When Ustad Ramzi stepped out of the enclosure on the fourth day after Tamami’s death to visit Gohar Jan’s kotha, he felt nauseous. He kept wandering off the path and walked aimlessly in the adjoining alleys.
He had summoned all his fortitude to drive the thoughts of his brother out of his mind. But he did not succeed in quelling his conscience from which fragments of guilt broke out. An unresolved conflict now festered in his mind. He had tried to subdue the commotion in his soul and failed.
When he was the foremost pahalwan of his day, he had defended his elders’ titles until they retired. But it was also true that he never had any dearth of worthy competitors. Those were the times that produced great ustads and champions. A month never went by without a major bout or tourney. He had always had the incentive to remain in a state of constant physical preparedness and his grueling routine never tired him mentally.
But nobody came forward to fight Tamami after Imama’s death. There was no challenger in sight, but Tamami underwent a punishing regime of exercises day after day, week after week. If Ustad Ramzi had retired at that time, the Ustad-e-Zaman’s title would have brought some consolation to Tamami, who would have found in the gesture an acknowledgement of his struggle. But he could not bring himself to accept that Tamami was worthy of a title that he had held.
He had turned his brother into his personal slave, fighting the shadows of his own fears. His actions did not serve the art he professed to protect; they served only him. Tamami’s inability to protest his treatment must have driven him to despair.
Ustad Ramzi found himself not far from Gohar Jan’s kotha entrance. He craved some reprieve from his suffocating grief, and the darkness of the unlighted stairwell offered itself as a refuge to him.
Ustad Ramzi climbed up the stairwell and sat down midway.
He was sure Gohar Jan would have learned of Tamami’s death. Everyone in the inner city knew about it. Banday Ali, who usually came to inquire if he was absent without notice, had not visited him for three days. Ustad Ramzi’s presence at the kotha would oblige Gohar Jan to adhere to the usual routine of her recitals. He was not sure if he desired that.
Ustad Ramzi regretted having come there, and felt he would be sick.
As he rose to leave, he heard someone coming up the stairs.
“The bulb is fused again! What a nuisance!” he heard Banday Ali say.
“Who’s there?” Banday Ali asked hearing Ustad Ramzi’s footsteps on the staircase.
“It’s me!” Ustad Ramzi called out.
“I am coming up,” Banday Ali said.
He passed Ustad Ramzi on the way up and opened the door. The bulb in the veranda lit up part of the staircase too, but Ustad Ramzi did not move into the light. Banday Ali stepped over to one side.
“Come on inside. I will go and change the bulb,” he said.
Ustad Ramzi stepped inside.
Entering the Music Room, he found Gohar Jan by herself. The tanpura and the tablas were covered.
“Please sit down,” Gohar Jan said, motioning him to his regular place on the carpet.
Ustad Ramzi sat silently.
He felt cold. It was not yet September, but in the evenings the air had become crisp and dry. He felt thirsty.
“Can I have some water?” he asked.
Gohar Jan poured him some water from the ewer.
“I heard of your brother’s death,” she said, passing the bowl. “I am sorry.”
Ustad Ramzi gripped the bowl with both hands. But he saw she was not looking at him.
“I heard that you two were the last remaining of your family. One never forgets a childhood spent together.”
He stared at her. His pride and guilt put him on guard at her first words, but now his concentration wavered. Because of their significant age difference, he and Tamami had no shared childhood. It was also said about Ustad Ramzi that childhood never visited him. He had always been serious and somber.
“Sometimes it is a difficult thing,” Gohar Jan’s voice interrupted Ustad Ramzi’s thoughts, “To go through life carrying all the memories of your family, knowing that both the memories and family will end with you.”
Gohar Jan said something a moment later that Ustad Ramzi did not quite hear, but it registered sufficiently in his mind to attract his attention.
“…I could talk about it,” she said, “as I do not have many years left.”
Something more than the words caught Ustad Ramzi’s ear. It was the grief in Gohar Jan’s voice, so much at odds with her usual tone.
Then Ustad Ramzi’s attention wandered away. He could not tell how long his mind was blank. When he regained his attention, Gohar Jan was saying:
“A girl’s face is the only memory I have of our family. She may have been my sister, younger than myself, for I remember her following me around the house. I don’t know if my father was around, but I can feel the presence of my mother. It surprises me sometimes that I do not recall her features. My sister’s face is all I remember. I wonder if she remembers me still. It is a harsh sentence to know that somewhere, someone who was a part of you and whom you will never see, perhaps still lives. The thought has not left me since the day I was separated from my family.”
Gohar Jan fell silent. It was the first time that she had mentioned her family.
An incident from many years ago rose with great vividness from some vault in Ustad Ramzi’s memory at her words.
When Tamami was eight or nine, he had stolen some guavas from a neighbor’s tree. The neighbor had complained to the elders. Fearful of the punishment that lay in store for him, Tamami had come running to his brother. He was still carrying the guavas in the folds of his kurta, and his mouth was full of the half-unripe fruit as he mumbled, “Don’t tell anyone!” and slid under the charpai where Ustad Ramzi was sitting. Shortly afterwards one of the ustads had entered the enclosure with a rattan cane in his hand. He looked around and asked, “Have you seen Tamami?” Ustad Ramzi stood up, exposing Tamami who was still nibbling at the guava. He was pulled out by his ear and dragged away. Tamami had cried and tried to clutch on to his legs, but he did not intervene.
As he recalled that scene now, Ustad Ramzi realized he could have saved Tamami a beating that day.
Ustad Ramzi felt a constriction in his chest. He could think of nothing but Tamami. His heart was pulsing and beating with the usual rhythm, but with a strength that was almost painful. All his senses were alert but he felt that his heart was sinking.
“Are you all right?” Gohar Jan asked.
“I do not feel well, I’m sorry,” he said with his eyes lowered.
Gohar Jan offered him another bowl of water.
“I think I must go,” he said returning the empty bowl.
“Rest your mind,” she said to him as he got up.
The door had been left open and he quietly walked out.
By the time he reached the enclosure his nauseous feeling had subsided.
❖
That night Ustad Ramzi again dreamt of Tamami.
He dreamt he was alone in the enclosure. The sand swept past him in waves. Something came floating over it from his right, and a smell like camphor’s— only stronger and strangely altered, and so strong he could almost taste it—assailed his senses. The object came to rest at his feet. It was a human body clad in winding sheets. Without seeing the covered face, he knew it was Tamami’s corpse. He tried to step away but could not. He tried to reach down to touch the sand but felt dizzy. Then a crow alighted at his feet and began digging into the sand with his beak. He stepped back in terror. The smell was still in his nostrils when his eyes opened. He sat up and stepped out into the courtyard where the freshly smoothed clay of the akhara shone in the moonlight.
He could no longer avoid answering the questions that had haunted him since Imama’s death, and had subsequently taken on new meaning.
Did the essence of his art not lie in creating a delicate harmony between strength and the opposing force? Did it not lie in keeping power bridled?
When he had set out Tamami’s training routine these had not been his considerations. It had caused the death of two men. He had then aggravated his crime by a false sense of rectitude.
The base passions that he had detected in Tamami lived inside himself: in his anger, ambition, and pride.
In obedience to them he had compromised every principle he sought to save and disgraced himself more than words could express.
The guilt Ustad Ramzi carried in his heart etched his face in this moment of reckoning.
❖
He visited Tamami’s grave. There were no other graves beside it. Marked with a tombstone commemorating Tamami’s life, it was surrounded by budding rose bushes planted by Kabira. After saying the benediction Ustad Ramzi sat down at the foot of the grave where the caretaker found him when he made his rounds at night.