Tunnel Vision

by Shandana Minhas

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said no, we didn’t have any problems,’ there was an underlying hint of aggression in Abba’s tone, as if daring Mamu to respond.

  ‘And is that true?’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking you if what you said to the doctor about not having any problems was true, that’s all,’ Mamu’s voice was trembling slightly, but he stood firm.

  ‘Look Najam, don’t interfere in our life.’

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘And she’s my wife. I care about her as much as you do. I would never do anything to hurt her.’

  ‘All right, all right. Then what did the doctor say?’

  ‘He asked if that was true too.’

  ‘Did she agree?’

  ‘She nodded. She didn’t really say much the entire time. So he said if there was no physical reason and no mental reason for her inertia, then all he could say was that sometimes we all wished we didn’t have responsibilities but we did. Jahan had to pull herself together for the sake of her children, if nothing else.’

  ‘Did she say anything then?’

  ‘No, she started crying so we had to leave.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But the doctor told me if she didn’t get better in a week or so, I should take her to another doctor. He gave me a name,’ Abba dug out a piece of paper and showed it to Mamu.

  ‘What kind of a doctor is he?’

  ‘A psychologist.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Mamu seemed horrified, ‘I wish my mother was alive. Or that we had sisters. Or cousins, or grandmothers.’

  ‘Why? God knows there are enough crazy women in the world,’ Abba chuckled. I didn’t like it.

  ‘Because this is a woman’s problem, and we’re men. We don’t know how to handle it. If there was a woman around, she’d know what to do.’

  ‘What do you think they’d do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have a milad a khatam or something. I don’t know. I’m not a woman!’ Mamu seemed ready to cry.

  ‘Let’s do that then.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Have a khatam.’

  ‘How are we supposed to do that? We don’t have any female family.’

  ‘I’ll ask the neighbours.’

  ‘Mrs Pereira? But she’s Christian.’

  ‘The next one over then. I’ll figure it out.’

  ‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Mamu seemed doubtful.

  ‘Sure. I know all the ladies in the street. They like me, they’ll do anything for me.’

  Mamu looked even more doubtful, but he kept his place. His glance around the room took in my slightly open door, and I withdrew hastily. When I gathered up the courage to peep once again, they were gone. From the window I could see them continuing their conversation by the gate, but there was no way I could make out what they were saying, and their faces had all the expressiveness of pickled lemons.

  And so there was a khatam. For me.

  DEKHNAY MAIN BHOLI, CHALNAY MAIN GOLI

  BACK OF BUS

  ~

  Abba found a willing accomplice in Mrs Ahmed from C-7, who was already famed for her piety, her halwa and the luxurious fabric of her many hijabs. The driveway was cleared of all debris, swept, and white sheets were spread over red carpets laid to cushion the many pious bottoms expected. A small boy, one of the many disgorged from the back of a pickup driven by a bearded agent of God, poured buckets of uncooked kidney beans into two piles. The agent of God, with some help from Abba and his tools, rigged yet more white sheets into a screen, and just like that the driveway was divided into male and female sections. The speed with which all those little boys were saved from the temptation of overweight, middle-aged women was impressive, they had obviously done this before. I began to construct their life in my mind, a tight band of holy minstrels wandering the city in search of souls in need of Quranic succour, ready to stop, screen and chant at a moment’s notice for the glory of God. Or Rs 200. Paid upfront. Abba explained it all to me before dispatching me to join the women.

  I soon fell into the rhythm of the book and ceased to notice what was happening around me; when I saw Ammi’s white face at one of the windows overlooking the drive, I thought nothing of it. Only when the khatam was over, everyone had gone home and there was not a little holy minstrel for miles, did I understand how the object of the exercise felt about the whole thing.

  ‘Thank you, bhai,’ Ammi spoke softly from her customary place on the sofa as the three of us, Abba, Mamu and I came in after putting the drive back in its state of orderly chaos.

  ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a stranger,’ Mamu said gruffly but he looked pleased to have done something that had penetrated Ammi’s apathetic stupor.

