by Saba Imtiaz
I spent the rest of the night on the phone venting to Saad. ‘Good riddance,’ Saad said, as I took a break from hurling expletives to swig some Diet Coke. ‘Never did like the look of him. Imagine a life of having to pretend to be interested in banking or equities or whatever the fuck it is he did. I’m a banker and even I can’t stand it.’
The next morning, Hasan texted again. ‘Please return my iPod.’
Hasan ultimately moved to Lahore and married a 20-something glamazon who now designs clothes for a living. I haven’t dated anyone since.
Which is why I have no one to eat pancakes with at Espresso on a Sunday morning and can’t face the thought of eating by myself, sitting on one of the barstools while all around me stick thin women in their oversized sunglasses stare adoringly at their husbands.
My phone buzzes with a message and I pounce on it.
It’s a text message from a lawyer I’ve met twice.
‘Assalamualaikum.
You Can’t Add more Milk in a Glass Full of Milk
But
You Can Add Sugar in it
This Proves
Sweet People Can Make Their Space in an already Filled Heart.’
I spend the morning eating halwa puri while my father repeats everything from Najam Sethi’s TV show. ‘Did you know that the PML have threatened to quit the government again?’
I am about to point out that I just wrote a piece called ‘Threats to the coalition’, but the paper is being used to soak up the grease from the puris. I remind myself that I work as a journalist, and I know that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper but as the grease saturates the newspaper, I can’t help but feel that this is a message to me personally.
I can’t go out as I’m down to my last five hundred rupee note, having spent the last of my salary paying the bootlegger. I can’t wait for the day he starts an instalment plan for journalists. In addition to being a maniac, Kamran hasn’t paid us our salaries yet. There hasn’t been an explanation or an apology or even a fleetingly guilty look. On the seventh of the month I went to ask Mir in accounts why there had been a delay. He and his colleague exchanged looks and then he took a fake phone call and scuttled out of the room. When I eventually asked Kamran, on the 17th, he said I should be patient and that he’d been shelling out money for an upgrade of our facilities. Then he started telling me that I was irresponsible and should have savings for times like these but then stopped abruptly on seeing the look on my face.
Oh God, I am so broke. I’m replacing actual entertainment with surfing Facebook. My theory about Facebook is that the worse the evening, the more the photos, which is why I have barely any pictures from nights when I have a) looked thin, b) had fun. Instead, I just have lots of photos from nights when I’ve had to drink myself to the point of alcohol poisoning to get over the pain of having to converse with a ‘factory boy’. Factory boys always have the same life story: the father owns a textile mill or sugar mill or cement factory, appoints the son heir apparent to the empire, and the son blows their money on cases of Black Label and a fifteen thousand-rupee a night coke habit. In two years, he’s in a rehab facility, four years later, he’s married to an 18-year-old who has no idea what her husband does. And they rarely have anything to talk about other than their businesses: conversation with a factory boy usually entails nodding along while they rail against the price of gas and electricity, the ‘bloody labour unions’ protesting for higher wages or how Bangladesh has ‘completely taken over the export market, man, it’s insane’. They’re like a grown up version of a fraternity, stuck somewhere between being teenagers and elderly gentlemen who go to the club every Sunday. Every Karachi girl I know has dated at least one ‘factory boy’ and dumped him within the first two weeks, quite possibly because the alternative would have been to slit their wrists.
The phone rings. It’s Saad. ‘How’s Zara? Can you organize drinks for us the next time I’m in town?’ As if I haven’t heard a million times already how hot he thinks she is and why I am a horrible friend and human being for not setting them up.
I decide to avoid the nightmarish prospect of a) seeing two of my closest friends engage in full-fledged PDA while I drink coffee and complain about my life and b) Zara asking me two weeks later why Saad hasn’t called her while I drink coffee and prepare for an extremely awkward conversation. Why do I have such disturbing visions? I tell Saad I’ll introduce him to my friend Nadia who’s just moved back from New York and doesn’t really know a lot of single people. Nadia has changed careers five times in the last five years: she was a consultant for an NGO, helped manage a coffee shop, wrote copy at an advertising agency, worked on a TV show as a researcher, and is now an event manager. She wears heels all the time, can’t speak Urdu and parties constantly. ‘You’ll love her!’ I squeal. After all these years, I still don’t understand why Saad never really engages with women he can talk to, before growing bored of them and leaving them, generally devastated. ‘I’ve got you for conversation,’ he’s always said. ‘Oh, by the way, can you buy my mother something for her birthday? I’ll transfer some money to your account. Take her shopping or something.’
