Written 1976; published in The Frontier Post 14 November 1986

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 I 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.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 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...”“O, 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 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 I 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. I 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 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 ridicule 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 I 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. I
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,” I 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. I’ll spoil your house.
Jamshed Sahib is a very good architect. I am very old now, Sahib.” I was touched and I 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 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
done!)”. When the crucial time came, I 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, I have to show my face to the old Sahib. I have to go
to see him soon. How will I 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. I 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, I 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 I went temporarily to Lahore, leaving my wife and child behind. I
returned after three month, to my surprises, the chowkidar was missing. I 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-looking 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. I 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 I told?”“Told? Told about what? Which money? I 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 I 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 I stood dumb. My wife gave him a banknote of a hundred. Babu bowed his
head low in thanks. I didn’t meet his eyes. I stood like a thief. My car, my old house stood as mocking
question marks. I knew it before I found out all from Babu’s daughter. He spent his whole life’s
savings and his daughter’s dowry on his art. His trembling hands polished the marble chippings
himself. He said his daughter get married the next year.