Remember Aziza, Mardana’s granddaughter from the end of The Singing Guru? She is a major
character in Into the Great Heart. We
see her grow up from a child to a woman and witness the tragedy of a female
musician born into a restrictive Muslim household in an already restricted
society and world-culture. Women have had it rough throughout history, and its
current expressions in the last few centuries have only confirmed this fact.
Even as we speak, women are being preyed upon and demonized by an essentially
male ethic.
Bhai Buddha, too, is a major character and narrator in
Into the Great Heart. In this
excerpt, Bhai Buddha brings a puppy and a rabab given to him by Bebe Nanaki. In
contrast to Aziza’s is Amro, Bhai Lehna’s daughter, who, in my account, learns
to play the rabab, sings, and in some objective accounts, goes on to become a
preacher.
“Is this
ours?” Aziza asks hopefully, picking it up. The puppy licks
her face all over. Aziza sees the
rabab that Buddha has left standing by the bed, and drops the puppy on
the ground so suddenly, she whelps.
“Where did you get this? Whose is
this?” She stammers.
“Bebe Nanaki gave it to me. She said Bhai Phiranda made a
few small ones for children. They are very good quality,” Buddha explains.
“They couldn’t be otherwise. He’s the
best rabab maker in the
world,” Mardana says.
“Bebe Nanaki gave one to Amro, too. She
said girls are pure
enough to play them.
They are pure because they give birth to the whole world! Bebe has one for you,
too, Aziza, just like this one. Why don’t you take this and I’ll take the other
one. Here.”
Buddha holds it out to her and Aziza,
stunned with a feeling
greater than delight or joy, reaches for it gently,
lovingly, and cradles it in her arms. She looks up at her grandfather, her eyes
wide and brimming with tears, and says quietly, “See? This is the message,
Daadu Jaan.”
Buddha looks at her
questioningly, and she explains,
“Daadu said if Allah sends me a
strong message, I can play the
rabab.
It couldn’t be stronger than this!”
“Tell Bebe
Nanaki to keep her rabab. Aziza can’t have one,” Nasreen, Aziza’s mother,
shouts from the corner of the courtyard where she squats on the thadaa, vigorously
scrubbing pots and pans with ash.
Aziza’s face
screws up in sudden, spontaneous anger. She stomps her foot and says, “I want
it.”
“You will go
into purdah soon
so how are you going to play the rabab? And who is going to feed the
dog?”
Nasreen washes
her hands quickly, grabs the rabab out of her daughter’s hands and
thrusts it back into Buddha’s arms. “And we can’t keep the dog either. Take it
back.”
Aziza bursts
into tears and runs screaming into her grandmother, Fatima’s, arms.
“I will feed
the dog,” Fatima says, looking at her husband holding the puppy near his heart.
“And say
something about the rabab, too, Daadi Jaan!” Aziza shouts.
“She has a few years left before she
goes into purdah,” Fatima adds.
“Better be
careful,” Mardana whispers to Fatima. “Ask her father first.”
“Haven’t I
already told you?” Nasreen says, beginning to scrub the utensils even more
vigorously.
“As the elder
in the house I insist on it,” Fatima says, taking the rabab from Buddha
and giving it to Aziza.
“You don’t
know what you are starting,” Mardana warns his wife, his features contorted
with worry.
“When will
things start to change?” Fatima says, her voice verging on a scream.
Aziza takes
the rabab from her grandmother with extreme reverence and goes into the
loom room to be alone with it, as with a long, long lost friend. She has keenly
observed and heard her father and relatives playing it all her life and doesn’t
need to be told how to hold it. Even her first, tentative tuning of it has a
measure of mastery, so when she starts to play it a bit, everyone in the
courtyard stops in brief wonder.
~
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