AZAHARUDDIN

(Story)

By Prof. NARAYAN GANGOPADHYAYA, M.A.

(Translated from the Original in Bengali

by Prof Sudhansu Bimal Mookherji, M.A.)

‘Roll number fifty-one,’ I called out and started the next moment. I was not prepared for so much.

A tall and slender Muslim student with a very black beard had responded. Silver threads peeped out here and there in the bushy growth that covered his face. He was unexpected in the midst of a cluster of first year adolescents.

I felt embarrassed while lecturing. Time and again did it occur to me that roll number fifty-one was not my student, but a guardian who had come to find out for himself how the new lecturer taught.

Casual glances at roll number fifty-one showed that he had his eyes fixed on me for the latter part of the period. He seemed to be under a spell. His eyes did not twinkle. None in the class was so attentive. The rather young boy in his shorts beside him lent a touch of strange humour to the whole affair.

I retired to the staff-room at the end of the period. I asked my colleagues there, ‘How is it that a big boy is sitting in the class?’

‘Yes, he is Sarkar Azaharuddin,’ replied one as he had a sip from his cup of tea.

‘But the student is....’

‘Of your uncle’s age,’ another colleague completed the sentence. ‘You need not worry, however,’ he added. ‘You won’t find such a good-natured student in the whole college.’

‘It seems so,’ I replied as I picked up the register for the next period. ‘Joining the college at his age leaves no room for doubt as to his energy and enthusiasm.’

‘Yes, he has enough to deprive us of ours,’ put in a third colleague.

I have just left the university. The college, a new venture, is far away from the metropolis. Students are few, work light. Ever little things become subject matters of discussion when there is no variety. Our discussions were, naturally enough, frequently on and about Sarkar Azaharuddin.

‘It is not a little strange that he has joined the college at his age.’

One quoted a line from a master of juvenile literature with a little amendment–“Nineteen times in Matric stumbled he’ and reached at long last. Should he not take a little time?”

‘He has a family to look after.”

‘The idea. Ten thousand,’ shouted one all on a sudden.

‘What do you mean, please?’

‘I shall sell an insurance policy to him. He will not certainly say ‘no’ to a Professor. What do you think?’ The speaker’s eyes sparkled in expectation. ‘I have not had a single case during the last two months. I am sure this time.’

‘What? You will thrust an insurance policy on a student too?’

‘What’s the harm? I accept a salary for teaching. Can’t I sell a policy to a student? Excuse me, please, I am not squeamish.’

To make a long story short, Sarkar Azaharuddin, roll number fifty-one of the first year class, became an object of curiosity, subject of research, to the staff.

The truth was discovered a few days later. I was going one afternoon to the market for purchasing a few sundries. A cycle stopped at my side. The cyclist–he was Azaharuddin–said with a pleasant smile through the dark jungle of his beard, ‘Good afternoon, Sir. Where are you going, please?’

‘To the market.’

‘Move on, please. I am also going there.’ He accompanied me, pushing the cycle.

I felt not a little embarrassed. You can’t walk in silence side by side. Something must be talked about. The problem however was how to address Azaharuddin. A gentleman in his mid-thirties cannot certainly be called by name on the public street of a town. Nor can he be addressed in the same manner as you address a student in the class-room. I, therefore, spoke impersonally.

‘What about the studies?’

‘Not well, Sir. I passed my Matriculation full twenty years ago. It is very difficult to concentrate on studies after this long lapse.’

‘But studies have to be attended to.’

‘That is why I have joined the college. It is however a tough job to pay proper attention to studies. Lots of things clamour for attention. A wife and children are there. Land and cultivation have to be taken care of. The whole morning is spent in the school founded by me in our village. I’m in a fix. I do not know what to do.’

‘I see, you have a school of your own, Sir,’ I said with great respect.

‘Do not address me that way, please, Sir. Older in years as I am, I am a student of yours. Do not put me to shame, please.’

It was rather I who felt ashamed. I could not address a school teacher, older than myself, in the same way as I generally address my students.

‘But outside the class-room....’

‘Do not say that please, Sir. Is the student a student within the four walls of the class-room only?’

