Assignment

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Topic: Summary of The Murder of Aziz Khan (Selected Chapters).

Submitted By: Irfan Khan

Submitted To: Sir Mumtaz Ahmed Larra

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Summary
Rooms are empty. Razia is unable to bear the sound She is walking, in the garden.
Swimming pool is emptied. It is rarely used; it is used when guests are invited,
Women can tot use it for fear of scandal. Farida with Zarina have gone in quest of
a pink georgette sari. Razia's children Munni and Dolly are with their Ayah. She is
all alone. She is secretly proud to be a mother. She does not like Afaq having sons
if he marries. She fears her husband because Afaq has close intimacy with her.
She senses that Afaq resent's his dominance. She is also angry with him for being
so harsh and violent to his younger brother. She considers Ayub demanding and
dictatorial. She considers Afaq too to be a potential threat to the future of her
own children. In other words, "her sympathy to Afaq and his potential threat to
the future of her children" is her conflict. His brothers will ostracise him and leave
the family's fortune to her children.

Razia desires lonesome atmosphere to see Afaq all alone without any outside
interference. She walks to his bed and stands looking silently at him for a
moment; she asks him if he is all right. She sees his face being bruised, a slight red
mark beside his lower lip and asks him what he has done. He tells her that he has
done nothing. This is Ayub's work. He hates him but does not know why: She sees
a tear welling up in his eye and another tear rolling down his cheek. She tries to
soothe him. He presses her close to him, starts shedding tears and sobbing his
heart out. After the exhaustion of his tears she, out of sympathy ever felt for her
husband, fetches a bowl of water and some cotton wool, sits beside him and
wipes his face and mollifies his troubled heart. The extreme emotional intensity
they have shown exaggerates their regard for each other.

Feroze Khan's is the largest store in Kalapur. The legend on the signboard declares
it to be a, "Fancy Goods store Zafar Alim-ud-din. Feroze Khan is a merchant of
international repute. When the Shah-brothers car draws up along the pavement,
he brings Farida and Zarina under the canopy of a large and sable vestured
cotton-umbrella when escorted to the store. His two assistants were dumb
founded to see the richest woman in Kalapur. Farida asks him if pink georgette
has come. He tells her that he has a variety of clothes in various culours for your
suitability. Several rolls are displayed on the counter Farida selects the roll to buy
in natural but Zarina when asked shrugs her shoulders not to buy. They leave the
shop with veneration.

The Shah-Brothers are greatly concerned about the desirability of expanding soap
industry at Chittagong in East Pakistan. Ayub is astonished not to see Afaq their
younger brother in the office. He tells Akram his elder brother that he has been
found boozing country liquor made from sugar cane with Rafiq the elder son of
Aziz Khan as communicated by Ali. He will bugger the name of their family. Akram
says that it is very bad. The novelist has castigates the silly notion: prevalent
among the people that they bring the names of their heroes at par with the name
of the prophet. Islam, disdaining idols, accepts verbal idolatry. It has been voiced
by Akram. Our learned novelist is labouring under a false notion. Islam, In any
case, does not accept any type of idolatry. Akarm and Ayub say that Aziz Khan
won't sell his land at any price what so ever. Akram says that they should do
anything about him. He does not know the value of money. He can not read or
write except Urdu. His only transport is his horse. His manpower is his only two
sons and a handful of peasants. Without pay his peasants won't work for him. He
knows nothing about competition. From where he will get Lorries to dispose his
cotton of. How he will contact client. If he goes to law about Hussain, they will see
who the barrister is to defend him in Kalapur. If he does not take Hussain to court
he will gradually kill himself: he will become isolated: he will have to sell his land:
he will come crawling to them. In short this is an exact picture of Shah-brothers
arrogance. Ayub is satisfied with this logic. "There are ways to tame Afaq" Akarm
says "Either he should be sent to England for higher education or get him
married" Ayub says that if they send him to England for higher studies, he will
remain untamed. The proper way to encagè him is to get him married. They
should get him married to Zarina his cousin. Akram says that they are not cousins.
She is his daughter. She is the daughter of a mother unmarried to him. The
episode will look very painful if he tells Farida that she is his daughter. It will also
look very painfull to Zarina if he tells her that he is not his cousin. Hence Afaq
their brother cannot marry his daughter. This mystery should remain unravelled
in the interest of their family. In this way the writer like Fielding resolves the
mistaken identity of Zarina.

