Scattered Aurora

Just Another Stupid Love Story

Almost all the women in my life have one thing in common; they fall in love with my wrists. The part of wrist, which specifically attracts their attention, is called Carpus. That is a spot where the dial of one's wristwatch usually rests. Women show varying degrees of interest in my wrists and they manifest it differently. While some of them become obsessed, others just exhibit it by a change in the tone of their voice and yet others show it by an ephemeral change in the color of their faces. Take, for example, my mom; whenever she feels affectionate she kisses me at two places, the corner of my left eye and my wrist. My little sister was a prankster. She would, usually, sneak up on me from behind, whenever she found me immersed in a book, clutch my wrist in both of her hands and twist them in opposite direction. The burning sensation would bring tears in my eyes and when I'd try to grab her hair she'd run away screaming at the top of her lungs "Mom!!!!! Sami is beating me again". Then from a safe distance she would look at me with her mischievous eyes and sing Noor Jehan’s song, “chad meri weenee nah marorr, kach diaN wangaN nah tarorr (Let go of my wrist, you're breaking my bangles).” But this story is not about my mother and sister.

From a very early age I had realized that I was 'gifted'. Now I know very well what interests women about me. So over the years I have turned into a little exhibitionist pervert. Most of the time I wear long-sleeved T-shirts and keep pulling my sleeves up to expose my wrists just when the moment is right. I know exactly how a woman feels when someone's silent gaze appreciates her cleavage.

Not all of the women have good intentions about my wrists, though. One of them is this girl whom I call a 'traffic hazard'. Whenever, she sits next to me in my car while I am helplessly tied up with seatbelt, she bites on my wrist. She is impetuous like a wildcat and her teeth are sharp like one. When she is close to me I try to keep my hands inside my pockets, but she always finds a way to catch me off guard. Sometimes she bites so hard that it makes tiny little blood drops to appear. Then I yell at her, “You know that you are crazy?”

“Yep, crazy about you.” she replies. “Just one of these days I am gonna make a sandwich out of your hands and eat ‘em”. I can see the determination in her eyes and I know that she means it. I shudder with a near-orgasmic anticipation. But this story is not about her either.

My fellow fifth grader Fozia was the first who made me aware of my 'gift'. On one hot summer day, I was waiting in line at the water cooler during recess, rubbing and polishing a new cricket ball when Fozia touched my hand at the Carpus and said, “your hands are all red”. Although there were more important things on my mind at that time, like how would I replace Imran Khan, I liked her comment. From that day on, as long as we remained classmates, she could not take her eyes off of my wrists, whether I was taking dictation in the classroom or playing cricket, she was always watching. But this story is not about her either.

You must be thinking by now that the woman whom I fell in love with must be a beauty queen. No. She was just another typical Punjaban; a Punjaban not from the southern fertile plains but from up here in North, the Potohar Plateau, where life is still as difficult as its terrain. But, here, the captivating and awesome beauty of its landscape, its multihued rocks, its humbling gorges, snaking creeks, and the breathtaking magnificence of sand dunes are compounded by the beauty of its inhabitants. Whether it is the splendor of springing gazelles, dancing peacocks, and flocks of pelicans and alabasters migrating from Russia to the great lakes in Sindh, or the sturdy men and gorgeous women of this land, the nature's benevolence is copious.

The women in this part of Punjab are a proof positive of the truth of Hindu mythology "Panchakannaya". According to this mythology women are made of five elements hence they are referred to as Elemental Women. “They are refreshing and vital as the air, graceful and tender as sparkling water, lustrous and consuming as flames of fire, generous and enveloping as space and stable and deep as the earth….you elemental women are perfect beauty itself”. Whoever wrote this must have a Punjabi woman in his mind.

She was just another one of these Elemental Women. But she must had something that made her stand out in the crowd. Why else would, a guy like me, attempt on her husband's life, make a pact with the devil, beat the crap out of his friends, bear his mother's wrath and break some very loving hearts. I have no idea why did I fall in love with her. Sometimes I wonder if a tiny little blue vein on her transparent neck had something to do with it; or may be it was the way she used to press her lips slightly with pride, whenever she'd find men scanning her; or may be it was the way she'd try to pretend that she wasn’t noticing their appreciation. May be it was not her appearance. May be it was the way she held my hand and helped me draw a circle with a compass, on her first day at school. Yep! She was my fifth grade teacher.

