Babu HE WAS a master-mason, an expert in his work and incredibly dedicated. Everyone called him Babu but his real name was Mohammad Allah Din. At the age of fifteen he had left an obscure village in Sialkot and decided to settle down in Rawalpindi. Whenever he refer to it, even after fifty years, his voice took on a note of disbelieving awe. The halo of grandeur around the name of the big city of his childhood dreams had not dissipated into cynical disillusion. Pindi was still something of an elevated metaphysical concept for him. It had an existence beyond the ordinary temporal one; and in this transcendental plane Babu could “remould it nearer to the hearts’ desire”. He hadn't changed much in half a century of breath-taking tempo. He still wore a loose lion-cloth around his middle, a linen shirt and a turban of one too many yards of cloth. Nobody could claim to have seen Babu dressed differently except, of course, for a black coat in the winter. The clothes never seemed to change but they were always clean in spite of manual labour in the stifling heat of the Punjab monsoons. My father used to mention with an indulgent guffaw that Babu cared to shave daily when he was a youth of twenty. Seeing Babu’s incorrigible lethargy, we couldn't visualise him doing so. The stubble on his face threatened to become an undisciplined bushy growth before Babu ever went to a barber. He also chewed betel-nut and his lips were dark maroon and strangely twisted. When | was a boy he had been the master-mason in our under construction house. The fort seemed to be of incalculable significance in his eyes because he bustled about everywhere with unflagging enthusiasm. “Sahib, don't trust this contractor. He is giving half-baked bricks,” he would tell my father. “How do you know, Babu?" my father would ask. “I Scanned with CamScannerAnd Babu would give a long and learned lecture on bricks. He actually did a lot of original research on the subjects of his interest. He would bring samples of a dozen different kinds of bricks from all over the district. Huffing and puffing and perspiring profusely, his white shirt stikking to his wet body, Babu would come to my father bowed down with the load of the bricks upon his back. “Salam Sahib’, he would begin in his uniquely guttural voice. And then would follow that learned dissertation on building material in the purest of the Punjabi dialect of Sialkot. He would gesticulate with infectious zest. His expression would change from intense loathing as he would look at one sameple of bricks to one of tender appreciation as he would handle another one. Seriously, carefully, lovingly he would inspect all the samples. He was aware of the secrets within them. He felt their surfaces knowingly and they revealed their identities to him. For him it was a supremely sanctimonious ritual. For the children it was, however, a hilariously comic spectacle. They would go into fits of laughter just seeing Babu’'s serious preoccupation with bricks, mortar or stones. But Babu never observed them. He never peeped out of his cocoon of preferences. In the beginning, his passion used to be tiles. Then came “chips”. Babu was slow to convert himself to their cause. But one day he attained the mason's nirvana. He became the ardent champion of marble chippings. He would just swoon with ecstasy whenever he handled the red, white or black chippings of marble. But the complete ritual eluded our eyes. People told each other how he'd complete the whole elaborate process of mixing them with cement and putting them as slabs on the floor. Then it would be left to dry. Babu would sit down himself as the guard to shoo off all trespassers from this holiest of holies. Children would be scurried off with a wail of anguish coming from the crypts of an apprehensive soul. They were often bribed by Babu, who produced four-anna piece to persuade them to buy sweets for themselves. He hit upon this stratagem when a fastidious little boy condemned his sweets saucily. Babu had | i Scanned with CamScannerput them, understandably, in the chips and they were no longer fit for human consumption. The older people were warned off the premises again and again. Some smart alec once suggested that Babu should use a board reading, DANGER —CHIPS DOWN. Babu actually brought such a board the next day. It was red and the letters were in black. Babu, of course, didn't know what was written on the board because he could not even read and write Urdu, let alone English. Visitors enjoyed the fun tremendously and Babu grinned from ear to ear at his ingenuity. His adoration of having marble floors entered the pale of an obsession. My father had to succumb to his perpetual persuasion. “Sahib, chipuss looks like a palace of mirrors”, he told my father one day. “Yes, but it is needless expense, Babu.” “Sahib, but chipuss is like diamonds. And what is money if it doesn’t please the mind?” “Yes, but...” "0, No, Sahib. The money which buys peace is blessed. Chipuss gives peace to the mind and it is cool to walk on. It makes the mind cool.” There was no answer to that kind of logic. Babu won, and my father paid for the marble floors. When the big day of unveiling came, Babu looked like a boy about to graduate from a professional college or like a cadet about to get his commission as an officer. He effervesced with an incongruously boyish animation. He even took to sleeping near the newly constructed rooms. At last all was ready. When my monther came to inspect the rooms, Babu threw open the doors. The floors shone resplendently. Babu put garlands of flowers around the necks of all the elders of the family. Sensing the monumental importance of the moment, my mother gave Babu a banknote of a hundred rupees. The children “] i Scanned with CamScanner| clapped and the dog made babu trip and fall again and again on his beloved chipuss. We kept meeting Babu very infrequently. People didn’t employ him if they could find anyone else. He was very, very slow. He didn’t rest himself and he let none of the labourers waste any time. Of course everybody said he was scrupulously honest, but that was all. He was inordinately opinionated and inflexible. He was very crotchety too. Young people had no patience with his idiosyncracies and Babu, in his turn, had no patience with mocking labourers and highly qualified architects. They had robbed him of his pleasure in being the sole authority on architecture. In the beginning, he brooked no clash of judgment watsoever. He would intimidate the owner by threatening to leave the site immediately. In my father's day, the