THE SHEPHERD
by ASHFAQ AHMED
PART(III)
When the bridegroom’s father came over to Dauji and asked for permission to leave, Bibi suddenly fell backwards and fainted. She had to be moved to a cot, and the women dutifully started fanning her. Just then, still leaning on me for support, Dauji walked over to her cot. He helped Bibi sit up and said, ’This is no way to behave, my child. Get up now! Isn’t this, after all, the very first hour of your new and independent life? Come on, don’t make it inauspicious!’
Bibi hugged him, still crying loudly. He stroked her head gently, lovingly, and said, ‘Qurratulain, I’m a sinner, for I couldn’t give you the education you deserved. I’m ashamed that I’m unable to send you off with knowledge as your dowry. I know you‘ll forgive me for this, and perhaps even Barkhurdar Ram Partap will too. But I’ll never be able to forgive myself. I am at fault and I stand before you with my head bowed in shame.’
This made Bibi cry even harder, and fat copious tears rolled out of Dauji’s eyes and fell on the ground. The groom’s father quickly moved forward and reassured him, ‘Munshiji, please don’t worry. I’ll teach her the Karima myself.’
Dauji hurriedly turned around and said as he joined his hands deferentially, ‘That I’ve taught her already, as well as Gulistan and Bostan. But, to my deep regret, that’s not nearly all I wanted to teach her.’
Whereupon the other man laughed and said, ‘Well, well! Even I haven’t studied the whole Gulistan. When ever I come to a passage in Arabic, I just skip it,’
Dauji stood quietly for some time, his hands folded as before. Bibi thrust her hands out of her embroidered red silk shawl and patted first Amichand and then me on the head, and, supported by her friends, picked her way slowly towards the devrhi. As Dauji, still leaning on me, also made to move, he hugged me tightly and said, ‘What! Are you crying too? Were you not supposed to give me support? O, Golu… apple of my eye…what’s the matter with you? Jan-e Pidar, why are you…’ His voice choked and my tears too came fast. The groom’s party rode in tongas and ikkas, followed by Bibi seated in a chariot, while Amichand and myself, with Dauji between us, walked along behind them. If a cry escaped form Bibi’s lips, Dauji quickly moved forward, lifted the screen of the chariot, and advised her, ‘Say La-haul, beti, say La-haul.’ The loose end of his turban that he had placed over his eyes had by now become completely wet.

Ranu was the coarsest individual in our neighbored. Evil and meanness seemed to have been pounded right into his bones. The enclosure I referred to earlier actually belonged to him. He kept a couple of dozen goats and a pair of cows there, and sold their milk in the mornings and evenings in the open field right next to the enclosure. Just about everyone in the neighbourhood bought their milk from him and, because of his propensity for creating trouble, sort of yielded to him. As he walked past our house, just for the fun of it he‘d rap his lathi on the ground and greet Dauji with ‘Pandata, jai Ramji ki!’ Time and again Dauji told him that he was not a pandit but only an ordinary man. As Dauji saw it, a learned man alone was entitled to be called a pandit. But Ranu wouldn’t listen. He‘d chew on his moustache and say, ‘Listen to this! Whoever sports a bodi on his head has got to be a pandit.’
Anyway, Ranu was friends with all the petty thieves and loafers of the area, who came together in the evening at his enclosure for gambling and poetry. One day, after Bibi had been married, when I went to buy milk from him, he winked at me and remarked, ‘Still living there, eh? But the morni has already flown away,’
When I didn’t react, he stirred the frothy milk with the tin measuring cup and said, ‘The Ganga was flowing right inside the house… did you take a dip?’
Anger flared up inside me. I swung a pitcher I had in my hands and bought it down on his head with all my strength. The tremendous blow, even if it failed to produce any blood, almost knocked him out. As he collapsed on the takht, I ran back home. After recounting the incident to Dauji, I hurried to my own home and told Abbaji what had happened. Thanks to my father’s intervention, Ranu was immediately summoned to the police station, where, after a mild rebuke and a stern warning, he was released by the Havalder Sahib.
