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   The Kabbadi Player by Nadir Ali

Translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali

Painting by Amna Ali

Since I struggled with poor health most of my life, I imagined those who enjoyed good health must be happier too. As the saying goes, “Be fit and healthy and the world is yours!” The strong ones can till and plow the land, but that doesn’t win them the world, as far as I can tell. When I was younger, I naively believed that only the athletes at our college were truly vibrant and alive. The entire college and district worshiped Ahsanullah. Kabbadi[1] was a popular sport back then, and Ahsanullah a peacock strutting in the kabbadi arena. He would tag the opponent and remain standing. “Dare to tackle me big guy!” he seemed to say, before slipping away. Clapping his hands, he would be off and running and onlookers would marvel – “There he goes!”

We witnessed a new race of men when the team from Jullundhar’s Khalsa College arrived. The players — tall, big and heavy– were built like wrestlers. Unlike us, they didn’t tackle opponents with moves like the scissor or the squeeze or run with lightning speed. They would simply grab a man by the arm and immobilise him with sheer force. When they were the ones caught, a few vigorous shoves were enough to help them escape. But they failed against Ahsanullah. They couldn’t even touch him. He slapped the opponent, grabbed him in a tight embrace as if a vine had wrapped itself around the Sardar. Then he spun him to make him lose his balance. A carefully applied tug followed, enough to send him crashing to the ground. The Sardars realised that Ahsanullah’s slight frame was misleading. He was strong as iron. In the end, his opponents always lay defeated at his feet. Thanks to Ahsan and Shareefa, Zamindara College came first in all of Punjab. Khalsa College Jullundhar came in second. But gone are the days of college and kabbadi. Zamindara College was never the same and hockey and kabbadi met their demise. What a strange race everyone joined once the sports grounds disappeared.

I remained friends with all the kabbadi players. Shareefa became the head of a police-station and even played for the police. Ahsanullah would be invited to the village or the college for informal matches. Once he got married, worries seemed to swallow him up. Glasses appeared on his studious face. Kabbadi proved useless for all the players, except Shareefa who put it to good use, tackling and hustling even at his prison job. Thana, Bala, Qooma, Abdullah Raja, all my companions, simply disappeared from my life. The game of life is all about money and power. Some of them were even so-called leaders, honoured with titles like Chaudhry of the village, but being a Chaudhry is meaningless without also being a crook. Despite my ill health, I managed some thuggishness now and then. But those farmers didn’t manage too well. Some thirty years passed.

I left my job and moved to the US, but college days remained etched in my memory. Gujrat had turned into a graveyard where my youth lay buried. Lahore swallowed up everyone. And from Lahore I made my way to the US. The United States – a place filled with endless worry and anxiety, in which everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. The bright lights and women added some colour, but there was no time to look up.

One day, in the midst of all this, a man caught my eye. A partner in misery, he was staring at the ground. He was wearing glasses and sat slightly hunched, but I recognised that jawline of chiseled iron and the long nose sticking out. “Ahsan Sahab!” I called out. He looked up but his face showed no emotion. “I am Nadir Ali, from Dharekan!” I said.

“What fix have you gotten yourself into?” he asked. No greeting, no salam. What sort of a question was this? He shook my hand without enthusiasm and patted my back. “Managed to find any work?” he asked. I had addressed him as Sahab out of respect for my kabbadi hero. But this man was bent on remaining distant.

“Yes, I did, by the grace of Allah,” I replied mechanically.

“The grace of God does not make it to distant places like New York. It has yet to reach me,” he went on.

“What’s the matter Ahsan Sahab? Is everything alright? Are you well?” I asked.

“The night refuses to end!” he said. “Earlier, I worked a night shift. Now I work at a store at the bottom of a skyscraper. By the time sunlight makes it to the ground, it is evening.” His eyes, full of sadness, seemed to be longing for the sun just then.

“We are in a foreign land, Ahsan Sahab!” I said, acting all mature suddenly.

“Well, it is not like Pakistan is our father’s estate either!” he replied. He got off at the 34th Street station in midtown. I was free and decided to accompany him. He was carrying some stuff for the store, and I gave him a hand. It was not a long walk.

We both stood outside the store. The owner hadn’t yet arrived. Ahsan took out a hash-filled cigarette and lit it. “You didn’t smoke back then!” I commented, trying to put him at ease.

