Stamping the DeadBy Habib Mohana
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It was an unwritten law of the land that no dead person was to be buried until his left buttock was properly stamped with royal seal by the officials in the capital. Those who buried their loved ones without royal approval were punished severely—the buttocks of the guilty bereaved relatives were publicly branded with a red-hot iron—and the dead were disinterred and denied proper burial for good. The exhumed corpses were hung high above the gates of the capital for everyone to see and learn the intended lesson. But it happened very rarely as the people of the kingdom were very docile, patriotic and law-abiding.
The ceremony of stamping the deceased’s left buttock was held only once a year; that day was honoured as sacred and it was a public holiday. The subjects—men, women, children—would bathe, don their best attire and converge upon the royal parade ground where the ceremony was to take place.
The subjects were strictly forbidden from keeping their deceased at their homes for more than an hour. The moment someone was at peace, the bereaved strapped the dead on a makeshift stretcher, loaded the stretcher on a donkey, camel or mule and set off for the capital. Chanting devotional songs, they trekked for days, weeks and sometimes months before they reached their destination. Upon reaching the capital, they placed their dear departed before the dark and formidable gate of the royal palace. Here, through a slit, the attendants handed in the registration fee and the dead received leather registration cards. Then the guards would point with their shod feet to the parade ground where the bereaved were supposed to place the bodies.
Only a few were exempt from having their left buttocks stamped when they expired. The exemption list was kept top-secret but the subjects conjectured, in whispers, that it included members of the royal family, top-brass generals and high priests. In the kingdom, this convention was enforced more strictly than other laws. For instance, crimes like theft, rape, kidnapping and even murder were not taken half as seriously as the stamping of the dead. Those who criticized this convention, no matter how secretly, were given an open-hearted choice between being roasted alive over glowing coals or being fried alive in virgin olive oil.
The citizens of the kingdom would dwell upon this time-tested tradition—the stamping of the deceased’s left buttock—for hours at homes, in cafes, in offices. Compared to this topic, all other topics were considered frivolous and not worthwhile. They held weekly international seminars in which a galaxy of intellectuals delivered longwinded speeches on the beauty and philosophy of stamping the deceased’s left buttock. The emotional audience listened, eyes liquid with devotion. The prestigious newspapers of the kingdom carried daily features on this subject, scholars would write highbrow theses and poets would compose epic poems about this theme. The best poem would get the biggest national prize and the author of the winning poem was spared, at his death, the trouble of getting his buttock stamped with the royal seal. So it was the innocent wish of every selfless poet to write the best poem.
The kingdom’s citizenry maintained that it was this golden law of stamping the deceased’s left buttock that had kept them united throughout the centuries. Otherwise, they were an insane collection of different sects, races and linguistic groups.
The origin of this time-tested tradition was lost in the mists of time. Different philosophers gave different reasons for it, though they differed but never bickered or fought over this thing. They said, ‘All are in the right as long as they follow and respect the custom of stamping the deceased’s left buttock.’ Sometimes differences emerged as to which buttock of the dead was best to be stamped. Some thinkers reasoned that it should be the left buttock while others maintained that it should be the right buttock. Others differed about which spot of the buttock was to be stamped. Some were of the opinion that it should be affixed right in the middle, on the cheek of the buttock, some contended that the stamp was to be affixed a little to the left, whereas others believed that the stamp was to be impressed a little to the right. When the debates reached a crescendo, the high priest would intervene and the differences were soon resolved amicably. The public was ordered not to discuss this topic for ten years but hardly had the deadline passed when the savants would again reignite the debate. Before the argument could reach a dangerous pitch, the royal priest would interfere and settle the matter in a pleasant way.
The people kept dying throughout the year and the dead bodies kept amassing before the royal palace. The corpses would fester and rot, the stench was unbearable and clouds of flesh flies droned. The corpses would leak smelly, yellowish, red juice through camphor white shrouds and the ground beneath them was wet and slippery with the body fluids. The king’s officials would ride out of the palace and lecture the bereaved about the health benefits of the stench the dead bodies emitted. They commanded the bereaved not to cover their noses against the stench as it was disrespectful to the dead. ‘It will hurt the souls of the dead,’ they sermonized.
