This Translation Tuesday, we are thrilled to bring to you an excerpt from the novel Paani Mar Raha Hai (Dying Water) written by the award-winning Pakistani writer Amna Mufti. With the 1947 Partition of India looming in the backdrop, Irfan and Shahida move to Pakistan and confront not just a divided world but also a divisive secret. Adapted and condensed into a self-contained short story by translator Haider Shahbaz, this at once mythic and historical tale of ecological crisis from the Urdu is a riveting take on the fault lines between geological and geopolitical boundaries.
“The novel, Dying Water, focuses on the environmental consequences of the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan. In this way, it connects our current climate catastrophe to longer histories of colonialism and partition. It also changes the language and framework we use to talk about the climate crisis—instead of scientific facts, it forms a narrative out of religious beliefs and mythical tales to create a unique prose style that emphasizes our ethical connections to nature.”
—Haider Shahbaz
Irfan remembered the first time someone brought up the idea of his marriage to Shahida.
Irfan was well-educated—an alumnus of Aligarh—and extremely good looking, but even he was taken aback when he first heard about the proposal. Shahida was rich and beautiful beyond imagination. Irfan, on the other hand, didn’t have any family. It’s not like he was born from a stone. When times were good, he used to live in Amroha with all his relatives. He got his degree in engineering from Aligarh and went to Delhi to look for a government job. Around the same time, the British decided to leave and partition India. Irfan heard that government officers could choose if they wanted to stay in India or leave for Pakistan.
What does a blind man want? Two eyes! Irfan sent a telegram to his family and told them they were moving to Pakistan. The family was scared. They didn’t want to leave. But what could they do? Eventually they mustered up the courage to get a train from India to Pakistan. Each and every family member was killed on that train. Nobody survived.
Irfan got his Pakistan, and he loved it with all his heart. Pakistan gave him a high-ranking position in the government bureaucracy. And Pakistan gave him Shahida. He was completely blown away by her beauty, grace, and refinement. Even touching her was overwhelming for him.
Shahida’s industrialist uncle, who had initially proposed the marriage, bought the new couple a mansion. Other uncles bought furniture from Italy and America. A motorcar arrived as well. Soon the newlyweds started living a life resembling the romantic novels of A.R. Khatoon.
In the mornings, the housekeeper, walking with hushed feet, would open the velvet curtains and leave the lace curtains intact, allowing sunlight, carrying the faint traces of an emerald color, to filter inside the house. While both husband and wife were in bed, the housekeeper sent them their morning tea. The tea, which was brought from Dhaka, filled the room with a pleasant smell as it was poured into white teacups. The flock of purple sunbirds knocking at the window with their beaks were spellbound by the smell of the tea and rushed towards the branches of morning glory planted in the garden. Their song—like silver bells—could be heard throughout the morning.
Every morning, Irfan reminded himself that he wasn’t dreaming. That his life was real, that Shahida was real. And every night, a train ran in his head, filled with dead bodies and slaughtered organs, and he forgot who Shahida was.
After finishing the tea, Irfan would get up and go to the Italian-style bathroom. He trimmed his moustache, combed his hair, and admired his reflection from different angles.
Breakfast included all the items that might have graced the table of a colonial officer: buttered toast, eggs, liver, marmalade, jam, minced beef, okra.
It had not been long since the British colonizers had left.
The country had already erased the memory of trains running from India, but some memories last longer than others. The memory of the British proved to be a particularly stubborn one.
Shahida would wear a housecoat to breakfast, but after Irfan left, she would dress in her finest clothes and call for her friend, Ms. Batra, who lived in the house next to them.
Ms. Batra had converted to Islam along with her family at the time of partition. Her Hindu name was Madhumati Batra and her Muslim name was Zainab Batra. All religious images and statues of Hindu gods had been removed from her house.
That day, when Irfan left the house to go to work, Shahida and Madhumati (aka Zainab Batra) or Zainab (aka Madhumati Batra), decided to have a Tambola party. Both friends retired to the parlor. The parlor was filled with light from the big French windows, which were framed with branches of white roses. The room was furnished with stools made from Egyptian leather and comfortable armchairs. There was a writing table in front of the windows. Light pink paper, embossed with Shahida’s initials, S.A, lay on the table.
