By Muhammad Zafar Iqbal
Translated by Saima Hassan

THE passengers were waiting – anxious and scared. The bus wasn’t supposed to stop here; a black-clad soldier, militia of sort, signalled the bus to pull over. Checking passenger buses these days are routine stuff; yet, no one seems to have gotten used to it. A soldier will get in, ‘inspect’ and then let it go; till then nothing but to wait in silence.
   Azad, holding Kajal against him, was waiting along with the rest. Kajal was only four; looked a lot younger though. The last few months’ fleeing and running off to places had left a permanent mark of fear on his face. The boy had been unwell for sometime now and for the last few days been suffering from delirium. Azad was no expert but from the symptoms it seemed malaria. The village where they had been hiding for the last few months had no doctor. They were off to Mymensingh to see one.
   Kajal, raising from Azad’s lap asked, ‘Abba, when will we start?’
   ‘Ei to, in a minute or two.’
   ‘Military has stopped us, right?’
   ‘Yes.’
   ‘Why, abbu?’
   ‘Don’t know’.
   ‘They will look for “Joy Bangla”, na?’
   ‘Shhhhh!!! Now is not the time!’
   Kajal went quite. He couldn’t figure out when it was safe to mention ‘Joy Bangla’ and when not.
   Azad stared out of the window. A few other buses were also parked by the roadside; anxious faces of the passengers were peeping through the window. A group of black clad militias are standing beside. A few paces away, under an ancient banyan tree, were a few military, sitting there, idle and tired…
   Everyone inside the bus was silent. Azad, in a whisper, asked the driver, ‘Driver shaheb, do they halt the buses often’?
   The driver, sweating profusely, probably couldn’t hear what Azad asked. ‘Do they act like this always? asked Azad again.
   ‘No. Something has gone wrong today.’
   ‘What?’
   ‘Don’t know. Just pray’.
   Right then the driver saw the militias were bringing the passengers down from one of the buses. They were then walked in a line towards a small pond along the roadside. He must keep alert; if a shot was heard it was keyamot for all…
   Azad looked at Kajal. Everyone said the boy looked like him; Azad thought otherwise though. To him Kajal looked very much like his mother especially those eyes and that curve over the lips. He wondered what Shirin was doing now. She would remain restless till they are back from the doctor. She did not trust Azad with any sort of responsibility particularly anything relating to Kajal. But during this turbulent time, it was out of the question for her to take Kajal to the doctor herself. She had instructed Azad probably a thousand times – what to ask the doctor, which symptoms to elaborate. That Azad could handle the responsibility of taking Kajal to a doctor without messing it up was beyond her.
   
   TO SHIRIN, Azad was nothing but a worthless father — hopeless to be precise. Why and how she had become so certain was, however, a mystery. Actually Shirin has to have a clear conception — her own theory on each and every topic. Even on those complex issues of life on which even experts and philosophers have failed to reach a conclusion. From religion, politics, sociology to which tailor in New Market makes the perfect blouse at the cheapest price — everything. Kajal was now only four years old and Azad had the rest of his life to prove himself to be a responsible father. But from what it seemed, no matter how hard he tried, Shirin’s opinion about Azad would remain unchanged.
   It started with when Kajal was born. The probable date of delivery was mid-march. At the end of February, Azad needed to go to Rajshahi. Both Azad and Shirin’s relatives and family members live in Dhaka; even the doctor who was treating Shirin was some sort of a relative of theirs. So, even in case of an emergency it wasn’t supposed to be any hassle getting admitted to hospital and stuff. So Azad went off to Rajshahi without much concern; Shirin had to be admitted to hospital within two days. At first everyone thought all would go normal. But at the last moment a caesarean operation became necessary and one of Shirin’s uncles had to sign the documents on behalf. When Azad returned, Kajal was by then eight-day old. It was almost impossible for Shirin to forgive a father who couldn’t make it to his newborn in eight days! For a much trivial an offence Shirin didn’t talk to one of her cousins for nine years.
   Azad was yet again established a worthless father when Kajal was seven months old. He was to baby-sit as Shirin had to go out somewhere. Before Azad was bestowed with the responsibility, Shirin taught him EVERYTHING he needed to know. Azad too had all the best intention. But during feeding time, he just couldn’t find any clue why Kajal refused to put the bottle in his mouth. When Shirin returned home at around midnight, she found Kajal was screaming at the top of his voice while Azad was trying out everything to calm him down and feed him. One look at the bottle and Shirin knew what had gone wrong; the feeding bottle had no hole in the nipple. Though there was no explanation why a nipple without a hole would be there in the first place, till date Azad bears the humiliation of not being able to feed his own son.
   The moment Shirin reached a conclusion that Azad was a worthless father, with each day it has become almost a conviction. It conveniently escaped Shirin’s attention when Azad paced the entire night with a sick Kajal on his lap, but not the one when one day, very much inadvertently, Azad had spilled hot tea on Kajal’s hand. If someone really wants to believe in something, it’s actually not that difficult to find excuses aplenty.
   Initially, Azad tried to change Shirin’s mind but later couldn’t but give up on it. Primarily because once Shirin reached a conclusion over anyone or anything, it was virtually impossible to change it back. And secondly because almost all the issues Shirin has reached a conclusion turned out to be nothing but baseless.
   Say for example, she thought that her first child would be a girl. She was so sure of it that she even decided what to name her. It was a boy. Then Shirin thought that no matter how ugly looking President Yahya was he would accept the election result. In March, this hypothesis of hers too turned out to be baseless. Shirin’s third and final presumption was proven wrong on the night of March 25; she was almost certain that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto will reach a consensus and the Pakistani military wouldn’t dare harm the Bengalis. On the night of March 25, they woke up amidst the deafening sound of shooting and bombardment. Shirin’s final theory proved baseless in the middle of April. She was almost certain that when the rest of the world will get know how the Pakistani military was carrying out genocide on its own people, the powerful nations will intervene. During mid-April Shirin, with Kajal and Azad, was fleeing from one village to another. The outside world was well aware of what’s happening here, but nobody seemed to care about a tiny state called East Pakistan.
   Azad and Shirin had never lived in a village for such a long time. It wasn’t, however, that much difficult as it thought it would be. There is some sort of diversity in village life and they got used to it pretty quickly. Azad never even imagined that he would go to public wearing a bush shirt and lungi; but in reality not only was he seen heading towards the bazaar for tea in that attire, he even had a pair of faded rubber pump-shoe and when those shoes got stuck in mud, he didn’t hesitate to take it off, carry it and commute barefooted. Only six months ago he would fuss over which pant to wear with which shoe! Seemed a forlorn dream…
   