“It’s not like I play kabbadi anymore!” he said and smiled sweetly at last. He didn’t seem to be doing too well. He didn’t ask about Gujrat, and I didn’t bring it up. “I get off at six in the evening. Stop by if you are free,” he said, extending some warmth for the first time.

I returned at a little before six that evening and noticed that he smiled again. It was faint, yet for me that smile was worth a million. “Like the road to my village, like the path that leads me home”– words from one of my poems came to mind. He took me to a bar. “Two whiskeys!” he called out and presented cash at the bar as was New York’s custom. He sat silent. He had always been on the quiet side. But we were both comfortable in our silence.

A few drinks later, I noticed a slight sparkle in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I felt intoxicated. “Brother, I should stop now,” I said, “I have exceeded my quota.” Once we were outside, I blurted out, “Ahsan Sahab, I write poetry.” What a thing to say! I noticed the moon was visible in the sky. “I have never been able to see the moon in New York before! How did it manage to survive the rough and tumble and make it up there tonight? Good lord, the memories!”

Ahsan Sahab benevolently prodded me — “What are you remembering?”

 “You are the moon, Ahsan Sahab! Somehow, God made you appear tonight.”

“But this is the waning moon, Chaudhry!” he replied, sighing deeply.

Two weeks later, he was dead. Someone at the mosque mentioned that they were raising funds to return the dead body to Pakistan. Words tumbled out of my mouth as I helped lift the coffin for the journey. “He was worth his weight in gold!”

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[1] Traditional contact sport of Punjab. Players “raid” the opponent’s territory and tag or touch opponents and then attempt to make it back. The defending team tries to stop the player from returning.

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This story is a translation of Nadir Ali’s short story, first published in a collection titled Kahani Paraga , published by Suchet Kitab Ghar in 2004 in Lahore.

Nadir Ali (1936-2020) was a Punjabi poet and short story writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Waris Shah Award for his collection Kahani Praga. Coming late to writing, particularly fiction, Nadir Ali is credited with spearheading a unique style, blurring the boundaries between significant and petty, artistic and ordinary, primarily due to his preference for and command over the chaste central dialect understood by the majority of Punjabi speakers. He is also noted for writing and speaking about his experiences as an army officer posted in East Pakistan at the height of the 1971 war.

Amna Ali is Nadir Ali’s daughter.  She translated a selection of Nadir Ali’s short stories into English in collaboration with Moazzam Sheikh. The translations were published by Weavers Press in USA in a book titled Hero and Other Stories in 2022. She is a librarian and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.

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Review

Hurtling through Time

Book review by Rakhi Dalal

Title: A Sense of Time

Author: Anuradha Kumar

Publishers: Weavers Press, 2021

A Sense of Time is a collection of short stories by Anuradha Kumar that stretch across different periods of time, hurtling through the past into the future. A two-time Commonwealth award winner, Kumar has authored thirty-one books, written for Economic and Political Weekly among many other journals and newspapers, woven stories for children under a pseudonym and has released two books almost together in 2021, the other being The Hottest Summer in Years amidst excellent reviews.

Reading Kumar’s A Sense of Time is akin to going on an unplanned journey which takes you to places most unexpected, the roads twisting and turning as you march on with bated breath, wondering where or what it might lead you to. You have to remain alert at all times lest you might miss something crucial to a story. The narrative style in each story is crisp, never faltering once. And the most striking thing is Kumar’s ability to conjure vivid imagery in the mind of the reader. The spaces that her pen creates might either be real or illusive, the enticement is decidedly palpable.  

The story, ‘Entomologist at Trial’, is a about a small town lawyer trying to make it big at High Court. He fails each time he bases his decisions on idealism. It is essentially a satire on the society which derides integrity and where being successful is far more important than being right. ‘Pandemic 2121’ is a love story based in an imagined future where the protagonist is separated from her lover, from a different planet, because of the policies of her planet’s government. Here the author addresses the innate human longing for things simpler and basic to human nature for sustenance amidst a pandemic like situation similar to that witnessed in 2020.

In some stories, Kumar explores the world of women from distinct backgrounds. Rekha from ‘Rekha Crosses the Line’ is a bored middle class housewife looking for ways to distract herself from her mundane existence and from the anxieties forced upon her by the familial expectations. It also explores the murky world of Godmans thriving in a society where people flock in the hope to find answers or to while away their time deliberately, knowing exactly what they are entering. ‘All the Way to the Twelfth Floor’ follows the events of a day in the life of Gauri who works as a house help for different apartments in a society. Kumar focuses upon the perilous circumstances women engage in this work sometimes confront, their apprehensions and the acts they feel obliged to do to for the sake of their livelihoods. It is also a peek into the apathy with which the society treats women working as domestic helps and employers’ lack of concern to the vulnerabilities they might be exposed to.