7 p.m.: I call Saad’s mother, Riffat aunty, who I perhaps love more than Saad. She is the only person to have not given me that spiel about getting married and ‘settling down’, as if I’m a cat on heat that needs to stop yowling. ‘Where’s the fun in that beta? Enjoy yourself. Travel. See the world. Maybe get married. Don’t have kids, they’re so overrated.’
‘Saad wants to buy me a birthday present?’ she says. ‘Uff, sure, as long as this means I get to see you. Come over next Sunday. We’ll have lunch at home.’
8 p.m.: Am flicking cigarette ash off my pyjamas when Kamran calls. ‘AYESHAAA. There has been a rape in Defence. We’re on it. Just get to the police station and see if you can have a look at the FIR. Go. Now.’ I have no idea who has been raped, which police station to get to, and what exactly Kamran needs. I call three cops before one tells me the victim is at his station.
9 p.m.: Arrive at the police station after the rickshaw breaks down midway. ‘Baaji, don’t worry. No one will mug you. Just sit here,’ the driver said as he fiddled with the engine. Wish I could tell him that Kamran won’t care about his spluttering rickshaw and will only ask me, wide eyed, ‘But why don’t you have a car?’
The TV news crews are packing up outside the station, rolling about eight feet of cables away into their vans and shouting out to each other, ‘I’ve called the office. We’re done for tonight. Hey, should we go eat karhai?’
Ali from News 365 isn’t on the scene! Mentally give myself a high five that Ali is not dedicated enough to work on Sundays like I am.
Safdar, who works for CNBC, sidles up to me as I try to plead with the police officer at the gate to let me in. ‘Safdar bhai, what happened?’
‘Prostitute. She was a prostitute, at some dance party in Defence. What do you think would’ve happened?’
The officer at the gate chimes in. ‘She was wearing jeans when she came, and some man was with her. I heard sahib saying it happened at Seaview at 3 a.m.
‘Exactly,’ Safdar says. ‘Now what girl from a good home goes to Seaview?’ I’m still trying to formulate a comeback when the door opens and a horde of political advisors to the chief minister stomp out. The reporters rush up to interview them. ‘The girl seems very disturbed… Her story doesn’t really add up,’ offers Nadia Baig, who advises the chief minister on human rights. ‘I believe she’s lying. We have police officers on the road at 3 a.m., how could a girl get raped?’
I ask her how she is so sure. ‘I’m a woman, and I talked to her like a woman.’ She gives me a once-over, hoists up her quilted Chanel bag and walks away. The doors to the police station are still open so I run inside, and begin asking if anyone knows who brought the girl in.
‘They left,’ announces a female officer. ‘From the back gate. Nadia sahiba asked lots of questions and the girl started crying. You can see them in court to
morrow.’
She holds out the police report, but won’t let me make copies. ‘Can’t you just take notes?’
I copy whatever makes the most sense and walk out. Safdar stops me again. ‘So Kamran sent you here because you’re a woman, na? This isn’t really my beat; I’m just here because it’s a Sunday. I don’t get why we’re making such a big deal of this, thousands of girls are raped every day, and we care about this one girl? And who even knows what her story is. Really, you know Defence has so many of these girls who work out of these big houses where they have these big dance parties, and there’s alcohol and drugs.’
As Safdar continues I realize the police report doesn’t actually say what the girl does or whether she was at a party. ‘How do you know where she was?’
‘The station in-charge told us. Defence doesn’t really have any “big” crime so they’re making a big deal of this because they want some shabashi from the government.’
I used to be offended by crime reporter-speak, which usually featured bits like ‘woh larki aise uchal rahi thi jaise uski maa mari ho’ (describing a woman at a protest against sectarian killings). But after I got into an argument with a reporter in the smoking area at work who was ranting about how the ‘bloody Shias should just cancel their procession for one bloody year if they want to stop being killed’ I realized it was easier to keep quiet.
