often adorned the Gandasa blade, which was in his pocket. The blade on which his mother could not tolerate a speck of rust lest it dull Maula’s thirst for revenge.
The villagers said that Maula sat in the streets with his stick outstretched, Gandasa blade hidden seeking Ghulla and Phulla. After Qada’s death and Maula’s release, Phulla had enlisted in the army and moved away while Ghulla had sought protection from the area’s famous rope pulling champion Chauhdary Muzaffar Ilahee. Like Chauhdary’s other servants, Ghulla would scour the banks of Chenab and Ravi to steal cows and buffaloes. Chauhdary Muzaffar would sell them and from the proceeds host lavish parties for the rich, ministers and politicians with whom he had photos taken that would be published in the newspapers and magazines with his name emblazoned under them.
The trail finders of Ravi and Chenab that investigated the missing livestock would start following their trail. As these tracks would approach Chauhdary Muzaffar’s village, the trail finders would think to themselves, “I had already guessed this.” They knew that if they followed the trails to the Chauhdary’s house then after a while people would instead be trying to track the trail finders’ last movements themselves but would not be able to find them. Afraid of the Chauhdary, they would walk through to the coast and then return saying, “Their trail goes cold here.”
Maula had heard of Chauhdary Muzaffar and his long reaching arms. He thought that in this whole area only Chauhdary Muzaffar had the courage to leap over his stick, however, for the moment he was awaiting the reappearance of Ranga’s both sons.
Taaja told Maula off like a big brother that if nothing else he should look after his lands. What was the point of sitting from dawn till sunset with his stick in the streets, servants and lackies running around him, at his beck and call. Perhaps you don’t know it but you should know it for your own good that mothers have been using you to scare their children. Girls spit when they hear your name, if a girl wants to curse another she says, “May Allah marry you to Maula.” Are you listening?
“Oh Taaja, leave me alone”. The fire that Maula had been forged in had transformed him. He asked, “Have you gathered all the insults from the village to lay at my feet? Fulfilling friendship is a hard task, not everyone can do it. If you can longer bear the burden of friendship then why have you come to mislead me? The thirst of my Gandasa has not been quenched yet. Go.” He struck the floor with his Gandasa and called a servant from the house opposite. “You have not refilled the hookah yet fool. Had you fallen asleep? Bring the Hookah bowl.”
Taaja turned away. At the corner of the street he turned and looked at Maula as if he would burst crying at his young death. Maula was looking at him from the corner of his eyes. He got up and walked over to Taaja dragging his stick behind him. He stood next to him and said, “Taaja it seems as if you are pitying me because once upon a time I was your friend. Our friendship is over now though. If you cannot support me then of what use is your friendship to me? My father’s blood is not so cheap that it can be avenged by the death of just Ranga and his son. My Gandasa has yet to smite his granddaughters and grandsons. Our ways have parted. Don’t pity me, if someone pities me it dulls my Gandasa’s blade. Go.”
Maula returned and sat down. When he took the hookah bowl from his servant the embers blew and scattered. A glowing ember fell on his hand and glowed there for a moment. The servant tried to dust it off Maula’s hand but Maula swatted his hand away with such force that he doubled over in pain. He squeezed his hand tightly between his thighs and backed away to a side. Maula roared, “He pities me, the bastard.” He picked the hookah bowl and flung it at the wall. He then stormed off carrying his stick.
When people saw Maula sitting at a new street corner, they were surprised and whispered amongst one another. They then thought it best to turn away and scatter from where he sat. Women who were carrying pitchers on their return from the well saw his stick spread across the narrow street and could only exclaim in despair because they knew they could not pass it. Everyone thought Maula was out for Blood. While people around him were wondering what Maula was doing, Maula was observing an eagle sitting on the mosque’s minaret.
He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of his stick striking the pebbles. Startled, he saw a young girl had picked his stick up and rested it against the wall. She was now busy gathering up the red, long chillies which had fallen from the bundle on her head when she had bent over. Maula was dumbstruck by her audacity. Forget jumping over the stick, she a woman had laid his stick aside as if it were a filthy rag and was now sitting contently in front of him picking her chillies.
Outraged Maula shouted, “Do you know whose stick you have touched? Do you know who I am?” She raised her hands and while stuffing the chillies in her bundle said, “You seem to be some grouch.”
Enraged Maula stood up. She too arose and looking into his eyes said softly, “That’s why I did not hit your stick on your head, you looked so lost and lonely I felt pity for you”. “You felt pity for me?” Maula screamed. “Maula?” the girl held her bundles with both hands and was slightly surprised.
