The Taste of Potatoes
By Sobia Ali
I should have known it that first afternoon. That is if I had not been so obsessed with books then. It should not have altered much though. Except that afterwards I should not have felt so queer inside. But it was the peak of my addiction to books. I was young and impressionable, and it was too unfortunate I found the sack of books left in the attic by my late grandfather.
I could not believe my luck. Books were as rare in that place as anything , and I would not take my nose out of them. Even for the whole new world, as my grandmother used to say. This craving for books was being noticed and commented upon all the time. Folks would come and say what a waste of time it really was. That it was dangerous for a tiny mind to sponge on such big volumes. That no good ever comes off of a mind absorbing so much that was foreign to its nature and experiences. That it was better to stay sane and ignorant than get nuts and knowledge. Typical stuff all. I could not have cared less.
Grandfather had passed away before I was two years old. I had heard about him from my sisters. He had been an Imam and used to lead people to prayers in mosques. He knew a little Arabic and a lot of Urdu, both languages alien in our region. It was really uncanny the way he had managed to learn two exotic languages living in that backward, rough place. Being a well known Imam he was much respected for his erudition by the illiterate peasants. He had to go out to different places as he stayed nowhere for more than six months, and his travelling around would put him in the way of many bookshelves in mosques, maqtabs, bookshops and people’s homes. He would carry a cloth-bag with him , and my sisters told me many amusing anecdotes about how every time he returned it was filled with stolen books. It seems he was an impulsive book-thief and anywhere he saw books , he just had to whip them into his jhola. He had collected them in the sack I had chanced upon.
There were hundreds of books there; a collection encompassing a number of subject matters and disciplines ; Urdu poetry, Urdu translations of Persian, Arabic and Turkish literature —Khayyam ’s Rubaiyat, Rumi’s Masnavi, Firdausi’s Shahanamah , Arabian Nights; volumes of Islamic history, medieval old romances, accounts of Sultans’ court intrigues, philosophy and astrology books illustrated with ancient hooked-nosed , bearded, wise-looking men. One of them was very conspicuous because of his flat nose, the one who with his long speeches about truth had babbled his way to death. There was Averroes with his commentary on Plato, and several volumes on medicine with references to Hippocrates and Avicenna. I even found in the sack an old copy of Urdu translation of Luke’s Bible and was bemused by the incident of an old Imam secretly making off with the Bible. Once there I came across Waqia-e-Tajo Murad- The mournful narrative of Tajo and Murad - a blood-curdling tale of murder, very well known in our region.
Tajo was our equivalent of Lady Macbeth, with much more theatrical effects. It was a tale of two siblings—Tajo and Murad. How Tajo the greedy sister murdered her brother Murad in cold blood, and how her crime was discovered afterwards when Murad visited their mother in dreams and told about it. It was very gory and hair-rising. But what I found most strange about it was that everyone I knew around was familiar with the tale. People who were not even aware of their religious anecdotes, of events of national significance—like elections, riots, schism, uprising , could recite by heart this local saga of violence even the authenticity of which had not been proved. I discovered the reason later on that there were audio cassettes of it by some local artist, famous for Qawwali songs.
Well, it was in one of those lengthy afternoons that has become as extinct as the old people who used to snore them off. I had sat myself in a corner with the book about Tajo while my mother and sisters slumbered on the bare earth. The ceiling fan whizzed and whooshed, helpless in the face of the opaque heat waves. My sisters mumbled and sighed, sweating profusely, but the sleep would overcome all their conscious efforts at waking and drag them again into its feverish folds.
I must have looked like a ghost, sweating in the hot, darkened room where the dust laden rays of the fiery sun pierced through the chinks in the curtains, hunched over the book beside those tortured, slumbering souls. I had been feeling thirsty for some time, but was reluctant to put down my book because I was through to the last pages. At last I got it finished and came out in the yard.
