The Great Khan was worried today. He could not locate his donkey. It was his favourite donkey and also the strongest. He relied upon his favourite donkey to carry him up and down the tough and steep slope pathways in the secret mountain areas up there in the high mountains. There were no pathways for motor vehicles or horses or mules. Only the toughest donkeys could make it up the really narrow trails to the village of the Great Khan, hidden away in the clouds, up there in the highest of the high mountains.
"Pahadi Baaz" he called his favourite donkey, meaning 'Mountain Falcon'. Everyone in his great household knew that they should not disturb or talk to the Great Khan when he was worried. The Great Khan had gone and sat under his favourite tree, up out there, right out there on the ridge, overlooking the great valleys down below the clouds, thinking, thinking, thinking. He was trying to recollect as to where he could have forgotten his favourite donkey, but his memory seemed to be failing him.
And as it always happened, and as the Great Khan hated it always, his wife's brother, whom he hated the most, came along, with his wife seated on a donkey that was obviously struggling to carry her, and his two pesky kids. The Great Khan hated his wife's brother, this one particularly, more than the other. This one did not seem to have any job, did not seem to do any work, and probably kept taking money from his elder sister, secretly. The Great Khan knew all about it, and kept quiet about it. He rationalised that it was probably better to avoid seeking to know about the missing money than to have to hear from his wife about all the problems that her brother was having in his family life, especially with his wife, who seemed to need at least three donkeys to carry her up and down the mountain paths.
The Great Khan thought that his wife and her two brothers, and their mother, and their kids were all like a bunch of rabid goats, going about "mei, mei, mei" in the mountains, and the valleys seemed to be echoing, "mekaaa, mekaaa, mekaaa". This tree, at the extreme ridge, away from his house was his best sanctuary. He could sit here, and gaze out there on the valleys and the clouds below, and never have to worry about hearing his wife and her family and their bleating about.
The idiot brother-in-law knew that the Great Khan was not to be disturbed if he was to be seen sitting at this tree, out there on the ridge. But, he was an idiot, as he was from birth, and more so, since his marriage, and especially later, since his sister would come and stay with the other brother when she would come to visit her mother. The idiot's wife would keep on at him, about why would his sister prefer to stay with the younger but richer brother, and not with the older but poorer brother. He would naturally escape to be with the Great Khan, for the anger of the Great Khan was not as fierce as facing his wife, sister and mother.
The Great Khan saw his idiot brother-in-law coming up to join him to sit under the shade of this wonderful tree. Quickly, he moved his hookah and chillum to the other side to protect it from the idiot. He kept wondering about his missing donkey and trying to figure out where he could have forgotten it. The idiot brother-in-law came up and bowed, and said, "O Great Khan, Salaam. I am happy to see you here, away from all the noise and sound in the village. This is a good place indeed. I am told that you are very disturbed today, so I will not disturb you."
The Great Khan sat quietly, smoking on his chillum, protecting the hookah from the fog and wind. His dog, an enormously large but extremely lazy hunting hound, sat next to him, seeking the warmth of the hookah. The Great Khan looked at his dog for support against the idiot brother-in-law and asked the dog, "Oye, you barood (= gunpowder explosive)" - for that was his name - "Oye, barood, tell me what should I do with this idiot brother-in-law of mine? He tells me he will not disturb me, and yet is foolish enough to come here and talk to me and sit with me."
The hunting hound looked up at the Great Khan and replied, for it was true that they could talk to each other, in a manner that only they could understand, and others only thought that they were but grunting at each other. The hunting hound replied, "Oye, old friend, this idiot of yours comes out only to escape from the horror of having to hear his wife and his sister and his mother talk together. Where else would he go? Imagine, just imagine that he thinks that sitting with you is less dangerous."
The Great Khan nodded and grunted in agreement. The idiot brother-in-law sat quietly, slightly away from the ridge, for he was frightened of great heights, except when he was walking along with his donkeys and his wife, and praying that if the trail would give way, it would be the others who would go down and he would be safe. The hunting hound continued, "Oye, ask this idiot, if he would know where our friend, your favourite donkey, our pahadi baaz, might be. He may have seen it somewhere, or may have heard about it. Or, he may know what to do, and we can send him to search for our friend."
