'I'

artwork by apurba

Mother must have told me this story a thousand times and every time I had asked her in an agitated voice, 'Amma, Amma, what made you suspect that I was not Amir?' A fear still lurked in Amma's mind that a child once lost could never be found again. 'Yes, it could as well be some stray child passed on to me just to console me,' she would say.

Mother's remark would shake me to the very core of my being.

Could it really be true? Had someone rally tricked mother by palming off some other child on her? Maybe the real 'I' was still wandering somewhere in the countryside or some unknown mother was holding 'me' in her lap. But who was I? Had I really been lifted from somewhere and carried through the darkness of the night to be placed in mother's lap? Such questions assailed me from all sides till it became a real mystery. I started doubting my own existence.

As I grew up a little I decided to go in quest of this Amir whom, in a fit of forgetfulness, Mother must have left behind sleeping in a train. Once I had even gone to see the rail track. On, Allah, how long the track was! It stretched on and on and did not seem to end anywhere.

When I asked Abba he just laughed. 'Silly boy! The railway line never comes to an end. It's a network covering the entire country.'

How long would the poor Amir, I often wondered, keep riding the trains? It was indeed so naïve of Mother to have accepted me as her Amir without questioning. Sometimes I felt that even Mother had some doubts about my identity.

For that matter even others would look suspiciously at me when I sat in their midst looking lost. They would call me by my name but it would fetch no response from me, as if this name did not belong to me. They were all the same amused at my antics. My elder sister would shake my head and ask: 'Where were you just now?'

'On the train, of course,' I would reply and they would start laughing.

Once Mother fell ill. Many days passed. Every night when I went in to see Mother I had a strong urge to lie down by her side but I was put off by her groans. So I would throw myself on the pile of dirty clothes and fall asleep. I really felt sore at Mother for not taking any notice of me. One night when I happened to go to her she gave me an angry look and said, 'Look at this brat! Since the day I have been ill he has not cared to come to me even once. As if he's not my son...'

I was cut to the quick and kept thinking the whole day about what she had said. Had they really cheated Mother on that dark night? Maybe I had remained unconcerned with her illness because I was not her son. My elder sister, Bhaiyya and Sabira worried over Mother all the time and looked so woebegone. , but I felt that she was not really ill, that she was just putting on an act and wondered how long she would continue with this game.

Mother was annoyed with me for I was neglecting my studies and loafed about in the street. 'Can't you stay in the house even for a minute?' she would ask me testily.

So astounded was I at Mother's tantrum that the cricket ball I was holding slipped out of my hand. What did Mother mean by this jibe? Had she still a sneaking fear that one day I would disappear and join my real family? I did not eat for two days. Mother thought I was ill. 'Why don't you go out and play?' she asked me. 'Or do your homework.'

While supervising my studies Abba used to say that if I did not understand some problem, I would do well to tackle it bit by bit. 'Spread it out thin and then attack it.'

But the question that was now tormenting me has spread out too thinly for my liking, to the point of engulfing my whole mind. At last everybody thought my brain had become addled. One of my elder sisters complained to Abba, 'Abba, Amir does not do his homework. He just sits there staring into the distance with the book open before him.'

'We never had a dolt in our family,' father replied angrily. 'If Amir has taken into his head to become a rickshaw-puller there's nothing I can do about it.'

Father had said 'in our family'. In other words, it meant Father's family as distinct from my family. The thought pained me. Now that I came to think about it, I was much fairer than Father. When I was a child and Father would cradle me in his arms, his sister used to say: 'Bhaiyya, a fair child in your lap looks quite incongruous. They would you've stolen the child.'

I would immediately get down from Father's lap. My brothers and sisters tried to keep me at arm's length. Sometimes they went into a huddle, whispering among themselves, as if they knew my story.

At night if there was a knock on the door, I would sit up in bed, looking flustered, fearing that someone had at last come to fetch me. I would wipe my nose against Mothers rough kurta and start crying.

'Here, give me light!' Mother would cry. 'I must make sure that it's Amir and none else.'

They would switch on the light. Holding me away from her she would scrutinize me intently. 'No, no, can a lost child ever be found?' She would resignedly place her hand on my head. 'Poor child!'

Mother suddenly woke up one night, rubbing her eyes. 'Why are you trembling?'

'Amma, Amir is frightened,' Sabira said. 'He fears someone is going to carry him off.'

'How does anyone dare to while I am here?' Mother fondled my head.

