The landlord sat in his orchard, drawing on his imported cigarette. He had a special setup: chairs, a table in the centre, a pedestal fan and a bulb. “He oversees his lands himself. It’s a habit,” the friend and host had told me while we walked toward him. It was an accidental stop for me, this village, on my way home. I had travelled miles and was quite a mess. Yet, I stood in front of him to pay the obligatory tribute more than to receive the greeting. To my surprise, he was gentle and kind at that, and greeted me with his arms wide open, like an elder; my own elder.
We sat down. I could sense I was being observed keenly. The landlord was at the edge of saying something. However, words could not find their way out of his throat. It seemed as if his lips carried the burden of the life he had lived so far: the weight of his experience, the role he played, and the lives he affected. He wanted to greet us, inquire of our wellbeing; of our journey. All he could manage was to murmur unintelligible articulations with gestures that did not seem understandable. It all did, however, make sense to his personal bodyguard who was his cigarette carrier, too: An old man with a Muslim prayer cap on his head and a grey beard. I wondered how his shoulder carried the weight of the weapon. The ease in his humbleness was amazing, considering he had been serving the landlord for decades now.
Crippled by nature’s wrath or perhaps his own hatred within, his body was in a state he loathed himself. It was evident from his silence and his reluctance. He wanted to ignore the need of speaking at times, and at times made more than enough effort. It was only about half a decade ago that he was robbed of his normalcy. Paralysis, they told me.
He asked who I was. The question was not for me. The essential was told. Meanwhile, wasps and mosquitoes together seemed to more eloquent than us, buzzing their way over our heads. The smells of the moist soil, the landlord’s perfume, cigarette smoke and the greenery around seemed to attack the senses all at once. It was still beautiful, the rural scene. There is no onomatopoeia to state the mesmerising fascination of the sounds nature keeps. Verily, it is a secret she is only willing to share with hearts and not ears.
After a pause, I was asked by my friend and host to return to their otaaq (traditional Sindhi sitting place for guests and visitors and men of a village, community or family), while he spent some more time with his elder, the landlord.
Before we had come here, through conversations that were not meant for me, and the ones that were, I had heard the story of the jirga-to-be. As in almost all of the rural areas of Sindh, there are people who live on this landlord’s land, too, with his permission and under his authority, serving him and surviving. The intensity and sternness with which unpleasant, rural customs of Sindh are followed is twice intense and stern in this part of the province.
These people, the unconscious slaves of their own weaknesses, are divided on the basis of their castes or tribes. The area of a tribe is its own paarra, the equivalent of a neighbourhood. The matter was related to two of such paarras, a Sindhi Muslim community and the other a Sindhi scheduled caste Hindu cluster of families. A boy from the latter group was allegedly caught red-handed with a girl belonging to the former. Involved in a conversation, that is. Over the mobile phone, that is. The alleging party was the girl’s brother. Taking matters into hand, in that very playground where the alleged played sports with youngsters from the landlord’s family and from other communities around, the girl’s brother gave the alleged ‘perpetrator’ a good beating. The brother’s verdict was that he had actually seen and heard the young man talking to his sister over the phone. It was all then reported to the landlord.
You see, when anything involved women, the landlord’s sense of justice, already overshadowed by his naturally damaged physical abilities, became vaguer than usual, so I was told. He was a politically strong character once, making it to the corridors of power. The family has an ancestral claim on a political seat. From the most feared man in his own little world to the man he was now, the landlord had achieved too much to be lost to a mere temporarily irreparable illness. And in cases of matters involving women, the most valuable possession in the rural world after land and wealth, he was not considerate at all. Justifiers there explain the concept of the female sex as being the recognised basis of honour: manikins of honour, in other words.
It was the later part of the evening when he sat in his courtyard. Cigarette in fingers, he was all set to see it through that his decision was implemented. It was another of those evenings for him when he had to exercise his power, and as they say in Sindh, to show them,
how many 20’s make a 100.
All he waited for was the parties to arrive and the ceremonious sitting to formally start. From the looks of it, anyone could tell he had already made up his mind.
In a much smaller capacity, the girl’s brother was making sure his intentions are respected. In the small house overcrowded by his family, all members were watching with indifference as he, holding a sickle to his father’s neck, threatened, “You will say what I have told you to say. Not a word more. The landlord will only hear the story I want him to hear, you understand? Or else it will be your blood on my hands instead of that … Hindu!” The brother had done this before as well, when the matter was yet not taken to the landlord’s court.
The alleged perpetrator had a swollen face. His ribs hurt. He was tired of making so many phone calls to save his family and himself from the disgrace of being pronounced guilty. Sitting in the house that he was now quite weary of, still on phone, he tried to satisfy himself by making every possible effort. On the other side of the phone, I heard my friend and host tell him, “Nothing will happen. We have things covered. The truth will prevail.” I was amazed to hear the word truth. It was not every day that the value of truth was practically demonstrated for you to see: how could truth carry so much weightage, much more than lives?
Only the defending party arrived at the landlord’s court. There were empty chairs but no one dared to take a seat without the landlord’s permission. Those who dared were the ones with special privileges, the ones who always said ‘yes’ to the man, with an added humility that the word ‘saaien’ (lord) carried. No greetings exchanged, no statements heard. The father of the alleged was there, too. His eyes were oozing fear. Anything but that, those eyes spoke. The landlord’s physical state was not enough to make the decision he uttered unintelligible. His murmur had suddenly become words, and his gestures movements of order: “Leave the lands, never again be here.”
The kind and gentle landlord was merciful enough to let other families of the caste maintain the paarra. It was only the alleged perpetrator’s family who was ordered out. What followed was a sight of wonder. Strong, rural men of who toiled on the hard soil with no regrets had tears trickling down their cheeks. It was sad to know that no amount of tears could soften the landlord’s heart on the decision. It was irreversible. Completely irreversible, that is.
Only a few hours before the fiasco, my friend and host had received a call. Informants on the other side told him how the father of the girl had approached the alleged. “It was my son’s doing,” the father said. “I could not fight him,” he went on, “You are innocent.” The father explained the episodes with his son, the girl’s brother. They were narrated to my friend and host, enhancing his belief in the prevalence of truth.
The scheduled caste Hindu family of the alleged young man had lived on that land for more than half a decade till that evening. They had shops in the village, with many owing them money. Many later chatted how it was the Hindus’ fault; that they should not have started their lives on that land in the first place.
Nobody knew what the brother’s intentions were. Nobody got to know ever. I wondered how this was the simplest of jirgas I witnessed or heard about, and the kindest, too.
I was sad at why there did not exist a love story. A guilty beloved would have been better than an innocent man forcibly driven out of his home with his whole family.