10 p.m.: Arrive at the office to be told that I am too late and the paper will be carrying wire copy instead. Look around for Kamran to ask him why I was sent in the first place but he’s nowhere to be found. As I idle outside his office, someone calls out. ‘Kamran sahib has gone to Atrium to watch Race 2.’
I call Zara. She cancels my call and sends me a WhatsApp message. ‘At Atrium watching Race 2. Kamran’s here with his wife. Sana, right? She’s wearing green eye shadow in the exact same shade as motifs on her kameez.’
Midnight: Drink last dregs of Murree’s latest invention: a copycat version of Bombay Sapphire that’s tinted blue since this proved cheaper than manufacturing blue glass.
God, I’m so depressed. I spent the entire evening at work and what do I have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. No story, no byline. I log on to Twitter and all of the journalists I follow are posting links to their exposes and exclusive interviews and long-form pieces. I so desperately want to be one of them that it’s actually driving me to tears. Can’t I do just one great story that will get me noticed?
I call Saad. He texts back to say he can’t talk as he’s at the cinema watching Race 2.
2 a.m.: Fall asleep reading comments on the rape story posted online. ‘This is vy Karachi needs to be handed over to the ARMY FOR A CLEAN-UP OPERATION and then a caliphate system,’ posts Drizzle69. Wish I could reply and tell him that this would probably mean he could never post as ‘Drizzle69’ again. Flip the laptop shut and roll over.
CHAPTER 3
Friday, February 5, 2012
Headline of the day: ‘Books not bombs at Pakistan literature festival’
Oh joy.
The Karachi Literature Festival is Kamran’s wet dream. Every year, we basically stop work for two days and Kamran sends the entire newsroom to the festival to report on who wore what and who’s writing what. His idea of a treat involves getting me to cover the opening ceremony. At 9 a.m. Saad had flown in for it last year, with his then-girlfriend, a glamazon called Nina who worked with him in Dubai and asked me every half hour if we were ‘just friends’. Luckily we’d sat in the row of people who’d all laughed when Karen Armstrong said that we should see the good in the people around us. ‘I’ve had sex with most of the people here,’ Saad announced, far too loudly. ‘I’ve already seen the best of them.’ Nina whipped her head around. ‘What. Do. You. Mean?’ The ensuing fight lasted through the festival, with Nina pointing to every girl there—single, married, nine months pregnant—asking if he’d slept with her. He told me later they broke up on the cab ride to the airport, which made for an incredibly awkward two-hour flight.
The literature festival is one of Karachi’s biggest cultural events, so everyone turns up. It’s free, there’s the chance to meet authors, listen to poetry, discuss books and get into long, passionate arguments that aren’t fuelled by alcohol. If only it wasn’t for the blasted diplomats who turn up in droves: every year, the organizers of the festival schedule at least two—or five—sessions on Afghanistan or Kashmir so it becomes ‘newsy’. And the diplomats always put up a chunk of money, which means we have to sit through their unending speeches at the opening ceremony, which usually feature a variation of this quote: ‘Reading and books are how we will defy the extremists who want to destroy our way of life.’
The place is buzzing. There are tons of people there, which is rare for 9 a.m. in Karachi unless a clothing sale is somehow involved, in which case all bets are off and you will in all likelihood see women elbowing and clawing at each other.
We’re seated beneath bougainvillea boughs in the vast gardens of the Beach Luxury Hotel, which is quite nice really. There’s a gorgeous view of the sea and the hotel itself is modernist and retro and has a café called 007. Except there’s never a James Bond-esque character there, just a bunch of retirees discussing how bad things are in Pakistan.
A foreign journalist sitting next to two blonde women looks up from his BlackBerry and exclaims: ‘This is just like Islamabad. With the sea!’
I hate living in Karachi, but for the city to be compared to Islamabad—one of the dullest, most out of touch places in the country—is ridiculous. I’m about to say something when the last of the ambassadors—Russian? German? French? I’m going to have to get his name from the photographer later—stops talking and people applaud.
‘The literature festival is now open!’ exclaims the master of ceremonies, who in the past decade, has worked as a PR rep, a journalist, a foreign affairs talk show host, and is now an official ‘emcee’ at high profile events.