'No, I must go.' I brushed aside Mother's hand.

'Where'll you go? And with whom?' Mother asked me in surprise.

Where? And with whom? The whole night these questions kept ringing in my ears.

As it is well nigh impossible to trace a lost child without somebody's help, what made it almost a superhuman task in my case was that I had to trace my own self. I had to look for myself among playing children, in running buses and speeding trains.

One day I saw a woman beating a small child as she dragged him along the road. 'Why are you so cruel, beating a child so mercilessly?' a passing woman admonished her. 'Is he not your child?'

Somewhere a child who had been handed to an unknown woman in my place was also being beaten by that woman who was supposedly his mother. Why do women beat others' children so mercilessly? Even my own mother when she is annoyed with me almost loses her head. Perhaps she is angry with me for having come to stay in her house.

When I was lost to my mother I became two persons instead of one. One part of me belonged to Mother and the other constituted that particular child who was sitting on the berth of a railway compartment, watching the world go by in order to recognize a familiar face among those unknown persons. When will I discover the real 'I' by merging the two persons into one?

I walk up and down the balcony of my house for hours together, hoping that someone would suddenly drop out of the blue and ask me how I happened to be here. 'Go back and join your kith and kin.' But I suffer this ordeal in solitary isolation. Nobody comes to my rescue. The other 'me' must also be passing through the same ordealcast adrift without any moorings. Far away from home, he must be sleeping on the berth of a train compartment which hurtles along endlessly without reaching anywhere. The black locomotive will pull the train through dark tunnels. And terrifying mountain ranges.

I often dream that I have uprooted the vast network of rail tracks, bringing the trains all over the world to a standstill. And yet that fool of a child keeps sleeping in the train. Why doesn't someone wake him up? 'Wake up, boy, run home.'

One day I came across an announcement in the newspaper: 'Athar, where are you? Return home at once. Your mother misses you. Her condition is very grave. Nobody will reprove you.'

So this advertisement was meant for me. I read it again and again, and set out in search of the given address.

I knocked on the door of the house given in the address. 'Have you lost a child?' I asked.

They looked bewildered at my torn and shabby clothes, at my bleeding feet and dust-smeared face.

'A mad boy! Keep out of his way,' a small girl struck a warning note and quickly closed the window of the house.

I turned away, utterly disappointed.

Then I saw a boy coming in my direction. He was of the same age as mine and looked sad and frightened. He gave me a quick glance as if he was trying to recognize me.

'Stop!' I said.

He stopped.

'Were the people in that house waiting for me? I asked and held the announcement before him to read.

'Who are you?' he asked, looking up from the newspaper.

'They have all refused to recognize me. But I've a hunch that my near and dear ones are waiting for my return. They are sure to recognize me the moment they set their eyes on me.'

'Stop telling lies,' the young boy exploded with anger. 'This announcement is about me. I'm the prodigal returning home.' He looked at me with suspicious eyes.

'So you're the one who uprooted all the rail tracks?' I asked in a cheerful voice. 'So you've woken up from sleep at last?'

'But who are you?' he gave me an intense look.

So the whole rigmarole had started again. I stood there thinking for sometime and then jumped with joy.

'Now I know,' I said. 'you're you and I'm I,' again jumping with joy. 'We've been restored to our respective homes.' I broke into a run, delirious with joy.

I kicked at the stones lying in my way. Stepping away just in time from racing cycles and speeding cars to avoid colliding against them and parrying the stones that were hurled at me by naughty children. I just ran on, happy in the thought that at last even those heartless children had finally recognized me.

'There goes a lunatic!' the people of the mohalla shouted.

You, all of them had recognized me. Now even my mother would have no difficulty in recognizing me. So 'I' at last had been found. It had been a long and frustrating journey and I had returned home dead broke with fatigue. But I could see them from a distance. They were watching me with curious eyeseyes full of compassion and deep concern for me.

They caught me in time from falling down.

'Your son has returned!' they cried. 'Look at the state he is in!'

They pushed me into Mother's outstretched arms.

'Allah, it's indeed my Amir!' She held my face between her hands and looked at it, puzzled.

My heart was extinguished as if all joy had suddenly gone out of it. Looking disconsolate, I pushed Mother away and mumbled to myself in a listless voice that I had yet to discover who 'I' was.

Jeelani Bano is a well-known Urdu writer and playwright. Jai Ratan has translated many Urdu and Hindi novels and short stories.