by Saba Imtiaz
Am I happier with Saad than I am with Jamie? Thinking of Saad—his retorts, his commentary about everyone walking by, the framed photo of us in his apartment—makes me smile.
My head is going to explode if I think about this any longer. I can’t compare the two. Saad is my oldest friend, someone who I’m going to love unconditionally until the day I die. But the past few days have made me realize that while I love Saad, he won’t always be around. He was hit on left, right and centre when we went out drinking, and I know he isn’t starved for friends in Dubai. One of these days, he is going to get married or find a girl he really likes and then there won’t be any more long weekends in Dubai eating buckets of fried chicken and wondering if there’s any wine left.
Ooh, e-mails.
Crap. They’re not from Jamie. I have five e-mails from Kamran.
E-mail 1: ‘Your salary has been transferred.’
E-mail 2: ‘Where are the stories I asked for?’ Attached to the e-mail is a set of pitches I wrote six months ago that Kamran never replied to.
E-mail 3: ‘We need someone in Larkana.’
E-mail 4: ‘When are you going to Larkana?’
E-mail 5: ‘Call me when you get these, I have your itinerary for Larkana.’
I call Kamran, and try to reason that I can’t possibly be expected to leave tonight. I wish I could tell him the real reason: that I desperately need to figure out what’s going to happen with Jamie. Kamran isn’t buying my excuses. ‘Ayesha, a few months ago you were begging me to send you anywhere. Now I need someone in Larkana to report on the election campaign there—I needed someone there yesterday—and if you don’t want to go, there are five other reporters who can write just as well as you. Sania is producing a fantastic series of exclusive interviews, Shahrukh has the crime angle covered, and we’ve hired a new girl, Alina, who is going to report from Punjab. I don’t pay you just so you can report on cupcake shop openings and fly off to Dubai whenever the fuck you want.’
The Golden Age of Kamran being kind and almost respectful has turned out to be a brief if wondrous thing. ‘But Kamran, I don’t even know who the candidates are! I’d really like to spend some time doing research and maybe line up a few interviews.’ I manage to convince him that I can’t leave before the next morning in any case as it’s a seven hour drive and that’s the only reasonable time to set out. ‘And I still need to get a bus ticket, find a hotel to stay in, and arrange for a car or something.’
Miraculously, Kamran sees sense. I ask him what my budget will be for the hotel, hoping to stay somewhere nice and peaceful where I can get a comfortable night’s sleep.
‘It’s ten thousand rupees. And non-negotiable. Make it work,’ he says, as if I’m a contestant on Project Runway being forced to make a prom dress from bubble wrap.
Tuesday, April 12, 2012
Headline of the day:
5:30 a.m.: I’ve just set foot in the Geo Larkana bus and any excitement I felt at getting to cover the election is swiftly draining away. The seats are tiny, the windows are bolted shut, and I can already sense that the bus will not have a working fan or AC. I put my bag on my seat and jump off. ‘When are we leaving?’ I ask the conductor, who is counting out tickets.
‘6 a.m.,’ he says. ‘We’re not going to stop for food so you should get some tea or something.’
The bus depot is on a corner of a street in Saddar, in an old house bearing a sign that says ‘Krishna Mahal—1922’. The occupants must have fled anticipating the bloody carnage that followed the partition of the subcontinent, like so many others did, abandoning their pristine havelis, which are now bus stands and low-budget motels. I sit down on one of the plastic chairs in the waiting area and the conductor walks in and shouts out, ‘Basheer! Tea for baji here.’
A young boy careens in, holding a tray of cups. There’s so much milk in the tea that it has already formed a skin on the surface, but I gulp it down anyway. ‘Can you get me a newspaper?’ I ask him, handing him a fifty-rupee note.
‘Which one?’ he says, tucking the note into his pocket. ‘Oh, and don’t put your feet on the ground, there’s a rat behind you.’
I jump up and run to the gate. ‘Baji, which newspaper?’ the kid calls out. ‘C’mon, I don’t have all day.’
‘A Sindhi paper,’ I say, hoping the rat hasn’t followed me outside.
