Of Smokeless Fire A.A. Jafri (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

man clambered inside the bus and ordered everyone out. As soon as the bus emptied, Kaneez saw someone splash kerosene on it from a canister and throw a burning rag. Within minutes, the entire bus was ablaze. Engulfed in a massive ball of fire, it looked like a fiery ogre. Kaneez felt a tremor under her club foot as she hurriedly limped away from the flaming bus, the smell of kerosene and the wafting black smoke making her feel even more queasy. Still quite a distance from her house, she decided to walk up to the next bus stop that was a few blocks away. The gusty wind continued to blow away discarded newspapers, plastic bottles and debris as she dragged herself towards the bus stop. Feeling cold, Kaneez tried wrapping herself tightly with her burqa. When she reached the bus stop, she found it deserted. She waited for a long time, but no bus came. It must be the cold weather that has driven people away, she thought. She was about to move again when she saw a turbaned man, tightly bundled in a thick blanket, coming towards her.

‘Bhai, do you know when the next bus will come?’ she asked him.

‘There won’t be any buses coming today, Mai. Everything in the city is shut down due to the strike,’ he told her and quickly walked away.

Kaneez felt dizzy, her strength was slowly radiating out, her courage was gradually betraying her. But she had no choice; she could not give up. Not then, not there. She did not want to die on this deserted street. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself for the long walk ahead, poor Kaneez hobbled along. Even Farhat would have melted, had she seen Kaneez on that cold, empty street that day. As it became dark, Kaneez’s condition grew worse. Two more blocks and she would be home. Her body was on the verge of collapse, but it was her stubborn spirit, the one she had also handed down to her daughter, that kept her pushing on. When she reached the men’s clinic, which she crossed every day while riding the bus, she knew that her house was not too far away. She decided to rest for a few minutes before walking the last leg of her journey. Spotting a dilapidated bench in front of the clinic, she pulled herself towards it. As soon as she reached the wooden bench, she crashed on it. A giant billboard above her read ‘Cure for Men’s Weakness: Cure for Generative Organ.’ A faded picture of a Western couple, embracing each other, appeared as irrelevant as Kaneez sitting in front of an erectile dysfunction clinic. From her burlap sack, she took out an elongated tin box and a bottle labelled ‘pethidine’, both pilfered from Dr Minwalla’s dispensary. With some difficulty, she opened the tin box and took out a small syringe. Inserting its needle into the bottle, she extracted a small quantity from it and quickly stabbed the needle into her left arm. As the drug began to dance in her limp body, she felt better.

Suddenly the wind picked up speed, and from a distance, Kaneez heard a whirring sound, like a helicopter approaching. ‘Allah has arrived!’ she screamed, quickly dumping the entire paraphernalia back into her burlap sack. Lifting herself up, she staggered down the lonely path, her alley still nowhere in sight. After every few paces, the poor woman felt like collapsing, but Kaneez did not stop. She kept pulling her weight. And then, the familiar alley near her house suddenly appeared out of nowhere, veiling none of its ugliness. Her spirits brightened; her courage returned. But the very next instant, the whole alley lit up unexpectedly; it was as if somebody had turned on the floodlights. The whirring sound grew deafening and Kaneez froze. Her feet felt like boulders, her head like a ton of granite. She just could not move. Scared and trembling, she lifted her head and got the shock of her life. Standing in front of her was a gigantic apparition. His legs wide apart, his hands behind his back, his face familiar and his entire body engulfed in a bright blaze, he looked disdainfully at her. Without any doubt, it was a djinn.

‘Ya Allah, it is a djinn,’ she murmured. ‘Mansoor Babu? Forgive me.’

She turned back and tried to flee but could not. Her legs remained heavy and motionless. She squeezed her eyes, scratched her arms and tried to recall the evil warding chant that she had heard Mehrun chant:

Jal tu Jalal tu;

Sahib-e- Kamal tu;

Aye bala ko taal tu

(You are Glorious; you are the Glory;

You are the bearer of miracles;

You are the warder of all that is evil)

‘That won’t work! That is in Urdu,’ she heard the djinn say, his voice loud, as if it was coming through a loudspeaker.

She tried to remember something in Arabic, but her foggy memory failed her.

‘Do you know who we are?’

‘I don’t know, Djinn Sahib. Please let me go.’

And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it disappeared, without warning, without alerting. The whirring ceased. Kaneez, her feet liberated, raced through the darkened alley and kept running until she saw her house.

Upon reaching the door, she forced it open, screaming and panting all this time. Once inside the house, she bolted the entry, turned around, and grabbed the confused Mehrun. Howling hysterically, she started to hit her and then tore her kameez. A non-stop ream of gibberish gushed out of Kaneez’s mouth, followed by unconnected profanities. Mehrun struggled to restrain her, but the more she tried, the more violent she became. And then she bit Mehrun and began frothing at the mouth. At the door, Mehrun heard Jumman yelling and banging. She pushed her mother aside and ran towards the door, holding on to her torn shirt.

As the door opened, Jumman rushed in and ran straight towards Kaneez, who was now twisting and writhing on the floor, becoming more frantic, more delirious. She had utterly cracked