‘Why are you being so sarcastic, Maruf? It seems you’re in favour of praising them. What’s the matter? Did you become a Furfura follower? Did you get scared?’
Maruf laughed when he heard that. He couldn’t figure what reply he could give to these special servants of Allah. Maruf had no idea about which special kalemas had to be recited in order to join the Furfura sect. Their thinking was easy and simple. You aren’t in the Tablighi Jamaat? Then you’re definitely Furfura. And if someone was not in the Furfura silsila, that meant he was Tablighi, or something else. They had confined Islam to two limits. So instead of replying to the query, Maruf smirked and said, ‘All right, let me see what they say.’
He couldn’t stand there any longer. The fury of the sound-monster began. Maruf left and walked towards Iqbal Ostagar’s house. He too had been invited for the ceremonial dinner. Everyone knew that he wouldn’t come. But they invited him nevertheless. He was aware that this was not simply a ritual or custom, but a means of showering false respect on a wealthy person. There was a huge crowd. There was a commotion in the two adjacent pandals which were full of people. Those seated on the benches inside one were intent on eating. The zikr majlis was happening in the other pandal. Some thirty people were swaying their heads and chanting the name of Allah. There was a hypnotic quality to the sound of the voices singing in chorus. There was a rhythm. Allah, Allah. Allah, Allah. It seemed their very veins were accompanying their voices in zikr. They continued chanting the kalema tayyab, the first of the fundamental beliefs: ‘La ilaha illallah, la ilaha illallah.’ Zikr cleansed one’s heart. If one had to wage jihad against enemies like jealousy, hate, greed, lust, illusion. Maruf was unable to figure out where the filth in the minds of these people, who were constantly rapt in zikr, came from. The white cap on Salaam Miya’s head was never worn for prayers. But every now and then, he was certain to attend the zikr majlis.
Iqbal Ostagar broke into a smile when he spotted Maruf and said, in the manner of receiving guests, ‘Maruf, you’ve come? I’m very happy. Please sit in the next batch. I never imagined you’d come. I’m very happy.’
There was a glow of joy on Iqbal’s face. He had worn a panjabi and a pair of close-fitting pyjamas today. This new garb lent him a radiance matching his status as the man behind the whole function. Maruf said to him, ‘I haven’t come here to eat. I’ve come here about something else. Shall I tell you?’
‘About something else? Tell me what it is.’
‘They have placed a loudspeaker right next to a parapet of the new mosque. A group is visiting the mosque, it’s causing a terrible disturbance. If that can be removed – that’s what I came to say.’
‘Does the loudspeaker play every day, Maruf? I do my mother’s ceremony just once a year. They can’t tolerate that?’
‘Why are you taking it wrongly? The sound is really terrible. And unbearable.’
Some hardcore Muslim offspring were listening to this conversation of theirs. Perhaps they felt insulted by what Maruf said. One of them said, ‘What did you say? It’s terrible, is it? You called the sound of sermons terrible? Aren’t you supposed to be a knowledgeable boy? Is this your so-called knowledge? And they have the audacity to send you as their advocate? To get the loudspeaker removed?’
Another person shouted out, ‘The loudspeaker will not be removed.’
Quite a few people gathered there because of the loud exchange. The matter was no longer limited to Maruf or Iqbal. It spread. The crowd increased because of the ongoing function. The aftertaste of the recent disturbance had not fully gone. Shouting and screaming commenced. The zikr stopped. The people who had been doing zikr had divine power, they were intoxicated with love for Allah. When they heard about the incident, they flared up in rage. Something had been said, but they interpreted it in another way. That was what was called rumour.
Had the Tablighis removed their loudspeaker? They had the audacity to do that! Abuses were hurled, and the creed of the Tablighis was declared to be a hellish one. Maruf did not wait any longer. He walked away from the fragrant ceremony.
Once the majlis concluded, some people were fed. Most of them were the womenfolk of the household. The venue was empty at this time. Nazir’s wife, Reshma, had sat down to eat with her daughter. She didn’t come much to Ostagar’s house. She felt a kind of inferiority and fear when she was there, although everyone in this household considered Nazir as one of their own. But his wife felt queasy there, as if she was uninvited and had come there to eat only out of compulsion. She had forgotten that her whole family had been invited. She saw Fulsura and Riziya standing a little distance away. Reshma wondered about the intimacy between Kalu Chacha and Iqbal Ostagar. And as she wondered, the two girls came up to her. They sat down beside Reshma. Having them next to her seemed to rid her of her feeling of loneliness and queasiness. She exclaimed, ‘What are you! You didn’t tell me in the evening that you people too were invited, or else I would have come with you.’
Fulsura replied, ‘Is this a wedding where we have to come all dressed up and stroll in together? I’ve come because they are our relatives.’
Riziya said, ‘But I came today to listen. I want to hear how our Hujur delivers his sermon. Won’t you people stay, Bhabi?’
Both Reshma and Fulsura burst out laughing when they heard her. Reshma said, ‘As soon as my daughter finishes eating, she feels sleepy. I’ve put the little one on her father’s lap. I can’t stay, sister. And why are you so keen to hear the sermon? After all you hear your Hujur’s owaj every day. Besides, with the number of loudspeakers Iqbal Ostagar has put up, you can hear it at home. Why do you need to come here to hear it?’
