The Player

‘I had a mud house by the riv­er,’ said the ragged man of forty or so with a har­mo­ni­um at his side. ‘The flood … took it. My boys were inside. A twelve and a four­teen…  and all that was left was mud and water.’

His voice petered out as he turned his head slow­ly towards the fruit seller’s cush­ion, which was emp­ty. His pale rather sal­low face hung loose, and the neat­ly laid fruit dap­pled the black eyes with col­ors, grow­ing grim­mer and deep­er. The ground on which he sat was soft mud, sod­den and spat with red paan. His eyes died out short­ly, and he was star­ing emp­ti­ly over the big play­ground.

An iron rail­ing sur­round­ed the play­ground: old, flaky, with tiny brown chips of rust­ed iron tak­ing off in a breeze. In this inner city com­mu­ni­ty, this plot of land was called the doon­ga ground. Because com­pared to the colony and the bazaar next to it, it was deep­er, and when it rained (and it had been pour­ing down for three days stop­ping only that morn­ing) it filled up to the edge of the rail­ing with brown water. Some of the mud and grass spilled over to the bazaar and the near­by gul­leys and mucked them up.

Inside the ground the water had been reced­ing tardi­ly since morn­ing, but the jun­gle-gym, the slides, and the swings stayed under. Boys from the neigh­bor­hood rol­licked in that water turn­ing the doon­ga ground into a giant swim­ming pool. Their dark, lean limbs shuf­fled nois­i­ly; though some float­ed rather qui­et­ly in inflat­ed tyre-tubes. In the emp­ty pock­ets between them, count­less mos­qui­toes swirled over the sur­face of water, most­ly on top of the small arch­i­pel­a­gos of man­go peels and poly­thene bags, drift­ing ran­dom­ly; at the top of it all was a spray of ani­mal waste blown over from the road by the breeze.

More of these yel­low peels dot­ted the ground around the har­mo­ni­um play­er. Large, black ants scur­ried out their folds and con­fus­ed­ly in all direc­tions. Some to the trash heap beside the shop; oth­ers, towards the play­er, who sat still like a fig­ure carved in stone, sting­ing his thighs through the frail fab­ric of his dhoti. He was unmoved. Per­haps, he felt noth­ing. The grave emo­tion in his eyes last­ed, and they looked in a dis­tance, beyond the scene, at some mem­o­ry.

‘Still here?’ the fruit seller’s voice came sharp and cut­ting. ‘You’re real­ly, real­ly wait­ing for the water to go all the way down? Lis­ten­ing to me or not, miraasi?’

The play­er turned to him slow­ly. Now a rather fat and old man accom­pa­nied the fruit sell­er. He car­ried a shop­ping bas­ket and twice already he’d spat out a load of red paan juice. In one look he seemed to be one of those old retirees whose sole pro­fes­sion in life is to fetch gro­ceries for home. Since it’s all they have to do, they take their time doing it, mean­der­ing from shop to shop, argu­ing over pol­i­tics, con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, crick­et. Usu­al­ly they find fault in every­thing; and often they count to the shop­keep­ers the rea­sons why the world was com­ing to an end.

This par­tic­u­lar old man was well known in the bazaar. Espe­cial­ly, to the aged shop­keep­ers like him­self, or those whose busi­ness was down, and so had plen­ty of time to waste away chat­ter­ing with him. They liked him because he was fun­ny, and because he cussed fer­vent­ly and col­or­ful­ly. They kept a stool or a moorha wait­ing for him out­side the shop, and as he passed by, they called out his sur­name, ‘Malik sahib!’ And in response, he casu­al­ly raised his hand, point­ed to the heav­ens, indi­cat­ing that Allah the one and only was watch­ing over the whole world.

He was a stern look­ing man. He had a pas­sive but severe face, a big nose and small eyes. He seemed a man of some swag­ger, but tru­ly, apart from the shop­keep­ers and the bank teller who hand­ed him his pen­sion at the begin­ning of the month, nobody paid much atten­tion to him. Nobody, for instance, knew his first name.