Both friends started drawing rows and columns for Tambola on the paper. They soon got tired and handed over the rest of the work to the housekeeper and meandered outside. They strolled the lawns and eventually sat down under the round umbrella of the garden house.
Shahida liked to paint. There was an unfinished canvas waiting on the easel—sun setting behind the mountains, birds returning to their homes.
God gave Shahida everything except a talent for painting. All the elements in the painting—mountains, sun, birds, the color of dusk—looked unreal, incongruous, and out of proportion. The birds resembled monstrous, mythical creatures and the mountains looked like they belonged on Mars or some other planet. The sun was thankfully round enough, but its color looked more like a fiery pink than orange.
Madhu saw the painting and instantly showered Shahida with compliments. Shahida couldn’t stop smiling at the undeserved praise. Then she suddenly looked out of the window and interrupted Madhu: “Madhu! Something strange is happening with Irfan sahib.”
Madhu, who was collecting the words and will to continue complimenting the painting, was taken aback: “What’s happening?”
“It’s something very strange. Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“My dear Shahida! How is it possible that you tell me something and I tell it to someone else? Is it possible?”
But Shahida still looked perplexed. She picked up a brush and started adding more color to the sun. It was gradually turning orange.
She moved across the canvas in quick, hurried strokes. Madhu watched her silently. She kept applying more and more color until she stopped abruptly and fell on an armchair. Her arms hung at her sides. She looked helpless.
Madhu still didn’t say anything. She wanted Shahida to confess without prompting her. What could be the matter? Irfan looked like a decent person.
Madhu’s marriage was only two months old when Shahida and Irfan got married and moved into their house. Mr. Butra was so obsessed with his business that he returned to the office two days after the wedding. The honeymoon kept getting postponed. In the four years since, she went to visit their summer house many times, but Mr. Butra never accompanied her. Their marriage had become stale and tasteless like an old, moldy biscuit. And when she saw Shahida and Irfan, she invariably felt, though she didn’t want to, jealous of their happy married life.
“Madhu!” Shahida sounded like she was about to start crying.
“Yes, Shahida, I’m listening.”
“Madhu! Irfan sahib . . .” She hesitated and anxiously tapped her right foot on the ground.
Madhu thought that Shahida must be worried about the film star, Sharon. She had noticed Sharon visiting their house for the past couple of weeks.
Madhu tried to hide her excitement and asked: “Tell me, Shahida, what happened? What did Irfan sahib do?”
“Irfan sahib . . . he’s . . . changed completely. He’s raising a snake.”
“A snake? What snake?”
Shahida swallowed a lump in her throat and spoke with difficulty: “A snake! A pitch-black snake.”
All the colour drained from Madhu’s face and she felt like she might faint if she kept standing. She grabbed a chair and sat down. “A snake?”
“Yes, Madhu, a snake, I saw it myself. The box room next to the billiards room. He’s keeping it there. Oh God!” Shahida hid her face in her hands and started crying.
Madhu was speechless. Irfan was raising a snake. Inside his house. But why?
She pictured Irfan in her head. He was lanky and skinny with sharp features. His hands were soft and his fingers long and elegant. He played the piano brilliantly with those soft, sensitive fingers. Madhu always tried to catch a glimpse of him at the piano, and her thoughts would wander to those fingers going through someone’s hair, combing someone’s hair. She would get embarrassed by her own thoughts.
There was a tiny beauty spot underneath the corner of Irfan sahib’s narrow lips. Sometimes the beauty spot looked like a smudge of chocolate pastry left there by mistake. A bittersweet smudge of chocolate pastry! And Irfan sahib’s eyes, oh God! Madhu had never seen such bright, restless eyes. They looked like two pieces of garnet enflamed by an eternal fire.
“You didn’t ask him about the snake?”
Shahida shook her head.
“Why didn’t you ask?”
Shahida took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes, which looked even more beautiful now that they were slightly puffed up from crying. Clouds were gathering in the sky. The sun kept appearing and disappearing.