From here on, Ranu, whenever he ran into Dauji, made him the butt of his biting taunts, the nastiest ones reserved for the small tuft of hair, the bodi that Dauji wore on his head. And if truth be told, that flattened width of hair really didn’t look good at all on Dauji’s learned head. But he used to say, ‘This is a memento of my deceased mother, and it’s as dear to me as life itself. She’d put my head in her lap and shampoo it with curd, then massage it to a sparkling shine with a bit of mustard oil. Although I never dared remove my turban before my Hazrat Maulana, he knew that I had a bodi. When I returned home for vacation after working for a year at Dayal Chand Memorial High School, His Excellency asked me, “I hope the city didn’t make you get rid of it.” I shook my head and that made him very happy. “Few mothers can boast of a more dutiful son than you,” he complimented me, “and few teachers can have the good fortune, as I have of teaching a student like you.” I touched his feet and said, “Huzur, please don’t put me to shame. Whatever I have learnt is at your feet.” He laughed and said. “Chinta Ram, please don’t ever touch my feet. What good is a touch that I can’t even feel?’ Tears surged in my eyes. I said, “If only some one could tell me where to find it, I’d spare nothing to bring you the remedy. I’d offer even my own life, if its vitality, its warmth would bring life back to Huzur’s legs, but I’m helpless.” He fell silent. After some time, he looked up at the heavens and said, ‘If such is God’s will, then let it be. May you live long. Thanks to your sturdy shoulders I’ve managed to see the whole village once again after ten years.’”
Dauji, going further back into his memory, down to the farthest reaches of days past, resumed: ‘Every day at the crack of dawn I’d arrive in the devrhi of his grand mansion and call out, “Your servant is here!” After the ladies had withdrawn to one side, Huzur would call out from the courtyard and ask me to come in. As I approached him, my hands joined in obeisance, I congratulated myself on my good fortune. After touching his feet I waited for his command. He‘d bless me and inquire after my parents’ health and the affairs of the village, after which he’d say, “All right then, Chinta Ram, you may now lift this bundle of sins.” I’d take him on my back, as though he were a basket of flowers, and leave the mansion. Sometimes he asked, “Take me on a tour of the garden!” Another time he commanded, “Take me straight to the Persian wheel!” And still other times, with touching tenderness, he’d request, “If it won’t tire you, will you please take me to the mosque?” I had told him repeatedly that I could take him to the mosque every day, but he always declined, saying, “Whenever I feel like going there I ask you, don’t I?’ Anyway, I’d sit him down on the ablution platform, remove his light shoes and, after securing them in my sack, sit snug against the wall. From the platform His Reverence would drag himself to the prayer rows. Only once did I see him labour in this fashion. Never again. I just could not bear it. My courage wouldn’t hold. So, after I removed his shoes, I’d quickly cover my face with the bottom of my shirt, lowering it only after he called out for me.
On the back, I took him home through some of the longer lanes of our qasba. At this he never failed to remark, “You take a meandering route, Chinta Ram, only to please me. I suppose you don’t think that I notice. But it pains me to see how you have to carry me around like this, wasting your time.”
‘How could anyone have told him, “But Aqa, this period is the high point of my life; this inconvenience, the very purpose of my being. You say I have to carry you around. Hardly! I feel I‘m carrying the phoenix whose auspicious shadow falls on me alone.”
‘The day I learnt the Sikandarnama and recited it from memory, he was so overjoyed it seemed as though the sovereignty of the seven climes had been bestowed upon him. He patted my head affectionately and showered me with his blessing, for this world and the next, and then rewarded me with a rupee. I considered it as precious as the Black Stone of the Kaaba, kissed it, touched it to my eyes, and tucked it into my turban as if it were Sikandar’s very own diadem. He continued to bless me, raising both his hands and saying, “You‘ve accomplished what even I couldn’t. You are a pious man, and God has granted you this distinction. You may be a shepherd, but you’re like Moses. You’re a true follower of the lord of Batha. You will see much, much prosperity.”’
Dauji put his head on his knees and fell silent.