Desi: The False Ideology

“…Agar Aur jeetey rehtey, yeyhi intazar hota.” [Mirza Ghalib]

“…Vo din key jiska vaada hey hum dekhenge.” [Faiz Ahmed Faiz]

My head rang with the strong anchoring beats of Junoon’s music: Pakistan’s highly fame ridden band. I needed to relieve the hunger within my soul and went to Napster to search for Junoon. Some searches denoted the songs as Hindi pop. And I let go my breath slowly and consciously reducing the tension in my neck. But, the anger stayed. To understand what I felt as a Pakistani nationalist can be imagined by thinking of a parent raising a child who wants to have the surname of his/her neighbor.

Dawn at the Pakistanis.

There was severity in the atmosphere that morning…even the eggs smelled different, as Masi Nagina slapped the “yellow-paite-wala-annda” (egg with a yellow stomach) onto the plate, and brought it onto the table with contrasting grace.

Adnan broke the silence, “Ammiji annda?”

“Abuji remember Anddu’s discription of eggs when he was younger?” Aurooj probed.

“I guess I knew back then that the yoke derived inspiration from your stomach” Adnaan quipped scornfully.

It was hard to tell if he was playfull. Sometimes his serious zeal was scary… almost self-indulgent.

I was suddenly nostalgic, “ Beti don’t spoil his name!”

It was more of a request, and the request was more for Aurroj to do something substantial about those unwanted inches on her midriff. I was a father who dreamed a lot when I was Adnan’s age. The differences are numerous between the two of us though. I was married then, I was working and studying, I knew more Math than Adnan knows now and I didn’t smoke. Adnan does what I didn’t and doesn’t do what I did. He does have many prospective wives, it’s just hard to picture any one of them in that role. I wondered in the same wave of thought how true Mr. Mirza Ghalib was when he said, “Avara hey aap ka beta, jeeayga, mareyga, sareyga.” He seemed to have lost his “shaahi” grace since he stayed on the other side of the fence. Or it’s perhaps what Begum says in her eloquent English, “Adnan is the product of a society that suffers from too much choice.” I think my Father was right, “Adnan has grown new skin because of excessive attention; skin that is waterproof, and keeps the inner parts dry and barren of fertile thoughts.” Aurroj’s theory is as insightful as it is simple, “Anddu is free.”

I wanted Adnan to become a lawyer, just like my Father was. My father was a man who was as westernized as the “ajrak” on jeans that Aurroj wears nowadays. Kept home in his vulnerable heart and manners of the unbreakable, which made everything around him impenetrable…well, almost. I wanted Aurroj to join the army and scare the Mirzas with her “andee-waley-biceps”. Papa was of the idea that women should be preoccupied with defense because they have the emotional attachment and the motherly instinct to protect the frontiers of their territory when their loved ones are in it. So he named Aurroj. The falcon, and the height it soared to against the winds of the ordinary inspired him. Aurroj could not soar because she always ate the flopped cake her Amiji made. “I’m too heavy now,” she would say whenever I asked her to fly. It isn’t Begum’s fault either that she is such a distasteful cook, after all I tore her away from the Mirzas on the condition that she will be the defender. People’s questions sometimes echoed in my head too: “Why did I really marry a Mirza?” I was not after all unaware of the history or the generations of feuds. I also wonder what kind of defender begum would make anyway. My doubts escalated increasingly after every meal she made. I came to the conclusion that my motivations were purely to purify Mirza blood.

Our preoccupation with defense was a catch-22 situation, yet unfortunately all the neighbors point at the bad patches on our lawn and accuse us of messing up our priorities. I am not bothered about the neighbors thought process, for you can’t choose them. What worries me is the Mirza’s role from countrymen to territorial enemies. As the road leads down our home, the sign welcomes, “Begin Defence House.” Some kid scribbled a danger sign with exported spray paint at the bottom recently. But that doesn’t bother us either. It is the most valuable piece of property in the estate, yet land junkies think four things make it look uselessly overvalued by us.

1. The blocking away of cool water to our pipelines, by the east side Mirzas.

2. Control of the shed where we keep chemicals of our pool by the Mirzas.

3. Bloody battles between Aurrooj and Adnaan, unconfined within the four walls of the house and resorting to damage of precious building fiber.

4. Papa’s sudden death. Leaving us with no constitution based on his experience. The land we called ours had no legal backing. His controversial last words added to it, “look to the future to pave ways, old roads lead to barren pasts.”

