by Zeenat Mahal
The clear February sky was crowded with kites, and the rooftops with enthusiastic boys and girls. Most of them were attired in yellow, and had to shout to be heard over the blaring music.
Zoella, however, registered all of that as a faraway din. She barely noticed the colorful kites and everyone else, focusing only on the delicious-looking Fardeen. The music, shouting and laughter did not distract her from her goal one bit. Her concentration did not waver. Her eyes were firmly fixed on Fardeen.
With bated breath, she waited for the miraculous moment when angels would trumpet their silver bugles, flowers would bloom in deserts and Fardeen Malik’s eyes would finally meet hers. The realization that the love of his life, Zoella Khan, though unsophisticated and from a modest background, had been right under his nose all this time would hit him like a bolt of lightning. Overcome with passion, he’d fall to his knees and declare, enraptured…
“Bo Kaata!”
Salaar’s yell invaded her ear-drums and Zoella’s imagination crash-landed back to reality, and back to the rooftop of Swaba’s family friend’s house in the old city. Half of Lahore had gathered there to celebrate the advent of spring with Basant: kite-flying, food, fun and flirting.
“Take that, you pretty boy,” laughed Salaar as he gave Fardeen’s kite-string one final tug with his own.
“Tsk-tsk, such gross insults. On losing your own kite too!” Fardeen replied. In response to Salaar’s questioning lift of the brow, he clarified, “That’s not mine little brother, it’s yours.”
Zoella looked upwards. Indeed, Salaar’s flamboyant red kite was now floating down the busy skyline mournfully. Around them, boys hooted and girls tittered. Ignoring Salaar’s groan, Zoella’s eyes were back on Fardeen, who stood a full two feet away from her, skillfully steering his own kite towards another prey. A big green one.
That was Omer’s wasn’t it?
“Swaba!” called out Fardeen. “Want to see me humiliate Omer, or Salaar again?”
Zoella’s best friend, who was sitting on an old stone bench sulking. At her brother’s question, she glared in response.
“I hate Basant!” said Swaba. “It’s a stupid festival, where we have to dress in this stupid yellow, which is highly unflattering to our skin tones, and watch stupid boys fly stupid kites…”
“We get the picture,” said Fardeen drily. Turning towards Salaar’s friend, he said cheerfully, “Watch it Omer, fair warning.”
Salaar threw frantic instructions at Omer, as Fardeen tugged and pulled at his kite-string, trying to trap Omer.
“Tighter, Omer!”
Omer pulled on his string, tightening his grip.
“Not that much, you fool!”
Omer let the string loose.
“This way, this way!” yelled Salaar. “Left, you idiot!”
“That’s my left! Leave me alone! Fardeen Bhai….”
Omer stopped short as the big green kite began drifting away towards the boys on the neighbor’s rooftop, who were yelling, dancing, hooting and throwing loud insults at them cheerfully, having poached Omer’s kite.
Omer glared at Salaar and stomped towards the pile of brand new kites, looking shamefacedly towards Swaba.
“Pitiful,” mocked Fardeen, looking at him.
“I don’t know why they think they’ve been castrated every time their kites go down,” Swaba whispered to Zoella.
“Interesting choice of words,” Zoella whispered back.
That made both of them laugh. Zoella’s eyes gravitated back towards Fardeen again.
But no matter how many times she looked over towards Fardeen, his handsome, sculpted face never ever turned her way. Ever. Angels had better things to do than blow trumpets for her. The earth continued to rotate on its boring old axis, following the same well-worn orbit. God was not in His heaven, all was not right with the world. Fardeen was still not hers, nor ever likely to be.
Zoella’s defeated sigh originated all the way from her coral-tipped toes.
“Nice job, you!”
At the sound of the lilting, sing-song voice, Zoella grudgingly looked at Neha, Fardeen’s soon-to-be affianced, long-time girlfriend. Neha was sophisticated and exuded oomph. It wasn’t difficult to see why Fardeen never spared anyone else a glance. Zoella knew she did not have oomph. Oomph eluded her. And oomph was important. Especially in Lahore.
“Thanks! Just let me cut my brother down to size one more time before we go on to the Gardezi’s,” Fardeen said smiling, eyes firmly fixed on the sky that seemed to be throwing up kites.
“I’m not the only one with a kite here, am I?” Salaar snarled.
“True,” grinned Fardeen.
“Well then? Go alpha on someone else, will you?” Salaar almost whined. Almost.
“Aw…is that a tremor I hear in your voice?”
Salaar harrumphed.
Zoella was holding the big pinna, the spool of string of his kite for him. Salaar had already cut his fingers twice on the string, which was laced with ground glass, apparently all the better to cut other people’s kite strings with. Most boys sported Band-Aids on their fingers and each had a girl standing a few feet away from him, holding his pinna, trying to keep up with his frantic requests—‘loosen it’ or ‘back, back’ or ‘roll it’—and standing by for a defeated, ‘yaar!’ or a victorious ‘bo kaata’. Usually it was the girlfriends, or fiancées or wannabe girlfriends who liked to do that sort of thing. Zoella, however, had offered to hold Salaar’s string-ball and be his spool-girl so she could watch Fardeen without interruption.
“Aaaaaaannnd, done,” announced Fardeen, as Salaar’s second kite, a beautiful black and red one with a big fancy tail, came gliding down.
“Bloody hell, Bhai!” Salaar glowered at his brother.
Fardeen laughed heartily as he walked towards Neha.
Zoella let her arms fall, now that the string was kite-less. The pinna consisted of a heavy wooden rolling pin, with two big discs on either side fitted with handles. Her arms were aching. They’d been at it for hours.
