Kallo

Winner of the Mozhi Prize 2024

THE day the whore Kallo was chased out of the neighbourhood for disgracing herself with her uncle, Mushtari Bano, too, heartbroken from her husband’s betrayal, decided to end things by drinking kerosene. Poor, pious Mushtari Bano abided by every fast and prayer and saw Kallo only from afar— how could she know that this slut would touch her on the raw one day?

I first saw Kallo in the skit that the fat hawker performed every Friday evening to sell his toothpastes. When he arrived with a drum, people would gather all around him. ‘Chew wood, coal or even twigs…buy my toothpaste and never be in a fix!’ Our legendary singer of hymns, Mustaqim Qadri, paled in comparison to how he sang in praise of his wares, for the hawker’s voice was even sweeter and more ardent.

Kallo was his model. Her bewildered eyes peered out of her dark smallpox-infested face, her hair dry like grass, her greasy frock smeared with filth, roughened heels and long, misshapen nails—she embodied squalor. But she had glittering white teeth, like pearls. The hawker would pry open Kallo’s mouth and convince his audience that she used only his toothpaste, though I knew very well that Kallo didn’t brush her teeth for weeks.

Anyway, all we cared about was the skit. After the crowd dispersed, the hawker would hand out some chickpeas and coins to Kallo as payment. Show’s over and God will do good! This was enough to make Kallo happy. In fact, she would gush with pride for days because this task was still much better than all the lowly chores she did in the neighbourhood. Rashida Bhabhi would call out, ‘The baby’s done shitting—wash him! He’s sitting slathered in his own shit and, look at you—shamelessly gawking like an idiot. . . And wash that pile of diapers before you go. No yellow spots! Use a stick to beat them. But softly!’ Kallo would noiselessly get to work. Rashida Bhabhi had, after all, put away two fat jowar rotis and mint chutney for her, which would last her the entire day.

Her other tasks included back rubs for Sughra’s grandmother, picking lice out of Sughra and her sibling’s hair, unclogging the drain, filling up sacks of coal from the coalpit, getting the wheat ground, cleaning the locked up attic rooms annually, feeding the oxen, taking the goats out grazing and so on. In exchange, she would perhaps get some meals and old worn-out clothes. Later, when she would go back to her uncle’s house with a broken back and cracking bones, she had to tolerate her aunt’s scolding and her uncle’s kicks and punches—where the fuck were you roaming around like some homeless bitch? Who is going to do these chores?

For Kallo, home was a house with a red roof ensconced in trees, blue skies and fluffy clouds that her cousin Zahra drew and coloured in with pencils. Kallo would gaze at it wistfully. In her mind, home was always on a paper or a calendar, for the house in which she spent her days had but a rusted tin roof and an uncemented courtyard. She would spread out her dirty rags there, play hide and seek with the stars that twinkled through the holes in the tin roof, laugh, and eventually fall asleep. That was Kallo’s only shelter through shivering winters, drenched monsoons and burning summers.

I remember we once prepared food for Khwaja Baba’s blessed death anniversary. It was peak summer. We had pulao and zarda left over even after distributing them throughout the neighbourhood. When we took out the pulao the next afternoon for lunch, it smelled of rancid garlic. My husband pushed away the plate and left the lunch spread. The children grimaced and filled up on milk and roti. I immediately remembered Kallo and asked my elder daughter to fetch her. Kallo arrived, scratching her head and gnashing her teeth. She devoured the wet, stinky pulao as if she had never seen food before. Nothing was left behind; she even sucked the bones clean. I will be blessed for this good deed, I thought as I saw a satiated Kallo burp loudly. I was going to throw away the food for no reason. Animals would have eaten it and Khwaja Baba would have cursed me. It would have been awful to waste food prepared under his blessings. On top of this, Kallo washed a million utensils after she was done eating and unclogged the drain that had been clogged for months. I felt a surge of affection for her despite her ugliness and gave her an old satin dress set that belonged to my elder daughter but had frayed along the edges. She tied an old sheet in the corner and sat down to bathe. After all, she had got a new dress that day! As I finished afternoon prayers, my gaze fell on her dark body. La hawla wa la quwwata! God alone is Powerful. A face from the Devil, but a body that was God’s mercy, taut like a well-knit bed and solid like iron—a human-sized African statue! As she poured water over her head, the two dark moons on her body became even stiffer. The filth in her hair flowed away over her black body, and her curly hair hung over her tapering hips like a speckled python. A wave of jealousy washed over me.

