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"No, no," Jaida said to reassure her, "Don't worry. I'll make arrangements before and after the birth. Don't get into any more trouble, or the police will find out where you live."
"We have to accept our fate," Ibn's wife replied with a long sigh. "It's fate, sister, it happens!" Jaida consoled her. "I am with you. Don't grieve. If Ibn comes, I'll handle him too."
Jaida got up from there, and on the way back, disguised with a beard, he picked six hundred rupees from someone's pocket.
Jaida entered the room where Munna and Teepo were sitting. Both were awake. Jaida removed the beard and threw it toward Teepo, saying,
"Give me a cigarette too. Light it up." Then he stretched out lazily on the bed.
Meanwhile, Naz was in her room reading Jaida's diary.
22nd September 1956
"Earlier today, while passing by the Jacob Lines quarters, I heard someone playing the sitar in one of the flats. I love the music of the sitar as much as I hate human beings. My steps froze. I stood there for a long time, listening to the sitar."
Naz lifted her eyes from the diary. For the past two and a half months, she had been secretly reading Jaida's diary. Some of his writings were meaningless and absurd, but others were clear and full of meaning. She had carefully noted down all of Jaida's weaknesses. And today, when she discovered that Jaida loved the sitar, her imagination painted an enchanting picture. She swayed with joy, as if she had discovered Jaida's true self.
Just then Jaida entered the room.
"Oh, you're here!" Naz said, startled, stretching herself in an expression of passion. The stretch turned into a seductive and inviting smile. Jaida stood at the doorway, lost in thought. Naz extended her arms toward him and said,
"Come here, why are you just standing there?"
But Jaida remained where he was, his face expressionless. The provocative smile and gesture of a young and beautiful girl failed to stir him in the slightest. He sat down carelessly on the bed.
"Why don't you leave this trade and take up story writing or poetry instead?" Naz pulled a chair closer to him and said. "The writing in your diary is worthy of a fine author."
"Do you want me to starve?" Jaida said, lying lazily on the bed. "One pickpocket job is better than writing six ghazals."
"Doesn't your heart tremble when you rob someone?" Naz asked.
"To steady my trembling heart is exactly why I steal," Jaida replied.
"Jaida…" Naz looked at him with thirsty eyes. "Say whatever you want, but we can't stay apart anymore. Why not now…"
"…get married?" Jaida completed the sentence, glaring at her.
"Just look," Naz said, "how beautiful a home I've made. Wouldn't it be wonderful if a little child were playing here?"
"You want to raise a child?" Jaida asked.
"Why not?"
"There's no shortage of children in Karachi," Jaida said. "Any morning I can pick a newborn from the garbage heap or from someone's doorstep. Raise it. What's the need for the formality of marriage? If you say, I'll bring you a nursing infant."
"But I don't want to raise someone else's child," Naz said with a smile. "I want my own child. Your child."
"I don't want any child, Naz," Jaida said. "I already have countless children—no one knows who bore them or who raised them. They are my children, and I love them."
"Who are they?" Naz asked.
"The ones who roam all over Karachi picking pockets," Jaida said and stretched with boredom.
Sensing his changing mood, Naz quickly tried to change the subject.
"Fine then," Naz sighed. "At least fulfill one of my wishes."
Jaida looked at her questioningly. She said,
"I've always longed to learn the sitar."
"I could teach you singing and dancing instead," Jaida said, giving her a meaningful glance.
"Ah, no!" Naz said playfully. "That's not what I mean. When I'm alone, I feel restless. The sitar will keep me company. Since childhood, I've had a passion for playing it."
"That's not a bad hobby," Jaida agreed.
"Then arrange for a sitar and a teacher!" Naz said excitedly.
"The sitar can come, but no teacher can come here," Jaida replied. "No one but us can enter this place."
"Then I'll go to the teacher myself," Naz said. "I'll go in a veil. Send someone along with me."
"Swear on me, Naz," Jaida smiled faintly. "Where would you run away to? … Don't worry. The sitar and the teacher will be arranged."
The very next day, Jaida fulfilled her wish—he arranged both the sitar and the teacher. Every evening Naz went to her teacher to learn sitar. Soon she became absorbed in it. Often she lost herself so deeply in practice that it seemed as though the sole purpose of her life was this. In those moments of trance, she imagined Jaida sitting before her, swaying to the music, and she poured her love for him into the strings. This vision left her intoxicated, her fingers dancing across the sitar.
Time drifted away on the melodies of the sitar.
Meanwhile, Jaida and his gang were fueling a terrifying rise in crime across Karachi. Naz's fingers moved over the sitar strings, while Jaida's fingers moved into the pockets of Karachi's people—and seven months passed.
It was the last part of the night. Jaida was lying on the bed in his room when one of his young pupils arrived. Seeing him, Jaida smiled.
The boy was about fourteen or fifteen, a handsome lad, the only son of his father. A few years back, the small family of three lived peacefully. The father worked in a mill during the day and in the evenings set up a small stall on the footpath, selling betel leaves and cigarettes. Life was going well—there was a thatched hut to shelter them, and enough income for food and drink. Their only child had even been admitted to school, and the father had tied countless dreams of the future to him.
In that colony of huts, the corporation had also installed a water tap. It trickled for a short while once or twice a day. Long lines of pitchers, pots, buckets—and people—remained all day at the tap. The tap itself was mostly silent, but the people kept up a constant racket. If by mistake or deliberately some pitcher or tin oil can broke the line and moved forward, the thirsty crowd would raise a hue and cry. Sometimes two pitchers filled together and one broke, then abuse, then grappling—at times, fights broke out and blood was spilled. The tap might not give water, but fountains of blood would gush instead. The anger that should have been directed at the corporation and its tap, people vented on each other. The thirsty inhabitants of the slums remained thirsty, and when their turn came to fill a pot, they became thirsty for each other's blood instead.
It was at this tap, five years earlier, that the boy's father had gone to fill a bucket. He pushed his bucket forward, another man shoved his pitcher ahead. In the clash of bucket and pitcher, the pitcher broke. Bitter words followed, tempers rose, and both men were left bleeding. The other man went to the police station, and the boy's father was arrested. He alone was not guilty—he too had been injured—but the other man was a court peon, well acquainted with the dark corridors of the police and the court. He also knew well the grinding wheels of law.
The boy began visiting his father in jail. The trial dragged on—date after date was given, but no hearing took place. His father remained locked in the prison ward, and his bail application had been rejected. Even if it were granted, who would stand surety?
Hunger finally crept into the house. The boy's mother took a job at a wholesale spice dealer's shop, grinding chilies. Other women worked there too. In the back room, they would grind bricks and papaya seeds. The powdered bricks were mixed into ground chilies, and the papaya seeds into black pepper. That wholesaler sold dried papaya seeds mixed with real pepper.
A year had passed with the father in jail, and three or four months had gone by since the mother began grinding bricks and chilies. In that long year, only two witnesses' statements had been recorded. There was no lawyer to fight the case, nor a single penny to bribe their way out. From the first day, the station house officer had said, "Bring me something, and the matter will be settled.''
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To be continue.....