Quarter No. 5

It had been raining for two hours. The heavens were in a generous mood that day. The sewer behind the 'servants' quarters' was overflowing with rainwater and the stench from the garbage dump next to the quarters was unbearable.


Adam stood in the middle of the door, leaning outwards -- looking out into the rain. The rain amused him. As a child, he used to spend hours playing in the rain. His mother, being a mother, had other reasons for allowing Adam to play in the rain.


"It cures the prickly heat," she would say.


Rain always made him think of his mother and as always, a weak smile appeared on his face.


His mother had died of cancer.


"I guess the rain cannot cure everything," he muttered to himself. The smile disappeared and a sad, worn out expression settled on his face.


Adam had, what some would say, a handsome face: big brown eyes, a full and expressive mouth, square jaws, a determined chin and a prominent forehead. At five-feet-eight, he looked refined -- almost elegant. But that was years ago.


The feeble individual standing in the doorway of Quarter No. 5, with a forlorn expression on his face, hardly resembled the handsome young person of yesteryears. Self-pity, chain smoking and bad eating habits had damaged more than his lungs and appetite. His lips, once pink and delicate, were black and swollen now. The circles around his eyes spreading down to his cheeks gave him a feverish look; that of a recovering jaundice patient. Deep furrows had spread across his forehead. His clothes complemented his appearance. The sandals that he wore were cheap and needed repair.


Adam seemed oblivious to his impoverished state of being or the bleak surroundings. He was concentrating on the falling rain, as if trying to unravel its mystery. Every now and then, he balanced the cigarette in his mouth and took deep drags filling his lungs with thick blue smoke.


In a sudden, almost frantic manner, he tapped his pocket.

The pack of cigarettes rested in the creases of his pant pockets. He remained in constant fear of losing his one pack a day that his friend has been buying for him. A sigh of relief came out of his mouth. He sucked on the cigarette once again and fixed his gaze on the slowly moving smoke that ascended into obscurity.


"K-2," he wondered, "why would any one name a cigarette after a mountain?"


The cheap tobacco did not grow anywhere near a mountain, much less the mighty K-2 itself. He was not even sure that K-2 cigarettes had any real tobacco in them, but he smoked them anyway. They were all his friend could afford.


He flicked the cigarette in the rain. It settled in a crack on the floor, and slowly mounted itself on a tiny stream of water and floated out of sight.


"Five minutes of my life went down the drain," he laughed at his own joke. He moved away from the door, retreating into the tiny, dingy room badly lit by a single light bulb. His movements were slow and lacked conviction.


Throwing himself on the cot, he stretched his legs and kicked the sandals off. One of them landed in the rain. He looked up from the cot, but his head was swirling.


"Maybe the two K-2s do have something in common after all, " he thought. The room moved; his body was fiercely resisting the poison that he had just pumped in it. He rolled over and closed his eyes.


The single room apartment, commonly known as the 'servants' quarter' was one of the five quarters at the back of the bungalow presently occupied by an engineer and his family of two. The bungalow and quarters were built at the turn of century to accommodate members of the British Raj and their hoards of civil servants.


Every bungalow had five quarters to house a cook, a gardener, a janitor, a washer man, and a gofer. The quarters were sturdy and practical; one room, a small courtyard about the size of the room, and a makeshift bathroom in one corner. It had high walls on the sides and front. These quarters reminded Adam of the matchbox houses that he and his brother used to build when they were young.


A single community toilet for the 25 quarters stood in the middle of the rows of five quarters for the five bungalows on Up-Cott Lane. Adam shared Quarter No. 5 with his friend and benefactor, Tara Maseeh. Three generations of Maseehs had occupied Quarter No. 5. A minor railway official occupying the bungalow then hired the young pioneer Maseeh as a janitor. Like most of his fellow low-caste Hindus, he had opted for 'salvation' -- the sahib's father-in-law was a missionary.