My husband had been avoiding me for several days. But how long could I have held onto my curves after bearing five children? My body felt loose, like an old cotton rug that years of overuse had reduced to a mop. I put back my elder daughter’s old satin dress. It had only frayed a little bit. With the imminent war and rising prices, it’s no joke to buy a new dress. Kallo didn’t feel bad at all. She dried her body, donned her old luxurious robe of honour and went off.

Mushtari Bano had been married to the local hakim, Shutari, for ten years. Oh, the pomp with which he had brought home a lush-green nineteen-year-old Mushtari Bano! There had been fireworks all over and the neighborhood chattered about it for years to come. Shutari must have been in his forties; he barely looked thirty, though, for he ate dates halwa and dried fruits boiled in pure goat’s milk. People gossiped—why had he married so late? 

My husband had once quietly hinted that Shutari had a taste for young boys. After reprimands from his father and taunts from his mother, he married the raw, young Mushtari Bano. Mushtari was eighth among twelve brothers and sisters. She cast her head down in obedience to Shutari and, like a cow on a leash, arrived at her new abode. In the first year of marriage, he behaved like a child with a brand new toy. She was forever tied to his hip. He would get her walnut halwa or sweet paan, and take her to fairs and exhibitions. She even went to the cinema with him—which, for Muslim women then, was as forbidden as pork. May God save us! When she still emerged childless after two years of such marital bliss, the family was alarmed. The man was a hakim himself and knew of every possible concoction, trick and herb, which he promptly fed Mushtari Bano. Eventually, when nothing worked, he even resorted to new-fangled Western medicine. But Mushtari Bano remained barren. When the extended family started asking questions about Shutari’s masculinity, he got another bride from his village right away. Mushtari Bano was stunned. She hurriedly packed her stuff for her mother’s home. As she reached the door, her father’s routine farewell words echoed in her ears, ‘Daughters go as brides and come back only in coffins.’ How fast her feet slowed down and halted with a train-like screech! Broken-hearted, she sat down at the well. Her tears were her ablution that evening as she prepared to pray. The meaning of the farewell song, ‘Why did you marry me to a foreign land, oh father?’ finally dawned on her. Shutari knew—the more you invest, the sweeter the return. As he pumped in more money, his bride-to-be became younger. That wretched Anwari was barely 17. She was busy playing with her girlfriends and brother when a husband as old as a father-in-law landed her.

Oh, what a frightful night that was! Like Dehalvi’s famous line, ‘the fire raged equally on both sides!’ Mushtari Bano tossed around in her bed but found no peace. She sat for the evening prayers and was still on the prayer rug several hours later. Three or six or nine, who knows how many sets of prayers she offered even after the last one for the day? Her feet went numb. She prostrated herself over and over again to pray for forgiveness for the mistakes she made while praying. She started chanting verses from the Quran loudly on her rosary, but couldn’t drown the excited noises that emerged from her husband’s room and pierced her body like bullets. What privacy could that house offer with its two meagre  rooms, a shared patio and a tiny courtyard? The walls were paper thin. The scene inside sounded more like a wrestling match than conjugal bliss. But even in a wrestling match, the competitors are proportionate in size and weight. Here it was like a battle between the ruler and the ruled, the oppressor and the oppressed. It was obvious who’d win. A deathly silence descended. And then the sound of Shutari’s snores rose, along with Anwari’s sobs. Mushtari Bano hadn’t so much as yawned through the night. ‘Al-salat khair min al-naum!’ At dawn, the muezzin sounded the call to prayer with the traditional Arabic proclamation. Prayer is indeed better than sleep— she thought, as she prepared to pray, without needing any renewed ablutions. 

The next morning, Shutari had a lavish breakfast of parathas dripping with ghee and nihari, without any embarrassment, and marched off to his clinic, leaving Mushtari Bano to gather the broken shards of Anwari’s existence. A naked Anwari covered in blood-soaked bed sheets lay there coiled up like a dead lizard. This soon became the routine. But human beings learn to live with all crises, big or small. Shutari forgot about Mushtari Bano as if she was some useless thing he had once bought. Sweet paan and halwa would still arrive, but only for Anwari. That rotten Anwari too now competed equally in those nightly wrestling matches. In fact, Anwari’s screams of pleasure slowly overpowered Shutari’s weak defensive moans of ‘Not tonight please’. It was now a match between a lioness and a bleating sheep.

