Mysterious Tramp

When Ummed Ali came to this North Indian village, Johripuram, people made bitter lines on their faces. Understandably so. He was a vagabond, a beggar with a long untidy beard and bushy mustache, but above all — extremely smelly. His clothes were all in rags that included a tattered coat, and the horribly dirty trousers. It seemed he never washed them. Or never got time, space and water for doing so. His shoes had his all toes exposed out through them, from the front, and both their heels were gone. He in fact appeared to have never taken a shower in his whole life by far.

Most of the villagers stood at a considerable distance from him as he approached them to beg. Often shooed him away. Women gave him food, keeping themselves at a safe distance. Street dogs welcomed him with gross insult. He was only loved by domestic flies, which wreathed about him almost all day long. Never leaving him except at night. He didn’t care and allowed them to do their usual spinning around.  

Ummed never knew what was the meaning of his name: hope. No one knew wherefrom he had come. Never told it when asked. Just seemed to have appeared, emerged from the thin air one fine December morning. They thought he would go away by the dusk. He didn’t.

When evening shadows began to grow bigger, he started begging for shelter to pass the night. Most of the villagers had refused, when finally, he knocked on the door of a hunter’s family. Aijaz the hunter with his friends was gone for hunting partridges. His sister, Kauser was her name, was at home, alone, at the time. Close to aging but still unmarried. Rumors were rife she had couple of love interests, but neither of them could last long or materialize into a nuptial knot. Aijaz was a widower, his children settled in the capital.

Poor woman was always busy, for hunter Aijaz had a large friends’ circle that dined there. Presently she was cooking pigeons’ meat for the extended family as the new visitor arrived. He begged for shelter and Kauser did not find any reason to say no to him. She had a good heart since a horrible incident. She was saved by an unknown young man from drowning in the Gang river, that flowed treacherously by the side of Bulandshahar, a small town in eastern Utter Pradesh. And that was not very long ago. So, it was a new life for Kauser. She turned helpful to all and sundry.

In the backyard of the house under a nameless tree lay a neglected jute charpoy, which was immediately occupied by Ummed Ali. As a surplus, Kauser gave him an ancient blanket, which was out of service for decades. As the meat was cooked, he was served in an old Chinese bowl. A plastic bottle, filled to its capacity with water, was also offered to him, that he at once grabbed.

Ummed Ali never expected such hospitality. The moon and the stars began to glitter the village sky and the group of hunters was back with their kill. They passed him holding their rifles and happily discussing their good shots at their prey. Didn’t even bother to have a look at their guest.

When it was time to sleep, the old ragamuffin got up from his jute charpoy, took out his coat and hung it on a nail jutting out from the backwall of the hunter’s house. Then he lay down in his cot and passed off in five minutes.

***

Next morning when he got up in a good season, he received to his surprise a cup of brewing tea followed by a moderate breakfast. Now it was time for begging, so he got ready and went around the village. In the afternoon he got his lunch at a farmer’s house and then resumed his begging again.

As the sun went down, Kauser was thinking that the man was probably gone, but at the same moment he entered the backyard and occupied his place. He was severed at night as previously and retired.

In a week the whole village became acquainted with Ummed Ali. Kauser never felt him a burden. When the neighbors enquired of him, she simply said, “It is God’s will that he should get his food and shelter here.”

In a fortnight, street dogs began to accept him as one of the villagers. They ignored him now as he passed them. Villagers called him by his name, sometimes mispronouncing it, but he didn’t seem to care. Now they talked with him without a frown. He was an accepted member of this society. Johripuram proved helpful and cooperative to the poor soul.

***

Winter began to show its longer ivory teeth as Christmas arrived. The ancient blanket now was of little or no comfort. With the coming of mist and fog the temperature went down, and Ummed Ali’s teeth rattled around mid-night. His high-pitched shivering moans reached the ears of the hunter’s family.  

Kauser tossed in her bed thinking what more should be done for the impoverished tramp. After a while she appeared holding in her hands a sigri, the brazier, with burning coals in it. She called him by his name. Ummed Ali’s eyes glittered in the glint of burning coals as Kauser handed it to him for warmth. A shield against the unsettling winter. He immediately grabbed it like a drowning man grabs a rope.

