Tag Archives: Pakistan

Prose

Heart Note

***N.B. ‘Heart Note’ was longlisted by The Missing Slate, a not-for-profit, international literary journal, for a creative writing contest. “We received 275 entries for this competition, of which only 14 have been longlisted … we felt you should know that your work made an impact on us, and we look forward to reading more of it in the future.”***

Again and again we put our

sweet ghosts on small paper boats and sailed

them back into their death, each moving slowly

into the dark, disappearing as our hearts

visited and savored, hurt and yearned.

Jack Gilbert, Kunstkammer

WE PARKED the Civic up where the road curved towards the hills. It was a black Civic and in the shadow of the hills, with the city lights spread out beneath us, it melted into the dark.

Amir bhai turned off the headlights and took out a cigarette and lit it.

“You want one?”

“No thanks, Amir bhai. I’m good.”

I rolled down the window and we shivered as the wind from the hills hit our sweat-stained shirts.

“Crazy workout today, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s good stuff.”

“Bus lagé raho! Keep at it!” He said. “High reps, low weights; you’ll be buff in no time!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks, Amir bhai.”

I’d met Amir bhai at a rusty basement gym a couple of months ago. He’d offered to drop me home and parked the car up here and given me clichéd advice about women for half an hour. I didn’t mind. He was twenty-nine and arranged-married and needed a young friend. I didn’t particularly relish walking home after workouts. It was a win-win.

“Ali aaj kal gym nahi aa raha? Haven’t seen Ali at the gym these days?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “He said something about exams.”

“Fuck yaar, that’s the life!”

“Exams?”

“No yaar! University life! All those girls…” He took a deep drag on the cigarette and leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes. “But what am I telling you for? Handsome chap like you; I’m sure you’ve got more than a few girls, right?” He winked.

I smiled and shook my head and turned to look out the window.  Some guys are born good at girls. I just wasn’t one of them. That’s why I’d joined the gym. A few more inches on the biceps and they wouldn’t be able to resist, right?

”Exactly,” said Amir bhai, reading my thoughts. “Just a few more months at the gym and you’ll get any girl you want. That’s how I became such a player. You know I almost got a number the other day?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I was at Dolmen and this hot thing kept staring at me so I used this crazy line on her…”

All of Amir bhai’s stories began this way.

“…and I was just about to get her number when I saw my wife’s second cousin shopping for razors a few aisles down…”

And all of Amir bhai’s stories ended this way. His wife must have a lot of cousins.

He finished his cigarette and flicked it out the window. The headlights cut a broad swathe through the night as the Civic powered down the gravel road. He was telling me a particularly animated story about a PIA stewardess when I realised we weren’t headed home.

“Uh, Amir bhai?”

“Yeah?”

“You missed the turn!”

“Chill, bro! Have to get the missus an anniversary present. It’ll only take a minute.”

We drove past Sadabahar and Alamgir and the little old man who sells greasy fries by the side of the road. He waved to me. I waved back. Amir bhai broke a red light, swore at a rickshaw driver, and parked outside the department store.

“These bloody rickshaws!” he said. I nodded. We walked into the store.

Fat women hogged the aisles, their carts overflowing with enough supplies to last till Rapture. They gave us looks and I didn’t blame them. We were two sweaty, stubbled young men who reeked of smoke. Just the sort detested by police officers, school principals, and mothers with young daughters.

We pushed past them and headed for the perfume section. Amir bhai was on a roll.

“Oh, hey, just look at that one! The packaging is so third-class! Haha! It says ‘Made in the USA’! Yeah, if they mean USA, Lyari! Saalé kis ko chutiya bana rahé hain? Who the fuck are they trying to fool?”

Occasionally, he’d hold one up to my nose and I’d smile and nod and hold my breath from the onslaught of fruity fumes.

And then it happened.

“Haha! Oh, fuck me! Look at this one! It smells just like that shit schoolgirls wear, right?”

I shouldn’t have smelt it. I should have said, “Amir bhai, please just get her some chocolates and flowers and let’s head home.” But I was never very good at confrontation and all I could do was smile and nod and take a whiff.

Every perfume has three notes.