The Great Khan nodded again, and turned to his idiot brother-in-law, and said, "Oye, you idiot, you who cannot walk properly in the mountain trails, you who are an insult to the family that you were born in, do you know where my favourite donkey, the wonderful pahadi baaz may be? I am missing it since yesterday, and I do not know where he might be. I was everywhere yesterday, down in the valleys, and up in the village, and to and from the neighbouring villages, to the prayer place and to the serai. Do you know, or can you think of how to search for him?"
The idiot brother-in-law was surprised and frightened. Surprised, because the Great Khan did not normally talk to anyone when he was seated under his thinking tree, and with his enormous hunting hound. And frightened, because there would be something wrong, seriously, because the Great Khan was actually asking for his help. But, idiot that he was, and disgusted and tired as he was with his wife, sister and mother, chatting away non-stop in the house, one could actually hear their shrill voices, at this distance away from the house. Idiot that he was, he was also happy that the Great Khan seemed to actually need his help. But, frightened and the idiot that he was, he did not reply. He stammered, some sound, in reply.
The Great Khan seemed to expect that sort of reply from his idiot brother-in-law. And explained to him about the missing donkey, his most favourite donkey, his pahadi baaz, the great and most famous donkey of all the village. He was missing since yesterday. And could the idiot brother-in-law actually help him try to find out where he could be? Where could he have been left behind? Or where could he have wandered away to?
The idiot brother-in-law stood up and walked away to meet the Great Khan's brother. He was the more sensible and less violent sort of person. He would know what to do with this problem. The Great Khan's brother heard him out and decided that this would not do. Such an important problem could not be left to the Great Khan's idiot brother-in-law. He finished eating the leftover lamb leg that he had hidden from his wives, and called out to his hounds, brothers of the Great Khan's hound, and went up to the tree where his elder brother would sit, when he wanted to get away to be in peace.
The Great Khan did not mind his younger brother disturbing him. He was fond of him. It was their style and fashion that they would sit together, for days and weeks, outside their homes, in the meagre hours of sunlight, with their hounds and donkeys, and would sit and sit and sit in silence. They would never speak to each other. They were just happy to be with each other, and to be away from the misery of having to hear their wives talk to them about their own families and whatever it was that they seemed to talk about. The hounds were all fond of meeting up, for they were all brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts. Nobody knew their relationships any more.
The Great Khan's younger brother was quite a large man, and thus was called the Big Khan in the village. There were other brothers, Little Khan, Small Khan, Fat Khan and one another, his name I forget. It cannot be Thin Khan, for there was no such person in the village. The Big Khan spoke to his brother, for he knew him well, and said, thus, "O Great Brother, I heard that your great donkey is missing since yesterday. Someone could have stolen him. For, it is unlike you to forget your great donkey, and it is unlike your favourite donkey to go away, wandering away by himself. It cannot be that you have begun to forget, and it cannot be that your great donkey would become disobedient. So, I think, it must be that someone has stolen your favourite donkey."
"Come, let us go and meet the Khan of the Prayer Place. He will be able to tell everyone from our village and the five villages who come to worship together, that your favourite donkey is missing. He will not say that it must have been stolen, for otherwise the person who has stolen him will be frightened and may go to another village and sell him. Let us go and request the Khan of the Prayer Place to include our prayer in his list of prayers from all the people from the five villages." And thus, it came to be, that in the rarest of all days, the Great Khan came walking to the Prayer Place, something that he would never have done, if the day was not so terrible.
The Big Khan spoke to the Khan of the Prayer Place, and they went in and sat with the other devotees. It was the habit of all devotees to come and submit their prayers to the Khan of the Prayer Place, and he would read them out to the brethren who had assembled. He would not read out the names of the embarassing prayers, but would only read out the messages and the prayers. He informed the Big Khan that the missing donkey was to be the fourth prayer, and assured them that they could leave after the fourth prayer, for the guilty person would then get courage and strength to get up and go and fetch the missing donkey. The Big Khan agreed with the wisdom and suggested to the Great Khan that they could sit nearer to the rear door, behind all the brethren, so that they would not be noticed, and that they could then leave easily, after the fourth prayer. The Great Khan agreed. He usually agreed with his brother at such places, because he had come here very rarely, and had never submitted any exclusive prayer.