“Yes, Maula the Gandasa-wielder” Maula said with pride. She smiled faintly and moved into the street. Maula stood there a while quietly, took a deep sigh and then sat down against the wall. When he had spread his stick against the opposing wall he saw an elderly lady coming from the other side. She saw Maula and stopped. Maula raised his stick, put it to one side and called her, “Come Aunty, come I won’t bite you.” Shocked the woman came and as she passed by him said, “What lies people tell, people say that wherever Maula sits even a mad dog dare not go there. Yet for me you picked up your stick…”
“Who says that?” Maula stood up and asked quizzically. “Everyone says it, the whole village says it. I was at the well just now and this is all they could talk about. I, however, have seen with my very own eyes that Maula Bukhsh…”
However, by now Maula was too far away to listen. He had leapt into the street where the young girl had just gone. He walked at a brisk pace until he finally saw her walking slowly at the end of a street. He begun to ran, women sitting in their courtyards came to their doorsteps and children climbed on to their roofs. Maula’s running in the street was interpreted as the prelude to some cataclysm. The girl had heard the sound of Maula’s footsteps; she turned around and stood where she was. All she did was to hold her bundle with both her hands; a few chillies fell from it onto her feet like smouldering embers.
“I won’t do anything to you” Maula cried out, “I will not harm you don’t be afraid”.
The girl replied, “I did not stop in fear, may my enemies be frightened.”
Maula stopped, he then walked up to her slowly and said, “Just tell me that, who are you?” A smile delicately spread across her face. From behind him he heard an old woman’s voice, “Maula Bukhsh, She is Ranga’s youngest son’s fiancé, Rajo.”
Maula stared at Rajo in shock. He saw Ranga and Ranga’s entire family standing near Rajo. His hand went to the pocket where his Gandasa was but then fell down limp. Rajo turned and walked away slowly.
Maula threw his stick to one side and said, “Rajo wait, here, take your chillies”. Rajo stopped; Maula bent and picked up every single chilli he could find. As he stuffed them into Rajo’s bundle he asked, “You felt pity for me, didn’t you Rajo?”
Rajo’s face hardened and she walked away. Maula turned and went his way. He had walked a short distance when the old woman called him, “Maula Bakhsh, you have left your stick behind, here it is”. Maula returned and as he took his stick from the old woman asked, “Aunty, this girl Rajo does she live around here? I have never seen her here before.”
“She is from here and not from here too”, the old woman replied. When her father realised after the death of his two young sons that he could no longer carry the plough every day from his house to the fields he built a small hut in the fields 2-3 furlongs from here. Rajo lives there with her father. She only comes to the village every three, four days to buy goods and that’s about it.”
Maula could only reply with, “Hmm” and returned. The news that Maula had left his stick somewhere and forgot it there spread through the village like wildfire. In these conversations Rajo’s name was mentioned a few times but it was instantly suppressed. After all, the only relation between Maula and Ranga’s household was that of the Gandasa and Rajo was after all Ranga’s son’s fiancé. Nobody wanted either side to accuse them of slandering them because above all when who did not hold their life dear?
After this event, Maula disappeared from the streets. All day long he would sit at home and dig the flowerbed’s soil with his stick. If he did go outside at all, he would wander around in the fields and grazing pastures for a bit and then return home. His mother was surprised by his behaviour but said nothing to him. She knew that Maula’s head was filled with rage and that he was weighed under the weight of murders. Of those that he committed and those he had been unable to commit.
It was the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. The drums heralding its arrival had beaten and fallen silent. Houses throughout the village were preparing for Sehri[9]. The sound of yoghurt being churned and Rotis being cooked on girdles filled the air, like the mysterious bells that rang in temples.
Maula’s mother too had turned on the stove was cooking Roti. Maula lay on a Charpai[10] on the roof staring at the sky. Suddenly, in a nearby street, a commotion broke out. Maula armed his stick with the Gandasa and leapt from the roof into the street. He ran towards where the noise was coming from. Along the way from every house people emerged with lanterns and the noise only grew louder. When Maula reached where the commotion was he saw three strangers armed with spears and swords shepherding a herd of cows and buffaloes through the village streets. The village guard had tried to stop them but they had swore at him and said, “This herd belongs to Chauhdary Muzaffar Illahi. This is only a lowly village, when his herds pass through the streets of Lahore even there nobody dares to whimper”
Maula felt as if Chahudary Muzaffar himself had arrived in the village street and was trying to snatch his Gandasa from him. Maula snapped, “This herd of Chauhdary will not pass through my village no matter whether this herd belongs to Chauhdary Muzaffar or some minister himself. Leave the animals here and be on your way quietly, if you know what’s best for you.” He lowered his stick, the Gandasa blade shone in the lanterns light. “Go” Maula ordered.
