Chapter 10

Street No. 3 never made any sense to me, and nor did the ones attached to it. I don't know if it was the Hindu architecture or something else. Some of the streets were very cramped and were only 5 feet wide. Others were a bit wider than that. There was no theme to them. It was as if wherever a house was built, the passage put itself around it. These streets were cramped with houses old and new. They were built with red bricks and painted yellow, green, blue, pink, and whatever color you could think of. They all had an ornate wooden door and windows. Most of these windows were protected by bars of steel. Some houses were really old and there residents could not afford to renovate them. Those who had the money demolished the old ones and made new. The new houses had their fronts covered with marble.

Our house was one of those marble faced ones.

Back in the day, they did not think of underground sewers. In fact, most of the houses didn't have a toilet. Many old houses had a place designated as the toilet on the roof--like the one on Shareef family's house. Every morning, the residents of that three storied building came one by one to use that toilet on the roof top. Then you needed someone to take care of that mess. For that, there was Fatima Choori.

Fatima was a nimble old lady. She was a janitor--a choori. Her husband was a choora too. She would go to the roof of every such house every day, with her basket on her head, and a spade in her hands. She would collect people's dirt and dispose it. She was also the garbage collector from the houses that did have the toilets. She got her salary from the city council. But she also used to get a stipend from the residents of the houses she served.

Since Street No. 3 did not have an underground sewer, it had a duct on each side. We called them Naalis. These naalis carried the wastage water from each house to a bigger duct somewhere out there, which in turn carried it to the big Nala Lai. Usualy these naalis would flow fine. Sometimes, they would get stuck and overflow. Fatima Choori always helped us out.

Sometimes the boys would play cricket in the street. Their balls would fall into a naali each time. Somebody would pick it up with their hand and jerk the water off. Then they would keep playing with the same ball. Ashfaaq Agha hated that. Whenever he saw boys playing in the street, he would come out of his house and chide them.

These streets were always busy. With the first call for the prayer at dawn, they would start getting visitors. The first one would be a beggar. He would sing his song of tragedy every day. He would knock on each door and ask for something. Some gave him money, some gave him food, and some gave him nothing.

Right after the beggar, you would see the milkman. Then you'd hear the cry of the vegetable cart guy. Then there would be the scrap buyer. Then there would be the Papar seller. These were the regulars. You'd also see and hear the ones that came once in a while. The knive sharpner, the corn seller, the sugar-candy guy, the snake charmer, the balloon seller, the chaat maker, pathans with rugs and Qurans, and the shot gun and balloons guy were among those.

Chapter 9

"Yaar, take the subway, and go to Munhawtun." Uncle Jehanzeb said to me.

I knew there was something he wasn't pronouncing right. Maybe he was trying to say Manhattan. The way he said it reminded me of some place in inner city Lahore. I had heard of Bhati, Lohari, and Mazang. Maybe this is what we had called Manhattan, if it was in Lahore--Munhawtun.

I was at Uncle Jehanzeb's store. He didn't own it. He only worked there. It was a long and narrow store. As soon as you entered the store, there was the cashier's desk on the left hand side. Uncle Jehanzeb stood behind the desk with cartons of cigarettes on his back. On the right hand side, there was a big rack full of magazines with naked women on their covers. The coolers were further down with beverages and beer.

"But I am afraid of going there. I've heard bad stories about it. I heard there are black men there that mug you and shoot you." I replied.

"Oye no yaar, I tell you where to go. Its not that bad." He insisted.

Before he could convince me more, a white couple walked in.

"Good morning! How you doing?" Uncle Jehanzeb became alive.

"Oh great. How are ya?" replied the man.

Each of them bought a pack of cigarettes of their liking and they both paid separately. Then they left.

"See, they were husband and wife. They come here everyday. They buy cigarettes and they both pay separately. This is how life is here. Did you see?"

I didn't really want to go to Manhattan. I had heard too many bad things about it. I had heard that people walk there with needles of their AIDS infected blood. They threaten to sting you and rob you of your money.

I stepped out of the store and roamed around. I could see a city with very tall buildings. Maybe that was Manhattan. It looked beautiful. I had slept well the night before. The jet lag had already gone. Uncle Jehanzeb had made me good food. He had also called his travel agent friend to buy a ticket for me. I was going to Texas.