I was at once struck by the brilliant white sunshine and the desolateness in the air. The guava tree was swathed in thick layers of a sandy powder that the loo had brought . The pair of sparrows which was building a nest on its branches sat exhausted, staring around suspiciously. A crow came flying with its beak opened in thirst and flopped down on the wall. As I stood there blinking against the sunlight, I was reminded of my mother ’s remark which she had made that very morning about my increasing obsession with books. Usually, she did not say much about things and till then had been reticent about my reading books all the time. But that day when she saw me rubbing the sleep off my eyes and rummaging in the book-sack first thing in the morning she halted midway in scooping rice out of tin box and said very solemnly ,
‘Noori, it is a sin’
‘What is?’ I paused and looked at her sharply.
‘If you find things of imaginations more interesting than God’s creation, it is a sin.’
‘What does it mean, Mother?’ I asked, aghast, the harsh sunlight piercing in my not quite awake eyes, but she had scuttled downstairs.
I had been uneasy all day, and was suddenly reminded of it. The pitcher was placed on a wet pile of sand under the tree. I tilted it to fill a bowl with water, and sat on my haunches to drink. The pitcher dripped through some small, invisible hole and there had formed a puddle where wasps, bees and clay potters had gathered to drink water. From afar came the sound of sugar mill and corn grinder.
Having nothing to do, I sauntered out aimlessly. Khan’s house was up the lane. It was the sun that caught her eye and made them glitter. I stared at it. Then with an unconscious , childish curiosity I walked towards it. It twinkled through cracks in the wooden gate. What was it—it appeared to be a bead—but its flaming intensity brought me to the conclusion that it was something living, a shining insect perhaps, one of those bright things that peep out from the crevices. You can’t’ be certain of their colors at first, it is green or gold or purple or red. I hesitated as it moved. I thought I knew what it was. I was surprised . It was the eye of a cat peeping out. I took a thin twig and induced it through the crack. It withdrew at once, but I had had ample time to recognize it for what it was—a human eye, through which peered out a soul caged and stifled for years. I stood numbed, sweat pouring off into my eyes.
When school let out we stopped at the candy shop. There they sold small plastic pictures of things like —flowers, insects, birds and animals. I noticed that Gulnara bought animal ones’ only. She was my class fellow and lived up our lane. She was Khan’s daughter. And as her mother never scolded them, she and her brother were a little unmannered and rude.
‘Don’t’ you like flowers, Gulnara? What do you want with these lions and tigers, leopards and deer?’
‘These are not for me, stupid. I bought them for mother.”
‘Mother? What does your mother want with them?’
‘Nothing. She keeps them. She gave me extra money to buy them’
I could not imagine what a grown-up, illiterate woman like Gulnara’s mother would want with pictures of wild animals. I asked her insistently about it, but she had become elusive now. This had piqued my curiosity and made me remember the afternoon I saw her mother peering out through cracks in the door, and I decided to take a good look at her when next time I would be at Gulnara’s.
Of course, I had been to Gulnara’s house many times, and I still can taste the sudden oppressive feeling that used to overcome me whenever I went there. Curiously it seemed never to have any affect over Gulnara, and I had always thought her mother too common to notice. She was short, dark with a small squatted figure and sweat poured off her from manual works. She used to be encased in long jumpers and trousers of bright color. She affected an innate kind of artlessness and tended her children , if not with exceptional, yet a sort of generous heart.
The courtyard of their house was walled in, and a big wooden door was put at the entrance. Generally it was not how houses in our village were built. Our courtyards had little fences round them with small wooden gates at the entrance that we usually left open. They gaped open to the sky and invited air, dust, morning colors, harsh sunlight, birdsongs and insects. But in Gulnara’s house everything was different. A tin shade covered the whole courtyard, and with the gate closed all the time, one had a feeling of being imprisoned.
I don’t’ remember if it was me or Gulnara first broached the subject of pictures. ‘Oh, that’, she had said, blushing. But I could see she was secretly pleased. Gulnara insisted that her mother showed us her collection. She brought over the wooden box, filled to the brim with wildlife pictures of every size—from match-box to wall sized; pictures, illustrated colorful books, replicas of good paintings of wild animals.