Grandfather Maseeh found the railway colony and its sahibs most generous. For the first time in his life he owned a brick house. It was also the first time in his life that he could stand next to a high-caste Hindu without any fear of penance. He must have had a lot of faith in his sahibs and their religion, because he brought up all his children in a true Christian manner.


"He had a vision," Tara once confided in Adam, "that one day his family would not have to scrub floors for a living. Father McKay had promised that."


The old man died before he could question the prelate or witness the ousting of his favorite sahibs. He died a true Christian death. A Japanese air raid killed the grandfather, while employed as a janitor for a Gorkha regiment fighting in the Burmese jungles. The widow and her sons were however not that fortunate. The Christian way of life brought them little comfort, if any.


The widow, Tara's grandmother, got her husband's job of cleaning the toilets in Bungalow No. 3, and her sons joined the street cleaning crew. Schooling was out of question. Tara's father and his uncles all grew up to be janitors. His father, being the oldest, inherited his father's job and Quarter No. 5.


The native sahibs replaced the foreign masters, and church bells rang no more. The country celebrated her independence and life changed rapidly. However, life in Quarter No. 5 remained unaltered. Good old Father McKay had died long ago, and an Anglo-Indian had replaced him. The hierarchy at the church changed and the Maseehs found themselves at the far end.


Shortly after independence, a rampage that ensued following the assassination of a political leader resulted in his father's death. The leader had promised equality and prosperity and the elder Maseeh loved that leader. He followed him everywhere.


"Like father like son," Tara used to say about his father. "Always chasing the ghosts."


"We would have been better off," Tara once said bitterly, "if we were still Hindus, low-caste and all. Look, they even have a low-caste President in India."


Now at 31, Tara held a job with the railways, cleaning coaches.


"It beats cleaning the toilets and it is one step in the right direction."


In what direction, he couldn't say. Tara's neighbor, the cook, who had gallantly served the foreign masters and the native elite alike, had moved out of his quarter when his eldest became a doctor. It was during the doctor's medical school days, that Adam first met Tara while visiting the cook's household. During those days, Tara would incessantly talk about the good fortune of his neighbors. Adam had his own problems.



II


Adam opened his eyes. The K-2s were still creating havoc in his system, his head swirled but the room was still. The muezzin was calling the faithful for the Maghrib prayers and the rain still poured hard.


"I guess the muezzin will be lonely this evening," thought Adam gazing at the mantle crudely decorated with newspapers and magazine cutouts.


The three generations of Maseehs stood side by side on the mantle staring at Adam. Slightly above the old photographs was a framed picture of the Pope. The picture of the Pope hung there looking down on the Maseehs from its gold colored frame. Adam was of the opinion that the Pope had a condescending smile. So he quickly averted the eyes from the Pope's smiling face and they drifted across the room where as usual he found a cross lying on Tara's neatly made bed.

A Bible rested on top of the pillow. Both the cross and the Bible were vintage and Tara held them in great reverence.

Besides the two cots, there was a huge trunk in one corner of the room. It was full of odds and ends, sort of like a family heirloom. In the corner, opposite to the one donning the magnificent trunk, was the makeshift kitchen where Tara occasionally cooked.


In the old days, the sahibs would provide the servants with their leftover food so they did not see any reason to build a proper kitchen in the quarters. The quarter had no chimney. On any given day, one could see the carbon particles floating in the air. By the door, there were clothes hangers and Tara's clothes hung in a big pile. Adam did not have much, so his attire stayed under his mattress to save the cost of getting them ironed.


The breeze drifting in the room through the open door was cool, but the air inside was still hot. The inhabitants had sealed the only window opening to the east to block the odor of sewer and garbage dumps next door. It helped a little.

Adam always kept incense lit in the room; it made it bearable, if not pleasant to breathe. The door that opened in the courtyard remained open without exception. It was an open invitation to the mosquitoes that swarmed the place at night; the residents had little choice. Adam and Tara slept under mosquito nets.


Tara was working overtime that evening and would not be home all night. Adam, therefore, had practically nothing to do, except brood. He had dropped out of medical college following his father's death, and ever since he had been a wayfarer, leading the life of a nomad. When he ran out of the little money he had, he asked Tara to take him in.


