Free No God in Sight by Altaf Tyrewala Page A

Dad helped him gather them. When Nawaz-saab finally managed to sit down, I believe all three of us considered it a personal accomplishment.

Mr. Joshi,
Nawaz’s Student’s Father
    He sat across us, staring like a Buddha at the floor near his feet. Nawaz-saab seemed just slightly older than Abhay. Chunky beads of sweat swelled on his forehead and rivulets flowed down his sideburns into his sherwani’s collar. Must not have been earning enough to afford square meals—the poor fellow was practically floating in his clothes!
    So it was all about this. Abhay sneering at our favorite TV shows and groaning at our nightly radio programs. Abhay flinging aside our
Reader’s Digests
and
Chitralekhas.
The past three weeks of making Shilpa and me feel like disastrous parents. This scrawny man with a mouthful of paan was to amend Abhay’s dull upbringing by teaching him Urdu poetry.
    Abhay says we are cultureless. That his mother and I never exposed him to the arts; never made provision for the refinement that comes from contact with sublimity. Doesn’tAbhay realize? He is our art. He is my mural, my novella, and the verse I invested my years in. Instead of providing for him, would he rather I had painted and his mother sung?
    Intoxicated by the self-obsessed psychological hyper-awareness his stay in America has triggered, Abhay thinks he can demand answers and justifications from everyone. I suspect he has the courage to do so only with us, his parents. His girlfriend in America has him whirling on the edge of her whimsical fingernail, customizing Abhay as her fancy dictates. It makes Shilpa angry at times. But I say, ‘Let go, let go. In a month Abhay will return to America. Then we can resume our peaceful routine.’
    Children overestimate their importance in their parents’ lives. Toward Abhay I feel a cool detachment. When he told me how much his American employer pays him, I had felt some astonishment that this youngster, whom the world is wanting to own, is a product of
me!
But otherwise I feel toward him a neutral objectivity. Abhay must never learn of this, of course. He must believe my enthusiasm during his visits to India.
    When I married, I fell in love with Shilpa. Two years later, I lost my heart to my daughter Avantika. And three years after that, Abhay became my world. Now? No one. I am in love with no one. I have replaced them all with nothingness. A blank mind. Borrowed opinions. Manufactured entertainment. A thriving gift shop for my livelihood and ahard bed as per my tastes. What else is there to life? Music? Painting?
Poetry?
Bah! Art is for those who are clumsy at real life. Such people squirrel away everything—memories, emotions, and opinions—for later.
    When you love like the ocean and wound like Christ, art and beauty ooze from everything you do.
    Abhay needs to become a parent, I think. And so does Swati, his girlfriend. They need to snap out of the clinical preoccupation with the mind and feel the mess, sweat, dirt, blood, and mucus of real life. The day Abhay hears the first screech of their newborn, I am certain all this regret over an artless upbringing and head-breaking over Urdu poetry will seem a frivolous waste of time. Children are the ultimate grounding for the rootless.
    I just hope Abhay isn’t as unfortunate as me, to fall out of love with his own offspring. Or maybe…
    Maybe when it does happen—when Abhay’s heart doesn’t beat for his child anymore—this Urdu poetry will stave off the nothingness and give Abhay something to look forward to. Maybe this brief contact with art will be all that remains. Could I also find something to look forward to other than the shop, a cricket match, or the next meal? Is there really a way out of this nothingness? What the hell is Abhay going on about?

Nawaz-‘saab’
    So one day even Mr. Joshi decided to learn Urdu poetry. He said, ‘Nawaz-saab, I want to sample profundity before it is too late. My son says you are an excellent teacher. Let me