  ‘And thank you, my husband!’ Ammi turned her poker face to Abba, ignoring me altogether. I was short, maybe she hadn’t seen me and would thank me later.

  ‘Oh no problem. I’d do anything to help you, you know that.’

  ‘Thanks to both of you, my humiliation is complete,’ she continued, ‘every woman on the street, every one of those women who have disliked me and gossiped about me all this time, now have all they need to keep their fires burning for another year.’

  ‘What?’ Mamu looked puzzled, ‘What are you talking about?’

  Abba didn’t say a word.

  ‘I’m thanking you for dragging me into the open and stripping me, exposing me to the world so they can pity me.’

  ‘Jahan Apa!’

  ‘It’s okay, Najam, I know you meant well. I appreciate it, I really do. I just wanted to thank you that’s all, while the wounds are still fresh.’

  ‘Bhai, tell her we didn’t mean it,’ Mamu turned to still silent Abba for help, ‘tell her why we did it.’

  ‘We were only trying to help, Jahan,’ Abba said finally, meeting her eyes after a very long time, ‘you know that I know you know that.’

  ‘Of course you do. You know everything. You know the right thing to do, the right thing to say, the right person to say it to. I’m so grateful to have a husband like you, I really am, maybe we should have another milad to celebrate my gratitude now that the one exposing my weakness is over.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, those people weren’t there to pick on your weakness. They were there because they care about you. They want to help you.’

  ‘I don’t need their help,’ Ammi spoke through clenched teeth, and there was a terrible anger in her voice. We all drew back, for a second it had seemed her bones were about to leap out of her skin, a skeleton animated by rage and naked aggression, ‘I don’t need anyone’s help.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ Chotay Mamu spoke up, ‘you do need help.’

  ‘Supposing I do,’ Ammi sank back into the sofa, the anger seemed to have exhausted her, ‘whose help do you think I need? My nosy neighbours? Women who have always resented me for not being like them? A two hundred rupee truckload of piety for hire? Or my family’s? My husband’s? Tell me then Najam, whose help do I need?’

  Mamu took me to my room and asked me if I would show him my eraser collection. I laid out the fruits, vegetables, ice creams, cars, planes, trains, and animals in a line on my bed for him to admire. They seemed lifeless and dull, just like the two people outside.

  SPEED MERI JAWANI, ATTACK MERA NAKHRA

  BACK OF BUS

  ~

  Saad Saad Saad Saad Saad Saad. Was I saying that? How embarrassing. Good thing I was the only one who could hear me. Who wanted to be caught manifesting the cardinal sin of need? It was ironic that we fingered the concept of need as a western one, yet so many of our societal constructs were built upon that very thing. Girls need to get married young. Men need to get married late. People need to live in joint families because values and traditions need to be revered. We need to listen to our elders because they’ve done such a good job creating a just, peaceful, nurturing society of course. Men need to fiddle with their scrotums.

&n
bsp; Need. Who needed it?

  It was all right in literature of course, or in cinema, to love irrationally, passionately, without a thought about the who, what, where, when, and why of it all, but in real life it was something else. In real life there wasn’t just the two of you. There was also your family, your friends, your neighbours, your religion, your caste, your country. And everyone wanted, not demanded, a piece of the action. I loved Saad, I knew that even before a convenient windshield knocked some sense into my head, but did I think I could stomach all that would come with him? Surely I deserved better than doubt.

  Then there was a part of me, thanks to my mother, that thought I didn’t deserve anything at all. And the part of me that, thanks to my father, thought that men didn’t deserve women. And what if I did marry Saad? Did he deserve my mother? We could always move. It hadn’t helped Kulsoom though. And I didn’t really want to be far from Ammi. She needed me. There was that word again.

  But it was true. The curse of a misunderstood good girl. The curse of the sensitive daughter. Her need was greater than mine.

