by Umera Ahmed
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On returning to Pakistan, Salar continued to live with his parents during his posting in Islamabad. When he was transferred to Lahore, he preferred to live in an apartment in Furqan's block, instead of renting out a bungalow in some posh locality.
Another reason for selecting proximity to Furqan was that he would not feel insecure about leaving his apartment unattended in his absence, and secondly, living in a house meant employing servants to maintain it, whereas he spent hardly any time at home. Moving with Furqan, Salar's social circle in Lahore also began to expand. Furqan was a very sociable being and his social circle was really quite large. Despite knowing Salar's moods and temperament, he would drag him along to various events from time to time.
That night Salar was with Furqan at one of his medical colleague's dinner and music party arranged on a farm. Salar had also been invited and when he heard about the ghazal evening, he could not resist.
The elite of the city had congregated on the farm. Salar knew most of them, and began talking to some acquaintances. Dinner had been served and while eating, Salar looked around for Furqan who was not visible. As Salar continued with dinner, he caught sight of Furqan, who seeing him, came up.
'Come Salar, let me introduce you,' he said. This is Dr Raza. He's a child specialist at Gangaram Hospital.' Salar shook hands with him.
'And this is Dr Jalal Ansar.' Salar needed no introduction. He did not hear what else Furqan was saying. He extended his hand towards Jalal and shook hands perfunctorily. Jalal too must certainly have recognized Salar.
Salar had gone there to spend a pleasant evening but it was going to be an awful night he realized. A flood of memories, breaking all bounds, assailed him. Everyone was moving to where the music had been arranged. Furqan was with Salar and Jalal a little ahead of them with other doctors. Salar looked at his back with a drawn face. Iqbal Bano was singing Faiz.
In the wilderness of solitude, dear love, Tremble the shadows of your voice, The mirage of your lips...
In the wilderness of solitude,
Beneath the debris of distance,
Bloom the cypress and the roses of your embrace.
The people sitting around him were swaying in ecstasy, moved by the singer's voice and the poetry. Salar, seated some tables away, looked at the man who was lost in pleasantries with his friends. Salar had never experienced envy, but he felt it now looking at that man.
After half an hour, he asked Furqan, 'Shall we make a move?'
'Where?'
'Home...'
'The programme has just begun. I'd told you that the party would be on till late at night.'
'Yes, but I'd like to leave. Get someone to drop me off. You can stay on.'
Furqan watched his face intently. 'Why do you want to leave?'
'I remembered something urgent.' Salar tried to smile.
'How can you think of anything urgent while listening to Iqbal Bano?' Furqan's tone was quite accusatory.
'Sit down, I'll find my way home,' said Salar instead, and got up.
'You're being quite odd. This farm's in the middle of nowhere—how will you go? Anyway, if you insist on leaving early, then let's go.' Furqan got up too.
They took leave of their host and got into Furqan's car. 'Now tell me, what happened all of a sudden?' asked Furqan as he drove out from the farm.
'I didn't feel like staying there any longer.'
'Why?'
Salar did not reply; he stared out of the window.
'Is Jalal the cause of your getting away from there?'
Salar turned around to look at Furqan who drew a deep breath.
'So my reading of this situation was correct—you left the party because of Jalal Ansar.'
'How did you know?' Salar said, admitting defeat, as it were.
'The way you both met was very strange. Jalal, unusually, did not give you any importance; although before a banker as well known as you a man like him should lay it on with a trowel. He lets no opportunity pass him by especially if his own benefit is involved. And you kept staring at him all the time,' said Furqan very calmly.
'You know Jalal Ansar?' inquired Salar, once again looking straight ahead. Then after quite some time, he added in a low voice, 'He is the man Imama wanted to marry.'
Furqan was at a loss for words. He did not expect that there would be this sort of acquaintance between Salar and Jalal or he would never have asked any questions. For a long time there was silence in the car.
'I am disappointed to learn that she wanted to marry a man like Jalal Ansar. He's a very arrogant fellow. We call him a butcher. His only interest is money. Where his patients will get it or how is not his concern mark my word, if he continues at this rate, he'll be the wealthiest doctor in Lahore in the next ten years.'
Furqan was commenting on Jalal and Salar heard him in silence. When he had finished, Salar said, This is what you call fate.'
'Do you envy him?' Furqan was astonished.
'No, I cannot envy,' Salar gave a strange smile. 'All that you're telling me about him, I knew this was years ago, from the time when I had gone to see him with Imama's message. I knew what sort of a doctor he would become. But seeing him today I felt very envious. He has nothing to commend him—he's ordinary to look at and his family's quite run of the mill too. There are thousands of doctors like him—greedy, materialistic—but consider his fortune that a girl like Imama Hashim should fall in love with him. She ruined her life and left home for him. Call him a butcher or what you will but that does not change his circumstances or mine.'
Salar stopped midway. Furqan saw his face cloud up.
'There must be something about him, something special that made Imama Hashim love no one else but him.' Salar rubbed his eyes.
