Mrs Ali’s Road to Happiness Read online

  She reached the medical shop that was her final destination and slid the chit of paper towards the young man behind the counter. On every wall, floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cupboards were stacked with boxes and bottles.

  “Where is the owner?” she said.

  “I am the new owner. I bought the shop from the old man.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs Ali. “Where is he now? What is he doing? He wanted to give this pharmacy to his son.”

  “The old man has retired and gone on a pilgrimage to Haridwar and Kashi. His son didn’t fancy sitting behind a shop counter all day. He got himself a job as a medical rep pushing drugs to doctors.”

  Mrs Ali remembered the previous owner. He wasn’t that old – in fact, he was several years her junior. He had run the pharmacy for years and his fondest dream had been to hand it over to his son. “I will continue to sit behind the counter even after my son takes over,” he had often told her. “Until they lay me out feet first.”

  He had made his son get a degree in pharmaceutical practice, so he could run the shop. “This is the best way to earn a living, madam. You sit under a cool fan watching the world go by and people come to you for pills if they are unwell and tonics if they are not.”

  His son had evidently disagreed and used his education to find a job more suited to his temperament. She hoped that the father had found peace on his pilgrimage. At least the son was using the education that his father had paid for by becoming a medical rep instead of going into something completely unconnected – like computers or insurance, for example.

  The new owner glanced at the prescription, went to the second shelf on the right-hand wall and took out a box of tablets. How did these pharmacists know which medicine was where in the shop?

  The owner’s mother was sitting at the cash till and she looked at the vegetables that Mrs Ali was carrying. “Have you seen the price of onions, amma?” she exclaimed. “We will have to start weighing them with a goldsmith’s balance at this rate.”

  Mrs Ali smiled grimly. “A government can get away with being corrupt and incompetent, but mess with the price of onions and the wrath of millions of housewives will descend on them. The Janata Party fell and Indira Gandhi came back to power in the seventies because of the price of onions,” said Mrs Ali. “If the current trend continues, the current party will share the same fate as that government.”

  The medicines were put in a packet made from recycled newspaper and pushed across the counter. As Mrs Ali was paying, the owners mother said, “By the way, amma, if you know anybody who is looking to rent, the upstairs portion of our house is empty.”

  After some more discussion about rent, the escalating cost of everything and the difficulty of finding reliable tenants, Mrs Ali finally left, having obtained a ten per cent discount on her bill.

  Two

  The mosque was unusually crowded for a normal Friday. Mr Ali would have been happy to sit at the back of the large, open hall, but, like a pet student, Azhar pointed to a tiny gap in the third row from the front. They made their way forward, stepping carefully between the rows of seated men. Mr Ali had hoped that the gap would be bigger than it had appeared, but, to his dismay, it was just as small up close as it had looked from a distance. With mumbled apologies and smiles directed towards their neighbours, the two men squeezed into the gap and sat down on the marble floor, wriggling and somehow making space for themselves. A young man finished adjusting the mike in the mihrab, the imam’s alcove, and a black-bearded man stood up and started the azaa’n, the call to prayer.

  The afternoon air felt like a warm pool, despite the best efforts of the fans dotted around the ceiling, and combined with the melodic azaa’n, exerted such a powerful soporific effect that Mr Ali struggled to keep his eyes open.

  Earlier in the day, right after lunch, Azhar had turned up at Mr Ali’s house, dressed like a late Mughal-era dandy in a knee-length silk sherwani, sporting gold buttons with a mother-of-pearl inlay, and wearing a maroon-coloured fez with a black tassel. His greying beard was neatly trimmed and a perfume of attar of roses wafted from him.

  “Are you going to a wedding?” Mr Ali had asked.

  “Would anybody organise a wedding on a Friday afternoon after lunch, brother-in-law?” said Azhar, raising his eyebrows.

  “No,” conceded Mr Ali.

  Theoretically, all the men, and definitely the imam who would have to preside over the wedding, would be at the mosque for the weekly prayers while the women would be praying at home.

  “But why are you dressed so grandly? It’s not a festival.”