Allow me to explain in detail.

1. The Earthquake.

Occasionally the human becomes dizzy … it is perfectly normal and allowed. This may lead to a fall, but where we come from one must not be surprised. We are conditioned to be content so that those in authority can serve our needs. We have of course some expectations bound to our conditioning, and that is: We expect the earth beneath our feet to stay still; we do not expect it to fall. One day I saw Papa crying. He looked clearly surprised.

Bewildered he asked, as if to himself, “What does one do when the earth shakes? When it isn’t you who got dizzy, but the ground? When all you know though experience and your fathers experience is proven wrong?”

Papa didn’t take the earthquake well … but he didn’t take long to get up and claim what he was fighting for in the first place: A piece of land where he can stand without being questioned by another. So he did manage to get us under a shady tree, our only belonging was a cloth with 5 “rotis” in it, and the anxious energy store in our cells. The Mirza’s Dog, Om, ate the “rotis” and we were left with none. But that was still acceptable. We had become brainwashed due to the conditioning to be content. One day enough was bared, the salivation for redundancy was wearing out. Papa went to Mirza to ask him why he had sabotaged the water flow to our taps.

Mirza’s eldest child narrated silently and chillingly to Papa, “Baphu says that you wanted a better place than our servant quarters, you caused to quake and so you should know what to do next. You will have no water…but I do not agree with Baphu’s ways. I want you to know that I will be forgiving to you without the revelation and will prove it to my 1 billion siblings that it is more moral to be nice to the 5 of you because I want to than because I have been told to do so in a divine fashion” [He then farted, I remember distinctly the smell as I stood behind my father.] And went on, “… So, there is a hot spring that has erupted due to the earthquake, I will be nice enough to direct it all towards you. Now go before I leave my vicious dog, Om, after you…for your protection of course.”

As a child it was a hard memory to forget the insult of my Papa. I then named our struggle, Pakistan to honor the land where we actually belonged. We fed ourselves the dreams of the future, and those that were buried in the rubbles of the quake were forgotten. One thing that I couldn’t forget though, was the green and white marbles I hid from Mirza’s children in their own garden during our “bloodless coup-existing days”. It was a folly to even dream of getting them back. I later discovered they were the very marbles that were used by Mirza to block the perfectly intact pipeline of water, insulated to protect against monsoon heat, courtesy of Papa’s ancestors.

2. Loam and Clay

Mirzas Loved clay, and Pakistanis loved loam. Loam was black and worm ridden. That was the cause of their dislike for it. Mirzas easily lost their conditioning to be content. They had greater chances of mutations due to larger populations allowing for significant natural selection. Which was surprising because they did have TVs. Pakistanis still held on to conditioning and were content with the Loam soil they were assigned. The idea was that Pakistanis would cultivate and sell the excess, buy from the Ghangiztan family and especially from the house at the end of the road, Marika. For the clay-dwellers there was no plan because they needed none. They had so many children, that they would stand at one point after the rains and automatically raise the surrounding land, soon, their growth was exponential and pressure on the earth only had the choice of moving skyward, and so by the end of 50 years there were these magnificent towers. Mirza’s grandkids mastered the art of climbing the towers. Height advantage gave them immense advantage over the Pakistani household and the growing friendship between the Pakistanis and the Marikas. The grandsons and daughters would come down and mimic exactly the same things, but they were enough to produce and consume only within their community. While Pakistanis were making gardens bloom, Mirzas were reaching the stars.

One day I was awakened during mid-afternoon nap by a blast. Mirza’s Children had thrown the final tower on our beautiful shed and it reacted with the impact, burning to ashes. We all watched in anguish and sent our Ghangiztan neighbor. They were for us dispensable fanatics we wanted off our lawn and thought of them as yet another group we hoped we could leave out in choice. Mirzas were forced to call a ceasefire and it did manifest. I forgot to mention that for Mirzas the ceasefire was a grand idea because the monsoons were far gone. Nothing could leave more of a mark (read: scar) than cold chilling water when we scream, “fire, fire!” I felt the hurling of green and white marbles in all directions, accompanied by freezing water. The tag on the water pump said Made in Marika. Our flowers were already suffering but then it seemed like we had to give up on our pool’s expenses to serve the last bit of energy in our miraculously surviving cells. That day reminded me of another day. We ate “roti” and thanked God that none of us were in the shed at that time.