Maula begun to herd the animals with his stick to one side, “Go tell your Chahudary Muzaffar that Maula the Gandasa wielder sends his greetings. Now be on your way.” The strangers saw the expressions on the crowds faces had changed because of Maula and were now full of rage. They thought it best to quietly slip away. Maula brought the herd to his house and while eating Sehri said to his mother, “These dumb animals are our guests, their owners will come from somewhere in a couple of days. The village’s honour is my honour too mother.”
The owners arrived the very next day. They were poor farmers and farmhands who had travelled countless miles entreating their trail finders until they had eventually arrived at Maula’s village. All the way the owners had been wondering about what they would do if their animals had ended up in Chauhdary Muzaffar’s area. When Maula returned their animals to them, the entire village had gathered in his street. Among them was Rajo too, she had fastened a cloth around her head upon which she had balanced a clay pot. As the crowd scattered Rajo too began to leave. As she passed by Maula he asked, “You have come to the village after many days”(Is this a a question??)
“Why?” She said it in such a manner, as if she were trying to show him that she feared no one. “I came yesterday, the day before that and the day before that too. I came early in the week to buy some garlic. The day before yesterday I brought Baba to the Hakeem[11]. I came yesterday for no reason and today I have come to sell ghee.”
“Why did you come yesterday for no reason?” Maula asked eagerly.
“Well, I felt like coming so I met my friends and left. Why?”
“No reason” Maula answered dejectedly. He then suddenly had an idea. “Will you sell this ghee?”
“Yes, I have to sell it but I won’t sell it to you.”
“Why?”
“Your hands are covered with the blood of my relatives.”
Maula remembered that he had left his stick in the corridor and that he had forgotten his Gandasa under his pillow. His hands begun to itch, he picked up a pebble and from the street and begun to rub it with his fingers. As Rajo turned to leave, Maula spoke hurriedly, “Look Rajo, my hands are covered with blood and goodness knows how much more blood they are yet to be covered in but you have to sell your ghee and I need to buy ghee. Don’t sell it to me if you don’t want to but you can sell it to my mother.” Rajo thought for a bit and said, “Ok, let’s go.”
Maula walked ahead of her. As he walked he felt as if Rajo was staring at his back and muscles. He looked back and saw that she was observing chicks pecking at birdfeed in the street, he immediately said, “These chicks are mine.”
“They could be”, Rajo replied. Maula had now entered the courtyard, “Mother, buy all this ghee. I will have guests arriving in a few days.”
Rajo took the pot off her head and removed the cloth covering it a bit so that the old woman could smell the ghee. Maula’s mother however had gone inside to bring the scales. Maula saw that Rajo had golden locks on her temples; her eyelashes were bent like longbows and could touch her eyebrows if she raised them. Her eyelashes had specks of dirt on them and there were small drops, the size of pinheads, of sweat on her nose. Her nostrils were in such a state that it did not seem as if she smelt ghee but instead the fragrance of roses. On the bridge of her lips there was sweat too and between her lower lip and chin there was a mole, stuck as if it would blow away if you blew on it.
There were silver chandelier earrings in her ear that swung like grape bunches on a vine. A lock had become tangled in an earring. Maula the Gandasa-wielder felt like delicately untangling and either placing it behind her ear or letting it just hang there or perhaps spreading it on his palm and counting every hair in it or… Maula was lost in his thoughts when his mother brought the scales out and sat down next to Rajo.
“Check the ghee first Aunty either by smelling it or rubbing it. It was freshly prepared this morning. It’s still warm from the boiling but you should still smell it”, Rajo said.
“No daughter, I won’t smell it” his mother said, “My fast will be nullified”. She then looked at Rajo closely and begun to stare intensely at Rajo. After a while she asked, “You are Ghulam Ali’s daughter aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of here” Maula’s mother picked the scales up, stood up and flung them away. “How dare you set foot inside my house? You have the audacity to trade ghee with us when the only trade that can happen between us is that of blood. Leave.” She then turned towards Maula and said, “My dear you, don’t buy Ghee from those who you should smite with your Gandasa. This is Ghulla’s fiancé. Ranga’s son Ghulla’s”
Rajo’s face had turned red with anger, she covered her pot quickly, picked it up and asked, “Do you have hearts in your breasts or poppy seeds?”
Maula felt as if he had been slapped on his face on one side by his mother and the other side by Rajo. He felt humiliated and when Rajo left he went and lay down on the charpai on the roof under the sheltering sun. He lay there for hours. When his mother came to call him down he was crying. “Maula, are you crying?” his mother asked in surprise and Maula replied, “Should I not even cry then?”
His mother’s head started spinning and she sat down dizzily. She was trying to find in her son’s question an answer to her own question. Now Maula no longer even stayed at his home. All day long he would sit at Noora’s tea stall at the bus station. Every day before sunset when the coach from the city would arrive, the entire village’s youth and children would crowd around there. Everyone would drink tea at Noora’s and ask the drivers about the latest news from the city.
