Call of the Roohani Bird

CALL OF THE ROOHANI BIRD

by Noora Kamar

Content warning: grief, death of a parent

Haleema Beevi always boasted that her ears were sharper than even that of snakes. She heard the calls of the Roohani Bird before anyone else. She would then say, “I wonder who’s going to die today.” When the phone rang in a couple of hours or—on the odd occasion—in the briefest of moments, she would chant under her breath: inna lillahi va inna ilaihi raji’oon, the du’a for the dead. 

My mother would then announce the death of a long-suffering relative or the untimely end of a neighbour. The house would be a flurry of motion. I would dig up an old hijab or a bland dupatta to wear over my head for what would be a long funeral if it was a close relative’s. I would also bring out my Yaseen book buried deep within my cupboard drawer. It would have been lying there since the funeral before. 

I did not know the Yaseen by heart. Umma knew. I had tried to learn when I was a child. I had given up because I didn’t see the point. Over the years I learned to make do, and at some point, acquired a small Yaseen book that I could carry with me. I was presentable at funerals, and reciting the Yaseen gave me a brilliant excuse to blend in. The Yaseen had been my refuge from any obligation to display grief. 

It was Haleema Beevi who heard the Roohani Bird that day too. Her usual neighbourhood jaunts had brought her to our home. Armed with the plastic bag of raw rice she got from the kitchen, she paused at the back door on her way out.

“There’s the bird again. I heard it twice this week. Raheem kaakka and Shailaja are both gone now. The bird calls for Hindus too, did you know?” 

I didn’t know.

Without waiting for my answer, she said, “Moley, your Umma is doing better, no? Give her my salaam.”

I was not in the mood to listen to the neighbourhood gossip prophecy Umma’s death.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Beevi? Should I call your son to come collect you?”

“No no no. I’m going only,” she scarpered. She didn’t want her son to know of her grocery expeditions to her neighbours. Even talks of death were measly when compared to her son’s wrath. She rushed through the makeshift back gate, making her way to Amina’s house to, no doubt, get some of the freshly laid eggs from their hens. 

Umma’s room was the same as I had left it. The two malakhs were still there, sitting on either side of her gently breathing, fragile body. They were twins, mirror images of each other, a mixture of cloud and smoke and no visible facial features. Each held a big and heavy book. If I squinted just enough, I could imagine fingers writing in the pages in smoky movements. Their cloudy heads were bent intently, doing their last stretch of calculations of rights and wrongs. I didn’t want to know whose book would be heavier in the end. 

People had been streaming into the house since morning. Maamas and maamis, velyaappaas and velyummas, cousins, and nephews and nieces, all near and far. There was also the floating crowd of kaakkaas and thaathaas, unrelated but relevant, who came and went, promising their return. The word had spread about Umma. 

Haleema Beevi had managed to sneak into the kitchen earlier to score her regular ration of rice amidst the slowly building chaos in the house. I had stumbled upon her on my way to find spare bedding for the guests. The house was a big one, and we had plenty of rooms. But everyone would want to flock together, skin to skin, breath to breath, exchange stories of deaths past, and tales of manufactured misery. I had to find enough bedding, sheets, blankets, and straw mats to fill the large hall and one or two of the bedrooms on the ground floor. It was almost a relief to be surrounded by so much noise, so many bodies. The kids blocked my way forward, falling down, picking each other up, so many hands caressing so many others. 

All day, I kept moving. I picked one mundane task or another to do despite the number of helpers around. Several times, without my noticing, I’d be back by Umma’s bedside. I would feel foolish for having left in the first place. Then I’d soon remember another errand that needed running, and I’d wander again. The end of someone’s life is a busy time for everyone else, myself included. 

I found some spare bed sheets and blankets in an upstairs bedroom. They were nowhere close to what was needed. I crossed Laila maami’s path on my way downstairs. She stopped me on the staircase and took on the whole burden herself.

“Where were you? Ibrahim kaakka and his wife are here. They were looking for you. They’ve come a long way. Make sure you see them. They’re getting very old. Who knows what’ll happen when,” she said, expertly tucking the tall load in her arms. 