'Had I known that you'd meet Jalal Ansar here, I would never have brought you along,' said Furqan as they drove towards town.
'Neither would I have come, at any cost, had I known,' thought Salar sadly, as he stared at the dark beyond the windscreen.
They traveled some more in silence, then Furqan turned to him again. 'Didn't you ever try to find her?'
'Who? Imama?lt's not possible.'
'Why?'
'How can I look for her? Several years ago, I'd tried, but nothing came of it. And now....now it's even more difficult.'
'You can get help from the newspapers.'
'Put in a notice about her?' Salar said, somewhat annoyed. 'Heaven knows if I'll find her, but her people will certainly get to me. I was already suspect in their eyes. Besides, what do I put in the papers, what do I say?' he shrugged resignedly.
'Then, forget her,' Furqan said matter-of-factly.
'Can anyone forget to breathe?' Salar retorted.
'Salar! That was a long time ago. How much longer are you going to pine for this unattainable love? You should think of your life ahead - you can't sacrifice your whole life for Imama Hashim!'
'I'm not sacrificing anything - neither my life, nor my time, nor myself. If I have Imama Hashim in my heart, it is only because I can't forget her. It's not in my power. It pains me greatly to think about her, but I've got used to this pain. She dominates my very being. If she hadn't come into my life, I wouldn't be sitting with you like this today, here in Pakistan. Salar Sikandar would be elsewhere, or perhaps, he would be nowhere...non-existent. I'm deeply indebted to her. You just can't fling out of your life the one to whom you are indebted. I can't either,' Salar explained tersely.
'Suppose you don't ever find her—what then?' Furqan responded.
Suddenly there was silence and after what seemed a long time, Salar said, 'I have no answer to that. Let's talk about something else.' Facilely, he changed the topic.
In a few years, Salar, like Furqan, had done a lot of work in the village and, in comparison, done it faster because he had more contacts and a wider social circle. He had changed the very look of the place: clean water, electricity and a tarred road that connected the village to the highway had been p
rovided in the first two years. In the third year, there was a post office, an office of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the facility of telephone connections; and in the fourth year, with the help of an NGO, he had set up afternoon vocational classes in the high school to teach handicrafts to the girls and women. The village dispensary got an ambulance and some more medical equipment. Like Furqan, he had set up the dispensary with his own resources, along with the school, and had used Furqan's help in improving it. Unlike the problem faced by Furqan, Salar had made arrangements for a permanent doctor even before the dispensary was functional.
All the expenses of the school were borne by Salar, but to run the dispensary he had taken help from his friends. The contacts and friends made while working at UNICEF were proving useful now. He had brought over many of his colleagues from UNICEF and UNESCO to Pakistan. He was now busy in planning vocational training. However, this was not all that had happened in the fourth year—there was more.
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That day, while returning to Islamabad, Sikandar Usman's car tire was punctured; the driver pulled to the roadside and began to change the tire. Sikandar Usman looked around as he waited. He caught sight of a signboard and the name of the village on it attracted his attention. The name was not new for him as it was associated with Salar. When the driver got back in the car, Sikandar told him to drive to that village—he was curious, all of a sudden, about the school that Salar had been running there for some years.
The car sped along the cemented road and they reached the village within ten minutes. A few small shops came into view—the commercial area of the village, perhaps.
'Get down here and ask someone where Salar Sikandar's school is,' he instructed the driver. He had remembered suddenly that Salar had never mentioned the name of the school and where they had stopped there was no indication of any school nearby. For the villagers, Sikandar Usman's car would have been a source of excitement some years ago but now they were quite used to Salar and his friends driving up. However, since this car did not just pass by but was parked instead, their curiosity was aroused.
The driver went over to a shop and began to ask a group of people there about Salar's school.
'Yes, sir, his school's here. Just drive down this road and then turn right and you'll see a large building there. That's the school,' explained one man. 'Are you Salar Sahib's friend?' he enquired.
'No, I've come with his father.'
'Father?' the man asked in surprise, and hearing the word, everyone there began to look towards the car. The man got up and shook hands with the driver.
'Salar Sahib's father has come here, that's an honor for us,' he said and moved towards the car. The others sitting there also followed him. Sikandar Usman seeing this group coming was a bit perplexed. The man following the driver came to the car and, through the window, extended his hand. Sikandar gingerly offered his hand and the man warmly clasped it with both hands. Sikandar's discomfort was quite visible.
'It's a pleasure to have met you, sir!' the man said with great respect. 'Would you like some tea...or a cold drink?' he asked effusively. The driver had started the car.
'No, no...there's no need. I just wanted to know the way,' Sikandar said quickly. The car moved forward. The villagers stood there and watched the car drive away. The man shook his head ruefully and said, 'Salar Sahib is something else, now.'
'Yes—he's not like this. He'd never leave without our hospitality,' another man concurred. The men dispersed.
Salar used to park his car near the village shops and would gladly accept the simple fare the villagers offered him. He would then walk across to his school. The village men were disappointed because far from eating with them, Sikandar Usman had not even bothered to alight from his car.