Riziya felt a kind of shyness at that. Yet she didn’t let even a tiny bit of her secret shyness show.
sixteen
All the musulli returned home after the conclusion of the Zuhr prayer at noon. The muezzin left, too, to join his family. Tahirul was all alone in the empty, silent mosque. Not exactly alone – various thoughts and concerns constantly hovered over him. Neither did he feel like sitting all alone in his room at this time. It would be good if he could eat something quickly and lie down for a bit. But he did not dare to. When there was a lull following a deep train of thought, he would become drowsy and fall into bed to doze. And just then the muezzin’s azan would sound. The azan for the Asr prayer. Tahirul felt annoyed when he rose hurriedly after having been fast asleep. But he couldn’t figure out who exactly he was annoyed with. That’s why he had decided never to sleep after lunch. He kept pacing up and down inside the mosque itself. He kept humming the songs in praise of the Prophet (PBUH). His voice echoed in the vast, vacant mosque, like from a microphone of the ecosystem. Last night, he had heard the programme until midnight. He had been compelled to hear it. It was simply not possible for him, as the imam of the locality, to be absent from such a religious programme. He felt like getting up and leaving several times, but he couldn’t. He was employed as an imam, and there were many unwritten rules which came with that – those had to be respected. However, everyone was overwhelmed after hearing the naats of the speakers. Tahirul too was stirred to life. He felt like singing his favourite naat inside the mosque. As he sang, a self-assurance was born inside him. That he, too, could sing well. If he practised regularly, he too could become a reputed speaker. There was a great demand for this class of scholars in village after village of Howrah district.
Tahirul had slept a bit after the Fajr prayer at dawn. So he felt sharp in mind and body. He was sometimes overcome by loneliness. Even after consuming all the different kinds of food with one family or another every day, he felt there was a dissatisfaction somewhere. There was a lot of respect conveyed in the food covered with a plate, there was devotion, but there was no love. Neither was there affection. He acutely felt the lack of love. He needed a family.
The proposal that Haji Saheb made to him was not acceptable to him. What if that proposal was made a bit differently? That might sound jarring; so thinking along these lines, Tahirul quickly took himself away from the thought. Actually, a dream was taking shape in Tahirul’s bosom very slowly. That dream was buried so deep inside him that it would have been difficult for even a deep-sea diver to fathom it!
The afternoon Asr prayer was a brief one. Tahirul left hurriedly. It was teaching at Kalu Miya’s house that was the happiest part of his day. A kind of mental entertainment to break the monotony. He no longer went to teach daily like he did earlier. He only went thrice a week. These three days were extremely valuable for him, an expectation of joy. What drew Tahirul there?
‘Hujur, assalamu alaikum!’
There was a faint smile on Riziya’s face. This smile made him feel helpless. He lost his normal poise. This hadn’t been the case earlier; rather there had been a kind of inertia within him. But that inertia had left him from the time he began talking to Riziya in Suman Nath’s house.
‘Waalaikum assalam! What’s the matter, why are you so late? Can’t you come before me?’ Tahirul asked, using the respectful ‘apni’ for ‘you’.
‘Don’t call me “apni”, Hujur. I feel ashamed.’
‘All right, it’s okay. Sit down. Hey, why doesn’t Fulsura come to study? How can she be absent when the class is in her house?’
Riziya made a joke about this. ‘Why? Why are you sad if Fulsura is absent?’
Riziya tittered. Tahirul was embarrassed and looked in the direction of the others. No, there wasn’t any reaction. They were young in age as well, and Tahirul thought that their minds had not mastered the skill of figuring out riddles. Besides, they were busy with their respective studies. And so Tahirul was able to muster some courage. ‘If someone comes late, that makes me unhappier than if they are absent.’
‘Who is that someone, Hujur?’
Tahirul was silent. He did not look in Riziya’s direction. With his head lowered, he said, ‘I don’t know. I said it just like that.’
‘I had gone to hear your sermon yesterday. But you didn’t deliver one!’
‘No, I didn’t. But I was there. I didn’t see you there.’
‘We are womenfolk. Can we sit around in a gathering?’
Tahirul was surprised at himself. How could he have asked such a stupid question? It was in front of Riziya that he was making a fool of himself. Even if he could maintain his seriousness in front of the entire musulli, when encountering this girl, it seemed he was reduced to being callow.
‘You can’t deliver sermons, isn’t it?’
‘Why won’t I be able to do it? They invited professional speakers from outside. If I delivered a sermon, what would they do! Merely eat chicken-porota and keep sitting?’
But Tahirul realized that his remark was not really an apt one. Everything he said seemed to be inappropriate. In response, Riziya said, ‘Say that you can’t. If you could, wouldn’t they have paid you as well?’
Tahirul felt envious of all those speakers. And at the same time, he pondered over Iqbal Ostagar’s lack of basic sense. He felt an inward urge to win the battle against this girl. He tried to give himself a bit of importance. That could act as a counter to his foolish remarks. He said, ‘If you had attended the Jumma prayer and listened to my sermon, you would have found out whether I can or cannot. People queue up and listen raptly to my speech. I don’t deliver any of those hackneyed, Yusuf-and-Zuleikha type of sermons. Understood?’