  “A new imam is starting today. And I want you to come too.”

  “Oh! What happened to Haji Saab?”

  Mr Ali liked the old preacher, a gentle soul, given the honorific title Haji after he had completed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca about fifteen years ago. He came once a month to collect a subscription for the mosque and always sat down for a chat and a cup of tea with Mr and Mrs Ali.

  “Nothing has happened to Haji Saab. But the mosque committee felt that he was getting old and that we needed new blood to invigorate the community.”

  “What about Haji Saab’s nephew, Nasrullah? He is a good man – knows the Qur’an by heart and has been groomed by his uncle to take over.”

  Azhar shook his head. “He doesn’t have any formal qualifications. The committee wanted somebody stronger. The new imam has been to a Deobandi seminary and is a scholar of Hanafi’s work on the Hadeeth and Islamic jurisprudence.”

  Mr Ali didn’t like the sound of this at all. If a man spent so much time studying religious matters and philosophy, how would he have any time left over to experience real life?

  “You go ahead,” he said. “I never attend the Friday prayers anyway. I have too much work to do.”

  Azhar looked at his sister, prompting Mrs Ali to speak up. “What kind of excuse is that? Too much work to say your prayers? You are talking as if you are some Lord Governor-General. It is not every day that the mosque gets a new imam. It will be good to show him your support on his first day and meet other members of the congregation as well, rather than burying your head in the marriage bureau all the time.”

  It had taken some more persuasion, but Mr Ali had eventually conceded and got ready quickly, changing into fresh clothes and carrying out the ritual ablutions, washing his face, nose, hair, feet and arms up to his elbows three times.

  “Where is Rehman?” said Azhar. “He should come too.”

  “Rehman is meeting some people from a water-management charity. He was saying that they might offer him a job,” said Mrs Ali.

  Ah! I bet the salary will be measly, thought Mr Ali, knowing his son very well.

  There was a stir at the back of the mosque, rousing Mr Ali from his catatonic state, and he twisted round to have a look. Several older people, members of the mosque committee, men whom Mr Ali had known for years, were picking their way through gaps in the seated crowd. Behind them came the new imam. He had a straggly beard and was clad in a one-piece Arabian robe from which two thin legs poked out. Mr Ali regarded Azhar in surprise.

  “You didn’t tell me he was a stripling – ”

  The muezzins calls were extra-loud as the mosque committee took their places in the front row that had been reserved for them. Mr Ali noticed that Haji Saab, the previous imam, had been shunted off to one side and got a place to sit, at the far end of the front line, only with the help of his nephew and one-time heir, Nasrullah.

  “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the beneficent…”

  The usual formulaic Arabic phrases that few in the assembled jamaat fully understood were uttered before the new imam started the khutba. Mr Ali stared with interest as the new imam gave the sermon. He is not even as old as Rehman, thought Mr Ali. At some point in Mr Ali’s life, imams, like policemen, had suddenly started to seem younger, but they had always been reasonably mature. Even Nasrullah was in his late thirties, which Mr Ali had thought rather young at that. The man in front of them giv
ing the sermon was only in his twenties!

  He looked very sincere though and, if he was nervous about addressing a new congregation for the first time, he hid it well.

  “This jamaat, this congregation, is a microcosm of the great ummah, the global brother-and-sisterhood of Muslims. Young and old, rich and poor, healthy and unwell – we are all equal here before Allah. The only distinction that Allah makes between us is the strength of our ibaadat – our faith. The question He asks us is, what kind of Muslim are you? Are you a once-a-lifetime, once-a-year, once-a-week or once-a-day man?”

  Mr Ali cautiously peered around at the congregation. The imam had the people’s attention.

  “The once-a-lifetime man is one who never attends the mosque for prayers. But when he finally dies, his friends and family bring his body in for the funeral prayers before burial. The once or twice a year man comes to the mosque only for the Eids, the festivals of Ramadaan and Bakrid.”

  Mr Ali noticed that he pronounced Ramzaan with the hard ‘da’ of Arabic instead of the soft ‘za’ used by the Urdu speakers of the Indian subcontinent.

