I

The clear plastic container he had used to cover the holy basil with was missing.

“Amma! Amma!”

“What is it, Khokon?”

“Did you throw it away?” asked Fazlul Islam Kazi, whose Bengali nickname was Khokon or “Munchkin.”

Several indoor plants had died as a result of his mother-in-law’s guerilla gardening tactics. As if that was not bad enough, she insisted on calling him Khokon. This nickname was his mother’s idea. If you called your child by its “real” name, an evil spirit might learn it. Having cohabited with the Hindus over the centuries and their ancestors mostly converts from the lower castes, Bengali Muslims had not been able to give up such pagan beliefs entirely. His own family traced their lineage to a Kazi who had emigrated from Arabia shortly after Muhammad ibn Qasim’s conquest of Sindh in the eighth century C.E.

“The poor thing couldn’t breathe!”

“It needs the humidity.”

“But you never covered the zucchini and the squash plants.”

The ignorant woman was referring to his attempt to grow vegetables in the backyard during the few snow-free weeks they call summer here. He had been living in his brother-in-law Iftikhar Kazi’s family ever since arriving in late February of 2020 as a landed immigrant. The winter lasted eight months here, and the Muezzin’s call to prayer did not sound from myriad loudspeakers as it did in Dhaka, the capital of his native Bangladesh, as well as in Kuwait City where he had worked as a pharmacist. He hadn’t even recovered from jet lag when the city and the entire province went into a lockdown. It was winter now, his first full-fledged one in Canada.

“I am sorry, Khokon!” Mrs. Kazi left him alone among the indoor plants displayed in front of the bay window overlooking the frozen backyard. She did not wear the hijab and wore cotton print sarees over blouses that left her love handles bare. If it had not been for the missing dash of vermilion in the parting of her henna dyed hair, she could have passed for a Hindu woman.

II

Even during his jet-lagged first week, Fazl had noticed that Iftikhar and his family were lax in their observances. Neither of his daughters, not even the seventeen-year-old Monisha, cared to fast during the first Ramadan under lockdown. Despite his wife’s objection, Fazl had requested a family meeting.

“You don’t know my brother,” said Fauzia, her plucked and painted eyebrows knitted.

“But I do!”

Iftikhar came to Canada in the late nineties as a Doctoral student. Mr. and Mrs. Kazi joined him and his wife in 2014 as sponsored parents. Shortly after, they sponsored their only daughter Fauzia. In the due course of time, they started looking for an eligible boy from the Kazi clan. At least they honored the practice among early Muslims of marrying cousins.

The memory of that family meeting still rankled. Having finished the late afternoon tea, everyone had gathered in the family room except Monisha, of course.

“Just as Allah visited the Pharaohs of old with deadly plagues, He tests His slaves in every age. Unless we pray five times a day in addition to refraining from singing, dancing, and other un-Islamic activities, this pandemic will be the last,” said Fazl after reciting several Koranic verses.

“I don’t believe this!” Irene, Iftikhar’s wife snorted loudly and sprang up from the carpet where she had been sitting cross-legged. She used to run a children’s dancing school in the basement before the pandemic and taught Indian classical dances.

Iftikhar let out a bellowing laugh. The large dark brown eyes in his round face were fringed with long curly lashes and looked out on the world with great confidence. Dimples formed on his clean-shaven cheeks whenever he smiled. He looked a lot like Kazi Nazrul Islam, the early twentieth-century Bengali Muslim poet whose songs inspired anti-British activists, Hindu and Muslim alike. Instead of reciting the Koran after Fazr, Iftikhar would unclasp the bellows of the portable harmonium and start singing Tagore or Kazi Nazrul Islam’s songs.

“You are decent and kind people, but good deeds alone won’t save us from the present calamity, my brother!”

“Doesn’t the Koran also say that there is no compulsion in religion?”

“Tagore was no orthodox Hindu, my son. He borrowed freely from the Sufi fakirs we call bauls. Kazi Nazrul Islam found a treasure trove in Hindu devotional poetry,” said the seventy-nine-year-old Mr. Kazi.

