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

of hope. Haider editorialized: ‘From the cinders of dictatorship, the phoenix of democracy is rising.’

It seemed as if everyone except Noor was thrilled by the new politics. Ordinary men and women who had no political bones in their body now got drawn into the exhilaration of possibilities. It was as if the mere sight of a real ballot box was enough to bring deliverance from dictatorship and a relief to their tired lives. Zakir wrote an op-ed column concluding:

Our democracy will succeed only if it has a Pakistani character. We cannot superimpose foreign institutions and foreign laws on domestic structures. Our democracy can only draw sustenance if it is indigenous, intrinsic and original. Otherwise, it will remain an illusion at best and a delusion at worst.

When Noor read his piece, he did not understand what exactly Zakir was talking about. Democracy was not like European food that needed to be spiced up to rid it of its bland taste. And what did he mean by the superimposition of foreign institutions over domestic structure? The country had appropriated and embraced colonial institutions for goodness’ sake! Mansoor listened carefully to his father’s criticism of Zakir’s article. He, however, could not vote because he never registered, but that did not stop him from debating and arguing with the other students in his university. All political leaders disgusted him. They represented the worst elements of society; they were all thieves—wicked and shameless as far as he was concerned. Athanni, however, found a new purpose in his life, a new self, something that excited his soul. He joined the Guardians of Divinity and began purveying their venom. Whether he genuinely believed in their cause or he found in them an outlet to feed his ignorance, Mansoor could not decide; but like a new cultist, Athanni spoke in tongues.

‘When we come into power, our Faith will be our Code, and our Code will be our Faith. The thieves will have their hands chopped, the drunkards will have their buttocks flogged with eighty lashes and the haramis will have their heads severed. There will be no Christmas, no New Year’s Eve and no cinemas. If you go to a brothel, you will be castrated; all the whores will be stoned to death.’

His orgiastic lectures about barbaric retributions sent chills down Mansoor’s spine.

‘How can you think of going backwards while the rest of the world progresses?’ Mansoor challenged him.

‘Our future is in the past. Our past is our present. You are slaves of the West; we are God’s slaves. We are the true believers, and you are jahannami, you are hell-dwellers,’ he replied, his face tense, spit flying out of his mouth when he shouted out the word ‘you’. With animus, he added the English word ‘hell-dweller’ as if to deliberately make sure that Mansoor understood the meaning of the keyword ‘jahannami’. It was also to warn his cousin that his English-medium education would not save him, the sinner, from the eternal flames of hell.

*

On the day of the election, Noor stayed home, but Athanni, along with his father and mother, dragged Farhat out and took her to the polling station. Noor told her, ‘You can vote for anyone, but for God’s sake, don’t vote for the G.O.D.s.’

Once inside the voting booth, however, Farhat defied her husband and voted for the G.O.D. party. For the second time in her life, she went against her husband’s wishes, the first being when she had hired Maulvi Nazir to impart religious education to Mansoor. In disobeying her husband, she not only denied his politics but also challenged his patriarchy. Democracy had emboldened her; the tiny ballot box emancipated her, and she cherished every microsecond of that moment, the fleeting excitement, the sweet liberation, thumbing her nose at her husband’s belief. That the party she voted for would be the first one to trample on her self-esteem and treat her like a legal minor under the guardianship of a blood relative never entered her stream of consciousness. Noor had told Mansoor in front of Farhat that this was the party that would send the country crashing back to the Stone Age, when they literally used stones to kill non-believers, in a matter of minutes. And Farhat had replied, ‘I long for those simple times; I crave for those happy days.’

The elections divided the population along linguistic lines. Bangabandhu’s party won every seat in the eastern province, and the P.O.O.P.s won 80 per cent of the seats in the western province. The G.O.D.s, wholly routed, cried foul. Athanni was stunned, and Farhat wept bitterly. To the utter disbelief of The People’s Leader, Rangeelay Shah announced that Bangabandhu would be the next prime minister of the country. But that was not to be. The idea that a Bengali could rule the entire country was deeply offensive to The People’s Leader. Like a sore loser, he warned his party men that he would personally break the bones of anyone who joined the new assembly without his approval. Then, in an about-face, he offered a novel idea—although Noor called it a moronic idea—to share power in a system of dual prime ministership. The foolishness of a hydra-headed federal government was evident to everyone except to him.

Rangeelay Shah tried to placate The People’s Leader, but his bullheadedness came in the way. In the process, he alienated the Bangabandhu and his eastern brethren, who now openly called for secession from the west. The seeds of secession, truth be told, had been implanted back in 1948 when The Great Leader had declared that ‘the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu, and no other language.’ The relentless discrimination and the open disparagement could only be tolerated for so long, but what broke the camel’s back was the ultimate humiliation of denying the Bengalis the right to govern when they had a clear victory. The east rebelled and used bullets and bayonets to take back what they had rightfully earned through the ballots. Rangeelay Shah sent his army