by Anees Salim
For Vanity Bagh, it proved to be a season of tragedies. One late December evening, Ammi came back from Mogul Bakery with the wisp of a frown on her face.
‘Imran,’ she gasped, dropping the shopping bags to the floor the way exhausted women do in television commercials, ‘Benazir is dead.’
‘Oh no!’ Wasim, who was lazing on the sofa with his refrigeration manual, sprang to his feet with a sunken face as if it was he, and not I, who had courted Benazir once.
I remembered the Valentine’s Day card Benazir had sent me in 2006, a few months before her marriage to the television dealer. She had written ‘Forever Yours’ in her childish hand next to a pair of infused hearts at the centre of the page. I saw one of those hearts bleeding now, the other all cracked up like broken china.
‘What happened?’ I asked, trying to sound indifferent.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just heard people talking in Mogul Bakery.’
‘Mogul Bakery is still open?’ I could almost see a member of our gang, most probably Jinnah, stepping into the chaotic store to offer condolences and slipping out with something substantial from the till or the racks. ‘How is Mir sahib taking it?’
Wasim turned his head to study my profile, where his eyes lingered, as if he were admiring the way Sharif Khan had fashioned my whiskers. The frown on Ammi’s face hardened. Then, just as I was beginning to realize my mistake, she spat her words out, ‘It is not Mir sahib’s daughter Benazir who is dead. It is the other one, Bhutto’s daughter.’
The following Thursday, the imam announced the Friday prayers would be lengthier; he would be saying special namaaz for the departed soul. The mohalla-wallahs promptly turned up with tiny black flags of mourning pinned to their chests and the imam, with the help of a hugely erroneous account of her life and times, made the gathering feel enormously distraught about her assassination.
The jumma prayers at the Masjid-e-Mosavi and the imam who led the namaaz found a mention in one of the newspapers the next day.
LITTLE PAKISTAN OFFICIALLY MOURNS BENAZIR’S DEATH!
And, predictably enough, Ammi cut the news item and kept it between the pages of the old diary, along with the picture of the imam pelting a stone at a blurry brick red bus.
This year you are in the news all the time, Imran’s Abba.
Things can only get better from here, Fatima’s Ammi.
Before the year ended, there was another death in the mohalla. A death no one condoled and said a special namaaz for. Only a few mohalla-wallahs gathered outside the mosque to watch the men from the corporation wrap the madwoman’s body in a mat and load it into a Good Shepherd Society ambulance. Then they drove indifferently towards the last sunset of the year.
VIII
We, the mohalla-wallahs, are patriotic Indians.
But please don’t blame Pakistan for every blast.
~ Uncle Ummer Jabbari (1955- )
Sundays.
I don’t like them anymore. It’s the day people in a prison, inmates as well officials, fall victim to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Those who bathe, bathe for long. Those who whistle, whistle until the wardens signal them to stop. Those who sit alone and smile at their toenails, do that until it is too dark to see their feet. I know how seriously wrong this condition could be. None in my immediate or extended family have this condition. Touchwood, may none in my immediate or extended family ever have it. But Mir sahib’s elder brother had OCD (it does sound like a cheap brand of liquor, doesn’t it?) and used to file his nails at least a dozen times a day until they found him dead on a toilet seat. But he died of his heart suddenly stop beating, not of running out of nails. According to Mir sahib’s eldest son, who refused to enrol for bakery and confectionery training in Switzerland and went to Hyderabad instead to study psychiatry, nobody has ever died of OCD, though every time he was invited by the Rotary Club for a speech he talked about OCD, labelling it an inconsiderate killer.
No one has ever died of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
But it is a real killer all the same.
– Dr Shah Navas Mir (1975- )
Proof that Mir’s beta has OCD like his uncle.
See, he is obsessed with talking about it.
– Professor Zaheer Ali (1950- )
On Sundays I take especial care to be a normal human being, and do things as different as chalk and cheese just to distract myself. But towards noon I find myself as senselessly obsessive about things as the late Zafarulla Mir. What is bloody wrong with my brain, I ask myself. Why am I humming the same tune over and over again as if it were the only one ever scored? Or doing charcoal sketches of Vanity Bagh on lime-washed walls like the homeless do on the back walls of public comfort stations? Or driving imaginary trucks loaded with silent lambs down roads rolling along green mountains?
