beauty for beasts

"She was only 12 when she was raped for the first time."

Pouring the wine and passing the cup to me, Abdullah spoke slowly as 
he poured the wine and passed me a cup.

"So what is strange in it, this is very common in our country. Some 
are dropping bombs in mosques and others are raping poor girls, and the 
gentle fellows are just burying their dear ones; and very few are 
raping the whole lands. And we are searching other lands talking about our 
father-land like a volcano vomiting."
 
"Cheers," I clinked my glass with his, " let us drink and forget our 
aching prayers."

The unmistakble theme song from Magnolia Girls snaked through the 
resounding beat at the one of the most reputed Arabian night-clubs.

"But you did not listen my complete statement."

Abdulla complained, placing his glass on the table, I moved the 
glass. He seemed to be very excited.

"Yes, I know, what do you want to say more? ... then she left her 
home, was sold into a brothel house and was subjected to endless rapes, 
same as it has been happening with our country for ages, once sold to 
pimps and now endlessly raped by the leaders. What great stuff to write 
a story. What do you people think, can such plain stories be converted 
into literature?"

I mocked.
 
"But raped by whom?"

"Definitely by some man, beasts never rape human beings."

"Then listen, she was raped by her father."

"What?"

I could not stop my shout.

"Yes, facts are always strange, my dear writer."

"But why? I don't believe it. No, never, father can't do it 
with his daughter."

"Be patient, I am going to tell you everything."

I was almost lost, in very strange feelings of such bitter truth. 
Abdullah was my friend since my college days. We had very good times at 
our college. He was a villager with a stout body and wide shoulders. He 
liked to have fun and carouse but was never interested in studies. 
Therefore he could not complete his education and was shifted to Dubai, one 
of the richest states of Arabs. His father had established very good 
business over there and our Abdullah became a rich man without doing 
anything. I, on the other hand, kept on studying, unaware of dark future in 
Pakistan. Many years later when I found an opportunity of a job in 
Dubai, I left Pakistan without even giving a second thought to it. But I 
was soon subjected to terrible loneliness. Abdullah used to take me to 
some bars at every weekend. As he was a born storyteller, I used to 
enjoy! his beautiful stories flavored with dirty jokes about sex.

One day I asked about Neeha Roomi, a famous model and dancer on Arab 
TV. He told me that she was a good friend of his. I believed it at 
once, because he was an attractive man with a large heart to spend lavishly 
on such girls. The next weekend he took me to the bar where Neeha Roomi 
was going to perform, and now he was telling the story of Neeha. 

"Why are you silent?"

"Nothing, just thinking about the inhumanity of humans." 

"I would like to listen to the whole story."

"The whole night is ours, don't worry, I will tell you 
everything, see the dancing girls first."

The dancing girls were moving their bodies awkwardly, just to prove:
"Look, we have a body!"

But I did not find any beauty in their submissions, I believe beauty 
lies only in resistance.

Abdullah was a bit intoxicated, he stood up saying:
"I am going to have a taste of these dancers."

I looked in his burning eyes and said:
"Yes, dancing is sex's respectable sister, so go ahead and 
dance."
 
I was now alone to think about Neeha, who was being awaited 
anxiously. As darkness had prevailed there, the dim red lights of Saloon started 
shimmering, and the Arabic particular song: "Ya Habibi, ya Habibi", was 
stirring the drunkard souls of dancers and suggesting a heightened 
level of sexual energy. Everyone was trying to hide what actually he or she 
was. What a tender trap this bar is, all you want to do is dance and 
kiss. In what a wonderful age we are living, wow!

There was now a beautiful American song:
"Lose yourself in the lights of illusion
Dreams become nightmare in daylight shadow"

Soon Abdullah came down from the dancing floor saying:
"My dear writer, dance is a wonderful activity of modern age, dance 
and drink is a marvelous activity to forget the guilt that whispers 
from the pores of our souls like sweat. This is the place where the heart 
accepts everything, and we forget everything about our disturbing 
conscience."

"Guilt? But guilt for what?"

"All the bloody acts we do daily to earn more and more money, our 
lust, our never satisfied greedy desires, cheating and lot more 
meaningless practice to maintain the stiffness of our neck finally lead us to the 
eternal shallowness. Finally echoes of all these acts scorch our brain. 
So it is better to dance; forget the job you hate; forget the greedy 
world; dance and drink until you are exhausted and unable to think ...
thoughts which kill us."

