Read Online In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Daniyal Mueenuddin
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‘Jaglani’s fleecing you. He’s a thief. You should cut down your expenses. If you must sell, for God’s sake sell at a proper price.’
‘If I believed that Jaglani had cheated me,’ said the father, ‘I wouldn’t believe in anything anymore.’
The old man sentimentally thought that the people of Dunyapur, the village in the heart of the Harouni lands, revered his family, whose roots had been in that soil for a mere hundred years.
Though he had become crooked on a large scale, Jaglani did not believe himself to have broken his feudal allegiance to K. K. Harouni, but instead felt himself appropriately to be taking advantage of the master’s incapacity and lack of oversight, not seceding but simply expressing a more independent stance. He continued to run the farm extremely well and profitably, and continued sending money to Lahore, a larger share of the net in fact than he used to send, because he himself had developed other sources of income. As his political ambitions grew, he moved his family and household from the village to a large but plain house in the small city of Firoza, the subdistrict headquarters, in order to be closer to the courts and to the government administration. He kept his house in Dunyapur, and often spent nights there. An old sweepress cleaned the house, and he ate the food prepared in the dera, the administrative center, where many visitors, buyers and sellers, came and were fed and housed.
One spring day, while driving Jaglani from Firoza to Dunyapur, among the rising green sugarcane fields, with migratory quail and the partridge calling, Mustafa the driver, sensing his master’s good mood, begged to speak.
‘That’s fine, go on,’ said Jaglani, who knew that the driver had chosen this moment to make some request. Mustafa rarely asked for anything on his own behalf, but often acted for other people who needed something from his master. He advanced carefully, asking only at the correct moment, when he knew Jaglani would accede; and Jaglani, who often sounded his ideas on Mustafa, did not mind this slight bit of manipulation. His own career had been built on calculations of give-and-take. Mustafa took care to make requests that reflected Jaglani’s interests, or at least that would not harm his interests.
‘My sister,’ said Mustafa, ‘just fled back from Rawalpindi, leaving her husband there. He works in ’Pindi as a peon in a bank. You were good enough to get him that post. She couldn’t stand the city, the dirtiness, the bad food, the lack of friends or family. Her husband doesn’t send any money, because he wants to starve her out and force her back to his home. You often have said that the food they prepare for visitors doesn’t suit you. Viro, who cleans your house, is getting old. Let my sister cook for you and keep the house. Let her try for a week or two. If she doesn’t do well, then please let her go. I beg pardon for troubling you with this.’
Mustafa always managed to ask favors in a way that made Jaglani glow, choosing moments when his master felt satis fied, with work or with politics, the moment when the day seemed sweetest.
‘That’s fine,’ said Jaglani tersely, not wanting to show his pleasure at obliging his driver in this almost personal fashion. ‘Tell the accountants to put her on salary, and put the old woman wherever they will.’
The next evening Jaglani returned to Dunyapur at dusk, after a day spent on the farms, the jeep’s twin lights poking into the night. Peasants bringing their buffalos back from watering at the canal stood aside and saluted, the heavy bells hanging from the animals’ necks making a mournful hollow gonging. Some had old shoes tied around their necks, as amulets against the evil eye. Only Jaglani’s house had electricity, and as they drove along the dusty main street of the village, lanterns glowed in the unshuttered windows and cook fires threw orange light on the mud walls. The village smelled of
‘If I believed that Jaglani had cheated me,’ said the father, ‘I wouldn’t believe in anything anymore.’
The old man sentimentally thought that the people of Dunyapur, the village in the heart of the Harouni lands, revered his family, whose roots had been in that soil for a mere hundred years.
Though he had become crooked on a large scale, Jaglani did not believe himself to have broken his feudal allegiance to K. K. Harouni, but instead felt himself appropriately to be taking advantage of the master’s incapacity and lack of oversight, not seceding but simply expressing a more independent stance. He continued to run the farm extremely well and profitably, and continued sending money to Lahore, a larger share of the net in fact than he used to send, because he himself had developed other sources of income. As his political ambitions grew, he moved his family and household from the village to a large but plain house in the small city of Firoza, the subdistrict headquarters, in order to be closer to the courts and to the government administration. He kept his house in Dunyapur, and often spent nights there. An old sweepress cleaned the house, and he ate the food prepared in the dera, the administrative center, where many visitors, buyers and sellers, came and were fed and housed.
One spring day, while driving Jaglani from Firoza to Dunyapur, among the rising green sugarcane fields, with migratory quail and the partridge calling, Mustafa the driver, sensing his master’s good mood, begged to speak.
‘That’s fine, go on,’ said Jaglani, who knew that the driver had chosen this moment to make some request. Mustafa rarely asked for anything on his own behalf, but often acted for other people who needed something from his master. He advanced carefully, asking only at the correct moment, when he knew Jaglani would accede; and Jaglani, who often sounded his ideas on Mustafa, did not mind this slight bit of manipulation. His own career had been built on calculations of give-and-take. Mustafa took care to make requests that reflected Jaglani’s interests, or at least that would not harm his interests.
‘My sister,’ said Mustafa, ‘just fled back from Rawalpindi, leaving her husband there. He works in ’Pindi as a peon in a bank. You were good enough to get him that post. She couldn’t stand the city, the dirtiness, the bad food, the lack of friends or family. Her husband doesn’t send any money, because he wants to starve her out and force her back to his home. You often have said that the food they prepare for visitors doesn’t suit you. Viro, who cleans your house, is getting old. Let my sister cook for you and keep the house. Let her try for a week or two. If she doesn’t do well, then please let her go. I beg pardon for troubling you with this.’
Mustafa always managed to ask favors in a way that made Jaglani glow, choosing moments when his master felt satis fied, with work or with politics, the moment when the day seemed sweetest.
‘That’s fine,’ said Jaglani tersely, not wanting to show his pleasure at obliging his driver in this almost personal fashion. ‘Tell the accountants to put her on salary, and put the old woman wherever they will.’
The next evening Jaglani returned to Dunyapur at dusk, after a day spent on the farms, the jeep’s twin lights poking into the night. Peasants bringing their buffalos back from watering at the canal stood aside and saluted, the heavy bells hanging from the animals’ necks making a mournful hollow gonging. Some had old shoes tied around their necks, as amulets against the evil eye. Only Jaglani’s house had electricity, and as they drove along the dusty main street of the village, lanterns glowed in the unshuttered windows and cook fires threw orange light on the mud walls. The village smelled of
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