Squatting around the dead loved ones, the attendants shooed away the buzzing flies from the corpses with hands or caps and chomped the bread they had brought with them. But soon their victuals were exhausted and they begged other attendants for remnants of their dinner or went to the city for this purpose. At times all the attendants would run short of rations and they would flood the streets of the capital to plead for scraps and crumbs. The big-hearted residents of the capital never turned the hungry attendants away from their doorsteps empty-handed. The starving attendants had hardly turned the corner when the stray dogs sneaked into the parade ground to lick the yellowish red juice that had trickled from the corpses.
At noon, the bereaved were directed to move the dead bodies to the cool shade of the ancient trees that lined the boulevard in front of the royal palace and in the evening they were bidden to shift their lifeless charges to the grassy ground that stretched at the back of the palace. Every morning the attendants were required to wash their dear departed and bring them to the grassy assembly ground before the right wing of the palace. The musicians blared rusty trumpets and pounded on huge drums while the bereaved propped up their dead relatives and raised the corpses’ stiff right hands to salute the king, who ghosted along the curtained balcony of his palace. Some attendants believed that they saw the king, some argued that they did not see him while others said that they were not sure.
The people of the kingdom, especially the nobility, would carefully keep record of this stamping business in bulky registers. The aristocrats would proudly tell that their ancestors’ buttocks were lawfully stamped for twenty generations without fail. More righteous and high-minded people would wonder, in their moments of solitude, whether the buttocks of their forefathers beyond twenty generation bore the royal seal or not. The mere thought of this wrongdoing made them so upset that they could not tell whether they had eaten their meals or not; at night it gave them nightmares. Then they would consult a scholar who was an authority on the buttocks-stamping business. The scholar, after taking his hefty fee, would advise them on how to atone for the crime of their distant dead ancestors whose buttocks had not been stamped with the royal seal. The scholars would advise some people to do charitable work. Others they would advise to bare their buttocks and sit down on a platter full of scorpions, and others they would tell curtly to let themselves drop down a precipitous cliff that, for the convenience of the public, was constructed next to the palace.
The subjects of that land had three bulky dictionaries of swear words but the worst of all pejoratives was to call someone, ‘O, the seed of the father who was buried with his buttock unstamped.’
Just one day before the stamping of the dead’s left buttocks, the bereaved were ordered to go to the clerks and request them to write an application to the King for permission to get their deads' buttocks stamped. The aged and disheveled clerks sat on threadbare, empty gunnysacks under an awning before the royal palace. The clerks—who were experts in writing such applications—were deaf and half blind and the bereaved would spend hours explaining to them the purpose of their application. Fortunately the clerks had assistants who would jibber into their masters’ hairy ears and the clerks’ muddy eyes would brighten up. The bereaved would pay a heavy fee to the pen-pushers and their helpers and then submit the application to the High Clerk.
Early next morning, flourishing the royal seal in his gloved hand, the High Clerk would sail out of his office. The murmuring multitude then fell silent and bowed down their heads. The High Clerk ordered the bereaved to turn their dead on their right sides so that the deceased’s left buttocks were up and open. But first the relatives of the dead had to submit stamp tax for the royal seal. This tax was the highest and the most respected of all taxes in the kingdom.
In less than one hour, after the High Clerk had stamped thousands of dead, the bereaved were so relieved and happy that they would yell with excitement and fall into chanting. In their songs they would eulogize the benign king and pray for his health and long rule. They would hoist the freshly-stamped deceased on the backs of their draft beasts and turn their feet towards their homes. Then they would bury their dead and for months tell their neighbours and friends the stories of the king’s hospitality and benevolence.
However, a revolution was brewing inside the palace’s thick mossy walls. The cause of the revolution carried no economic, social, religious or political motives but it was something personal. The youngest of the four grandsons of the hoary king once asked his grandmother, ‘Grandma, tell me who will be king when my grandfather has passed away? ’
‘Your elder uncle.’
