Through the snowy January nightfall, up shots of thirty-one days snow fall, the news spread like a forest fire—the rumour or reality, nobody knows. Something about Ayesha and a Pundit boy. Molested, hugged, romanced, love: none of them, sitting in a Madarsa after the Friday prayers, noon where the deodar trees stirred, covered with snow, cooling all, the cold breeze, hitting them, in a frequent gush of decayed anger, their own stale breathing, knew exactly nothing what happened.
"He was Shankar Pundit," said Maulvi Akbar. He was a young boy; a long, slim, fair-coloured boy with attractive features, who was counting the notes. "I know Shankar Pundit. He's a shrewd pundit boy. And I know Ayesha too."
"How do you know her?" a second teacher asked.
"What do you know about her?" a student asked. "A beautiful girl?"
"No," the teacher said. "She is about thirty, she is divorced."
That's why she has no respect... "
"Respect, hell!" a bearded, strong built youth shouted. "Won't you take a Muslim woman's word before a pundit's?"
"I don't believe Ayesha will seduce a Pundit boy of twenty-two." The teacher said. "I know Ayesha."
"If women get old without getting married, their attraction for boys goes down---" Said Maulvi Akbar.
"I don't believe anybody did ant-thing. Nothing happened." I leave it to you to decide.
"Then you're a hell of a pundit man," the students muttered angrily.
"You don't understand?" He said. "You accuse a Muslim woman a lie?"
The Maulvi held the book, opened to teach to his students. He did not look around.
"It's this cold weather," another student said, "It's enough to make any man hot do anything. Even to an old lady like Ayesha."
All remained serious. Maulana said in his mulish tone: "I ain't defending the pundit boy. I know well and you fellows too, how a woman that never…"
"You damn kefir lover!" the student said.
"Shut up, paid rioter," scolded the teacher. "We will first inquire about the incident and has enough time to act."
"Nobody will touch him. The student murmured. "Facts, hell! I want him stoned to death. I am an expert stone pelter."
"You're comfortable with Hindu kafirs," the student retorted. "Aren't you?" You tell them, Babur, "he said to the student. "You can add up to me, even if I am not only a Muajjim and a stranger."
"That's right, students!" the teacher said. "Find out the truth first. I know Shankar Pundit.
"Shut up, Imran," the second student said. "We have enough time to punish him."
"Well, Allah!" the student shouted. "You think a kafir in this town…?"
Babur could not digest this. "Do you claim that anyone excuses a Hindu attacking a Muslim woman? You better go back to Vaishno Devi temple. Valley, Kashmir Valley doesn't want your presence here.
"Vaishno Devi what?" the second student said. "I was born and brought up in this valley." He was baffled and shocked. He was ready for any tussle. He drew folded his sleeve. "Damm if I'm going to tolerate a Muslim woman---."
"You tell them, Babur," the Muajjim said. Allah if they---."
The main gate of the madrasa opens with a crash. A stoutly built man stood at the door, his long beard floating. He was wearing long black kurta, wore a round- skull cap. His hot, aggressive and violent looks created a sense of fear in the group. His name was Taimur. He was a local goon.
"Well," he shouted, "You keep on delivering sermons and let a Hindu boy rape a Muslim woman on the streets of Islam Nagar?"
Getting support, the Muajjim was very excited. His beard was floating like kabaylees. His armpits were stinking. "That's what I have been telling them!" he repeated his hot tone.
"Did anything really happen?" the third student asked. "Every time, everybody can't watch her undress, on the river bank, like Shahrukh Bhai says?"
"What?" a shocked student said. "What is that?" The teacher asked them to remain silent and pay attention to Quran and its teachings.
Aamir flattered the third student. "You are waiting to happen?" Are you going to let the Hindu boys do what they like until you get evidence?"
"I am telling the same!" Aurangzeb shouted, cursing everybody.
"Here, here," fourth student Nadir whispered. "Not so loud. Don't talk so loud."
"Right," Aamir said; "no need of talking at all. It is enough of talks. Who's accompanying me?" He rubbed his buttocks violently.