She really had a good collection of pictures; tigers running in slow motion, lions staring moodily into cameras, deer surprised and wide eyed, herds of zebras and buffaloes, intelligent elephants with humorous glints in their eyes, giraffe straining their necks to partake of the green, lush branches. Agile leopards and black monumental rhinos. Majestic lions. Gorilla troops. Big wild cats. White-tailed gnus. Okapis and bison. Muskox and grizzly bears. Green mambas. Proboscis monkeys. Pygmy marmosets. She was flushed and explained every picture , Gulnara purring proudly all the time. She babbled about things, like how innocent the cubs looked, and how glamorous the mink. I was impressed and curious to know how she came by them. Here and there, she said darkly. It was evident though a great amount of work and attention had been splurged on the collection.
When I came away that day a kind of sadness sat on my heart as I thought over what she had to show for the labor of a lifetime. A good collection of wildlife pictures. Wasn’t it pitiable? I repeated to myself like a refrain all day long and strangely found myself comparing her collection with the book sack of my grandfather. After all, what my grandfather had to show for his life except that sack lying negligently in the attic. I did not know why but it would not make me sad the way the other did.
I used to carry out my books to Gulnara’s house to study with her and her mother would come over to sit with us and listen as we did our lessons. Geography, specially. She was very keen on Jungles, queried us on which one lay in which direction, which one was far and near to our place and on wildlife peculiar to them. I was surprised at her knowledge of Jungles and wild animals. When I voiced astonishment at it and asked if she ever went to school, she was pleasantly surprised and told me that she used to read her nephew’s books at home, and now have been reading her children’s school books for years.
After that, I made a point that every wild life picture I came across made its way into her box. A kind of familiarity developed between us. Whenever I had time on my hands I would go to their house. Sometimes Gulnara was not even present there. I played around, while she finished her chores. We talked of this and that, but it always came around to Jungles. She would look ogle-eyed into my face and wonder aloud how one would get to such and such forest. Is it done by bus or train? How much are fares on them? I noticed one day that when I jokingly made some reference to a Jungle trip in front of her daughter, she hurriedly changed the topic. I had the idea that it was something exclusive she talked about with me only and I felt strangely privileged.
From that day onwards I set myself the task of garnering the kind of information she took interest in. I did this without any conscious thought of what I was doing. Around that time I came across an interesting fact I had not guessed till then that books mostly talked of very real things. The thought, I remember, had not much appealed to me. But somehow it had occupied a part of my mind. I started taking grandfather’s books to her home and read there. Sometimes when we were alone, I read aloud and she hobbled around , listening. She never sat down to listen. She was too shy for that. I had noticed she was not much impressed with Baba s’ books. She was not used to the pleasures of word narratives , and her senses having been molded on imitations of colorful wildlife had difficulty in grasping subtle nuances of literary concepts and fabrications. But it did not matter, as long as we both had fuel for our imaginations.
Now and then she would say something that would tickle me for a long time afterwards. Like that time she came out hurriedly from kitchen.
‘ Don’t’ you think Americans are lucky people, Noori?’
‘Yes. They are. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, nothing. I was just thinking they are the only people on earth who have got groundhogs. And pronghorns too!’
I reminded her that Africa was the only place where they had giraffes, zebras, lemurs, hippopotamus, white rhinos and many such, and that they did not consider themselves very lucky.
‘They don’t’? She gaped in disbelief.
‘No.’
‘Ungrateful people.’ She mumbled, and went back into the kitchen. The bewilderment on her face made me giggle the whole day.
One day Khan came home when I was there . Though, Gulnara’s house being up our lane, I used to see quite a lot of him, it was the first time I saw him at his house. He was a tall, thin and goat-bearded man. He looked dull and tired, and was nervously blowing on his nose. I closed my book and stood up to go. He asked me if school was off, and would I like to take some lunch. I mumbled excuses and came away. She came after me to close the door. There was a pool of sadness that lapped out of her eyes and the closed door.
I breathed in sharply. My chest felt constrained and something needled my dry throat. I had heard the gossip about the bitch then. Yes, about the bitch. On evenings, before the insects came, the womenfolk would gather on the roofs and call on each other. After a long , uneasy day they would take some mild, entertaining works like- stitching, embroidery, knitting over to their roofs. This was their way of recreation and being social. Some of them would gather on our roof, and whisper among themselves referencing women whose roofs were some distance off, or who were not present. Their faces in the twilight would soften and mischievous smiles would creep over them.