I was silenced effectively. Azaharuddin continued–‘A school had to be started. Our village is close to the town. It is almost a suburb. The inhabitants are, however, all poor peasants. They lack both means and enthusiasm for their children’s education. I have nothing to hide from you, Sir. A Madrasa (an elementary school for teaching Arabic) was once started in our village. But it had to be closed down. The Maulavi (teacher) in charge of the school worked half-starved for three months and then left. He was not sorry either. At last I have started a school myself.’

‘A noble work it is.’

‘It is, undoubtedly. To find students for it is however a problem. Students had to be forced previously. Things are not that bad today. For ten years I met all expenses out of my own pocket. The school peon, however, is now paid out of the tuition fees.’

‘Other expenses, I’m sure, are all borne by you!’

A faint smile flickered on Azaharuddin’s lips. ‘What is to be done, Sir? There is no way out. I had made up my mind to upgrade it into a Minor (Middle English) School. It is why I want to pass the I. A. examination. I have, besides, a greater interest. My son is growing up. Unless I am fairly educated myself, how can I make a man of him?’

I was charmed. I looked at Azaharuddin. His eyes were sparkling with sincerity and optimism. No trace of hypocrisy was discernible there. Memories of discussions in the staff-room flitted across my mental horizon. I felt self-condemned.

We had drawn close to the market.

Azaharuddin said, ‘Would you please come to our locality? It won’t be very inconvenient. A rickshaw from near the college would take you there in about ten minutes’ time. Would you please pay a visit to our school some day?’

‘I will,’ was my enthusiastic reply.

Azaharuddin became a new man in my eyes from this day onward. A majestic halo around him marked out Sarkar Azaharuddin from all others–they were a hundred in the class. These latter had joined the college for conventional learning. But the latter was here to practise penance. He would sit for the whole period like a statue absorbed in deep meditation. At times, when he specially relished any part of the lecture, his eyes would glitter in joy. Sometimes again he would take some quick notes. I thought my mission fulfilled by teaching that solitary student. To him I could impart all I had learnt.

I spoke of Azaharuddin to all my colleagues. Not a few became his admirers. But some of the ‘seniors’–one or two of them–who had had experience of other colleges, were hard nuts. They were not to be easy convinced. One threw a tutorial exercise book at me with the remark, ‘Away with your tall talks, please. Have a look.’ The ornamentation wrought by the speaker in Azaharuddin’s exercise book was more remarkable than what the latter had written himself. The whole page bristled with corrections in red ink. The award was 2 marks out of 10.

The speaker snorted a pinch of snuff and continued, ‘Mature bamboos make no flutes. Take it from me, Sir, that this idealist of yours cannot cross the hurdle of Intermediate even in a third attempt.’

‘Are you so cross because be did not take the Rs. 10,000 insurance policy from you?’ I retorted.

‘It is you and your tribe who spoil the students by indulgence.’ He attacked me at random and left the staff-room in a great rage.

A few days later I was out for a walk one afternoon. I was all alone. I took the red gravel road that runs through the town to the villages nearby. I had never been to that side. The road therefore had a charl of novelty. I liked it too. A mountain stream–a patch of blue water and a wide beach–flanks the road on one side. Flocks of snipes tinged by the rays of the setting sun were flying overhead in search of food. A pair of buffaloes had crossed over the farther bank of the stream. Bells hanging from their necks gave melodious notes. Tall teaks flank the road on the other side. Doves were hovering over tree tops. ‘Bulbuls’ were dancing.

The road is a real beauty. I have been here so long. But I was ignorant of this road. A stillness reigned all around. One by one, two bullock carts passed me by. Not a single human being other than those in the carts came my way. It was almost evening when I reached the outskirts of a village after a fairly long walk of about a mile and a half. I had my torchlight with me. But I thought of going back.

A cycle stopped at my side. The cyclist got down and spoke to me–‘Good evening, Sir. You are here!’

It was Azaharuddin. I replied with a smile, ‘My constitutional has brought me here. Why are you here, please?’

‘This is our village.’

‘Is it so! Very good. I go back now.’

Azaharuddin stood before me with folded hands and said, ‘Now that you have come so far, please, do grace my house once by your presence. I won’t let you go. Worry not, Sir. I shall not detain you for more than half an hour and shall get a cycle-rickshaw for your return home.’

I had to give in and accompanied Azaharuddin to his house.

A typical North Bengal village! Homesteads are isolated. The village is dotted over with orchards of mango and jack-fruit trees. Azaharuddin had told the truth. A poor peasants’ village it is. Houses are of mud and thatch. An old mosque seems to be the only brick structure the village can boast of.

