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

told him that he wanted to donate his body to science. He did not want to be buried because he did not like the idea of becoming a meal for underground creatures, but then a cremation was not for him either, for he did not like being overcooked. His father liked the idea of donating his body to science, but not to Pakistani science which, according to him, was nothing but superstitions disguised as science. A soft smile appeared on Mansoor’s face. He felt calmer, remembering his father’s sense of humour.

When the rain came, all the men waiting outside rushed into the house, upsetting the carefully segregated gender gaps. In the crowd, Mansoor saw the bearded face of Zakir Hassan. How dare he make his grand entrance? And the gall, the utter gall to show his contemptible face at his father’s funeral! He was responsible for his death, not Mehrun. Mansoor felt like pulling out a pair of scissors and cutting off that hennaed beard.

Acting as if he were the next of kin, Zakir took charge of the funeral rites, a self-appointed death director, obviously enjoying his power over the dead man. Who would question his divine authority? He ordered Athanni to take Farhat away to the other room since death broke all relationships between a husband and a wife. Her nikah was now invalid, terminated, khatam-shud.

‘Viewing the body of her dead husband would be a sin,’ Zakir told Athanni, but everyone in the room heard it, a stern decree that sent chills down the hall.

Farhat resisted. So Zakir weaved his way through the crowd, inserted himself next to her and said, ‘Bhabi, you can’t see his face now. Death has annulled your marriage with him. He is now a stranger to you.’

Mansoor, shocked by this new nonsense, tapped Zakir’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, ‘If she is no longer my father’s wife, why are you still calling her bhabi? Why is this relationship still intact?’

Caught off guard, Zakir gently pushed him aside and then motioned Athanni to take Farhat away.

‘Please let me look at his face one last time! I am still married to him,’ Farhat pleaded.

‘No, you shouldn’t see his face, Farhat Khaala. It is a sin for a woman to see the face of her dead husband because after death he is no longer her husband,’ Athanni parroted his mentor.

His face red with anger, Mansoor pushed his way towards his mother and announced, ‘My mother will stay wherever she wants to. Leave her alone.

‘Look son, if you want a proper religious funeral for your father, then you should abide by all the strictures. Don’t argue. You can’t pick and choose. It’s better not to interfere in matters that you know nothing about,’ Zakir argued with Mansoor, his tone stern, his face stony, still reeling from Mansoor’s whispered sarcasm.

Realizing that she was creating a scene, Farhat turned her neck around to get one last glimpse of her dead husband and then told her son that she would leave the room. Her easy capitulation enraged Mansoor. Fifty years of marriage so hastily nullified, his father callously declared a stranger, all by Zakir Hassan’s revelatory rubbish. Mansoor felt nauseated by all the unctuous pietism that elevated the minutiae. Suffocating rites, Athanni taking random snapshots and the torrential rains—silly subplots to make this the most dreadful day of his life.

His father’s lifeless body lay wrapped in a white shroud in the middle of the drawing room. The odour of camphor and incense floated across the room, a pungent reminder that he was dead. Relatives offered prayers for his salvation, while uninvited mourners seeking bonus rewards in the afterlife sat there empty-eyed, reading sacred verses and performing their rhythmic acts as if participating in a choreographed performance. How his father would have suffered had he known about the excessive religious exertions displayed at his funeral. He had become irrelevant in life, and now it seemed he had become even more irrelevant in death.

Mansoor felt someone lightly tapping him on his shoulder; he turned around and saw Mehrun smiling sadly at him. Dressed in a cream-coloured silk saree, she was all elegance at that moment. He smiled back. They spoke without speaking; they felt without touching, and then he saw her walk towards his father’s body. She stood there for a while and then walked away. As she passed him, she inserted a business card in his side pocket. From the corner of his eyes, Mansoor saw Athanni quickly snapping a picture of the two of them.

With all the pre-scripted sequences performed and the last-minute rites completed, Zakir ordered the people to lift the bier. The rain had finally stopped and the clouds had disappeared, as if to let the sun catch the last glimpse of Noor’s body. When the funeral procession reached the mosque for the final prayer, Mansoor stayed outside, not sure why he had come there. His father did not believe in any of this—God or the afterlife, heaven or hell. How ironic that they would be praying for what Noor, the materialist, had called his non-existent soul going to this non-existent place. How could Mansoor participate in something that neither he nor his father believed in? After the mourners came out of the mosque, Athanni noticed Mansoor standing outside and he quickly snapped another shot, as if he were creating a portfolio of Mansoor’s offences.

*

Mansoor followed the procession to the Jannati Qabristan, walking with total strangers who, he thought, did not know him from Adam. At the graveyard, the rain started again. A man in a white beard said, ‘He must have been a good man, for heaven is also crying over his death.’ Mansoor saw Zakir and Athanni glance at each other. He noticed his grandfather’s grave nearby and went to see what was written on his tombstone. As Noor’s body was lowered into the grave, Zakir turned to Athanni and asked loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Where is Mansoor? It is the son’s duty to