Mushtari Bano meanwhile procured a thousand-bead rosary from the mosque. She and Anwari very quickly went from looking like sister-wives to mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. When the sweets of Anwari’s pregnancy were distributed in the neighborhood and extended family, people offered their congratulations and gifts to Mushtari Bano, as if Shutari was her son or son-in-law! Poor, barren Mushtari Bano! She almost swallowed rat poison the day her own mother came with sweets for the couple, and a hand-embroidered cap and diapers for the unborn child. The most undignified death would have been better. Anwari stopped lifting even a finger after these indulgences. She would just lie in bed, eat and get massaged. She made sure that throughout the pregnancy, Shutari slept with his arm over her soft, ever-expanding bosom, lest he warm his bed with Mushtari Bano. For, who has ever been able to trust men? They are serpents coiled up near one’s head. You can never tell when or who they will bite.

Mushtari Bano accepted this tragedy, too, as God’s Will, thinking that at least the house will feel brighter with a child. But then, one day, Shutari brought a carriage, loaded it up with some trunks, essentials, and his pregnant Anwari and set off for his ancestral village. His traditional medicine-based clinic was faltering because of new homeopathic practices. He decided to open a clinic in his old village, which would also be an excuse for the grandmother to see her grandchild. Mushtari Bano heard nothing of this plan. That’s how men work—they never spit out secrets in front of their wives. She later heard that the clinic was doing well. In the next eight years, Shutari got Anwari pregnant three more times and proved his fertility beyond any shadow of doubt. As for Mushtari Bano, she sat alone, looking like a fifty-year-old hag when she was only thirty. It was then that fate led her to meet the whore Kallo.

It was the fifth night of rain. Women emptied out trays of flour on their doorsteps as offerings, pundits chanted hymns, and maulvis sounded the call to prayer, but the rain, set off like a widow’s tears, refused to stop. Kallo tossed and turned on her royal bed. The curtain was soaking wet, helpless against the rain which drenched hearts, minds, bodies and everything else. There was a flood warning too. Kallo’s aunt held her young boys to her waist and walked off to her mother’s in the next neighbourhood. Her uncle pulled a rickshaw for a living. Where would he have found passengers in this torrential rain? The bastard came home early. Kallo had been in her soaking wet bed for an hour by now. The stars that sang her lullaby had vanished from the sky, too. When she saw her uncle enter, she pretended to sleep. Since the rains started, her uncle’s gaze had changed like the weather. Kallo had neither read the Quran nor was she educated, but in her heart, she knew right from wrong. Her uncle had studied till class five. He had read the entire Quran twice. But men serve one religion alone with all their might.

At midnight, her uncle crawled into her wet bed. The rain had intensified. Annoyed, he picked her up and carried her to his cot. He finally remembers his dead sister, Kallo thought. Soon, though, she realized that it wasn’t his sister that he remembered, but his wife’s warm body. He threatened her lest she stop what was going on. In the morning one couldn’t tell land from water after the thunderstorm that had raged all night. That night the village narrowly escaped the storm, but Kallo’s life was ravaged by a flood. When her aunt’s sons began wailing for milk in the morning, her aunt had piled all the children on herself and reached home. As she approached the bed, she saw the uncle and niece soundly sleeping in each other’s arms. Her uncle woke up immediately and turned away from her, as if she was an enemy soldier, and unloaded all responsibility on the whore Kallo’s head. Her aunt wreaked havoc, first in the house and then across the neighbourhood. The little one cried and cried for milk but the aunt paid no heed, as she shattered her glass bangles on her niece’s body. She hit her with slaps and shoes until her dark face turned red. She aimed her slipper at a scared Kallo whose forehead erupted with blood: ‘You whore! Even a goddamn bitch spares her own and you bit your own uncle?’ Kallo looked towards her uncle hoping that, perhaps, now he might remember his dead sister and save her, but he looked away, acting innocent like a newborn. Her uncle and aunt paused to breathe only after kicking her out of the house. Her uncle too participated in this ‘Kick Kallo Out’ campaign with gusto, scared that she might blab what had really happened. But who would trust the word of a known slut?

So, the day the whore Kallo was chased out of the neighbourhood for disgracing herself with her uncle, Mushtari Bano, too, heartbroken from her husband’s betrayal, decided to end things by drinking kerosene. There is no suffering greater than loneliness, and after years of torment, Mushtari Bano finally decided to end it. Children would come to her all day for their daily Quran lessons. Women came for advice on their various illnesses. She also cast charms on patients with epilepsy and insanity. But this only filled her day. A deep terror would catch hold of her even before nightfall. When the bhishti came to deliver water, his sculpted body and muscular arms would cast a stone in the still waters of her mind. She would then sink into a deep penitence. When her elder sister’s son-in-law came to deliver the news of someone’s death, she hurriedly gulped the remaining water from his glass, and inhaled his masculine odour long after he left. And then again, her weekly penitence!