These days there is something new I do. I keep wondering what has happened to the piece of news I sent out to the real world through the Workshop man. Is he holding onto it? Or has he spilled the beans? And the NIA is sitting on it because it doesn’t trust the source? They surely don’t want to dig behind the madrasa and end up finding no bomb. That would be big trouble for the NIA and the government, that would be the lead news on television and bold headlines in newspapers, there would be rallies and riots – and that is my vicious wish list.
Lunch eaten, heartburns burped out, off-duty wardens divide themselves into two groups and play 7s when the sun is behind the line of eucalyptuses. They kick a coffee-coloured ball around as long as there is light in the sky and inmates are there to take sides and clap. This prison loves 7s.
7s was probably the only activity 5½ Men did not have the adequate manpower for. Falling short of one head, we let Jerome Pinto, who had twice kept wickets for his school team, play as our guest goalkeeper. He would turn up in his keeping gloves and spikes and half-sit in the air with his hands outstretched, but his modified skills were hardly tested because nothing ever got past our star stopper-back Zulfikar who, at the first sign of being outwitted by a local Beckham, slipped a hand down the striker’s crotch and squeezed his tiny Jabulanis.
What a riot 7s matches were in Mangobagh! The moment they found fourteen people, they set the ball rolling. Under the bridge, behind the bus depot, right in front of the city’s biggest garbage hill, even on the little peninsulas frenzied reclamation had given birth to. There were even seasonal tournaments involving big clubs and indoor stadiums, where our place would be only in the stands. We could compete only with our equals: boys from other ill-reputed streets, teams hurriedly made of coolies and vendors from Begum Bazaar, or men from the railway quarters. During an especially hot summer, we were invited to play a team of fishermen in a palm grove near the sea. The invitation came through an exporter of crustaceans who, en route to his office in the fish market, had caught a glimpse of Jinnah balancing the ball on his head longer than it took the lights at the Char Bazaar intersection to change. He pulled over by Akbar Electricals and trudged up to Franklin to praise Jinnah on his extraordinary skills. All great footballers, he said, hailed from the streets. Pretending to be too much of a genius to be moved by roadside eulogies, Jinnah replied he didn’t hail from the street but a proper house. All our faces stung with shame. To hide his hurt, the exporter let out a curt, loud laugh. We smiled respectfully and shook hands with him just to make up for Jinnah’s complete lack of manners. One thing led to another as the evening traffic flowed past us; he said we looked a promising bunch of footballers, that he would love to watch us play one day.
‘Here is my card,’ he said holding out a sea blue business card with cartoon fish riding corrugated waves.
‘Here is ours,’ Navaz Sharif fished out our green-andwhite business card from his fake Gucci wallet. (Yes, by that time we had printed business cards for 5½ Men with the line of business specified as interior decorators.) Pocketing our business card, the exporter picked his cautious way through the crawling traffic to his black, lumpy car. We ranked him as the most genuine human being o
f the year.
Then, when we had completely forgotten about the encounter that he had to repeat the story of the ball sitting on Jinnah’s head like a crown, the exporter phoned to ask us politely if we cared to play a team from his village. We said we did. Come fully prepared, he said. We said we would.
The next day we picked seven short-sleeved vests from the Mill Market and got them screen-printed on both sides; Vanity Bagh United on the chest and the Coca-Cola logo on the back. Coca-Cola didn’t even know about our club, so we did not have to seek their permission or sign contracts which would have enslaved us to them for the rest of our lives. But it was a great feeling having the Coca-Cola logo on your back. It was a greater feeling than having a girl on your back.
On a hot afternoon we reached the fishermen’s village to an utter lack of welcome. Our host was mysteriously missing. And the man designated by him, an old fisherman who had albino eyelids and orange eyelashes, who was to double up as the referee later in the day, said the host team was still at sea, chasing fish. We sat on the breakwater and screwed up our eyes at the razor-thin horizon like people awaiting dead bodies to wash up on the shore. Late in the afternoon catamarans came ashore with a formidable line-up: coal-dark men with six-pack bodies, whose features were hardened by the sea into permanent scowls. They neither smiled at us nor shook our hands, as if such cordialities would betray their game plan. The referee led us up a short incline into a rambling palm grove. Stripping ourselves down to maroon shorts and screen-printed vests, we huddled together for a giggly oath (the huddle was from cricket, it was Jerome Pinto’s idea).