A girl standing next to me makes a sudden dash for the café, where the authors are holding court. One of them is dressed entirely in black even though we are not on the set of a vampire film and more importantly, it is ridiculously hot. He’s waxing lyrical to a crowd of society aunties about the bougainvilleas in his old house. ‘They were the colour,’ he says, with a strategic pause, ‘of blood.’ Another is chain smoking and looking bemusedly at the bougainvillea author. Another, who specializes in writing fictionalized accounts of major news events, is signing a towering pile of books. His latest, an account of the Osama bin Laden raid in Abbottabad, is being adapted for a film. ‘Oh, working on a film is amazing. It’s such a privilege. But I’d rather be here with people who really appreciate my work,’ he says, smiling at a young teenage girl, who squeals and scurries off.
I figure I have enough material for a ‘mood piece’, one of those descriptive pieces that are like introductions to a story which never begins. Kamran loves mood pieces. Though there was almost a mini-mutiny in the newsroom last week after he sent out a 2,000-word e-mail insisting reporters should produce more of them as readers enjoyed them so much. ‘Haan, log bahut enjoy kar rahe hain “kafir kafir Shia kafir” ke naaray lagate hue,’ grumbled Shahrukh, the crime reporter.
I start frantically calling the office driver, hoping he can get me out of here in the next five minutes when the sky, with no warning whatsoever, turns deep grey before erupting in a heavy shower. How is this happening? The speeches were all about the beginning of spring. It isn’t supposed to rain. I’m wearing white, and this will soon turn into a one-woman wet t-shirt contest. I look around, trying to figure out an exit strategy. All around me there’s the click-clacking of heels as people run to the rooms where the sessions have started. Bougainvillea author is actually standing, arms outstretched, taking in the rain. I think about what his book must be like and shudder.
I end up joining the horde. My choices are attending the fifteenth launch of the same book about Afghanistan, a session on ‘post-9/11 writing’, or one on ‘the rise of the left win
g’ (do we even have such a thing?). I opt for a discussion on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry instead. At the door, the photographer is wringing out her shawl. ‘This must be what it feels like to be a flood victim,’ she says, ‘and Kamran said this would be FUN.’ She looks at me and says, ‘Err, I think you may need a shawl. Do you know your t-shirt is soaking wet?’
Okay, this session was a bad idea. Two old men—so old that I’m surprised they’re not hooked up to oxygen tanks—are reminiscing about all the times they met Faiz. ‘I gave Faiz the idea for that poem,’ offers one, wiping his face with a handkerchief. ‘I gave him the page from my notebook to write it on,’ counters the other. I head to another session, where a self-proclaimed Marxist is reading a speech against large corporations off his iPad. Someone sitting behind me squeals, ‘Isn’t he adorable?’ ‘Chootiya,’ mutters a young boy sitting next to me. I’m inclined to agree and head to the session on post-9/11 writing.
The authors are bitterly arguing about US policy in the region. ‘Look, this isn’t our war,’ says the author who is touting his account of the Osama bin Laden/Abbottabad raid at the festival. ‘We are liberal, secular people living in a state that was founded for people of all religions. So this is really just a spillover of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Look, we’re at a literature festival. You don’t have literature festivals in failed states.’
‘Oh, of course,’ says the moderator, flicking back auburn highlights with a bejewelled hand. ‘I mean, we really were meant to be a pluralistic society.’
‘This is really all Zia-ul-Haq’s fault,’ screeches the feminist poet who has wrested the mic from a volunteer. The audience sighs contently, and some people applaud. If there is ever anything you can count on at Pakistani cultural events, it’s that Zia—dead for longer than most people can remember—can still be blamed for everything.
I sidle out as inconspicuously as I can, and am so careful to keep my head down I can’t see where I’m going and walk smack into someone on the other side of the door. As I look up to apologize, I see that I’ve bumped into the most impossibly good looking man I’ve ever clapped eyes on. Suddenly I am acutely aware of what I must look like: drenched t-shirt, hair all over the place, wearing pants that I’m fairly sure are covered in dust from sitting on the carpet at the session. He must be gay, I think. There is no way someone straight is this put together, at least not in Karachi. He has the most perfect skin. His hair looks like his mother spent hours every day brushing it until it gleamed. His socks and shoes are actually coordinated. ‘And you must be Ayesha,’ he said.