I merely nodded. 

“Go sit by your mother,” she said. “You know Sifin can’t leave her kid alone. You’ll have to be there. What if someone else comes to pay their respects?” I was irked by the casual death sentence. 

“She’s not dead yet.” I said. My voice had taken on an edge. Exhaustion was beginning to consume me.

“Where is the kaappi powder?” she went on. “We’ve run out of tea as well. Nothing to give the guests. I’ll have to find Shaanu’s kid to run to the shop. Mine be blasted.” 

I nodded again. Laila maami, Umma’s youngest sister, had to be the most exhausted of us all. Except maybe Umma. I could not fathom the exhaustion that a stroke-ravaged body might feel. I guessed waiting for death must be exhausting. 

She scurried away, carrying the load, muttering something about having too many kids in the house and not being able to find where hers had gone. “Useless,” she said. 

Today, I didn’t get that tag. I was the dying person’s daughter, a person of honour. I could do nothing today and still be the most useful I’d been in all of my existence.

Umma had been ailing for some time now. We were all away, working and building our lives in strange lands. It was easy to ensure she was looked after. Together, we could afford Steffi, the home nurse. I didn’t know much about her, only that she came with good credentials. The frequency of Umma’s calls to me, and I assume to my brothers and sister, had reduced a lot ever since Steffi came to the house. She was in the room next to Umma’s now. I heard her loud sniffles while I wandered around. I suspected Laila maami’s hand in strategically placing Steffi in the next room. The nasrani girl’s unbridled tears contributed to the atmosphere of mourning, and keeping her away from Umma prevented her from being the highlight. Maami might have been a little disappointed that I wasn’t breaking down in tears and beating my chest, but she milked Steffi’s tears well. 

The malakhs had stopped writing, though their books were still open. They were staring at Umma. What were they seeing? I could see no traces of anguish from the stroke she suffered two nights ago. She wanted to be at home when the time came, she had told us in almost all the calls she made to us over the past year. And the doctors said it was time. 

I’d arrived a day after she was admitted. Not the first to reach her side, not the last. But I insisted on settling the bills. It was an insufficient instalment of an old blood debt. I arranged for Umma to be brought home, supporting a devastated Steffi along. I was envious of Steffi for her tears. She had been here. I hadn’t. I didn’t want to be. My fault. In the next few hours, we managed to tell everyone who needed to be told. 

None of us wanted to be alone with each other. It was better to be alone in a crowd.

The menfolk were in the living room and under the pandal outside. Their babble travelled across the house to the kitchen at the back. Bored, I suppose. Their role would only begin afterwards. They had nothing to do until then. My brothers, Ajmal, Nabeel, and Siraj were with them, orchestrating conversations among a people we had all decided to leave behind. Laila maami had taken over the rest of the house, commandeering lesser aunties and cousins. I was an intruder in my own home. I had offered to help and was told: “It’s okay. You go be with your Umma.” 

I had not been with her in a long while. Why start now? 

My sister, Sifin, would not trust her baby with me. Maybe she too needed to do something to avoid Umma’s room. Siraj had sought me out a while ago before he left for the mosque to make mayyith arrangements. 

“Do you need something, ittha?” 

“No.” There was nothing any of us needed anymore. She would be gone soon and, with her, our last ties to this place and house. “But Laila maami does. She was asking about kaappi powder. Or was it tea powder? I’m not sure. But could you buy something just to appease her? The woman seems to have taken over.” 

Siraj smiled.

“Some things don’t change, eh?”

I could feel the corners of my mouth protest as I smiled in return. In a sudden awkward movement of limbs, he pulled me into an all-embracing hug, its unfamiliarity shocking us both. We had not fully gauged the years that had gone by. 

“I’ll be back soon, ittha.” 

I nodded, hearing the faint echoes of what I had said to them all those years ago. That I’d be back soon. We were eventually drawn back here by the coercive reaches of Umma’s impending death. 

People kept pouring in and out of the room. Someone had started reciting the Yaseen elsewhere in the house, probably after offering a late Isha prayer. I could not hear Steffi anymore. She must have dozed off. I heard the last clangs from the kitchen, heard some people leave and the rest slowly settle in for the night, their expectations dashed. No one would be sacrificing their sleep waiting for death to come. 

