When the judge asked Chandni what made her believe her husband was insane, she said, ‘Amanat converses with the dead’
MOST friends and relatives have abandoned Amanat, who claims to have talked to the dead. His wife, Chandni, too, has deserted him. She proved in court that Amanat was insane. Amanat did not contest the case. Without making a fuss, he left the house. It was a tragic culmination of a love-marriage. Amanat and Chandni had fallen for each other when they were students in the Department of Political Science in Karachi University not many years ago. They overcame innumerable hurdles, appeased parents and succeeded in entering wedlock.
I, on my own, had begged Chandni not to press for separation from Amanat. I kept insisting, “He desperately needs you, Bhabhi. Don’t abandon him.”
Once she had wept, and said, “I am not only Amanat’s wife, I am a mother as well. I want to keep my children away from his evil influence.”
“There is nothing wrong with Amanat.” I had defended Amanat, and said, “He is only a voracious reader.”
“I live with him under one roof,” Chandni had replied. “I just can’t believe he is not insane.”
In court, too, she had vociferously insisted that Amanat was insane. When the judge asked her what made her believe Amanat was insane, Chandni said, “Amanat converses with the dead.”
The judge asked, “Are you sure?”
Chandni shook her head in assertion, and said, “Yes, your honour, Amanat talks to the dead.”
The judge asked, “Have you heard the dead talking to Amanat?”
Chandni looked at her counsel, and said, “No, sir.”
The judge asked, “Then on what basis do you claim Amanat converses with the dead?”
Chandni again looked at her counsel, and said, “Your honour, Amanat jots down his conversation with the dead.”
The counsel of Chandni produced documentary evidence, a few handwritten pages, to supplement his client’s claim. The pages contained transcription of the conversation between Amanat and Bertrand Russell.
The judge examined the handwritten pages, and then he looked at Amanat, and asked, “Is this your handwriting?”
Amanat calmly replied, “Yes, sir. That is my handwriting.”
“How come you enter into dialogue with the dead,” the judge asked.
Amanat replied, “It depends on how much dead you are, and how much alive.”
“What do you mean by that,” the judge asked.
“Right from his arrival on this earth, man strides towards his preordained departure, death.” Amanat said, “Each passing moment takes us closer to our exit from this impermanent world.” Everyone in the courtroom looked at each other.
“When you are sufficiently dead while being alive, you have better chances of entering into conversation with the departed souls.” Amanat said, “I am more than sufficiently dead.”
In the larger interest and proper upbringing of two children, the court granted separation to Chandni from Amanat. In the opinion of the learned judge, Amanat had some kind of dementia, mental illness.
Amanat lives alone in a one-room apartment. After the court’s decision, he was considered unfit for government service and removed from his teaching assignment in a college. The reason for his removal from government service denied him entry into private service as well. To earn his livelihood, Amanat now sells newspapers and magazines near Saeed Manzil. With the passage of time, most of his friends and relatives have forgotten him. I have made it a second habit to see Amanat on weekends at his residence. We cook daal, vegetable and rice, and relish our meal in the balcony overlooking the ocean. At times, we discuss forbidden metaphysical topics till late in the night. We discuss intolerance and political and social degeneration in our country. We deliberate on the growing confusion in the mind of our children.
While seeing me off, Amanat always inquires about his children, Dasht and Misra, “Have you, of late, seen Chandni and my children?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Do they live contented?”
“Yes, they do.”
Amanat always shows me the transcription of his dialogue with the dead. Instead of his recent conversation, let me reproduce an extract from the evidential document that was presented against him in court, his dialogue with Bertrand Russell.
Amanat: What was the predicament of early man?
Russell: The savage, like ourselves, feels the oppression of his impotence before the powers of nature; but having in himself nothing that he respects more than Power, he is willing to prostrate himself before the gods, without inquiring whether they are worthy of his worship.
Amanat: Do you think early man had to endure suffering for his ignorance?
Russell: Pathetic and very terrible is the long history of cruelty and torture, of degeneration and human sacrifice, endured in the hope of placating the jealous gods.
Amanat: Do you see any change in man’s suffering in modern times?
Russell: In a modern totalitarian State, matters are worse than they were in the times of Socrates, or in the times of the Gospels.
Amanat transcribes his dialogue with the dead in longhand, and keeps the inscribed pages in his table’s drawers. I would occasionally reproduce extracts from his conversation with Khalil Gibran, Joseph Conrad, Hall Caine, Hemingway, Socrates, Kirshin Chandar, William Saroyan and the politicians.