Maulvi Akbar silenced all. "First find out the facts students. I know Shankar Pundit. It wasn't him. Let's discuss with Haji ji and act accordingly"
Aamir angrily twisted his furious face. Maulana Akbar did not pay any attention to Aamir. They looked like Shia and Sunni sects. The other teachers pretended to be talking with the students. "You mean to tell me that you'd give more weight to a Hindu's word over a Muslim woman's? You damn kefir lovers---." Aamir said.
Another student Laden rose and silenced Aamir: he too was also a local goon. "Now, enough is enough. Let's figure out our action plan. Actually, nobody knows, what actually happened."
"Figure out, my foot!" Aamir jerked his fists. "All they're with me get here from here. The ones that ain't---." He stared his gaze and pushed his arms across the road.
Four men rose. The students also got up. "Here," they said, throwing their books; We are with him. We don't want to live but by Allah if our daughters and sisters and mothers---." Aamir stood on the floor and abused other of enjoying free electricity and heating, donated by kafirs to keep the mouth shut. Another rose and moved with them. The leftovers sat awkwardly, ignoring one another and then one by one rose and joined the killing squad.
Maulvi collected the books from the floor. "Students, don't attack him. Shankar Pundit can't do it. I know him."
Hot headed Aamir shouted, "Come on," He almost ran. From his long kurta pocket pulled out the butt of a heavy automatic revolver. They ran out. The madrasa door crashed behind them reverberant in the chill air.
Maulvi Akbar collected the books carefully and swiftly, and put them away, and ran to his room, and took his skull cap from the wall. "I'll be back soon as I can," he said to the other teachers. "I will help my people —" He went out, running. The two other Maulvis followed him to the door and accompanied him, leaning out and looking up the street after him. The air was silent and cold. It had a freezing cold at the base of the tongue.
"What can we do?" the first asked. The second one was saying "Allah ho Akbar," under his breath. "If he gets angry Aamir, today will be last day" "Allah ho Akbar," the second whispered.
"You think he really has relation with her.?" the first said.
II
She was thirty-one or thirty-two. She lived in a small-old house with her invalid brother and a thin, dirty, depraved uncle, where each morning, between five and six, she would appear on the roof covering her face with a hijab, to sit on the floor and listen to the Aarti from a Hindu temple. After dinner, she takes rest for a while, until the afternoon began to cool. Then, in one of the three or four new salwar-kameez which she would go downtown to spend the afternoon in the local market with the other ladies, where they would bargain the prices in cold, pressing voices, without any fear of refusal by the sellers.
She was off at ease people— not the best in Muhammadabad, but liked by the sober people—and she ordinary-looking, with a brilliant, faintly faded manner and dress. When she was a student she had had a slim, nervous looks and a sort of rigidness which had enabled her to popular of the town's social life as epitomized by the farewell high-school party and Jamat-social period of her age group while still children, without any class consciousness.
Very late she realized that she was maturing; that those among whom she had been a little attractive look than any other were launching to learn the satisfaction of snobbery. But her face began to carry that dazzling but almost faded look. She still carried it to parties on dimly lit halls and summer lawns, like a cover, with that confusion and irate denial of truth in her appearance. One evening at a party she heard a boy and two girls, all school- mates, called her aunty. She stopped going to parties.
She gazed at the girls with whom she had grown up as they married and got families and scores of children, but no man ever paid any attention to her steadily but the children of the other girls had been calling her "aunty" for many years. Their mothers told them in sarcastic tone about how fashionable Ayesha aunty had been as a girl. Then the backwards going town began to see her moving on with Rama Shankar, a Sanskrit teacher in a college. He was a bachelor of about thirty-two —a fair-colored man, always smartly dressed. He owned the first Tata-NaNo car in town, saffron coloured. Ayesha was seated beside him wearing a designer burqa the town ever saw. Then the town began to curse her: "Shameless Ayesha!" "But she is matured enough to take care of herself," others whispered. She almost pleaded her schoolmates that the children call her "didi" instead of "aunty."
It was five years now since she had been branded as a bad character lady by public opinion, and four years since the teacher had gone to Akbarabad, returning for one day, each Diwali, which he spent with his friends in a temple. From behind their curtains, the neighbours would see him pass, and during the across-the-street Diwali-day visiting they would tell her about him, about how well he looked, and how they heard that he was prospering in the city, watching with bright, secret eyes her haggard, bright face. Usually, by that hour there would be the scent of perfumes on her breath. It was gifted her by her only friend. She was considered as immoral socialite aunty of corrupt civil society.
