Nameless

God knows what my brain is made of. Sometimes, from its bottomless depths, a line of innumerable people—who knows where they were hiding—strides forward. Then I am truly troubled. Like boats coming steadily along a stream, they keep advancing and sharing their personal stories. In the dilemma of who to accept or discard from among them, I often end up unable to take on anyone. Leaving me paralyzed in that manner, that caravan seems to set off on a faraway journey. I take a lazy pleasure in my mind that it’s just as well one doesn’t have to bear, without cause, the additional worry of depicting them on the page.

But, soon enough, in five or fifteen minutes, that line comes along again with additional guests to encamp in my courtyard. Arrey, if I had only a little skill with the paintbrush! At the very least, a thousand faces, completely different from each other, are hidden in this tiny heart of mine. At some point, I’ll draw and paint all of them, then sit at leisure on my swing and drink tea, or eat paan all day, or do no more than play two to four chess games with some carefree soul like myself. And just like that, a peaceful life will flow by. But it doesn’t seem like any such restfulness is in my destiny. It is written in my fate that I will tumble into a heap from nonstop work.

Today, Sindh’s Sumro has come into my mind. When he established his new home at the edge of the settlement, how could he have remained above the suspicions of his Hindu neighbors, never mind the local Muslims? Before moving in, he had also conducted a vaastu puja to seek the blessings of the Hindu gods. And the entire family—counting the old and the young, there were twenty-five of them—had worked hard and invited all of us with love into their courtyard.

Today, that Sumra’s completely broken-down ruins have risen before me.

And such breathing ruins—they’re not made of mud and dust. Within them, there are so many tears, so much weeping, so much hope, arrey! So many hidden love stories, so many confidential stories, such playful jokes, such beautiful daughters-in-law, such young men filled with aspirations, so many simple elderly folks, such innocent sorrows, so many stories of injustice, so many people wandering about and filling every particle of dust even now with their fantastic lives. Today, I’m recalling those ruins of Sumra. It used to be said these Sumra people had run away from Sindh to come here.





These Sumra had run away from Sindh to make a living here, this is true. But who would be willing to accommodate foreign Muslims as neighbors? In the beginning, no one accepted them.

He who is not received anywhere else is received in our neighborhood, though. This hapless locality doesn’t prevent anyone from staying. Here, all the different classes and castes of the world may come and go. For our neighborhood, this causes no unhappiness or anxiety. Because that last bit of land at the edge of our settlement is a small corner filled with stony soil that even the lowest of the low would not cultivate. So, in that border soil, Sumra sought his refuge. There, with his group of twenty-five people, he scattered his household belongings under the shade of the cactus hedge. He had a cow and two yoke-bearing, skinny oxen. He had a single cart, which had been repaired in seventeen places. His singular companion, who had come all the way from Sindh, was a tailless donkey. And he had five to fifteen scraps of ragged clothing. There is no need to count all the broken, cracked pots. With all of this wealth brought from Sindh, he started a new life here.

God knows how he fell in love with this land. Perhaps his mind did not get satisfaction in any other place. And there were no immediate neighbors here. One neighbor, Miraani, had eczema on both legs. She wound rags around them and lounged in her own home’s passageway, hardly ever venturing out. She was the closest. The other neighbor, the Rawaliya family who made grass brooms, lived further back. But could you call them neighborly? One wife had a respiratory disorder. Another was crippled. All of them were the kind to beg and borrow to eat. Of what help could they be to Sumra?

His true neighbor, his powerful support, his companion in joy and sorrow, whatever you might call it, was the shade of that cactus hedge. Aside from that, no one else.

This Sumra began to acquaint himself with the land slowly. All twenty-five young and old people in his household were hardworking. The six-year-old child also earned his bread. He would graze someone’s cattle and, in the late evening, bring home whatever kind of wood he managed to get—aawal, baawal, kher, or khakhro. The child never returned empty-handed.

Slowly, Sumra erected rooms made of mud and dirt. He made a clean space for securing the cattle. He filled the holes in the hedges all around. Though they were not likely to thrive, he planted pipar branches and began the arduous task of trying to create shade from two to four trees onto his courtyard. In his life, the shade of a tree was hardly a matter of everyday abundance. In just a short time, he had turned that dwelling spot into something of a fortress.

No one would believe that these Sumra people had fled Sindh stealthily in the night, they were so dedicated.