It was the month of Muharram. She was tired of this desolate, sinful life. Shouldn’t I end it before Satan fully catches hold of me, she thought. She steeled herself, picked up the kerosene and shut her eyes to say endless prayers for her deceased father, her mother in heaven, all her siblings, nephews, nieces, Shutari, Anwari and even their children. In her tahajjud prayers, she had already asked God for forgiveness for this sinful way to go. And then she thought—when the neighbourhood ladies arrive to mourn my death, how many awful things would they say when they see this unclean house? She washed the house all day and spread out fresh, crocheted bed sheets. She gave away whatever little she had in the kitchen to the local, Hindu mendicant. Surprised, he asked, ‘Ram, Ram! My child, are you going on a trip?’ She said, ‘Yes, a long one.’ The beggar asked, ‘When will you be back?’ With brimming eyes and a lump in her throat, she answered ‘I don’t know,’ and dropped the heavy curtain between them. She washed the dishes, cleaned out cobwebs and opened her small tin trunk where she found her wedding dupatta and draped it around herself. The song ‘Why did you marry me to a foreign land, oh father?’ echoed in her ears. She had just picked up the kerosene when someone fell at her doorstep with a loud thud. Her heart wanted her to look but her mind said—why do you care? You’re moving on from this world. To hell with everyone! As she struggled, a voice rose- ‘Water! Water!’. You are no better than Yazid who slaughtered Ali’s kin in the same month of Muharram, she chided herself. Helpless, she dropped the kerosene, filled a shiny cup of water and fed it to Kallo who lay on the door like some crippled cow. The lewd, filthy, shameless whore Kallo had stumbled across the whole neighbourhood, screaming like a madwoman for water, and landed up at the doorstep of the pious Mushtari Bano. God’s Will indeed! And so with this, these two women, tormented more by the world than by fate, became each other’s life support. The same kerosene that Mushtari Bano was going to drink lit the stove that night to cook Kallo’s dinner, for she hadn’t eaten anything for two days.

The next morning Mushtari Bano saw lice crawling on Kallo’s pillow. Disgusted, she wanted to feed her and send her off, but how could she do that to the devil-faced angel sent by God? It’s His test for me, she thought, as she doused Kallo’s head with kerosene to kill off the lice that had been living there for centuries. She opened her things and found a used red soap. She sent the wretch to bathe and asked the children who had come for their Quran lesson to go buy some necessities. In the meanwhile, she made jowar rotis and quickly ground a mint-garlic chutney on the grinding stone. She also chopped up a bit of onion because she had a guest after so long. The spread should look a bit full. It was evening time, the cuckoo bird chirped and the post-rain breeze reached them after rushing through a sandalwood forest. The world felt strangely beautiful. They started eating.

Kallo sat on the bare floor, a bit apart from Mushtari Bano. She had given Kallo her yellow and black long floral cotton kurta and a body-hugging pyjama. Kallo was tall and shapely. The kurta fit her tightly around her chest. Those who usually beg and eat expand when given good meat and so it was for Kallo who could barely fit in Mushtari Bano’s slender framed kurta— or perhaps it was her blossoming youth. Whatever it was, Mushtari Bano’s life was experiencing a sudden, unexpected spring. She put mustard oil in Kallo’s black, curly hair, trimmed her nails, put butter on her worn-out ankles and rubbed off clumps of dirt, to reveal a beautiful dusky Kallo underneath. The wretch was beyond unskilled. She neither knew how to knead dough nor how to wash clothes. The sweet-seller Basheer’s two young boys came to Mushtari Bano for Quran lessons. They would give her half a litre of milk every day and a pound of butter every month. Earlier she would either let it sour and throw it out, or offer it to the shivling in the nearby temple. Temples and mosques used to be near each other then. Abd al-Rahman would sway to Hindu devotional songs and Ram Lal would sit in the first row to listen to hymns in praise of Prophet Muhammad. And Muharram was for everyone, anyway. But now Mushtari Bano melted the butter to make ghee for various kinds of halwa. Kallo’s youth burned brighter after this rich diet, and its heat reached Mushtari Bano as well. Kallo had never learnt how to lie. Lying next to Mushtari Bano, she narrated her entire life story, beginning from her mother’s lap to her uncle’s arms.