Chapter 8

The first house on the other side of the street was occupied by two urdu-speaking brothers and their families. It was a two-story house and probably as old as the Shah house, or maybe a little newer. Each brother had his floor. Qayyum, who lived on the top floor had a lot of children. People of the street used to call him child specialist. He was not a doctor, though. He was a drug-addict. His wife was a portly patient woman. I never saw her complaining. She often came to our house looking for some help. She either looked for some flour for that night's dinner, or some cash. She was like many other women of this community. They never asked for a better life.

Qayyum's elder brother was not like him. His name was Jameel. He worked hard. He had a large family too, but he ran his business. He had a shoe store in Raja Bazaar, and a saop factory in one of the rooms. His children had the indian looks. Sharp features, darker complexions, their way of speaking neat urdu. While the rest of the street diced urdu whenever they spoke it, Jameel and his family always did it justice.

After them, there lived the Lodhi's--the most mysterious of all. Mr. Lodhi had six sons and a daughter. Nobody knew where Mr. Lodhi's eldest son was. They always told people he was in Karachi. I believed in them until I saw his body in our verandah. The Lodhi's were our direct neighbors and they did not have enough room for a funeral. That day when I returned from school, I saw a crowd of people in our house. Naeem Lodhi's body was lying in the center of our verandah. That was the first time I saw him. When someone told me who he was, I thought he had returned from Karachi. That wasn't the case.

Naeem was living with an influential woman in Rawalpindi. She was a member of the provincial assembly and a widow. There was no name for their relationship. On that day, she was there sitting next to his charpai. Her beautiful daughters were there too. Crying for Naeem Bhai.

But that's not all. Mr. Lodhi's house was often frequented by the police. They looked for his second son. People say he had business losses and he owed much money. Mr. Lodhi's other sons did not have such action packed stories.

Then there was Shakoor's house. Everybody called him Shakoora. Punjabis liked to have names ending with vowels. Iqbal would become Bala, Pervaiz would become Peja, and Shakoor became Shakoora. Shakoora was the self-proclaimed bully of the street. He was tall, dark-skinned, heavy, and loud. If he was mad at you, he would convey it to you right away. Nobody wanted to mess with him. He was also the president of the mosque's zakat committee.

Chapter 7

As my plane landed at the New York Kennedy airport, I had a feeling that my life would never be the same again. Passing through the ducts that attached the plane to the terminal, the first voices that I heard grabbed my ears. It was a language that I could clearly understand. Two men were talking in Urdu. I couldn't see them through the winding duct, but I heard what they were saying.

"This is New York Bhai!".

"Do whatever you want, but don't trust anyone."

As I took the last turn out of the duct, I saw two Pakistani men clothed in janitorial dungarees. One man had his arms crossed and he was leaning on his broom. I needed a cart. I saw a few carts in a stand and went to grab one. It wouldn't come out. The same guy with the broom passed by.

"You have to pay for it buddy. Nothing is free here."

My dad had given me a lot of quarters. I admired his foresight. I took out a few quarters, and pulled a cart out.

I was now supposed to meet Uncle Jehanzeb. He was not my real uncle. But we called all our father's friends and elderly people uncles. Uncle Jehanzeb met my father when he visited New York last year. He was selling t-shirts on a Manhattan sidewalk when my father bumped into him. My father had told me that he was a very courteous man, and he was going to give him a call and request to receive me. As I was hurling my overloaded cart through the mass of people eagerly waiting for their beloveds, a short man pierced through the rush and embraced me.

"Oh Beta!! You recognize me?"

The fact is that I didn't really know much about him myself. I shook my head.

"Oh, I am your uncle! Jehanzeb. Lets go."

He took me out of the terminal to his car in the lot. Now we were off to his workplace.

"Actually, I was doing my shift. I requested my boss to let me go. He is a really nice guy. You will meet him." I was very comforted by Uncle Jehanzeb's warmth.

We drove through some highways and streets that somewhat resembled the images that I had seen in American movies. I thought of my father's words that he spoke to me last night.

"Betay, if hardwork made us rich, then everybody in this world would be rich. Sustenance is in the hands of God."

My father was an unusual one. He never lectured me. I could count his three advices that he ever gave me. This was one of them.