In the middle of the grove was an oval clearing with the sidelines marked in white chalk, which steadily eroded in the breeze from the sea and by the onslaught of fourteen pairs of bare feet. A few minutes into the match, we realized we were playing in the local version of Escape to Victory, and Jinnah was finding it hard to keep his ribs away from the elbows of the opposition. And later, just as the wind from the sea was picking up, the fishermen, who had never let themselves lose a match in their backyard, chased us down the darkening groves.
Machods, never come here again with your bloody cunts.
– Their Captain ( - )
Bhenchods, we can beat you in fishing and fucking too.
– Our Captain (1984-?)
They trailed us with stones and hunks of mud, with a particular vengeance aimed at Yahya who had brought shame to their clan with his stubbly head. Like a whale coming up for air, he had leapt high in the air twice and thumped the ball into the goalpost made of fishing nets. What infuriated the fishermen more than the goals were the theatrics of celebration Yahya had erupted into. They mistook his speech impairment for arrogance, his antics for extreme mockery, and treated him with a volley of missiles as we scampered through borderless plantations.
When the sea fell silent behind us, we paused to get our breath back. It was only then that, leaning against coconut palms and wrapping our hands around our tummies the way Fatima regularly did when she was pregnant with Moin, we realized we were underdressed for the journey home. Marching through the mohalla in our shorts and vests, dripping with brown slush, was unthinkable. Retracing our steps to the clearing to claim our clothes was even more so. The best thing to do was to patiently wait for the mohalla to fall asleep, as patiently as we had waited for the catamarans that afternoon.
Upon remembering that his mobile phone was in his trouser pocket and his trousers were still hanging on the branch of a young coconut tree in the clearing, Jerome Pinto’s fingers started shaking like a girl’s. We started to laugh at the prospect of George Pinto ringing up his son and one of the six-pack men answering the phone.
Jerome who? Ah, the goalkeeper. He can’t talk to you.
His mouth is full for the moment.
– Six-pack ( - )
When night fell we found ourselves seated on the sloping walls of a disused canal – seven dark shapes under a full moon, hungry and shamed. Swarms after swarms of mosquitoes barrelled out from the far bank and hummed around us, occasionally knocking against our faces and then trying to flee. We applauded their retreat, catching them between our palms and rubbing them to quick death.
Around midnight we waded across the canal and continued to Vanity Bagh and, crossing the rail lines, walked in the collective shadow of the sleeping mohalla like an army of mercenaries invading an unwary town, which would be surprised out of its wits if it was taken over, and a wee bit proud too for its sudden change in stature – from an infinitesimal dot on the district map to an area under siege.
For a few weeks afterwards Yahya showed off the ruddy swellings on his shoulders, where the fishermen’s stones had hit him, like medals; he replayed the two goals in great detail, in slow motion, followed by the cart-wheeling, which was always rendered at a fast-forward pace.
Sundays bring such memories back: some good, some bad but all worth a playback. On Monday mornings I grab a book from my worktable and open it, eager to read from its blank pages, to secretly marvel at row after row of words that draw the map of Vanity Bagh and sketch its people.
In the beginning of 2008, when the mohalla was still so full of sympathy for Benazir that most of the babies born during the period were given the names Bilawal or Benazir, there was the second attempt on Abu Hathim sahib’s life – the second in three months, that is.
There were fewer eyewitnesses this time and, unlike the last time, little damage. But the novelty of the attempt was talked widely about in the mohalla and even secretly awed at. There were rumours that Noor Jahan sahiba yelled so loudly and musically that the ladies in the neighbouring houses mistook it for the midday siren from Shiram Glass Factory and chided themselves for being so late with cooking lunch. But they were just rumours; the siren at Shiram Factory had conked many years ago and nobody had ever timed their kitchen chores with its rusty blare.