‘And who will be king when uncle is no more? ’
‘Your father.’
‘Who will be king when father has gone?’
‘Your elder brother.’
‘And who after my elder brother is dead?’
‘Your second brother.’
‘And who will be king after he is at peace?’
‘Listen darling and listen well, you are not going to become king if the entire clan is dead and buried.’
Upon hearing this, the young prince went berserk. For days he brooded in darkened corners of the palace, skipped meals and scribbled missives to his confederates. Before long, with the help of his confederates, he slaughtered all the living creatures that happened to be inside the palace except a superannuated mare, a young Dalmatian and a wizened octogenarian minister and declared himself king
Though not averse to spilling blood when there was need for it, the new king was peace-loving and a man of modern world. He believed in equality, justice, reforms and good governance. Early in his reign, he signed a decree, ‘From now on the right buttock of the deceased will be stamped with the royal seal instead of the left buttock.’
The public was overjoyed with this groundbreaking reform and they brought fruits, flowers, honey and mushrooms to the king.
The new king was benign and sagacious and his subjects were happy and prosperous under his reign.
One fine April morning the people congregated under the moss-clad walls of the palace and started shouting unintelligible things. The sight of such a huge gathering sent ripples down the new king’s spine. He was on the verge of ordering his sentries to shoot a volley of arrows at the crowd, when his dumpy little minister toddled into his bedroom. ‘What is it?’
‘Sire, the public is so happy and satisfied with your rule.’ The minister kissed the hem of the royal robe.
‘If they are happy and satisfied, then what are they shouting for?’
‘They are not shouting in anger. They are shouting to get a small favour from your magnificence.’
‘Tell me what they want.’
‘They wish that from now on, both buttocks of the deceased be stamped with the royal seal.’
The king scratched at the one-night old stubble on his square chin and said, ‘Go, inform them that their wish will be honoured.’
The ceremony of stamping the deceased’s left buttock was held only once a year; that day was honoured as sacred and it was a public holiday. The subjects—men, women, children—would bathe, don their best attire and converge upon the royal parade ground where the ceremony was to take place.
The subjects were strictly forbidden from keeping their deceased at their homes for more than an hour. The moment someone was at peace, the bereaved strapped the dead on a makeshift stretcher, loaded the stretcher on a donkey, camel or mule and set off for the capital. Chanting devotional songs, they trekked for days, weeks and sometimes months before they reached their destination. Upon reaching the capital, they placed their dear departed before the dark and formidable gate of the royal palace. Here, through a slit, the attendants handed in the registration fee and the dead received leather registration cards. Then the guards would point with their shod feet to the parade ground where the bereaved were supposed to place the bodies.
Only a few were exempt from having their left buttocks stamped when they expired. The exemption list was kept top-secret but the subjects conjectured, in whispers, that it included members of the royal family, top-brass generals and high priests. In the kingdom, this convention was enforced more strictly than other laws. For instance, crimes like theft, rape, kidnapping and even murder were not taken half as seriously as the stamping of the dead. Those who criticized this convention, no matter how secretly, were given an open-hearted choice between being roasted alive over glowing coals or being fried alive in virgin olive oil.
The citizens of the kingdom would dwell upon this time-tested tradition—the stamping of the deceased’s left buttock—for hours at homes, in cafes, in offices. Compared to this topic, all other topics were considered frivolous and not worthwhile. They held weekly international seminars in which a galaxy of intellectuals delivered longwinded speeches on the beauty and philosophy of stamping the deceased’s left buttock. The emotional audience listened, eyes liquid with devotion. The prestigious newspapers of the kingdom carried daily features on this subject, scholars would write highbrow theses and poets would compose epic poems about this theme. The best poem would get the biggest national prize and the author of the winning poem was spared, at his death, the trouble of getting his buttock stamped with the royal seal. So it was the innocent wish of every selfless poet to write the best poem.
The kingdom’s citizenry maintained that it was this golden law of stamping the deceased’s left buttock that had kept them united throughout the centuries. Otherwise, they were an insane collection of different sects, races and linguistic groups.