Maula would sit aloof, far away from everyone on his charpai and gaze at the sky. Everyone had become used to Maula by now; they would even bring the hookah from near him. However nobody would dare touch his stick or leap over where it was spread taut from his charpai to the coach near it.
One day when the evening coach arrived and as the passengers disembarked a hush fell over the station. Slowly everyone had gone quiet as if death itself had arrived. Ranga’s son Ghulla got off the coach, four tall, broad, muscular men followed him. The five then went to a side and talked amongst themselves.
Maula noticed the silence around him and sat up on his Charpai. He saw that the crowd had flattened itself near Noora’s shop and opposite him was Ghulla pointing at him. He quickly swung his legs off the charpai and removed his Gandasa from his pocket. He fit it on his stick, “Noora bring the hookah here” he called. Noora bought the hookah over and with trembling hands placed it near him and then ran into his shop.
The five newcomers stood a distance from the coach and stared at Maula. Maula laconically/casually took a long drag on the hookah and blew its smoke in the air.
“Mauley” Gulla called out to him.
“Speak” Maula took another drag and blew its smoke towards Ghulla.
“We have come to tell you something”
“Go on then, say it.”
“Put your Gandasa aside, we are unarmed”
“Here,” Maula there his stick to one side. The five slowly advanced towards him. The crowd was almost as if it had stuck itself to the wall. The children had gone further back and climbed on the potters stoop to see above the crowd.
“What is it?” Maula asked Ghulla. Ghulla who had now reached near Maula asked, “Did you stop Chauhdary’s herd?”
“Yes”, Maula replied indifferently, “So?”
Ghulla looked out of the corner of his eyes toward his companion and cleared his throat. “Chauhdary Muzaffar has sent you a reward for this. He told us to hand over this reward to you in front of the entire village.”
“Reward?” Maula was surprised. “What’s this about?”
“This is what it’s about” Gulla smacked Maula’s face with a crack that echoed through the crowd and then moved back at a lightning pace.
Maula leapt back as if he had been electrocuted, he then lunged towards the charpai and picked up his stick in one fluid movement. The Gandasa shone like a flame in the setting sun’s light. The five newcomers retreated at non-human pace but Ghulla slipped on the loose pebbles near the coaches. Maula was upon him in an instant. The leaping Maula stopped, he raised his Gandasa and brought it down but then stopped it at an angle near Ghulla. The entranced crowd came forward slowly, the children too had left the stoop to get a better view. Noora had left his shop mouth agape.
Ghulla had dug his fingers and feet into the ground as if he wanted to bury himself deep into the ground to hide as far away from Maula as possible. As everyone watched Maula who had seemed to go into shock, took a step forward and flung his Gandasa away towards his charpai. He picked up Ghulla very carefully from the ground and said, “Give Chauhdary my greetings and tell him I have received his reward, I will come to give him the receipt for it myself”
Slowly, he dusted down Ghullas’s clothes, straightened his turban’s broken crest and said, “I would have given the receipt to you but you are yet to become a bridegroom. So go, be on your way, do whatever you have to do.”
Head bowed, Ghulla walked away slowly and turned into the streets. Maula slowly walked towards his charpai. As he moved forward, the crowd moved backward. As he tried to sit down his mother came running from the direction of the potter’s house, screaming like a banshee and beating her head. She came near Maula and spoke in an uncontrollable rage, “Ghulla slapped you and you did nothing to him. You used to be my brave son. Why didn’t your Gandasa strike him down? You….” She stopped beating her head suddenly and spoke very softly as if she were speaking from a land far away, “Maula, but are you crying?”
Maula the Gandasa-wielder sat down on the charpai and rubbed his eyes with his arm. Then with quivering lips spoke just like an innocent child, “So, should I not even cry now?”
Post-Script
- This short story was later used as the basis for the 1975 Pakistani Punjabi film Wehshi Jatt. Directed by Hassan Askari, scripted by Nasir Adeeb and starring Sultan Rahi as Maula and Ilyas Kashmiri as Ranga, Aasia as Mukho(Rajo), the film launched the character of Maula into the national psyche.
- In 1979, Sarwar Bhatti directed an unofficial sequel to Wehshi Jatt, Maula Jatt. The film reprised the character of Maula but also introduced Mustafa Qureshi as his rival. The films strong characterisation and snappy script unwittingly set the template for all future Punjabi action films.
[2] An Indian form of wrestling
[3] Traditional Indian drum
[4] Water-pipe of middle-eastern origin
[5] Title of a holy man
[6] A raised platform
[7] Punjabi equivalent of a sarong
[8] (First Information Report)
[9] The pre-dawn meal eaten before fasting
[10] Traditional Indian bed made from vine or rope wrapped around a wooden frame