Her mother became very old and kept to her in the room altogether now; the bony aunt ran the house. Against those conditions, Ayesha bright dresses, her idle and empty days, had a reality of fuming worthlessness. She went out only with elderly women now. Each evening she dressed in one of the new dresses and went market alone, where her young cousins were already strolling in the late afternoons with their body wrapped in stinking burqas, tired heads and heavy, awkward arms and conscious hips, clinging to one another or staring and chuckling with naughty boys when she passed and went on to the tea shops, in the doors of which sitting and relaxing men almost ignored this single aunty, pining for their attention.
Ill
The teacher, Maulvi Akbar went speedily up the street where the dim lights, insect-swirled, frowned in a severe and vicious manner in the lifeless air. The day had died in a gloom of dust; above the gloomy square, chocked by the killing dust, the sky was sad as the inside of a grave. Below the east was a buzz of the twice-tamed moon.
When Maulvi Akbar passed them, notorious Aamir and three others were getting into an old jeep parked in the dark street. This Jeep was used by Aamir to carry stone pelter in the valley. Amir roared with full might, "Anybody wants to leave, did you?" he said. "Damn good thing; by Allah, tomorrow when this town listened to about how you saved the honour of your faith"
"Now, now," Ghazni said. "Dawood's all right. Come on, friends; fast!"
"Shankar Pundit will never do anything wrong, boys," Maulvi Akbar said. "Why, you all know well as I do there isn't any town where they got better Hindus than us. And you know how women think about men when there isn't any reason to, and Ayesha you know anyway? "
"Sure, sure," Ghazni said. "We're just going to speak to him a little; that's all."
"Speak hell!" Aurangzeb said.
"Shut up, in the name of Allah!" Ghazni said. "Do you want everybody in town to know about everything?"
"Tell them, in the name of Allah!" Aamir said. "Tell everyone that'll let a Muslim woman eloping with a Hindu boy."
"Let's go; let's go: here's the tempo." The tempo moved yelling out of a cloud of dust and black smoke at the street end. Aamir started his jeep and backed out and took the lead. Dust and smoke lay like smog in the street. The street lights dangle dim- floated as in water. They drove on out of town.
Old vehicles were creating ugly noise on rutted lanes. Dust and smoke engulfed it too. The dim bulb of the temple, where Shankar Pundit used to teach the downtrodden children in the evening, was unusually silent, perhaps, fearing some mishap. "Better stop a little before?" Gazni advised. Aamir did not reply. He slammed the tempo to stop, in the headlights; all were glaring for Shankar Pundit.
"Listen here, boys," Shah Rukh said; "if he's here, don't ask anything? If he was involved, he would run. Don't you see he would?" The tempo also came up and stopped. Aamir got down; Aurangzeb leapt down beside him. "Listen, boys," Shah Rukh said.
"Switch off lights!" Aurangzeb said. The wheezing darkness hastily engulfed the lanes. There was no sound in it save their breaths as they hunted air in the arid dust in which they rot; then the retreating chomp of Aamir and Aurangzeb's feet, and a moment later Aurangzeb's voice:
"Shankar. . . Shankar!"
Below the east, the pale of the moon amplified. It lifted above the mountains, brightening the air, the dust so that murdering mob breathe, live, in a sink of rotten lead. The night-bird was voiceless, so do insect, no sound except their panting and a faded tick of toning metal of the vehicles. Inside their impassive bodies crushing one another, they seemed to be agitated dryly, for no more moisture came. "Allah!" a voice said; "let's get out of here."
They waited until blurred voices began to audible out of deadly darkness. They got out and waited tensely with heavy breaths in the dark. Aamir kept on abusing Shankar Pundit and Hindus. They all ran shouting, "Kill him, kill the kafir!"
"Not in the open," Aamir said. "Pull him into the car." They drag Shankar in. "Kill him, kill the pundit son!" the ruthless voices murmured. They dragged Shankar to the car. Maulvi Akbar had waited beside the jeep. He was feeling sick and low.
