GRAND MA'S VOICE

The morning wakes up,
Stretching and yawning

The sun sneaks in to my room,
Caressing my face with its uncomfortably warm hands,
Disturbing my sleep,
Dragging me out of slumber

The gentle breeze pushes the heavy linen curtains
To get in to the room,
And ask me, patting gingerly on my back,
To open my eyes

Faraway the loudspeakers sing Bhajans
The birds on the trees in the backyard start the morning ragas

In my house, a velvet like voice rises,
Melodious like best of the ragas
The holy words from the holy book
Wrapped in my Grandma’s voice

It fills the ambience with tranquillity,
A strange kind of serenity
Pervades my soul
I enjoy the moments of bliss,
Keeping my eyes closed,
Body motionless

The aroma of Arhar dal pervades my room
As the cooker whistles in the kitchen
Again and again
I return to my senses.

The sound of loudspeakers
The twittering of birds
The gusts of wind
The warmth and glow of Sun
Everything is there

But no voice rises from the Grand ma’s room.

A PIECE OF MY WRITING IN BROOKLYN RAIL

The Alchemy of Identities by Abdullah Khan

In 1996, a day after India’s fantastic win over Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup Quarterfinal, I was sitting in the offices of a leading English daily in Patna, the capital of the northern Indian state of Bihar. At that time, I used to be a freelance contributor to this national paper’s local edition. The paper’s features team and I were, of course, discussing cricket. Everybody was trying to guess which strategy the Indian team would adopt against a resurgent Sri Lankan team in the semi-finals. READ MORE
http://brooklynrail.org/2009/09/express/the-alchemy-of-identities

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An excerpt from my novel appears in the Denmark based Literary Magazine ZAPAROGUE

A TREE ACROSS THE ROAD

A Novel by Abdullah Khan

CHAPTER 1 : A LADY IN BLACK

The cooker whistled in the kitchen. The aroma of freshly cooked arhar dal pervaded Arif’s room.

“Wake up beta! Breakfast is ready.” His mother’s voice reached his ears. He turned over in bed to avoid the glare of the sun coming in through the half-open window. Drawing a golden, silky Bhagalpuri chadar from under the pillow, he covered himself with it and went back to sleep again.

Once again the cooker whistled. The sound of footsteps approaching his room woke him up suddenly.

“Must be Abba”, he thought, fearing his father’s wrath if he found him in bed at this hour. He got out of bed hurriedly holding the loosened upper end of his lungi. Standing there he arranged the lungi, wrapping it around his waist and then knotting it properly. He rubbed his eyes and looked towards the door.

It was his brother, Zakir. Relieved, he sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes half open and blurry. His feet were tentively touching the floor, feeling its cool indifference.

He stayed that way for a while.

Then he stood up, stretched and yawned.

.

His left hand moved swiftly to cover his wide-open, yawning mouth.

“Toba Astagfar! Toba Astagfar! Toba Astagfar!” He said. A smile widened his lips as his Dadi’s warning flashed in his mind, “Cover your mouth with your left hand and say Toba Astagfar thrice whenever you yawn. Otherwise, the shaitan will piss into your mouth.”

During his childhood, he had believed that the shaitan, the devil, was ever ready to piss into every yawning mouth that did not say Toba Astagfar and was not covered properly. So, whenever he yawned he did both. If sometimes he missed doing so he would spit non-stop, and then gargle till he was convinced that he had got rid of the last traces of the shaitan’s urine. He would sometimes use a solution of soap for gargling. He had never seen the shaitan but had believed in its formidable presence.

Even now, at twenty-three, he could not help saying Toba Astagfar whenever he yawned.

He looked around for today’s newspaper.

On the table near the window opening to the east, there were books and his notebooks but no newspaper. He even looked at the tangerine bookrack but all he saw was fat volumes of chemistry texts, novels, back issues of India Today and Sportstar, and a few more books. His eyes rested on Train to Pakistan, a novel by Khushwant Singh that was to be returned to Sinha Library latest by tomorrow, otherwise he would have to pay late fine.

“Zakir, where is today’s newspaper?” He asked his brother standing on the balcony. Zakir was tall, almost six feet, fair complexioned with athletic body, broad forehead, sharp nose, and narrow eyes. There is a mole of black pepper size on his left cheek. He looked like a refined and taller version of film star Govinda. Arif had walked till the door opening to the balcony. Zakir stopped brushing his teeth, spat out the foam and turned to reply ‘ Its there, Bhaiyya!’, Zakir pointed his fingers towards a bedside table.

The Saturday special pull out, Career and Competition Times, accidentally slipped out of his hands.

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