Mushtari Bano’s heart was like a library piled with books etched with told and untold tales from her life. Her burdened heart, heavy from gathering stories and bearing tragedies, poured out everything for Kallo, and became light like a feather. No trace of grief remained. When a woman empties out her heart to someone, it is often the solution to her woes as well. It is like emptying a worm-infested sack of wheat in a flowing river. The sack is emptied with no harm to the river. The two of them would talk day and night. The Quran pupils would quietly stare at them. The nights didn’t feel as long anymore. Companionship had finally arrived in the form of Kallo. She gave Kallo a muslin dupatta and taught her ablutions for prayers, and the childhood bismillah ceremony was thus performed in Kallo’s adulthood. Kallo and bismillah! Whoever heard that was stunned. To celebrate, Mushtari Bano made two pounds of laddoo and handed it to Kallo. She draped a crisp, new red dupatta on her. The children laughed a lot. Kallo took lessons for several days. She also tried learning household chores but didn’t succeed; anyway, Mushtari Bano was no idiot. She knew that Kallo wasn’t made for these feminine chores.

Soon Kallo yearned to go out again. She wasn’t used to being home all day long. She wanted to see young boys playing with tops and flying kites, the ironsmith’s bellows, the blind bulls milling oil in farms, old railway tracks, monkeypod trees and oh—the toothpaste hawker! She was his bread and butter. Kallo first felt dread, then suffocation and finally exhaustion from sitting at home, but Mushtari Bano insisted. Earlier, Kallo would walk with her bewildered eyes wide open, taking long, manly steps. Mushtari Bano taught her how to walk like a lady, or rather, she tried to. Kallo wasn’t made of wax to be shaped however one wanted. She had everything—food to fill her belly, halwa and sweet treats, the dignity of a home—but she still felt something was missing. She couldn’t immediately put her finger on what it was. One day Mushtari Bano was bathing in the courtyard. The winter had neared after the monsoon rains. The days were shorter and the nights longer. Mushtari Bano had tied an old saree in a corner, for bathing. Years ago Shutari and Anwari too had taken ablutionary baths here after intercourse and singed Mushtari Bano’s heart. She had been alone for many years now, with only a heavy curtain for the door. One of her Quran pupils would sit guard outside to make sure no one suddenly entered the house while she bathed in a hurry. Now, Kallo performed this duty.

What was even there in the bathroom? A heavy brass pot that served as a bucket. Years ago, her mother gave it to her as dowry thinking she would cook pulao or zarda in it for parties and grand feasts. But now, the bhishti came once every two days and filled it with water that would last her for two days. Hot water boiled over the firepit. Mushtari Bano needed just almond straw, gooseberries and soapnut for bathing. Soaps were only for guests. Shivering from the cold, she called out to Kallo to fetch more hot water. The weather was cloudy, chilly, and mad like a drunkard’s eyes. ‘I’ll just get it, Bano Begum,’ Kallo replied and directly barged in with hot water. Mushtari Bano shrunk. As she was leaving, Kallo turned and asked, ‘Should I rub your back, Bano Begum? You scold me, but look at your own back, thick with filth. Give me the scrub!’ Mushtari Bano shrank further into a corner and said, ‘Let it be, I’m not used to it.’ She remembered that, for some six years, no one had touched her, even accidentally. After Anwari, they had buried her alive and said her funeral prayers.

She bathed around Shutari, too, but God forbid if that cheat even laid a finger on her under any pretext. What if she was infertile? Doesn’t an infertile woman crave her husband’s love? Was woman created only to beget children? What deaf, dumb or blind person would have answered these questions screaming inside her head? Then, she remembered that, six years ago, Shutari had touched her forehead for a second, to check her fever. The touch of someone familiar is like magic. It fills every vein from head to toe with electric currents, and a similar wave of electricity washed over Mushtari Bano’s body, now. Kallo started rubbing her back without waiting for an answer. She had made Sughra’s grandmother young again by rubbing her back—and Mushtari Bano hadn’t even turned thirty yet. Soon this became the routine. Mushtari Bano who bathed only every Friday now bathed every other day, no matter the bone-chilling cold! One day, Kallo bought a body scrub from the grocery store. Soon, Mushtari Bano’s ashen skin glistened like sandalwood. One night, they shared the same bed, and according to Mushtari Bano, Satan arrived bearing the form of Kallo. She battled Satan valiantly all night long. The sleeping tigress was angered and straightened out Satan. At dawn, the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, proclaiming, ‘al-salat khair min al-naum!’ But Mushtari Bano was sunk in sweet slumber, unconcerned with the world, its matters or how prayer was better than sleep. She slept so well only today since her wedding night. Kallo too felt at peace. Perhaps this was what she was missing in this house and her life.