"What is this, boss?" Shankar said. "What is my fault" Someone brought a long cable. They tied him. He submitted to the cable, looking swiftly and doggedly face to face, hoping to hear some kind word. "Who's here, boss?" he said, leaning to stare into the faces. He spoke a name or two. "What you-all say I done, Aamir Bhai?"
Aamir pulled the door open and shouted, "Throw him in!".
Shankar did not stir. "What you- all going to do with me, Aamir Bhai? I haven't done anything, I haven't done anything: I swear ' in the name of Allah"
The others struck him with regular blows and he spied and cursed them, and swept his tied hands across their faces and accidentally hit Maulvi Akbar upon the mouth, and the Maulvi struck him hard. They pushed at him. He stopped struggling and lied quietly as all were hitting him. He lied between the Maulvi and Gazni, coiled his body in so as not to touch them, his eyes going quickly and relentlessly from face to face. The jeep was running followed by the tempo.
"What's the issue? Daood?" Gazni asked.
"Nothing," Maulvi Akbar said. All laughed. They drove towards the forest and turned away from town. The tempo came out of the dust. They drove on, gaining speed; the final glimpse of town left behind.
"Damm, he stinks!" Ghazni said.
"We'll finish that," the man in front beside Aamir said. Shahrukh suddenly moved forward and touched Aamir's shoulder.
"Throw out, kafir," Aamir said without turning his head. He drove speedily. Behind them, the searching lights of the tempo glared in the dust. Presently Aamir turned into a narrow road. It too was bumpy in disuse. It led back to an old graveyard, on the bank of river Jhelum. It had been used for grazing land.
"Shankar," Maulvi Akbar said.
"Throw him in the river, then," Aamir said, flinging the car along the furrows. Besides the Maulvi Akbar, Shankar spoke: "Aamir Bhai."
Maulvi Akbar wanted to get down. Their action was like a dead boiler blast: cooler, but utterly dead. The jeep jumped from rut to rut. "Gazni Bhai," Shankar said. The Maulvi Akbar began to jerk frantically at the door. "Glance out, there!" Gazni said, but Maulvi Akbar had already kicked the door open and rolled out of the jeep. Gazni kicked Shanker furiously, and he swung out. The car went on without dropping the speed.
The force flung him rolling, through the mud-sheathed wild plant, into the river. Dust winded about him, and in a deep, brutal crackling of lifeless marshy land, he lay choking and gagged until the tempo passed and died away. He fluttered and tried to rise but collapsed.
The moon was clear, riding bright and clear of the worldly dirt and the town was frowning beneath. Shankar lost his consciousness, could not hear the sound of running vehicles and the blaze of dust behind them. Taimor's tempo came last. Now one man was less in the jeep.
They drove; the dust gulped them down; the glare and the noise died away. The dust hung for a while, but soon the eternal dust wrapped them up. Maulvi Akbar scaled back onto the road and limped on toward madrasa.
IV
As she dressed for dinner, on that Sunday evening, her own body felt like dancing. Her hands shook automatically, and her eyes had a bright sparkle, and her hair flew and crackling. While she was still dressing her friend reached and sat while she put on her very showy undergarments, stockings and a new red suit as if going to meet her beloved. "Do you feel hot enough to go out?" she asked. "When you have had time to get over the shock, I will tell you what happened. What he said and did; every- thing." All her friend was listening with bewildered astonishment.
In the leafed darkness, as she walked toward the mall road, she began to smile mysteriously, something like a socialite, getting her prey, until she ceased smiling. Both the friends walked slowly because of the terrible cold and due to her hilarious mood. But as they reached the mall she began to whistle, walking with her head up, holding her friend's hand, looking at each other romantically, and glittering class of their eyes.
They entered the mall, took the corner seat, gorgeous in her transparent fresh dress. She was feeling young. She watched, as un-wed couples eat ice-cream, her head up and her eyes dazzling, fleeting the hotel and the scantily dressed drummers in chairs along the curb around them, "That's the one: see.? The one in saffron in the centre." "Is that he? What did they do with Shankar? Did they—?" "Sure. He's all right." "All right, is he?" "Sure. He went on a little jaunt." Then the wine shops, where even the young men loafing in the entrance, casually dressed and chasing with their eyes the motion of her hips and breasts when she passed.