‘Dorothy Cries in the Bus‘ is the story of a journey taken by two women of different nationalities brought together by circumstances and their effort to connect with each other. It essentially focuses on their similarities as women dealing with their marriages and discovering a kinship in unusual circumstances. ‘Missing’ takes us to the world of a woman married to an army soldier and her efforts to keep the household functioning in the absence of her husband who rarely gets a leave from his posting. The story, however, also turns our attention to the meagre salaries the army soldiers earn and the psychological stress they endure which is seldom focused upon. The heroic welcome that Gudiya’s husband receives in the village upon his return on a vacation stands in stark contrast to the reality of his everyday life marred by difficulties to procure even nutritious food for his ailing father.

Some stories are also biting satires on the ways a society acquires and becomes accustomed to. ‘The Man Who Played Gandhi’ is a story of a man who gets invited to play Mahatma at various events. Das takes great pain to look like Gandhi, wear similar clothes, practice the same kind of gait and the way of spinning the charkha. He also memorizes Bapu’s speeches which he delivers to sometimes a rapt audience. As the years after independence progress, he realises people don’t really care about the Mahatma or his ways anymore. At one event, he is invited to appear only to be made to disappear again — as a magician’s prop. Through the course of this narrative, Kumar highlights the growing indifference of the citizens towards the ideals or edifice upon which India was constructed after a long struggle faced by the independence movement.

‘Big Fish’ takes us to the world of a refugee family living on the brim of society, its fears and vulnerabilities. It also showcases the apathy of a government towards such people whose sole existence could hang on the whims of officers given charge to identify them.

The titular story, ‘A Sense of Time’, has elements of supernatural where time gives the impression, of drifting and sometimes advancing, but traps the reader into a delusion with such alacrity so as to leave her mystified by the experience. The disorientation which Kumar manages to entice a reader into is at once intriguing and spell-binding.

Kumar’s writing clearly comes out as bold, experimental and confident. The pace with which she commences a story never loses its hold on the reader. Though there are a couple of stories where the ending may leave a reader wondering or wanting for a closure but author’s choice to keep them open ended emulates life as sometimes experienced in reality. Instances where you may come across people only passingly and may never come to know everything about them. But then this is how life is. This is the beauty of it, our ability to keep some experiences in memories and identify our own existence as transient, only fleeting for those we unexpectedly meet on our journey.

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Rakhi Dalal is an educator by profession. When not working, she can usually be found reading books or writing about reading them. She writes at https://rakhidalal.blogspot.com/ .

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL. 

Categories
Excerpt

A Sense of Time

Title: A Sense of Time and Other Stories

Author: Anuradha Kumar

Publisher: Weavers Press, San Francisco, 2021

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Dorothy Cries in the Bus

She spoke for too long on her cell phone. That was the first thing Malati noticed about the foreign lady seated in front of her in the bus. She had brown hair fading at the corners and she spoke English. She sounded American to her ears. All this Malati noticed in degrees, having been too hassled to really look when she’d boarded the bus. There were last minute instructions she had to message her husband, even if she was leaving him and never coming back. Having sent off her last message, she sat disoriented for a while. Her eyes strayed ever so often to the glass fronted dial of her cell phone hoping it would light up. But of course, it didn’t. He really didn’t care. Even now, when he should rightfully have been worried about her, whether she’d boarded the bus all right, what with the heavy rains all along the Konkan till Goa, he was with that harlot. Malati felt certain that they were at the temple in Mahalaxmi, necking on the steps, offering prayers, all in the vain hope that the gods would not consider them shameless. The hair on Malati’s arms stood up in anger and indignation. 

   Images rushed through her mind, a savage anger that made her long to jump off the bus, hail a rickshaw and rush straight home. But she wouldn’t do that, not yet. Let Ashok miss her. He would know how difficult it was to run things in the house without her. Soon he’d be calling her up, begging her to return. Malati smiled at the thought, the anger disappearing into the sunny silver of her changing thoughts. How many days should she stay away, she wondered. Should she wait for him to fetch her?  