According to the eyewitnesses, many of whom were actually eyewitnesses to the real eyewitnesses’ act of reconstructing the episode, this was what happened that morning. Noor Jahan sahiba was combing her long, silver-streaked hair when a new vegetable vendor entered the alley, singing out the names of the vegetables displayed on the tray of his pushcart. She leaned over one of the upstairs windows and had a quick survey of this new vendor and his wares. From a bird’s-eye view, the vegetables looked fresh and the vendor looked an absolute vegetable, and everyone knows how much Noor Jahan sahiba loves to bully morons. She yelled down for half a kilo of tomatoes and lowered the basket into the alley on a rope, hoping to find something even remotely inferior about the merchandise so that she could grill the poor chap. Up came tomatoes, all red and fresh. Impressed, she placed an order for half a kilo of brinjals. Brinjals were sent up, nice and purple. Then she wanted potatoes, a whole kilo of them. Up went potatoes too. The moment the basket reached its destination Noor Jahan sahiba noticed something unusual about a particular potato, which was nearly a perfect orb and had jute strings around it. It weighed like a stone too. Finally an anomaly! She leaned out of the window to probe and found the vendor missing from the alley, though the pushcart was still parked under her window.
Noor Jahan sahiba has a good analytical mind. All those years of living with a don have equipped her with a sixth sense that many women in the locality are completely bereft of. If it had been Ammi she would have happily opened the parcel and got herself all blown up. But Noor Jahan sahiba plucked the strange-looking vegetable from the basket and flung it out of the window, shrieking for God’s immediate interference.
Ya Allah Ya Rabi Ya Rahman …
– Noor Jahan sahiba (1951- )
It landed on the pushcart and lay there harmlessly for a few minutes as if considering what to do next before going off with a deafening bang. Cabbages rolled off as far away as the main street. The sound of a mangled pushcart crashing against a wall transcended even the intersection.
Ammi, Ammi, a plane has crashed in our mohalla.
– Aasia Jamal (1992- )
No one thought of rioting this time. When you are on the winning side you don’t riot. If you do, you become a loser. But some women came up with the silly idea of wielding brooms and marching down to the post office in protest against atrocities committed against women, as if it were the P&T Department that had sent the bomb up in the vegetable basket. These ladies were just pretending to be feminists or trying to be in Noor Jahan sahiba’s good books. Ammi, who is occasionally a genius and frequently a retard when it is time to make her mind up on monumental issues, chose to be the latter this time, readily grabbing a broom and cleaning it up for public demonstration.
For foolish women,
danger lurks at every street corner.
– Our grandma (1926-2001)
Bang on, Grandma. Ammi was striding off with a fake determination to join the small band of broom-bearers who had already congregated outside Abu Hathim sahib’s house when she stumbled upon the imam near the paan shop. His face was already set in an expression of utter shock, but that was only natural when you had the misfortune of talking to Jerome Pinto’s grandpa.
Can you do away with your afternoon azan, Jabbari sahib?
It disturbs my siesta.
– Jerome Pinto’s grandpa (1907-2009)
At the sight of the imam Ammi froze and frowned. It was obvious from the imam’s hard stare that he wanted to get physical with her, to kick her so hard that she would fly away like the cow in Twister and land on her fours between Tabu and Humera, but Jerome Pinto’s grandpa was watching. So the imam rolled his eyes instead, and ground his teeth so hard that his jaw became as taut as Schwarzenegger’s. Relinquishing her cause, Ammi turned on her heels and plodded home, dragging the broom behind her like a broken wing. The imam turned around and smiled broadly at Jerome Pinto’s grandpa, and suggested he keep his ears plugged.
Nobody we knew could tell us why on earth anyone wanted Abu Hathim sahib dead or maimed. He was no monster, just a retired don. Dons retire, does revenge ever? And dons are always unreasonably hated, that’s an occupational hazard. Maybe Abu Hathim sahib in his heyday had eliminated a family by mistake and a surviving son wanted to kill him and make an emotional announcement: ‘Mummy-Papa, I killed the killer who killed you. So I am a killer now. Kill me.’ Just like in those old movies which reserved the last scene to solve all familial riddles at one go.