Tara had no objections, "If you can live next to human garbage you are most welcome," was what he said.


He had meant the garbage dump; Adam only hoped. So, for the last six months, Adam had been Tara's guest. They usually ate at the small shop down the street named after the great poet who conceived the idea of Pakistan. Adam had often wondered if the great man knew that a day would dawn when people would be living next to a garbage dump. He was sure that Mr. Iqbal would not have known.


The little shop that Tara and Adam frequented was a restaurant, general store and a social club all in one. Adam found the luxury of reading the newspaper for free rather overwhelming. He only had to buy a cup of tea, and while he nursed the food, he savored reading the newspaper. Reading, for Adam, was such a luxury at the time; the newspaper was the cheapest form of reading that he could afford.


The rain had stopped, so Adam decided to walk up to the shop to have a cup of tea and catch the 7 'o' clock news. He slowly picked himself up and started out of the door. He noticed that one of his sandals was missing. It was not in the room.


"It must be in the yard, " he muttered. How it got there was a mystery to him, but he did not care. He found the sandal and was glad to see that it had not floated its way to the sewer. He picked the sandal lazily and adjusted his foot in it.


He wanted to smoke; the nicotine level, in his blood, was dropping. He tapped his pocket; the crush proof pack was still intact. He had only two cigarettes left.


"That should take care of the news and the cup of tea," he calculated. What then? Tara was not going to be home all night, and Adam had no money.


"Oh well," he shrugged and went out of the door. He forgot to turn the lights off, as usual.


The side street connecting the railway colony to the main road was flooding as Adam stepped out of the bungalow's rear entrance. The water was ankle high and the sewer had completely disappeared under the water. Carefully ploughing his way through the water, Adam proceeded towards the main street. He could see the slow moving traffic, mostly buses and mini-vans, lugging the weary workers to the comforts of their homes.


It was a fine evening. Walking in the starlit night made Adam forget everything for a while. The shop was bustling with activity when Adam arrived, the usual clientele -- the street vendors, rickshaw drivers and the neighborhood riff raff were all there. Adam greeted the owner -- a fat, balding man in his forties. The customers as well as the owner of the café treated Adam with respect. They had known his father and some of them worked in his father's factory.


Adam never felt out of place; he had no reason to, he was broke, had no place to live, and had no family except for his brother. He had never cared much for his brother. The people around him knew that too and readily accepted Adam as one of their own. Sometimes Adam would read the paper aloud and they would gather around him to listen. Hardly anyone there could read.


Adam found an empty space, as he made his way through the maze of tables and benches that crowded the place. There were no chairs in the place. Everyone had to share benches and the tables to eat. The TV was showing some local show and most of the patrons had their eyes glued to the TV. A few were having dinner; "It's pretty early for dinner," Adam thought. The place was full of smoke.


He picked up the newspaper. It was hard to find a complete newspaper; people liked to read only their favorite sections -- the ones who could read that is. The rest simply enjoyed looking at the pictures. The little boy, who worked as the waiter, cook's assistant, dishwasher and sweeper, was busy taking the orders and delivering food. Noticing Adam, he walked up to him and patiently waited for Adam to look up from his paper. Adam had seen the boy move towards him, and he knew what was coming; he had to order at least a cup of tea or vacate the premises to accommodate the paying customers.


Reluctantly, he ordered a cup of tea. The boy disappeared and a moment later returned with a steaming cup of hot tea. He slammed the cup and saucer on the table, and most of the tea landed in the saucer.


"I forgot to tell him about the sugar," Adam remembered, "There is always more than enough sugar in the tea."

The boy had to be reminded every time the order was placed. It was too late now.


He looked at the tea wearily and suddenly remembered that he had no money to pay for the tea. The boy hovered around him. Adam looked up and told the boy that Tara would pay for this. That did not dissuade the boy from hovering around Adam's table. Adam was sure that given a chance, the boy would take the tea to a paying customer. The owner who had been watching the whole time called for the boy, who immediately relaxed, settled the rag on his shoulder and disappeared once again. The owner waved at Adam, it was okay with him.


