The Estranged City

THE CITY OF Lahore continues to change. Familiar things have gone missing, and its strangeness is everywhere. Places are something different, and so are the people. But a few old corners are just the same. They are un-changing, and they fill one’s heart with memories.

Lahore’s Mall Road is one of those places. Childhood makes memories, youth fills it with colour, and age brings regret. One might travel one’s whole life the distance from Appha’s tea stall to Gol Bagh, the “round garden” where all the famous public political meetings took place, but that path will never end. Jeejj would go from Gol Bagh to Alfalah at Charing Cross by foot, maybe three kilometers, drenched in rain. When depression struck him, Yousafi would wear fine clothes and go to the airport from his home on Dev Samaj Road on a bicycle. Now that road goes by an Islamic name. Upon his return, we would meet him somewhere on Mall Road. Jeejj would tell us that he wasn’t able to smoke cigarettes while taking his bath in the rain.

There used to be two coffee houses in Tollinton Market, the Capri and the Kabana. There were also small huts behind the market. If someone wanted to sit and have a quick drink, in private, that was the place. Some friends would sit in those coffee houses all day long. If you went there, you could meet them. Some you might meet at the old Anarkali Bazaar. Others you’d meet just standing on the road. Now there is nothing: neither the Tollinton Market, the coffee houses, nor the people.

That day I was coming on foot from the main post office to Gol Bagh. Peeju used to set up his stall there, opposite the YMCA. He had a tiny place on the ground floor, with the same on the upper floor. You could squeeze three or four tables in on the bottom, and the same above. People all sought to sit on the upper floor, to sit at the window and watch the flow of the city’s traffic on Mall Road. Sitting near the window and watching the rains outside, it was as if one were sitting in some Parisian café.

Lahore in the mid-1970s was nothing like it is today. Evening would wander in slowly and descend softly on the edges of the heart. All that matters in youth is friendship; there is nothing more. Peeju’s was an expensive place, and we were from poor families. If any of us disadvantaged types happened to see anyone we knew sitting as we passed in front of Peeju’s, we would rush in. Our friend Karm would pause, but others would quickly climb the stairs shamelessly. Then it would be time to offer tea to both the shameless and the ashamed. They would be there already, to find cigarettes. The boy from the rich Memon family, who used to live in Rang Mahal, would always sit at Peeju’s. There is no trace of him now. Wahid Malaal had made good use of him. Who knows what he whispered in his ear, but he avoided us. Wahid was just like us but made as if he were different. As if he knew so much more.

This was a time when so many were caught up in the idea of revolution. But those who gathered at the YMCA and the tea stalls mostly wanted to be writers. There was an unbridled passion for reading and writing. Many had read about different philosophies from around the world—they fought and dismissed everything, all in one piece. Some would sit with us, just like that, and we had no idea what they were doing there. Then they would suddenly disappear. It was a strange party: old political rabble-rousers, failed lovers, radical intellectuals spouting new ideas and methods, disheartened political workers, literary one-hit wonders who could boast of writing just one or two decent things, journalists, famous columnists, well-known writers, bored college and university students, with a few women among them. We were all newcomers. Any one of us would start telling his or her story, and we would understand part of it, but not all. But we had all written something or other. Then we were all quickly scattered, and everything disappeared in the dust. Most went back to complete their studies. They pushed and manoeuvred, used their wits, made the most of the opportunities that came their way, sat for competitive exams—and so they made a place for themselves, big or small. They built houses in the fanciest neighbourhood in the city, in Defence, and married into good families. Now they recall those long-gone days with a sigh. Those like me were devoured in the struggle just to make ends meet. We fought with time itself.

I passed through the square past where Peeju’s coffee house used to be and kept walking straight. Appha’s tea stall used to be there too, on the corner on the left. The place had now been taken over by a shop selling ready-made children’s clothing. Appha fought in court to hang onto it, but it must be thirty or thirty-five years now since he lost the case. I kept walking, slowly. The jewellers’ shops were on my left and, in the old days, the BRB Library, Peeju’s, and Cheeny’s Restaurant would have been on my right. All of them are gone now, except the jewellers’ shops. They now survive only in books. A mosque was built on the green strip of land along the footpath, where addicts congregated to sleep. Many green patches of land along the roads were converted into mosques in the 1980s during Zia-ul-Haq’s reign. This was one.

I had entered Tollinton Square, where the Market used to be, and stood there. There was now a juice stall on the left, where there used to be only grass and benches. Tables and chairs were arranged there. Boys and girls from the nearby art college were coming and going from the stall, and I stood on the footpath. My car was in the parking lot behind the square. Shouldn’t I too have a glass of juice? I thought. I had come to post books to some old friends from the main city post office.

I moved towards the chairs. He was on one of them, to the side, sitting apart. One leg was crossed over the other, and his body appeared wasted away. He wore a filthy pair of pants, a colourful checked shirt, a thick rope instead of belt, torn and dirty socks, and dusty boats with worn out laces. His face bore a rough shadow of stubble but seemed clean.