In the morning, after a quick post-coital bath, Mushtari Bano made paratha with pure ghee, and an omelette and presented it to Kallo, coyly avoiding her gaze. She fanned Kallo with one hand while she ate. Kallo too teased her like a man and stuffed Mushtari Bano’s mouth with a huge bite of food. The sounds of their laughter rose so loudly that they reached my house. That wretched whore Kallo! She must have said something dirty to that God-fearing woman. Shameless bitch. But, I am shocked that instead of throwing her out of the house, Mushtari Bano is giggling! Why would she even let such a slut into her house in the first place? What could such a lewd whore not do after she disgraced herself with her own uncle? Anyway, why should we care? They can do whatever they want.

Only the previous day I had told Kallo to come and clean the chicken coop in exchange for some old curry. Her Highness, the Empress Noor Jahan said a flat no, saying that Bano has asked her not to work outside. Wow! The way she says ‘Bano’, as if she is her wife. I will see how long this moon-eyed love lasts! But their relationship only seemed to deepen with time. Every day, from a rotten old hag, Mushtari Bano bloomed like a young rose. Kallo brought a dhol from a local musician. Both of them would sit together in the evenings singing Amir Khusrow’s songs, and ask each other and the pupils riddles, ‘So tell me!’ Kallo would ask playfully, ‘Who is the most beautiful woman in this neighbourhood, or even this entire village?’ ‘Ikraam’s wife’. ‘The Sikh woman.’ ‘Gangubai’… The children would venture. ‘Uh, uh,’ she would say. ‘The most beautiful woman in this entire village, in fact, the entire town, is our Mrs. Bano.’ The children would shriek in laughter only half understanding the matter, and Mushtari Bano would bashfully rush to hide. They even compared themselves to Rumi and Shams Tabrez while teaching my eldest daughter. May God forgive us! Cursed women with no fear of God! Can one compare Maulana Rumi to these damned bitches? 

‘There is something fishy,’ Bilqees and I sat down and put our heads together one day. My eldest daughter had got her first period and Bilqees had come to congratulate her. ‘I have never seen such love, even between man and wife. They are like milk and sugar—or Laila and Majnun—dissolved in each other. Let’s find out what’s really going on,’ I said. ‘How does it matter to you?’ came the response. This Bilqees was always too stupid. I wanted to feed her this news so she could broadcast it all over the neighbourhood. ‘How does it matter to me? You are beyond stupid. Ghaus’s mother died two days ago. For years, Mushtari has bathed the bodies of the dead. When they sent for her, Kallo appeared from behind the curtain like some goon and proclaimed that Bano Begum doesn’t do shitty things like that anymore.’ Bilqees was shell-shocked.

‘How does it matter to me? Didn’t we care for this childless woman when Shutari ran off? When my eldest finished the Quran, I gifted her with a brocaded cotton dress. The bhishti delivers water for free. Granny sends off the eggs from our hen straight to her. And just look at how full of herself she is? She won’t bathe the dead anymore. These are all signs of Doomsday, I am telling you!’ Bilqees had inched closer to hear my whispers. ‘There is something going on between the two of them. My eldest told me that she gives the pupils long lessons, and as they sit outside chanting the Quran, these two lock themselves up in the attic. . . and when Mushtari Bano comes out… how can I even say it, may God forgive me! Her hair dishevelled, her chest drenched, her veil flying off somewhere, the red of the paan in her mouth splattered everywhere. . .’ Bilqees didn’t get it; she chewed her paan. ‘They must have fought over something. Two women in one house—they are bound to fight, after all, it’s only natural. Anyway, I should go. My husband must be waiting for me.’

What an idiot! I thought to myself, exasperated. She gobbled up all the sweets I had made to celebrate my daughter’s puberty and left me alone to link all these clues like some dumb detective. That day I saw through the slit in the curtain: Mushtari Bano chasing Kallo wrapped in nothing but a muslin dupatta. Kallo must have done something mischievous. Fighting, both of them went inside the room. I tried my best to listen but there was only deathly silence. My God!— who is even a witness to these sins and what court should we drag them to? Here, the brain is the judge and the heart, the plaintiff. It is apparently because of these shameful acts that the English and Germans are waging war. A series of calamities—grains at the rate of gold, and gold at the rate of diamonds! Everyone is caught up with their own problems in this scarcity. Who has time to spy on others? May they both go to hell, who cares? I am thinking I should get seven women from the neighbourhood this Thursday to listen to the tale of our beloved Fatima al-Zahra. The ill-omen will wear off. Or should I put together a Quran reading? Whatever I do, I won’t invite these sinful bitches under any circumstance. Filthy women!