Present­ly, he low­ered his large rump onto the small wood­en seat in front of the shop, breath­ing heav­i­ly and set­tling with some effort. He was a few paces from the har­mo­ni­um play­er, and as yet hadn’t noticed him. The heavy pant­i­ng cul­mi­nat­ed in a frown, a hoarse voice issued forth, ‘How much for the jamun?’ he asked the fruit-sell­er, who turned to him with an obse­quious, stu­pid sort of grin.

The old man ran his pudgy, twitchy fin­gers though the lit­tle pur­ple fruit and didn’t seem impressed. ‘Six­ty rupees kilo only, Malik sahib,’ the fruit sell­er has­tened to say. ‘Mar­ket rate jee. Noth­ing in it for me.’

‘Six­ty rupees? You mad man? You’re telling me the jamun-price or the man­go price?’

‘Jamun, jamun price, Malik sahib! Oh, by Allah, what can I do about it? Jamun is now man­go price and man­go is now gold price. What gov­ern­ment you’ve brought Malik jee!’

‘I brought it? I brought it, you say? I brought the moth­er­fuck­ing gov­ern­ment? Bloody Amer­i­can tatu gov­ern­ment!’

The fruit sell­er chuck­led, know­ing well Malik sahib’s ways. How he blew hot and cold. Sure­ly, now he was ready for  some busi­ness. ‘Oh dear Malik jee, tell me, how much then? One, or two kilo? Real good stuff this. So sweet you see, so soft?’

Malik sahib mum­bled some­thing illeg­i­ble; his tem­per hav­ing sub­sided as quick­ly as it had risen. He took a big heave, coughed. ‘Why not I take some man­goes if I’m going to pay so much? And what’s with all these peels around here? What a rot!’ He looked around dis­gust­ed­ly, with a crum­pled fore­head. It seemed he might explode again, but all of a sud­den the repul­sion turned part­ly into curi­ous­ness. Odd thing, that man – that man with that har­mo­ni­um. How filthy he looked. What was he look­ing at? Noth­ing, he was look­ing at noth­ing? Who looks at noth­ing? What was he up to any­way? What was his busi­ness there?

‘Who’s that?’ Malik sahib demand­ed. ‘That miraasi there, oye! Lis­ten­ing are you?’

The play­er, dead as a log, star­ing over the peels in the water made no response. But the sec­ond time Malik sahib called out to him he woke up, with a hint of life in his shoul­ders and a slight curve on his brows. His shad­ow was long and deep in the twi­light, spilled on the rail­ing and slow­ly into the water. It turned.

The fruit sell­er start­ed furi­ous­ly. ‘Oh, what to tell you, Malik jee. Been here since morn­ing. Don’t know where they come from. He’s been play­ing that baja, dis­tract­ing the cus­tomers and what­not. I ask him when you’re going, and he says when the water’s gone. Now how’s that hap­pen­ing? Oye! Lis­ten­ing to Malik sahib or not?’

He turned, ever so slow­ly on his rump, and gazed the old man, like a ter­ri­fied bazaar cat, bow­ing its head a tad, noth­ing say­ing. Malik sahib’s small, fiery eyes drilled him. ‘Don’t you hear the first time? Deaf are you?’

He shook his head, hes­i­tant­ly, and then in the most ten­u­ous voice he answered. ‘Me jee? You ask me?’ a bit of spit­tle hung from his low­er lip, and stuck to his chin.

‘You! Who else? You see any­one else here? What you up to?’

‘I…I jee…’

‘Speak up you!’ the fruit sell­er thun­dered.

In a burst of ner­vous ener­gy the play­er grabbed his har­mo­ni­um and set it before his fold­ed legs. ‘Should I play for you? May I play for you? Any song! Any song at all!’

