pp.20-21

Actually, within a few months of her marriage to Giyas Ali, Akina Bibi had understood a certain fact: her husband had a tendency to latch on to only a few snatches of their conversation, ignoring the rest. He used them like the rungs of a ladder up a tree, to hoist himself to a higher level. And Akina Bibi was left to converse with the man above her using gestures. Continuing in this way for a few months, she found herself becoming adept at coining new metaphors whose skins Giyas Ali, amazingly, also learned to gently penetrate. One night, Giyas Ali woke up, sweating profusely. He found that Akina Bibi was also drenched in sweat. He asked, “Hyago, why is it so sultry? Is it very cloudy?”

Akina Bibi said, “When I heard a knock on the door a little while ago, I opened it to find that somebody had left a basket of areca nuts on the doorstep.”

Giyas Ali said, “Oh.” It didn’t take him long to fathom that the “areca nuts” signified that the sky was starry, and there were no clouds.

Yasmin bit on the date, and smiled at Giyas Ali. He smiled back. The cow said-

“Make sure you never cause her heart to pain,

If you do, my brother, Khuda, you will not attain.”

Giyas Ali said, “I should not even question her when I get home?”

The cow shook her head.

Giyas Ali said, “Then was the bird feather merely her whim?”

Yasmin asked, “And the date?”

Giyas Ali answered, “That had no purpose.”

The cow smiled.

Giyas Ali said, “What?”

There was no answer. He saw the hazy outline of a long-distance train galloping through the mist. When he looked closely, Giyas Ali saw himself seated at a window of that train.

pp. 88-90

The night seems to be almost gone. Bulbul feels chilly. He hears the thump-thump of someone skipping. Yet he doesn’t turn around. After a while, he sees Osman Chacha brushing his teeth at the pond. He goes to him and says, “O Chacha!”

Osman Chacha ignores him. He glances at him briefly, continuing to brush his teeth.

Bulbul says, “Abba cannot breathe. We need to take him to the hospital.”

Osman Chacha lowers his head and concentrates on cleaning his teeth.

Bulbul plops down in front, brings his face below Osman Chacha’s, and says, “He is really dying this time. Why would I ‘dishtaab’ you otherwise?”

Osman Chacha stands up and turns his back to him. Bul-bul goes and stands before him. “Mejda has a car. Please tell him to take Abba to the hospital.”

All that brushing has pooled thick saliva inside his mouth. Spitting near Bulbul’s feet, Osman Chacha says, “There are no doctors at the hospital now. Go home. Who leaves their father alone in this condition? In the morning, we will see what can be done.”

The spittle makes Bulbul sick. He wanders around a little longer and then turns homeward.

The road to his home looks desolate. It is almost time for the Azan for the Fajr Namaz to begin. Why is it still so dark? He gathers courage and looks around. As he walks on, the houses, the trees around him, even the stray dogs curled up and sleeping, move back from him, like disturbed souls. Suddenly that slim girl in Shah Rukh’s film, or maybe it is Firoza khala’s younger daughter, passes by. The girl wears a jute dress with a woolen shawl wrapped over it. Bulbul notices that the girl has a skipping rope in one hand, a jay-namaz in the other. Uttering a zikr of “Allah! Allah!”, the girl keeps walking. Bulbul cannot hold himself back anymore. He quickly walks up to the girl.

The girl says, “I am ready. But there is a prettier girl right behind.”

Bulbul looks behind her. There is no one. The girl laughs and says, “Oh, seeker of false love, true lovers do not and cannot act in this manner. First, you harbor false perceptions about someone beloved to Allah. If you had recognized her and seen her for what she is, she would have accepted you gladly. When I first saw you from afar, I thought you were a worshipper, an abid. But when you came closer, you seemed to be an arif, wise and kind. But when I talked to you, I realized you were merely beauty-crazed. If you were a true abid, then you would not have been attracted to anyone other than Allah. If you were an arif, you would have seen me and not my beauty. If you had loved me truly, you would not have glanced behind.”

Bulbul said, in tears, “But my father is on his deathbed.” The girl does not answer. She keeps walking and disap-pears. Bulbul does not know what the invisible holds. He turns his feet back to the realm of the visible and returns home.

p.64

Now, night descends. The trilling of crickets emerges like a secret assassin from the shadows of the ancient house. A faithful cat crouches at your feet. Dadi has been continuously calling out for you. Yet you do not answer. You feel the warmth and the softness of the cat’s fur on your feet, and laughter wells up within you. When you laugh, you forget the reason you have been sitting for so long in this infernal darkness. You are scared, and that is when you notice that the cat is staring at you. It has pricked up its ears at the sound of Dadi calling. It looks at you like it wants to seize and wrench you away from this darkness. You stroke its soft coat. You again hear Dadi call. But you do not move. You cannot let go of an overwhelming urge to plunge, perched on the back of a black buffalo, into a hyacinth-filled pond, and to sink into its soft slush and fall asleep entangled in hydrophytes.

Inside your slumber, though, you have never learned to sleep. Winds and clouds flit behind your eyelids; a black buffalo shoots milk from its tits; a murder of crows fly past.

Someone has left a dead fish on your bare bosom. Who? You see a man walk away whistling. The man looks so slender, so unknown. You ask, “Who are you?” There is no answer. You ask again. You strain your ears for a reply. You smell the dead fish rotting. Your stomach churns. You feel sick, like a pregnant woman. At that instant, your eyes fall on the cat. You realize that it is greedy for fish and poised to spring at your breast any moment. You go numb. Your head empties out like a dried well. You wait intently for the cat to pounce on the fish and unwittingly claw at your bosom instead. But the cat does not leap right away. It gives you some time, and then asks, “Why?”

Excerpted with permission from Giyas Ali’s Love and His Time Alone by Sadique Hossain translated from the Bengali by Nandini Gupta published by The Antonym Collections  2025