“You think Allah loves you! But the rest of us think you are a grade A Nimrod!” It was Monisha, who, after all, had been eavesdropping while sitting on the landing of the stairs leading to the second floor.

“Monisha! Go to your room right now!” It was the first time Fazl heard Iftikhar raise his voice. The “Nimrod” jibe left him baffled. He had mentioned the pharaoh “Nimrud” whom Allah in His Wrath destroyed for setting himself up as a rival to Him.

That night after the meeting, Fazl vented himself in the cramped bedroom he and Fauzia had been allocated.

“Please keep your voice down!”

“Let them! I am not afraid of your idolator of a brother! You think I owe them anything? I could have easily gotten the immigration papers on my own.”

“Your IELTS and TOEFL scores were stellar to be sure!”

The door to the bathroom they shared with the two girls slammed shut. Thus ended their first marital tiff.

III

Fazl tried to focus his mind on the holy basil whose leaves drooped a little after being deprived of the moist air trapped inside his missing makeshift greenhouse. One of Iftikhar’s neighbors had given the plant to Mrs. Kazi last fall. Iftikhar had gone over to her house with his family to offer Diwali greetings. Fazl had reluctantly joined them. He had on a bulky olive-green padded jacket with many pockets.

“Save it for winter, Mr. Taliban!” Monisha’s laughter echoed through the quiet neighbourhood. She wore a pink Edmonton Oilers hockey tank top that left her sinewy arms bare. The look on Fazl’s face made Fauzia squirm.

Soon, they reached the rounded top of the cul-de-sac where the neighbour’s house stood on a large pie-shaped lot. Standing at a safe distance from the front porch, Iftikhar and his two daughters belted out a Diwali song in Hindi. The woman thanked them and placed a tulsi seedling in a small clay pot on the lowest step.

“I’ve always wanted a tulsi!” Mrs. Kazi said. Tulsi is the Indian variety of the basil. Hindus worship it as the goddess of healing.

“Take care of Her and She will keep you safe,” said the neighbor.

“Only Allah can keep us safe in this calamity!” Fazl retorted.

The awkward silence was interrupted by the loud screech from a magpie pecking at a worm on the concrete driveway still wet from the recent rains. Fluffy white clouds floated across a pale blue sky that was thinly veiled by a golden haze. The air smelled of ripening apples.

“This is my brother-in-law. He hasn’t been in this country very long,” said Iftikhar. On their way back, Monisha muttered something. Iftikhar shushed her.

That was how the holy basil had ended up in this secular house. To be fair, Mrs. Kazi did not show any inappropriate veneration toward it. Besides, didn’t the Prophet (Peace and Salutations upon Him!) say that Allah had hidden antidotes to all diseases within His creation?

IV

Although he had been able to find and restore the plastic cover over the tulsi, Fazl couldn’t fall asleep that night. Fauzia was snoring with her mouth open. He started a video call with brother Bilal, his boss in Kuwait. The sheikh’s long, horsy face framed by a short brown beard looked rather gaunt. His slit-like eyes were hooded by puffy lids that gave him the appearance of a giant chameleon. The nose, which was large and hooked and sported a sizable wart, loomed over an upper lip that was pink and shaven clean as a newborn’s posterior.

“Eyes on the brize, my brother!” Bilal said. The “brize” was the provincial licensing exam for pharmacists that Fazl was scheduled to take next week. Evidently, the brother’s fondness for reruns of the never-ending Law and Order saga—with Arabic subtitles on, of course—had rubbed off on him. Bilal, like many Arabs, could not pronounce ‘pah’ sounds. Many Bengalis, in their turn, could not pronounce the ‘zah’ sound. So, it was “Kaji” instead of “Kazi,” “Foujia,” instead of “Fauzia.” Fazl had spent months learning to recite the Koran in correct pronunciation under the tutelage of Bilal.

“You have no idea what this ‘kindling destined for hell fire’ is capable of!” Fazl had just used the Arabic phrase “al-hatab al jahim” to refer to Monisha.