‘What’s that stink?’ said Malik sahib. ‘So foul, Allah!’

‘That’s him! Him!’ exclaimed the fruit sell­er. ‘Oye, when you last took bath?’

The play­er looked down at the dis­col­ored keys of the har­mo­ni­um,  mor­ti­fied.

‘But don’t be encour­ag­ing him Malik jee. He’ll stick around like a fly he will. You order me please sir, man­goes it is?’

‘Wait a minute, yaar!’ Malik sahib said with a wave of his hand. ‘What do you play oye, miraasi? You didn’t steal that baja from some­where, did you?’

‘I… I play jee,’ stut­tered the man. ‘Any song! Any song at all!’

‘Song? No, no. No song.’ Malik sahib shook his head. ‘Do you know the Heer?’

The play­er didn’t catch him at fist in the din of the bathing boys. ‘What is jee?’ he asked with squint­ed eyes, hands cup­ping his ears.

The fruit sell­er shout­ed. ‘Oye the Heer of Waris Shah! Don’t you know it?’

‘I know, I know!’ the play­er sparkled up. ‘Want me to play jee? I play you the great Heer of the king of the poets of the poets, Waris Shah, as they say there’s not going to be anoth­er like him. Want me to sing jee? Waris Shah di Heer jee?’

His sud­den ani­ma­tion sur­prised Malik sahib. But the fruit sell­er was skep­ti­cal. ‘Looks like he not hear­ing you at all,’ he whis­pered to Malik sahib, ‘I won­der how he’ll play! I say we shoo away this mad man Malik jee. Bad song can make sick.’

But the old man exam­ined the play­er at some length, with his sharp, prob­ing eyes. Final­ly, he spat out some paan and nod­ded. ‘Chal, go on… sing the Heer! We’ll see what you got. Go on, yes, sing it.’

The play­er sprang up and took a minute to find a more com­fort­able spot on the mud. Then he adjust­ed the stops on his har­mo­ni­um and set it before him so that one of his arms went over to the bel­lows and the oth­er hand sat on the keys, he cleared his throat. ‘Am I allowed jee?’

‘Allowed, allowed!’ cried the fruit sell­er. And the play­er began the song of the Heer. His voice was deep and strange­ly melo­di­ous. He sang a pas­sage describ­ing Heer’s beau­ty; how her red lips were bright like rubies and her cheeks soft and fine like import­ed apples, and her teeth twin­kled like pearls.

A num­ber of bathing boys aban­doned their frol­ick­ing and gath­ered around him; all qui­et­ly with hands tied and heads sway­ing gen­tly in tune; even Malik sahib and the fruit sell­er lis­tened intent­ly; the mys­te­ri­ous con­tours of his voice mel­lowed the mood of the orange twi­light. The road water, though the filth­i­est of Lahore, blushed like the soft cheeks of Heer, that scent­ed like a rare flower of the sea­son.

The song last­ed some fif­teen min­utes, and all along the boys stood still around the man with the har­mo­ni­um, and mos­qui­toes swirled in cir­cles on top of their heads. The soar­ing tenor of the play­er, the ebbing, flow­ing, swing­ing, jump­ing and jan­gling sounds of his instru­ment were spell­bind­ing. Indeed, he him­self seemed to have been trans­port­ed to anoth­er world, the intox­i­ca­tion of which was quite evi­dent in his man­ners. He sang not only from his mouth but his whole body. Now again in his eyes appeared a flash of col­ors that sus­tained for as long as the song, and even after he had stopped. A silence lin­gered in the wake of the beau­ti­ful song. Then the boys all clapped and the noise end­ed the mag­ic.

Malik sahib took a deep breath. ‘Well… I’ve heard bet­ter. But you gave a try, man, you are okay,’ he said grudg­ing­ly.  ‘Now,’ he broke off and addressed the fruit sell­er, ‘pack the man­goes, man. And quick, I’m run­ning late.’

