Trunk

His father ran a well-established trunks business when he was born. They owned a huge factory and a couple of outlets in the city of Sialkot in West Punjab prior to the partition. There, steel trunks of various sizes were manufactured and sold. Theirs was one of the eminent families of the city, and his was a dream childhood. A traditionally business oriented family that they were; little attention was paid to children’s education, since they were deemed to carry on with their forefather’s trade eventually. So he spent most of his time roaming around, playing in the streets with other kids or engaging in innocent banters with elderly neighbours.

In the evenings, after school hours, he’d regularly visit the factory or one of the outlets. He felt fascinated by the very sight of those huge metal boxes. The thrashing of hammers against steel sheets deeply amused and intrigued him. To him it was the sound of life pressing hard against the ultimate; pushing it to the brink. Yet there was one particular size he was too scared to even tread close to - the trunk with the dimensions of two feet by six feet. He had a strange feeling about it; a feeling of ghastly confinement, of terminus enclosure. Nevertheless, looking around himself he found it hard to take in all that glory, the expanse of his father’s empire. He felt very special even at that little age.

Life, by its true nature, is a paradigm of bleak unpredictability. After the partition, their business gradually started declining for some reason. The factory hardly had any production owing to the lack of labourers, and consequently one of the outlets had to be closed. The world turned upside down for them all of a sudden. The result was natural, the family started dispersing. None of the sons joined in the family business, and each one of them took to his individually chosen path. He was in his late teen age by then and was gravely impacted by this downfall. He could not let go of his father’s hard-earned grandeur in an instant, but his wings were clasped. From then on his sole ambition in life was to regain all that was lost.

After a year, his parents married him to a jewel of a girl. A truly Eastern damsel that she was, she dedicated every moment of her life to him and his parents. He, unfortunately, had nothing for her in return. His only passion was to retrieve the bygone ecstatic days; he’d trade in no love for them. When all his efforts in challenging his destiny through different means ended up futile, he was finally left with the only option of moving abroad and striving for his ardour there. One of his elder brothers had already migrated to Dubai, UAE, and was courteous enough to invite him when he urged. Conditions used to be quite favourable for expatriates in those days as UAE was a newborn country and needed a lot of manpower to unleash its hidden resources. He managed to find a good job, as a store-keeper in the defence force, quite early on and was, at least for the time being, contended with it. But it wasn’t long before he realised his job was never going to satiate his fervour.

His wife gave birth to two sons over the next couple of years. In their forms, he saw his own fate shining back at him. Adhering to his family tradition, he never willed to educate them to a decent level. He only yearned for them to grow up quickly, to materialise his dreams. The elder son had hardly reached mid-teens, when he borrowed a loan from the bank and started him a business in one of the busiest markets in town. But the kids had inherited more slack and leisure-seek from their father than anything else. The son couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations, and so the business flopped. All the debt fell on his aging shoulders. A monthly repayment was extracted from his salary, and they were hardly left with enough money to live from hand to mouth.

That’s when he had his first heart attack. It was a severe one. He was immediately admitted to the ICU of the defence hospital. But he wasn’t the one to give in to death so easily; he had dreams to live for. Lying there, the thrash of the hammers against sheets of metal echoed in his mind, jolting death to the edge, forcing him to open his eyes - he survived. He was diagnosed with a permanent angina resulting from excessive stress he had undergone recently. A happy-go-lucky fellow that he was by nature, thanks to his playful childhood, he laughed away the pain and returned home with a stronger zeal. His faith in the power of his dreams had reinforced itself, he had not been granted a new life for no reason.

He started mulling more robustly over any other opportunity that he could avail. When the conditions stabilised a bit, due to a salary increment and some savings his assiduous wife had meticulously made, he started another business. This time he didn’t rely on his sons much but found a partner who was also the chief investor. As ill-luck would have it; his partner double-crossed when the business turned out lucrative enough. For a government servant it wasn’t legitimate to run a business simultaneously, that’s where the partner played up on him. He was forced to quit his share of the business, and just when he was at the verge of winning back his fortune, he suffered another blow.

Another heart attack followed the hap. Redemption came about, for the dreams had lived along despite all the agony he had encountered and made him do so too, but the after-thoughts were different this time. The thrashing sound wasn’t amusing anymore. Instead, he felt as if his soul was itself an empty trunk and it were the phantoms of his aspirations who were bashing hard against the periphery of his existence, attenuating it further. To add to his ailments, he was sacked from his job for not abiding by the rules, and was forbidden by the law to take up any other job. And since he had been unable to secure UAE citizenship yet, he was impelled to leave the country.

With empty hands, forlorn and disgusted, he returned to Sialkot with his family. He had no capital to do something on his own there, and no clue whatsoever as to what he should be doing. The experience he had earned with his previous job wasn’t helpful in finding one in Pakistan, nor was his age; he was into his fifties now. All he seemed to have been left with was a lifelong of regrets to look back at. The longing and indictment apparent on his wife’s face, the destitution and despondency on his sons’, ached him further, enhanced his anxiety. He itched to return them all that his selfishness had deprived them off, but it was too late perhaps, and he found his wings buckled yet again!

During all his years of stay in the Dubai, one thing he had procured efficiently was the faith of his bosses in him and his abilities. A courteous, genial and compassionate attitude that he had along with his vigour to toil; his Arab bosses had developed some real adoration for him. A couple of them stayed in contact with him even after his return to Pakistan. As a stroke of luck for him, one of his ex-bosses retired after a year or so, and decided to commence his own business. For assistance and counsel, for the type of business the boss eyed upon, there couldn’t be a better substitute than him.

Evidently, the boss arranged the entry and work permit for him and called him back in Dubai. It was the last ray of hope for him, the reward for all his sufferings and remorse - the Midas touch. They started setting up the business; that of manufacturing and supplying metal trunks, as their demand was augmenting these days while supply was way below par. He slogged like never before, and within weeks arranged a whole team of skilled craftsmen and at the same time corresponded with potential dealers. His strife paid up, and very soon they received quite a few substantial batch orders.

One day when their very first consignment was ready to be supplied next morning, he stopped by the godown to take a peek. It was a familiar scene; a retrospect of his entire childhood ran through his mind. The only difference was that these trunks were all only one size now, six by two feet. He took a deep breath; a sigh of relief perhaps, for this was the long lost glory that he had craved for all these years. Looking around himself, he felt hard to take in all the expanse of the empire he was about to find!

Next day, by noon, someone knocked at the door of his home back in Sialkot. His son opened the door. Standing outside was a white van carrying a huge wooden box with a detachable lid. The box enclosed a six by two metal trunk, one from the first batch they were about to deliver, and within the trunk laid him - motionless. It was the third heart attack last night and he couldn’t endure it. No dream came to his rescue this time; there wasn’t one left.