Free The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad

bath, too, if you wish it.’
    â€œAs the story ended, the enraptured audience let out an audible sigh of exhilaration and dispersed slowly, while we walked back to our camp, discussing the village mullah. By the time we reached our camp, we had decided to invite the mullah over to dine with us. Our messenger returned almost immediately and told us that the mullah asked what was cooked for dinner, and would come only if it included meat.
    â€œMullah Barrerai, as he introduced himself, liked his food and proved to be capital company. It was also quite a surprise for us to discover that he was totally free from prejudice. We were strangers in the area, but as the conversation progressed, we became a little bolder and started a discussion with him on the sermon of the evening. ‘Tell us, do you believe in the story about the donkey?’ I asked him.
    â€œ ‘No,’ came his quick reply.
    â€œ ‘Do you believe in houris with chests as broad as you described, or grapes the size of water casks?’
    â€œ ‘No.’
    â€œ ‘Then why did you tell these lies?’ I asked him.
    â€œAt my question, Mullah Barrerai started laughing. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘These are not lies. These stories are like ointment, meant for healing, or like a piece of ice in the summer, with which water in a glass is cooled. Would you call that piece of ice a lie?’ He continued to tell us, ‘What do these people have? Hardly enough food or water in normal times, and after a few months, summer will be upon them, when most of their springs will dry up. For the next few months, they will need hope as a thirsty man in the cities needs ice in his water, and I am giving it to them. Call them lies if you please.’
    â€œ ‘We still call them lies, but we understand.’
    â€œWe remained in that camp for over a week, and, in that period of time, we came to know what an important role the mullah played in this tribal community. People came to him with a variety of issues—property quarrels, marriage problems, thefts, suspicion of witchcraft, murders, or tribal disputes. Barrerai would drop into our camp every evening, and we learned that he was a widely traveled man and had lived with most of the border tribes at one time or another. Before we finally moved camp, he told us that he would be leaving that community after a few days. We were not overly surprised, because, from all he had told us about himself, we gathered he was a wanderer and needed a change now and then. This confirmed that he was not only an unusual person but more so an unusual tribal mullah, because any other would have been very reluctant to move once he had carved out a place and a secure livelihood for himself.
    â€œOnce we left the place, we forgot him completely. It was hardly likely that we would ever meet again, but strangely enough, our paths did cross, in fairly unusual circumstances. We had put our troops through a strenuous monthlong training exercise and decided that they deserved to relax. So it was arranged that a few sheep be slaughtered and an evening’s entertainment be provided for the troops. Our commanding officer sent word to the nearby town, and a couple of days later, a small band of musicians together with singing boys and girls arrived at the fort. That evening, some time after we had retired to our rooms, a sudden commotion erupted in the camp, followed by a few rifle shots. We rushed out into the dark and found that a soldier had tried to assault one of the dancing girls, but the man in charge of the dancing party had come to her rescue. In the scuffle, the soldier opened fire with his rifle and hit the girl’s protector in the shoulder.
    â€œWhen I went to visit the wounded man in the hospital the next morning, who should I find but my old friend Mullah Barrerai? It was quite a surprise to find him, of all people, acting as the manager of dancing girls. Barrerai