The fruit sell­er hur­ried for a shop­ping bag and start­ed pick­ing man­goes from a bas­ket. Malik sahib got up from his seat with anoth­er big heave, a deep cough, and spat again. As the fruit sell­er hand­ed him the bag and he was count­ing mon­ey to pay, he asked per­func­to­ri­ly – nei­ther expect­ing nor want­i­ng an answer. ‘So what else do you play, miraasi?’

The answer was loud and res­o­nant, ‘Any song! Any song you ask. Indi­an song, new song, all songs!’

‘Indi­an?’ Malik sahib swiveled sud­den­ly, boil­ing up. The play­er cringed as though a brick was hurled his way. ‘I tell you, I tell you! This Indi­an Hin­du Kali-mata stuff, it all over the damn place!….You know…you know … miraasi, you know they drink cow piss? Cow piss!’

Malik sahib said the dirt­i­est words and made the crum­mi­est ges­tures. The play­er gulped, duck­ing for cov­er behind his har­mo­ni­um. The fruit sell­er and the boys, how­ev­er, sim­ply stood there and laughed.

‘I see. I see. Is that so, miraasi? Fine, tell me which song. No, I mean, let’s have it. Let’s have the damned song…go on. Play!’

Very hes­i­tant­ly the play­er approached his instru­ment, look­ing up at all times lest Malik sahib pounce on him while he wasn’t look­ing. It was a new song from an Indi­an film, and the boys took to it at once. The cur­mud­geon shook his head, grum­bling.

As the song went on he made a long ser­mon to the fruit sell­er about our val­ues and our cul­ture. He deliv­ered with great ener­gy, tremen­dous pas­sion. Like only he could do. He could shift effort­less­ly from one top­ic to the oth­er. Often times he quot­ed from the Koran and the life and say­ings of the Holy Prophet. He could tell hun­dreds of sto­ries. He could go on at great length about any­thing. Any­thing at all! So when he walked down the bazar and point­ed to the sky, instead of answer­ing back, it was to remind every­one that he had a lot on his mind. And a lot in his reper­toire. His reper­toire, no less col­ored or var­ied than the har­mo­nioum player’s, and which he was as keen to indulge as the singer on the mud was to play his baja.

He went on and on, until even­tu­al­ly his anger tapered off, and an easy pride took its place. He could even have a halo on his head. ‘It’s miraa­sis like these, spread­ing the rot.’ He con­clud­ed. ‘Stop already!’ The play­er sprung away from the har­mo­ni­um,  pale in ter­ror. The danc­ing boys ran off on the crack of that voice, so loud that the old man had to bat­tle to breathe after­wards. ‘Well, I’m quite done with this mess,’ he said, wheez­ing, hand­ing the fruit sell­er a damp hun­dred rupee note. ‘I’m sick of  naked stuff … and all this song busi­ness. I’m telling you miraasi you should do some good work. Some fair labour. I ask you, if you can car­ry around that baja then by God, can’t you push a bar­row?’

The play­er nod­ded, per­haps from fear, but his gaze was fixed on the hun­dred rupee note that had been hand­ed to the fruit sell­er. In the fade light his crum­pled fig­ure next to the trash heap wasn’t any dif­fer­ent from it: a crouch­ing, amor­phous shape, dark and infi­nite­ly dis­mal. But now a large, bright tear streaked down his rough, dent­ed cheek, and set­tled on his chin, where it twin­kled in the yel­low light of the fruit shop’s bulb.

‘I had a mud-house by the riv­er…’ he qua­vered out.

Both Malik sahib and the fruit sell­er turned his way ‘…the flood took it… My boys were inside… twelve and four­teen…. and all that was left was mud and water…’

He sobbed and con­vulsed and buried his head in his knees. Malik sahib and the fruit sell­er stood there with their mouths open; dev­as­tat­ed.

