The Amsterdam Treasures

I agree to Dr. Zaidi. She well presented the double standards of our socially and morally corrupt society. The social evil which is eating out our culture and values.

While Malik sahib himself was a mentally sick man, he couldnt live with the fact, that his precious pronographic material is being shared by his equally sick servant.

The only thing I have to appeal to is...why Amsterdam? I live in Amsterdam and trust me I am in no way like Malik sahib.

Re: Asim Hayat and MAK

That this was a morality story is pretty obvious. But thanks to you guys, I have a chance to moralize on ``Children and Foreign Body Ingestions``, the unintentional moral theme here.

Two year olds are wily little things. They pretty much have access to everything in your house unless you lock things up, or put them in places where they can`t use chairs or stools to climb up to get them.

Ring ingestions are very plausible. Kids ingest all kinds of things (for a truly macabre experience, visit the Children`s Hospital, Boston`s third floor display gallery of items recovered (and diligently collected by some surgeons) from children`s guts since the 1930`s.

Most (about 80%)items ingested pass through uneventfully, even large coins (the most favorite item of ingestion). This is not to minimize the seriousness of the problem. Firstly, there is always the danger that something might be inhaled, rather than ingested - a life-threatening problem. Secondly, the item may have toxic potential - eg. button batteries which can leak alkali causing caustic damage. Thirdly, a sharp object can actually cause an injury to the gut. Finally, rarely, large, or unusually shaped objects can get stuck in the esophagus, or in the pyloric opening (stomach to intestinal opening) causing obstruction. If a child ingests something and the parent is aware of it (most don`t even find out until they see it pass), we usually get X-rays to make sure its not stuck at the end of the esophagus or in the pylorus. If not, we just assign the parents the happy task of watching it come out in the next 3 days or so!

So the lesson, as the parent of any 2 year old will soon learn is - constant supervision, thinking ahead, and making small objects truly inaccessable.

Anita

Thanks for the comments, everyone. It is interesting that there is no criticism. Perhaps unlike the ``Sex Everywhere`` article by AA, many are reassured that this is only a story - not based in reality, as AA`s account was. Or perhaps, as SR says, Malik Sahib is a model citizen, a mild personality - my characterization didn`t come very close to the real ``doers`` out there.

Yet, as the commentary so far states, the themes of hypocricy, treating domestic help as subhumans, or worse, physical violence and throwing people in jail on the basis of ill-founded suspicions, are all very real.

As for Kafir`s remarks: ``For an impressionable child like Hamza, the master-servant relationship being played out in a Pakistani household is a great training ground for the class divisiveness, power games, lying, and passing-the-buck that plague his society.``

....what can I say except so sad, and so true. Hamza will start on this road early - copying his father, yelling at the servants, to prove he is superior to them - all to the delight of his doting parents.

Anita

Ha ha. Reminds me of the similar scene in the film ``Fire`` (Shabana Azmi catches the servant watching pornos and tries to get him fired because sh is afraid he will tell others what she is upto).

You`ve woven several themes together - our hypocritical views on pornography and class issues - so easily. Makes the story alot of fun to read.

The replies too are interesting. Wonder whether the wife might actually enjoy the pornography too - after all men are not the only ones who are visually aroused. Sexual perversion is a thin line.

Clarification re: Asim Hayat.

Diamonds used for cosmetic purposes are polished to eliminate sharp edges (you can`t use a diamond ring to cut glass or your hand, for example). It is entirely conceivable that a swallowed diamond ring will pass through the gut without harming the intestinal lining. Diamonds used on drill bits or for glass-cutting are customized for those functions.

Saad Shafqat

Good to see a nice, simple but weighted article. The gravity of the matter you tried to expound is inevitable and poignant. You reminded me some of fascinating novels I read in my childhood where abject master and faithful servant were the main theme or treasure in death valley (no Amsterdam Treasure! of course). I found some `jhol` in the article like how two year old kid could reach the kitchen table (provided he was not sitting on that when Naseema washing her hands) and further when he swallowed diamond ring like a toffee he didnt complained of anything and silently he `exported` the ring in his diaper. Perhaps I am taking its too real but fiction provides a relish if it makes some sense. Nevertheless, overall the terse piece conveyed alot.