Once when grandmother was oiling our heads one of the women said, looking askance at the empty roof of Gulnara’s home.
‘She never comes up to the roof, poor woman.’
‘Yes. It must be very suffocating and dull there in that prison below.’ They spoke with a secretive pity that made me prick my ears.
‘Spawning and burying his brats every year.’
‘Though he is not like he used to be. Stopped keeping bitches and all that long ago.’ Their voices dropped into whispers.
‘Yes. He has improved, the lunatic.’ They spoke with suppressed sighs that weighed heavy on the atmosphere.
‘Bitch? What for?’ I asked. They were startled out of their hypnotized moods and looked at me. Why she was listening to us, they exclaimed and looked scandalized. They shooed us away, me and my sisters.
I subsequently got it from my sister.
‘He is mad, you know. That Khan.’
It seemed Khan was crazy, and obsessed over his wife cuckolding him with other men. He was so plagued with the idea that whenever he had to go to fields at nights he locked her up. But he was still suspicious she had called someone to her bed in his absence. He made many plans to catch her in the act. Then he hit on that idea of tying her to a bitch when he went out at nights. With the idea that bitch would bark if anyone came. Next day he would ask neighbors if the bitch had barked the last night. Now he had ceased to keep the bitch because of their children, but still had her imprisoned in the house and did not even let her peep outside.
‘And what was that about spawning and burying—things?’ I gasped out, horrified. My sister laughed at the expression on my face and told gustily about how for years Gulnara’s mother had begotten stillborn babies. Only two had survived out of a dozen- Gulnara and her brother.
‘That is why she dotes on them like that.’ she said, contemptuously.
It was a summer night, moonless, oppressive and full of insects. People slept on the terraces outside, and on roofs. We were intermittently woken by queer, animal sounds. But no one had seen or heard her moving. In the morning a search-party was sent around to inquire on roads, bus stands, railway station. There were vague indications and rumors. They talked of there being a man involved. Someone out of the next village said that she had boarded a bus to the north. Of course, I guessed where she had gone. No one thought to question me though, and I did not speak. Perhaps, if they would have asked me, I might have opened my mouth. Perhaps not, who knows? I saw Gulnara and her brother crying, and felt very guilty. Well, she was heard no more from that day, and I am still assailed by doubts if I did the right thing in keeping silent.
Sometimes we wondered what it would have felt like to be cooped up in that house day in and day out, where the sun reached only when it was going out of the world, where you could see only a piece of the sky and had to suppress the desire to look at the whole of it. Breeding dead children whose faces she could not look at properly due to dimness. Being tied to a bitch and dreaming of gorgeous wildlife. Taking out that collection after Khan’s departure to fields. You know, small big things. My sister said it must have felt like having potatoes for every meal. You get hungry, very hungry, and what have you to look forward to? Potatoes. I wondered too if the freak of nature would have picked on me to be miserable like her, what form the misfortune should have taken? Being bookless all my life? Never having stumbled on the sack of books in the attic? Having to slumber in the long, long afternoon, and to gossip lustily about bitches and goat bearded men?
She was used to seeing only a poor specimen of humanity , and wildlife attracted her in its gracefulness and diversity—tigers with their swift dignity, giraffe with their loftiness, elephants with their clumsy, guileless expression, deer with their wide-eyed wonder, zebras with their striped, formal coats, gorillas with their enigmatic faces.
The Jungle had seemed a kind of paradise to her. Her soul having been smothered all her life under the darkness of dirty human madness craved liberty and beauty. When you had seen darkness and ugliness for too long , and your soul had been buried under the abyss of filthiness, you would appreciate beauty anywhere. You get a kind of acute sensation for it. What was it that man Aflatoon had said in one of Baba’s book about beauty being connected to a response of love and desire, and being in every form one and the same. Something like that.
*
Sobia Ali is from India. She has Masters in English Literature. Her work has appeared in Atticus Review, The Punch Magazine, The Indian Quarterly, ActiveMuse, Ombak Magazine, Literary Yard and is forthcoming in Gone Lawn. She is currently working on her first novel.