THE EARTHQUAKE

Dramatis personae ZAHIR: age 45 ANSER: age 35

ZAHIR: Do you feel the throbbing of the earth? ANSER: (Rather indifferently) yes. ZAHIR: How many days have gone since the earthquake? ANSER: (Calculates) that was 8th October today is 1st Novembertwenty-four days. ZAHIR: We are getting used to it! ANSER: Used to what? ZAHIR: Throbbing. (He drags a newspaper from the Stool and overviews it, a grin spreads on his lips across to the ears). ANSER: What is it? ZAHIR: It is old (reads the date) 16th October (smiles). ANSER: what is it now? ZAHIR: A piece of news. ANSER: what news? ZAHIR: A woman gave birth to a baby in a tent village. ANSER: Life mocks death. ZAHIR: Mocks itself. ANSER: No. ZAHIR: Yes. ANSER: Do you know what clergymen say? ZAHIR: Yes. ANSER: Punishment of sins. 2

ZAHIR: They need a Voltaire. ANSER: who was it? ZAHIR: A satirist. ANSER: Of earthquake? ZAHIR: No __ of clergy and oafish ideas. ANSER: Sins can shake the earth__ it is not easy to negate. ZAHIR: you are excusable. ANSER: How? ZAHIR: Even a philosopher may rave in the eve of disaster. ANSER: Who was raving? ZAHIR: Rousseau. ANSER: He was in Balakot? ZAHIR: Nonsense. ANSER: In Muzaffarabad? ZAHIR: Clown__ you can crack joke after this woeful event? ANSER: Why cant I? If life is going on in its normalcy outside the quake hit areas, then why cant I crack jokes? ZAHIR: You are one among them. ANSER: Among whom? ZAHIR: Clergymen. ANSER: A bit better. ZAHIR: In what way?

ANSER: You were telling me about Rousseau. Where was he? ZAHIR: In France__ I was going to tell you his remarks after the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755. ANSER: (Bashfully) you must have cleared it out in the beginning. ZAHIR: Garrulous__ you speak without listening. ANSER: Do you speak while listening. ZAHIR: It was 1st November. ANSER: Eh. ZAHIR: And All Saints Day. The churches had been crowded with the worshippers. It killed 30,000 people. And it was 3rd Ramadan on 8th October. ANSER: What did Rousseau remark? ZAHIR: He said that man himself was to be blamed for the disaster. If we lived out in the fields and not in the towns, we should be killed on so large a scale, if we lived under the sky, and not under in houses, houses would not fall upon us. ANSER: Rousseaus jest holds more laughter than mines. Is there no winter season in France? ZAHIR: For Rousseau no, he was the son of nature. (An aftershock suddenly jolts the earth and they both hurry out in the open. Anser looks at the moon and then at Mars which is red hot. ANSER: The earthquake has affected the moon. ZAHIR: Who says? 4

ANSER: They say. ZAHIR: Birq. ANSER: Mars is red because of the blood. ZAHIR: And you are white with the fear. ANSER: They say planets can foretell. ZAHIR: Who says? ANSER: Astrologist. ZAHIR: They are murderers. ANSER: What? ZAHIR: they are killers. ANSER: Explain. ZAHIR: Why didnt they foretell the day of 8th October with the help of their planets? ANSER: It is their style. ZAHIR: Style of killing. ANSER: Do you know how I guess that the winter is approaching? ZAHIR: No. ANSER: When the bees are seen dying. ZAHIR: you are a bit scientific. ANSER: And ants circle around a dying bees waiting to see it full dead, to carry it to their nests. ZAHIR: A dead one is food for a living one. ANSER: How much is official death toll? ZAHIR: 75,000 ANSER: Lets go in, aftershock is done (they go in).

