The Eid Fair (Episode #3) No they are passing by the big buildings. This is the court, that is college, and there is the clubhouse. How many boys would study in such a big college? No! These are not boys! These are grown up men! They keep big mustaches. They have become men and still they study. Who knows how much they will study and what will they do after so much study! There are two—three big boys in the madarasa ( a traditional Muslim school) Haamid attends, all of them useless! They do not work and get punishment daily. This place will have the same kind, what else? They perform magic in the clubhouse. It is said that there the skulls of dead are made to run. Other big shows also happen but they do not let anybody in. And there the rich people come to play in the evening. Big people play there, beard—mustache and all. And their ladies also play there! If they give it to my mother, what do they call it, bat, she may not even hold it. She may swing it and lose her balance. Mahmud said— ‘By God! My dear mother would have her hands trembling.’ Mohsin said— ‘What are you saying! She grinds maunds (a unit of weight. 1 Maund= 37.32 kg) of grains. She would hold this tiny bat and will start trembling? She draws scores of pitchers of water from the well daily. Your buffalo alone needs five pitchers to drink daily. If one of these ladies has to draw a pitcher of water, she will almost faint.’ Mahmud— ‘But she does not run, she cannot do much athletics.’ Mohsin— ‘Yes, she cannot do athletics; but that day when my cow had freed itself and had started to feed on Chowdhary’s crops in his field, to tell you the truth, mother ran so fast that even I could not match her. ‘ They went forward. They could see the shops of sweet—makers. Who would eat so much of it? Look, every shop has maunds of it. We have heard that the genies come in the night and buy it all. Abba used to say that at midnight a person goes to every shop and, buys all the goods that are left and pays in real rupees after getting these goods measured. Haamid could not believe it— ‘From where would genies get such rupees?’ Mohsin said— ‘How can genies lack rupees? They can walk in whichever treasure they want. Even doors of iron cannot check them sir! What are you thinking! They even have diamonds and rubies with them. Whoever can appease them gets baskets of rubies from them. They are sitting here this second and in five minutes they will be in Calcutta.’ ‘Are genies very big?’ — Haamid asked. Mohsin— ‘Each one of their heads is as big as sky! If he stands on the earth, his head will touch the sky, but if he wants he can enter a small lota (a traditional jug in India, usually metallic).’ Haamid— ‘How would people appease them? If anybody tells me that mantra, I would appease a genie.’ Mohsin— ‘Now that I do not know! But Chaudhary Sahib controls many genies. If anything gets stolen, Chaudhary Sahib can get its location and tell the name of thief. That day the calf of Jumrati got lost. They searched everywhere for three days, and when could still not find it they went to Chaudhary. Chaudhary immediately told it is in cattle—house and it was there. The genies come and update him on everything going on.’ Now he understood why Chaudhary is so rich and why he is so respected. To be continued.....
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 10:49:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015