  “The Qur’an prescribes that we pray five times a day. Look at the world around us: we have air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear, shoes to soften the impact of the ground on our feet, flowers that smell nice, vehicles to aid us in our travels – the Lord God has given them all to us.” The imam bent forward and scanned the congregation, picking out individual men. “And in return, brothers, He asks of us a small thing – a tiny task that is well within our capabilities. He has asked us to pray five times a day. Isn’t that a truly small duty for the bounty he has provided?”

  Mr Ali flushed. It sounded so reasonable. Of course, Mr Ali was in the twice-a-year camp – coming to the mosque for the festivals and rarely at any other time.

  The imam was carrying on with his sermon. “The ummah, the population of Muslims, is like a body and we should all be united. Just as the whole body suffers a fever if an arm or a leg is injured, we must feel the pain of our brothers and sisters wherever they happen to be in the world. We must fight for the rights of those killed in Gujarat or driven out of their homes in Palestine and Chechnya. We cannot remain indifferent to their suffering, burying ourselves in our secure surroundings.”

  After the sermon came the namaaz, the formal prayers, with a recitation of two chapters from the Qur’an and prostration. As soon as the prayers ended, there was a rush to embrace the new imam and congratulate him. Mr Ali and Azhar joined the crowd.

  Above the hubbub, a committee member announced, “Brothers, we have started a new collection for finishing off the second floor. Please donate generously…”

  Eventually, they made their way out into the courtyard of the mosque along with the rest of the congregation. Mr Ali greeted a man in his forties with a bulging belly that his cotton shirt strained to hold. “Razzaq Mian, how’s the seat-cover business?”

  Razzaq smiled and bobbed his head. “Alhamd’ulillah!” Praise be to the Lord. “It’s going well,” he said. “Your idea of advertising in the newspaper worked well. We are getting several new customers.”

  “Good!” said Mr Ali, pleased. Seeing a teenager standing behind Razzaq, he said to him, “Don’t hide like a bashful girl, young man. How’s college?”

  The teenager came forward with a shy grin and touched the fingers of his right hand to his forehead in a salute. “Salaam, Chaacha. College is going well.”

  Mr Ali’s wife had told him that the teenager, Saajid, had been seen with other boys and girls in a cake shop and that his grades the previous year had been merely average. Mr Ali just smiled and said nothing as the boy’s father looked proudly at his son.

  Other men joined them. Razzaq said loudly, “Today Allah created a wonder. He made the holy, fasting month of Ramzaan sneak past us without anyone noticing and made today the festival.”

  The crowd eyed him questioningly. “Do you mean the new imam?” asked one of the men.

  Razzaq shook his head. “Imams come and go,” he said and pointed dramatically towards Mr Ali. “When have you known our friend turn up at the mosque when it was not Eid?”

  Everybody laughed, including Mr Ali. Azhar said, “I had to twist his arm to bring him here.”

  Razzaq said, “You brought Ali Saab here? Now I understand why they say that the whole world standing on one side is not a match for the wife’s brother standing on the other.”

  There was more laughter. The men found their footwear and walked out of the mosque, chatting convivially.

  “The new imam is really good, isn’t he?” said Azhar.

  Razzaq and Saajid nodded enthusiastically. Azhar turned to Mr Ali. “You don’t look convinced,” he said.

  Mr Ali shook his head. “Oh, nothing like that. He knows his stuff, but I cannot help wondering why we had to go far away to hire somebody when Haji Saab’s nephew, Nasrullah, was right here.”

  Azhar bridled. “Are you still on about that? Nasrullah would have continued in the same vein as his uncle: don’t rock the boat, concentrate on your personal behaviour – like a frog in a well. The world is changing and we should realise that we are part of the wider ummah and that’s why the mosque committee chose somebody new.”

  Mr Ali frowned. Many things will change, he thought.

  But in a changing world, a mosque should represent continuity – not add to the welter of confusion outside.

  ♦

  The next morning, Mr Ali was standing in the front yard of his house, staring pensively at the plants, when Pari and Vasu walked in.