ZAHIR: what did you learn from this awful earthquake? ANSER: (enthusiastically) I learnt new words. ZAHIR: New words! ANSER: Yes new words___ tectonic plates, aftershocks, preshocks, subduction zone, hypocenter, epicenter, seismology, Richter scale, relief camp ___and___ ZAHIR: Mutt. ANSER: What? ZAHIR: I mean what lesson you learned from this natural disaster. ANSER: Oh__ let me think. (Long pause) First let me know what you learn from this natural disaster. ZAHIR: The question was posed by me first. ANSER: Then this question should be answered by you first. ZAHIR: I wont. ANSER: you have to. ZAHIR: (Evasively) When I left the hostel after the earthquake my servant asked me Sir your stock of fruit__ may I take it? and I replied in a fit of largesse, Yes you can. 6

ANSER: Fruit! How much? ZAHIR: One kg apples. ANSER: well. ZAHIR: One dozen bananas. ANSER: Extravagant. ZAHIR: And some dates. ANSER: Dates? ZAHIR: Yes dates. ANSER: Are dates fruits? ZAHIR: I dont know. I am not a horticulturalist. ANSER: if you dont know if dates are fruits or say if you dont know if dates are not fruits then how do you know what it is brewing up under the Earth? ZAHIR: Foolish question. ANSER: Foolish answer. ZAHIR: I want to open new vistas of knowledge upon you but you damn care an iota. ANSER: I know everything. ZAHIR: You said you were a bit better than a clergyman. ANSER: I did. ZAHIR: But you are entirely dogmatic. ANSER: An interesting anecdote is bruited out. 7

ZAHIR: What does it say? ANSER: Two factions were quarrelling over a piece of land right before the quake hit. ZAHIR: Might be a moral fable fabricated for the occasion ___ a day will come when nobody will be allowed to dig up a well beyond a prescribed limit. ANSER: Whose land is it? Gods or mans? ZAHIR: Mans. ANSER: Blasphemous, some day you will be executed by them___ them damns. ZAHIR: Man says it is my land, nature says mine. He tries to erect houses on it, she tries to level them. There is an eternal fight between both of them. ANSER: who will win? ZAHIR: It is a three act play___ exposition, crisis and catastrophe___if exposition we know every thing, crisis is its culmination point and catastrophe is obvious. ANSER: whom you favour? ZAHIR: Being a man, a man. (The iron gate of the yard bangs) ANSER: There is a knock at the door? ZAHIR: No __ it is an after shock that is shaking the gate. (Anser stands up to rush out.) 8

ANSER: Lets go out. ZAHIR: It is minor, dont fear, stay in. ANSER: These days are divided into go out and go in. ZAHIR: After the Lisbon quake the king Joseph I lived in the tents all his life. He fell victim to claustrophobia. ANSER: There had been many earthquakes in the world, why do you always refer to Lisbon? ZAHIR: Because of its philosophical and scientific implications. Kant wrote a treatise on seismic activity. ANSER: Cunt? ZAHIR: (Agitated) you are an old gog, you will never learn a new things. ANSER: I am feeling peckish. Aint you? ZAHIR: I have some biscuits. ANSER: You have some biscuits. That will do. ZAHIR :( Tries to listen something) cant you hear a strange sound? ANSER: You are becoming sensitive since the earthquake. ZAHIR: No. it is you who has been getting carefree.

ANSER: I have seen many mosques downed by the earthquake. ZAHIR: God did not spare his own houses. ANSER: It is the evidence of his impartiality. ZAHIR: What did you give as an aid? ANSER: I offered my cell phone to a man to make calls to inquire about his relatives___ and you? ZAHIR: One blanket and a woolen sheet, and a pillow. I am thinking who would be using these things. Isnt it a strange curiosity? ANSER: Bizarre. ZAHIR: My sister says when she abruptly picks up her baby to run outside, she giggles. ANSER: Your sister? ZAHIR: Her baby. ANSER: Get on. ZAHIR: She says she thinks she is playing with her, rollicking her. ANSER: How fearless are children. ZAHIR: Knowledge takes our innocence. ZAHIR: I sleep like a rabbit. It needs five points something to wake me up. ZAHIR: I do not sleep well. I am dreaming terrible dreams. 10