The origin of this time-tested tradition was lost in the mists of time. Different philosophers gave different reasons for it, though they differed but never bickered or fought over this thing. They said, ‘All are in the right as long as they follow and respect the custom of stamping the deceased’s left buttock.’ Sometimes differences emerged as to which buttock of the dead was best to be stamped. Some thinkers reasoned that it should be the left buttock while others maintained that it should be the right buttock. Others differed about which spot of the buttock was to be stamped. Some were of the opinion that it should be affixed right in the middle, on the cheek of the buttock, some contended that the stamp was to be affixed a little to the left, whereas others believed that the stamp was to be impressed a little to the right. When the debates reached a crescendo, the high priest would intervene and the differences were soon resolved amicably. The public was ordered not to discuss this topic for ten years but hardly had the deadline passed when the savants would again reignite the debate. Before the argument could reach a dangerous pitch, the royal priest would interfere and settle the matter in a pleasant way.
The people kept dying throughout the year and the dead bodies kept amassing before the royal palace. The corpses would fester and rot, the stench was unbearable and clouds of flesh flies droned. The corpses would leak smelly, yellowish, red juice through camphor white shrouds and the ground beneath them was wet and slippery with the body fluids. The king’s officials would ride out of the palace and lecture the bereaved about the health benefits of the stench the dead bodies emitted. They commanded the bereaved not to cover their noses against the stench as it was disrespectful to the dead. ‘It will hurt the souls of the dead,’ they sermonized.
Squatting around the dead loved ones, the attendants shooed away the buzzing flies from the corpses with hands or caps and chomped the bread they had brought with them. But soon their victuals were exhausted and they begged other attendants for remnants of their dinner or went to the city for this purpose. At times all the attendants would run short of rations and they would flood the streets of the capital to plead for scraps and crumbs. The big-hearted residents of the capital never turned the hungry attendants away from their doorsteps empty-handed. The starving attendants had hardly turned the corner when the stray dogs sneaked into the parade ground to lick the yellowish red juice that had trickled from the corpses.
At noon, the bereaved were directed to move the dead bodies to the cool shade of the ancient trees that lined the boulevard in front of the royal palace and in the evening they were bidden to shift their lifeless charges to the grassy ground that stretched at the back of the palace. Every morning the attendants were required to wash their dear departed and bring them to the grassy assembly ground before the right wing of the palace. The musicians blared rusty trumpets and pounded on huge drums while the bereaved propped up their dead relatives and raised the corpses’ stiff right hands to salute the king, who ghosted along the curtained balcony of his palace. Some attendants believed that they saw the king, some argued that they did not see him while others said that they were not sure.
The people of the kingdom, especially the nobility, would carefully keep record of this stamping business in bulky registers. The aristocrats would proudly tell that their ancestors’ buttocks were lawfully stamped for twenty generations without fail. More righteous and high-minded people would wonder, in their moments of solitude, whether the buttocks of their forefathers beyond twenty generation bore the royal seal or not. The mere thought of this wrongdoing made them so upset that they could not tell whether they had eaten their meals or not; at night it gave them nightmares. Then they would consult a scholar who was an authority on the buttocks-stamping business. The scholar, after taking his hefty fee, would advise them on how to atone for the crime of their distant dead ancestors whose buttocks had not been stamped with the royal seal. The scholars would advise some people to do charitable work. Others they would advise to bare their buttocks and sit down on a platter full of scorpions, and others they would tell curtly to let themselves drop down a precipitous cliff that, for the convenience of the public, was constructed next to the palace.
The subjects of that land had three bulky dictionaries of swear words but the worst of all pejoratives was to call someone, ‘O, the seed of the father who was buried with his buttock unstamped.’