Adam could see the pity in the owner's eyes. He knew exactly what the owner and the two customers standing at the counter were talking about. It was unbelievable for them to witness a son of a rich man, a faithful, living off a mere janitor. They all looked in Adam's direction and shook their heads in unison.


Adam had to bury his head in the newspaper. He was embarrassed, but he needed the cup of tea. Adam was probably the only customer in that shop that took his tea without the 'extra cream' everyone else ordered. Adam had thought, on numerous occasions, of telling these people that this cream was doing them more harm than good but he could never find the courage to do so.


He quickly drowned half a cup of the burning liquid down his throat. It almost scalded his mouth, but had a soothing effect as it rolled down his throat. His stomach protested at first, but sensing that that was all it would get for the night, readily started decomposing the liquid. Adam's vision cleared and he stretched out on the bench. He had always argued that the only favor that the British ever did was teach us how to make a right cup of tea.


He quickly finished his tea; his body longed for nicotine.

He dished out the K-2s and retrieved one of the last two cigarettes from the pack. He was careful to save the better-looking one for later. The matchbox was damp from the moisture that it had absorbed during Adam's journey to the store. Adam wasted two sticks before he could light one.

"What a country, nothing is what it says it is. Damp-proof my foot," he cursed aloud.


A few heads turned in his direction, and noticing Adam, quickly resumed the original position.


"He is going crazy," said one rickshaw driver.


His neighbor nodded his head in agreement, never taking his eyes off the TV -- the hero was making his case for marriage; Adam's state of mental health could wait.


Adam was cross. He took a couple of deep drags of the K-2 and his chest heaved as he locked the smoke in his lungs. Those were the last few puffs that he did not want to waste. His face contorted from the lack of oxygen, he unwillingly exhaled; very little came out. By then, he could hardly hold the cigarette in his fingers. He coolly surveyed the dying cigarette and threw it on the floor in disgust. He tried not to think of his weakness to succumb to a mere chemical while he criticized people who had a little 'extra cream' in their tea. This made him angrier, with himself mostly.


His head swirled once again.


"I swear, I'll give up smoking," he said to himself.


He frantically stomped the bit of cigarette lying on the floor as if its stub was responsible for his addiction. The cigarette soon disappeared under his wet sole as if trying to evade any further reprisals. Satisfied with his performance, Adam ceased his stomping and picked up the newspaper. He was panting heavily as if he had just run a mile.


His brother was in the news; there were allegations that he had bribed the labor union officials to get a favorable contract. Adam knew the allegations were true. All those years of schooling had little effect on him. He still followed the old school: exploitation of labor. His father and his father's father all believed in it. There were no labor unions during their times, but they had to work hard to keep it that way and to an early grave.


His father was 54, when he passed away. Adam hated 'his' company and his brother for reminding him that it was Adam's company too. He did not want to be part of any organization or any organized form of society that dwelled on the exploitation of human beings.


He turned the page. The rest of the paper was full of the typical news that has come to symbolize the extent of modern journalism; bombings, killings, beatings, gang rape, etc.

The anger was building up inside him. He was fuming by the time he had finished reading the newspaper. Everyone claims to be on the right path and expects the rest of the world to follow. If that was true, someone ought to own up for all this misery and suffering, and it had better not be God.

He was mad at his brother and he was mad at his father for dying so young. He was angry with the communists for packing up in such a shameless manner! All those killings and bloodshed for a cause that only lasted for less than a century. They had no right to do so; the scales had tipped in favor of that trigger-happy, self-righteous American president adamant to impose the 'New World Order'.


He was angry with Tara for living at Quarter No. 5, and for his blind faith, and his own lack of it. He was mad at himself for being that way. He was simply mad.


"What's wrong with me?" he asked himself.


But he had known the answer all along: he had stopped thinking and started feeling. Ever since that change, the world seemed tragic to him. There is nothing comic or tragic about any event; the difference lies in the evaluation of an event. He wished that he could stop feeling, and maybe the world around him would look different. That was hard to come by.