None of the Sumra family children could be found wandering freely in the streets. So the neighbors didn’t even know their names. They were all just called Sumra. And the street was called Sumrawaalu Street. In a short while, that street began to flourish with piles of green grass. The sound of buffalo milk streaming into metal buckets could be heard. Carts and vehicles began to come and go. As evening fell, hoes and ploughs would appear. No one else cultivated the fields of the untouchables; Sumra tended half of them and worked hard. He began to accumulate belongings. Sumrawaalu Street began to fill with laughter. Seeing so much hustle and bustle, anyone would think this land was really blossoming into its youth.





This is the story of a particular day. About nine or nine-thirty at night, we were all sitting at leisure and gossiping away when we saw an old man. We guessed this was an elder of the Sumra people. He came and sat with us. After a short while, he took a coin and a small sopaari out of a drawstring cloth pouch in his waistcoat pocket. “Adaa! Please open up your almanac.” He was holding the coin and the sopaari, a token of honor and respect, in his hand.

I took out the astrology almanac. He placed the coin and the sopaari on the almanac. I took them.

“What do you want to see, Sumra bhai?” Not one of us knew his name.

Sumra cleared his throat. He stared at the ground for a bit. Then he said quietly, “It’s like this, Adaa! Will we have a give-and-take with this land or will we get devoured again here also—that is what I want to get looked at.”

“Get devoured? Here? Arrey, bhai! You are doing fine here. What brought on this kind of doubt?”

“At our old place, we had much more than here. But everything became messed up and utterly ruined.” Sumra cleared his throat. He stared at the ground for a bit. Then he said quietly, “It’s like this, Adaa! Will we have a give-and-take with this land or will we get devoured again here also—that is what I want to get looked at.”

“How so?”

“How so? Whether the year is auspicious or inauspicious, we start work for two people like you. What happens is that two becomes twenty-two and you are swallowed up. Some cow gets poisoned by snakes. Or the ox dies. A family member either falls short or proves to be dishonest. And just like that, nothing at all can be done for a living. In vain, we will have taken on so much work, day and night. So: is it fated for us to make a living here or will it again be the same as before? A person must have some give-and-take with the land, too.”

I opened up the almanac. I ran my fingers past Dhan, Makar, Kumbh. I squinted my eyes a bit. I exhaled from my nostrils. After some time, I said, “Sumra bhai, you will have success here. You have give-and-take with this land. No harm will come to you here.”

“Then that is very good, Adaa! Now we are tired. We want the trees to grow over our heads!”

After some time, he got up. As if his mind had received assurance, he began walking. But, having gone just a little distance, he returned.

“Adaa!”

“What?”

“One thing still remains that I must ask of you.”

“Please ask. What is it?”

“If we get two men together on this land, two holy Brahmins like you . . .”

“Arrey, crazy bhai! Don’t talk like that, don’t! If someone hears you, then our daily bread will disappear.”

He was Muslim, and Brahmin gods will not make a Muslim’s house holy—this thought dawned on him and made him somewhat ashamed. But he immediately added, “No, not like that. But you, my baap! You can eat and drink at your place . . . then what is the problem?”

“Yes . . . then there is no problem,” I said, thinking out loud.

The next day, the honest Sumro conveyed food supplies for our entire household in the early morning itself. He felt a peace of mind that he had paid his homage to the land. And now no harm could come to him.

Who knows what it was that caused this brave man—who lived undaunted, considered the shade of the cactus hedge as his home—to tremble inwardly with doubts about his own success. Trouble could come from any direction—it was as if this apprehension was always present in his mind.





On another similar night, he came again. This time, he wanted a note for some doctor nearby. His grandson had been moaning all day and night. He wouldn’t sleep and wouldn’t let others sleep. One of his hands was constantly by his ear. He had some pain there.

For the first five to seven days, they had put up with it, but the pain had continued to increase. Some reckless doctor had made things worse and taken off with two to four measures of grain. They showed the local vaid and he gave them a small medicine packet of herbs and homemade ointments and took a measure of mustard seeds. They showed the bhuva at the goddess’ temple to see if an evil spirit needed to be exorcised; he gave him a drink of water and took a half maund of fenugreek seeds. The Muslim fakir made a holy thread; Sumra gave him a maund of jowar. The bawa sadhu smoked a mantra and took easy money of one and a quarter rupees. Whomever Sumra met, they showed him varying remedies and reduced his store of grain. And, with that, the boy’s illness grew. But, for someone who was working day and night, how could Sumra even make the time to sit by the little one? Sumra went to one hospital and they didn’t even allow people of the jainetar sect there, considering them animals. He went to a second hospital. They had no place for non-Hindus there. At the third hospital, there was a board hanging with more restrictions: “Only for . . .”