Kauser went back to her room, feeling happy that now the old man might get some respite from the biting cold and will not wake up with possible fever on Christmas, tomorrow.

Ummed Ali took the sigri under his blanket and in a few minutes, he was so warm he felt sleepy. Lest the brazier turned over and the burning coals spread on his sleeping clothes, he took out the sigri and put it aside on the ground near his cot.

As he tried to sleep again, Ummed Ai realized to his horror that his bed was cold once again. He repeated the pattern but with no comfort. Finally, he got an idea. Lifted the sigri again and put it under his charpoy so as to keep getting the much-needed warmth continuously from under his cot without any fear.

The trick worked well and soon he felt the warmth and comfort in his blanket that he needed badly to fight the freezing winter. He didn’t know at what time he drifted off to sleep.

The ancient jute of the charpoy’s seams had some loose ends that suspended under the charpoy. Ummed Ali, unaware that they were dangerously close to the brazier.

In the dead of the night as the whole village slept soundly, including the tramp, two suspended ends of the jute-veins caught fire from the sigri’s coals. The heat flared up increasing the temperature of the charpoy. The old man covered himself tightly in his blanket, not realizing the increasing heat and approaching danger. The charpoy in fifteen minutes or so came alive and became a burning pyre.

As the neighbors heard Ummed Ali’s heart piercing screeches, initially they thought they were watching a nightmare. But when they realized its reality and sprang to their feet and rushed out their houses, they saw the burning man running helter-skelter and pleading for help.

Kauser with the help of couple of neighbors doused the fire as hunter Aijaz looked on, for he considered himself a nawab, and it was beneath his dignity to do any menial work. Let alone it was for saving the life of a poor tramp. At once a man was sent for the village doctor. But Ummed Ali was ninety percent burned and could not be saved. Succumbed to his burning.

In the morning, the entire village paid floral tributes to the fine beggar. Ummed Ali was given a respectable burial in the country graveyard by the village men. Women mourned for him and the dogs missed his presence. The domestic flies with disappointment looked around for their man.

***

As Kauser cleaned the backyard that evening, she realized that the old tattered coat of the deceased still hung from the nail in the wall. She took it off to throw in the garbage bin, but at the last moment, on an impulse, decided to check first the pockets of the battered coat. Frisking through it that was emitting a foul odor, she felt something thick inside along with the clanking of the change. She became suddenly curious in the dirty old piece of rag. “What can it be?” she thought.

Kauser reached her hand inside the first pocket and what came out, she could not believe it nor her own eyes. Two thick wads of paper currency. Each note was two thousand rupees denomination. She dashed into the house, with the coat in her hand. Switched on the light and checked three other pockets, too. Thoroughly. Each of them contained more wads of notes. Pink pure currency. It took her some time to counte the money. When she finished, she found it was close to a million rupees.

“Was Ummed Ali really a beggar?” Kauser thought, the tattered coat of the mysterious man now laying beside her. There was no answer to her question. She sat dazed on the corner of her bed with eight wads of bills in her hands. Gandhi with his bald head seemed to be smiling at her from them. Perhaps God had helped her for the selfless service she’d rendered to the old tramp. Like she was helped in the Gang river by the unknown young man or she would have drowned.  

Even decades after this incident, the people of Johripuram still talk about Ummed Ali. Kauser is married off with a wealthy civil contractor and settled in another village. Hunter Aijaz was dead long back. He died of heart stroke in a police lockup while facing charges for killing endangered species. Sometimes his sister tells the tale of the weird beggar to her three kids, who listen with awe and profound wonder. It’s still an enigma who Ummed Ali was, for a few questions are still unanswered.

“End”

Author’s Biography

Ziaul Moid Khan (*14 August, 1985) is a speculative fiction author and a romantic poet from the North India countryside, Johri. He considers himself a world citizen. His work has been featured in Bards and Sages Quarterly, Literary Orphans, Better Than Starbucks, To Live Again: An Anthology, and other venues. Zia teaches English Literature, residing in Jaipur, Rajasthan with his beautiful wife, Khushboo Khan and a five-years-young & cute son, Brahmaand Cosmos. He does not drink, nor does he smoke but his characters do all sorts of things including but not limited to intoxication. Email him at ziamoidkhan.b@gmail.com.