ANSER: Nightmares? ZAHIR: I dream I am in a room whose ceiling is only two feet high and I cant stand up. ZAHIR: You are listening the stories of the people who are buried alive under the rubble. ZAHIR: Sometimes I dream I am with a girl in a cellar. I am about to kiss her, about to advance with more explorations but suddenly and earthquake collapses the cellar. ANSER: My mother used to say when someone in the family was crawling with lice, any kind of calamity will occur: poverty, famine, earthquake. ZAHIR: Previous night I dreamed that an army of cockroaches was hovering over the city__they were in millions__rather countless__ like a cloud of locust. ANSER: My father told us repeatedly but furtively that the night before the war of 1965 he had seen beside the moon two swords crossing each other and drenched in blood. ZAHIR: These are superstitions. ANSER: As your dreams are. 11

ZAHIR: I dont believe in my dreams, I recount them because these are fretting me. ANSER: I do not take my parents as liars. ZAHIR: Credulous people do not lie. They believe what they say. ANSER: How much money would be required to prevent a natural disaster? ZAHIR: From occurring? ANSER: Yes. ZAHIR: Money is out of question. ANSER: Gold? ZAHIR: No. ANSER: Silver? ZAHIR: NO. ANSER: Virtue? ZAHIR: No. ANSER: Piety? ZAHIR: No. ANSER: You say you have some biscuits? ANSER: Yes. ZAHIR: One yes after many nos__ where they are? ANSER: In the kitchen. (Anser goes to the kitchen. By the stirring a mouse in the kitchen starts and scurries to the drain)

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ANSER: Why there is no filter on the drainhole? (Comes back) ZAHIR: Did you find biscuits? ANSER: I did not __ there was a mouse in the kitchen. ZAHIR: do you fear a mouse? ANSER: I feel disgust__ why dont you kill it? ZAHIR: I cant kill anything that has got a soul. ANSER: A mouse has got a soul? ZAHIR: It is an animal. ANSER: Do you know a buffalo broke her cleat and ran out during the earthquake ZAHIR: There is a will to live in every creature___ (Long silence) ANSER: Night is dreadful, silence will make it awful. Please say something. ZAHIR: I dont find anything. ANSER: Nothing. ZAHIR: Nothing. ANSER: A joke? ZAHIR: Forgive O God my little jokes on thee, And Ill forgive thy great big one on me. ANSER: Is it a joke? 13

ZAHIR: It is a couplet. ANSER: But I ask you for a joke. ZAHIR: Do you want a hear a dirty joke? ANSER: Sure. ZAHIR: I fell in the mud. ANSER: (smiles) It is not possible to laugh. (Puts his hands on his heart) My heart is pounding. There is an unseen dread. ZAHIR: This joke is a comic relief. ANSER: Is it a relief from UN? ZAHIR: (grinning) It is a relief from a somber event. ANSER: I see. ZAHIR: Mouse? ANSER: I mean I understand. (A loud and restless shriek of a bat is heard outside. They jump and rush outside) ZAHIR: We have become coward. ANSER: No, we have experienced so large a scale of earthquake which is enough to frighten anybody anytime. ZAHIR: A dry leaf falling from a tree is enough to make my heart leap. ANSER: And the falling houses__ what is your idea? ZAHIR: As if some one is holding his heart in his hand. 14

ANSER: Only a physician can bear this sight. ZAHIR: I cant put up with it. ANSER: And the sound of the falling houses __ what is your idea? ZAHIR: (tries to find the correlative word and feels a shiver in his limbs) Cataclysmic. ANSER: I saw a collapsed house. ZAHIR: And its residents? ANSER: All dead__ a wall clock was hanging on a leaning pillar. ZAHIR: Ticking? ANSER: No. Dead too__ its little hand stopped on 8 and the big one on 52. ZAHIR: 8.52! ANSER: 8.52. ZAHIR: Lets go in. ANSER: My mother used to say bats and owls are sinister birds, do not allow them in your houses to live in. they are harbingers of bad luck and unhappy days. Owls call the inhabitants by their names in the wee hours of the night. ZAHIR: What is day today? ANSER: You should say what is night tonight.