"Modern Don Juan, I am not interested in your speeches, tell me 
about Neeha Roomi."

Abdullah looked at the distant light and started the story:
"I was on my Teens when Neeha was born. She was the daughter of 
Fatima Dai. Dai is the title of those women in villages who earn their 
livlihood by singing songs at marriages or births of male children. These 
Daies live to entertain others. Adults laugh at them; lovers take 
delight by using them to deliver secret messages; children giggle and elders 
wave at them. Nobody cares for her joys. But they live on the joys of 
others, they are like minstrels.
 
When I came of age and started feeling the stormy urge of sexual 
desires, my friend Raheem revealed another secret of Fatima. He told me 
about the feeding time of young men. Feeding time was the sexual training 
of youth from Fatima. Excited to have the pleasures of sex, one day I 
stole five rupees, fee for feeding, from the old box of my grandmother 
and walked to the dark hut of Fatima.

I reached her muddy and dirty room like a thief andknocked on the 
door with my trembling hand. She came outand looked at me with a very 
strange look, because I had never gone to her home before.

"Is your mother okay?" she asked. 

She must have known my mother was pregnant.

" No, no I am not here for my mother's sake, actually I have come 
here..." 

I could not speak more. 

"Don't be afraid--tell me frankly, why have you come here in this 
darkness? Is your cock disturbing you?"

"Cock?" 

I could not understand her pun. 

"But I don't have any cock!" I exclaimed.

"Ha, Ha?"

She laughed loudly and said:
"If you don?t have cock, then what will you do with me?" 

I got her point and started giggling, and said hesitantly: "Yes Fati, 
I am here for feeding." 

Finally I used the code words.

She held my hand and took me inside. 

"Where is my fee?" Before starting she asked. I gave her five rupees. 

What happened next was quite disgusting for me. There was an 
intolerable smell of rotten dung in her body and mouth. As I was 
immature she did everything and then asked me to run away at once. 

"But why should I run?" I asked. 

"Because now it is feeding time for your father, since your mother is 
pregnant, you know."

I felt as if somebody threw bomb on me. I ran away and went to the 
open field near a graveyard. That night I wept bitterly. For many years I 
remained abnormal sexually. It was exposed to me like a stinking smell 
of a dead animal. 

I never returned to sample the charms of Fatima Dai.

Just one-year later Fatima was married to Gulami. Gulami was the male 
Dai, having the same status of Fatima. After her marriage, I heard that 
Fatima had changed herself. Many times, I myself saw her burning 
candles in the dark mosque of the village. 

A year after marriage, Neeha was born. Strangly, Neeha was extremely 
pretty, sometimes God shows us such miracles that a pretty girl from 
very ugly parents.

In those day some people from the Pakistani Army came in our village 
and recruited all the young men of our village forcefully. There might 
be some tension on the Borderline of India. In such situations only the 
poor are the scapegoats, so Gulami also became a victim. 

As a poor man is unlucky by birth, Gulmi was arrested by the army of 
enemies, and disappeared for years. After ten years when he came back 
it seemed, as if he was an old man of one hundred years. He looked like 
a moving skeleton with a long white beard. He again lived in the 
village from which he'd been taken. But now he was not a normal man, 
most of the time he would remain lost. Somebody poisoned him against 
his wife and daughter. Fati, on the other hand remained like a saint
in his absence. But Gulami was sure that Neeha was not her daughter.

I do remember the innocent Neeha of those days. She would go to 
mosque to learn Holy Quran, with her covered head. But Gulami had 
turned into a beast. 

One night he locked the door and raped his angelic daughter. Her 
cries brought tears in the eyes of even stonehearted people of village. 
I am sure God was also weeping in the sky. 

Fati and Neeha remained there for a few more days and then 
disappeared suddenly. 

Gulami lost his head and disappeared in the barren mountains and was 
never seen again. Surely the wild beasts ate him. Soon people forgot 
that tragic incident and Neeha became a story of the past.

Many years later, I recognized Neeha one night in a club. She was now 
a changed person, after her bitter experiences in brothel houses. As 
Dubai is a better place for such earnings, so she came here to get the 
maximum price of her beauty."