They sat at the rear of the hall, very close to the door. The Khan of the Prayer Place began reciting the submitted prayers. The first one was a simple one. It was from one of the young boys, from a neighbouring village. He had submitted a prayer that he should be allowed by his father to go down to the city in the valleys and purchase a good automatic rifle and bullets, so that he could go out into the valley and someplace else, and travel around the nearby places, safely and without any threat to himself. The Khan of the Prayer Place read out the prayer, and recited a small prayer of his own, to bless the courageous boy in his great adventure of going to the valley and traveling around. Purchasing a automatic rifle and bullets, was a normal thing, he informed the brethren, and one should not waste a prayer in this manner.
The second prayer was something more complex. It was from the rich grocer who had returned from the valley, and had found that his beautiful wife, was sleeping, and had not cooked any dinner for him. She had not waited up for him, and had locked herself in the bedroom and did not allow him inside at night. The servant boy had said that she had spent the evening with an elderly Khan Saheb who had come covered in a blanket, and could not be seen clearly, and had sat with the rich grocer's beautiful wife through the evening. They had asked the servant boy to sit outside the house, because they had wanted to check the accounts and rewrite the account books and that they should not be disturbed.
The rich grocer's prayer was that he wanted to make sure that his wife would come back to her senses, and stop inspecting the account books with strange and unknown elderly Khan Sahebs, for all his account books were correct, and he knew that. So, the rich grocer wanted that the Khan of the Prayer Place should read out a prayer to rid his wife of her curiosity in his account books, for the books were in his shop, and none were to be found in the house, and therefore she could not actually inspect the books. The rich grocer wanted that his beautiful wife should stop wanting to audit account books that were not in the house, and also that, as an afterthought in the prayer, that the elderly Khan Saheb who had tied up his donkey at their house, should take it back.
The Big Khan and the Great Khan looked at each other, startled. The Great Khan remembered where he had forgotten the donkey. Hastily, he asked the Big Khan to go and ask that the fourth prayer may not be read out aloud, for he had to go and get his favourite donkey from where he had forgotten him yesterday, when he had gone to help the grocer's beautiful wife audit the account books that were not at the house.
"Pahadi Baaz" he called his favourite donkey, meaning 'Mountain Falcon'. Everyone in his great household knew that they should not disturb or talk to the Great Khan when he was worried. The Great Khan had gone and sat under his favourite tree, up out there, right out there on the ridge, overlooking the great valleys down below the clouds, thinking, thinking, thinking. He was trying to recollect as to where he could have forgotten his favourite donkey, but his memory seemed to be failing him.
And as it always happened, and as the Great Khan hated it always, his wife's brother, whom he hated the most, came along, with his wife seated on a donkey that was obviously struggling to carry her, and his two pesky kids. The Great Khan hated his wife's brother, this one particularly, more than the other. This one did not seem to have any job, did not seem to do any work, and probably kept taking money from his elder sister, secretly. The Great Khan knew all about it, and kept quiet about it. He rationalised that it was probably better to avoid seeking to know about the missing money than to have to hear from his wife about all the problems that her brother was having in his family life, especially with his wife, who seemed to need at least three donkeys to carry her up and down the mountain paths.
The Great Khan thought that his wife and her two brothers, and their mother, and their kids were all like a bunch of rabid goats, going about "mei, mei, mei" in the mountains, and the valleys seemed to be echoing, "mekaaa, mekaaa, mekaaa". This tree, at the extreme ridge, away from his house was his best sanctuary. He could sit here, and gaze out there on the valleys and the clouds below, and never have to worry about hearing his wife and her family and their bleating about.
The idiot brother-in-law knew that the Great Khan was not to be disturbed if he was to be seen sitting at this tree, out there on the ridge. But, he was an idiot, as he was from birth, and more so, since his marriage, and especially later, since his sister would come and stay with the other brother when she would come to visit her mother. The idiot's wife would keep on at him, about why would his sister prefer to stay with the younger but richer brother, and not with the older but poorer brother. He would naturally escape to be with the Great Khan, for the anger of the Great Khan was not as fierce as facing his wife, sister and mother.
