Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown

For a time it was impossible to return home. Forty demonstrators had been killed. The situation in the streets was highly unstable, there were roadblocks and troops and armored vehicles everywhere, and public transport was not a priority. The bhands of Pachigam blockaded themselves inside the theater and waited. Sardar Harbans Singh refused to stay with them. “I’m going to sleep in my own bed, chaps,” he declared. “The wife would be most suspicious if I don’t. Besides which, I have my garden to attend to.” Harbans’s walled garden villa was one of the secret wonders of the city, and was believed by some to have been placed under an enchantment by a pari from Pari Mahal, a magic spell which protected it and all who dwelt there from coming to harm. But Harbans didn’t seem to need the assistance of fairies. He managed to find his way back to the old-town residence on foot in spite of the wildness of the city. Harbans was an intrepid old fox, knew all the city’s byways and back alleys, and came back every day without fail, immaculately turned out in achkan jacket and trousers, his silver beard and moustache trimmed and pomaded, to bring the company food and essential supplies. He was sometimes escorted by his son, but more often came alone, on account of Yuvraj’s unspecified “duties,” which turned out to involve the hiring and management of a private security force to protect his business premises and warehouses against looters and firebombers. Sardar Harbans Singh shook his head sadly. “My son is a person of high ideals and noble beliefs,” he told Abdullah, “who is obliged by the times to deal with guttersnipes and bounders, mercenary hooligans whom he hires to save our goods from other hooligans, and whom he then has to watch like a hawk in case they do the bad hats’ dirty work themselves. Poor fellow never sleeps, but never complains. He does the needful. As we all must.” Sardar Harbans Singh carried a silver-headed walnut swordstick and walked briskly through the unsafe streets, pooh-poohing the risk to himself. “I’m an old man,” he said. “Who would trouble to do anything to me when Father Time is doing such a dashed good job already?” Abdullah shook his head wonderingly. “You can know a man for fifty years,” he said, “and still not know what he’s capable of.” Harbans shrugged in self-deprecation. “You never know the answer to the questions of life until you’re asked,” he said.

The bus service to Pachigam started running again five days after these events. When Abdullah Noman arrived at his front door Firdaus could not prevent herself from weeping copiously for joy. Abdullah fell to his knees in the doorway and asked for her forgiveness. “If you can still love me,” he said, “then please help me find the courage to face the coming storm.” She raised him up and kissed him. “You are the only great man I have ever known,” she said, “and I will be proud to stand beside you and beat back death, the devil, the Indian army or whatever other trouble’s on its way.”

Bombur Yambarzal had done a brave thing once, when he faced down the rabble-rousing iron mullah Maulana Bulbul Fakh at the door of the Shirmal mosque, but now that life was asking difficult questions again in his great old age, his fear for the safety of his beloved wife led him astray. He was no longer the big-bellied vasta waza of yore. The years had withered him, palsied his hands, dotted him with liver spots and put cataracts in his eyes, and he cut a skinny, unimpressive figure as he wondered with some trepidation whether he would live to see the dawn of his eightieth year. This enfeebled Bombur expressed the view that the Lashkar-e-Pak would look more favorably on Shirmal and be less likely to attempt any “funny business” if people responded to the radicals’ poster campaign in a spirit of compromise, not confrontation. “We should agree to at least one thing they propose, Harud,” he said, “or we’ll be the ones who look unreasonable and hard line.”

Hasina Yambarzal, that powerfully built lady whom age had not weakened in the slightest and who continued to henna her hair in order to justify the rubicund nickname “Harud,” was preparing the television tent for the evening’s viewing. “What do you suggest?” she said in an uncompromising voice. “I told you my views about the burqa and if you try to stop the women coming in here there will be hell to pay.” The waza of Shirmal accepted her argument. “In that case,” he said, “can’t we just just tell our Hindu brothers and sisters that in response to the LeP intervention, and having regard to the gravity of the regional situation, and having weighed the available options, and only for the time being, and in this dangerous climate, and until things blow over, and for their own good as well as ours, and purely as a precautionary measure, and without meaning anything bad by it, and taking everything into consideration, and in spite of our deep reluctance, and with a heavy heart, and while fully appreciating their very understandable feelings of disappointment, and hoping earnestly for better days to come soon, and with the intention of reversing the decision at the earliest feasible opportunity, it might be better for all concerned if.” He stopped talking because he could not say the final words aloud. Hasina Yambarzal nodded judiciously. “There are a few pandit families over in Pachigam who won’t like it, of course,” she said, “but here in Shirmal there’s no need for anyone to get upset.”

When news reached Pachigam that the television tent was now for viewing by Muslims only, Firdaus could not restrain herself. “That Hasina, excuse me if I mention,” she told Abdullah, “people say she’s a very pragmatical lady but I’d put it another way. In my opinion she’d sleep with the devil if it was in her business interest to do so, and she’s got that dope Bombur so twisted up that he’d think it was his good idea.”

Two nights later the Yambarzal tent was full of Muslim-only TV watchers enjoying an episode of a fantasy serial in which the legendary prince of Yemen Hatim Tai, during his quest to solve the mysterious riddles posed by the evil Dajjal, found himself in the land of Kopatopa on the occasion of their new year celebrations. The Kopatopan phrase meaning “happy new year” -tingi mingi took took- so delighted the enthralled viewers that most of them leapt to their feet and started bowing to one another and repeating it over and over again: “Tingi mingi took took! Tingi mingi took took!” They were so busy wishing one another a happy Kopatopan new year that they didn’t instantly notice that some person or persons had set fire to the tent.

It was fortunate indeed that nobody was burned to death in the blaze. After a period of screaming, panic, jostling, terror, trampling, anger, running, bewilderment, crawling, cowardice, tears and heroism, in short all the usual phenomena that may be observed whenever and wherever people find themselves trapped in a burning tent, the congregation of the faithful all escaped, in better or worse condition, suffering from burns or not suffering from them, wheezing and gasping on account of the effects of smoke inhalation, or else by good luck neither gasping nor wheezing, bruised or not bruised, lying around on the ground some distance from the now-incandescent tent, or else (and more usefully) fetching water to ensure that the fire, which had by that time taken hold of the tent too powerfully to be extinguished before it had consumed its prey, at least did not spread to the rest of the village, but burned itself out on the spot.

As a result everybody missed the scene in which Hatim Tai met the immortal princess Nazarébaddoor whose touch could turn away not only the evil eye but also death itself. At the precise instant when Nazarébaddoor attempted to kiss Prince Hatim-he valiantly refused her advances, reminding her that he loved another “more than his very life”-the television set of the Yambarzal family exploded loudly and died, taking with it a major source of the family’s income, but, as against that, a significant cause of communal discord as well.