This is not a story. This is a reality. I also read the relpies. My friends have written almost everything what I want to write. We need these stories. Keep on doing what you are doing.

Regards

An amusing morality tale, though the character of Naseema is a bit flat.

The portrayal of the master-servant relationship in a typical Pakistani household rings very true. Having grown up in the U.S., I`m always uncomfortable everytime I visit Pakistan to see the humiliating treatment that the servants receive. My sweet, doting, soft-spoken aunt suddenly becomes a fiery-tempered siren at the smallest trangression or mistake by a servant. Dogs get treated better than the pathetic `naukars.` Servants become the convenient scapegoats for family problems, often taking the blame for a guilty family member who won`t fess up to his/her mistake.

For an impressionable child like Hamza, the master-servant relationship being played out in a Pakistani household is a great training ground for the class divisiveness, power games, lying, and passing-the-buck that plague his society.

Great theme Anita.

Lately, I have been reluctant to participate in topics religious or political here on Chowk. However, this falls under the heading of `social issues` and Asim has done such a great job commenting on it that I have little to say except `ditto` Mr Hayat`s remarks.

If anything, I`d say, that your portrait of Malik Sahib is a very `mild` one. He is almost a model citizen. There are thousands of other Malik sahibs in Lahore and Karachi whose Hijab clad wives have absolutely no idea of the endless bordellos in their husbands` inventory of `contacts`. Straight after nimaz jumma, they head out for those `rest houses`.

Your Malik sahib, by comparison, was merely `doing magazines`.

Sexual repression and its accompanying psychopathologies are rampant in our part of the world and, I beleive, one of the significant factors underlying many of our social ills.

Not surprisingly, many of the hijab clad Naseemas are not as stupid as they pretend to be. Whereas the Malik sahibs think they have their Naseemas boxed in where they want them, some of the Naseemas have also made their own arrangements and the Hamzas are growing up amidst that confusion. No wonder the ordeal goes on ...

more later...SR

Anita,

Enjoyed the story!!! The short story clearly displays the severe dichotomy between our words and actions. I liked the part where the sad, pervert, Mr Malik was concerned about the discovery of his pornographic material by his very eastern, hijab clad wife, and at the same time he was preparing for wuzoo for the Zuhar prayers. Mr Malik was mechanically speaking going through the rituals of being a good Muslim in the outwardly visible sense, failing even to realise the misearble hypocrite he was, and that his namaz with the underlying events would not save him or hundreds of thousands like him in our festered society from the wrath of D-Day Finale`.

I really feel empathy for the wife, Naseema, who had so much trust and faith in the integrity and sheer honesty of her allegedly upright husband that she like many of her counterparts can not even begin to SUSPECT the dual-personality of her husbands psyche. And she will go through life with that same trust, as a dog has for his master, applying herself to be the good wife, who lets her husband manipulate her in all matters sexual, religious, financial, or futuristic. Yes she will concede her body to him every night for consummation, regardless of her will to participate in order not to turn him away towards other women, while her husband fantasizes the Images he had stored in his mind from the glossy Amsterdam Magazines, enabling him to feel that freedom of getting it all without having to make an effort to get it.....

Interesting story. But somehow one could foretell that the missing diamond ws going to inevitable turn up, though i did not contemplate it turning up in poor Hamza`s pooh pooh!!! Call me pedantic, but thats`s the only part I believe which lessens the credibility of the story. Diamond is the hardest suubstance known to man. In fact it is so hard that only diamonds can cut diamonds.. In the oil business, it is often attached to drilling bits to cut through and drill exceptioonally hard subsurface formnations. To make a long story short, i believe poor Hamza`s innards, i.e his intestine, etc, and ll would have been cut and severely mutilated by the passage of a diamond ring throuigh his digestive track... Yet if in your medical experince such a case had come to pass, i would be interested to hear about it...

I wonder what sort of husband Hamza, the two year old toddler would grow up to become.... Want to bet he will be a replica of his Dad`s....?

Kind Regards

Asim Hayat