Tunnel Vision (42 page)

They left. All my hopes of being able to return to my pakora dream went with them.

TAPISH SURAJ KI HOTI HAI,
JALNA ZAMEEN KO HOTA HAI

BACK OF BUS

~

I
replayed a memory of my smiling mother braiding my hair in the morning as my mind did its standard seven hundred cycles per second of the track. It really was the
‘
get thee to thy grave son-snatching vermin
'
finale after all. A fitting end to a wasted life, devoid of purpose, depth and sustainable love. Ceaselessly betrayed by five year Masterplans that focused on the abstract rather than the tangible, I had wasted time and energy on my brain and in the process neglected my uterus. I had had delusions of turning heads, soon I wouldn
'
t even be turning doorknobs. As for Saad, he was lost to me for good now.

Ammi sat idly on a sofa, face slack, eyes unfocused, as tiny Adil howled beside her till little Ayesha went and picked him up. How old was I? Eight? Nine?

‘
Too old for Saad,
'
she turned and whispered to me. I looked away, at a stain on the window.

If Saad had to go against his parents
'
obvious objections to be with me (if Ammi wasn
'
t here, his mother would probably be holding a pillow over my face), I might as well walk away now. What had the last couple of years taught us, if not the folly of going in practically alone? It just wouldn
'
t be worth the time and energy I would have to spend fighting his family afterwards. I was done fighting. Done. I would finally do what everyone else did to be able to get through life, roll over and play dead. Or was that what I had been doing all my life?

A wide expanse of green beckoned from beyond the window. Colour in the drabness of the city. How pretty. How cleverly rationed, not like Islamabad, where the sheer amount of green was enough to evoke the most primitive response and send all non-Isloo residents scurrying for cover before darkness fell and the beasts of the forest claimed their rightful place. Boars. Or was it bores?

Whatever. I was done. DONE. DUN. I was Khaki. I was boss! I liked this tangent! Did I like it because it distracted me from full comprehension of what a self-absorbed, man-hating, megalomaniac I was? But I wasn
'
t a self absorbed, man-hating, megalomaniac! I was enlightened, if in moderation …

‘
Ayesha?
'

He was sitting by my bed looking sad, just like he was supposed to have been all along. He was still wearing the shirt from that morning, or had it been the morning before. It didn
'
t matter. I knew only that I was glad to see him. He looked smaller. Like something had picked him up and squeezed all the juice out of him. I wanted to reach out and stroke the hand he had put over mine, touch his hair as he bent over and kissed it. I could see the first hints of white at the roots.

I could
see
the first hints of white at the roots.

There was a movement off to the side. I turned my head slightly. Astral me stood in the doorway with my father. He was holding a bunch of flowers. The fifty rupee last bouquet of the night
bhai samaj kay lay lain
kind. We looked at each other mutely.
‘
Stay …
'
Saad whispered, his head still bent over my hand.

‘
Saad,
'
I turned away from the door. My voice was low and hoarse, like I
'
d been yelling. I suppose I had been, at myself. He looked up. I smiled. He smiled.

‘
I
'
ll wait a minute before telling the others you
'
re awake shall I?
'

I nodded, and held his eyes till a movement in the corner of my vision told me my father had turned and was walking away down the corridor. A nurse looked after him in bewilderment, a 50 rupee bouquet of near-dead blooms in her hands.

‘
I want to tell you about my father.
'
Only after he
'
d nodded silently and given my hand a reassuring squeeze did I turn and check that Abba was really gone.

THE END

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