The Great Khan saw his idiot brother-in-law coming up to join him to sit under the shade of this wonderful tree. Quickly, he moved his hookah and chillum to the other side to protect it from the idiot. He kept wondering about his missing donkey and trying to figure out where he could have forgotten it. The idiot brother-in-law came up and bowed, and said, "O Great Khan, Salaam. I am happy to see you here, away from all the noise and sound in the village. This is a good place indeed. I am told that you are very disturbed today, so I will not disturb you."
The Great Khan sat quietly, smoking on his chillum, protecting the hookah from the fog and wind. His dog, an enormously large but extremely lazy hunting hound, sat next to him, seeking the warmth of the hookah. The Great Khan looked at his dog for support against the idiot brother-in-law and asked the dog, "Oye, you barood (= gunpowder explosive)" - for that was his name - "Oye, barood, tell me what should I do with this idiot brother-in-law of mine? He tells me he will not disturb me, and yet is foolish enough to come here and talk to me and sit with me."
The hunting hound looked up at the Great Khan and replied, for it was true that they could talk to each other, in a manner that only they could understand, and others only thought that they were but grunting at each other. The hunting hound replied, "Oye, old friend, this idiot of yours comes out only to escape from the horror of having to hear his wife and his sister and his mother talk together. Where else would he go? Imagine, just imagine that he thinks that sitting with you is less dangerous."
The Great Khan nodded and grunted in agreement. The idiot brother-in-law sat quietly, slightly away from the ridge, for he was frightened of great heights, except when he was walking along with his donkeys and his wife, and praying that if the trail would give way, it would be the others who would go down and he would be safe. The hunting hound continued, "Oye, ask this idiot, if he would know where our friend, your favourite donkey, our pahadi baaz, might be. He may have seen it somewhere, or may have heard about it. Or, he may know what to do, and we can send him to search for our friend."
The Great Khan nodded again, and turned to his idiot brother-in-law, and said, "Oye, you idiot, you who cannot walk properly in the mountain trails, you who are an insult to the family that you were born in, do you know where my favourite donkey, the wonderful pahadi baaz may be? I am missing it since yesterday, and I do not know where he might be. I was everywhere yesterday, down in the valleys, and up in the village, and to and from the neighbouring villages, to the prayer place and to the serai. Do you know, or can you think of how to search for him?"
The idiot brother-in-law was surprised and frightened. Surprised, because the Great Khan did not normally talk to anyone when he was seated under his thinking tree, and with his enormous hunting hound. And frightened, because there would be something wrong, seriously, because the Great Khan was actually asking for his help. But, idiot that he was, and disgusted and tired as he was with his wife, sister and mother, chatting away non-stop in the house, one could actually hear their shrill voices, at this distance away from the house. Idiot that he was, he was also happy that the Great Khan seemed to actually need his help. But, frightened and the idiot that he was, he did not reply. He stammered, some sound, in reply.
The Great Khan seemed to expect that sort of reply from his idiot brother-in-law. And explained to him about the missing donkey, his most favourite donkey, his pahadi baaz, the great and most famous donkey of all the village. He was missing since yesterday. And could the idiot brother-in-law actually help him try to find out where he could be? Where could he have been left behind? Or where could he have wandered away to?
The idiot brother-in-law stood up and walked away to meet the Great Khan's brother. He was the more sensible and less violent sort of person. He would know what to do with this problem. The Great Khan's brother heard him out and decided that this would not do. Such an important problem could not be left to the Great Khan's idiot brother-in-law. He finished eating the leftover lamb leg that he had hidden from his wives, and called out to his hounds, brothers of the Great Khan's hound, and went up to the tree where his elder brother would sit, when he wanted to get away to be in peace.
The Great Khan did not mind his younger brother disturbing him. He was fond of him. It was their style and fashion that they would sit together, for days and weeks, outside their homes, in the meagre hours of sunlight, with their hounds and donkeys, and would sit and sit and sit in silence. They would never speak to each other. They were just happy to be with each other, and to be away from the misery of having to hear their wives talk to them about their own families and whatever it was that they seemed to talk about. The hounds were all fond of meeting up, for they were all brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts. Nobody knew their relationships any more.