“Actually, the snake thing happened much later. He really started to change after the rivers.”
“The rivers?” Madhu looked at Shahida with utter bewilderment.
The housekeeper rang the bell for lunch.
Shahida quickly got up. She wiped all her tears and fixed a smile on her face. “I’m a terrible host! It’s time for lunch and I’m going on about useless things. I have worried you for no reason. Come, let’s have something to eat.”
*
Did Irfan change after the rivers? Or did he change before, much before, any talk of rivers? Perhaps Shahida did not think about the time—the time before any talk of rivers—when Irfan buried his mother and father and every member of his family in the soil of his new, free country.
We are related to the land in many ways, but surely the strongest tie is that of the grave. Irfan’s family never wanted to leave because they couldn’t bear to abandon the graves of their ancestors. When they finally arrived in Pakistan, they created ties greater than any past.
One of Irfan’s friends advised him to register a claim for agricultural land. His family had left their land in India and they should be compensated for it with new land in Pakistan. Why leave unclaimed what is rightfully yours?
Irfan dealt with an army of clerks and documents before he managed to get the official papers that granted him ownership of a few acres of land near the old pathways of the River Beas.
These few acres stretched from one district to the next, and the land turned and twisted in its course in such a way that if you observed it from above, it looked like a gigantic, undulating snake.
When Irfan went to survey his claimed land, he was extremely disappointed. There was nothing there but sand, bushes, hills, and mounds. He didn’t venture too far; he simply gathered some soil from the edge of the land, examined it, sniffed it, threw it away and wiped his hands.
Irfan never returned. He dismissed the idea of making any claims for the recovery of the fertile agricultural land his family had left behind in Amroha. He focused on his job. There was a shortage of educated government officials and Irfan’s background and skills were highly regarded by the establishment. Irfan dedicated himself to the service of his newly independent country. In particular, the plains of the River Indus, the most fertile in the world, needed to be settled and developed. The pink-faced British men had already laid out the plans for this a quarter of a century ago.
Both countries, India and Pakistan, were doing the same thing on either side of the border. They wanted to irrigate as much land as possible, so they could produce more and more food for the hungry people they inherited. They knew that these people would not stop at anything. They would, like locusts, eat each other, and if that didn’t fill their bellies, they would dig up the graves of their ancestors and eat their bones too.
This vague, undefined fear motivated the two countries to fight for water on both sides of the boundary. The seemingly harmless administrative partition sanctioned with the Indian Independence Act of 3 June 1947 inaugurated the greedy and ruthless occupation of rivers and their sources in the name of prosperity.
But what happened to the rivers in the name of prosperity happened much later. At the time of partition, something else was happening: the fish tasted human flesh; the turtles swam in sticky, human blood; the vultures and crows ate so much their bellies exploded and no one was left to eat the dead. Still, no earthquake shook us, no flood destroyed us. No flock of birds appeared in the sky to mark our last days. The rains came at their appointed time and the earth’s temperatures remained steady. The land and sky remained locked in position.
*
The talk about the rivers took place twelve, or perhaps thirteen, years after the land was partitioned. That day, Irfan came back from his office looking more energetic than usual. He cancelled plans to go to Gymkhana Club with Shahida and told her to arrange their evening tea in the garden house. As they settled in their seats and sipped from their sophisticated English teacups, he told Shahida that the water had been partitioned as well.
“There is a lake in Tibet called Manas Sarovar. It is fed by the glaciers on Mount Kailash. The River Indus comes from this lake. It crosses Tibet, Ladakh, the border provinces in the north-west, enters Punjab, then it crosses Sindh and falls into the Indian Ocean. Many rivers fall into the River Indus on this journey. These rivers . . .”
Who knows what Irfan was talking about? Shahida pressed the same button in her head that she used to press when she was pretending to listen to her teachers in the classroom. She just saw Irfan’s lips moving. Narrow, soft lips, a beauty spot right underneath them, like a spot of chocolate pastry she wanted to eat.
“And the water was partitioned!” he declared.
Shahida quickly snapped out of her reverie about chocolate pastries. “But Irfan sahib, how can you partition rivers?”