Sumra’s son’s wife began beating her fists against her head. She put everyone on notice. “I work hard, breaking my bones—that seems fine to all of you, no? And no one has paid attention to this innocent child for fifteen days. Starting tomorrow, I will not go to work. So there!” She cried out loud with a clear refusal. Everyone was stumped.

So Sumro wanted to harness the cart early the next morning and go to the nearby city hospital with the son’s wife. In this neighborhood, we were the only ones who could read and write. So he had come to get a note for some city doctor.

We gave him a note for a known doctor. When Sumro went there, he learned that the boy’s ear had become infested with worms.

The boy slowly recovered but he never really became wholly healthy after. The boy’s young mother took this blow very hard. She believed that, because of his focus on his work, this industrious old man had caused her son’s impairment. She felt disgust for both the old man and the work.

Miraani, who never used to venture out of her home, would now come and sit sometimes at Sumra’s place. From that Miraani, Sumra’s young daughter-in-law got to hear words that were like the senseless and incitement-filled headlines from a one-and-a-half paise’s irresponsible news rag—and she believed them to be true. The child would have been saved if, as Miraani had said, the neighboring Rawaliya had been given one-and-a-quarter maund of jowar for their goddess worship.

So the young daughter-in-law’s sorrow, becoming a thousand times greater and taking on a thousand contours, began to persecute her. Just as she had beauty and youth, she also had a bounty of maternal love. Her mind kept mulling over this matter. She became convinced that the boy would have been saved if only one-and-a-quarter maund jowar had been given to the neighboring Rawaliya for the goddess.

One day, the daughter-in-law had an argument with Rawaliya’s wife. We are protected by the thousand-armed goddess, said Rawaliya’s wife. If you say too much, some unforeseen trouble will occur.

It was ludicrous how this Sumra family, who got hundreds of maunds of grain from the land through their own hard labor, was shattered by the sparks that surged from such petty, trivial talk.

That son’s wife became crazy. The son could not say anything to his father so he ran away.

Seeing the power of the land where he had been assured he would have success, Sumra came again one night with a coin and a sopaari to have his fortune told from my astrologer’s almanac.




Eventually, he lost faith in my astrologer’s almanac also. Another Brahmin fortune-teller came along and his almanac was approximately six times as long as mine. That almanac stretched across Sumra’s entire verandah. All the old and young of Sumra’s family, though they themselves did not believe in it, sat there like believers because they saw that everyone else nearby believed in it.

Several new things emerged from this almanac. More blame was placed on Rawaliya. A certainty was provided that it was all their handiwork. Miraani seconded this. This created a quarrel between the two families—Sumra and Rawaliya—without any cause or claim.

On the third day, one of Sumra’s oxen was poisoned by a snake.

That was it. The issue went to legal dispute. A criminal case was filed. The policemen and officials also looted Sumra well.

Drained in this manner, Sumra did not make it to the end of the following year.





One early morning, as I was going past there, the dogs were howling in the street. I was surprised. I had not cleansed myself yet, so I opened Sumra’s compound wall gate with caution and went inside. The entire street was absolutely empty. There was not a person to be met. In the dim darkness, only an emptiness could be seen. Discarded rags and broken, cracked earthen pots were lying about. On the edge of the verandah, someone had even made a sacred saathiyo of moong dal, as is done for auspiciousness and good luck when moving in to or departing from a home. I wandered about in all directions; everything had been deserted.

Just as they had stealthily run away in the night from Sindh, the Sumra people had again run away in the night from here in exactly that manner.

None of the neighbors had ever gotten to know any of the family members’ names. The Sumra people have run away—that was the only enduring phrase.

Just as there were stones, lumps of earth, and trees at the precincts of the village, so there had been the Sumra people. They came. And then they left.

Don’t we say this very thing for hundreds, thousands, lakhs, crores of lives? They came . . . and then they left.

But give the name of at least one from among them—that is your question, right? Bhai! Can you give the name of one tree from the hundreds on the banks of this river?

For the tree, for the stone, for the little clods and lumps of earth, and for people like these—why should they also be given respectable names like ours? They are nameless, simply nameless!