CHATHTEES BATTA DOU, NISBAT ROAD

Editors’ Note: On 30th June 2024, we suffered an irreparable loss: the youngest, and undoubtedly the best, member of our very small team. Abdur Rehman Mazhar looked every bit of who he was: sweet, mild-mannered, unceasingly polite. It is remarkable how quickly he became an essential, indispensable part of Dunya Digital. He was responsible and deeply committed, with an infectious enthusiasm for his work, and an innate curiosity about the world.

We remain heartbroken at his passing, and miss his understated humour, sparks of insight and impeccable playlists at every work meeting.

As a tribute to Abdur Rehman, and as a glimpse into the brilliance we miss, we would like to share a short story he wrote in Bilal Tanweer’s class at LUMS.

HEREDITARY

After my Chachu got married, my role in the household changed quite a bit. I used to be his regular sparring partner before important street cricket matches that often had financial stakes, his preferred sidekick for late night food expeditions – especially when Mahad bhai was away - and, on occasion, his wingman when my naivete, dimples, and a voice that had not yet cracked could be exploited to successfully charm women.

He would tell me: Mano! You see that friend of mine? Go over and say hello to her and ask her about her modelling gig, and tell her about your favorite cricketer and tell her about songs we listen to together.

Sometimes they would respond: What modelling gig? And that would be my Chachu’s opportunity to smoothly sweep in with a compliment that would make them feel even more beautiful.

Other times, I would talk. And, like a fool, I would open up to strangers in ways that people who had known me all of my life would find jarring.

But my Chachu knew me.

It was not until much later that I realized he would deploy me strategically – sometimes to make him appear more human since I could not help but showcase him in a positive light, and other times to allow him to save women from the discombobulated ramblings of a child being guided by a sense of belonging that momentarily caressed him; a feeling that he desperately attempted to latch onto by needlessly talking after days and years and a lifetime of not belonging.

My Chachu’s shenanigans eventually dwindled over time, like a wilting rose losing its petals one by one. And when Chachi joined our household, turning away from the responsibilities of adulthood that had stared him in the face for years quickly became impossible.

This was a period of seismic shifts for many in the house.

My mother had to grapple with her 12 years of servitude to my Dadi being rendered useless upon the arrival of a younger woman in the household. My mother never gave up. I had witnessed her getting shouted at by Dada at four in the morning for having put too much salt on his fried-egg, being jeered at by Shabbo Phuppho through the years for her hyperbolized inadequacies in the kitchen, and receiving abuse from Dadi who held my mother responsible for stoking the fire underneath Baba’s desire to move away from Nisbat Road and the family.

She had been very tough all her life. Unlike myself.

But this was different.

It was not necessarily the lack of belief in her ability to come out on top, but rather that she had no energy left to go through the tumultuous process of proving herself all over again. Dadi wanted them to compete with each other in terms of who could make her feel more desired. Dada, when he was alive, had of course performed that role, but now, even too much was not enough for Dadi.

We all did our best to cure her loneliness.

Chachu never missed taking Dadi out on late-night drives that would keep her distracted, Baba would step up without question to fulfill any financial demands, and I permanently vacated the second floor, left behind my family unit, and became a resident in her room on the ground floor to keep her company. But none of it was enough to fend off the viciousness that my mother and Chachi were fated to bear.

My mother knew it would mean nothing anyway. Just like Chachi, once she too had been an outsider, and that feeling had never gone away. At best, you could be like family, but never truly become family.

I think my inability to fit in at Nisbat Road is hereditary.

I remember feeling like the empty space inside our house until my Chachu took me under his wing. I figured myself out through him. I started liking the books he liked, the movies he would recommend to his friends were movies I would then rave about in front of my friends, the music that he would play in his Mehran would not show up on the small LCD screen so I would pay special attention to memorable lyrics from each song in order to burn them into my memory and look them up later.

It was important for him to not suspect anything. Because people who belong just know things, they don’t have to pretend. And I wanted to belong.

So, I acted as if all along I knew that these were the things I was supposed to like.

But none of this mattered anymore. My Chachu had a new best friend and just like my mother, I had to come to terms with playing second fiddle to her.

GUDDU BHAI

Since Chachi was new to our household and neighborhood and Chachu was away from home during the day, she asked me for help with any grocery or food or clothing related needs until she got familiar with the terrain. I still did not know what to feel towards her. She had invariably played a part – by marrying Chachu – in making me feel like I was no longer needed. Something I had heard enough times in my life already. It was easy to displace the blame onto her, and much harder to contend with the idea that my Chachu was cut from the same cloth as all the other men in our family. He gave up on everything that he was fond of, everything that he thought was good for him. Marriage had changed him: not in a way that makes one care and love more, but in a way that I could not wrap my head around.