“Just like we partition land.” He smiled at his beautiful and naive wife.
Shahida kept looking at Irfan with wide, shocked eyes. This thought—the partitioning of rivers—got stuck in her head. What was so wrong about this thought, this partition? She couldn’t figure it out, but it kept bothering her. She was unable to share this confusion with anyone, not even her dearest friend, Madhu.
*
Irfan was busy poring over the construction plans for Mangla Dam.
According to the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan, mediated by the World Bank, three rivers were given to India and the rest to Pakistan. Pakistan was supposed to build dams in order to make up for the loss of water. The first dam, according to the plans, was Mangla Dam. It was going to be built on the River Jhelum. The people who were going to be displaced by the dam were provided with work permits for Britain by Pakistan’s government. The people of Mirpur would live and work in England now. Shahida was incredibly sad when she heard this, but Irfan was unaffected. After all, he had also moved to a new place, left his home to live somewhere else. People needed to move to settle new places. Nothing could be done about it.
During this time, an unexpected visitor called on Irfan. Shahida was taking her afternoon nap at the time. The visitor’s skin was dark black, and he wore very little clothes. When a servant tried to stop him from entering the officer’s room, he simply stared at the servant until the servant backed away. Then he confidently walked straight into Irfan’s study. The servants later said that he was in the study for two hours, and when he came out, he wasn’t carrying the box he had taken inside with him. What was inside the box? None of the servants had any idea.
Shahida noticed that Irfan was unusually silent at dinner that day. She thought he was exhausted from the work and didn’t say anything. But the next few days, Irfan didn’t speak much either. He looked trapped in his own restless silence. He had never acted like this before.
Finally, Shahida brought it up. Irfan responded that he was worried about the rivers.
“What about the rivers?” Shahida brushed his straight, silky hair away from his forehead with her fingers.
“Remember, I told you that our rivers had been partitioned, that water from three rivers—Beas, Sutlej, and Ravi—now belongs to India. We just have to make sure that we don’t build any human settlements in their old pathways. The rivers can return to these pathways due to changes in the climate at any point…”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“So . . . now . . . now, it’s that . . . that Beas will dry up, it will be gone.” Irfan’s face turned completely pale when he said these words. Beads of sweat started appearing on his face.
Shahida was surprised and worried by this sudden change. “But, anyway, Beas doesn’t flow in Pakistan, no? It joins Sutlej somewhere in India and it’s no more than a drain when it arrives in Pakistan.”
Irfan took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face. He reached for the glass of water on his side-table and took a sip. Then he shook his head. “No, Shahida. A river should never dry up. Do you know what happens when a river dries up?”
Shahida shook her head. She felt sorry for Irfan. The pressure of work had drained him completely. “But the rivers will not completely run dry, as you were saying, there will be link canals that will take water from the western rivers to the eastern rivers and . . .”
Irfan impatiently stood up from the bed. The annoyance in his voice was unmistakable: “No, Shahida! No! All that is wrong. It’s not correct. That can’t happen, Shahida. How can it happen? How?”
Shahida adjusted the strap on her nightgown and stood up. She walked towards him. She placed her hand on his shoulders, but she was surprised to realize that his whole body was shaking. “Irfan! Are you okay? What happened? Is there something worrying you at work?”
Irfan jerked away from her touch. He was frowning and panting frantically, like he was carrying an incredible load that was crushing his lungs against his ribs.
“No, Shahida. It’s impossible. A river only flows in its own water. Look, this is my hand, my veins, my vessels, they flow with my blood. I have a particular blood group, a particular composition. It doesn’t matter how much we love each other, if we took my blood and replaced it with your blood, what will happen? We won’t survive. And even if we survived, how long could we keep it up? How long could you keep giving me your blood? Think, Shahida, think. A human who carries another human’s blood, or a human who constantly gives their blood to another human. Will they survive? And will you call such a life, life?”
Shahida noticed that he was trembling violently as he was talking, and he was fast losing any remaining color in his face.
