27/10/2017
Winter Had Started – Based on true events
Winter had started to spread its foggy blanket. It was only nine in the night and yet there was hardly any sound or activity in the house except the noise of the popular TV serial. The street dog tuned pet, Tommy, lay quietly in the corner, fast asleep confident that nobody would even stir for at least next one hour. Everybody but the old grandmother, who shuffled silently under the heavy quilt, eyes half closed, fingers unconsciously twirling the prayer beads, mind dissecting the day’s events. The family drama on TV did not interest Madhukar alias Munna, who thought there was enough of it ‘live’, during daytime to see the recorded version at night. He was rather intrigued by what lay unexplored in the old granny’s mind and the secrets of the old house. Granny coughed and shifted in her quilt as munna curled up beside her; “hmmn! So you want to know about the old house”. The old house had long been ravaged and ravished by a burgeoning city; only part of its inner quarters remained, like a lost speck among the high-rises around it. Yet, it was always there; throbbing in her antique frame; vivid,vivacious and alive.
It was a solid old, sprawling building, built in the style of an English manor; sometimes back in nineteenth century, by a nawab of a nearby riasat; sold to an English commissioner who thought his English wife would be able to relate to it as a small English heaven right in the heart of an Indian town. The Indian summer did not let the heaven envisioned materialize and the house was passed on to the regent of a recently coronate young king of a small nearby state. They were actually a group of five, bought together, to house the important office bearers of the state, while the king resided in the city. But the jewel of course was the central and in forefront, at an intersection of the rajbhawan road with the governor’s residence to its right and the commissioner’s office in front.
The passerby was intrigued by the huge silver varnished gates which were always open and the long curving driveway lined with huge forget- me-nots which seemed to lead nowhere. Yet, beyond the drive way, thrived all together another world. To my little feet, the house appeared to be too big. The journey from the inner quarters to the big gate was a forbidden adventure. Sometimes when mama was reading a book and my nanny and only friend kaushalya would feel the urge to smoke a bidi, we would slip out quietly from the small door in the back courtyard and trudge silently through the long row of servant quarters, carefully avoiding the driveway and come to rest under the old neem tree near the gate.
The world was so different here. The children in those small houses appeared to be so happy. Kaushalya would stand and gossip with their mothers, holding my hand firmly and not letting me join the fun for lest “lice would come to your hair and bahuji would know I had brought you here. You can play there near the masjid but mind you do not step inside the masjid, for a ‘jinn’ stays there and he does not like to be disturbed in his sleep!”
Now the masjid was a small six by six prayer hall with solid old walls and open arched entrances on three sides, right inside the main gate. Nobody ever seem to pray there or even sit on its steps; yet it did not appear to be unkempt or in a state of disuse. The children from the servant quarters never ventured near it. The village folk who came to visit the ‘raja’, preferred to sit under the shade of the neem tree rather than in the cool shelter of the old masjid. All this added to the enigma of the old mosque.
“A jinn? Who is he? Won’t he come out of the masjid if we play there and beat us?”
“No. he has been imprisoned by the peer sahib inside this masjid and if he crosses the line drawn by the great peer he will be burnt to ashes.”
“But day before night when we returned from the wedding party, and often before that also, I have noticed a lamp lit there. Who lights the lamp there?” I asked Kaushalya.
“Why, the jinn of course! Don’t tell bahuji I told you so but every evening when the ajan is given for the last namaj of the day, a lamp lights up on its own in the masjid! Nobody goes near the masjid after dusk and if ever we have to pass by it, we don’t’ even look that side.” explained Kaushalya.
“Few years back a villager was caught in the rain and decided to sleep for the night in this masjid. In the morning only his bag remained; there was no trace of him. For a week they searched for him everywhere thinking he may have gone out somewhere, but he had just disappeared!” added Kaushalya’s fast friend Madhu, the sweeper’s wife.
“Why do you think these huge gates are always open? Why, there has never been a theft or trouble within the walls of this compound!”
“No outsider can ever dare to step inside these gates with an evil intent! The jinni watches them all! Once the boy, who works with the tea stall owner outside, did not pay any heed to the jinn. He whisked away the silver peekdaan of the kunwar sahib one early morning. The jinn saw it all! The boy’s mother, who was hale and hearty just the night before, suddenly developed acute stomach ache and fever. They took her to the doctor but to no avail. Then somebody suggested the pir at the badidargah. The peer heard it all. He went inside the dargah and spoke to the great sufi.
“Somebody in your family has annoyed a jinn”, the peer announced to the family. “One of you has broken the vow of honesty. Repent it and make amends.”
“When the lamps were lighted in the evening, the peekdaan had also retuned!”, said Kaushalya dramatically. “Come, enough for today. Let’s go back before somebody notices you here and tells the tale to Bahuji. Bhaiyaji wouldget very annoyed if he gets to know I told you all this.”
Oblivious to the modern world outside the gates, I came back to the inner sanctum of the house thinking about the mystique of the old masjid and the jinn. We grew up, graduated from college, got married and yet the legend of the jinn lived on! The story passed on from me to my children but the mystique and the excitement it generated, never waned.
Few years later, I had come home during the annual summer vacations of the children. The first thing I noticed on entering the huge gate was a pile of dry leaves and twigs inside the masjid. Empty polythenes floated around inside the unkempt structure. The spic and span interiors were now black with neglect.
“What happened to the masjid!”, I asked Kaushalya who was by now frail and very old. “Why the masjid is such a state? I have never seen it like this.”
“The world has changed. The town has become more alluring. The Jinn has fled.”
“The jinni has fled? Now don’t you start with all those stories again! Tell me the real thing this time. We have all grown up with the jinn. Me and my children too. Now after all these years the jinn can’t suddenly decide to leave us all like this!”
“Why, the jinns also have a right to choose you know”, she said with a twinkle in her eyes. Then suddenly the old lady became wistful and sad. “The panditji has also left us all. He has also decided to shift to the abode of his deity, the Mahadeva”
“I know kaushalya. We all felt very sad about the panditji. After all he was the one who told us the stories from the great epics, he taught us to say our shlokas in the correct manner,to sing the aarti with one eye on the god and the other on the prasad!” “but tell me why you suddenly talk of panditji? I was asking you about the jinn and you brought panditji in between. If he had been alive, he would have put you in your place for speaking of a devout Hindu and a Muslim jinni in same context”
“I know, I know”, the old woman mumbled. “I feel sad for both of them. Your father has now appointed a young priest to conduct the prayers in the house. Alas! He is only a priest not a true devout. He may sing and perform all rituals to perfection but he does not have that special connection with him. An era has ended, an era”, the old lady went on. “the era of the pandit and the jinn!”
I sat back dumbstuck. I at last knew the the silent secret within the walls. The secret of bahkti and true devotion. An era had indeed come to an end. I am glad I was part of that era. The era of the pandit and the jinn!