I could see the weight of all the possibilities slipping through his fingers like particles of sand that he did not even attempt to save. Possibilities that seemed much more fruitful than the stale and dreary state of affairs that had enveloped him.

Chachi reaching out for my help instead of my mother’s felt like a peace offering and a declaration of war at the same time. I did not care too much even if she had enlisted me simply to undermine my mother. I was busy thinking about staying relevant in Chachu’s life through her.

Chachi had moved into the newly renovated third floor of our house which meant that I no longer had any excuse for the extra chub on my body. Travelling up and down three flights of stairs, multiple times a day, to deliver cooking oil, a packet of Lay’s French cheese, or gossip about why the neighbor’s kid Junaid was receiving a beating from his father in the middle of the street at 7 A.M. Every time I visited Chachi, her face would be affixed with a perpetual curiosity which I thought stemmed from her desire to become more familiar with Nisbat Road.

But one day, she finally broke and asked: Mano! Tumhain ye sab khaberein kahan se milti hain? Main bhi isi ghar main rehti hoon aur taqreeban tumharay jitna hee bahir nikalti hoon… tum chuph kar un lafangon kay saath cricket tou nahin khelnay chalay jatay? Tumhain pata haii Chachu nay sakhti se mana kia huwa haii.

I reassured her that I had not stepped foot outside other than when anyone in the household had tasked me with bringing something from the market.

But that is mostly me…. So how do you stay up-to-date?

Well… through Guddu bhai, I replied.

Guddu bhai and his general store could not be separated from the workings of almost every household on Nisbat Road. He was an old man, much older than my father. But he had not let his sharpness fade away. He could not have sustained a general store in our neighborhood for decades if he had let his age get to him. The store was located below his house, and operated out of a room that welcomed the street. A metal table, hosting seemingly all flavors of candies and jellies and chips known to mankind, protruded outwards and took up space on the already narrow gully. He would keep the more expensive items such as the cooking oil or sacks of chawal and atta tucked behind his counter. A chipped green stool with a worn out gaddi – which reeked of coconut oil mixed with dried leaves from the big tree in my Nani’s backyard – covered the little step that led into the shop. A worn out tarazu was attached to his counter and this is where everyone would bring their candies to be measured precisely against the metal weights that had lost their markings over time, to ascertain the amount that needed to be paid. But of course, Guddu bhai never actually needed those markings; he just knew.

Guddu bhai hardly sat still, and if anyone got too close to the slightly elevated step or the stool, he would lash out and sharply tell them to step back. He was short and wiry, so he had to overcompensate for his perceived feebleness by being vocally imposing and instituting strict consequences for distasteful behavior. His smile was deceptive, and his squinted eyes were always scanning even when he was busy with multiple customers. There were times when some kids got the better of him, but in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone, it simply came back to bite much harder if you tried to be clever with him. I witnessed entire households falling to Guddu bhai’s mercy after being barred from the store for days and weeks if a thieving kid was traced back to them. This is where I got most of my news from. You would either hear neighborhood kids snickering amongst themselves as they hovered over the metal table unable to decide what to spend their 5 rupees on, or Guddu bhai himself would inquire about the daily happenings in the neighborhood in exchange for a Hoest candy and everyone at the shop would be privy to the accounts narrated by gullible children.

I never understood why Guddu bhai treated me differently. You could see him puffed up and ready to shout at any given moment at other children, but he would deflate as soon as he caught sight of me. Back when I was not familiar with the rules, I accidentally got too close to the forbidden green stool once, and the person behind me waited no longer than a second to let Guddu bhai know that I had overstepped my boundaries. You could not blame the kid for snitching because Guddu bhai always put on a cracking show for the entire gully when he caught someone conniving. But he never said anything to me. His watchful eyes would finally receive some rest when I was the only person at the store.

I did not know what I had done to deserve his trust. It was as if he expected me to be a decent kid. But no one had taught me to be decent. I felt cheated out of a childhood where I did not get to figure out how I was supposed to act by myself. I saw other kids learn not to steal from their firsthand experiences of being reprimanded, but I never had any of that. I learned through others and in the process only gave up on experiences that I should have had.

I also wondered at how other people seemed to love their families. One day I’d hear about a kid getting beaten up, and the next he would be inseparable from his dad like nothing ever happened. I had never felt that way. I once overheard someone ask Junaid when he was planning to stand up to his father and he replied, yaar menuoun maar tey paindi ayy par mera abba mairay naal pyaar karda vi boht ayy.