Abdullah lit his cigarette and turned his face towards the stage, 
where the compeer was announcing the arrival of Neeha. The appearance of 
Neeha made people crazy. I was amazed to see such dazzling beauty in 
dance. Her every step held the breath of life. With an airy, carefree 
style she was arousing the emotions of people. I had never seen such a 
beautiful body with such perfection of melody. All the people were lost in 
her delightful dancing beauty, as if she was made of ivory and rose 
leaves. Her sparkling eyes were giving hope to all, I could hear her 
beauty saying: 
 
"Well, I will take you to heaven and show you the pleasures!"

But I was thinking about the Neeha who was raped by her father. She 
kept on dancing and mesmerizing the people. 

"What a beautiful combination of beauty and arts, but what a tragic 
fate deep down!" I thought. 

After the show, Abdullah introduced her to me: 

"He is a writer; he has a rich heart and a great love for life and 
the arts. Would you join him?" A smile of pleasure passed across her 
face, and seemed to linger there.

"We live in different circumstances, but it seems I know you; how 
can we harmonize ourselves?" I asked her. 

"Well, do you hear sound of sand ceaselessly running? Do you hear 
the waves splashing against the cliff? Do you hear steps creeping around 
the wet roads on a stormy night? Do you hear the songs of a traveler 
singing in the vast desert? Do you hear the tragic music of falling 
leaves in autumn? Do you..." 

"Yes, yes you are like me, a child at heart in this mercantile 
society, still loving nature and arts, where even feelings have become 
commodities."

I stood up and started walking with her. Outside the bar she looked 
at the moving waves of sea, and started walking along the seashore. 

"So, you are a writer and you want to write a story on me," Neeha 
said as she bent down, took a stone, threw it on the wild waves. She 
spoke again: 

"What odd chaps you writers are! You sell the miseries of people and 
gain your reputation. It is silly of you! You sell the miseries of 
others and when you die others publish books on your own miserable lives. I 
learned long ago that we should walk away from this life silently. 
Silence has its own beauty and grace. What an odd desire it is to write 
about others and in turn be written about by others. What a foolish desire 
to be known. Why don't we realize that all roads lead to the dark 
grave?" 

The waves of sea were splashing against the stones. Suddenly one fish 
came out of water by the force of the waves and started jumping on the 
sand. Neeha ran to the expiring fish, took it in her hand and then 
threw it into the water, saying, "The story is simply this, we are out of 
water and it is death which throws us again in water. In this world we 
are actually out of water, but thanks to death we are taken back to 
life. Death is actually the real name of life, the rest is all sand! Our 
desires for wealth, for fame or for some beautiful woman are just sand. 
Ah, we foolish humans, we keep on loving sand!" 

I was feeling as if I had come face to face with someone who was so 
fascinating that I felt myself merging with her. 

"I know how poor you writers are, Neehas are just accident, 
actually you have to show yourself in society from time to time, just to 
remind the people that you are still alive. You keep on telling great 
stories to absurd minds and at the end it is revealed to you that you 
yourself have become a tragic story-- how terribly unjust of life."

There was a pause. I could see the bright eyes of Neeha in that twilight
of early morning. I could not resist my desire to kiss those beautiful
eyes. I took her face in my hands, kissed her extraordinarily pretty 
almond-shaped eyes. But she remained indifferent, lost in her own thoughts. 

"You are really beautiful!" I whispered. 

She looked at the rising sun and spoke softly: 
 
"Yes, but it is beauty for beasts." 
 
Neeha turned to the road and disappeared in the crowd of people. I 
was left alone on the sand of the beautiful beach, waiting for some 
beautiful hands to throw me into the water.
 
The End. 

:: bio ::

Muhammad Nasrullah Khan is a prolific writer from Pakistan whose work 
has already found critical acclaim in his own country and -- via the 
web -- all around the world. 

He says: "I live in a country where people are afraid of life. I want 
to reawaken their oppressed or lost dreams; I want to share their woes; 
I want to share the suffering of their shrieking souls. Humanity is 
dying and I am trying to put a few drops of water on its dry tongue so 
that it might face death bravely. My writing is the echo of their flagging 
hopes and raging desires."