Azaharuddin is comparatively well-to-do. His house, its mud walls and mud plinth notwithstanding, has a corrugated iron roofing. A hay stack and three grain-stores stand in front of the house. Azaharuddin has also two carts and four bullocks.

A hurricane lamp was burning in the verandah of the drawing room. A middle-aged Muslim gentleman was seated on a ‘durri’ (a coarse carpet) spread on the ground. Smoking in a hubble bubble, he was looking into some papers. Azaharuddin said, ‘Uncle, this is Prof. Sen Gupta of our college.’

Uncle bowed to me with great respect and said, ‘Step in, please. Have a seat. Azahar often speaks of you. He says that he likes your lectures most.’

‘Do not put me to shame, please. Every one in our college teaches better than I.’

Azaharuddin had in the meanwhile brought an easy chair.

‘What are you doing?’ I protested.

‘Make yourself comfortable, Sir. Let me bring tea for you,’ Azaharuddin replied with a pleasant smile.

‘No, no, please. You have not to do anything,’ I tried to dissuade him. But he had disappeared into the inner apartments before I finished the sentence.

Uncle put in smilingly, ‘You are your student’s guest. You can’t go back without a cup of tea.’

‘It should be tea only.’

‘That is your student’s look-out What can I do?’

‘Please tell him.’

‘Who am I to tell him? I’m just an employee, an uncle by village ties only.’

‘I see.’

‘To tell the truth, Sir,’ uncle went on, ‘a man like Azahar is to be found nowhere. He never lets me feel that he is my employer. He is himself pre-occupied with no end of mad projects. Responsibilities are all mine.’

‘You mean that school of his!’

‘No more of it, please. A thoroughly thankless job it is. I too was not spared. I would have to go out previously with a stick in hand to collect the truants from tree tops. Free education, free books, with bribes in the shape of kites and reeds thrown in, were all useless. The school is now better than before. I have however no complaint on that score. A school in a peasants’ village is not, after all, a bad thing. But why should he lose his own property through goodness?’

‘What is the matter?’

‘The property is legally his. His first cousins however cheated him on the strength of a forged document. Our lawyer devised a plan to teach a good lesson to the cheats. But Azaharuddin was obstinate. He said, ‘Let them tell lies. I won’t. What is gained through falsehood, is unclean.’ The property was lost.’

‘But the wrong was done by the other party.’

‘Who cares for that?’ uncle sighed. ‘Azahar stuck to his argument–I am a Musalman. God will not pardon me if I tell a lie on oath. My tongue will drop off.’

Azahar will lose all his properties after my death,’ the uncle continued. ‘I visualise that all will conspire to make a streetbeggar of him. I have warned Azahar time and again. He says, ‘Let properties go. I shall run a school for my maintenance.’

A teacher as I am, teaching is not my mission. My dreams centre round increments, private tuitions and writing help-books. My vulgarities were all revealed to me in a moment.

A servant placed a small table before me. He was followed by Azaharuddin himself with a tray-load of tea, sweets and mango jelly in his hands.

‘What are all these?’ I asked.

‘Have a little please, Sir. You have come at a time when I can get nothing for you.’

‘Excuse me please, Azahar. I shall have a little tea and nothing else.’

Azahar was put out. His face became pale.

‘Have you any objection to the eatables touched...?’

A whip cracked on my back. I had never dreamt that my objection could be interpreted this way.

‘No more of it, please. I am trying my best...’ I rejoined.

‘Everyone has his own beliefs and ideas. If you have any scruples...’, uncle put in.

‘Uncle, there is no question of my losing caste, if I take food here, I shall rather regain it. I objected because I had a heavy refreshment in the afternoon. Let me try, anyway.’ I attacked the sweets.

A boy of about ten years had come out in the meanwhile. He was neither fair nor dark. He had a beautiful pair of eyes. He stood close to Azahar. His eyes were fixed on me.

Uncle stroked his head and asked, ‘What’s the news, Lal Mia?’

Azaharuddin said with a smile, ‘This is my son Lalu. His great ambition is to sit at your feet when he grows up.’

Lalu ran away.

‘He too will take after his father,’ uncle continued pleasantly. ‘Very fond of reading....books and books....and a fool too. One of his class-mates cheated him of his brand new pen-knife and gave a paper-boat in exchange. Ah! a great fool he is!’

