It's all over!

“But whoever believes, and works righteousness, he shall have a goodly reward, and easy will be his task as we order it by our command.”
(Al-Quran, Surah Al-Kahf: 88)

With an unconditional sajda upon the words of the Lord, the sun has set on all hopes and dreams of happiness that might have returned to the family in two years; the brief respite that Providence afforded us has reached a bizarre ending. The ‘beray da malah’, everyone’s ‘sir da chhappar’, and ‘herr kaheen dee sambhaal lahand ala’ is gone forever, taken away as a consequence of one more random, inexplicable occurrence, the kind that has happened too often with us but is impossible to get used to, reinforcing everyone’s mortal fear of telephones ringing in the night, a fear that had initially crept in on the night of January 4, 2002. Cardiac arrest it is proclaimed to be with no prior history of heart problems. Mind-numbingly difficult his death is to accept; Chacha, though overweight, was the most physically active out of all his brothers and had never had poor health. In fact, he was one of the few in the family who are not afflicted with that most deadly ailment, hypochondria. But in one silent, surreptitious moment, the man who had always sacrificed his own happiness for the people around him, who had what it takes to be a friend in the hour of need, and who had the matchless ability to throw his arms around the world, was no more. Chacha was the base upon which the family’s strength and unity rested and was the main force behind the organization of all major activities, be it a majlis or a wedding or some political gathering. Quiet and seemingly aloof, he was all love for the family but could never bring himself about to express it. One had to spot the sincerity behind a sardonic remark or an angry outburst. Through every domestic crisis he held the family together by refusing to take sides and join in the mud-slinging. Even when haveli intrigue and family politics made married life hell for him, he remained a dutiful husband, father and son. Chacha was a true father figure, the only one with the integrity and the ability to replace Dada as the head of the entire family. But fate would not have it. As my 80-year old grandfather sat by the body of his eldest born and his second dead son, he cried out in a hoarse whisper, ‘Ay meda putr meda vee Baba ha!’ For in passing away, Chacha has orphaned the entire family, from the oldest to the youngest. In fact, he has orphaned the entire ‘wasaib’, from the sardar to the lowest ‘kami’. What would those families do who were fed from his kitchen three times a day, seven days a week, where would the small farmers go who could not afford pesticide and other such supplies and he invariably bought it for them, and what about those poor innocents whom he regularly saved from police victimization without them having to pay a single paisa as bribes. For it is true that Chacha was endowed with a kind of reckless generosity characteristic of old-school zamindars. Common village folk are mourning him as much as the family for this very reason. He would have made a fine sardar someday, a latter-day Rahim Yaar Khan maybe. But this was not to be and he wore the ancestral ‘pug’ into the grave.

Had he lived, today would have been his 56th birthday; he died two weeks shy of it. There are not many Scorpios in the family. In happier times my father used to say how my temperament was exactly like my ‘bara’ Chacha’s. If one is somewhat spiritual with some inclination towards religion, the fact that Chacha was born on the 10th of Moharram and died painlessly on the 15th of Ramadan while sitting on the prayer mat reading the Quran has significant meaning. My elders say these are sure signs that his lifelong services in the way of ‘Hussainiyet’ have been rewarded and he stands in high regard in the eyes of the Lord. I hope in the name of everything that is holy that this is true. But what is bothering my mind is that for a man of faith, is this the promised goodly reward that he lives his entire life on a bed of thorns and just as some semblance of happiness and mental peace begins to enter his existence, his life is taken away from him. For it is true that it was only in recent years, especially after Jaffer was born, that Chacha was truly happy; it showed on his face. He saw all his joys and dreams in the eyes of his grandson. And no matter what many celestial signs his death carried, the question remains: did he want to die at this point in time when for the first time in his life he was at the top of the world? The chapter of Chacha’s life closed abruptly, incomplete, anti-climactic. Iqbal, as usual, gives us false hope:

Jahaan mein ahl-e-eemaan soorat-e-khursheed jeetay hain
Idhar doobey, udher nikley; udher doobey, idher nikley

But in my observation of ahl-e-eeman, I have only seen them sink. With Chacha, the fortunes of the entire family have sunk. Everyone’s going around like zombies unable to comprehend what they could have done to deserve this. And what of the old man who has seen two sons into the grave, sons who did not have a single gray hair on their heads, who were in the prime of their lives, who were his pride and his strength? What has he done to deserve this? In a moment of weakness, even this iron man once cried out, “Maula, eeho sila denday way naukri da?” But his faith is too firmly entrenched. He will spend the days left to him begging for forgiveness and mercy. Who will take care of his legacy? He lost the warrior four years ago, now the heir is gone too. The heart bleeds to see him go to his sons’ graves supported by two men, to hear that in the middle of the night he gets up and makes his way, stumbling and falling, to their graves and goes and lies down on the cold hard earth. Does everything happen for a reason, or is the divine scheme of things a bit too arbitrary. What can one mere mortal say? Ghalib, I think, truly understands pain and the contradictions in the universe:

Sab kahan kucch lala-o-gul mein numayaan ho gayeen
Khaak mein kya sooratein hoon gee keh pinhaan ho gayeen

Runj se khoogar hoaa insaan toh mit jata hai runj
Mushkilein mujh per pareen itni keh asaan ho gayeen

Yoon hee ger rota raha Ghalib toh ay ahl-e-jahan
Dekhna inn bastion ko tum keh veeraan ho gayeen

Asghar Hussein Khan (November 2, 1949 - October 19, 2005)