   AZAD sensed an excitement inside the bus. He turned back and saw a militia was getting in. He was no older than a teenager, but seeing him something just swirled inside the stomach and Azad felt like throwing up. If the country wasn’t in a state of war and Azad had met the young man somewhere on the street would he have been so terrified?
   The militia ordered them to get down from the bus. The language he spoke wasn’t Urdu, probably Panjabi or Poshtu but nobody had any problem understanding what he ordered. While getting down, an old man asked the militia something calling him ‘baba’; the soldier didn’t pay any heed to him. He just stared at the man with complete indifference. He didn’t understand what the old man said, nor did he care.
   While getting down from the bus all of a sudden Azad felt scared; a complete different and unknown sort of fear. He had never known of any such feeling – his entire body just became numb; his head felt dizzy. Kajal wrapped his little arms around his father’s neck and asked, ‘They will now check us, right abbu?’
   ‘Yes, baba,’ Azad replied hoarsely.
   ‘How would they check us, abbu?’
   ‘Ei to just like this.’
   Who knows what Kajal made up of it; he just replied, ‘O.’
   Some more militias were standing down there; guarding them from both sides they walked the passengers in a line towards the pond besides a bamboo shrub. A middle-aged man walking along with Azad said to him huskily, ‘They will make us carry the bullet box.’
   ‘Bullet box?’
   ‘Yes. They gather people when they need to carry the boxes.’
   ‘Really?’
   ‘Yes. Last week my younger brother had to do the same.’
   ‘O.’
   ‘It must be bullet box! Tai na?’ asked the man in all earnest.
   ‘Yes. It must be bullet boxes.’ Azad tried to assure him.
   Walking past the pond Azad couldn’t but take a peek inside. A number of people were lying there. Some of them had their feet in the water some had their hands dipping wet. A few even had their heads under water but didn’t seem to care that much. Azad stared again and realised that they were dead. Shot and killed. The passengers from the earlier bus who where walked there minutes ago.
   At the extreme right there was this baby, still had his arms around his father. The baby was wearing a beautiful red shirt. Is it actually the colour of the shirt or, was it blood?
   Kajal asked, ‘Abbu who are these people?’
   ‘Don’t look in there, baba,’ Azad replied.
   Kajal looked away and asked, ‘Why abbu?’
   ‘Will tell you later, ok?’
   Kajal nodded; then just smirked for no particular reason.
   Azad looked at Kajal. Everything inside his head was going upside down. He just couldn’t think anymore. It seemed as if he had a high temperature. Are people crying and wailing around him? Is anyone screaming? Was anyone saying something? Why couldn’t he hear anything? Kajal was raising his shoulder and trying to see something. What was he trying to see?
   ‘Kajal,’ Azad whispered.
   ‘Yes, abbu.’
   ‘You just hold me tight. Very tight.’
   Kajal said something, Azad couldn’t understand. Four militias were raising their rifles. Another one from afar was walking towards them. Kajal called again, ‘Abbu.’
   ‘Yes, baba.’
   ‘Are they checking us?’
   ‘Yes, baba.’
   ‘When will they be done?’
   ‘Ei to, in a minute.’
   ‘Will we then be going?’
   ‘Yes, baba.’
   ‘Will we be going to ammu then?’
   The militia standing nearby said something and then just stood by. He was staring at them somewhat broodingly with a sad look on his face.
   The militias pointed the rifles at them. Azad whispered again, ‘Kajal.’
   ‘Yes, abbu?’
   ‘Do you want to hear the story of the idiot king? You know, there was this idiot king who…?’
   ‘Yes, abbu, yes!’ Suddenly Kajal shrills in excitement.
   ‘Then look at me.’
   Kajal held his father and stared at him.
   ‘Once upon a time; there was this idiot king…’
   Kajal’s face lights up. The story of the idiot king was his most favourite. He heard it so many times and every time at the end he broke down with laughter. People were crying around; Kajal didn’t understand why. He didn’t even want to know. The military standing in front looked scary. Kajal wouldn’t look at them. If he held his father tight then there was nothing to be scared of. If something had gone wrong would his father be telling the story of the idiot king? He wouldn’t.
   Kajal was staring at his father smiling and excited. He had heard the story a number of times. This time it wouldn’t matter much, Azad knew, if he couldn’t hear it till the end.