Tunnel Vision (38 page)

‘
Because this is a woman
'
s problem, and we
'
re men. We don
'
t know how to handle it. If there was a woman around, she
'
d know what to do.
'

‘
What do you think they
'
d do?
'

‘
I don
'
t know. Have a milad a khatam or something. I don
'
t know. I
'
m not a woman!
'
Mamu seemed ready to cry.

‘
Let
'
s do that then.
'

‘
Do what?
'

‘
Have a khatam.
'

‘
How are we supposed to do that? We don
'
t have any female family.
'

‘
I
'
ll ask the neighbours.
'

‘
Mrs Pereira? But she
'
s Christian.
'

‘
The next one over then. I
'
ll figure it out.
'

‘
Do you think it
'
ll work?
'
Mamu seemed doubtful.

‘
Sure. I know all the ladies in the street. They like me, they
'
ll do anything for me.
'

Mamu looked even more doubtful, but he kept his place. His glance around the room took in my slightly open door, and I withdrew hastily. When I gathered up the courage to peep once again, they were gone. From the window I could see them continuing their conversation by the gate, but there was no way I could make out what they were saying, and their faces had all the expressiveness of pickled lemons.

And so there was a khatam. For me.

DEKHNAY MAIN BHOLI, CHALNAY MAIN GOLI

BACK OF BUS

~

A
bba found a willing accomplice in Mrs Ahmed from C-7, who was already famed for her piety, her halwa and the luxurious fabric of her many hijabs. The driveway was cleared of all debris, swept, and white sheets were spread over red carpets laid to cushion the many pious bottoms expected. A small boy, one of the many disgorged from the back of a pickup driven by a bearded agent of God, poured buckets of uncooked kidney beans into two piles. The agent of God, with some help from Abba and his tools, rigged yet more white sheets into a screen, and just like that the driveway was divided into male and female sections. The speed with which all those little boys were saved from the temptation of overweight, middle-aged women was impressive, they had obviously done this before. I began to construct their life in my mind, a tight band of holy minstrels wandering the city in search of souls in need of Quranic succour, ready to stop, screen and chant at a moment
'
s notice for the glory of God. Or Rs 200. Paid upfront. Abba explained it all to me before dispatching me to join the women.

I soon fell into the rhythm of the book and ceased to notice what was happening around me; when I saw Ammi
'
s white face at one of the windows overlooking the drive, I thought nothing of it. Only when the khatam was over, everyone had gone home and there was not a little holy minstrel for miles, did I understand how the object of the exercise felt about the whole thing.

‘
Thank you, bhai,
'
Ammi spoke softly from her customary place on the sofa as the three of us, Abba, Mamu and I came in after putting the drive back in its state of orderly chaos.

‘
Don
'
t talk to me like I
'
m a stranger,
'
Mamu said gruffly but he looked pleased to have done something that had penetrated Ammi
'
s apathetic stupor.

‘
And thank you, my husband!
'
Ammi turned her poker face to Abba, ignoring me altogether. I was short, maybe she hadn
'
t seen me and would thank me later.

‘
Oh no problem. I
'
d do anything to help you, you know that.
'

‘
Thanks to both of you, my humiliation is complete,
'
she continued,
‘
every woman on the street, every one of those women who have disliked me and gossiped about me all this time, now have all they need to keep their fires burning for another year.
'

‘
What?
'
Mamu looked puzzled,
‘
What are you talking about?
'

Abba didn
'
t say a word.

‘
I
'
m thanking you for dragging me into the open and stripping me, exposing me to the world so they can pity me.
'

‘
Jahan Apa!
'

‘
It
'
s okay, Najam, I know you meant well. I appreciate it, I really do. I just wanted to thank you that
'
s all, while the wounds are still fresh.
'

‘
Bhai, tell her we didn
'
t mean it,
'
Mamu turned to still silent Abba for help,
‘
tell her why we did it.
'

‘
We were only trying to help, Jahan,
'
Abba said finally, meeting her eyes after a very long time,
‘
you know that I know you know that.
'

‘
Of course you do. You know everything. You know the right thing to do, the right thing to say, the right person to say it to. I
'
m so grateful to have a husband like you, I really am, maybe we should have another milad to celebrate my gratitude now that the one exposing my weakness is over.
'

‘
It wasn
'
t like that, those people weren
'
t there to pick on your weakness. They were there because they care about you. They want to help you.
'

‘
I don
'
t need their help,
'
Ammi spoke through clenched teeth, and there was a terrible anger in her voice. We all drew back, for a second it had seemed her bones were about to leap out of her skin, a skeleton animated by rage and naked aggression,
‘
I don
'
t need anyone
'
s help.
'

‘
Yes you do,
'
Chotay Mamu spoke up,
‘
you do need help.
'

‘
Supposing I do,
'
Ammi sank back into the sofa, the anger seemed to have exhausted her,
‘
whose help do you think I need? My nosy neighbours? Women who have always resented me for not being like them? A two hundred rupee truckload of piety for hire? Or my family
'
s? My husband
'
s? Tell me then Najam, whose help do I need?
'

Mamu took me to my room and asked me if I would show him my eraser collection. I laid out the fruits, vegetables, ice creams, cars, planes, trains, and animals in a line on my bed for him to admire. They seemed lifeless and dull, just like the two people outside.