The car turned right from the road and Sikandar who was talking to the driver, suddenly fell silent. The large spacious building that came into view through the windscreen dwarfed the little house around it—it was an astonishing sight. Sikandar had no idea that Salar was running such a big school here. What left him amazed was not the size of the building and its grounds, but the signboard on the road leading towards it. In bold letters, visible from a distance, he read 'Sikandar Usman High School'.
The driver had parked the car in front of the school. Sikandar got down and, across the gate, read his name on the school front. His eyes filled up—Salar had left him speechless once again. The gate was shut but the gatekeeper was there and seeing the car, was opening the gates for him.
'Sahib is here from the city and wants to have a look at the school,' said the driver. Sikandar Usman was still staring at his name on the board.
'You're here in connection with Salar Sahib?' the gatekeeper asked.
'No, we're just visiting,' the driver said without hesitation.
Sikandar looked away from the board and looked at the driver and the gatekeeper. 'I am Salar Sikandar's father,' he said in a firm but choked voice.
The driver looked at him in surprise and the gatekeeper, somewhat confused, said, 'You're Sikandar Usman Sahib?'
Without responding, Sikandar Usman moved to the gate.
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He was on the jogging track that evening when Sikandar called on his mobile phone. He stopped in his tracks, and recovering his breath, sat down on a bench nearby.
'Hello, Papa! Assalaam alaikum!'
'W'alaikum...are you on the track?' Sikandar judged that by Salar's heavy breathing.
'Yes. How are you?'
'I'm fine...'
'And Mummy?'
'She's fine too.'
Salar waited for his father to continue the conversation. There was silence on the other side, momentarily, then his father said, 'I've seen your school today.'
'Really?' Salar blurted out. 'How did you like it?
'How did you manage all this, Salar?'
'Manage what?'
'All that there is over there.'
'I don't know...it just kept happening. If I'd known, I would have taken you there myself. I hope there were no problems,' he said with some concern
'Could Salar Sikandar's father have any problems there?' he said in reply. Salar knew it wasn't a question.
'What sort of a person are you, Salar?'
'I don't know...you should know, I'm your son.'
'No...I've never been able to find out.' Sikandar replied in a strange tone.
Salar drew a deep breath. 'Nor have I ever been able to find out. I'm still trying to know myself.'
'You...you're an extremely stupid, obnoxious and vile fellow, Salar!'
Salar laughed out. 'You're right. I really am that way. Anything more?'
'And this...that I am indeed fortunate to have you for my son.' Sikandar's voice quavered. It was Salar's turn to stay quiet.
'Tell me what the monthly expenses are for the school. My office will send you a cheque for the amount every month.'
Before Salar could say anything, the phone had been switched off. In the dark that had spread over the jogging track, Salar looked at the glowing screen of the cell phone. When the lights came on, he just sat there and absentmindedly watched the people on the track. Then getting up, he walked back to the track with long strides.
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Salar first met Ramsha a year after his arrival in Lahore. She was a graduate of the London School of Economics and had been posted in his bank. Her father had been a longstanding customer of the bank and Salar knew him well.
Ramsha was very good-looking, intelligent and pleasant natured and within a short time of her joining the bank, she had made friends with the people there. As a colleague, she was on good terms with Salar too and in consideration of her father, he respected her. Compared to the other girls working in the bank, Ramsha was more informal with Salar, but he had no idea as to when she had started taking this relationship more seriously.
She had become too attentive towards him and visited his office more frequently. Aft
er office hours too she'd often call him up. Salar found her behaviour somewhat unusual but then brushed off the suspicions that arose in his mind. Albeit, his complacency on her behalf came to an end after a year.
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No sooner had Salar stepped into his office in the morning—and he was taken aback. On his table there was a large and beautiful bouquet with a card attached. He put down his briefcase and opened the card.
'Happy birthday to Salar Sikandar — Ramsha Hamdani'
Salar took a deep breath: no doubt it was his birthday, but how did Ramsha get to know? He stood there a while, wondering. Then placing the bouquet aside on the table, he took off his jacket, hung it on the back of the chair and sat down to work. He had noticed another card under the bouquet which he opened up. Reading the contents, he put the card in his drawer—he wasn't quite sure what his reaction to the bouquet and the card ought to be. But then, he shrugged off these thoughts and attended to his work. As he was setting up his laptop and putting away the briefcase, Ramsha walked in.
'Happy birthday, Salar!' she said as she entered.
He smiled. 'Thanks.'
Ramsha pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him. Salar was busy switching on the laptop.
'Thank you for the bouquet and card too—it was a pleasant surprise,' he said, as he plugged his phone into the computer. 'But how did you find out about my birthday?' he couldn't help but ask.
'That I am not going to tell you, mister—I had to find out and I did,' she said pertly. 'And otherwise too, friends don't ask each other such questions. If friends were ignorant of such details, then what sort of friends would they be?'