Mushtari Bano and Kallo were enjoying the pleasures of heaven, detached from the world and all its woes. If they started laughing, they would laugh for hours. They would sing songs, play games—they even went and watched Devdas a few times in the cinema. Kallo would string together jasmine flowers to adorn Mushtari Bano’s hair every day. She would fetch coal and wood every day from the store. They had kept two goats and a few chickens at home. It was Kallo’s responsibility to take the goats out to graze and clean the chicken coop. Kallo would wear one of Shutari’s now useless lungis under her long kurta; she was the spitting image of the young revolutionary martyr Kartar Singh. She would even tie up her hair in a careless bun.

One day, the bhishti tried to grope Kallo. Before Kallo could do anything, Mushtari Bano descended on him like a hungry eagle and the man barely escaped with his clothes on. Then she became upset with Kallo that she was a philanderer. Why would he look at her the wrong way for no reason? Kallo laughed a lot and tickled her until she relented. And then the bhishti who had been coming for years stopped doing so, and Kallo took over the task of fetching water from the well in buckets. Both of them were swaying to the tunes of love when one day Shutari limped and stumbled into the house again. His thinned hair revealed a gaping baldness, which he had tried to hide unsuccessfully with a Turkish cap. When he took off his cap for ablutions, for the afternoon prayers, he looked like a slight, old man. All his pomp had washed away in time’s downpour. His bent shoulders and waist resembled an old tree. His front teeth had fallen and his gums blackened. God knows how many obvious and not-so-obvious illnesses plagued him,  but his faux masculine glory was still intact. His waist was bent but his head was held high out of arrogance. He returned as suddenly as he had left, continuing to keep his decisions to himself. The virtuous woman Mushtari Bano put his food in front of him, and he dozed off right there in the courtyard after eating. Years of exhaustion washed away once he reached his own home. The bed lay under a jasmine creeper and a shady neem tree. Mushtari Bano picked up a fan, encased in a red, hand-embroidered cover with a silver border and several small mirrors. She started fanning him as usual. Her dupatta veiled her head and face as she fell into old habits. After a lot of coaxing, he coughed up that Anwari had left her three children and ran off with a hunky patient of his who worked in the British army. How long would she have eaten mouldy fruits? Who doesn’t like a fresh pomegranate oozing with juice? ‘And the kids?’ The tender Mushtari blurted. Shame that Anwari didn’t even think of her young children. Turned out that the grandmother and aunts were tolerating them. The hakim gestured to Mushtari to massage his feet. Helpless, she started massaging his rough feet, covered with callouses of insurmountable distances, betrayal and cruelty, with her soft hands. Right then, Kallo entered wearing a rumpled lungi and carrying a huge load of wood and a bunch of green bangles. Mushtari loved bangles, especially green ones. Today, Kallo had finished some hard labour at the Sikh man’s under-construction mansion. She carried sacks of cement for three hours straight and earned some money. She quickly bought these bangles for Bano Begum. Whatever this relationship might be, this was all she had, her life and death. Mushtari Bano truly was such an elixir that even a droplet would make a sick man spring up and sing paeans to her.

Kallo’s life that stumbled in the streets had finally found shelter, love and belonging at Mushtari Bano’s doorstep. Now, she prayed regularly. All the barbers, ironsmiths, goldsmiths, watchmakers, and street singers of the neighbourhood flirted with her, but she somehow managed to reach Mushtari Bano’s doorstep without ever being unfaithful. She suddenly saw Shutari snoring, and Mushtari Bano fanning him. Their eyes met. Mushtari Bano turned away her gaze. Two jasmine flowers fell on the old hakim’s beard. Mushtari Bano picked them off and for no reason, began crushing them. Kallo slammed down the wood and went and lay down inside the room. She put the bangles in one corner and didn’t even touch her food, nor did Bano Begum serve her. Shutari woke up in the evening, washed up and slurped goat milk tea with a fat layer of cream. Mushtari Bano was listlessly luring the chickens with grains and locking them up in their coop. Shutari finally saw that the Mushtari Bano he had left behind was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he found blossoming youthfulness at its peak. It was a long, moonlit winter night. Mushtari Bano was wearing a slanting pyjama in purple velvet, and anklets from her dowry. She had embroidered the red muslin kurta with gold threads, herself. Only yesterday Kallo had forced henna on her hands and feet. Today, that blackened henna stole away Shutari’s heart. The sharp fragrance of henna was inviting. The deep kohl around her eyes had been drawn out. Her wonderfully fragrant hair flowed down to her hips. She looked like the embodiment of a married woman. The hakim was shocked and his dried up body stirred a bit. He thought—What’s the point of beating yourself up, right? Let me not delay the performance of my husbandly duties. It’s the Prophet’s tradition after all. He didn’t even remember how he had tormented Mushtari Bano for being infertile. Even if a tree is fruitless, one can still partake in the pleasure of lying down in its bounteous shade. One can just pluck fruit from another tree, right? He thought about skipping the last prayer of the day, for his impatience knew no bounds. He had already raised a furore on seeing Kallo, yelling, ‘How can you let this lewd and undignified woman into the house?’ Mushtari Bano had no answer. Kallo had slipped out. The hakim arranged the bed in his room and took out all his herbs and concoctions and downed them without even bothering to weigh them, for he could do nothing without them tonight. He thanked God that instead of that outcast runway Anwari, He had kept this coy and faithful woman safe for him. Until that moment, Kallo spent her evening in some far-off gazebo, simmering in her pain. It was dark ahead, as if the film’s reel had gotten stuck and then cut off with only darkness left on the screen.

