Benyamin - Goat Days

This is my news. I hope you and Ummah are fine.

I shall write again when I get time.

Your own ikka,

Najeeb

I folded the paper. Closed my eyes. Wept for some time. The truth was not in that letter, but in my tears. Nobody read the truth.

One evening, as I was walking with the goats, I noticed the eastern corner of the sky becoming dark and cloudy. I had observed the desert over the previous days. Usually the change of seasons was accompanied by a dust storm. By the time the dust storm disappeared, the weather would also have changed. In the desert, all changes were sudden; nothing was ever slow. The previous day might be very hot, but the next day might dawn chilly; it might be shivering cold one day and burning hot the next. One moment the sky would be pure without a speck of dust, but the next second a dust storm would churn that purity away. This storm too appeared in a similar fashion. The whole day had been fiery hot and all of a sudden a host of black clouds appeared in one corner of the sky. Within seconds the darkness flowed across the whole sky and blanketed the earth. A cold wind blew, slicing through my mind and body. I felt like I had been thrown from the desert into the South Pole. As if caught in a frenzy, the goats bounced around aimlessly. A similar feeling overtook me. I was filled with ecstasy. Leaving the goats to wander, I spread my arms and sauntered through that chill.

It was only when the arbab came in his vehicle and admonished me that I gathered the goats and returned to the masara. By the time I reached the masara, it had started drizzling. When the first drop fell on me, I writhed like I had been stabbed. By my calculation, it had been eight or ten months since a drop of water touched my skin. The experience was incredibly painful. Soon, it began to rain. And as each drop fell on me, I felt like my body was being pierced. Unable to stand that excruciating pain, I ran to cover myself with a blanket. And it was not just me, even the goats suffered. They began to bleat, emitting a strange sound. The usually unruffled camels returned in the rain looking troubled and hurt.

Along with the rain came thunder and lightning. It seemed to me that lightning would strike and burn out the whole masara.

Every time a raindrop fell on my head, my hair stood on its end and trembled. My body alternately burnt and shivered. I longed to get wet in the rain and bathe. But I couldn’t bear it. When I could take it no longer I ran to the arbab’s tent. The sight I saw! The arbab crouched in a corner like a coward. More than anything else in the world, the arbab feared water, I felt. Nowhere had I ever come across so frightened a man. The arbab seemed to fear water falling on his body, as though it were the touch of a jinni. As the rain droplets blew into the tent, the arbab retreated even farther into the corner. I thought the arbab had probably not had a bath even once in his life.

In an unprecedented gesture, the arbab invited me into the tent. When I tried to sit on the floor, he made me sit on the cot. Like a frightened child, he grabbed my hand and then slithered under a blanket to screen the sight of the rain. Sitting in that posture, my hand touched something under the pillow. Cautiously, I tried to feel it again. It was the arbab’s gun! Slowly, I pulled it out. The arbab did not notice, he was chanting ‘ya Allah, ya Allah’ and praying for the rain to stop.

A kind of wildness came over me. Just aim and pull the trigger and you will be saved. There is a vehicle outside with the key hanging from the ignition. You can find the road and escape somehow. This is the chance, the moment Allah the merciful has ordained for you to escape. If you do not use this moment, you might never get a chance like this, ever. You do know that such opportunities do not come again and again. Do it. Escape from this hell somehow. My hand indeed moved towards the trigger.

Suddenly the arbab started praying loudly, ‘My Allah … you kept us safe. Had Najeeb not been here, I would have died of fear now.’ That was the first time that the arbab said my name. I had even doubted that he knew my name. He usually called me ‘himar’ or ‘ inti’ . That call of prayer softened my heart. I didn’t feel like escaping after killing a coward who had been crying for my help. I returned the gun to its place.

I felt very hot inside the tent, so I removed my wet sheet and released the arbab’s hand. I threw away the wet clothes and bravely walked into the rain. Initially, my body pulsated with pain, as if it were being stabbed by several arrows. I endured it, and the pain gradually faded away. After that each raindrop refreshed me. I enjoyed that rain. Like lambs that can sense the coming of rain, I leapt around. And thus, after a very long time, the rain washed me clean. Dirt quietly trickled down my body.

At some point in the night, as the rain eased, the arbab ran out of the tent and drove away in his vehicle. The other arbab did not come that night. After a while, the rain grew heavy again. That whole night, I was free, out of anyone’s coercion or control. That night I could have run away. But I didn’t go anywhere. As always, I didn’t know where to go to reach a safe destination. So I gave up the desire to escape. How many such opportunities to escape do we give up every day? We who throw away the golden bowl of opportunities when it comes into our hand.

That night, I felt the need to do something. Something that violated captivity, something that would have annoyed the arbab. If I didn’t do anything, it would have been a waste of those precious moments of freedom. The desire blossomed instantaneously: I must go up to the neighbouring masara, I must see my Hakeem. He was dropped there the night we arrived in this country, and he has not been seen since. I did not even know whether he was alive or dead or if he had escaped. The poor boy was so near, yet so far. It was only then that I registered the extent of my cocooned existence. Once or twice I had asked the arbab about Hakeem, but he had ignored the question as if he hadn’t heard it at all. In that downpour, I walked towards Hakeem’s masara. Apprehensively I knocked on the gate fastened with an iron padlock. I feared that I would be in trouble if there were arbabs present. Still, I called out. ‘Hakeem, Hakeem, can you hear me? This is me, Najeeb … the Najeeb who had come to the Gulf with you … Are you there?’

There was no reply despite my incessant knocking. I was about to walk back disheartened when I saw a shadow moving far away. I called out loudly. ‘Hakeem! Is that you? It’s Najeeb.’ I was afraid the rain’s snake-whistle would drown my voice.

But I saw the shadowy figure slowly walk towards me.

‘Hakeem, is that you? Come closer, it is me, Najeeb.’

When that figure came near me, I looked at it carefully. Dark, skinny, dishevelled, ugly. Another scary figure. This was not my Hakeem. He did not look like Hakeem. Hakeem was handsome. Very fair. Very good to look at. Strong for his age. I had even advised him in jest to stay put in Bombay and try his luck in Hindi films.

‘Is there someone called Hakeem here? He is a friend of mine. He came along with me. I haven’t seen him since then. Do you know him, or where he is?’ In one breath, I bombarded the scary figure with questions as he walked towards me.

For some time, the hideous figure stared from the other side of the gate, as if I were speaking in a strange language. Then, quite unexpectedly, he hit his head against the gate and started crying. I got scared. Then, between sobs, came his heart-wrenching cry, ‘My Najeeb ikka.’ It was only then, only then, that I recognized Hakeem. Alarmed, I understood how circumstances could redraw a man’s shape beyond recognition. I could estimate how the same circumstances must have changed me too — completely. I had not looked in a mirror since I had entered the desert. If I had, I might not have been able to recognize myself as well.