Chapter 6

Among the narrow and wide streets of Chittian Hattian, there was street number 3. This is where my family had been living for the last century. My grandfather and his two brothers used to live in one big house. It was called the haveli. It had enough rooms to assimilate three families. Back in those days, living in a combined family was a virtue. The elders would encourage a combined setup. They said it brought prosperity and bred love.

As the children of the three families grew up, they felt the need to go their own ways. My father bought a new house in the same street, and he moved there with the rest of his siblings and his parents.

Street number 3 was not that long. It had six houses on each side. The street was only wide enough for motorcycles to pass. A car could not come in. The oldest house in this street was built in 1890's. It was the house of the venerable Shah family. It was made of red bricks. The Shah's were known for their wealth and conservative family values. The women in their house were modest. They had a grave in their house. It was of their grandmother. She had never gone out in front of strangers uncovered. When she died, she requested to be burried inside the house. The Shah's owned several villages around the area. They had political and social clout.

The second house was of the Rana family. They had migrated from Indian Punjab at the time of the partition. They were three brothers. The eldest brother had left, and he had sued the younger two on their house. Each of the brother had at least six children, but number of rooms in their house was limited. This had irated the eldest brother. He moved out to live a better life with the rest of his family. He wanted his brothers to sell their house and give him his share. But the other two brothers couldn't do that. They had no place to go to if they sold the house.

The third house was a tall building. I think it was even older than the Shah house. It had three stories. On each of the stories lived three different families. They rented each floor. Every house in Chittian Hattian had a varandah. The roof would be open and the sun would come down to the lowest floor in every house. There will be railings along every opening on every floor. The railings on each house in this house were old and weak.

For every family that lived in this building, there were stories. The Shareef family who lived on the top floor had six sons and two daughters. Their sons worked at weekly fruit markets selling fruit on stalls. One of their daughters was Meena. When Meena was seven, she fell from the thrid floor. This broke her leg. They never had the means to get her cured. She limped on her one foot from one house to another.

When Meena became nubile, her parents wanted to get her married. They couldn't find anyone who would marry a lame girl. They found a boy who had a minor problem. He was a heroine-addict. The got the two married on the hope that she will correct him after marriage. He would make Meena pregnant and then disappear for months. He would come back again, and do the same thing until they had four children. Then one day, they found his body. Now Meena was left with four children and one leg. She worked from home to home to feed them.

The next house was ours. It was relatively new. My dad had sent money from the middle east to build a new house. So this is where we lived.

The last house on this side belonged to the Rana family as well. It belonged to the other brother who had migrated from India. He had two marriages, but only the second wife was alive. He had three sons from the first one, and two from the second. The eldest son had fled the house long time ago. They said he lived somewhere in Sindh. They had no contact with him. The second son lived in Makkah. He had a workshop there. He was married and he used to come once a year on his vacation. The third son still lived with his step mother. Her own two sons lived with her two. They had a shop in the heart of Chittian Hattian. It was called Jalindher Painting. Jalindher was the town in Indian Punjab where they had moved from.

Chapter 5

"Why should we praise God when he makes miserable things? Why should a blind man, or a lame man be thankful to Him?" I asked.

"When a painter paints a broken pot, he is admired for painting the pot as it should look. Not the way he thinks it might look pretty," the gentlemen replied. "Similarly, when God makes someone blind, look at the perfection of His action."

I started to think upon what he just had said.

I had come to this gentleman's place through a friend. He was a Pir. In farsi, Pir means an old man. Under the sufi tradition, Pir refers to the teacher, or the guide. Before you make someone your Pir, you had to pledge upon his hand. My friend had pledged on this Pir's hand. Now my friend was his Mureed.

I had never believed in Pir's or Mureed's. I had always thought that God was an equal-opportunity deity. He listened to all of us, and helped all of us. We didn't need a Pir to show us the path. It was all wrong.

I was still not convinced. I had read the story of Mansour a few days ago, and I had a lot of questions. Mansour Hallaj was cut to pieces by the people of Baghdad. His crime was his speech. He had started to proclaim that he was the truth, or God. Mansour kept saying "An-al Haq" all through his punishment, until he died. They say, every drop of his blood kept saying that until it was all burnt.

