Oasis

By Mehreen Ahmed

​

After the rain when the sun came out, it shone on the dust-free gardenia leaves. Ruhul just finished praying Zohr on his mat and was folding it away in his stark, rooftop bedroom. The quilt in his bed had not been turned or aired and neither had his pillows been fluffed out since he had woken. 

He went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of Darjeeling tea pouring hot water from a whistling kettle over a dunked, bleached paper tea bag. He picked up the cup and walked to the roof’s edge where he could see the garden over the rail. He noticed that a cat had sat all cuddled up on a narrow ledge of a rail on the opposite building’s high parapet. He felt insecure for the cat, but the cat sat with its eyes firmly closed on all fours showing no fear, and enjoying its freedom on the ledge. 

Ruhul was curious that how was it even possible that the cat felt no fear. He could easily transport his trepidations into the cat through the space where he was standing, the way his heart was pounding for it. For once he wished that he was that cat, knew no fear of falling, until a dog next door barked, the cat opened its eyes dully and jumped off the ledge to safety. Ruhul smiled and watched the oasis of the leaves shimmering in his garden between the two tall concrete buildings.

Playing in the dappled lights, the leaves mesmerised him. He forgot to blink. A crow flew across and broke the panacea of the moment. He picked up his cup and took another sip, while a breeze blew a strand of his curly locks over his forehead. Humming a nursery rhyme, he saw a little boy dressed in a white kurta top and pyjamas, and a round white embroidered topi covering his small head, running down a corridor of this house that belonged to his grandparents.

As he ran, he rhymed a nursery song that his grandmother used to sing to him in Urdu—“nini baba nini makhan roti chini, apne abbu aaye, lal khelona laye, khelte, khelte bhuk lagi, khalo bete momphali, momphali mei dana nei, hum tomahara nana nei, nana gaye Dilli, Dilli se laye billi, billi diya bacche, Allah Mia sacche… nini baba nini …” 

Echoing, the rhyme faded within the sooty, old walls of the narrow, dark corridor. He looked behind him at a girl chasing him, she was more like charging him with a baton. He couldn’t see her anymore; she whiffed away in a cloud of smoke as though she didn’t even have a bodily existence; this, a figment from the past, he had lived through all those years, the past had dissipated at a swish of a wand. Her name was Usma Tahera. Growing up, Ruhul played with her as a child in the attic of this big house. She was their neighbour’s daughter where the cat was lounging.

Mostly, they played dress-as-you-like. Ruhul was King and Usma was his Queen. They would dress as whatever was trunked in the attic, rusty imitation jewellery of de-stoned rings, and clip-on, flashy earrings. Ruhul wore the rings on his fat fingers, and Usma would roll all over the attic floor laughing and calling him a fat King. Ruhul would try to keep his royal cool in his court, while Usma couldn’t care less. To her, it was just a fantasy role-play. They even had crowns cut out of cardboard boxes, and decorated with more cutouts of pasted stars and moons of shiny cellophane wrappers, also tucked away in those dusty trunks. 

Magic, it sure was, the past and the present were fused into Ruhul’s mind where he stood now on the roof watching the dappled lights in the garden. Nursery rhymes anchored the past into the memory of an underwater sinkhole.

​

He slurped up the rest of the tea and went indoors. Between now and the Asr prayer, there was some time which he intended to use. Prayers structured his day. He jotted down details of what he was meant to do and when. Even at sunset, at Magrib, he knew what needed to be done. Ramadan was nearing, he needed some groceries. He loved to break fasts with fried eggplant or onion pakoras or frittatas rolled besan batter. And piaju badas from daal. This fasting month, the one and only he found most meaningful—Ramadan, replete with spiritual experience came closest to abstraction in which Ruhul found God. Iftar at sunset was the most magical of all moments when he lit a candle out on the roof to break his fast throughout the month. 

He scratched his nose and realised he had a red bump. He stopped scratching because it could flare up. Last night, he slept really well. He changed into a pair of black pants and came out of his room. He was going to town. He avoided going downstairs and meeting with the family. He cooked and ate alone in his own rooftop room.

***
Today was his day off. Normally, he dressed for work. He worked at a cutlery factory in the city near the Madhumita cinema hall. It was called The Shiny Cuts. The knives were shiny and serrated. But Ruhul laughed out loud every time he thought of the name. The factory owner’s son named it, he’d heard once. As though the knives would enhance cutting to a point that the cut food on the other end would also gleam. But the company was registered under that name and it stuck. 

What happened to Usma, though? Even when he felt angry at her for laughing at him, destroying the make belief world of the kingdom, breaking all the boundaries of a status quo, he never felt that he would ever do away with her. In his heart, he nurtured a profound tenderness for her and believed that she was the Queen of his heart, where she ruled most seriously.  However, it transpired differently in the end game of the real world, where they were just common citizens.
 

