Stranger than Fiction

As I roamed all over world looking for stories, I never realized that stories stranger than fiction lay right next to my pillow. Let’s begin with the saga of ’Daro’, an orphan little girl brought up by my in-laws at village Haveli Bahadar khan on Western bank of river Chenab, district Sargodha. Daro was a pretty little girl but not too bright. All efforts to get Daro educated failed. As she grew up turning into an attractive young lady, a spirit by name of Ashok fell in love with her. Ashok, who professed to be a barber, used to visit her and at times remained in her body for days. Whenever Ashok was in her, she called herself Ashok; and lazy illiterate Daro transformed into a very agile being. She could recite both the Muslim and Hindu Holy Scriptures with a surprising ease and fluency. She would be endowed with an unknown strength enabling her to lift heavy weights and could hustle away the strongest of man around. Only a local psychic, Saeen Naeta, could exercise some control over Ashok. He could even summon him at will or could shoo him away. Finally one day, everyone pressurized Saeen Naeta to ask Ashok to go away for good. He tapped the back of Daro and said ’Ashok, Go away and never return’. That day Ashok went away and never returned. Daro lives to this day.

Next is a longish episode about the ’curse of aunt Fateh Bibi’. My wife’s grand father Bahadar Khan was a revenue official during the British Raj. He did what all revenue officials’ do. Knowing that the British were going to bring canals to the area, he bought a big chunk at a throw away price when it was still an uninhibited thick forest. In addition, he got all his ancestral lands at Ferozepur, India, migrated to this place; setting up a new village naming it, quite appropriately, Haveli Bahadar Khan. His sister, Ma Rasul Bibi, was married just across the river in village Kot Sardar khan which had its own little history. Kot Sardar khan had came about as a result of a treaty with the British by two notorious decoits of the time - Khanjar Khan and Langar Khan, who had agreed to stop looting caravans in return for this land. In order to consolidate his position and a possible eye on the big land holdings of Sardars, Bahadar khan also got his only very young daughter, aunt Fateh Bibi, married to the very old Dilbar Khan of Langar khan clan. As was expected, no child came out of this wedlock and Dilbar khan died leaving behind a young rich widow. Thus began the long feud and enmity between the Chaudhries of Haveli Bahadar Khan and Sardards of Kot Sardar Khan, over ownership of Dilbar Khan’s lands.

While case rambled on in the Supreme court for years with A.K. Brohi and Mahmood Ali Kasuri fighting for the two respective sides, other developments continued to take place alongside. The Chaudhries had one sympathizer group in Kot Sardar Khan – Bahadar Khan’s sister Rasul bibi and her two sons – Feroze khan and Ibaad Ullah. One day Feroze khan came to aunt Fateh Bibi and told her that the Sardars were planning to whisk away all her gold and jewellery. He suggested that she should hand over her valuables to him for safe keeping and as soon as the case was settled, those would be returned. Aunt Fateh Bibi got duped in the sweet talk and handed over to Feroze Khan (later married to my sister) a trunk full of gold and jewelry. That was the last she ever saw of that and when repeatedly Feroze khan dilly dallied, she gave a curse that ’’the jewellery would sting like a serpent to anyone who wore it’’.

To cut story short, Feroze khan had three sisters – Zahra, Maqbool and Shano. They were all engaged in Langar Khan’s clan. When one day the three ’baraats’ arrived to take away the brides, Ma Rasul Bibi (sister of Bahadar khan) got them dressed in black colour as a show of displeasure to Sardars for their behaviour towards the Chaudhries. When ’baraats’ learnt that brides were dressed up in black, they felt cheated and returned without taking away the brides. All three sisters of Feroze khan, who wore that jewellery of aunt Fateh bibi, never made it to their homes; got tuberculosis and died one by one. Surprisingly, their mother, Ma Rasul Bibi and my sister, who lived in same very house, never got infected. Both had never worn that jewellery. Ma Rasul Bibi died years later at the ripe age of ninety. My sister, who lives to this day as healthy, has spent a life time of prayers fending off the curse of aunt Fateh Bibi.

The next two incidents relate to dreams and premonitions. When my wife’s great grand mother died and everyone was still considering a place for her burial, Saeen Murad, a far off relative stepped forward to say something. He said that the deceased had come in his dream the night before and had described a bush in the graveyard under which was buried the skin of a snake and she had desired to be buried there. Everyone rushed to the village graveyard and, sure enough, there was a bush of the said description. When they pulled off the bush, they were taken aback to find a skin of a snake there. The great grand Ma was promptly buried there.

A year later, my mother-in-law saw the great grand Ma again in her dream. This time she said that wooden plank on her coffin had come off loose and needed to be fixed up. Moreover, she added, that since grave was to be opened up, the coffin cloth could also be replaced. When they dug up the grave, they found the upper wooden plank pulled off from the base while the great grand Ma lay peacefully and intact with no affect whatsoever of a year’s stay in earth. They changed the cloth and Ditta carpenter promptly hammered in the nails.

I am a witness to the last occurrence myself. In 1980, my wife saw a dream that my servants were carrying me off from a graveyard. Next morning she disclosed her dream to her neighbour and promptly got two black goats sacrificed as ’sadqa’. A day later, I ejected out of my aircraft just after take off, because of fire, came down hanging with a parachute and landed right in the middle of a graveyard in Quetta runway overshoot. My hip joint got dislocated and right tibia was fractured. My two servants carried me out of the graveyard…..