I think it is unfair to blame it on the hormones in case of a fifth grader. Probably, love is not Chemistry; and if age can't restrict it then it is not Physics either. If people fall in love despite the risk of getting their hearts broken it is not Statistics. One thing is for sure that it is not simple math to figure out what love is. An affection that has lasted over years cannot be infatuation. Probably it is genetic. May be we inherited it from Adam. It must be the innocent love that Adam felt when he first saw Eve, long before touching the forbidden fruit.

Fozia was the first to cast my feelings in the molds of words. “You are in love with Miss Rabia, aren't you?" She asked me one day.

I didn’t say anything; just shrugged my shoulders. Sometimes it is better not to put your feelings in words because if you do, your words become a mission statement. These words then confine you and they become your liability. Liability is a dungeon where your conscience whips you like a slave driver and compels you to stand by your words. My ‘freedom’ was also short lived.

“Are you gonna marry her when you grow up?” asked Fozia, looking at my face anticipating a ‘no’.

“Yes” I said; and my slave driver whipped me the very first time.

Miss Rabia got married during the summer brake of that year.

“Now what’re you gonna do?” Fozia dropped the bombshell on the first day after summer break.

I looked into her starry eyes and shrugged “I'll marry her too when I'll grow up”.

Obviously, I was too naïve to understand the concept of marriage. But I felt hurt. The pain was strange. It was like the pain of betrayal when someone who is trusted and close to you betrays you unknowingly, innocently and unintentionally. Deep down inside you feel like punishing your betrayer but you can’t. You find yourself not only tied down but gagged as well. And no one else does it to you but you.

As the days went by I was increasingly drawn to her. This attraction was insentience and excruciating. I wanted her to acknowledge and accept my existence. I was striving hard to impress her by being a model student, by doing my homework in the best possible way. I even brought her roses from my moms little garden. Now I think that it is not the feeling of love that makes you do things, which you would never do in ‘normal mode’. It happens only when expectations piggyback themselves on the vehicle of love. And for expectations to come into existence you got to have a mission statement and so as to keep you right on track you got to have a slave driver; and I had two. One of them was my conscience and the other one was Fozia; and I used to get whipped by both of them. Fozia’s slave driver was crueler than mine was. In an attempt to come close to me she had to piggyback her expectations on my sentiments towards Miss Rabia. Fozia and me would talk about her for hours. We three were like a perfect solar system; where I was circling around Miss Rabia and Fozia was my satellite. We could never come close nor we could escape from each other. Sometimes I used to feel bad when Fozia managed to eclipse my feelings towards Miss Rabia. But that used to be as momentary and brief as any eclipse. While I used to wonder what would take Miss Rabia to take my notice, I was unmindful that everyone else was noticing me.

One day we were dissecting a cockroach in our lab when I was called in to the staff room. I saw my mom sitting there with Miss Rabia and few other teachers. My mom was asking them how I was doing in studies when one of the teachers said "Your sahibzada has given up on studies-bus ishq farmatay haiN in say" pointing at her. All the teachers laughed. My mom grabbed my ear and twirled it.

“Gadhay, Is that right?” She had shot me first and then she was asking questions.

I felt that someone had just thrown a fist full of sand in my eyes. The utter feeling of shame and insult made my heart stifle my throat. I wanted to cry but couldn’t, in front of her. I looked at her solemn face and saw empathy in her eyes. That was good enough for me. Now if they had put me in a meat grinder even then I wouldn’t have cried.

Speaking of the meat grinder, I found myself in one, when, one day, I overheard two kids talking, “Miss Rabia kay bachcha honay wala hay”.

It took the wind out of my sails. The shock then turned into anger. First I beat both of them up and then went to see her. That was true. I saw a bulging tummy. It felt like she had betrayed me again while I was mired in her enticing smile. I was furious.

