Not My God

The only thing which I remember till this day, were the piercings in her ears. In the next three years I would sit in her lap and would try to count them -- 5, 6, 7, 8 and then my counting would die as if I am trying to count the stars on a clean starry night. She had three piercings in her nose as well. That evening I had stared in my grandmother’s eyes and had said�she looks like the stuffed horsey�. My grandmother translated my sentence to her in an alien yet familiar language. All women are horses bibi, she had replied with a twinkle in her eyes.

Meeran bibi was 58 years old when she entered our household as a kitchen help and a quasi nanny to three of the kids. Unlike the usual servants who wore shalwar kameez she had this black cloth all wrapped around her like part skirt part sarong. I had never seen a woman wearing something like that. She spoke in the far southern dialect of Punjabi, which was something between seriaki and urdu. I would stare at her face trying to understand her sentences. In the first few weeks there was a constant rifle in the kitchen. She had no idea how to cook the thin urban version of “rootiyan� we were used to eat. Neither did she had any idea how to use the spices in right amount. While cleaning dishes she had scratched the non-stick tiffal pans my mother had bought from England. The cook complained that she smells of yogurt and oil. She was hesitant to touch the glass dishes and chinaware . The only thing you could see in her eyes was fear and pain. In spite of the fact that I was unable to understand her dialect and her vocabulary Meeran bibi became a friend. She had the right idea how to get the plain piece of clay to play “shitapo�. And she was eager to catch us in hide and seek. Sometimes I felt that she was a kid like me entrapped in a wrinkled face and old body. In few weeks she had given us nick names. My brother would fight with her because she would pronounce his real name in a weird way. In my case she added a rhyming sound which became a life time nick between friends and loved ones.

Her routine was simple. In the next week, my grandmother had given her some proper shalwar kameez to wear in the house. Some times i felt that she had also given he soap and some “kala kola� to get rid of the smell . In three weeks time she became a part of that paraphernalia. The bread achieved the right thickness, she mastered the art of cooking with right spices and washing the dishes in the sink without splashing it around the wooden western cabinets. She started wearing the shalwars given by my grandmother in the kitchen.
Meeran bibi was “jangli�. At that time when i heard the phrase i thought that it referred to people living in the jungle. The visions of a half naked mongli running in some mythical jungle encapsulated my mind. I had no idea what jangli meant for that part of the world. It definitely meant uncouth tribes living on the verge of the semi barren lands of Punjab, making a livelihood through substantial farming. But the uncouth culture was definitely related with poverty not civilization. They spoke a different yet similar language. She had lost her husband to another woman and she was the perfect case of abandoned house wives. A land where honor is related with death and life, meeran bibi had taken refuge in the house of my mother’s maternal uncle who had forwarded her to our household as an addition to the army of domestic help.

She would sit in the winter sun of Punjab and would narrate stories of how rich her husband was, and how a young witch from the other village seduced him. I would eavesdrop the conversation and some times the ladies will continue thinking that i will never be able to decipher the language.
She was strange in many ways. She started calling my father wadda doctor sahib... and my mother chotte maim sahib. The sight of a brown female driving a car, having short hair and wearing a silk duppata must have been a sight for her.

My mother would make small conversations with her from time to time which were more or less related with my younger sister who was a toddler. Meeran bibi was instructed to watch over us when we were reading quran from the Qari sahib or were getting help from the tutor in homework. My grandmother was apparently afraid of the Qari . I as a kid was never able to understand her fears. The qari would recite a verse and would make us repeat the “sabaq� line by line. Meeran bibi would stare at the jaman trees and would say bismillah after we had finished the lesson. She would stare at the silk covered copies of our Quran with a greed that was unfathomable. I wish i could read that saru bibi.
And then I realize that for her the words were just lines drawn on the page. And all the elders are not able to read like my mother who would read the bed time story from the lady birds.

As the summer approached our chairs moved from the lawn to the veranda. Qari sahib would make us read three pages without allowing us to drink water. The days became longer and hotter. Later in one of the evening “chowkider� started beating the front day. There was a young weird looking guy with a wooden box. Captain sahib had send his stuff. The man handed over the letter to my grand mother. My younger uncle had apparently gone for a military exercise which was not some thing uncommon. After few days i saw my grand mother sobbing in the kitchen. It was not exercise. It was war.And it was a war in the glacier. My uncle was transferred to siachin .

My grandmother’s prayers increased as the shadows on the left wall 2 civil lines increased. The rose bush was in full bloom.. She would sit in the corner on her prayer mat and would pray constantly going inside again and again. There was an unending silence in the house. It was partly morbid. Meeran bibi stopped playing with us in the evenings. She would sit beside with my grandmother murmuring some words. And then she would hide her face in the old black chadder sobbing lightly. The war had entered our kitchen.

Then my aunts started arriving. Every day there would be dua and khatum in the house. Amman became bed ridden. The pain in the back would not allow her to sit and pray. But then the whole house started looking like a prayer room with more prayers and less smiles. Every time the phone rang my grandmother will snatch the receiver as if she was waiting for a divine call. Chacho would call from skardu after 15 days, and it would soothe amman for a week. But after that she would behave as a fish out of water.

I would understand Amman’s pain but what had happened to Meeran Bibi. It was like a puzzle, I was unavble to solve. Amman allowed her to weep and run her fingers on the holy text knowing that she can not read a single word. And then at times she would narrate Meeran bibi tales of Rajput warriors telling her to be brave as it was a part of honour to die for honor. Who was the warrior? I was trying to understand the real and unreal characters merging in my life. The goddesses who were real and who were unreal. The faith wrapped in the silk covers. The surnames which had tales of thousand centuries behind them.

Meeran bibi, became more silent. She would stare on the phone and asked if there was any call.

After few days I concluded that she had a son on the same border as my uncle, serving in the same regiment. And that she is related to us by caste in some way. The war was going on for too long. The phone calls from Sakurdu became shorter and shorter. And then one evening I heard the screams of Meeran bibi with my Amman trying to soothe her. I could hear her screaming that “the god is not mine�.

Meeran bibi had lost her only son in a war she never understood...