I looked at Azahar. No trace of displeasure was visible on his face. He was absorbed in thought. Was he dreaming?

About a year passed by. We had many a meeting and discussion during the period. Not I alone, but my colleagues as well went to Azaharuddin’s house, saw his school and had heavy refreshments at his place. One of us alone was irreconcilable. All his lectures on the usefulness of an Insurance policy had failed flat on Azahar.

‘You go to extremes in everything. That is how you spoil the boys,’ were his disgustful Comments.

The Test Examination was over. Azahar’s results were poor. He secured just the pass marks in all subjects. The Insurance-worker colleague of ours–he had not examined any of Azahar’s papers–remarked with a grimace, ‘You have marked papers on impression. Azaharuddin can never pass. I can tell you from my twenty years’ experience of teaching in colleges that he will not get through in the final examination. You may have it from me in black and white on a stamped paper.’

Impression in fact had influenced our judgment.

Azahar met me about ten days before the examination to discuss some questions. I discovered in no time that his preparation for the examination was very poor.

‘Are you not working hard, Azahar?’

‘I am trying my best, Sir. But I feel much depressed and Worried. Lalu has been running a slow temperature. Our school is to be inspected one of these days in connection with our prayer for a grant-in-aid. It is not a little difficult to attend to all things.’

‘You must pass at all costs. Studies must have top priority at this stage.’

‘Let me see what I can do.’ Azahar left depressed.

I met Azahar in the hall on the first day of the examination.

‘How do you find the question paper?’ I asked.

Azahar looked up. He had strange looks. He seemed exhausted.

‘Bless me, Sir. I know not what will happen,’ he replied.

His looks filled me with forebodings.

‘How is Lalu?’

‘He has been down with typhoid these twelve days.’

I was shocked. ‘What do you say? And you are here for the examination!’

‘What can I do, Sir? Let me take the examination somehow or other. A chance may never come again.’

I left him alone and went back to the room where I was on duty. My heart was heavy.

The trouble came on the following day in the morning session. I was on duty in Azahar’s room along with the Insurance-worker colleague of ours. He was a thoroughly practical man, a specialist in the art of detecting students adopting unfair means. Many a time had he regaled us with hair-raising accounts of how he had frustrated the designs of clever students. He was pacing up and down the room with a vulture’s keenness in his eyes. I had little to do and buried myself in an English novel borrowed from the college library.

My partner’s shoes creaked as, he moved up and down the room. Fans hummed overhead. Occasional rustlings of paper were heard as a candidate turned over the pages of his answer-book. Silence reigned supreme. I was absorbed in the description of a cyclone. The main mast of the ship caught in the cyclone was about to give way…..

‘Get up. Hurry up’, my partner thundered excitedly.

I was rudely startled. I could not believe my eyes. My colleague stood by the side of Azaharuddin, challenging the latter.

Azaharuddin’s looks were distracted. He looked at my partner with his eyes wide open.

‘I, Sir?’ he said.

‘Yes, yes–you get up, I say’, he replied.

Had he gone mad? Azaharuddin to copy! Had my colleague’s failure to sell an Insurance policy caused mental derangement? I went quietly to the place where they were.

‘Are you sure that you have not made a mistake, Madhab Babu?’ I asked.

He gave me a cruel stare. ‘Keep quiet please. Get up, get up, quick.’

‘All right, Sir. Search me’ Azaharuddin stood up. His eyes shone. His lips quivered a little. Madhab Babu began the search with a malicious delight. The hall looked on, surprised. It was too much to believe that Sarkar Azaharuddin had taken unfair means. Other candidates were not prepared to believe such a thing even if they saw this with their own eyes.

All that came out of Azaharuddin’s answer-book were the question paper and a piece of blotting paper. Madhab Babu then searched Azaharuddin’s pockets thoroughly. All he could discover were a handkerchief, the purse, the registration number and the Admit card. There was nothing under the bench.

Madhab Babu was put out altogether. His face had become ashen.

Azaharuddin said in a tremulous voice, ‘Why did you disturb me for nothing, Sir? You have not found anything suspicious.’

‘I am extremely sorry,’ Madhab Babu muttered.

I went back to my place. Madhab Babu came to me. He could not raise his eyes. ‘Strange–very strange! I had seen clearly. ...’, he said.