Head note: Morning. Summer break’s over. You hate being the new kid. Again. Your footsteps echo down an empty corridor. You are minding your own business, searching for Chemistry 101 when effervescent citrus sticks out a foot and you fall and you fall and you fall.

Heart note: Evening. A school concert. Music so loud you can’t think. You take a walk. Footsteps echo behind you. You turn. The answer to whispered prayers. A mischievous smile. “Have you been to the roof?” You haven’t. Adventure. Adrenaline. Stairs. Shh! Look, stars. Butterflies flutter to heady jasmine.

Base note: Afternoon. Detention ends. You’re thirsty. The canteen’s closed. The water cooler’s on the third floor. It’s okay, you like to take walks. Footsteps echo. Stairs. You pause. A familiar giggle flutters from a distant classroom. Adrenaline. Shh! One-step-at-a-time. You push open the door. Comforting sandalwood breaks your heart.

I opened my eyes.

I heard Amir bhai debating the merits of discreet motels. Across the aisle, I could see one of the fat women holding a crying baby as she searched for the perfect fairness cream. And, in my trembling hand, I held the little glass bottle that had changed everything. I looked at it. I looked at Amir bhai. I looked at the fairness cream mom and the baby who’d stopped crying and was now eyeing me warily. I slid off the cap and sprayed a hint of it onto the back of my hand and carefully put the bottle back on the shelf. The baby began to cry.

The rest of that night is a blur. I can only remember scraps of it. Of Amir bhai’s plans to meet a girlfriend at Day’s Inn. Of the smell of seekh-kababs from Sadabahar. Of the moon that night as it followed the car, a waning crescent on a flag waved by a smiling girl one rainy August morning… And as the car drove on and on through familiar streets, I’d raise the back of my hand and close my eyes and inhale my own cigarette of sweat and sweet heartache.

Amir bhai was right. It was a perfume worn by schoolgirls. One girl in particular. One girl with a hazel lock that still haunted my dreams and gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every weekday as the bus took me home past the lonely Sea-View apartments at sunset.

But now here she was, on the back of my hand, and I ran up the stairs two at a time and locked my door and shut off the lights and fell asleep with a smile on my lips and a pain in my heart, drifting in and out of sepia smeared dreams as they played late night love songs for me on CityFM89…

The next morning was a Sunday and the store was closed.

On Monday I had uni and Dad wanted to discuss politics and Mom needed help getting the groceries and there was lunch and there was dinner and there was gym and by the time I reached the store someone had already found and opened and smelt and bought and wrapped and taken far, far away that nondescript little vial that held my first love, my first heartbreak.

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Prose

Winter Begins in Karachi, PK

And here the paths, made or yet unmade, that told of the need of boys travelling, always travelling, to be men.

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

THERE were four of us that night. There were usually two and there were sometimes three but that night there were four of us so we all pitched in for a Murree whiskey and a rickshaw to get the Murree whiskey and a hundred rupees more to pay the police, but the police didn’t stop us that night so we got some crisps and some plastic cups and two cold cans of Coke instead. It was a cold, crisp night. Winter drowned autumn in the Indus early that year and by then autumn had crossed the delta and was far out in the waters of the Arabian Sea before anyone could buy a jacket or a scarf or a pair of those thick, woollen socks that itch like hell.

It was Shayan’s idea to break into school.

“Guys, let’s break into school,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, turning to the rickshaw driver, “turn that way.”

“Okay,” said the rickshaw driver. He turned that way.

“Are you both mad?” asked Yasir.

“Shut up, Yasir,” said Shams.

“Shut up, Yasir,” said Shayan.

“Now turn there,” I told the rickshaw driver.

“Okay,” said the rickshaw driver. He turned there.

“You’re all mad,” said Yasir.

Shams punched him once, hard, on the shoulder.

“Ouch!” said Yasir.

“Stop!” I said to the rickshaw driver. He stopped.

We clambered out and I fished a grubby note from the back pocket of my bluejeans and gave it him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. The rickshaw sputtered off down the darkened alley and we stood there with our paper bags and plastic cups and our two cold cans of Coke and considered the dark gate that loomed before us.

“I know a way in,” said Shams and he marched off, knowingly. We followed him. He had a big brother who knew things and he led us all the way around the school to the back. He pointed at a section where the barbed wire had fallen off but he needn’t have; Shayan and I were already making for it.