I could not speak like Junaid. And other people knowing I did not feel as strongly towards family as everyone else seemed to would immediately confirm everyone’s suspicion of me being different, heartless, and ungrateful. This was what they thought of me regardless, or so I thought. I needed to hold on to the ambiguity that came with not confirming my alienness.

KANGAROO CONTEST

Hashmi uncle’s daughter was well-known in our neighborhood for being extremely smart. Anam baji had achieved first position in Lahore in her matriculation exams, and was aiming to become a doctor. I was not sure if this goal was simply in service to the fulfiment of her parents’ dreams and desires, or if it was something she truly wanted. I only wondered because all I ever wanted to be was a naayi but my Dada would always scold me and say, banday da puttar ban jaa.

I met Anam baji at my Dada’s funeral. Back then, I had barely grown to hate mathematics. But now this hatred had developed in tandem with my inability to perform well on math tests in middle school. I do not know why I signed up for an international mathematics test. Whether it was just to spend time outside class with my friends by signing up for what seemed like an inconsequential test, or to redeem my poor image as a nikamma student in front of my father, I am not sure.

But it quickly became clear that my peers did not sign up for the Kangaroo Contest for fun, and the stakes got much higher after I elicited Anam baji’s help for preparation. Word spread around the block that I would be going over to her place to study. She had sworn off teaching anyone in our neighborhood after the last two boys she was requested to teach by Nasreen baji misbehaved with her. No one could say no to Nasreen baji, but Anam baji stood up to her in an act of defiance that was highly uncharacteristic of not just her and all the households on Nisbat Road. Everyone preferred to keep any discontent to themselves.

I remembered her house from when I used to play cricket with her brother out in the street. Asad bhai would come out of that shabby, yellow building with its flimsy doors that always felt like they would break if one was not too careful with them. The door could only fit one person at a time, and had cutouts covered in aluminium mesh. It was easy to see right through the cross section of the house while standing outside if the white floral curtains had not been drawn properly.

It had been a long time since I had last visited that part of our neighborhood.

Since then, I had taken to noticing other people around the street – their little gestures, hushed movements, and facetious facial expressions said more about them than I ever needed to know. An unsavoury horde of men would await Anam baji’s return from college. I had seen Hashmi uncle instruct the rickshaw driver to only stop the vehicle right outside the house, when the fragile entryway lined up with the side of the rickshaw that boarded Anam baji. The few seconds that Anam baji was at the behest of Nisbat Road – when she stepped outside the rickshaw to finally enter her home – were enough to fuel whispers and leers in the street.. Sometimes I even felt self-conscious walking to her house wondering what everyone in the street thought of me. I could sense some contempt, some jealousy and maybe a little admiration from the younger ones - all for sharing an intimate space with her.

I never really fully understood it. How she went through that everyday whilst concealing every emotion that bubbled in her from below like a boiling pot of water. She was too good for Nisbat Road, and she knew it.

Her house was quite small. The feeling of being besieged by the furniture and the people in the household overcame one moment after stepping into the lounge. There was no time to collect yourself. Unlike my house that had little steps to greet you, and a narrow but present entry passageway that one could enter and leave without anyone in the house having any inkling that someone had visited. Going to her house meant immediately being exposed to the mechanics of the family. A slightly crooked and unusually large dining table on the left side, most of which was in contact with the boundary wall, greeted you. The right side was where sofas older than me were kept wrapped under plastic sheets with a table in front to complete the sitting area for visitors. The light was extremely dim, and the walls were painted with a shade of blue that could hypnotize you if you stared for too long. It was a suboptimal location for studying, which left me all the more confused when we would sit there every single day leading up to the Kangaroo Contest to work on questions. I did not want to seem ungrateful, so I never complained, at least not until my last session with her.

I figured she wanted to preserve some sense of privacy by not letting me into the deeper sanctum of the house where her parents resided, but she told me that the corner on the right where we sat was her favorite spot in the house. A corner where she could melt into her real self. Be hidden from her family and the outsiders all at once. She then let out a sigh that could only carry a fraction of the weight that she had been burdened with her association with Nisbat Road. But she never renounced it or felt ashamed… like I did.

Throughout our sessions, I felt hesitant and exposed because I felt like she could see through me like every other person that she had dealt with. You develop a knack for it when you have to figure out people by yourself. I knew that and she did too.

Anam baji telling me that she deliberately made me sit where she felt most like herself meant that the walls of ambiguity that I had built to protect myself momentarily collapsed. Maybe I had been too early or too late. But I reminded her of parts of herself that she had forgotten. And she reminded me that maybe I too could belong, in my own little way, and that maybe I was not that bad at math after all.