Being an American-born confused desi is an identity that is not very difficult to live with
ON a sunless chill-soaked afternoon, after a spicy masala dossa at Edison, known as ‘little India’ in New Jersey, gorging on a meetha paan, prepared painstakingly by an elderly woman, sitting cosy in her cubby corner of the store, shall I say, for one brief moment, makes one forget the foreignness that America arouses.
“I have to give up,” declares a complete stranger, shaking his head, as he edges in to place his special order. The guy looks troubled. “I must stop taking tobacco in my paan ... only this morning I read that it damages the cells in the brain.”
With his hands dug deep in his navy overcoat atop a dark business suit and tie, the ABCD (American-born confused desi) continues his confession: “I drive all the way from Princeton University to eat paan ... I have to give up now.”
In America, the whites don’t open up easily. They prefer to get on with whatever they are doing, concentrating on the task at hand, even if it’s waiting in line to be rung up at the cashier’s register at a store. Small talk is not their forte with people not their own colour.
But Edison, as mentioned, is all desi fare. And it gives the good old heart cheer to be with folks from back home — even if the majority happen to be from India. Still, the fat fellow with a hanging stomach at the dossa luncheon — where we eat — is a pucca Pakistani. Glued to his cell endlessly, he bellows in Punjabi non-stop, making quite an exhibition of himself. Islamabad is oft mentioned in his noisy tattle. Since he’s the owner of all he surveys, he’s allowed extra decibels, how else to explain his racket.
Taking cover from the whipping wind, we head for the car but before we can dash inside, the man in the next car draws our notice. Wearing a grey militia shalwar kameez with a Swati woolen cap perched on his head, I spot a tasbeeh in his right hand. Ignoring me (I guess Pakistani men prefer addressing males only) he turns to the man who has lit up a cigarette, that being my husband, and duly proceeds to lecture him, “Smoking is bad for health and if you can’t give up, go to Madina sharif and pray.”
What’s the problem with our men from the subcontinent? First, one hears the Indian talk his heart out about his tobacco eating addiction and now this man gives us a mouthful of unsolicited advice on not to smoke.
“So, where are you from”? He asks after he’s done with his sermon on the car — his door is open and his hands by now spread out heavenwards. “I’m from Karachi and my wife is from Lahore,” answers my husband, helping him figure out our ethnicity.
“I’m from Sohawa,” says he, still refusing my existence.
Unable to get ignored any more, I jump in. We know those parts well since we lived in Jhelum, years and years ago.
Finally, he allows me a glance and we strike up a conversation. But not for long. “You must hear my message,” he says. And before we can respond, he breaks into a naat.
Reciting on top of his lungs under a frosty sky, Liaquat Ali Qureshi puts us in a trance with the sweet melody of praise for our Holy Prophet (PBUH). His rendition is soulfully moving, radiating soft bright warmth. Shoppers around us wonder what’s happening. They look stupefied. Cars passing by slow down to see the roadshow in progress.
But Qureshi, the immigrant, who came to America 20 years ago, carries an eternal flame burning for his homeland; his heart forever with Allah and Muhammad (PBUH). He’s oblivious to the attention he draws at the shopping square. As if he couldn’t care less.
“I recite a naat whenever I come across someone I want to share my message with. Goodbye.” Hopping into his rickety old sedan, the man with a white beard streaks out of our radar as swiftly as he entered a while ago.
Spirituality strikes again, some weeks later when I meet Jimmy Engineer.
As he alights from a bus that brings him to New Jersey from New York, wearing a white shalwar and a black kurta with a light jacket, I blurt out: “Aren’t you cold”?
“I don’t feel the cold,” he says, wasting not a moment to tell me he’s an artist, humanitarian, social worker and human rights activist, packaged into one. “There’s a voice that guides me, leads me and helps me.”
“Come on, you really don’t need a formal introduction,” I tell him, trying to deflect the gravity of discussion to come. (He’s seasoned since I met him many years ago).
He’s in America these days and travelling all over attending events in his honour. On March 23, our embassy in Washington DC is holding an exhibition cum lecture of his paintings.
“So what else is new?” I ask Jimmy. We all know he has for decades past, walked and walked (Karachi to Khyber) to raise awareness on issues closest to his heart.
“I am a servant of Pakistan,” he responds.
“Lighten up,” I tell him, seeing how serious he looks. “How can I?” says he. “With poverty, misery, disease surrounding me, how do you expect me to be happy?”
The grin on my face goes. I resign myself to hearing him out fully. His work and deeds are worthwhile and praiseworthy.
Disdaining drawing room chatter of Pakistanis pretending to help the poor, Engineer is equally repulsed by the NGOs whose main activity is to feather their own nests, travel in gas guzzling luxury cars and attend conferences in exotic capitals of the world.
“Go to the poor if you want to help them,” he says. Critical of social workers who claim working at the grassroots level but convene conferences at fancy five-star hotels in Karachi, Islamabad, Geneva and Paris to talk poverty alleviation, population control, health, education and human rights, Engineer advocates going to the villages, holding the hands of the poor; talking one-on-one with them about their wants and needs.
“I walk the countryside listening to people’s problems. They tell me; they embrace me; they kiss my hands and accept me as one of their own.”
Why?
“Because I am not a phony. I travel in a rickshaw; drive an old car and live in a modest home ... I don’t crave worldly things.”
Hold on Jimmy ... interrupting him, I ask, “Your paintings are very pricey and you must get handsome returns for your art?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” he says, a trifle irritated with my unwelcome interjection.
“My paintings fetch a handsome price, but I give away money to thousands of people in charity.”
Working solo, he says he has no media manager to publicize his work that he does for the poor, the wretched, the deprived, the handicapped children and the sick of Pakistan. He wants to change the lives of special children. “I take as many as 100 kids, to a restaurant — if rich children can go, why can’t the poor and the handicapped?”
Born to a Parsi family at Loralai in Balochistan in 1954, Jimmy developed a fatal kidney disease at age six. “As I lay dying, one day my mother took me to a doctor who gave her medicines which fell off the tonga when we were coming home.”
From that day on, he began to recover.
Touched by a miracle, Jimmy Engineer says he has devoted his life in service to humanity.
Being an American-born confused desi is an identity that is not very difficult to live with 
