The last image

“Listen,” he said, peering out of the thick collars of his overcoat, “is it possible to arrange for a little cash? just about twenty rupees?” “Certainly!” I said, thrilled that I was being asked to do something by Minto sahib

It was a cold January morning of Lahore. I walked out of the New Hostel and crossed over to the College compound. There the sight of a tonga parked by the Oval garden in front of the college tower attracted my attention. Coming closer to it I noticed the figure of a man covered in a big beige overcoat reclining on the front seat. The tonga driver was also sitting nearby on the bricked boundary of the Oval bundled in his shawl. Students and professors were walking past quickly towards their class rooms ignoring the parked carriage and its occupant. I stopped, out of curiosity, to check who the person in the tonga was and what had brought him this early to the college. When I approached the man in the overcoat for a closer look, his shoulders moved slightly and his broad and fair face appeared clearly to view. It was Saadat Hassan Minto lost in some deep thoughts.     

“do you want to meet someone Minto sahib, can I be of any help? I said.

“No, no, nothing!” he said, somewhat startled. “In no mood to speak,” I thought and turned around to go to my class, but I had hardly taken a couple of steps when I heard him call back. “Listen,” he said, peering out of the thick collars of his overcoat, “is it possible to arrange for a little cash? just about twenty rupees?”

“Certainly!” I said, thrilled that I was being asked to do something by Minto sahib as my hands reflexively dug into my pockets. Of course there was nothing in there but a few miserable coins. The small monthly allowance that used to come from home during those student days in Government College, Lahore was spent within a week or so and then everything went on credit.     

“Minto sahib, give me just a few minutes, and I’ll be right back,” I said and took off in search of people I knew to borrow the amount. Professor G.M. Asar was in his office, but when I approached him for a small loan all I got was an Urdu proverb: cheel ke ghonslay mein mass kahan (there is never any meat in the nest of a cheel, that carnivore of the South Asian skies). Next I ran into Qayum Nazar, another friendly Urdu professor. When asked for a loan I found his initial response quite encouraging. “What do you need the money for?” he asked. But when told the whole story, he too backed away. Then it suddenly occurred to me that the pehilwan who operated the Quadrangle Hostel’s fruit shop must have some money and I ran in that direction. Fortunately the shop was open and the pehilwan was sitting there waiting for his morning customers. When I asked him for the money, he simply reached under his rug and produced a twenty rupee note. I grabbed the note and rushed back to hand it over to my story telling idol.

But my heart sank as I turned the corner to the front of the college tower. Saadat Hassan Minto and his tonga were gone. It had taken me too long to get the money. He must have thought that I tricked him, But that was only the beginning of my heartbreak, The next day when I strolled to the literary patch of the Lower Mall spread from the Zelins Coffee House to Pak Tea House, there was one news item on everyone’s lips: Saadat Hassan Minto had died overnight. I pieced together his last image, sitting in that tonga peering out of the collars of his beige overcoat, and quietly returned to my New Hostel room.     

(An excerpt from the Urdu autobiography of Hassan Nawaz Gardezi)