The fruit sell­er shrugged, ‘The gov­ern­ment, Malik jee. You know, the moth­er­fuck­ing gov­ern­ment. Why won’t they give them a cement house? What gov­ern­ment you brought, Malik jee!’

Malik sahib, rather stunned with pity for the man on the mud, saw the black ants top­pling on the white keys and felt his heart fill up with hot blood and his eyes with tears. He took out three ten-rupee notes from his pock­et and gave them to the fruit sell­er. ‘Here, give the wretch a man­go or some­thing, man. Any­thing, any­thing.’

He sighed and shook his head and began to trudge off slow­ly, weari­ly. Twice he looked back at the fall­en man by the rail­ing, and what a sor­ry fig­ure he cut! He felt very bad for hav­ing cen­sured the poor thing. Imag­ine to lose your boys like that – twelve and four­teen! God bless you man, God bless you!

In such a grim mood, with the fruit basked dan­gling in his hand, Malik sahib van­ished some­where in the tan­gled web of those con­gest­ed gul­lies that sprawled beyond the bazaar.

Even the fruit sell­er wasn’t spared a bit of emo­tion. ‘Here man,’ he said grand­ly, ‘here’s one from my side. And here, take the bag as well, baba. Allah do you well, baba, Allah do you well.’ He pat­ted on his shoul­der hes­i­tant­ly, lest it fall apart. It appeared to him the man was dead. For cer­tain­ly, he had nev­er seen a liv­ing being that qui­et and stag­nant. Yet he was alive. He was breath­ing. Now he’d lift­ed his head and scratched his cheek. Just as before, he was gaz­ing into the dark­ness over the stand­ing water. The fruit sell­er placed the bag of man­goes on his har­mo­ni­um. ‘Take it. Take it before the ants do, baba.’

Night was full on the doon­ga ground. Crick­ets whis­tled in the heavy air, toads croaked, the ants dis­ap­peared in the mud. The fruit sell­er closed shop and left. The dark sil­hou­ette of the play­er rose, pick­ing up its har­mo­ni­um and sling­ing it around its shoul­der. It moved away along the rail­ing.

An hour passed, and it was steal­ing down crowd­ed streets. One after the oth­er it passed the bat­tered and pud­dled roads, chock a block with shops and hous­es; the dark and glit­tery; sleep­ing, ring­ing roads of Lahore.

He final­ly arrived at the shrine of the saint Ganj Baksh. In ear­ly night, thin rain, the large build­ing with its great green dome, gold­en minarets and tall white walls, with cel­e­bra­to­ry bulbs hung over them for the forth­com­ing urs, resem­bled a moun­tain of light. A man with a dish and a tum­bler in hand went around the big mar­ble square, inside, on the sec­ond floor, dolling out daal and rice in small por­tions to a vast crowd of vil­lagers, dai­ly wagers, labor­ers and drug addicts; all the hun­gry men who wait­ed with cupped hands and open shop­pers. The play­er sat with his back against a pil­lar, not mov­ing, and the same hag­gard face titled up towards the big dip­per, now being grad­u­al­ly devoured by a giant black cloud. He had no desire to eat, as though, his com­ing to the shrine had only been an acci­dent.

In time, the dis­trib­u­tor stooped down before him, with the tum­bler in hand and said, ‘Your daal, and chaw­al.’ The man burst out in tears; trem­bling, repeat­ing, ‘I had…I had a mud-house by the riv­er….’

Anoth­er hour went by. He was there by the pil­lar as though a part of it. His food was untouched; the incense sticks hoist­ed in the mar­ble gauzes of the shrine fumed and rose­wa­ter trick­led over the floor and wet­ted his toes. ‘Eat some­thing,’ said the man sit­ting beside him. He was a horse-cart dri­ver with a kind­ly voice, and not near­ly as sloven­ly in his appear­ance as the play­er. ‘Eat, or you will die, broth­er. Here, keep some of mine too. This is sweet rice. You won’t find it here at this hour.’ He hand­ed him some and a few oth­ers fol­lowed. ‘Take it with you. Eat when you want to.’