No logician in the world could convince Adam that the killing of those 50,000 Iraqi children was not tragic. The people in the thinking business had dismissed those deaths as 'acceptable' to save the world from the acts of aggression. But the fact remains that people were murdered in the name of law. For those children it meant only one thing: death. Their charred, dismembered bodies were not acceptable to Adam, not for a million reasons.


His father, he thought, worked endlessly, sometimes ruthlessly to expand his business. He wanted to be a better provider, so that his son could go to Harvard, so that they could live in luxury and in the end all he achieved was a premature death.


"I am better being a non-conformist," Adam thought, as he got up from his seat and staggered out of the shop. Out on the street, he filled his lungs with fresh air; it felt better. Feeling much better, he crossed the street dodging the onslaught of traffic however, making little effort to stay dry. There was still considerable water on the streets.



III


People on the streets were hurrying to the shops for last minute shopping. The popular serial was about to begin and no one wanted to miss it. He crossed the Garhi Shahu Square and stepped onto the sidewalk. The sidewalk, being considerably higher than the road was drier and comfortable to walk on. It was a considerably narrow street with the railway officers' bungalows being on either side. An old bridge connected the mostly industrial area on the other side to this part of the town. Adam's factory was on the other side of the bridge.


The weather had cooled down considerably and the old, worn out shirt wasn't providing him adequate warmth against the wind. Adam hurried his pace. He wanted to bury himself in the familiar warm place that had comforted him on occasions like these when Adam had similar bouts of depression with his feelings. It was his sanctuary; a place that he could escape to and daydream without any rude interruptions.


He had stumbled upon it by accident. One night as he walked Tara to his work place, about a hundred yards from the foot of the old bridge, he decided to take a detour on his way back. It was a small enclave set high in the bosom of a gigantic column of the old bridge. The space was enough for a person to crawl inside and lie in comfort. Adam had no particular plans for that particular night, so he climbed into the hole and slept all night.


Ever since that peaceful slumber, whenever Adam had an urge to be alone, he would go under the bridge and climb in to the 'nest' as he called it and either slept or simply brooded. It was noisy at times, but the rattling and thumping of passing trains did not bother him anymore.


That particular evening, he realized that he had had a long brawl with his feelings, and it was about time he rested. He crossed the gate displaying the 'No Entry' sign and ignoring the warning, he headed towards his 'nest'. Once inside, he slowly started to relax and regarded the quietness around, occasionally disturbed by the rattling of coaches being shunted in and out of the washing lines.


He had always found the process of 'shunting' rather amusing, and would watch it with childlike delight. A locomotive would shunt a washed coach out of the washing line, bring it to the track where other washed coaches stood in silence and with a gentle tug would release the coach. The coach would roll down the track coming to a stop after gently colliding with other stationery coaches. The meeting of the coaches would result in a loud but gentle sound and all the coaches would jerk forward. Briefly, things would calm down, as the coaches would lose their momentum.


That evening, the washing lines were bustling with activity and there was a long line of washed coaches on the track to the left of Adam's vision. The washed cars were gleaming in the moonlit night and they reminded Adam of the toy trains that he used to play with, in his youth. On the far side of the washing lines, an aging locomotive was pulling two unwashed coaches towards the raised platform.


Tara and his fellow workers waited with big water hoses in their hands ready to give the approaching coaches their daily baths, as Tara would say. The engine seemed to be laboring as it moved out of Adam's sight. Probably, it was time for the engineer to take a break, Adam thought. His eyes shifted from the site where the engine had disappeared and it rested on the lonely coach resting on the track next to a long line of washed cars.


It was then that he first noticed; it was lying right in the middle of the track. Soaking wet in the rain, it looked muddy and old. However, Adam had no doubt in his mind that he was staring at the pink and red, one hundred-rupee bill. The 'Father of the Nation', with a stoic expression, was gazing at the stars it seemed.