The news of Usma moving abroad fell heavily into the silence of the attic. Her father came downstairs one midday with the news that they were going away. Ruhul’s mother invited him to come inside for tea. Ruhul was waiting for Usma as usual in the attic when the bell rang. He peeked through Roman style balustrade and recognised the man. He even overheard the happy babble of good tidings.

He took his crown off without any prattle as though he has had a major blow in a battle. And placed it on the attic floor. She was to go away. Ruhul felt trepidation; his heart missed a beat. It was perhaps love, he wasn’t sure but what he decided to do with his young life surely marked a destiny. 
 

Looking back at that dreadful afternoon when it had all come tumbling down for Ruhul, he realised that he had lost both the kingdom as well the love of his life. He couldn’t have asked her to stay back for him. They were children; Usma moved to some foreign land.

For several months, he spent time alone in the attic trying to role-play both as King as well the Queen. Gradually, it occurred to him how lonesome he was becoming. As the years rolled on, he outgrew this desire for role-play. He realized, that he needed a savior. At first, he was unsure as to how he would find one. Over time, it all fell into place. He became a regular at the mosque, praying, fasting, and practicing the whole gamut of spiritualism. Usma was in his waking, in dreaming all around him dancing, laughing like a mountain stream. 

Celibacy wasn’t something he contemplated. But it appeared to him that the path had already been carved out for him. In all the world he couldn’t find another to replace Usma Tahara. A path not of his own volition, but in a world full of pretty, young girls, he chose this. Since it chose him, not the other way round, he knew in his heart that given half a chance he would embrace Usma any day, and this sweet romance would ensue. However, being such a zealot and taking refuge in religion was increasingly becoming moot.
 

There was a certain sense of satisfaction in sacrifice, but Ruhul wouldn’t rule out any misgivings of a sacrifice; there it was all, the makings and the trappings of a formulaic zealot in Godly glory. Seriously, if it wasn’t for Usma, he would not have explored this entirely new facet of spiritualism which sometimes felt to him more infinite than any cloying love. God was infinite, in embracing Him, rather than Usma, gave Ruhul a slice of immortality to taste and glimpse into the stuff of life,
he sought.
 

Minimalism was one of those nobler rarities that he acquired in celibacy. He wouldn’t deny that there were moments when he thought of Usma and how she lived a placid life abroad and who didn’t bother to keep in touch, not even send him an occasional postcard. He was convinced that she never felt a shred of love at all. Why? Had she protested lifting a finger? Was she even remotely remorseful? She left with the family on a calm afternoon crying on Ruhul’s mother’s bosom before she left the house for her new exciting life.
 

His subsequent decision of adopting celibacy hurt his mother who thought that there wouldn’t be any grandchildren running down these corridors, but most importantly to inherit the great traditions of the house, bordering on a fractured family tree. That bothered her so much, she stopped speaking to Ruhul until he changed his mind. But Ruhul was adamant in his unfathomable love for God. Even if he did get married one day for the sake of his mother, making love to another woman was impossible, one which would defeat the purpose of celibacy; surrendering to God.

As it played out, Ruhul was also young and restless. No matter how hard he prayed, regardless of what he sought in the end, desires would swell in his heart he didn’t understand. Desperately, he tried to quell them. He would even sit down and pray nafal (optional) namaaz which would calm him down for some time, and seemed to be working well.  At work, he made no eye contact with his female colleagues to the extent that they were beginning to cast shadows of doubt on his sanity. 

Sane, he was. Ruhul was sane. Perhaps, too sane—clinical, logical to the core. At the heart of it, he had to put himself to the test. He wanted to use Usma to prove a point; to see her at least one more time face to face to determine his loyalty toward God over her. To this end, he wanted to know where she lived? To which country she moved, then he would visit her there.
 

***
Just as well, his plans were underway. One morning, as he was reciting the Holy Quran, he heard the sounds of wailing from downstairs. It flabbergasted him. He closed and folded the Quran on its latticed carved wooden rehal, and stepped outside of the room. Downstairs, he saw Usma’s father visiting after a long fifteen years. What’s wrong, Ruhul thought? As he approached him, he saw a broken man, he was so bereaved that his incoherent words could only be sensed.

Something terrible had happened to Usma. She was returning with her two girls. She had married and her husband of four years was arrested for punching a hole through the wall over a rough argument. A divorce was imminent. For the first time, Ruhul felt he was losing his balance. This sanity, which he earned over these past long years was waning. He felt he was back in his kingdom again, being a King ruling it with Usma by his side.