He might’ve been there anoth­er twen­ty min­utes before he picked the har­mo­ni­um again and stood up. The horse-cart dri­ver took his rice and daal all mixed up, put them in a bag and tied it to his wrist.

He slipped down the mar­ble stairs to the road out­side, where the rain fell down in blan­kets. It was Mon­soon beat­ing down on Lahore; and the bur­row­ing dark gul­lies gath­ered water, that was one flood and one filth for all.

For instance: On the oth­er side of the city: the doon­ga ground, the bazaar and the tan­gle of sim­i­lar­ly drowned gul­leys. In one gul­ly, inside a small house, one dark cor­ner, where Malik sahib shud­dered from head to toe. Mor­tal fear. Placed his numb ear on the key­hole of a door, and lis­tened. ‘But where did the thir­ty rupees go?’ A woman was say­ing.

Malik Sahib’s eldest son, a gov­ern­ment clerk, answered weari­ly, ‘He made a mis­take. Let it go this time.’

‘Gro­ceries are all he has to do,’ he cried. ‘Why’s he rob­bing us?’

Malik sahib, gasp­ing, pressed his ear against the door a bit hard­er. The son was say­ing, ‘Take it easy. How long has he got? He can hard­ly breathe now.’

Malik sahib moved away from the door reach­ing for his char­poy then plop­ping down on it. A thun­der struck the city sky. Storm. Bill­boards top­pled over; light­ing hit a tow­er and brought down a part of it. Record rain. Lahore was cloaked in the black­ness of a pow­er fail­ure and a ghost glid­ed down its heart.

Up close, the play­er looked sol­id, flit­ting between the elec­tric poles and the tar­pau­lins of road­side eater­ies, his instru­ment hung secure­ly from his shoul­der. He went straight and sure­foot­ed through the lash­ing water. Then, along the urine spat­tered foot­paths of the road that led him away from the shrine and towards the old city. He reached the old bridge over the riv­er Ravi, and went straight down it.

Fast: a skip­ping, hop­ping bazaar cat that knew its way, set­ting a stir among the vul­tures doz­ing in the pits under the deck of the bridge. He got off the bridge short­ly, and over to a tan­gle of waste pipes com­ing from the var­i­ous fac­to­ries beyond the riv­er. He jumped from one to the oth­er, going down the slop­ing bank. He stum­bled through the many heaps of garbage, col­lect­ed from all over the city and dumped there. He was thor­ough­ly washed. At long last he arrived at a lit­tle house not too far from the bed of the riv­er.  It was a mud house.

A sound as he dropped on a worn char­poy, a sound of him mov­ing, feel­ing about. Then he light­ed a gas lantern and let it hang from the mid­dle of the roof. It cast a sphere of weak pale light, between four small walls. He put down his har­mo­ni­um, untied the bag from his wrist and called out: ‘Oye, Kami, Maji! Come out both of you!’

He had a loud, sonorous voice.

Two lit­tle boys sprang out from some­where behind the char­poy, per­haps anoth­er small room in the dark­ness. He grabbed them, one by one, and kissed them. ‘Teeth like pearls, and lips like rubies,’ he said, ‘my two lit­tle Heers of Waris Shah!’

Then he lift­ed the bag up, close to the lantern, so the boys could see what was in it. ‘Hun­gry, are you? Want some daal-chaw­al, and man­goes?’

The boys attacked the food like starved crows and he delight­ed in the sound of their mouths in the small cham­ber. He plucked out a half-cig­a­rette from under a string of the char­poy, light­ed it from the lantern and puffed. His face bore a wide smile. ‘And boys, today I’m going to sing you a song.’

‘What song Abba?’ they said in uni­son.

He took the deep breath of a very sat­is­fied man, and answered,  ‘Any song, my dear. Any song at all!’