'Gulla Butt' street is situated just a few paces from Ichra buss stop, Lahore. Not so long ago, before the great divide took place, it was called the 'Guru Nanak Street'. Mostly Sikhs and Hindus occupied the neighborhood, then. Once they left and their houses accommodated the new inhabitants, it was instantly decided the street ought to be renamed; in order to celebrate the bravery of Gulla Butt Sahib who led a patriotic mob that attacked and killed as many as ten infidels. Some say that he was responsible for fifteen deaths but he never claimed responsibility for the demise of five devoured bodies that were found later in a house which, since then has been declared, haunted. The late Baba Basheer once told me that they would have never discovered the bodies, had the smell of their rot not made life miserable for the neighborhood. He added that the house failed to catch anyone’s attention until this particular incident occurred. It had always been dark, narrow and secluded—a perfect refuge for a prostitute. Perhaps that is the reason why Gulla Sahib didn’t capture the house and left it for a deserving Muhajir’s occupation. He did capture four of the biggest houses in the neighbor, though. And that made him the wealthiest man, around.
The neighborhood has changed since then. The red brick houses with green wooden windows have been replaced with modern, delicate structures.
Saleem sahib’s house is the biggest and the most magnificent of all. It overlooks the beautiful Jamya Masjid and stands proudly like a guard-tower concealing the somewhat poor demeanor of rest of the neighborhood. It is adorned by a spacious lawn and an artificial fountain, reinforcing Saleem Sahib’s social status. Saleem Sahib is unquestionably the richest and thus the most prestigious man around. He works for Pakistan Wapda as a high-ranking officer and owns property worth millions of rupees, other than the four large houses that his father Gulla Butt left as a legacy.
Last year there was a rumor that his wife intended to move their residence to a posh area but that would have been rather disastrous to his chances in the next national election; Prudent as he is; Saleem Sahib dispelled any such probability. He is sure to win this time around. After all he has become the biggest donator to Jamya Masjid and promised to construct another one in near future. For the past two years he holds monthly Milad parties and all and sundry are welcomed to his house-- All but the prostitute who has stubbornly occupied the haunted house.
Everyone knows that the woman is a prostitute. There is little that I know about her, expect for the fact that her mother had migrated from Amritsar. Her father was killed by an Infidel-crushing Sikh mob. Crusaders on both sides of border were plundering their respective Infidels.
Her mother couldn’t escape their wrath, either. She was paraded naked through the streets of Amritsar and raped by several men. History has it that most of the captured women were hacked into pieces with Kirpans and holy swords. The street dogs fed on their intestines for days and the fume of their devoured bodies remained in the air, for a long time.
Ironically, she was lucky enough to survive and make it to her paradise. She reached Pakistan some days after they discovered the devoured bodies in the haunted house. It was instantly allocated to her. It is there that she gave birth to a daughter—Of course, a daughter of infidels.
The poor woman survived a few years and died the day East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Prostitution must have been a rather easy choice for her. After all sleeping with a believer can not be more difficult than having been raped by half a dozen infidels.
Baba Basheer told me that no one from the neighborhood attended her funeral. Since then, her only child has taken up her profession.
I remember the day I passed my matriculation, all the noble men gathered at Saleem Sahib’s place to find a way to evict the prostitute from the neighborhood. It was then, that Saleem Sahib suggested that she should be completely ostracized. For, only such a practice would force her to leave the place sooner or later. There were rumors that Saleem Sahib owed a favor to her.
Anyways, since then, the woman has nothing to do with the affairs of neighborhood. She is not an important person at all and I ought not mention her lest she had something to do with an incident that happened last night.
I do entertain myself with a drink or two once in a while but I am quite sure that I was not drunk last night. It was an unusually clear night for a polluted city like Lahore. I could see several stars and I decided to count them as I failed to get any sleep. Yes, I sleep at the rooftop in summers as I cannot, yet afford an air conditioner. It was then that all of the sudden I sensed a conspicuous smell. At first, I thought that someone had set the garbage on fire but the smell was distinctly different. By the time I climbed down the roof, it had really aggravated. I couldn’t bare it anymore so I decided to investigate. I reached out for the street which was well abandoned. The neighborhood was oozing with fumes that I had never sensed before. I walked around and I was surprised to learn that it all originated from Saleem Sahib’s place. After much deliberation I rang the door-bell. The telecom system immediately buzzed
“Who is this?” A feminine voice inquired.
I replied that I needed to talk.
After some minutes the main door cracked open and a young woman attended.
Unmistakably! It was Najma; Saleem Sahib’s only daughter. No one has ever seen her without hijab and there she was standing—Naked.
Her skin looked wrinkled and her breasts hung lose as that of a very old woman. Blood trickled down from her lips, profusely. For a moment I forgot that there was any smell in the air and fear gripped me, intensely. I think I must have started fidgeting.
“Aha! It is you!” she smiled
“Abba isn’t home right now. I think he has gone to meet Maulvi Jee. You can check him out at the mosque or Maulvi Jee’s residence. And please do not show-up again. The Chaukidar has gone for a leave and there is no one else in the house right now.”
I stood there frozen for a while and then moved away from the scene, sluggishly.
I decided to head towards the mosque. The smell had got more intense by then and with every passing second it was getting stronger.
I discovered a couple of shadows outside the Jamya mosque. As I got nearer I recognized the voices. It was Maulvi sahib and Saleem Sahib discussing the Hadood ordinance issue. I shouted from a distance:
“Maulvi jee! Where is the smell coming from?”
Maulvi Jee turned towards me and I swear it wasn’t the Maulvi Jee I knew. Maulvi Jee had turned into a pig. And along him stood a creature I’d never seen or even perceived.
Saleem Sahib had turned into a giant lizard. His face looked more like that of a snake, though. His large black tongue clicked out of his mouth every two seconds. His flesh was melting constantly and I could even see his rib bones, distinctly.
Now I knew where the smell originated from. His body emanated that smell and for a brief moment all the disgust and fear disappeared and I desired to attack and kill him. Loathing has its way; I turned my back and scooted off.
I decided to visit Mian Zia’s house to inform him of the episode. I rung the bell and out came Mian Zia rubbing his eyes. He had a face of a mouse. He had not seen me. Immediately, I jumped and hid behind Malik Chohan’s donkey cart that he leaves outside his house, unfastened. I decided to ring other door bells and surely everyone in the neighborhood had turned into animals. Malik Chohan had a donkey’s face, Nadeem Sheikh had an owl’s and Chaudry Jamal had a cockroach’s. Their bodies constantly emanated smell and it got increasingly difficult for me to breathe. Ultimately, I decided to head back home and suddenly I thought of the prostitute who lives in the haunted house.
“She must have turned into something very horrible”
I dared myself to check. So I quietly moved out into the street again and made sure that the neighborhood had lulled back into sleep. I walked slowly towards the prostitute’s house and knocked the door gently.
The door wasn’t accompanied with any electric bell so I had to knock several times and out she came.
She was human. Her body didn’t stink, she was properly dressed and looked beautiful.
“Come in please. What is the matter, you look perturbed!” she said.
I reluctantly moved into her house. She switched on the electric bulb and offered a chair to sit.
“Can you sense the smell?” I asked.
She smiled and nodded “It is the smell of devoured souls. The rot of humanity! Someone forgot to burry it”
“You must leave this place immediately or they will kill you too!”
As she said that I glanced into the rare mirror that hung across the old wall of her living room.
I had taken another form, too.”
Baba Basheer once showed me some photographs that the infidels had left behind, before leaving the country.
I looked like one of them. I had been transformed into an Infidel. |
Submission Name: The Infidel.