“Irfan! Irfan!” She covered his ice-cold hands with her warm hands. “Irfan, we are humans. How can you compare humans and rivers? Irfan, please sit, here . . . I will open the windows. You need some fresh air.”
He needed oxygen, fresh air.
Air, water, food—these are the essential needs of any human being. Not just human beings, any living being requires these things. Rivers also need water—and what is water? Irfan was only beginning to understand this now. But the Indus Water Treaty had already been signed. Three big dams, countless barrages, link canals, channels and distributaries, and the small, little fish that live inside them, and the white herons preying on the fish—all of this, all of this—he was only beginning to understand all of this now. The rivers were dying.
What could be done? The people of Mirpur were already displaced. Preparations were underway for the second dam, Tarbela. Communities were being uprooted. Humans ensured their own safety and protection, but they forgot countless other living beings. Even God doesn’t forget living beings. How can God forget them? A creator doesn’t kill his creation unless it’s destined.
“We revealed to him, saying: Make the ark before Our eyes and (according to) Our revelation; and when Our command is given and the valley overflows, take into it of every kind a pair, two, and your followers, except those among them against whom the word has gone forth, and do not speak to Me in respect of those who are unjust; surely they shall be drowned.” (The Quran, 23:27)
Shahida fell silent. Irfan looked different. His pink-white complexion was turning darker, a hint of turmeric-brown. The next day Shahida discovered the snake in the box room. Something bad was going to happen, something terrible. Shahida worried about Irfan. He would get lost in his thoughts in the middle of a conversation. He constantly sweated and smelled bad, like he had been labouring all day. Short, thick strings of hair were beginning to grow on his ears. His nails and gums were changing colour. Sometimes, when they were very close to each other, Shahida felt like he was someone else. Someone she didn’t know at all.
She wanted to say all this to Madhu, but she felt guilty after telling her about the snake. She started avoiding Madhu. She started making excuses to miss tea parties and gatherings at the club. How could she face Madhu? Madhu—and only Madhu—knew that Irfan was raising a snake in his own house.
*
When Madhu entered Shahida’s mansion, she didn’t know she was going to run into Irfan. She was slowly making her way across the lawns to the garden house. She was convinced that Shahida would be there on such a cloudy spring day. She spotted Irfan sitting underneath a Gulmohar tree. His eyes were shut. He was sitting with his legs folded underneath him. Zainab thought she could get away without being noticed, but Irfan opened his eyes and saw her. “Madhumati.” He called her by her old name. Madhu quietly walked up to him and sat by his side. They were both silent. Madhu looked at Irfan from the corner of her eyes. She had only seen Irfan wearing western-style suits before. Today, it looked like he was about to go for his ablutions because he was only wearing a white cloth tied around his waist. His upper body was completely naked. Why was he sitting there semi-naked? Was he not going to perform his ablutions? There was no one else in sight. Shahida, servants, no one. Complete silence reigned over the scene except for the call of a single koel.
Madhu’s senses were intensely aware of the smell of different flowers mixing in the air. Irfan was still silent. Madhu wanted to ask him something, but her voice was stuck in her throat like a fish bone.
“Madhu! I am giving my resignation.” Irfan informed her calmly, like they were old friends.
Madhu was surprised at this news. Why was he resigning from such a good job? And how will they live like this after he resigns? Shahida can’t survive without this house and these luxuries.
Then Irfan started telling her that the River Beas will soon die, at least the part of the river that belonged to Pakistan. Zainab was even more surprised to hear this. Why was he talking about the River Beas?
“Have you heard the tale of Vishvamitra, Madhu?” Irfan looked into her eyes and asked.
Why was he randomly thinking of Vishvamitra? Madhu couldn’t make sense of anything Irfan was saying. It felt like he was someone else entirely—not the Irfan she had known before. The Irfan she had known was an engineer; he dealt with bridges, canals, dams, barrages, roads. Why was he thinking about mythical tales? No one thought about them anymore. And of all people, Irfan?
A passing breeze brought the scent of mango flowers to Madhu. The pungent smell of a blossoming mango tree always bothered her—it chilled her teeth. Suddenly, she wanted to bite Irfan’s shoulder to soothe her cold, sensitive teeth. She felt embarrassed and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
“I haven’t read Vishvamitra’s tale, but I heard it from someone many years ago. I don’t know if the version I know is right or wrong. Maybe you know it and you can tell me?” Irfan explained.