‘Your eyes must have deceived you. Please have your glasses tested tomorrow,’ I retorted sharply.

Madhab Babu was silent. He sat motionless for about ten minutes. He was again on his legs. He moved up and down the hall. It was plain however that all his energy and enthusiasm for detecting candidates having recourse to unfair means had evaporated. He was thoroughly subdued. I noticed that Azaharuddin had not been writing for a long time I could imagine the rudeness of the shock he had. Perhaps he would not be able to answer the questions well. He might get plucked even. I thought in my fury that Madhab Babu and all others like him should be reported against to the University.

I went to Azahar.

‘Forgive and forget, Go on writing, please,’ I said.

‘Yes, I am writing, Sir,’ Azahar mumbled.

I had gone out for a smoke a little before the final bell. I discovered on my return that Azahar had submitted his paper and gone away ten minutes earlier.

Azahar was absent on the following day and I had to run to his house in the afternoon. Evidently he could not overcome the previous day’s shock. How to apologise to him for so great an injustice? How to atone for a sin we all were guilty of?

I reached Azahar’s house before nightfall. I came across uncle on my way to the drawing room. I was struck dumb before I could ask where Azaharuddin was. Uncle burst into loud lamentations, ‘What will you see here today, Professor? Our Lalu died last night.’

My legs seemed to be buried deep into the ground. The heart seemed to have stopped beating.

‘Our Lalu is no more, Professor. God has called him to His presence’, uncle cried like a child. Lalu’s mother is still senseless. His father has not come back from the burial ground. The burial took place at noon. But Azahar would not leave the graveyard. What is to be done?’

I could speak out after about ten minutes, ‘Can You take me there once?’

Uncle had recovered a little during the interval. He wiped his tears and said, ‘Let us go. He loves you more than anybody else and respects you at the same time. Please impress upon him that what has happened cannot be undone. His staying back in the burial ground will not serve any useful purpose. There is also the fear of jackals, snakes and the like. Do come with me, please.’

The graveyard lay a little way off beyond a few clumps of bamboos. Open holes, rotten pieces of bamboo and human bones were scattered allover the place. A jackal ran away like a spectre at our sight. We saw in the moonlight a newly-dug grave of earth. Azaharuddin sat by motionless. A solitary ghost keeping awake in the burial ground!

We drew close. Azaharuddin cast his abnormal, lack-lustre eyes on us.

‘Get up, please, Azahar.’ My tears broke all restraints. ‘Come back home. Let Lalu sleep in peace. Disturb him not, please.’

‘Yes, let Lalu sleep now. He suffered a lot for some days,’ Azaharuddin said in a choked voice. ‘But, Sir, 1 cannot forget that he left us because he was displeased with me. I really took unfair means in the examination yesterday.’

The confession came as a second shock to me. I thought that he had lost mental balance through grief.

‘Come on, Azahar. No more of it now,’ I protested.

‘Excuse me, Sir. I must confess all my sins over Lalu’s grave,’ Azaharuddin whispered. ‘I had bribed the college bearer and had fixed a net of wire beneath my bench beforehand in such a way that nobody could suspect anything. My text-book of Rhetoric and Prosody is still there.’

‘Azahar!’

‘I was desperate. I had no doubt whatever after the first two papers (in English) that I would surely fail in English. I had lost all hope. Our school was inspected in the morning yesterday. Do you know who the Inspector was? Let me not give out the name. He and I took the Matriculation examination at the same centre and sat side by side. All his answer-books were written outside the examination hall and passed on to him. And today he is an Inspector of schools! Lalu was passing through a crisis. Everyone discouraged me to appear at the examination.

All were of opinion that I would not pass even if I sat for the examination. I was confused and tried unfair means. But nothing was achieved. Lalu left us. He did not let me succeed through a lie.’

Azaharuddin covered his face with both hands.

There were graves old and new, here, there and everywhere. Black, dark holes yawned all over the place in the bright moon-light. The small grave of Lalu exuded a smell of recently turned moist earth. The wind started blowing all on a sudden. Bamboo groves wailed like the evil spirit of a woman.

I stood speechless. A thought haunted me as I looked at the motionless shadow of Azaharuddin on Lalu’s grave. I could not shake off the idea that it was we who had murdered Lalu.

Yes, we. All of us.

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