The Weary Generations by Abdullah Hussein

Ayaz Beg had ordered his life according to regular habits that had hardened into rituals, ceasing to exist as functions of the day in that Naim never noticed them; he simply waited for the day to begin.
    He went and stood at the edge of the roof where they had slept through a warm night. Looking emptily down into the street, he saw the milk shops opening to cook a breakfast of halva-poori for their regular customers and street vendors returning from the main market with their pushcarts loaded with green vegetables and fruits of the season. A young lad ran up the street, carrying a jug to collect the day’s milk from the shop with a popular street song loud on his lips, the tune rising along the wall to greet Naim, blinking away the sleep amid bits of early morning dreams and memoriesstill fresh in his mind …
    Lighting another cigar after his first cup of tea, Ayaz Beg surprised his nephew with a sudden remark. ‘You have been going to Roshan Mahal every day.’
    Naim looked at his uncle’s open face, trying to fathom the meaning of what he had said.
    â€˜I have not visited the place since the evening of the ceremony,’ Ayaz Beg continued. ‘You know why?’
    â€˜No,’ replied Naim.
    â€˜Because our family has been disgraced in Roshan Pur.’
    Naim searched for something to say. ‘I didn’t go to see the nawab.’
    Ayaz Beg ignored his reply. ‘His children,’ he went on, ‘are the issue of a woman of the street. Ghulam Mohyyeddin married her. Then her sister came to stay. The nawab got interested in her and rivalry began between the sisters. After some time the wife killed herself. Her sister now takes her place – without marriage. But who bothers about that? The masters of land can get away with anything. Ghulam Mohyyeddin, although a man of cultivation, nevertheless listened to his heart instead of his head and introduced rotten blood into his family. It was different for us. Our family was respectable but did not have enough property to cancel the wrong-doing. Your father –’ Ayaz Beg got up in agitation and went to the window that looked out on the street. When he returned to his chair, his voice had calmed down.
    â€˜Your father also followed his heart, bringing ruination upon us.’ He lit another cigar, pulling deeply at it before he spoke again. ‘You are old enough, it is about time you knew what happened. Ours was the only family in Roshan Pur that wasn’t servants of Roshan Agha. Our father, when he went to the big house, sat in a chair and not on the floor. He was a brave and hard-working man. But Niaz Beg, my brother,’ Ayaz Beg stood his cigar on the edge of the ashtray and spread his hands, as in a gesture of remorse, on the table, thick fingers stained with tobacco, ‘oh, he too was a brave and hard-working man. But he had madness in the brain. Along with the workshop that our father had built, my brother also acquired a passion for making things. It wasn’t ordinary fondness for using tools with his hands, he was completely taken with it, absolutely and entirely at one with the job. He started making guns. This is the truth, that the way he made a twelve-bore barrel and fitted the works to it and polished it, even the English guns couldn’t match it. Oh, he was an artist. He made them and kept them with the care and attention that other people reserved for children. I remember the day the police came. They searched our houseand found several guns without licence. Niaz Beg was trying to explain, begging them to let go. They grabbed him by his beard and slapped him on the face. They dragged him away with them.’
    Ayaz Beg’s hands now rested on the table like two wounded birds, quivering at the tips. ‘A few days later, he returned. The skin on his cheeks was black from blows, and half his beard had been pulled out. Any other man would have stopped. But not my brother, no, sir, not him. As I