They went on, passing the rowdy boys, suddenly hushed silence, defensive, fear. "Did you notice?" the friend said. Her tone crashed like long hanging sighs of pain. "There's not a Hindu in the mall. Not one."
They decided to go the movie-show-‘Page-3'. It was like a mini but artificial fairyland with its fashionable girls and bright presentation of life caught in its beautiful but dark metamorphosis. Her eyes and lips began to flutter. In the dark, when the movie was shown, she tightly gripped her friend's hand. She hurried before other's could see, without the feeling of amazement, and she took dozens of kisses and smooches on her friend's face where she could see the hordes young men and girls sitting in two and two.
The lights dimmed; only the screen lights visible, and fake life began to unfold, stunning and romantic but sad in real life. Young boys and girls sat, aromatic and romantic in the dimly lit hall, their paired backs in shadow, delicate, sleek, and their slim, beautifully young, kissing and embracing with the silver screen, inevitably on and on. They began to laugh. In trying to suppress their agony, it appears more abnormal than ever; heads began to turn. Still laughing, guards raised them and led them out, and they stood at the gate, laughing on a high, unrelenting note until the taxi came up and they helped them in.
V
It was almost midnight when Taimur drove up to the house of lovelorn Ayesha. It was orderly, clean and like a bird-cage. He parked and locked the jeep outside her house and entered. Shocked Ayesha rose from the bed beside the table-lamp. Taimur entered her room and stared at her until she looked down.
She stood before him, her face terrified, and an adult magazine in her hands. Her face became pale, strained, and fear struck. "Haven't I told you not to talk kafirs?"
"Bhai!" she said. The magazine dropped from her hands. He glared at her with his hot eyes, his fierce face.
"Didn't I tell you?" He moved toward her. She moved back then. He caught her shoulder. She stood lifeless, looking at the debauch.
"Don't, Taimur. I am sick. . . . periods; please, Bhai. You're slaughtering me."
Taimur violently removed her dress and the new undergarments and the stockings and threw her to bed.
Suddenly, he pulled out the pistol. Ayesha became paralysed. She opened her mouth but no word came out. He said today was payback day. He said note down the time and day.
He took the pistol from his hip and laid it on the table beside the bed, and sat on the bed and removed his shoes, and rose and slipped his trousers off.
There was no movement, no sound, not even an insect. The dark world seemed to lie stricken beneath the cold moon and the lidless stars.
He pushed her, pinned her down, slapped her, bite her and hit her.
Taimur rubbed the pistol on the thighs of Ayesha. Ayesha shivered and began to weep because she realized the penetration inside.
"Shut the slut up or I'll shoot you."
"Didn't I tell you?" He released her and half struck, half flung her across the bed, and she lay there and watched him quietly as he left the room.
Taimur was rough and violent. He spits on Ayesha. He stopped, zipped his pants, started the engine and drove away.
Ayesha stood dazed and confused, what had happened. Suddenly she stood and rushed out of her house, went straight to river Jhelum and jumped.
Next day devotees saw two dead bodies floating. One was of Shankar Pundit and other was of Ayesha.
Maulvi Akabar, his students and other faithful were there dazed and puzzled. With hushed discussion, puffing bidi in the fog.
While the ice was fresh and cold they stopped laughing and stood still for a time.
"Shhhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhhh!" they said, seeing the ice-pack, smoothing their heads, examining it for the story; "poor girl with a kafir!" Then to one another:
"Do you suppose anything really happened?" their eyes darkly glitter, secret and passionate. "Shhhhhhhhhhh! Poor girl! Poor Ayesha and Shankar!"
Police were called and bodies were fished out.
Police sent the bodies for post-mortem. A post-mortem confirmed the rape on Ayesha but the DNA test confirmed that rape was not committed by Shankar Pundit.
Police conducted the search of the house of Ayesha. Only a round skull cap was found and the marriage photos of Shankar and Ayesha, marrying according to Hindu customs in a temple.
Civilized and sane citizens constructed a temple on the banks of river Jhelum in memory of Shankar and Ayesha. Young lovers visit that temple to get the blessings of God for a long and happy married life.