Farida and Zarina have returned from Feroze Khan's. Farida is too tired to answer
questions asked by servants. Now Razia has retired to her own room. Zarina is
walking in the garden and chewing sugar cane. She is propping her chin on her
knees. She is looking like lone-some maidens of Indo-Pakistani films. She gently
rocks herself and softly utters love sick lyrics. She wishes to have a friend so that
she could tell her secret about the intensity and poignancy of her love for Afaq;
she thinks herself Anar Kali the legendary heroine who died on the altar of love.
She was entombed alive. She suffers a living death when she thinks of Afaq.

She sees Razia coming towards her. Razia calls her the heroine and asks her if
they have found any georgette. She says that apah Farida is happy to find it. Razia
goes on teasing her. In order to know what she is thinking of.

They hear the foot steps, see Afaq walking past and entering his jeep. Both are
watching him silently. If Razia has not experienced feelings she has this morning.
She will have asked him where he is going. They do not glance at each other until
Afaq has driven away. They both are in love with him. Zarina is emotionally upset
when Razia teases her and when she sees Afaq how he appears. She fails to
control her tear welling up in her eye. Razia observes it and understand what it
means. Zarina starts her heart sobbing out when she finds that Razia has studied
her private agony.
In a lonesome atmosphere. Razia, overwhelmed with an inundated flow of
emotions treads the newly discovered un-known and unfamiliar paths of love in
the absence of the Shah Brother's household. She finds herself in a jeopardised
situation as Afaq is not only the object of her love but it has also, already been
possessed by Zarina. Before the arrival of this morning, Afag's name is found to be
wedded by her to the name of Zarina in conversation with her husband; but now
despite her loyalty to her husband, despite her ambition for the brilliant futurity
of her children, she find herself greatly vexed that her own possession of Afaq will
be for a short period, thereafter it will permanently go into the lap of Zarina, an
unripe little girl as she, since long, has been in love with him, though it is
intolerable to her, yet she will be able to dismiss Zarina's feelings for him as
adolescent sentiment.

On the other hand she considers herself to be enchained to a man of power and
pelf blessed with progeny. She asks herself if she will be able to abandon all that
for a passing piece of alluring figment and if she will belittle this new and noble
passion of love. What an exquisite, superb and perplexing picture has been made
by Zulfikar Ghose. She is between the devil and the deep sea. She does not know
what will happen next and how it will end.

Razia and Afaq have become familiar with each other. During a sleepless night, he
wishes Razia to slip away from her husband and to come to his room if he has
gone to sleep.They smile at each other to convey something significant hidden
from the eyes of others.

They all go to Mansur's for a bridge-party but Afaq refuses to go there. Lonesome
atmosphere is there. It will create an opportunity for their meeting alone to
compensated. He finds the duty assigned to him at the mill, trivial and
unimportant. Sometimes he thinks of wrecking Ayub's life by using Razia but he
senses him too strong, too brutal and assertive to get his plan effected.

He out of impatience sees futilility everywhere in the house and finds him
frustrated. In order to appease his heart, Afaq turns to his jeep and drives out
aimlessly. He avoids the road to the hut, he drives past Aziz Khan's property and
reaches the Kangra. Settlement where the peasants live in huts. He sits on the
edge of the road.