  But wasn’t she Adil’s responsibility? Adil had no sense of responsibility. Would Farah, his future wife, know how to deal with Ammi if she had to live with them? And could I whine about not being considered equal to men when I was trying to weasle out of shouldering one of their basic responsibilities?

  Why was I fooling myself. She wouldn’t have to live with them. I had no future with Saad, his absence had made that clear. Ammi had been right. I’d been nothing more than a pleasant distraction for him, a way to add some colour to his life in the heart of the industrial wasteland. Me and my sensible shoes were not welcome in his stiletto-governed world. A man coming up the social ladder was showing initiative. A woman doing the same was a gold-digger. Was that why Saad had hesitated when I had blurted out my proposal?

  Had he seen in my hasty words the confirmation of his parents’ worst fears? I wished I could talk to him and tell him I wasn’t like that at all, that in fact I would be insulted if he ever even suggested I lay back and enjoyed the fruits of his labour. I wished I could tell him that my defences had been down because of unusual levels of happiness in my generally dreary life and I had let my mother goad me into panicking. I wished I could see him so I could pull out his fingernails for making me abase myself.

  Now that I was thinking about it, it was really all his fault. Yes. Absolutely his fault. I was a poor, oppressed, Muslim, South Asian woman. Saad was oppressing me.

  Saad Saad Saad Saad Saad. I was going to count to a hundred, and if he didn’t appear, I would just up and die. That would teach him. That would teach them all.

  One… hundred.

  So what if I cheated? I really wanted to teach someone a lesson.

  One … two … three … four … five … six …

  ‘Ayesha?’ It was the child again.

  ‘Seven … eight … nine …’

  ‘Remember when you saw your father?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ten … eleven.. twelve … three.’

  ‘Yes. Three years later. It was three years later.’

  UMER PACHPAN KI, ADAAIN BACHPAN KI

  BACK OF BUS

  ~

  I saw my father again three years after we had accepted that he was dead and gone. Finished. Over. Lost to us for all eternity. Or at least till the Day of Judgement, where he might wave to us from his place (much further up) in the line. That is why, when I saw him squatting by a booksellers’ in Khori gardens, flashing his still endearing smile as he ran a finger up and down a hardback spine, my first conscious thought was ‘it can’t be him’. It was also my second conscious thought. And also my third. In fact, it played on repeat in my mind, getting louder and louder, till it obliterated everything else.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, just drinking him in. I was mesmerized. My trance was broken only when someone tugged insistently on my sleeve and a female voice began a nasal wheedling in my ear.

  ‘Give us some money. I’ll bless you. My baby will bless you. We haven’t eaten at all since yesterday, he’s hurt, and I need money to buy him medicine. Give me whatever you can. Give me a hundred rupees so I can take him to the doctor.’

  It was a beggar woman with a baby cradled in her arms. She looked well fed and water rich, and her baby was covered in a second skin of puppy fat, with a roly poly tummy and dimpled knees. Adil had had dimpled knees once he switched to formula, after Ammi had started medication for what Abba called her ‘trouble’ and Mamu called her ‘mood disorder’ and grown up Ayesha was sometimes tempted to call ‘infidelity fall out’.

  Adil, though, had never had a mercuricome stained bandage around his head suggesting a grievous head injury because Ammi had never been reduced to begging on the street. No thanks to her husband or the system, many thanks to her younger brother, her older brother, and her only daughter’s slog through the mud pits of the Pakistani workforce to reach the oasis of financial stability.

  ‘How can you?’ my voice was trembling as I turned to the woman, ‘how can you do this? Parade your child in the heat with crap on his head like a puppet?’

  ‘Fine. If you’re not going to give me anything don’t give me a lecture either,’ she shrugged casually and turned away, indicating by the easy roll of her shoulders that she wasn’t going to lose any sleep over my righteous indignation. But I took a step after her. The anger that was swelling in me latching on to the nearest viable target.

  ‘What kind of a mother are you, huh? You call him your child but if he was your child you wouldn’t treat him like this. You have no shame, no decency. No shame!’ I was screaming now and people were turning to look, but I ploughed on.