Adam showed no surprise; the sight of money never surprised him. He grew up around money, lots of money. Instead, Adam wondered who could have dropped this bill at a place like this? It was no ordinary place, only the people who worked in the washing lines frequented this area, and considering their state of affairs, Adam doubted if any one of them could have been so careless. Who else could have dropped it? The question that raced through his mind was simple, "What should I do?"


"I should not take it," was his initial reaction, "I do not need it."


"Probably someone from the train heading south had dropped it," Adam consoled his conscience. "No, some child on the way to the grocery store may have dropped it," his conscience retorted. There was a tug of war going on in his mind, and inspite of all his convictions he was unable to take his eyes off the sinister bill.


Then as if the forces of reality were gaining on his conscience, he remembered that he had only one cigarette left in his pocket. The condescending smile of the boy at the shop flashed in front of his eyes. His subdued appetite became alive. Every limb in his body cried for nourishment.

"I have to make a decision quickly," he thought.


Moments passed by and he stayed motionless, only staring at the note. Wasn't it Gibran who said: 'When a hungry man listens to music he listens to it through his stomach'?

"I am hungry," he said aloud, "Besides no one is watching." The moment of indecision passed away quickly and his face assumed a look of a predator who had just spotted an unassuming deer. He jumped out of his hole and leaped towards the abandoned bill.


Standing in the middle of the track, he fished the pack of K-2 out of his pocket and tossed the empty pack high in the air. He took a deep drag; it felt good.


"Ah the joys of smoking," he smiled graciously. He thought of buying a better brand of cigarettes. He had money now. He moved his head around to insure that he was not being watched. He spotted no one.The only audible sound was that of an approaching train. He took a step forward; the bill lay within his grasp. He was bending down to pick up the note, when the sound of train passing under the bridge deafened him.


The engineers always blew their horns while the train passed under the bridge, just to be dramatic. The effect was deafening. Adam turned his head to watch the passing train.

The sound of the train still echoed under the bridge and the engineer was still blowing his horn. At that precise moment, the old engine released a washed coach destined to couple the lonely coach positioned inches away from the elated Adam, who was oblivious to the approaching danger. He was waving at the train instead, like a little child.


It was an express train and had 16 coaches. Adam had counted only nine, when the released coach collided with the one whose couplings would in turn hit Adam under his rib cage.

Before he could turn his head, the gigantic couplings had ruptured his upper torso. The contact was so violent, that Adam found himself flying in the air. During the split seconds, final flight of his life all Adam could think of was that he had forgotten to turn off the lights in Quarter No. 5. He knew Tara would be cross to find the lights on. He was dead before he landed on the gravel next to the track. The two coaches stood in silence, as if they also knew what had transpired.


Several people including Tara saw the body fly in the air, and almost everyone knew what had happened. There was no need to rush; hardly anyone ever survived. But some young men, including Tara dashed towards the fallen body, hoping that the poor fellow might still be alive.


"Miracles do happen," Tara silently prayed.


A small crowd had already gathered around the body, and someone had rolled Adam on his back, by the time Tara and the party had arrived at the scene. Standing on his toes, he peered over the heads of people around the body. All he could see were the feet of the unfortunate man. He recognized the sandals. His heart sank; somehow he knew that the hapless figure lying on the ground was none other than his friend. Quietly he eased his way out and headed back to his workstation.


People were inquiring about the identity of the dead man.

There was no need for Tara to volunteer information. Adam was not a non-entity; recognition would not take long. As he walked towards the washing lines, Tara wondered if Adam had left the lights on.


"I am sure he did," a smile appeared on his face, "he always did."


Tears that had been crowding his eyes slowly made their way down his cheeks and rested on his bosom. He remembered how he had always complained that things stood still for him.

Not any more, he thought and shouted in despair, "Certain things do change at Quarter No. 5."


A man walking besides him eyed him suspiciously. "Something has changed at Quarter No. 5," Tara bellowed. He remembered that he had forgotten to leave money for his friend that evening. Tara once again shouted in the night, as tears kept rolling down his cheeks.