Just one day before the stamping of the dead’s left buttocks, the bereaved were ordered to go to the clerks and request them to write an application to the King for permission to get their deads' buttocks stamped. The aged and disheveled clerks sat on threadbare, empty gunnysacks under an awning before the royal palace. The clerks—who were experts in writing such applications—were deaf and half blind and the bereaved would spend hours explaining to them the purpose of their application. Fortunately the clerks had assistants who would jibber into their masters’ hairy ears and the clerks’ muddy eyes would brighten up. The bereaved would pay a heavy fee to the pen-pushers and their helpers and then submit the application to the High Clerk.
Early next morning, flourishing the royal seal in his gloved hand, the High Clerk would sail out of his office. The murmuring multitude then fell silent and bowed down their heads. The High Clerk ordered the bereaved to turn their dead on their right sides so that the deceased’s left buttocks were up and open. But first the relatives of the dead had to submit stamp tax for the royal seal. This tax was the highest and the most respected of all taxes in the kingdom.
In less than one hour, after the High Clerk had stamped thousands of dead, the bereaved were so relieved and happy that they would yell with excitement and fall into chanting. In their songs they would eulogize the benign king and pray for his health and long rule. They would hoist the freshly-stamped deceased on the backs of their draft beasts and turn their feet towards their homes. Then they would bury their dead and for months tell their neighbours and friends the stories of the king’s hospitality and benevolence.
However, a revolution was brewing inside the palace’s thick mossy walls. The cause of the revolution carried no economic, social, religious or political motives but it was something personal. The youngest of the four grandsons of the hoary king once asked his grandmother, ‘Grandma, tell me who will be king when my grandfather has passed away? ’
‘Your elder uncle.’
‘And who will be king when uncle is no more? ’
‘Your father.’
‘Who will be king when father has gone?’
‘Your elder brother.’
‘And who after my elder brother is dead?’
‘Your second brother.’
‘And who will be king after he is at peace?’
‘Listen darling and listen well, you are not going to become king if the entire clan is dead and buried.’
Upon hearing this, the young prince went berserk. For days he brooded in darkened corners of the palace, skipped meals and scribbled missives to his confederates. Before long, with the help of his confederates, he slaughtered all the living creatures that happened to be inside the palace except a superannuated mare, a young Dalmatian and a wizened octogenarian minister and declared himself king
Though not averse to spilling blood when there was need for it, the new king was peace-loving and a man of modern world. He believed in equality, justice, reforms and good governance. Early in his reign, he signed a decree, ‘From now on the right buttock of the deceased will be stamped with the royal seal instead of the left buttock.’
The public was overjoyed with this groundbreaking reform and they brought fruits, flowers, honey and mushrooms to the king.
The new king was benign and sagacious and his subjects were happy and prosperous under his reign.
One fine April morning the people congregated under the moss-clad walls of the palace and started shouting unintelligible things. The sight of such a huge gathering sent ripples down the new king’s spine. He was on the verge of ordering his sentries to shoot a volley of arrows at the crowd, when his dumpy little minister toddled into his bedroom. ‘What is it?’
‘Sire, the public is so happy and satisfied with your rule.’ The minister kissed the hem of the royal robe.
‘If they are happy and satisfied, then what are they shouting for?’
‘They are not shouting in anger. They are shouting to get a small favour from your magnificence.’
‘Tell me what they want.’
‘They wish that from now on, both buttocks of the deceased be stamped with the royal seal.’
The king scratched at the one-night old stubble on his square chin and said, ‘Go, inform them that their wish will be honoured.’
Habib Mohana is an assistant professor of English at government degree college No 3, D. I. Khan. He writes fiction in English, Urdu and Saraiki, his mother tongue. He has four books under his belt, one in Urdu and three in Saraiki. His Saraiki novel forms part of MA Saraiki syllabus at Zikria University Multan. His short stories in English have appeared in literary journals of India, UK and Canada. In 2010 and 2014 Pakistan Academy of Letters awarded his Saraiki books the Khawaja Ghulam Farid Award. He was born in 1969 in Daraban Kalan, a town in the district of Dera Imsail Khan, Pakistan. His Urdu book of short stories with the title of ADHORI NEEND won the Abaseen award from the Government of KPK. He is looking for a publisher for his novel The Village Café.