“Bitch", "Gashti” I spewed my venom in my thoughts. I wanted to ask her why she was carrying some snake's offspring, but I couldn't. Being a sixth grader really sucks sometimes.

I had matured a bit more than the last year, so my indignation changed its course towards her husband. Later, on that day I saw him buying oranges from a street vendor. He was a lecturer at the local college and he was popularly known in the city as Ganja Master; thanks to his students. I was on my BMX bike and the moment I saw him I got only one thought on my mind, "Ganja must die". Soon I felt that a whole choir of demons was chanting those words in the empty chamber of my brain. That echoing cacophony turned into a war cry. I ground my teeth and cried "Die, Ganjay die". I aimed my bike at him and started hitting the paddles vigorously to muster up all the speed that I could. Unfortunately, I missed him and hit the vendor's cart. My nose started bleeding and Rari-wala began yelling at me with anger because half of his oranges rolled into the gutters. Ganja Master was an acquaintance of my father, so he knew me too. He gave some money to the vendor and took me to the nearby clinic.

She didn't come back to school when she went on her pregnancy leave, until after we were in grade seven. I always wonder what makes first time mothers so beautiful. Is it the love that they feel for a part of their body or is it the sense of accomplishment and perfection that makes their faces glow. Probably it is the feeling of self-assurance of fecundity and the power of creation that casts an aurora of magnetism around them. She was charming than ever and I was crazier than ever.

Once again I started striving my best to be visible to her. She liked watching students play. So I started taking part in sports. She was also in charge of library and I started borrowing books more often and tried to read them too because she would always ask me about the book and I desperately wanted to sound intelligent. I was ready to do anything that would help me win her approval. And 'anything' really meant 'anything', even selling my soul to the devil.

We were in grade viii then. One day she was teaching us trigonometry and drawing curves and lines on the board. There was a pin-drop silence in the class. I was in a state of trance looking at her back where the bra straps were making embossed curves under her shirt. The geometry defined by those curves had taken my breath away. For the very first time in my life I was being cognizant of a strange nebulous feeling. That feeling was spellbinding yet it felt so wrong. I might have remained lost in the stupor of that tantalizing moment forever when I felt a tickle at my Carpus. It was Fozia trying to pass a note to me. I almost fell down from my seat when I saw the note. The message said, "I love you".

'She must be joking' I thought. Well, she knew that my heart belonged to another. How could she? I wrote back, "I don’t, ehmuq larki". I saw her face turning red and then pale. After a while she wrote back "You know Miss Rabia is our new in-charge of Speech Club?"

That was new information to me. The only problem was that I knew nothing about Public Speaking. That was something that I had to do at all costs. So I made a pact with the ‘devil’.

The devil that I am talking about was known around the town as ‘Qazi Murghi Chor’. Most of the people had long forgotten his real name. The legend has it that he used to be a successful advocate a few years ago. He was not only successful but also one of the most learned people in the town. And then one day just out of the blue he claimed prophet-hood. He quit his practice and went on a preaching spree. At first people didn’t take him seriously then they started avoiding him and he became a social outcast. After a while children started lampooning him; they used to hound him in groups and throw pebbles and rotten vegetables at him. He did not take that rejection well and became grouchy, bad-tempered and cranky.

One day I was coming back from school when I accidentally ran into him. He looked at me with his red bulging eyes and grabbed me from my ear.

“Chalo uthak-baithak karo”, he growled.

I almost peed in my pants and started doing sit-stand as diligently as I could. A couple of girls from a rooftop saw this commotion and started laughing at my misery. The prophet looked up where the laughter was coming from and when he saw those girls he raised his finger and said “Hoorain aa gayeeN!, Hoorain aa gayeeN!”

I found an opportunity to escape and ran like hell. As I turned around the street corner an idea hit me. I came back and started following Qazi. When he entered his home I stood outside his door for a while and then knocked. He opened the door and when he saw me he was rendered speechless.

“Can you teach me how to make a speech?” I asked with all hope.