Madhu told Irfan the tale of Vishvamitra as they sat under the Gulmohar tree. A mighty king, Vishvamitra, was humbled when a saint defeated the king’s vast armies simply by uttering the Om syllable. Vishvamitra realized that his worldly power could not compete with spiritual power. He decided to dedicate himself to tapasya. He went to the Himalayas, and like countless saints before him, he sat in meditation, performing tapasya, for years and years. One day, Trisanku, a king, approached Vishvamitra. Trisanku wanted to ascend to the heavens, but he wanted to bring his earthly body to the heavens with him. It was an impossible task. The gods would not allow it. But Vishvamitra decided to create a whole new world and a whole new universe and a whole new heaven—just so the king could ascend without losing his earthly body. He used all his spiritual powers to create this new heaven.
When Madhu got to this part, Irfan raised his hand and stopped her.
“Tell me, again, what did Vishvamitra do?” He asked her wistfully, like he didn’t want to believe anything he had heard.
Madhu repeated the same story. Vishvamitra learned that there is no greater power than spiritual power and started doing tapasya.
“Tapasya” or “tapas”—the name of the River Beas (or Veas, or Vipasha) is rooted in this word.
By the time Irfan asked Madhu to repeat the story for the third time, the sun was setting, black clouds covered the skies, and there was no breeze—everything stood still around them. Madhu could smell the light-sweet odor of sweat rising from Irfan’s body.
This time, Madhu told the story slowly, emphasizing each word and detail: Vishvamitra used all his spiritual powers to build a new heaven, and when he was done building it, he had no power left to sustain it.
“That’s it, Madhu.” Irfan placed his fingers on her mouth, as if begging her to stop speaking. It was dark underneath the Gulmohar tree. Thunder rumbled across the sky. The whole garden flashed bright for a second. Then another thunderbolt struck, louder than the previous one. Madhu screamed and wrapped herself around Irfan. Thunder clapped three more times. The third time it was so loud that Madhu thought her eardrums would rupture. She wrapped herself even more tightly around Irfan and sunk her teeth in Irfan’s shoulder, like she wanted to hold back a scream, a scream that would be louder and more horrifying than the thunder, that would erupt from the very foundations of her being and ripple into an earthquake that would swallow everything.
Thunder crashed once more across the black skies and fell on top of the wooden umbrella shielding the garden house. For a moment, everything was illuminated. From the caves of Ajanta and Ellora to the dome of the Taj Mahal to the waters of the Beas—everything was bathed in light. Then the rain started.
Shahida saw the scene under the Gulmohar tree, next to the burning garden house, as she walked on the garden path. She was transfixed by what she saw—Irfan and Madhu sitting together like Adam and Eve right before the fall. Maybe she would’ve never moved, maybe she would’ve turned into stone right there, if the small fish falling from the sky along with the rain hadn’t fell on her shoulders and arms, then on the garden path, where they shuddered and shook to their deaths.
Shahida saw them and was terrified. Small, little fish were falling from the sky. Their eyes were captivated by an eternal wonder. They kept opening their tiny mouths, like they were trying to say something. Hundreds of years of evolution had separated her language from their language—Shahida couldn’t understand them. The fish kept falling. More and more. Their mouths opened and closed; their eyes stared at Shahida in disbelief. Their heads and tails thrashed against her clothes, tearing her saree into threads. Her soft skin was bruised where the falling fish hit her. Blood streamed out.
Translated from the Urdu by Haider Shahbaz
Amna Mufti is a novelist and screenwriter. Paani Mar Raha Hai (Dying Water) is her third novel. She lives in Lahore.
Haider Shahbaz is a writer and translator. He is doing a PhD in comparative literature at UCLA. He is the translator of Mirza Athar Baig’s Hassan’s State of Affairs (HarperCollins) and the editor of a special issue, “Against the Canon: Urdu Feminist Writing,” for Words Without Borders.
*****
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