Social Distance

Farhat Moazam*

Ramzan and I live on plot number 3, street number 5 in Defence Housing Society. He has a room outside the kitchen (which I never use) furnished with a bed and a TV (which he does not watch). For 5 years, 6 days a week, Ramzan says salaam alaikum Baji and opens the gate when I leave for work in the morning and says salaam alaikum Baji when I return after dark and hand him 50 rupees to buy one chappati for me and four naans for him. Now I go to my office only one day in the week.

It is late evening. I unchain myself from my computer, stretch my back, and step into the yard. Ramzan is there and I fret that the fragrant kamni flowers have not yet bloomed this summer. I will feed them with lassi (drink made from yogurt and milk) again he tells me. I laugh. A week later two of the kamni bushes are laden with perfect, white, six petal stars perfuming the night. “I gave them lassi,” Ramzan says, “and then I hit them with water. That makes the flowers open.”

It is close to midnight. Ramzan knocks on the kitchen door. “Baji, tujh ko chirian achee lagtee hein (you like birds).” I did not know he knew. “Tu meray sath aa (come with me).” He beckons, I follow. Outside the kitchen, on an eye level hanging branch of the bougainvillea sleeps a tiny grey bird, no bigger than my little finger, head tucked under a wing, claws of one leg clamped around the branch the other leg nowhere to be seen. Where is its other leg I wonder. “They sleep like this, on one leg, when they are behosh (unconscious),” Ramzan says. He brings his finger close to the bird who does not stir. I watch in amazement. Later, Google informs me that some birds go into “torpor” during sleep and some even sleep on the wing.

I ask Ramzan to defrost the small refrigerator in my living room. He says, “Baji, frij may tera sirf aik paan reh gaya hay (you have only one paan left).” The paan shop from where I get my paan is no longer open now. That evening Ramzan hands me two katha stained packets with paan, “dekh Baji, teray liyee paan laya (I brought paan for you).” He points to a crumpled plastic bag in the rickety kitchen fridge and tells me it contains tambaku (tobacco). He confides, “subho ko mera bhaija nahin chalta jub tak khata nahin. Tu bhee layna (My brain does not work in the morning until I take this. You can take it too).”

Bleary eyed I walk into the kitchen to find a clean cup to fix myself coffee. Ramzan looks up from the tea he is preparing on the stove. He comments that I was up very late last night. “Tu bohat kaam karta hay (you work too much),” he remarks. I ask why he says so. “Mein tahajjud kay liyay teen bajay utha to teri bati jaltee thee (when I woke up for my night prayers at 3.00 am your lights were still on),” Ramzan says. Surprised, I ask if he really says his tahajjud prayer. “Hanh, roz (yes, every night),” he replies simply.

My citified driver had told me, “Baji, Ramzan does not know what should be recited in the prayers, he just goes through the motions he has seen others do.” I think of Rumi’s poem. Moses berated a simple man who was addressing God tenderly, “O my sweet Lord, if you would only come to visit me I would put fragrant oil in your hair, comb it, pick out all your lice so I can make you happy.” God reprimanded Moses for not recognizing someone who was a true worshipper.

* Farhat Moazam, Professor and Chairperson, Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT, Karachi, Pakistan