Probably it was the first time in Qazi’s life, after his claims of prophet-hood, that someone had actually recognized his genius. He found in me the most gung ho pupil that he could never have. So not only did he pull all the stops he literally moved heaven and earth and relentlessly bellowed the crucible that was shaping me. When my parents came to know that I was a regular visitor to Qazi's home they became furious. Even my friends chided me “abay Qazi bara londay baaz hay, bach kar rehna.”

I won the speech contest when I saw her smiling, while I was receiving my prize at the podium.

Winning and losing always take turns. They are like two sides of a coin tossed in the air and you never know which side is going to turn up. Sometimes I wonder if people are like tossed coins too. Everybody has two sides and you never know which side are you going to see next. Babar, my best friend since kindergarten, my neighbor, and buddy was no exception.

After the prize distribution ceremony we were all exiting the school gate. Babar was walking right in front of me with one of our classmates. He and I had a fight, a day ago, because I had cheated on cricket scores. I was walking right behind him to find an opportunity to apologize for my dishonesty. I saw Miss Rabia walking towards her husband who was waiting for her, as usual, on his motorcycle. That is when I overheard Babar saying to the other boy, “Hey! Did you see her tits?”

That was a kick in the teeth. Unbelievable. My own bosom buddy was such a snake? I yelled at the top of my lungs “Babar! what the hell did you just say”.

Babar turned back and venomously said, “I said your Rabia's tits are so big, Boy!”

The next thing I know we were in a fistfight, growling, snarling and cursing each other. Physically, Babar was bigger and stronger than me and other kids used to avoid fighting with him. Though I was an average yet I used to be known as 'Sami Jhalla (Mad Sami)' just because of my fearlessness. I had never backed down from a fistfight probably because of greater threshold for the tolerance of pain. When other boys separated us I found my nose bleeding and my shirt was sanguineous in front. He was bleeding too. I was still sneering at him and struggling hard to get out of the grips of other boys who were holding me back. He wiped blood from his gums with the cuff of his shirt while I was still gnashing my teeth. Finding myself helpless in the grips of other boys I uttered in a fit of blinding rage, “Behan Chod, Mirzai”

Babar looked into my eyes unbelievingly.

My thought “That oughta do it”, was immediately followed by another thought, “Oh! Fuck, What have I done!”

I started getting ready for some more punishment from him and hardened my muscles. Although I was sneering at him with all the contempt in my heart with a stone cold face yet I thought that my eyes were sending him a message that I was sorry. Strangely, enough he walked away with a grayest face that I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe it. But deep down in my heart I knew that I had lost him forever. I wanted him to say something back to me; say something bad about my mother but that son of a bitch never did. He just walked away as if I didn’t exist or my existence meant nothing to him. God! No one had ever denied me like that in my life before. It hurt. It hurt more as the hours passed by on that day. I was overwhelmed by a sense of grief and utter loss. That was the saddest day of my life.

By the evening when my heart was about to explode, I went to see Fozia. She was standing in front of her gate like everyday. I saw her Doberman tied on the driveway. Even he didn’t try to jump on me that day.

"Why?" That was the only word she uttered when I came close to her.

"'Cause I love her" I knew that if I hadn’t said those words right then, my heart would have crumbled into pieces and one of the veins in my brain would've exploded. She looked into my eyes. I could tell by the stern expression on her face that she was having trouble finding anything in the bottom of that abyss. Then All of a sudden she kicked me right on my shin as forcefully as she could. The shock was severer than the pain. Without saying a word she just turned back and walked inside. For a moment I just stood there, stunned beyond my belief. I looked inside. She was untying her Doberman. That wasn't good so I took off limping.

Babar never spoke to me again and neither did Fozia. Both of them left the school after the final exams. That is so typical when you grow up on Airbases. Friendships don’t last more than three years because people are always moving. At school everybody knew why I had a fight with Babar but Miss Rabia never indicated that she knew. Sometimes she and her husband used to come to our house to meet my parents. And I used to watch her through the peepholes. I was freed from the confines and relentless whipping of my slave driver by a divine intervention the next year when I was sent to a cadet college in another city. As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into month without seeing her, her memory started to fade away too.