“Remember the ‘carrier of firewood’?” Bilal meant the wife of Abu Lahab, the pagan uncle of the Prophet. She, who used to scatter branches of the thorn bush on the path that the Messenger took on his way to the mosque, is referred to in the Koran as “hammalat al hatab.”

“Our Master did not react with anger. She was destined for the everlasting fires anyways, as was her stone-worshipping husband.” Bilal’s eyes widened a little and his pupils flashed with righteousness.

“I wish we could move out of this house.”

“Batience, brother!” Bilal had a faraway look in his eyes. “I remember the time when we smashed bottles of liquor and forced the belly dancers to cover themselves.” In the nineties’ Cairo of his youth, the Islamic Brotherhood had battled lewdness in addition to the Jew-loving leftists and the minions of the pro-American dictator.

Brother Bilal knew an Egyptian, a true Muslim, who owned a thriving pharmacy in Edmonton besides many apartments. He would put in a few good words for Fazl.

“The Brobet also sought refuge in Medina when his bagan relatives made it imbossible for him to live in Mecca and worshib Allah!”

V

One week later, Fazl wrote the exam. The days and the weeks went by very slowly. If it had not been for the drama that was the U.S. midterm elections playing out on the TV in Iftikhar’s family room, the mounting anxiety would have been unbearable. One Sunday evening a snowstorm raged on outside, even as the family eagerly watched the spectacle unfold.

“It would be a sad day for all Muslims if this orange-haired fool wins again!” Mr. Kazi observed.

“At least he has the courage to speak out against the fasiqs!” Fazl was quick to respond.

“What’s wrong with you fundamentalists? It’s okay to support this Islamophobe clown just because he happens to be a homophobe?”

Taking the cue from her sister, Moushumi started singing: “Com Mistah Taliban, tally me Banana. / Daylight com ’n we wanna go stone!”^[1]

“That’s it! You two go upstairs right now!”

The family had read and discussed that western stooge Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner earlier that winter. Not being able to deliver a smart comeback, Fazl seethed inwardly. At dinner, it turned out that Fauzia had forgotten to remind Iftikhar to pick up halal chicken for him from a Pakistani grocery store. They ate Walmart chicken, of course! Who would have thought that the chicken fiasco would become the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back? Even the back of the camel that the Prophet rode when he fled Mecca would have snapped like a twig.

As soon as Fauzia joined him in the bedroom, Fazl slapped her.

“If you do this ever again, I’ll go straight to my brother and tell him everything!”

And so it was that the anxiety and the rage grew day by day. Fazl could feel a pressure building up inside him as if a jinn had lodged itself in his ribcage and grew bigger and bigger.

One night, even as the ballots were being counted in the bastion of democracy, Fazl lay on the bed with his eyes closed and replayed the exam question by question. If only the questions had not been so confusing! One went as follows: “Which of the following fruits increase the potency of atorvastatin? a. grapefruits b. cumquats c. oranges.” He had ruled out grapes which were highly praised in the Koran, except when human agency turned them into wine. Not being familiar with the name “cumquat,” which sounded pagan and obscene to boot, he had put a check mark next to it.

Fauzia walked in with his dinner and interrupted his rumination. It was his favorite: halal chicken stew with potatoes on a bed of plain rice.

“Eat something and go sit in front of the TV. Your friend Trump may still win.” The thought of the weeks and months ahead in this house intensified Fazl’s headache.

“It’s just one exam. You still have two more chances, right?”

He blurted out the grapefruit fiasco. Fauzia started laughing.

“It’s like the first time I realized that hot dogs had nothing to do with dogs.”

It must have been a jinn that made Fazl leap out of the bed, grab the plate and throw it at Fauzia. She ducked and ran out of the room.

VI

When he woke up, the early morning sun was pouring in through the parted curtains. He had missed the Fazr prayer. The chicken stew on the floor was gone. His head felt heavy and dense as if it were filled with quick setting cement. A thick fur coated his tongue.