3. Sectarian Violence.

Both Aurooj and Adnan do not understand what it was like. Apart from the occasional tales Begum and I read to them, there is little they knew or could know of the past. Yet, I would think that my expectations of them would be the propellers of their souls. Papa never allowed me to get down to worms unless it was to cultivate. Our Loam was our pride. We grew Soma there: our national crop. It doesn’t have as many varieties as Mirza’s Harri does but it’s definitely polarized enough to target about all the estate dweller’s taste buds. The entire family sings together while harvesting, “Soma Dharti,” yet there is an area that one variety of soma becomes parasitic over another. It is most saddening. I wonder what keeps us going in our very melancholic days…then I stumble over a tuber that sprouted after 31 years here or a group of different somas becoming taller and taller in competition for light, and then I know that there is hope and there will be success. I autosuggest, “Destination will kiss my feet, if I start now and if I keep going!”

Though Adnan is not what I expected and Aurooj is never going to turn into a butterfly from her pupa stage, they both think they are beautiful. Self-satisfied and procrastinating lazy fools, they tread the yard like it was made for them and look at the towers of the Mirza’s like they were part of the sky. Aurooj has no motivation to defend. She lovingly caresses Om’s 20th generation. I want to take her away from the trance that the reincarnated Mirza puts her in, but I want to trust her to make the right move; give her more time to make mistakes and figure it out on her own. Adnan keeps his cat’s hair jelled and her ears tuned to music. Sometimes he makes the cat scratch Aurooj’s face to pulp, punishing her for encouraging Om to cross the sacred fence. Aurooj in revolt becomes more cordial with Om. Its black color and revealing ribs become her refuge in isolated instances. The girls from Ghangiztan always make her feel unholy, those from Mirza’s wear Sakis, which reveal their midriff; something Aurooj can’t aesthetically afford. With all the cat’s scratch marks and all the chains of weight, Aurooj still had all the potential to be the protector of the Defence home. Potential here, meant unwillingness to act. Dormant like bacteria in the ice cold water that Mirza’s officially splash to cure wounds “of humanity”.

4. “Look to the future?”

Home was priceless to me because it was valuable in terms of what we lost for it. My children think its priceless because in the language of the Mirza’s ‘Price-less’ means without any value. It is therefore hard to explain to them. I did not want Adnan to learn their language but he knew how to steal signals from the cable wires that run from Marika’s to Mirza’s. In the signals he sees that people are unequal on the other side of the fence. And he mirrors what they do, by practicing on Aurroj.

“Mirroring is a lowly behavior, “ I told him when I caught him red handed one day.

“My name is Chin Chin Chu Mirza,” he replied.

What I felt then was even worse than looking at a Mirza point at my Flowers. I had lost.

I snapped back to attention. The breakfast table suddenly fell silent. It seemed as though I had been talking aloud. Both Aurroj and Adnan were staring at me, with the same child like eyes. Simultaneously they stood up, pushed their chairs back to position then came to my side and hugged me tight with tears welling up in their eyes.

“Baba, why do you feel that Papajani’s life will be taken for granted by us?” Adnan asked

Aurroj laughed, “I won’t ever call Adnan that again Baba... I Promise. I know what you have thought of us to be. We may not be exactly that but we are definitely from the same Soma!”. Her face glowing with health, “Now I’m getting late for training, I’ll talk to you when I get back, Sir. Jinnah is really rough at assigning pushups. “Same as the boys” is his motto it seems…bye Baba.”

I watched my children walk away, with their head up. Their car keys circular motion. I noticed a Pakistani flag as a key chain, and I wondered why I worry so much, these are after all children of the fertile Loam: Fertile only to bright ideas unable to mingle with clay. I heaved a sign of relief and thought of attending to the week’s mail. Napster caught my eye. I opened up the letter in hasty anticipation. It was addressed to Adnan and read:

Mr. Adnan Faiz Pakistani,

Please accept our apology for referring to Pakistan’s band as Hindi Pop. You will be happy to know that I also turned down the idea of its reference to “desi music” as you pointed out your 7 page sentiments. It is indeed only fair that we all stand for who we are and reclaim what we have as ours. Our customer service staff particularly liked the line, “When land reforms are implemented, those with the significantly greater parts should be looked at with suspicion when they talk of blurring the territorial lines on the basis of being one people.” … Though it was totally irrelevant. We just have nothing to do nowadays.

Thanks.

Customer service.

Napster