“Just…you’ll see. I will crush you…and—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Fardeen said. Looking at Neha, he shook his head in disgust at his brother’s performance. She handed him a glass of lassi. Fardeen took it with a salacious wink at her and then as he sipped his drink, he turned and said, “Salaar, kite-flying is an art. It’s a legitimate sport. You can’t just hold a string and say you’re flying a kite. This is Lahore, not Karachi. The three years in IBA there took their toll on you. I’m afraid you’ll never be the same again. You’re damaged goods.”
Salaar was busy stringing his new kite, muttering curses and Zoella caught a few words like ‘bloody show-off’, ‘I’ll show him’ and then, “thinks he’s…some…some…”
“Prince?” supplied Zoella. Salaar scowled at her.
She felt rather than saw Neha’s cool gaze on her. Had Neha heard? Ooops! The once-over Neha subjected her to made Zoella want to straighten her clothes. She felt fat. And short. Neha was a sylvan nymph at five foot seven and a hundred and ten pounds. Zoella was only five three, and she was curvy. Ugh!
“I don’t believe we’ve met…” said Neha to Fardeen, still surveying Zoella.
Looking confused for just a moment as he chugged his glass of lassi down, Fardeen paused, empty glass resting in his hand, and said hesitantly, “Oh, this is Swaba’s friend…Zohra.”
Salaar snorted. Swaba frowned at her eldest brother for a full ten seconds before correcting him, “This is my best friend since kindergarten, Zoella.”
Fardeen smiled at Neha as if all was clear and none of their business anyway. Swaba wasn’t going to let it go so easily though. He knew he’d made a tactical error. He might as well have forgotten his sister’s name. Best friends were serious business and he knew this friendship meant a great deal to his sister, judging from the fact that Zoella was always around, staring at him like a lost puppy.
Giving Swaba a disarming smile, he said, “Aim the icy daggers at Salaar, Miss Piggy. He’s b
een seeing that girl you went to school with. Your arch-enemy, Mah-something?”
Swaba and Zoella swung towards his younger brother in unison and yelled simultaneously, “Mahnoor?”
Fardeen wasn’t one of the best lawyers in the city for nothing. He was forgotten and Swaba’s attention was now on their brother. Salaar could only scowl at the betrayal. It made Fardeen laugh even more. Thoroughly entertained, he watched his brother try getting out of that one.
“Salaar, you traitor! You’re going out with Mahnoor?” Zoella looked appalled as she asked the question, while Swaba merely curled her lip in disgust. Then, very deliberately, Zoella put the ball of string down on the ground and crossed her arms. That meant Salaar was officially in trouble.
He retorted somewhat guiltily, “Yes, I am. And I’ll have you know that she’s a very nice girl.”
“Nice girl?” Fardeen asked in a tone loaded with meaning. Then added, “Now, Zo—ella here is a nice girl. Mahnoor, on the other hand…” Fardeen gave his brother a wicked grin and shook his head.
Zoella felt a warm prickle of embarrassment. First he’d forgotten her name. He’d been seeing her in his house for the last decade and a half at least and he didn’t even know her name. Now he was calling her a nice girl.
She felt insulted. Nice girls were boring. Nice girls were to be avoided like the plague. Nice girls married the first man who asked their parents, bore said man two children, and got fat. Nice girls did not have fun. Nice girls did not have rich, handsome Adonises hankering after them. She was not a nice girl. Nope. Hell, no.
Was she?
“I’m…I’m…” Zoella stuttered, wanting to change the impression Fardeen had of her as the bland vanilla nice girl. She didn’t want to be a nice girl. She wanted to be the girl Fardeen would fall in love with, marry and live with happily ever after. She needed to say something clever. She certainly did not want to appear gauche and awkward by saying the wrong thing, or worse, not saying anything at all. She wanted to be witty and funny and dazzling. Instead, she was stammering, frantically searching her blissfully blank mind for a droll retort.
Fardeen however, had moved on already and was addressing his brother, “I can smell nice girls from across the galaxy. Take it from me, that girl you’re seeing is not nice.”
There was too much noise to think, Zoella consoled herself, as Fardeen casually snagged Neha’s hand and was halfway across the rooftop before anyone could say anything more. There, he turned and asked Salaar with another wicked grin, “What do you want with a nice girl anyway? You’re not thinking of marrying her, are you?”
“F…Get off my back,” Salaar said with open irritation. His brother’s laughter at Salaar’s discomfiture made Salaar glower even more.
Chuckling, Fardeen walked towards the winding stone staircase, with Neha on his arm.
“Fardeen, how very naughty of you! What’s wrong with nice girls?” Neha batted her eyelashes at him. Still chuckling, Fardeen walked towards the winding stairway with Neha on his arm.
His eyes warmed as he looked at Neha. “Nothing, I’m sure. I’d have no clue what to do with them, however.”
A dark, bitter disappointment swelled within Zoella. He’d just called her a nice girl. Her brain however, chose that moment to register, yet again, the dark hair that fell in soft waves, his perfect profile and the broad shoulders that carried his designer jacket so well. She sighed again.
She’d lost count of her sighs long ago. There were too many. There were different kinds. There were those she secretly enjoyed because they were for Fardeen. Then there were those that escaped from the depths of her troubled soul because her mother never took her side against her domineering brother, who treated her like his personal slave. There were some she tried to suppress because she realized that perhaps she was too much of a dreamer.
Perhaps it was her youthful arrogance born of optimistic inexperience that kept her dream of true love alive, because without it, her life was desolate. There was a part of her that understood that Fardeen’s sexy smile, his black unruly hair that fell roguishly across his forehead, the angles and planes of his chiseled face, were not meant for the likes of Zoella Khan, the wretched of the earth, who would neither inherit said planet, nor Adonis-like older brothers of best friends.