   She sat up straight, adjusting her sari around herself. It was then she gave herself time to take in her surroundings. Was everything as it should be? Perhaps the air conditioner was on too high. When the conductor came around, she would ask for it to be lowered. She paid 500 rupees extra for an air-conditioned seat and she was determined to get her money’s worth. She looked around at her neighbors. Some students on her left and an old lady on her right, who was perhaps being shunted off to yet another set of relatives. Would that be her fate too? Malati wondered. And just in front, though she could not see her face yet, was that American. Everyone who moved down the aisle, to their seats behind, bottles of mineral water, groundnut or chikki packets, even bananas, in hand, turned to look at her. It made Malati curious too. But she didn’t want to crane her neck or peer over her seat because that might feed the other woman’s vanity, make her think she was special. Women were the same everywhere that way, even Malati knew that. In any case from the back of her head visible over the seat Malati could tell she dyed her hair. A golden brown shade that was, as she’d already seen with some gladness, already fading. 

   She would wait for her to get up. Passengers usually did that, most of them in the minutes just before the bus started. It was an inevitable and uniform act, that after sitting for so long patiently, in the silence that prevailed after the driver had slammed the door to his cabin shut, before the conductor began his sedate traipse down the aisle, to click away at the tickets extended to him, people always remembered some last chore. Minutes before departure, the stench emanating from the public toilets rose unbearably high forcing people to send prayers of relief up to the heavens once they heard the engine revving up. The woman in front though didn’t get up and in the silence broken only by the steadily advancing click of the conductor’s stapler, Malati heard her voice too. It had to be American, she was sure now. The accent Malati could easily place thanks to the serials she watched. 

   But then the woman sounded distressed as well. She was on her phone again. Malati tried her best to follow the conversation, but it was short, and she could only make out the bye-bye at the end. Malati did not miss the last sob in her voice. Languages could be diverse, but nothing could hide expression. The American was crying to this person on the other end. Possibly her husband. These Americans were free in their feelings that way. The serials showed them kissing and hugging each other, openly, and always for too long. It really embarrassed Malati, even when she was by herself.  

   From the gap between the two chairs, she saw the woman move her hands over her face. She wiped her tears away. Poor thing, Malati thought. Such a long way from home, she was. Malati wondered whether she should ask to exchange seats with the woman who sat next to the American woman. But next to her sat someone who looked to be one of those students from the engineering college. They always traveled in groups over the weekend and did not deign to speak to anyone. Just because they were more educated, so fluent in English and rich. Malati sniffed. 

About the book: 
The stories in A Sense of Time and Other Stories offer a range of themes and emotions. They speak of the challenges of being human, the unpredictability of the mundane, the strange attractiveness of the unfamiliar, and the constant quest to make connections and find love, even with an alien from another world. In ‘An Entomologist at the Trial,’ a small town lawyer’s ambition turns on his attempt to resolve a thorny case that falls amusingly flat. ‘Pandemic 2121: A Love Story’ and ‘Missing’ are stories, varied in theme, that yet speak of the loneliness of keeping love. How does one save a love when everything is conspiring against it, these stories ask. ‘All The Way to the Twelfth Floor,’ ‘The Bus and the Minister,’ ‘Big Fish, and the title story, ‘A Sense of Time,’ speak of the alienation and helplessness of the common person when confronted with a faceless, stony-eyed system. A world with rules set in time, where conventions matter more, leaves little room for those at the very bottom who have little choice but to wait endlessly for succour. ‘Rekha Crosses the Line’ on the other hand, is a more subversive account of a woman who gives in to her desire for some fleeting moments, only to wonder if it was really worth it. ‘Alterations’ casts a satirical eye on a wannabe scientist’s experiments as he craves world recognition. And finally, ‘Comfort Food’ and ‘The Man Who Played Gandhi’ speak of our quest to make sense of those long gone, those whom we have lost. Written in the span of a decade and more, these stories will hopefully stay on, linger in the mind, long after being read. These stories might make you see yourself and even others in a different way. It takes only a little empathy to allow the hidden to surface.       

About the Author:  
Anuradha Kumar is a prolific and established writer. A Sense of Time and Other Stories is collection of short stories after The Girl Who Ran Away in a Washing Machine and Other Stories (Kitaab 2016). She has written several novels, including three works of historical fiction as Adity Kay. Anu also writes pieces on history for Scroll.in. Her stories have received awards from the Commonwealth Foundation, and The Little Magazine India. She was born in Odisha, lived in various parts of India, Singapore, before moving to the US more than a decade ago. She now lives in New Jersey with her husband and daughter. 

Read here interview by clicking here.