  ‘What are you still standing here for? Go! Go on get out of here!’ A shopkeeper stepped out of his hole in the wall to wave a dismissive hand at the befuddled woman. ‘Why are you bothering the begum?’ She had stopped and turned back to look at me but at his prompting she moved again, out of my radar, but I didn’t mind. I had already found my next target.

  ‘Did I ask you for help?’ I thrust my chin towards the shopkeeper.

  ‘Noo …’

  ‘Then why are you interfering?’

  ‘I was only trying to protect you from …’

  ‘What is it about me that makes you think I need protecting?’

  He tried to retreat into his store. People had stopped to listen to me. He moved into his shop front and I raised my voice and pitched it after him.

  ‘Do I have help me written on my face? Am I wearing diapers over my shalwar to show you I’m a baby? Could it be that you want to protect me because I’m a woman? Huh? You want to help the poor defenceless little woman? You pitiful, pathetic man, you’re just a shopkeeper, I earn more than you, I’m more educated than you, I’m strong enough to make you run from me and you want to protect me!’ My voice rose to a shriek that echoed across the road, into the alleys, over the din of car engines and puttering rickshaws, till it finally reached the ears of the man it was aimed at and forced him to sit back and take notice, ‘Bastard! Motherfucker! Sisterfucker!’

  The shopkeeper ran into his store and disappeared into the back. Some of the younger men in the audience of this particular pit stop of the Ayesha Street Theatre sniggered appreciatively, but backed away when I moved towards them.

  ‘Run, run, the mad woman’s coming!’ one muscle-shirt clad cheapster giggled to his friend as they scrambled to safety, but I wasn’t going for them. I stopped at the edge of the road, looking across the street, and my father and I faced each other for the first time in years. We stood, separated by so much more than traffic.

  Was he studying me as intently? Was he feeling the same way? I couldn’t hear anything anymore. There was no sound in this place where my rage had catapulted me, no sound at all, or scent. Just miserly sight, with all its inadequacies, its lack of tactile strength.

  He had aged. His salt and pepper hair was all white in places now, but a hint of burnt ora
nge lurked at the outer fringes of his foppish haircut, the residue of a home henna job. Had a woman done it for him? There was stubble on his face, a two-day growth at least. Either he was jobless, or on vacation. Maybe he was self-employed. He had hated going to work without shaving. Or he had pretended to. That might have been a façade too. Like his death.

  I wanted to rush across the road and ask him why he hadn’t shaved. I wanted to hear him say he’d had a terrible accident and been in a coma and only just woken up. Saying he had been falsely implicated in a case by a jealous co-worker and held in secrecy by the ISI would work too. As would he had bumped his head and suffered from amnesia. Anything. Anything that suggested he hadn’t walked away from us willingly but been compelled to desertion by circumstances beyond his control. Then a small boy appeared next to him and tugged at his sleeve. None of what I had imagined was going to happen. He wasn’t going to be saying any of those things. I wasn’t going to be rushing across the road.

  The boy was looking up at him and saying something, yanking urgently at his hand at the same time. What words were his lips forming? Was he saying ‘Abba’? A woman appeared on the other side of my father. Had she been browsing next to him with the boy? I hadn’t seen either of them. They might as well have come out of nowhere. Like he did.

  She had a shopping bag in one hand, a carpet print handbag slung over her shoulder. Ugly bag. Pretty woman. Short. Curvaceous. Dark features. She pouted when he didn’t respond to her. I could see her lips moving too, but Abba was still staring at me.

  I wished someone would appear at my side and tug at my sleeve too. Demonstrate that I wasn’t alone. But I was. I looked down, at my sensible feet with their sensible shoes, to beat back the urge to fly across the road and throttle the woman.

  When I looked up, my father was gone.

  I crossed the street as fast as I could and looked into all the cars pulling out of the alleys that lined the road, studied all the motorcycles and scooters, rickshaws and taxis, the pedestrians flowing by, but there was no sign of him or his family. I knew it was his family.