8 a.m.: It takes me hours to read the paper, but by the end I’m rather proud of myself for remembering enough of the language from ninth grade to be able to do so. The bus drive isn’t so bad. The driver’s blaring some really catchy Sindhi music, and there’s no one sitting next to me so I have more space, except the arm rest won’t move so I’m going to have to rest my legs on that.
I recheck the notes Kamran has sent: I’m supposed to interview residents about who they’ll be voting for, try to attend a rally or two and visit the Bhutto family mausoleum to see if I can dig up any stories on how it’s being managed. Larkana is the Bhutto dynasty’s home district, where they lived and worked, protested and rallied, faced house arrest and were mourned. There are four generations of the family buried in the nearby village of Garhi Khuda Bux. The last time I travelled to Larkana was for the funeral rites for Nusrat Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s mother. The sight of her grave being dug next to those of her late husband and daughter and son had the entire press corps walking around with reddened eyes. That is, until a government minister fell into the open grave in a bid to be photographed ‘at the scene’.
9 a.m.: Trying to nap. The volume of the stereo is a bit annoying though.
Noon: I need to get off this bus. Maybe I can just lie down in this rice field we’re passing by.
2 p.m.: LARKANA!
2.10 p.m.: My legs won’t move. Isn’t it supposed to be bad for one’s blood circulation to be sitting in one place for more than five hours? Try to walk and promptly fall over.
2.30 p.m.: This is my third trip to Larkana city in two years, and each time it seems filthier than before. The rickshaw driver is giving me a tour of the city as we make our way to the hotel. ‘This is THE rice canal,’ he says, gesturing grandly.
‘What, this?’ It’s a murky stream with about twenty buffaloes in it, all looking rather askance at the lack of water.
All I want in life is to find this hotel and crash. I forgot how bad the traffic in Larkana is. Everyone drives like a maniac on speed. There are motorcycle drivers careening on and off the pavements with no one yelling after them to stick to the road. After about twenty minutes, I finally come face to face with the pink façade of the hotel, next door to a kebab roll establishment called ‘Lick a Chick’ with a couple of mournful looking chickens in a cage outside.
I trudge into the hotel lobby, which looks like it was designed with the Shish Mahal in mind. There are mirrors everywhere. Even the chairs are inlaid with mirrors. The bellboy and I walk up the stairs and he opens the door of the room.
It looks like a storeroom. Cobwebs hang from the fan. The bedspread is a lurid green, with a yellow blanket thrown on top and rose petals sprinkled across the pillows. I can hear the clucking of the chickens next door. ‘If you use the AC, that’s another thousand rupees per night,’ the bellboy informs me. I can just imagine Kamran’s face when I show him the hotel bill, so I open the windows and crank up the fan, shuddering as the cobwebs scatter over the yellow blanket.
The bathroom is surprisingly clean, but there’s no cold water so after about five seconds, my skin feels like it’s going to peel off from the boiling hot water. I look around for a TV. There isn’t one. I open the cupboard. It looks like it was last used to store Miss Havisham’s dress.
Oh well. There’s nothing to do but sleep I suppose.
I haul myself out of bed at 7 a.m. and order a cup of tea. The waiter brings it in and looks disapprovingly at the overflowing ashtray.
After a scalding shower, I head downstairs and ask the manager how long it would take to get to Garhi Khuda Bux in a rickshaw. He laughs at first, and then goes to confer wit
h someone. ‘Oh, an hour,’ he says. ‘You really don’t have a car?’ I want to tell him that if I can’t afford to pay for an air conditioned room, I definitely can’t afford to be chauffeured around. My entire budget for this trip is less than the amount Kamran spends on a dinner for two on a weekend. I’m going to Garhi Khuda Bux to check on a widely criticized plan to close off access to the graves, and a rumour that the old caretaker who looked after the graves for years has been sacked.
I hail a Qingqi rickshaw—the ridiculous Chinese-made rickshaws that seat eight people but have barely any railings to hold on to. The teenaged driver is convinced he knows the way to Garhi Khuda Bux. I open up Google Maps on my phone, thankful that the scourge of cell phone robberies hasn’t reached Larkana yet and one can still use one’s phone as is done in the rest of the civilized world. The water in the rice canal looks even murkier. The buffaloes are looking especially despondent. I make a mental note to tell Kamran this when he grills me about the trip.