  “Salaam, chaacha,” said Pari brightly.

  At the sight of the young woman, Mr Ali’s expression brightened. Her twenty-something skin was fair and glowing, her dark hair tumbled halfway to her waist, her lips curled in a happy smile. It was difficult to believe that she was a widow – except if you looked closely and noticed that she wore no jewellery except for a pair of antique-silver earrings, and her sari was dark maroon and plain with no zari, the interwoven gold thread that gave the edges of saris their shimmer. The boy with her was eight years old, thin and dark, and his hair stuck out in every direction. If he didn’t resemble her, it was because he was adopted. He too had a wide smile, but in contrast to Pari’s even teeth, Vasu’s open mouth revealed a gap where one of his milk teeth had fallen out.

  “What are you looking at?” the boy asked curiously.

  Mr Ali pointed to a bright-red hibiscus flower. “They missed that one,” he said.

  Mr Ali had a running battle to protect his garden from marauding temple-goers. People in Vizag did not consider it stealing to pluck flowers from somebody else’s garden, as long as the blooms were used for prayer. Mr Ali, like most garden-owners – Muslim or Hindu – didn’t agree.

  “It’s because the flower is below the level of the wall and cannot be seen from outside,” said Vasu.

  “You are right,” Mr Ali said. “I have to tell the plant to bear its flowers so they cannot be seen.”

  “Plants bring out flowers so they can be seen,” said Vasu. “That’s how they get pollinated. I learned all about it at school.”

  Mr Ali acted as if he were impressed. “Help me water the plants.”

  Pari carried on into the house, to find Mrs Ali sitting with Aruna and a couple she did not recognise.

  “This is Gita and that is Srinu,” said Aruna, indicating the newcomers.

  “Oh! You are Gita and…I have heard so much about you. Welcome to Vizag. Are you settled in?”

  Srinu and Gita were good friends of Aruna. Having just moved from the village to town, they were busy with the many things that moving house entailed. Pari was able to chip in with her own tips because not long ago she had moved to Vizag from her father’s village and, even more recently, into a two-bedroom flat next door to the Alis’ house, from a cramped room opposite.

  Finally, Aruna stood up. “It’s full-moon day and I want to go to the temple before the driver comes,” she said.


  Gita said, “We’ll come with you. It’s such an auspicious day.”

  Most Hindus viewed the full-moon day as particularly blessed. Others regarded the tenth day of the lunar cycle as favourable too. Many considered Tuesdays and Fridays to be a good occasion to visit the temple, as were days on which any new task – like a job or an exam – was to be carried out. These auspicious days were, of course, in addition to all the other propitious festivals. All in all, Hindu temples in India tend to be busy most of the time.

  Pari had a sudden idea. “Can you take Vasu?” she said. She herself was a Muslim and had never gone to a Hindu temple.

  By this time, Vasu was watching a Pokemon cartoon on television and was not happy to leave. “I don’t want to go,” he said.

  Pari had adopted Vasu, a Hindu boy, when his grandfather had died. His extended family had refused to take him in because they believed he carried an ill omen and would bring bad fortune to his guardians. After all, Vasu’s father had died in an accident, after which first his mother had committed suicide and then his grandfather had followed suit. As Vasu’s great-uncle had asked, what were the odds of that happening purely by chance?

  “I want you to go,” said Pari. “The temple is just down the road and Aruna-Auntie will take you there and drop you back.” She turned to Aruna. “Does he need to take anything with him?”

  Aruna shook her head. “There’s no need,” she said. “But if you want, you can give him some money to put in the hundi as an offering.”

  Pari took out her purse and handed Vasu a two-rupee coin. “Don’t lose it,” she told him. “Aruna-Auntie will show you where the collection box is and you must put it only in there.”

  “I know what a hundi looks like,” he said. “I’ve been to temples before.”

  Pari felt instantly guilty. He hadn’t visited a temple since he had started living with her. I should take more care, she thought, to make sure that Vasu does not forget the religion and customs of his birth parents.