Dogs and Horses: Creating Distances Through Lifestyle

“I cannot tolerate any Indian imitating the British” – Collector Sahab (88).

For the Englishmen such as the Collector Sahab and the Joint Magistrate, Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s desire to “imitate” the colonial lifestyle was deeply problematic. There are several aspects of this lifestyle which Ibn-ul-Vaqt adopted; however, the case of the dogs and horses symbolizes the crux of his exile through lifestyle.

While narrating his concerns to Hujjat-ul-Islam, the Collector claims that Ibn-ul-Vaqt has “adopted this [British] lifestyle because he wishes to become great” (184) and he relates the incident at Daryaganj as an example. The Daryaganj event is interesting because it takes place while Ibn-ul-Vaqt is still on his horse, Arrow, who would supposedly be out of control if Ibn-ul-Vaqt got down. This is deeply insulting to the Collector because it is symbolic of Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s desire to be an equal of the British. On the first account, therefore, the colonized is separated from the colonizer because his attempt at adopting the English lifestyle is viewed as an insult to the honor of the rulers. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s excessive expenditure on the horses castes him in an exilic role as he is caught in a liminal state – his desire to cling on to his Indian nawab-like riches not only separates him from the very society he wishes to be a part of but this new lifestyle also entails a separation from his native who refuses to accept him because he acts like a Christian while claiming to be a Muslim.

A crucial part of the advice given by Jan Nisar to Ibn-ul-Vaqt included the inculcation of dogs into his new lifestyle and we see, later on, with the arrival of Hujjat-ul-Islam that the dogs are a cause of worry. On a fundamental level, the dogs are the agents that prevent the central Islamic ritual – azaan and namaaz. When Hujjat-ul-Islam gives the call for prayer, “no one was familiar” (159) with it, and both the horses and dogs reacted by raising their ears and barking, respectively. It was during the afternoon prayers, however, that the dogs pounced on Hujjat-ul-Islam and he had to limit the way he said the namaaz, by only saying Allah o Akbar, out loud. Hujjat-ul-Islam’s decision to return to the city and not stay with Ibn-ul-Vaqt was partly informed by such treatment at the hands of the dogs, and he says that one of the major reasons for his discomfort is that “you have so many dogs that no one dares to make the prayer calls here” (173). While Ibn-ul-Vaqt contends himself in knowing that a certain Ms. Joseph played with his dogs for hours, those same dogs who follow him around like twins become the agent through which Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s connection to the native, via religion, is lost. Islamic practice holds dogs to be na-paak (impure) and that could be one of the reasons why Nazir Ahmed plays a great deal of attention to Ibn-ul-Vaqt – a figure who himself has become na-paak because of his desertion of the Indian Muslim lifestyle. Paak is an apt word to use here as it is often associated with land (paak zameen) and, in a certain sense, therefore, the impurity in Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s life is the reason for his impurity, which distances him from his native and from his land and makes him into an exilic figure.