Our eyes met for an instant, and his gaze pierced me. I felt I had never seen such eyes before: familiar, knowing, hungry, longing to meet. Unwavering. As if a light had suddenly sparked in them, on a sleepless night, exhausted by years of waiting. It seemed like he had recognized me, and he seemed to smile inside. His gaze didn’t falter.

“You . . . it’s you.”

Pain lingered on his face and appeared like a lost child. His eyes pulled me in.

“Has the world been conquered?” he said, with an almost wicked laugh. “You left me behind and kept running. Where have you got to? People like me were left to sleep on the road.”

It was the last days of the spring month of Vaisakh, when the clouds would gather in the heat. But that day neither did the clouds prevail, nor did the sun show its face. The day got stuck somewhere in between. In the shadowy haze, the city flowed on. People were distracted from their work by the indeterminate weather, as if they were just waiting for the clouds, or as if they could only do their work if the sun appeared.

Then suddenly a sharp gust of dust-filled wind would come and circle before one’s eyes, the colour of dreams.

He came into view like this piercing blast of air, like an artist’s painting rendered in grey and drab colours.

“I have been searching for you all this time, but you had forgotten me. Remember how once when you were looking down from the roof of your house and, in your heart, you wanted to jump and die? When you were little, you used to go to your father’s grave and weep. Oh God, lift me up. I couldn’t bear it. I was with you. I am what is left of those dark times, the sighs of your hunger, the colour of your dry tears.”

I was still standing on the footpath, and he sat on his chair. His eyes pierced me like the talons of a great bird, and I was struck by fear. Suddenly, the clouds descended, and it was as if night had fallen. The grass and trees became dark and thick. He appeared to me both very far away and very close. From the way he was sitting, it seemed as if he sat in that spot every day. He held himself comfortably, without any care in the world, with composure. No one looked at him, and not once did the waiter from the juice stall come over to him.

And so I remembered Munwar.

He was our distant relative. The son of my father’s cousin. Punjab had just been divided. His father murdered his mother and was hanged. This all happened before we were old enough to know what was going on. The murder took place in our house in Krishan Nagar, near the Nori building. His father’s shop was in Taxali, in the red light district, Heera Mandi, and there was some fight over a woman. He asked Munwar’s mother to give him her jewellery, so that he could sell it. When she refused, he took a hatchet to her. The murder took place on the second floor, and the stream of blood flowed into the street. That’s when the commotion began. Munwar had two sisters, but his uncle beat him, so he ran away from home and became an addict. One sister ran off with somebody. When she finally came home, she was married off to another man who already had many children. Many more came. Then her husband died. We heard her story but never saw her. For so many women, it is only their stories that remain.

People said Munwar would sit all day in front of the Laat Sahib’s office, at the Punjab Secretariat. It had been built in British times. And there he was: blanket over his shoulders, with a long beard, naked feet, spit at the corners of his mouth, where dirt collected.

He used to come to our home from time to time. We took one look at him and were terrified. Worn out, dirty clothes, with a dirty beard. I was a child and would run to bring new soap and a razor. He would take a bath, shave, and my mother would give him some of my father’s clothes. After my father passed away, she saved everything, and even I wore them after I grew up. After taking a bath, he would sit in the room with his legs crossed under his body and it seemed like he was totally normal. Then he would eat. God only knows how many rotis he would eat. He would keep on eating and my mother would keep on making them. When he at last had his fill, he would pat all the children’s heads lovingly, murmur a prayer for us, and leave. When I started college, once or twice I saw him sitting in some corner near Laat Sahib, but I didn’t dare to talk with him. From inside the blanket, his eyes moved across everything. All I could remember were those eyes.

And now they had a hold on me. I stood trembling on the sidewalk. The traffic on Mall Road kept moving. I set my face straight and crossed the square, quickly reaching the newly constructed Tollinton Market. I couldn’t stop myself from looking back. His eyes appeared in front of me. “Go on, you didn’t pay any heed to us nothings. It’s not me alone: there are thousands, millions, billions like me. I have never left you. Below, beyond consciousness, I am there. Absent everywhere, present everywhere. Silent everywhere, hidden everywhere. From street to street, city to city, from country to country, at home and abroad too . . . Remember? I also met you in the underground Metro in Rome.”

It happened forty years ago. I was shocked to see him. The Cold War had not actually ended yet, but the world was already changing. It was the last days of the Shah of Iran’s regime. Boys from poor countries like ours were trying to enter Europe through Turkey’s door. We travelled by road from Lahore and reached Rome within two weeks. We couldn’t get a visa to go any further. When the money ran out, we were on the street. The day would pass somehow, but at night, it was cold. We would sleep underground, in the Metro. Hundreds of people slept there: people from the various countries of sub-Saharan Africa, from North Africa, and from Asia. At any one time, there would be people from at least thirty different countries. There were also some locals among them. We slept on flattened cardboard boxes that we found left outside the big shops after they closed.