The Great Khan's younger brother was quite a large man, and thus was called the Big Khan in the village. There were other brothers, Little Khan, Small Khan, Fat Khan and one another, his name I forget. It cannot be Thin Khan, for there was no such person in the village. The Big Khan spoke to his brother, for he knew him well, and said, thus, "O Great Brother, I heard that your great donkey is missing since yesterday. Someone could have stolen him. For, it is unlike you to forget your great donkey, and it is unlike your favourite donkey to go away, wandering away by himself. It cannot be that you have begun to forget, and it cannot be that your great donkey would become disobedient. So, I think, it must be that someone has stolen your favourite donkey."
"Come, let us go and meet the Khan of the Prayer Place. He will be able to tell everyone from our village and the five villages who come to worship together, that your favourite donkey is missing. He will not say that it must have been stolen, for otherwise the person who has stolen him will be frightened and may go to another village and sell him. Let us go and request the Khan of the Prayer Place to include our prayer in his list of prayers from all the people from the five villages." And thus, it came to be, that in the rarest of all days, the Great Khan came walking to the Prayer Place, something that he would never have done, if the day was not so terrible.
The Big Khan spoke to the Khan of the Prayer Place, and they went in and sat with the other devotees. It was the habit of all devotees to come and submit their prayers to the Khan of the Prayer Place, and he would read them out to the brethren who had assembled. He would not read out the names of the embarassing prayers, but would only read out the messages and the prayers. He informed the Big Khan that the missing donkey was to be the fourth prayer, and assured them that they could leave after the fourth prayer, for the guilty person would then get courage and strength to get up and go and fetch the missing donkey. The Big Khan agreed with the wisdom and suggested to the Great Khan that they could sit nearer to the rear door, behind all the brethren, so that they would not be noticed, and that they could then leave easily, after the fourth prayer. The Great Khan agreed. He usually agreed with his brother at such places, because he had come here very rarely, and had never submitted any exclusive prayer.
They sat at the rear of the hall, very close to the door. The Khan of the Prayer Place began reciting the submitted prayers. The first one was a simple one. It was from one of the young boys, from a neighbouring village. He had submitted a prayer that he should be allowed by his father to go down to the city in the valleys and purchase a good automatic rifle and bullets, so that he could go out into the valley and someplace else, and travel around the nearby places, safely and without any threat to himself. The Khan of the Prayer Place read out the prayer, and recited a small prayer of his own, to bless the courageous boy in his great adventure of going to the valley and traveling around. Purchasing a automatic rifle and bullets, was a normal thing, he informed the brethren, and one should not waste a prayer in this manner.
The second prayer was something more complex. It was from the rich grocer who had returned from the valley, and had found that his beautiful wife, was sleeping, and had not cooked any dinner for him. She had not waited up for him, and had locked herself in the bedroom and did not allow him inside at night. The servant boy had said that she had spent the evening with an elderly Khan Saheb who had come covered in a blanket, and could not be seen clearly, and had sat with the rich grocer's beautiful wife through the evening. They had asked the servant boy to sit outside the house, because they had wanted to check the accounts and rewrite the account books and that they should not be disturbed.
The rich grocer's prayer was that he wanted to make sure that his wife would come back to her senses, and stop inspecting the account books with strange and unknown elderly Khan Sahebs, for all his account books were correct, and he knew that. So, the rich grocer wanted that the Khan of the Prayer Place should read out a prayer to rid his wife of her curiosity in his account books, for the books were in his shop, and none were to be found in the house, and therefore she could not actually inspect the books. The rich grocer wanted that his beautiful wife should stop wanting to audit account books that were not in the house, and also that, as an afterthought in the prayer, that the elderly Khan Saheb who had tied up his donkey at their house, should take it back.
The Big Khan and the Great Khan looked at each other, startled. The Great Khan remembered where he had forgotten the donkey. Hastily, he asked the Big Khan to go and ask that the fourth prayer may not be read out aloud, for he had to go and get his favourite donkey from where he had forgotten him yesterday, when he had gone to help the grocer's beautiful wife audit the account books that were not at the house.
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