The Day after Zain died [1][2][3]

--
Zain has died. Died yesterday. Under the wheels of a truck. Without warning.

I did not know him. Fareed did. Had taken a class with him last semester. Over a four month long semester.

Last night he came to my room and asked me, if I would accompany him to the *Quran-Khaani.

'But I did not know him,' I protested.

'Please. I can't go alone,' he said.

'But why not the funeral. Why go to the Quraan-Khaani ?'

'The funeral was held this evening. I heard of it only later.' He crumpled down into my chair. He looked really upset. Upset! - over a four month long semester? But I relented and offered him a cigarette.

--

Fareed banged at my door, very early in the morning. I had forgotten all about it; had stayed up with a book long into the night after he had left, and had only just fallen asleep. So it took me a while to carefully step over the snakes I had been dreaming of, and open the door. I always dream of snakes in the morning. They are mostly benign at first, do not hiss, do not threaten; perhaps it would have been easier if they did, then I would know and the fear would be gone. But instead, they slither out from their corners, smiling; and in front of me, making sure that I was watching, proceed to swallow their tails, very slowly. Their bodies double up, puff out, and turn into tightening nooses. But, inspite of all their glistening sliminess, in the end, they choke on their own bodies and thrash about with exploding eyes. Hundreds of them; still smiling. I cannot imagine a more ghastly image. A greater horror. And yet, all is well when I wake up.

'We are late. Get dressed. Hurry Up!' Fareed, turned out in a starched white kurta-payjaama, pushed past me into the room as soon as I had unbolted the door. Still drowsy from the little sleep I'd had, but grateful to him for having cut short my daily penance, I collapsed into my chair and lit a cigarette. Fareed paced the room, measuring it in four short steps. Four steps and turn. Four steps, turn. He looked impatient and was making sure that I saw it. 'Come On!', he finally implored.

I got up, the cigarette clenched between my lips, the smoke smarting my eyes, and picked the towel flung across the back of the chair. I gathered my toothbrush, the tube of paste, and the soap, and headed towards the bathroom. 'Don't forget to perform the *wuzu.' Fareed called out to me over the closing door.

When I returned, he was trying hard to bury himself in a magazine but his impatience still showed in the tick of his spasmodic feet. I dug into the pile of clothes in my cupboard and pulled out a clean pair of jeans from the bottom. The kurta I had slept in had to do, for I had no other. As I began to change, Fareed looked at me disapprovingly from under the magazine. 'Don't you even have a clean set of white kurta-payjama ?' he said.

'No. This is all I have. You want me to come or not.' He was beginning to annoy me. I noisily stepped into the jeans; and he didn't say anything but went back to his magazine.

A few minutes later, we set out from the hostel for Zain's house on a rickshaw. But not really his house anymore. For Zain had died.

--

We arrived at the house. It was an old University quarter with peeling plaster and a front lawn, much like any other. Zain’s father was a professor at the University, Fareed had told me. My uncle was too, so I knew what these houses looked like, inside-out. We got down at the gate and Fareed proceeded to haggle with the rickshaw-wallah. It's an old habit of his, that I stubbornly refuse to be a part of. Outside, on the road, a lot of scooters were parked – old Bajaj Chetaks and a few Vespas; and against the boundary wall lay propped a number of bicycles in anonymous black. It was a quiet grey morning, respectful of the dead.

Over the gate and across the unraked lawn, I could see the verandah of the house, where plastic wire-mesh chairs had been laid out; hired from a tent-house - the monograms on their backs proclaimed. On them, men in white kurta-payjamas sat in silence, heads bent over cups of tea that they held in their hands and sipped noisily from; all except one, a much older man with a shock of white hair, who stared into his – as if it were the tea he was mourning.

Fareed, finally settled with the rickshaw-wallah and we went in through the gate. As we approached the verandah, the men all looked up from their cups. Not sure who was a relative and who a visiting mourner, Fareed and I, raised our palms half way to our heads in a quiet Salaam. They all nodded. The older man smiled at us with his eyes and being equally laconic, with a sweep of his arm, motioned us to enter the door to the house.

There were two doors right next to each other that opened onto the verandah; each littered with a pile of footwear in an incomprehensible pattern. Shoes, slippers, sandals; in black, brown and beige; of men, women and children, they were all there. Some of the more colorful ladies’ sandals had perhaps unknowingly crossed over to the men’s pile, but we could still make out the door we were supposed to enter. That much was clear. The women would mourn separately, in another part of the house.

Fareed, with exaggerated politeness, pushed at the door and we stepped in.

--

The Angel had said read; and so it had begun.
--

It was a deep murmur that wafted over us as we entered; composed of many voices that meshed into each other; and that rose and fell, fettered to the rhythmic pattern of the Quranic verses - their meanings, in fight for ascendancy, or so it seemed. But to me, they meant nothing. It was just a murmur without a pause; a continuous wave of never ending uvular sounds that sounded like a long drawn out agonized cry.

The room was bare, all the furniture had been removed and instead a thick carpet laid out; covered with white sheets. All along the walls of the room, men sat cross-legged - their backs leaning against the wall – and recited verses from the Quraan. Across from us, at the far end, sat a group of young boys in a row; perhaps the *hafiz in training from the local madarsa; for they seemed to read without looking into their books and all rocked together in some secret agreement.

In the centre of the room, on the carpet, lay the stack of chapters of the Quraan – slim hard bound volumes with their numbers marked on the covers. Both Fareed and I, picked one each and sat down. I had found myself a place in the corner, incense burning to my left and a man reciting in silence to my right.

I too began to read. And the snakes came back.

--

Ammi believes in djinns. When I was a child, she used to tell me stories about them. The good djinns in her stories always happened to be in human form; the evil ones were just smoke, but they could mutate into monstrous apparitions. But then, Ammi believes in everything; even in me and the things I tell her. That’s the problem with mothers: they never really grow up.

--

The smoke from the burning incense beside me rose languorously into the air, shapeless yet meaningful. I read in silence, mouthing the words in my head. The Alif stood alone; the Laam coiled into Meem in a knot; and the Hamza burrowed out and spread its hood in the most unlikely places. The alphabets all seemed to lazily loop into each other, forming words; the words in turn nudged and obliterated the empty spaces between them; and this cursive dance became the sentence. There was a strange beauty in this, and it scared me.

Or perhaps it was just the sweet intoxicating smell of burning incense. But I could not read; the words had come alive, they seemed to mock me. Alif, Laam, Meem – they were in knots and so was I. Perhaps it was an admonishment that they meant. I wasn’t sure.

The collective drone of the recitation had built up. I looked around: the young boys, the old men, they all seemed possessed. Their bodies had swayed gently at first, back and forth, and sideways, but then they began to rock faster; tuned into the building crescendo. The man next to me began to sob; his body shaking in deep uncontrollable gasps – like a house that suddenly caves in; thick drops of tears streamed down his face and dropped into the open book, forever marking its pages. They all mourned. For Zain had died.

I too felt something - something deep inside me giving in. I looked at Fareed, his head lowered into the book, he too rocked softly. I hated him at that moment – for bringing me here. And I hated myself – for coming.