Last year, I celebrated Eid in Toronto. After Eid prayers, I was hugging my friends, in front of the mosque, when I realized that I was being watched. I was not surprised because there were so many girls there; but it was more than that. Someone was "really" watching me. So I looked around and it didn't take me long to find out that the beholder was a woman in dark oversized glasses, a red scarf and with a very anxious face. Soon a bald guy approached her and held her hand. I could read their lips saying Eid Mubarak to each other. A girl and a boy emerged from the crowd and joined them. They looked like a very happy family. The woman nodded her head and pointed at me. The bald guy straightened his glasses. He seemed to have recognized me, whereas I was a little perplexed. This bewilderment faded away as soon as this guy started walking and then almost running, towards me. His arms were extended and he was shouting "Oyay khinzeer too itna bara ho gaya hay?" His voice refreshed my memory. Probably, you might have guessed it too; she was Miss Rabia and bald guy was of course Ganja Master.

After they had shouted enough and embarrassed their kids and me in front of the crowd they invited me on the dinner.

I was reluctant; “I gotta catch a plane back to Detroit at 9:00”.

She raised her eyebrows “Gadhay, maar to nahinN khaani?”

“Ok, we will let you go at 8:00; Airport is just 10 minutes away from where we live.” said Ganja.

“Some other Pakistani families are also invited; you know, it is always better to make new contacts here” she advised.

Whom were they kidding? I couldn’t miss that invitation for anything in the world. But sometimes it feels good to show reluctance.

I showed up at their apartment by 7:00. I was not surprised to see that no other guest had shown up at that time. Well who goes to a dinner at 7:00 on Eid day anyway? I guessed that they had excited their kids a lot before I got there because they seemed very anxious to know more about me. Dinner was served around 7:30. Her 15 year old daughter and 12 year old son laughed their heads off when she told them about the pranks I used to pull in school. I had no idea that she would remember me after all those years. She was so nice to me and was offering me everything on the table, "baytay yeh lo", "baytay yeh bhi khao".

Soon after the dinner was over she started taking the dishes away to the kitchen.

“I better call a cab for you” Ganja excused himself.

I continued my conversation with her daughter, who was extremely interested in knowing everything about me; especially about my new hi-tech Casio. I adjusted the dial on my Carpus and started telling her about its features. I could see Miss Rabia working in the kitchen. From time to time she kept on talking to us from there.

I was telling her daughter about the altimeter in my watch when for a millionth of a second I went back in time. I felt myself imbibed in the same feeling that I used to have when I was her student in fifth grade and I‘d look at her face for hours. In that same millionth of a second Miss Rabia looked back into my eyes, while drying a dish with a washcloth, and read my mind. Suddenly, her tone of voice changed, and the repetitious cleaning and putting away of dishes turned into a supple ballet. She started looking more ecstatic, vivacious and rhapsodic than ever. The stars in her eyes rekindled in that millionth of a second. May be she had realized that her idolater had kept the flame burning all those years. God! If that was it, what a feeling! Wouldn't it take away years from your age, wrinkles from your face and give you that slight smile which shows on a face that has a deeply content heart. Well! I am pretty sure that she had experienced that moment of truth in that tiny interval of time.

Unfortunately, this story doesn't end here. There was someone else who read our minds also. Yes the daughter. She had also intercepted a part of that mental signal within that millionth of a second. Suddenly she lost interest in the conversation and started looking detached. I pulled up my sleeves but the power of magic was lost. She looked frustrated because she was not able to decipher that signal. Probably she will never understand what happened to her. But I am pretty sure I will never be on her favorites-list anymore.

After a while, her daughter said "Abbu Ji! Hang up the phone I wanna check my e-mail". She got up from the dining table and excused herself to her bedroom. As soon as her father hung up the phone, it rang again.

“Sami your cab has arrived”.

I stood up and said Khuda Hafiz with a heavy heart.

“Come again eh!”

“Sure”

“Agar nah ayay to Detroit aa kar kaan khainchooN gee”

I grinned. As I turned the door handle, it knocked. I opened the door and saw a very handsome couple standing at the doorstep. It didn’t take me more than a split second to recognize them; they were Babar and Fozia.