Of Smokeless Fire by A.A. Jafri (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📕

Without a second’s hesitation, Joseph lifted him up in his arms and ran towards a slowly moving taxi. He waved at the driver, who stopped the instant he saw him—a big man carrying a limp body. Joseph gently lowered the man into the back seat and then ran to the other side. He opened the door and jumped in next to him, cradling his head on his lap.

‘Civil Haspataal!’ he shouted to the taxi driver.

The taxi swerved and accelerated convulsively as it headed towards the hospital, the rattling noise of the exhaust from the busted silencer annoying the wounded man. The man was having difficulty breathing. After a while, he whispered something to Joseph. It was then that Joseph realized that he was a foreigner.

‘Where from?’ Joseph asked in his broken English.

‘Iran,’ the man replied with difficulty.

‘Don’t talk,’ Joseph said, ‘we go haspataal.’

Throughout the journey, Joseph applied pressure on the man’s wound, using his handkerchief to try and stem the bleeding. He kept comforting the injured man in his broken English, telling him, ‘haspataal come soon.’

The man grimaced in pain as the taxi braked right in front of the hospital. Joseph gave the driver one rupee and pulled out the incapacitated Iranian effortlessly. He was a small man, so Joseph did not have any difficulty carrying him. He took him straight to the emergency, where the orderlies and the nurses whisked him away. One of the nurses came back and rudely ordered Joseph to wait. So Joseph went and sat on one of the wobbly chairs in the reception area. He stayed there for a couple of hours until a young doctor came out and told him that the patient needed blood. They asked him his blood type.

‘It’s red!’ he replied.

‘We need to take your blood to see if you’re a match. It may save this man’s life. He is in bad shape. Are you willing to give blood?’

‘Yes,’ Joseph replied.

They pulled him into a room and asked him to lie flat on the gurney. They drew vials of blood. Joseph did not know how many; he had already fainted. When he regained consciousness, it was late. He went to the nurses’ desk and asked about the Iranian. Relieved to hear that he was stable and had received his blood, Joseph headed home.

The next day, Joseph went to the hospital to visit the Iranian. One of the nurses had informed him that the police would be there to take his statement, but the police never came. The Iranian, Reza Dabiran, spoke little Urdu and no Punjabi, while Joseph spoke a smattering of English and no Farsi; they communicated in an odd mixture of sign language, Farsi, English, Punjabi and Urdu.

‘Thank you for saving my life,’ Reza said in English as he tried to sit up.

‘Oh! No bother, Sahib,’ Joseph replied.

Reza Dabiran, a man in his late thirties, was severely bruised and cut, but his face still displayed his handsome features. Although his injuries made it difficult for him to speak, he continued to chat with Joseph.

‘I am a commercial attaché at the Iranian consulate,’ Reza said.

‘Shrine, Sahib?’ Joseph asked and made a hand gesture asking why.

With a smile on his face, Reza said, ‘I was on my way to the beach when I was suddenly hit by the mob, and then I don’t exactly know what happened.’

Reza did not have any family or friends in the city, and his colleagues from the consulate visited him only once in that dingy Dettol-smelling hospital. So, to him, Joseph’s company was a welcome respite. He stayed at the Civil Hospital for three days and was later moved to the Holy Family Hospital, which had better facilities. Reza stayed there for two more weeks, and Joseph visited him every day. One day, he even brought some fruits for him. Joseph had saved the man’s life, and now he touched his heart with kindness. With a friendly, young doctor acting as Joseph’s interpreter, Reza learned everything about his rescuer.

‘You know, Joseph, I can help you find a job in Iran if you want, but not in films.’

‘You can? Oh! Please, Sahib, I will be your servant!’ Joseph replied.

‘I can get you a job at one of the oil refineries.’

Joseph became ecstatic. He wanted to pack his bags the very next day and leave for Iran, but Reza laughed and told him to have patience. It would take time to get everything in order. But Joseph had found his miracle, and he called it hope.

*

After he returned from the hospital that night, Joseph wanted to broadcast his good news to the whole of Bhangi Para. He wanted to celebrate the offer of hope around those narrow pathways that always led to a dead-end. He wanted to tell his mother that her days of cleaning other people’s shit were over. For at last, there was hope. But his mother was nowhere to be found. He saw the same dog that he had hit with a stone the other day in his frustration, but he did not hit him this time; instead, he threw him the sandwich that he had swiped from the hospital. The dog took a few steps towards it and began eating it.

From the sweltering oil refineries of Iran to the film studios of Bombay, Joseph could see his future stretch out in front of him like a long shimmering path, free of blind spots and dead-end alleys. He saw himself prancing around movie sets with Rajesh Khanna and doing a dance number with Sharmila Tagore. His fantasies, however, were rudely interrupted by the tired face of his mother as she entered their shack.

‘Let me wash up. I’ll get the chapattis ready,’ Pyaro said.

‘Ma, don’t bother about dinner. I am going to get the food from the restaurant today.’

‘Where did you steal the money from?’

‘Ma, I didn’t steal it. I have good news. I’ll tell you all about it after I get the food.’

Joseph went to Café de Jamadar and bought kebabs, tandoori naans and