There was a gentle knock on the door that soon grew insistent.

“Fazl, I’m coming in.” Iftikhar’s big grin rivalled the sun. He was wearing a purple silk Punjabi shirt. Tiny navy-blue flowers were embroidered on the chest of the long shirt that ended just below his knees to reveal brilliant white pressed cotton pants. As the Prophet’s used to, Iftikhar’s also ended well above the ankles.

“I know it’s not Eid. But it still is a very beautiful day. Come on, let’s go downstairs. We haven’t had breakfast yet.”

Fazl sat up on the bed with eyes averted.

“You think Irene and I don’t argue? Remind me to tell you about the time she poured salt in my tea! The trick is not to retaliate and let the other party cool down. And then comes the best part. Make up sex! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Fazl blushed and stood up uncertainly. Iftikhar ushered him out the door and guided him down the stairs.

They were halfway down when the family gathered in the dining space shouted in unison: “Happy birthday!”

On the table was a small round cake with pink frosting on top and “Big Three O” in chocolate letters. A tiny striped candle like a candy cane was stuck on top of the confection. The tulsi sat next to it. The thriving plant was now housed in a turquoise ceramic pot, and a professional looking transparent acrylic dome covered it. Appetizing aromas wafted from many covered dishes, just as the scent of the burnt offerings of the misguided Bani Israeel had once ascended heavenward, and tickled Fazl’s nose.

“I know you don’t approve of birthdays. If it’s a sin, let it be on us,” said Iftikhar whose Bengali nickname was Polash.

A bellowing laugh filled the dining space. It was Monisha.

“When was the last time you read a book in English? With this kind of vocabulary, you’re gonna end up killing people.”

“Monisha-a-a-a!”

Both the girls were wearing shalwar and kameez and had placed the dupattas over their heads.

“Don’t get used to it, Dad!” said Monisha. Polash was busy taking pictures with an iPad.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Monisha will now recite a poem,” announced Irene, who wore an orange saree with the aanchal tucked into her waist.

Holding the iPad in her right hand, Monisha gestured dramatically with her left and recited:

                                          To wake when all is possible
                                          before the agitations of the day
                                          have gripped you
                                                             To come to the kitchen
                                          and peel a little basketball
                                          for breakfast
                                                             To tear the husk
                                          like cotton padding
                                          a cloud of oil
                                          misting out of its pinprick pores
                                          clean and sharp as pepper.^[2]

“Here, have some grapes, dear uncle, and a grapefruit too!” Monisha dropped a cluster of red seedless grapes and a large pink grapefruit on the plate in front of Fazl. Loud laughter rippled around the table. His grip on the heavily laden table’s edge tightened.

All of a sudden, a dramatic musical flourish sounded in the family room. On the screen was a news anchor with a wide head that got wider toward the back. The small, dark rectangular eyeglass frame was too small for him and made his narrow set eyes look narrower. His receding white hair was brushed back to reveal a pinkish forehead that was almost as large as his pinkish meagre face. The Prophet, by whose effulgent beard Muslims swear, would not have approved.

“Again, CNN projects that Joseph R. Biden will be the 46th president of the United States of America . . .”

The girls burst into a loud cheer.

“Turn that thing off and get the harmonium,” Polash told his daughters.

Soon the western birthday anthem reverberated throughout the house: “Happy Birthday, dear Fazl!”

After Happy Birthday, they sang Kazi Nazrul Islam’s still popular Eid carol. Irene danced to it in front of the fireplace.

“The joyous Eid has come at last,

After the completion of Ramadan fast.

The decree of Heaven you should heed,

And give your best self to those in need.”^[3]

[1] Shaun Majumdar, formerly of This Hour Has 22 Minutes which is a Canadian TV show, came up with the first line of this parody of Harry Belafonte’s song. The second line is this author’s.

[2] Arnold, Craig. “Meditations on a Grapefruit.” Poetry, Oct 2009.

[3]  Translation of the refrain of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s song by the author of this short story.