From newspaper vendors to the visiting Indian parliamentary delegation, the subcontinent is one dangerous place
SOMEONE violently knocked at the door of my one-room apartment at dead of night. Startled, I woke up. My heart wobbled. Before I could leave my bed I heard the knock again. Clearly it was an aggressive knock. Friends do not knock at your door like that.
My apartment is situated in a dilapidated building behind the abandoned stables of the now defunct racecourse in the Frere Town, Clifton Karachi.
People in the neighbourhood believe the ruined stables are haunted. They claim to have heard the neighing of the invisible horses from the abandoned stables during the moonless nights. The more zealous among them have insisted on oath to have seen the berserk horses galloping around the racecourse emanating sparks from their hooves.
As for I am concerned, I have not experienced anything phenomenal or supernatural being around me, except that it is unusually calm, so calm that at times calmness frightens. Without a plausible reason you feel uneasy. Thus, midnight knock at my door naturally startled me.
“Except for a few old books, magazines, and cherished memories I possess nothing.”
Before unbolting the door I said: “You have come to the wrong place.”
“We have come to the right place.” They struck the door with heavy boots. Someone shouted in a hoarse voice, and said: “Open the door.”
I hesitantly opened the door. Dragging a wretched person along two rough and tough men banged in my room. Both of them were hawkish and hostile. One of them was clean shaven, and had a flattened nose. I think he must have been a boxer in his youthful years. He pushed the miserable man in front of me, thundered, and said: “Look at him.”
“Who are you?” Surprised, I asked: “And, who is this wretched man?”
“No questions.” The boxer roughly grabbed me by the front of my shirt, and said: “Else, you’ll land yourself in trouble.”
The other tough man had cultivated unruly enormous moustache on his face. It gave him a dreadful look. He held the miserable man by the neck, and asked: “Do you recognize him?”
His head hung down, the miserable man was half conscious. I replied: “I am afraid, I just can’t see his face.”
He pulled the wretched man by his hair, and turned his face towards me, and asked: “Do you know him?”
His face though badly bruised appeared faintly familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. The man with massive moustache caught hold of my shoulder, and asked: “Tell us, who is he?”
Perplexed, I meekly asked, “How on earth am I to tell you who he is?”
With a sinister smile he said: “But, he knows you.”
I was taken aback, and exclaimed: “How come he knows me?”
The boxer said: “Soon after Indian parliamentarians were received by Pakistani lawmakers he was seen crossing our border, and was caught.”
I looked at the wretched man from a distance, and said: “May be he is a member of the Indian parliamentarians’ goodwill group, and may have missed the bus!”
“Don’t be silly!” The massively moustached man rebuked me, and said: “How can an ugly barefoot man in tatters be a member of the neatly dressed group of Indian intelligentsia!”
I was left guessing. I asked: “Who told you he knows me?”
With villainous smile on his hard face the boxer said: “During the initial interrogations at Lahore, he revealed to have come all the way from Delhi to see you.”
I went a step closer to the miserable man, and looked at him minutely. I cleared his forehead of his unkempt hair. He opened his blood-soaked eyes, and looked at me vacantly. Surprised I turned around, and talked to the tough men, and said: “He is my friend Deepak.”
I hugged him, “Oh Deepak, oh Deepak, my brother.”
The man with massive moustache said: “How can a Muslim and a Hindu be brothers!”
“Deepak like me is a newspaper vendor.” I said: “He sells Times of India in the streets of Delhi, and I sell Dawn in the streets of Karachi. In the evening Deepak sells bhelpuri outside Badshahi Mosque in Delhi, and I sell bhelpuri in the vicinity of the mausoleum of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in Karachi. Most of his life he has slept on the footpaths of Delhi, and most of my life I have slept on the footpaths of Karachi. We are perpetually bound in the brotherhood of poverty and pain.”
“Why has he come to see you?” The boxer asked.
“Why have the Indian parliamentarians come to see the parliamentarians of Pakistan?” I asked.
Obviously both tough men felt annoyed. The man with moustache said: “The Indian intellectuals, columnists, and the parliamentarians have come to meet the intellectuals of Pakistan.”
I helped Deepak sit on a chair. Without looking at the tough men I said: “Deepak too has come to see me.”
The boxer curtly said: “Are you an intellectual?”
I promptly replied, “No. I am not.”
He then asked: “Is your friend from India an intellectual?”
I replied: “No. He is not.”
“Non-entities are not supposed to see each other!” The boxer said: “In fact, you both are Indian agents.”
Shaken, I asked: “What if I had gone over to India to see Deepak there?”
They gave out a loud laughter, and said: “The Indian intelligence agencies would have nabbed both of you as Pakistani agents.”
