08/06/2013
LIFE AND LIES OF AN AVERAGE PAKISTANI
It’s almost time. Your chauffeur will be here soon to take you home. And on your way, you will certainly stop on at least one signal, at which point if you put your Time away, take your Cuban cigar out of your mouth and roll down your window, you will see me: a sweat-covered, ashen-faced and gray-haired young man riding his second-hand motorcycle in pursuit of a better future. And if, miraculously, you are feeling sympathetic towards those belonging to a lesser station, you might wonder what my story is.
I was born as the eldest son, rather, only son of a bank accountant and a school teacher. My parents could not quite afford a private school, yet somehow I was educated at one till my matriculation. It was boys-only (yes, I see you rolling your eyes at this), and even there, I wasn’t very social. Maybe because I knew if I made any friends, I would have to eventually invite them over and they might not like our two-storey, 5 marla house where I shared a room with my youngest sister. So the first sixteen years of my life were uneventful. Our teachers taught us the trick to pass our exams: cramming. So no matter how hard the topic was, our memory was our savior. And the examiners were kind enough not to modify the books’ questions. Same things happened during my intermediate, which saw me become more introvert, for even an acquaintance with my fellows could mean exposing my sisters to these perverts. So yeah, I stuck to my books. The fact that my parents could not afford to send me to an academy was another source of motivation for me. Our parents had to lie during all our admission interviews. For mine, they had to claim they can easily afford my education (a statement often accompanied by covert glances and pained smiles in each other’s direction) and in case of my sisters, they had to claim to be poorer than we actually were, to secure scholarships.
When we were kids, we often eavesdropped on our parents when they thought we were asleep, catching snippets of their financial discussion like: “Iss dafa paanch hazaar motorcycle ki repair pe lag gya. Ab guriya ki fees ke paisay kahan se ayain gay…” “Aap pareshaan na hon. Mai apni choorian baich deti hoon.”, or “Iss mahinay overtime nahi lagaa saka bank mei. Sakhti ho gyi hai na. Bachhat karni paray gi.” “Haan tou koi baat nahi. Ab ki baar gosht na laiyay ga na. Sabzi hi kaafi hai”. I could go on and on, but I see that frown on your forehead deepening, so I’ll continue with my story.
I suspect my abba must have had a hard time at work that day, when on his way back, he crashed into a car coming the wrong way. I heard he tried to reason with the driver, but he was rich and influential, maybe not as much as you, but still enough to have traffic wardens on his beck and call, who arrived immediately and fined my abba for rules violation. No one took the least notice of my abba’s injuries, and by the time we took him to hospital, we were informed that he won’t be able to use his left leg anymore. Rumours reached my father’s office as well, resulting in his supervisors demanding a fitness certificate before he could rejoin and if it wasn’t for uncle Saeed and his doctor brother-in-law who furnished abba with a fake certificate, we would have starved. Yeah, you’re right. It wasn’t the right thing to do. But so was that guy’s calling those wardens and implicating my abba. But as always, the truth catches up with only the weak. One day, abba couldn’t retain his balance in the office and fell, and when a sympathetic manager took him to hospital, the X-rays revealed to him that abba’s left leg wasn’t recovering at all. That it was useless forever. After that, it took them only a day to issue dismissal notice.
Oh, we have had our moments of joy too. Like when my youngest sister got admission in school, amma made some custard for us; a rare treat. Or when I passed my matriculation, we went to a roadside restaurant and had a meal (I’m sure amma used the money she had saved for her eye operation). Or like when ... oh look! The signal is green again, you have finished your cigar, and I’m running late for my interview as a clerk. I hope I get the job, for I want our future to be better than the past.