My friend and I had a lot of arguements about this concept as we left Pir Sahab's house. My father was an anti-pir type of a person. He never believed in any Pir's. And neither did I.

It was almost night now. We were walking back from my friend's Pir's house to Chittian Hattian. We passed through the narrow streets of Moti Bazaar. Moti Bazaar was famous for its shops. The night before Eid, it would be full of women. My group of friends would always make plans to go to the Moti Bazaar on that night. We would just go their and check out girls. "Look at that yaar, what a piece!" one would whisper in my ear, and the other one would say, "This one is really tight man!" Another said, "You know what guys, we should open a bangles shop here. So when girls will come, we will say, Baji, please sit here. Baji, give me your hand." We would laugh and just come back home. I don't know what we got from this excercise. Maybe it was some sort of a relief.

Lately, the police had decided to patrol that area during the holiday season. The women had actually complained. "You don't know yaar! These aunties have become very tricky. They would start crying for help even if you didn't do anything. Just to get you a beating from the police." My friend told me. The whole idea of a guy being beaten up by a police havaldaar in the heart of Moti Bazaar amused me a lot. And of course, no matter how corrupt our police was, for some reason they still cared for women. I found it very strange.

As we entered Chittian Hattian, the shops were closing. People had left the mosque after the last prayer meeting. There was a scrap metal shop there. They had big chests made up of steel. People must have sold them to these scrap metal buyers. These chests would become beds for the young kids who worked at these shops. These young children had come from far-off lands to earn bread for their families back home. Most of them were Pathan kids not older than 12. They wore dirty shalwaar kamiz's and their faces would always be under a layer of dust. At day time, I used to see these kids do hard labor, which I never thought I could do. And at night, they would get inside one of these big chests, and close the cover, just like they were going into a coffin. These were their bedrooms.

Chapter 3

"How do you love someone without seeing them?" I asked Sir Ahsan Shah.

"By remembering them," Sir Ahsan Shah replied. "Well, when you start a friendship, you have to start meeting that person, and love develops from there."

I was still confused.

Sir Ahsan Shah was our 11th grade teacher. We didn't call them Mister so and so. Our teachers were either Sirs, or Madams.

I got out of the classroom, and headed for the bicycle stand. I used to park and lock my sports bike there. It had ten gears, and very thin tires. Unlike my friends' bikes. They rode locally-made Sohrabs, with big handles and stiff breaks. Their breaks were not of wires, they were sheer steel starting from their hands going all the way down to the breaks. One got a better work out riding a Sohrab, which was heavier and unweildy. We rode our bikes back to our house every day after school. When it rained, I would take a Suzuki to school. Most of the times, the Suzuki would be full of people and we would hang outside the cabin. We never thought how dangerous it was, or it could take our lives if we fell. We rather enjoyed it.

On Murree Road, just before Committe Chowk, there was a big graveyard. It was called the graveyard of Shah di Talian--Shah's branches. It had the grave of a sufi saint with a big tree trunk lying on the ground. People said that Sufi Shah had brought it with a miracle from the jungles of Kashmir. It sounded true too, as there were no such trees in that area.

Sufis preached love. They preached the love of the unseen god. They said you could see him if you really tried. They said love was made to be given to him. I would always get confused on this. That day, I somehow articulated my question and asked my teacher. His answer didn't really satisfy me. I wanted to ask him a few more questions. I wanted to ask him why is it that I can fall in love with a pretty girl without any effort, and falling in love with god was so difficult. Maybe Sufis had the answer. I wish the saint of Shah di Talian was alive. I wish I could ask him this.

They said love was of two types. One was for the mortals, and the other for the immortal. The love of mortals is mortal itself, and the love of the immortal is immortal. One makes you mad, while the other takes you to gnosis. One blinds you, the other opens your third eye. I kept thinking of this as I rode my bike back to Chittian Hattian.

Just before making the last turn into my street, there was the house of our local sourceress. She had her sign boards outside her house. "Black Magic--Your beloved will be in your feet instantly." The lady of the house used to offer her services to people. Everyday, many a customers visited her place. She had more women customers than men. Most of the women came there to seek help in their troubled marital relationships. They bought Taveez's from her. They also paid for magic. I always thought she faked it. I knew her son. He flunked school many times. How could she help others when her own household was crumbling.