Kallo cried a lot that night. She railed and complained to God. Then she asked for His forgiveness. Her heart longed to see her Bano Begum one last time. She thought that Shutari wouldn’t have latched the gate yet. Perhaps I can catch a final glimpse of her. She had the right to a last kiss from her beloved, though, who knew if she will even get her due? Kallo lifted the curtain and entered resentfully. She saw the kerosene bottle. Why not drink it and end this life of misfortunes? But, hearing a sudden jingling of bangles, she turned. Her Bano Begum stood behind her, wearing the green bangles and gazing at her affectionately. Her eyes demanded—where were you for so long? Before anything could happen, a restless Shutari came out. He was sweating on this cold winter night because of all the concoctions he had downed. He had taken off his kurta and pyjama, and was wearing a lungi. With his bald head, and eyes boiling over with anger, he was the true picture of a villain. He stepped ahead to throw out the whore Kallo and drag back Mushtari Bano. But before he could do so, Mushtari Bano stared into his eyes and moved forward. She held Kallo’s hand in her henna-stained, red hands lined with green bangles. Her mouth was stuffed with paan. The spittoon was close by but she intentionally looked into the hakim’s eyes and spat out loudly—’ACHOO!’—and holding on to Kallo’s roughened hand, she went straight into the other room. The sound of the latch going up rang in his ears. His face went red with affront. The concoctions were anyway making his heart pound loudly—now his brain’s arteries started throbbing too. He held onto his chest and toppled over right there in the mud courtyard. At dawn, the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, proclaiming, ‘al-salat khair min al-naum!’ Mushtari Bano came out, but before she could start with her ablutions, she stopped suddenly. The hakim’s cold body lay crumpled in front of her. Mushtari Bano started wailing loudly and with a smash, broke all her bangles. When I heard Mushtari Bano’s wails, I peeped in from over the wall. Oh, poor thing! The married woman was now a helpless widow! People from the neighbourhood soon began gathering.

Kallo, by Sameena Nazir, translated from the Urdu by Jaideep Pandey

Translator’s note: Sameena ji’s prose mirrors the strong, quirky characters that she has played on television. Set in pre-Partition British India, the story follows the fateful encounter between the lonely, respectable housewife, Mushtari Bano, who teaches the Quran to the neighborhood children, and Kallo, a young girl of deep disrepute. The story is resonant with echoes from past women writers such as Ismat Chughtai and Wajida Tabassum and draws on this literary past to sketch out a vibrant world of femininities, desires, loneliness and tragedy. What stood out for me however was how Sameena ji goes beyond both Chughtai and Tabassum to grant her characters a flawed yet deep sense of humanity, empathy and a life of fear, hope and humor beyond the all-too-familiar circumstantial tragedies that we are used to reading around queer characters.

The prose revels in using webs of metaphors and images to evoke tragedy, pathos and edgy humor— something that I sought to preserve in my translation. The reader is thrust into this heterotopia of languages liberally peppered with everything— from colloquialisms and euphemisms that verbalize gossip in a tightly knit society, to Arabic that echoes from mosques and hauntingly marks time and space, to ditties and rhymes that materialize a robust social world. What I loved about the story was that the language isn’t just an adornment, but allows the reader to imagine the complete landscape of Kallo and Mushtari Bano’s encounter and to fully grasp the social and emotional consequences and implications of this star-crossed couple.