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

ugly reality that awaited them. But it was a short war, lasting only seventeen days and ending abruptly. Both countries agreed to a ceasefire. General Dundda went to the Soviet Union to meet the Indian prime minister. A picture of the general, holding hands with the Indian and Russian prime ministers, smiling at the press, appeared in the newspapers under the headline: ‘Accord Reached!’

The nation was stunned! People came out on to the streets and shouted: ‘How can he hold the enemy’s hand?’

‘Why did we have to stop when we were winning the war?’

‘God was on our side. He sent an army of angels and djinns to protect us, to help us conquer the cowards who had attacked us in the middle of the night.’

*

The Indian prime minister died of a heart attack the day after the accord was signed. Some people said it was the overpowering presence of the general that killed him, while others declared confidently that ‘it was the wrath of God.’

The newspapers blared again: ‘Allah’s Rod Is Noiseless.’

All this time, while the nation was led to imagine and believe that the enemy had suffered a heavy defeat, the sceptical Noor had never believed this. He told Mansoor the brutal truth, ‘Sahibzadey, your country lost the war.’ At that moment, Mansoor wanted to yell at him, ‘No, you are wrong!’ but instead, he kept quiet, ingesting his anger. Years later, when Mansoor read an interview of a chief of armed forces, in which the man confessed that the nation did not win the 1965 war, he remembered his father’s sarcastic comment.

Part II

‘When there was nothing, there was God.

If nothing had been there, there would be God.

What drowned me was my being,

If I had not been, what would matter then.’

—Mirza Ghalib

Twelve

Noor finally did learn about Maulvi Nazir’s existence, when he unexpectedly returned home early one day, but, oddly enough, he remained calm. Farhat’s plot did not upset him. His only complaint was that she did it behind his back.

‘I wouldn’t have kicked him out if you had told me. I am not heartless.’

Was he mellowing down? Was he having a change of heart? Mansoor had read somewhere that war changed people; it changed their self-perception. Had this short war changed Noor in a lasting way? Did it make him confront his own mortality? Was his inner tungsten filament about to snap? And what about those nightly lectures extolling Socrates’ dictum that the ‘unexamined life was not worth living’ and Nietzsche’s doctrine that ‘there are no truths, only interpretations’? What about having the guts to doubt and puncture your most cherished beliefs? What about being secular?

Noor still drank every night and never prayed, but he often closed his eyes for the longest time, as if in a deep meditative state. Was his father, deep in his heart, a spiritual person despite being non-religious? Mansoor was now old enough to ask such questions. Indeed, his father had encouraged him to doubt and question things. He looked at his mother and heard her snoring. War had affected her too. Every night during the war, when she heard the sirens go off, she would start trembling. When prayers did not cast out her fears, she would take a Valium. And now, as she slept soundly, Mansoor realized that it must be the Valium again, for she never snored so loudly and so soon after closing her eyes.

The 1965 war had matured Mansoor. There was no question about it. He felt it. But was it the war or the big lie about it that had transformed him into a doubter? He remembered his father telling him once, during one of his nightly lectures, that doubt is the seed that grows into a formidable intellect, like a banyan tree. When the government and the newspapers kept telling the citizens that Pakistan was winning the war, Mansoor had believed the lie. So who was he supposed to trust now? What was he supposed to feel now? What was the nature of truth? Did it begin with a capital T or a small t? Did it bring happiness or sadness? He had all these questions crowding his mind, clamouring for his attention. But one day, when he sat across from his father who clutched on to his empty whisky glass, his eyes closed, Mansoor could only ask this: ‘Abba, do you believe in spirituality?’

He had asked the question in English, even though he knew the Urdu word, roohaniyat. It was a word that Maulvi Nazir used incessantly without explaining it. He wanted to see if his father could make it intelligible for him.

Noor opened his eyes, looking surprised at the question. He remembered when Mansoor had asked him about what happens when one dies, and he remembered the tungsten filament analogy he had used to explain death. This was his second tough question, at least for his age. Maybe his nightly lectures were paying off, Maulvi Nazir notwithstanding. He cleared his throat, took a sip of the whisky, and answered Mansoor’s question with a question, ‘Are you asking me if I am spiritual?’

‘I guess what I am asking is, how do you find peace of mind? I heard you say once that whisky calms you . . .’

‘I drink whisky to escape from the drudgery of my profession, but spirituality for me is listening to the songs of Saigal and Talat Mahmood, reading Ghalib and my friends Faiz’s and Majaz’s poetry. Son, I am a materialist to the core.’

‘What about God?’

‘What about Him?’ Noor asked.

‘Do you believe in God?’

‘There is no evidence to back up such a belief. And all our knowledge is based on evidence, everything else is either a wish or a fear,’ he paused, took a large gulp of whisky and continued, ‘You know, son, with all their faults, the British gifted one good thing to humanity. Do you know what that is?’

‘No.’

‘It is the gift of empiricism. Hang on to it. It will stand you in good