The house lulled itself into a slumber broken only by the occasional cries of the very young. I looked at the malakhs and they looked back, this time shrugging their shoulders and leaving the question in my eyes unanswered. They too did not know when the Rooh Malakh would arrive. Their duties were almost over and so were mine. We waited for the end. 

I woke up slumped in the chair just as the day started breaking. A baby’s screams had jolted me awake. Sifin’s probably. She was a screamer too. Vappa had to take her on midnight drives to calm her down. I remembered because her screams used to wake me up. I remembered Vappa dying as well. Car accident. I dreamed about seeing his bloodied body in the hospital bed before Mehboob velyaappa had pulled me away. The malakhs with their account books were there too, standing guard next to Vappa. 

I wasn’t surprised to see them next to Umma when I arrived at the hospital two days ago. If Haleema Beevi was to be believed, the Rooh Malakh would come soon. I hadn’t seen it come for Vappa. This time, I would keep my eyes peeled.  

The dawn birds’ calls mingled with the first sounds of the house. Laila maami must be waking the women for Subahi prayer. I thought of Haleema Beevi’s Roohani Bird. How much of it was she making up? Umma didn’t die yesterday even after Beevi had heard the call. Did someone else die in her stead? Maybe one of Beevi’s countless other acquaintances. She would be sad when Umma left. Her ration of rice from our house would disappear. Haleema Beevi and Umma had an unspoken pact. Umma would provide Beevi a constant supply of rice all year round, and not just during Ramadan, in exchange for a tête-à-tête over Beevi’s slaked-lime-flavoured tobacco, areca nut, and betel leaves wrap. And Beevi would keep Umma’s generosity a secret so Umma was spared visits from others. Haleema Beevi reaped the benefits of monopolising Umma, and Umma enjoyed the good Beevi’s visits. She kept Umma informed about the happenings in the neighbourhood. 

Alone as she was, she was in the thick of things, my Umma.  

The house would have to be sold. None of us were living here anymore. It would take ages for any of us to travel here and keep tabs on the home and the fields. I would have to send Steffi away too. She and the house would be the last of Umma’s remnants. I would have to extend my stay here a bit, get a wifi connection to get back to work, ask if they could pull the cables to the house. Umma did not have time for internet. “I’m too old,” she said. I hadn’t argued. 

Laila maami looked in. 

“Didn’t sleep, moley?” 

“Mmmm.”

“I’ll make you some tea. Wait.” 

My head snapped back from the vanishing ends of maami’s saree to the malakhs who had abruptly shut their books. I was certain no one else heard the decisive thuds of a closing that had waited a lifetime. They turned their heads to greet the new arrival standing on the other side of the bed from me. They said salaam in a tongue I did not recognise, but the meaning was clear. The malakh had come for Umma’s rooh. I uttered an involuntary salaam too, wishing I had worn my head scarf. The rules of modesty might not apply to malakhs. Also, I did not think Umma’s deathbed was when I should be trying to reclaim rituals long relinquished. 

But I leaned forward and adjusted Umma’s head cloth. She was particular about things like that. Things like scripture-prescribed dignity. The malakh reached for Umma’s hand, held it in the tenderness of its own hands of undulating smoke. I took the other one. The wrinkles in her skin pulsed under my touch. 

The Rooh Malakh gently pulled the silk-fine thread of my Umma’s rooh out through her fingertips. 

It must have been all of five minutes. In tune with a time slowed down, there arose deep hollow cries from within me, which reverberated around the room, enveloping Umma’s body. The cries surged forward, combining with the soul in the Rooh Malakh’s upheld palm to take the shape of a silvery bird. It spread its wings and took flight, echoing my cries of grief. I heard Laila maami behind me gasp as she set the glass of tea down. 

She stepped towards me and held me as loud wails escaped her in chorus with mine, entreating the rest of the house to wake and join us. Our cries mingled with those of the Roohani Bird as it swooped across the room and flew out of the bedroom window. All three malakhs had vanished, their work complete.