Twenty minutes later, we stop at a gas station. The only person there apart from the attendant is a biker. When we leave, Google Maps reassures me that we’re on the right path, though I’m a tad concerned that we’re driving through what looks like wilderness. Although the surrounding countryside is beautiful—acres and acres of rice fields that look incredibly glossy. There’s the odd patch of sunflowers—real sunflowers!—and I ask the rickshaw driver to stop so I can take photos. I want to remind myself that there is beauty in this world. It feels bizarre to be on a road where there’s no other vehicle in sight. Why can’t Karachi be like this?
After a while, I finally see someone else on the deserted road. It’s the biker from the gas station. If this were Karachi, I’d have tossed my cell phone to him in anticipation of a mugging. The rickshaw driver looks a little worried. ‘Baji, he’s following us.’
‘Then can you speed up?’ I say, hopefully.
He tries, but it turns out Qingqis don’t go very fast. The biker follows us for about thirty minutes, as we drive on dirt roads through fields that I can’t even focus on because I’m so scared. I wrap my dupatta tightly around myself and run through curse words in my head. Does this man have nothing else to do but follow me to Garhi Khuda Bux? I am convinced this is how I’m going to die. He’s going to rape me and leave me for dead here, where the landowners’ legendary dogs will consume my remains. Or this is the spy I’d been waiting for. He found out I’ve done the story and is here to haul me off to some detention centre from where I’ll never be heard from again. ‘Oh God,’ I whisper, and begin reciting every half-forgotten Quranic verse I know. After what seems like years, we near the turnoff for Garhi Khuda Bux where there are a few more cars. CIVILIZATION! The motorcyclist suddenly turns back.
The rickshaw driver halts by the side of the road, gets off and kneels in relief. ‘Baji, I thought we were dead, for sure. I didn’t want to scare you before, but that man belongs to one of the dacoit gangs from a nearby village.’ I realize my clothes are drenched in sweat, even though it isn’t even hot. I light up a cigarette and offer him one.
My legs still feel a bit clammy when I get off the rickshaw at the tomb gates. I open my wallet to pay the driver but he frantically shakes his head. ‘No no, I could never take this. What if something had happened to you?’ He drives off, leaving me standing there with a five hundred-rupee note in my hand.
I turn to look at the mausoleum, an imposing white structure which a Pakistani author once wrote is like the Disney version of the Taj Mahal. She’s a total ditz and I cannot believe I actually agree with her on something, but the mausoleum is a bit Taj Mahal-esque in its design. And with its high ceilings and whirring fans, I could see myself getting a better night’s sleep here than in my terrible hotel room. People walk in and out, clutching bags of flower petals to scatter on the graves. A few men kneel at Benazir’s grave and start weeping.
After about two hours of interviews, I hitch a ride back with a bunch of women traveling to Larkana in a Qingqi rickshaw. At least there’s some safety in numbers.
6 p.m.: I’ve just filed my story and am wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of the evening. I’m mentally preparing myself to brave a meal at Lick a Chick and eat one of those mournful chickens when there’s a knock at the door. I open it expecting the bellboy bringing the ashtray I asked for.
It’s not the bellboy. It’s smarmy Ali from News 365. What the hell is he doing here, and why is he at my door? God, I hope he’s not here to deliver some bad news in the manner of the kindly army officer deputed to tell someone’s parents that their son has died on the frontlines. Except, why would anyone depute Ali? I shake myself awake. ‘Oh, hi. What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, I’m here on assignment with NBC,’ Ali says, fingering the ID badge around his neck. ‘The hotel staff just told me another journalist from Karachi had checked in and I thought I’d come say hello, though I had no idea it was you.’
Ali is being surprisingly polite. This is weird.
‘Well, yeah, I’m here for a few days. Good to see you.’
I’m about to close the door when Ali nervously coughs. ‘So we’ve managed to bring in a fair bit of booze from Karachi,’ he says. ‘Do you want to have a drink with us?’