SPEED MERI JAWANI, ATTACK MERA NAKHRA

BACK OF BUS

~

S
aad Saad Saad Saad Saad Saad. Was I saying that? How embarrassing. Good thing I was the only one who could hear me. Who wanted to be caught manifesting the cardinal sin of need? It was ironic that we fingered the concept of need as a western one, yet so many of our societal constructs were built upon that very thing. Girls need to get married young. Men need to get married late. People need to live in joint families because values and traditions need to be revered. We need to listen to our elders because they
'
ve done such a good job creating a just, peaceful, nurturing society of course. Men need to fiddle with their scrotums.

Need. Who needed it?

It was all right in literature of course, or in cinema, to love irrationally, passionately, without a thought about the who, what, where, when, and why of it all, but in real life it was something else. In real life there wasn
'
t just the two of you. There was also your family, your friends, your neighbours, your religion, your caste, your country. And everyone wanted, not demanded, a piece of the action. I loved Saad, I knew that even before a convenient windshield knocked some sense into my head, but did I think I could stomach all that would come with him? Surely I deserved better than doubt.

Then there was a part of me, thanks to my mother, that thought I didn
'
t deserve anything at all. And the part of me that, thanks to my father, thought that men didn
'
t deserve women. And what if I did marry Saad? Did he deserve my mother? We could always move. It hadn
'
t helped Kulsoom though. And I didn
'
t really want to be far from Ammi. She needed me. There was that word again.

But it was true. The curse of a misunderstood good girl. The curse of the sensitive daughter. Her need was greater than mine.

But wasn
'
t she Adil
'
s responsibility? Adil had no sense of responsibility. Would Farah, his future wife, know how to deal with Ammi if she had to live with them? And could I whine about not being considered equal to men when I was trying to weasle out of shouldering one of their basic responsibilities?

Why was I fooling myself. She wouldn
'
t have to live with them. I had no future with Saad, his absence had made that clear. Ammi had been right. I
'
d been nothing more than a pleasant distraction for him, a way to add some colour to his life in the heart of the industrial wasteland. Me and my sensible shoes were not welcome in his stiletto-governed world. A man coming up the social ladder was showing initiative. A woman doing the same was a gold-digger. Was that why Saad had hesitated when I had blurted out my proposal?

Had he seen in my hasty words the confirmation of his parents
'
worst fears? I wished I could talk to him and tell him I wasn
'
t like that at all, that in fact I would be insulted if he ever even suggested I lay back and enjoyed the fruits of his labour. I wished I could tell him that my defences had been down because of unusual levels of happiness in my generally dreary life and I had let my mother goad me into panicking. I wished I could see him so I could pull out his fingernails for making me abase myself.

Now that I was thinking about it, it was really all his fault. Yes. Absolutely his fault. I was a poor, oppressed, Muslim, South Asian woman. Saad was oppressing me.

Saad Saad Saad Saad Saad. I was going to count to a hundred, and if he didn
'
t appear, I would just up and die. That would teach him. That would teach them all.

One… hundred.

So what if I cheated? I really wanted to teach someone a lesson.

One … two … three … four … five … six …

‘
Ayesha?
'
It was the child again.

‘
Seven … eight … nine …
'

‘
Remember when you saw your father?
'

‘
I have no idea what you
'
re talking about. Ten … eleven..
twelve … three.
'

‘
Yes. Three years later. It was three years later.
'

UMER PACHPAN KI, ADAAIN BACHPAN KI

BACK OF BUS

~

I
saw my father again three years after we had accepted that he was dead and gone. Finished. Over. Lost to us for all eternity. Or at least till the Day of Judgement, where he might wave to us from his place (much further up) in the line. That is why, when I saw him squatting by a booksellers
'
in Khori gardens, flashing his still endearing smile as he ran a finger up and down a hardback spine, my first conscious thought was
‘
it can
'
t be him
'
. It was also my second conscious thought. And also my third. In fact, it played on repeat in my mind, getting louder and louder, till it obliterated everything else.

I don
'
t know how long I stood there, just drinking him in. I was mesmerized. My trance was broken only when someone tugged insistently on my sleeve and a female voice began a nasal wheedling in my ear.

‘
Give us some money. I
'
ll bless you. My baby will bless you. We haven
'
t eaten at all since yesterday, he
'
s hurt, and I need money to buy him medicine. Give me whatever you can. Give me a hundred rupees so I can take him to the doctor.
'

It was a beggar woman with a baby cradled in her arms. She looked well fed and water rich, and her baby was covered in a second skin of puppy fat, with a roly poly tummy and dimpled knees. Adil had had dimpled knees once he switched to formula, after Ammi had started medication for what Abba called her
‘
trouble
'
and Mamu called her
‘
mood disorder
'
and grown up Ayesha was sometimes tempted to call
‘
infidelity fall out
'
.

Adil, though, had never had a mercuricome stained bandage around his head suggesting a grievous head injury because Ammi had never been reduced to begging on the street. No thanks to her husband or the system, many thanks to her younger brother, her older brother, and her only daughter
'
s slog through the mud pits of the Pakistani workforce to reach the oasis of financial stability.