Daytime prevailed in the middle of the night in the underground Metro stations. The Africans would wave bottles of booze around in their hands and talk loudly, sitting on the cardboard boxes. Everyone laughed and joked. The police would also show up to keep people in line. At that time, there was no prohibition on sleeping in parks and sidewalks in Europe, and we would stay in the underground to escape the cold. People would slowly find jobs and disappear, but then just as many others would appear. At night, a few people, who seemed to be relatives, would come to visit the homeless and would give them food and bottles of liquor. Why didn’t they take them home with them? I’ll never know. Sometimes men even flirted with the filthy and drunken middle-aged women in their midst—but then they themselves were drunk, too. There would sometimes be a younger woman in the group, who had somehow become homeless. Many would flock to her side, but, in her state, she had nothing to give them.

It was there that I met him. We had spread out our cardboard boxes and were settling onto them. Shooky was planning to go work on a ship. Hakeem Sahib wanted to reach his brother in Germany. And then he appeared from nowhere, wearing a long overcoat, with a sweater underneath, his hair dishevelled. He was staggering from drunkenness. He made a full circle around all the people lying on boxes and then stood before us with great effort. It seemed like he would fall over, any minute. He had a skinny body but sharp, piercing eyes. How come people like him all have such eyes? Mohammad, the Egyptian, who slept near us, said suddenly, “A Pakistani.” He overheard this and looked at us sadly. I tried to recognize him. He could have been a boy from any street of Lahore. The shadow of fear passed over us. All of us had one question: were we all going to become like this in time? He sat in front of us and took a burger from the pocket of his overcoat. It was neatly wrapped in brown paper. He placed the bottle of booze before us. It was strong brandy, but we each took one sip. This seemed to make him happy. We were so afraid of him—what strength did we have to say no?

After eating the burger, he picked up his bottle and got to his feet. He continued to look at us and then he came and stood right in front of me. He fixed his eyes on me as if we had some old connection. Who knows what he was looking for? He said something forcefully, and saliva spewed from his mouth. Mohammad, the Egyptian, gestured to me that he was asking me for money. I came forward to give him some Italian lira, saved somewhere in the corners of my pockets. He moved his hand emphatically, “Go, go away. You’ll need it. Mothers weep when their sons leave. Go. The money will run out. Those who come here leave someone standing at the door. Even the doors are worn out, waiting. Go away, go away, go away.” Then, with anger about him he left, muttering, without taking any money, falling and staggering on his feet. He was tall and must have been handsome once. But all I remembered were his eyes. As if they were trying to look far into the distance, and then suddenly were disappointed. As if he were looking closely at the path he had taken from Lahore, and it had now become a wall.

All eyes now gathered together in his eyes. Time passed and evening descended. Because of the day’s hide-and-seek game of sun and clouds, the evening was a bit cool. For a moment it was as if everything had come to an end and stood still. The road emptied and then filled again. In the dark evening, he looked like a dot, and the glow of his eyes stopped me. He had full control, and I was caught by his eyes, imprisoned in his gaze. He looked like an insect under a bench, and I stood by.

Night had fallen. Who knows, was the old Anarkali group still sitting there, or had it come to an end? There were so many groups then. Back in those days there weren’t so many carts selling things, so many clothes and shoe shops, so many eateries. There was the professors’ group, the art college students’ group, the students from the university dorms. Tea was served all night, a flood of words, mirth and laughter. Someone would get teased, and if it had an effect, the news would scatter through all the groups. But nobody ever got angry or left in anger. There was a leader of every group who would take care of everything and ask everyone to contribute money for tea at the end of the session. Some might not have even a penny to give, and another might pay for everyone. What mattered was who had said what, who was the most educated, and who was the wisest.

How long did I stand there? The rush of the traffic slowed. Where he was sitting, behind the trees, that was only the idea of him. He could not be seen in the dim light.

I shouldn’t look back, I thought to myself. He will destroy me. I should look squarely ahead and go. The wind had slowly sharpened, and it was colder. The night helped the clouds to triumph and the air was damp. A sharp gust of air struck my face and blew up the dust. The air turned into wind, and with that the shopkeepers closed their shops, and the juice shop was deserted: only the plastic chairs and tables remained. I was able to see the old bodhi and peepal trees for the first time. How could they have survived the slaughtering of trees? Suddenly there was a blast, and the electricity went. The rain began to pound, and the cycles, motorcycles, and pedestrians disappeared. Only the cars crept along the road.

I looked towards him but couldn’t see anything. There was pure darkness but for the soft glow of the flowing traffic, which would then disappear. People gathered under the newly built wood roof of Tollinton Market, waiting for a break in the rain. I started moving under the roof towards the garden. “Keep going, keep going,” I said to myself. I knew that in just a few minutes I would reach the sidewalk on Mall Road, Gol Bagh, and the great Sufi saint Data Sahib’s shrine. Then I would reach the place overflowing with addicts, day labourers, and poorly paid manual workers. I didn’t look back and walked straight. Only my car was standing in the parking lot.

I started the car and drove along the road, towards the place where he had been. It was completely empty, pitch black, with the dim lights of cars slipping away. I didn’t see him. When I passed where Peeju’s café used to be, I heard the sound of weeping, and the sound of something falling. I stepped on the gas and kept on going.