‘We?’ I ask. The look on my face must be one of frozen horror. ‘Oh, sorry, I should have been clear. I’m here with my bureau chief from NBC, Andrea Altman. We’re pretty much done for the day and I thought you might like a drink or at least a cup of coffee, if they can rustle one up in this hell hole.’
I’m about to say no, but then I contemplate a night spent trying to catch a breeze from the creaky, dusty ceiling fan while checking my phone to see if Jamie’s called or the editor’s gotten back to me about my story. This way I might at least get some gossip out of the evening and will have some gems to share with Zara. ‘Sure,’ I say.
I follow Ali up the corridor, which is even grimmer than my room. The walls are lined with cracked mirrors. It’s borderline Dickensian. We walk into Ali’s room. His bureau chief is angrily tapping away on her iPhone. ‘Fuckers,’ she mutters. ‘Hi, I’m Andrea. It’s so nice to see there’s another woman here.’
The room is thrice the size of mine, and they haven’t scrimped on the air conditioning. I plant myself on a chair.
‘Beer?’ Ali asks and I nod. ‘I told Andrea that working in Sindh is intolerable without booze,’ he says. I know what he means. It hasn’t even been an hour since I returned to the hotel and I’m already quite prepared to drug myself to sleep with a bottle of cough syrup rather than face an evening of clucking chickens and the insane noise from the traffic.
A few hours and two beers later, I’m laughing hysterically at Andrea’s stories. She’s a really warm person, and is sarcastically commenting about life in Islamabad. ‘And then the army chief turned to his brother—you know, the one who’s a talk show host—and said “you’re a fucking sell-out”,’ she says, recalling a dinner party she’d been to last weekend. ‘Can you imagine? The entire room fell silent as the two bickered like schoolboys. And this is the head of the army!’
She asks me lots of questions about what it’s like to work as a woman in a Pakistani newsroom, and what I think about political developments and the elections. Even Ali seems to have lost much of his smarminess in her company. ‘So have you ever written abroad?’ she asks. ‘I just wrote my first piece, actually,’ I say. ‘It should be out soon. And I really want to freelance more, it’s just that I haven’t had much luck with pitching stories.’
‘Well, keep at it,’ Andrea says. ‘The first piece is the most important, that should hopefully open more doors for you.’
I smile, and suddenly feel the exhaustion of the day wash over me. ‘I should leave. Thank you so much for the really entertaining evening!’
‘Anytime,’ Andrea says. I politely excuse myself and head to my room to write to Zara about my evening. Halt in my tracks. There is a cockroach in the room. A flying cockroach. I can hear its wings fla
pping, oh fuck, it’s making its way towards me. I slam the door shut and race down the stairs to ask one of the staff to help kill it. The hotel guard reluctantly follows me upstairs, stamps it with his slipper and gives me a pitying look.
CHAPTER 10
Thursday, April 15, 2012
Headline of the day: ‘National assets can’t be handed over to capitalists: Chief Justice’
8 a.m.: Walk into the house after three days in Larkana and want to set fire to all of my clothes. They’re covered in dust. My shawl has been used as a face towel, a pillow, and a makeshift bed sheet to avoid catching lice from the hotel’s linen. The cat is refusing to let me pet her. I clearly smell of desperation and despair. My phone ran out of battery before I even got on the bus for the cramped and bumpy seven-hour trip back and I have no idea what’s going on in the world.
My father is running after the cat with two bowls of bite-sized chicken and sausages. ‘Beta, please eat something. Just one bite.’ Sometimes I wonder if my father really wanted another child and is living out his dream of being a typical Pakistani parent by stuffing the cat with food and being overly protective. The cat is not even allowed to go outside. Frankly, I have a feeling that she doesn’t want to. My father can accurately tell when the cat is happy or depressed, yet has rarely noticed when his own daughter sneaks away with the entire icebox to drink away her problems.
I plug the phone in to the charger and about twenty minutes later, it comes back to life and starts beeping. I have a few missed calls, from Kamran and Zara, and one from Akbar, the cameraman who Jamie uses as a fixer. That’s odd. Maybe he needs a favour or something.
I call him back. ‘Oh, Ayesha, sorry, I was calling because I needed the number for this fashion designer Jamie wants to interview. I got it from the office anyway.’