deterrent power of that threat was unchallengable. The strongest wills wilted before him. But then, much to his dismay, they took him at his word and he was unceremoniously made to exit. Babu was stunned. He couldn't really comprehend it. “Young heads are hot, see,” he said "they'll call me one day.” But nobody called him. Babu seemed to be crushed but he didn't say anything. He became very quiet. Many years passed, Babu visited me when I got married. He gave my wife fifty rupees when he saw her. It was more than he earned in two days. When my first son was born he came again. This time he was wearing, for the first time since | had seen him, dirty, patched and torn clothes. He had suddenly become an old man. In wthe wrinkles of his face, a crushed load of nostalgia slumbered. But there was still the characteristic burst of energy in his hazy eyes. The shadows of defeat had not killed everything in him. His hair was almost totally white now, and his hands trembled a little. | found out from others that he had been employed by petty employers for such jobs as adding a few steps here or patching up a wall there. In the beginning he had mutinied against this | i Scanned with CamScannerprofessional degradation. Then his wife’s cadaverous face made him gulp down his pride. Babu accepted all jobs and did everything. He never mentioned chipuss to anyone, The poetry of it lay in a realm apart. It was not to be exposed to the tidicule of the jesting pilate. In the “crystal glass” of a heart where no vulgar eyes peeped, slumbered the visions of endless stretches of shining floors reflecting the smiling rays of the sun and the moon. A nexus seemed to connect cosmic events and chips, and somewhere in this inanimate formula was a distillation of a warmth which was of human love and a passion which could have been of Romeo and Juliet. It was then that | was constructing a summer villa. The architect was a very able man who also happened to be a personal friend. When Babu saw the walls coming up, his old withered face lit up with delight. | decided to humour the old man, and asked him if he would like to work for me. He sobered down immediately. A suicidal determination steeled his features: “No, chotte Sahib,” he said wistfully, “I am too old.” “But Babu,” | said, “you are the best mason we ever met. We must have you here.” “No, Sahib,” he said with effort. “I am very old. My ways are old. 1'll spoil your house. Jamshed Sahib is a very good architect. | am very old now, Sahib.” | was touched and | didn’t give up. We had to knock down the walls of his pride. When my wife appealed, he agreed. Babu never said no to one whom he considered to be the daughter of the house. “Gee acrcha Bahu Bibi (very well daughter-in-law),” he said, bowing his head very low. “I will bring my old hands to give beauty to your house.” “Very good Babu,” said my wife with perfunctory eagerness. “But Bahu Bibi my eyes are misty. My hands are old. My head is white. The “| I Scanned with CamScannerdays of the old Sahib are no more. Only Babu lives on—but who knows, with Allah's will, he may still make people cry wah, wah! (Well donel)’. When the crucial time came, | was tense with apprehension. How could anyone tell Babu that we were not as rich as he thought we were? He would insist on putting marble chippings and it was impossible to afford this superfluous embellishment. Finally, jamshed decided to tell him to save me the embarrassment. After all, he too had taken four-anna coins from babu to have sweets when he was a child. Babu listened, with the eagerness slightly ebbing away from his eyes. It made me wince with pain when Jamshed told me about it. He didn’t say a word. He said he would do as the old Sahib’s sould dictated to him. “Jamshed Sahib, | have to show my face to the old Sahib. | have to go to see him soon. How will | face him?” “But Babu, he had no such problems. He had money to waster.” “Waste!” said Babu as if stung by an invective. “Jamshed Sahib, even God loves beauty.” “But Babu..." “Excuse me, Sahib, Babu is very old and he is in his dotage. | do not wish to cross your wishes. After all, you know best. The old Sahib has gone away and gone are his ways.” We were very sorry but we breathed a sigh of relief. The main battle was over. Babu would now acquiesce to cement the floors. Just when the work was about to start, | had to go to Lahore. Then my business losses compelled me to postpone the completion of the house. Jamshed went back to his other vocational commitments and | went temporarily to Lahore, leaving my wife and child behind. | - Scanned with CamScannerIreturned after three month, to my surprises, the chowkidar was missing. | entered the compound and found it decorated with cheap hangings and wall paper. My three-year-old son was busy twisting the ears of an unusually obstinate-locking donkey. Even the servants seemed to be in an infectious holiday mood. My wife met me in the verandah. “I got your telegram’, she said, “but you have come very late, Babu has been waiting for you all this last one week”. “But what's going on?” “Oh, Babu wants to spring a secret surprise on us. | don't know what it is. He's been working incessantly since you left. “What? And where is Jamshed? How could you spare the money? Why wasn't | told?” “Told? Told about what? Which money? | didn't give anyone anything.” Just then Babu came with outstretched arms, beaming as if he had swallowed a sunbeam. He hurtled us towards the villa. A kaleidoscopic image of nostalgic memories swamped me. My mother’s old face rose in the eyes. My brain was framing questions and | had no answers. In the dim vortex of confused intentions there was one which eluded me. The world of commerce made me to blunt to some subtle aspects of motivation. Then my wife opened the door of the house. The marble floors shone with a lustre which contained the lights of the world. She clasped her hands in spontaneous joy. The boy laughed his care-free laughter and clapped his small hands in glee. Everyone clapped and | stood dumb. My wife gave him a banknote of a hundred. Babu bowed his head low in thanks. | didn’t meet his eyes. | stood like a thief. My car, my old house stood as mocking question marks. | knew it before | found out all from Babu’s daughter. He spent his whole life's savings and “| r Scanned with CamScannerhis daughter's dowry on his art. His trembling hands polished the marble chippings himself. He said his daughter get married the next year. Written 1979; published in The Frontier Post 18 July 1986; in The Legacy (pp. 20- 26). Scanned with CamScanner