“Guys, this is a bad idea!” said Yasir.

“Shut up, Yasir,” said Shayan.

“Shut up, Yasir,” I said.

“Would you like another punch?” offered Shams. Yasir declined.

Shams went first and we passed the paper bag to him and he jumped down the other side and whistled the old all-clear and we followed — first Shayan, then me, then Yasir who sat right at the edge of the wall and stared down at us until Shams pulled at the cuff of his pants and he tumbled onto the dirt floor below.

We were at the edge of the overgrown soccer field that stretched behind the school and we walked to the black-and-white striped goalpost and sat by it. The school was shrouded in darkness but we could see a lonely light in a room at the top of the east wing.

“Maqbool bhai’s room,” I pointed.

“He’s probably asleep,” said Shayan.

“What if he isn’t?” asked Yasir.

“Then we’ll have to share the whiskey with him,” said Shams.

The whiskey was good. We talked about the old days. Shayan talked about the time we’d tricked a mugger into sharing a cigarette with us so he wouldn’t mug us. I talked about the time that pack of feral dogs chased us out of the haunted house. Yasir talked about the summer we finally climbed Kidney Hill. Shams talked about the summer we finally climbed Kidney Hill and then stole Yasir’s left shoe and only gave it back once we were half way down. It was very good whiskey.

“Guys,” I said. “I read something today. It’s a poem by this guy called James Arlington Wright — ”

“Arlington?” said Yasir.

“Shut up, Yasir,” said Shayan.

“Shut up, Yasir,” said Shams.

“Yes,” I said. “Arlington. Do you guys want to hear it?” They did. I pulled out a crumbled piece of paper and smoothed it down on my thigh and cleared my throat.

“In the Shreve High football stadium,” I began, squinting in the faint glow from the street light, “In the Shreve High football stadium, / I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville, / And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood, / And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel, / Dreaming of heroes.”

I sneaked a glance at them, then, and they all sat with their hands wrapped round their knees so I went on.

“All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home, / Their women cluck like starved pullets, / Dying for love. / Therefore, / Their sons grow suicidally beautiful / At the beginning of October, / And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.”

No one said a word. After a while, I scrunched the scrap of paper back into my bluejeans and lay back with my head on Shayan’s shin and the others lay back too and we lay there like that, the four of us, and watched the stars shine above the school that night as another winter began in Karachi.

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Poetry

Home

Home

A big, black sea
A small, lonely lantern
On a small, lonely boat
In the big, black sea
And it’s

Home

Far away
Across the fields
A warm little cabin
And
As rain
Lashes;
As wind
Howls;
Outside
Inside, it’s

Home

An urban jungle
Claustrophobic concrete
Soullessness is
Contagious
But:
A roof
A star
A cigarette
Twinkling escape
And it’s

Home

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Prose

Sandcastles

A LITTLE girl sits in the warm sand. The wind pulls at her hair, widening her big, bright smile as she beams at the sun and the sand and the waves. She gets up and runs to the water, falling over herself in her eagerness to touch it. Laughing, she dusts herself off; nothing can dent that radiant smile.

The little girl wants to build a sandcastle. She sits near the water’s edge, patiently moulding mounds of pliant sand. Finally, she sits back, admiring her hard work. The little girl imagines how it would feel to live in a castle — a princess — mistress of a sun-kissed realm. She really, really wants to be a princess; just like those fair Barbie dolls she’s seen in those large, air-conditioned cars. But in her eager innocence the little girl doesn’t notice the waves pulling at her faded rags. She doesn’t notice until they’ve begun to devour her little castle. But by then, it’s too late.

She watches quietly as the waves tear down her castle of dreams. She wants to cry, to scream, but there’s dad in his little fishing skiff. He doesn’t like it when she cries. The little girl hopes he has some fish for dinner; she hasn’t eaten since yesterday. She looks at the castle again and, in a moment of sudden defiance, smiles as wide as she possibly can. She doesn’t need a stupid sandcastle. Her father sees her, laughs and picks her up. No one notices a little tear trickle down her little cheek.

Another wave breaks on shore, burying the remains of the shattered sandcastle.

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