He turns back, comes to a hillock where the people go to excrete as they have no
lavatories in their houses. He proceeds towards a girl. She drops an earthen pot
from her hands. In which she carries some water to wash her buttocks. He orders
her to come into the jeep. She stands there open mouthed out of amazement.
She cannot understand what he says. He forcibly throws her into his jeep. She
tries to jump out of the jeep but fails to do so. She starts screaming. The road Is
bumpy. As a result of terrific jolt her fore head strikes the metal frame of the
windscreen. Afaq looks at her contemptuously, drives on with increasing speed.

At 10 pm, he reaches Aziz Khan's land. He switches off the engine and pulls the
girl out. She is softly and incessanty crying. He orders her to shut up. She tries to
walk away into the darkness. He grabs her by the arm and slaps her across the
face, She utters a short scream. She tries to run away. He runs after her, holds her
by the shoulders and pulls her down. She shows the resistance and flails her arms
in front of her. He dodges her blows. He gives her a violent back hander across
face. He tears at her clothes: he does not pause a minute rather to see the smear
of blood across her forehead.

The blood has started trickling out of her mouth afresh. The girl lies naked in front
of him, silent and unresisting. He pulls away his trousers, strongly holds her
parted legs and relentlessly enters her, not noticing she has gone unconscious He
flings himself on her. Wrings her breasts, clutches her neck, reaches for her
buttocks, and bangs her head on the earth, In this way, he appeases his lust out of
the dead body of a peasant girl of 13. What a relentless picture of sadism it is!

Chief Superintendent Fazal Elahi head of the Kalapur district of the Punjab Police,
calls at Akram's office at ten o'clock, the next morning when Akram and Ayub are
drafting their preliminary plans for establishing soap factory in East Pakistan. He
has come over there in connection with the investigation of the corpse of a young
girl raped and discovered on the other side of the stream dividing the land
between the Shah-Brothers' and Aziz Khans. It is reported when discovered by
one of Aziz Khan's men.
The tyre-marks have been discovered by the police on the other side of the
stream to Aziz Khan's land. A jeep has been seen traveling by the people in the
direction of Aziz Khan's land on previous night. No body in that area possesses
jeeps.

Ayub asks him wham he is arresting. Fazal Elahi says that the girl who has been
raped and has died of asphyxiation is found next to Aziz Khan s land. He has two
sons. They are unmarried. They know from Where to obtain evidence, Ayub is
pleased to hear all this and assures him of having the reward. Greetings are
exchanged. Ayub tells that he can collect it tomorrow.

Ayub tells his brother that it is Afaq who is nothing but fucking bastard. He is
undoubtedly behind this drama of rape and murder.

Akram says that he should be sent to England for higher education but Ayub says
that he will not care if he is hanged.

What we see here is that pelf (wealth) is power. It can buy honour. It can usurp
the right of the people. It cam jeoperdise the judicial system. In short when
authorities are bribed, the culprits go unscathed but innocents instead encaged.

Fifty thousand rupees are Superintendent and an other fifty thousand rupees are
shared among his twenty officers so as to immunize Afaq from being convicted.
Thereafter Fazal Elahi with his two officers drives to Aziz Khan's house in the
evening. Aziz Khan is sitting in the front yard where as at the back of the house.
Rafiq and Javed are washing buffaloes. The evidence extracted from the peasants
is made muddled. Someone says that he has heard the sound of a car at night;
another says that it is of a jeep he has heard but the third one declares that an
aeroplane has been flying low on that night.

Fazal Elahi greets Aziz Khan and says that they have come to investigate into the
murder of the girl found by the stream. His son can assist them.

He goes to the back of the house and asks him if he is Rafiq. He requests him to
assist them in some inquiries they are making into the murder of the girl found in
their vicinity. Rafiq says that he knows nothing. Fazal Elahi says that must
accompany them to identify some people. Rafiq, without greeting his parents,
accompanies them with his shirt unchanged. Javed his brother watches driven
away.

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