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ZAHIR: They say it will be Friday on the Day of Judgment. ANSER: Fry day. ZAHIR: You have the ability to play with words. ANSER: The day of Earthquake was Saturday. All our children were in schools and colleges. ZAHIR: A disaster does not choose a day__ a day is given to a disaster. ANSER: By whom? ZAHIR: (sarcastically) I dont know. ANSER: Our shelters become our foe during the earthquake __we run away from them and they strike us from behind in front and on head (puts his hand on his mouth__ their eyelids are heavy with sleep__long silence) ZAHIR: A perfect salesman is that who flogs a fridge to an Eskimo. ANSER: What is the relevance of it here? ZAHIR: And a consummate sneak- thief is that who steals right after the earthquake and right among the corpses and right in the midst of help-cries. ANSER: He must not be a man sir; he might be a werewolf__ a man from a desert ZAHIR: From the mountains. 16

ANSER: That serves nature. ZAHIR: A watchman of the objectives of nature. ANSER: Who says that? ZAHIR: A poet. ANSER: O, well reminded, I have a piece o poetry to recite to you (feels in his pocket and brings out a folded paper) ZAHIR: (smiling) Once poets kept their diaries with them__ bulky (brings both his hands parallel at the distance of few inches to indicate the bulk) now they keep piece of papers in their pockets. ANSER: Now we have certain other thing to keep with us __ keys, glasses, packet of cigarettes, lighter and above all a cell phone. ZAHIR: I am least interested in your poetry. ANSER: It is about the stinking corpses. ZAHIR: Stinking corpses? ANSER: the corpses which could not be cleared off from the debris after the earthquake. ZAHIR: No, no I wont endure it. ANSER: Then I have another poem. ZAHIR: hmm. ANSER: (unfolds the paper and reads out the poem) 17

Amid the mocking sound of a helicopter, A thud of the sack of the ration is heard, Among the bubbles of tents. Below the Earth is giving out the sarcastic sighs, Its belly heaves and sages in and bulges out Like a serpent swallowing a lizard or a frog, Up above eternal Architect, Makes a correction in the draft of Indian plate, And wipes away the houses with the whim of dutifulness, As a bureaucrat will rumple down, A piece of paper to the basket of the waste. ZAHIR: I could not concentrate. ANSER: Why couldnt you? ZAHIR: (points to a dirty grime towel on a hanger) It disturbed me. ANSER: Do you listen with your eyes. ZAHIR: I cannot listen when I am on dirt. ANSER: With this quantity of dirt about you, you must have been deaf for many years. ZAHIR: Do you know when I knew I had grown old? 18

ANSER: No. ZAHIR: When in a bus a boy offered me his seat and stood in my stead. ANSER: And you accepted the offer? ZAHIR: why shouldnt i? ANSER: By accepting the offer you confirmed your old age by yourself. One must not accept ones old age by himself. ZAHIR: Until you are alive and young you are under the illusion that you will never grow old, then in a sudden old age brings you down on your walking stick__ this is humiliation__ certainly a humiliation__ a man of ego will prefer dying young __ and obscurely on an undiscoverable place __out of his house in the jungle __ dogs do not like being watched dying __ I would I die in the space and my corpse float eternally in the void __ weightless and coffin less __ No burial __ no funeral__ or it is the last day of the universe ___ no man behind to comment on my death ___ our letters kill us, our rites kill us, our houses kill us , our towers kill us , our Earth kill us.. (Sound of heavy snorting. Anser is sleeping, completely unconscious of the throbbing of the Earth) 19

The end 14 November 2005

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