Auras of the Jinn: A Pakistani Story

By Haider Warraich

Imran is a boy growing up in present-day Pakistan. His family is one amongst many in Mohajir Colony: his sisters work as maids, his father runs a motorcycle repair shop and his mother stays at home. Things change when there is a new visitor in the house - emerging from the dust of the railroad graveyard - as much a disease, a jinn, a drug, as a spiritual voice. The order of things is broken and everyone around Imran is hurled onto a trajectory of thought and action. The novel rests on the frail shoulders of ordinary people. Imran's eyes portray an unreal take on his society and the myriad people brushing past him. It is a living/breathing/kicking palette of Pakistan - a kaleidoscope with all the different characters serving as mirrors in the maze. Beneath the layers, a new subconscious state is revealed, which plays with real and imagined love, the experience of growing up in Pakistan and the detrimental, often absurd, ideals that form the basis of fundamentalism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roli Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9789351940036

Book preview

Pieces

sometext

LINES run across his face. Red runs through the lines, crisscrossing his reflection, trapping it in a web of blood. A few moments pass before the pain surges through him. His lips tremble, a scream yearns for freedom. It stays locked inside. Solemnly, parts of his face fall, fall onto the ground, giving birth to smaller pieces.

His arm remains at the spot where it shattered the looking glass. Chinks of glass are buried in his knuckles and his fingers. There is a splattering of red and maroon. His reflection falls off to reveal a patch of grey cement, unpainted and ugly.

His arm could have been a sword stabbing him.

But there is no comfort here; the pain that he yearns for is epic in its scope and sublime in the anarchy it causes. It’s dignified, not dramatic, like a sharp, chiselled upturned nose, rounded off by a golden nose ring – proud, pretty and fulfilled by the painful piercing.

Imran sees himself missing some pieces, which probably dropped off along the way. It’s like a dream he woke abruptly from, missing out on the tantalising conclusion. He knows where the pieces are – but picking them up and putting them back into place will be an even more painful experience.

Slowly, he retracts his arm from the mirror, and a few more pieces fall to the ground.

The greatest surprises in life are those that leave you dazed, unable to elicit even the slightest response to whatever passed you by.

The entire mirror comes crashing to his feet…

Not a minute passes and he finds himself being wrestled by men and women in white, who drag him back to his bed one limb at a time. He feels his joints stretch and overstretch. The pain continues to amplify like a series of sirens before the Ramazan fast breaks.

In his bed, he looks up at the fan spinning on the ceiling. Or is it him spinning, the fan still?

When Imran was in school, a time that seemed inexorably removed from his present state, he remembered his headmaster, Sir Qudoos, always yelling, ‘Why are you kids so noisy! I want pin-drop silence! This is a classroom, not a bloody fish market!’ There were two things in that tirade that Imran never understood at that time, until now.

Now, Imran had been places. He had seen what there was to be seen in Pakistan, heard and smelled too. But he had never seen an entire market where fish alone were sold. Every kid in Pakistan had heard of it, all of them had been told so in their classrooms by an irate teacher.

So it was funny that the ward was to remind him of a fish market. The buzzers and beepers went off in a disorganised cacophony of phoney activity. There were heartbeat monitors that sometimes jumped; there were others that only went up in a blare. And then there were alarms that echoed around the ward like the news of a big catch. It infused a weird, agitated, yet amusing hustle amongst the dealers and the wheelers, as the fish-hungry lay transfixed, expecting the unexpected. There were distasteful smells to accompany the discordant tunes of the fish-ward. The disinfectant was so strong, it made Imran wonder whether it was supposed to choke the germs to death. The patients rose up in lurches, coughed like dinosaurs, in the hope of catching the attention of the hawkers competing for a better bargain. Sometimes, when jacked on morphine, they would let their beepers do the talking. But sometimes, when there was the awkward monotone from the heartbeat monitor, Imran would understand the other inconceivable thing Sir Qudoos used to shout out – pin-drop silence.

Imran bent over to look at the sunlight piercing through the steel bars. He thought he could hear the river flow, but surely, he knew that was not possible. Even though there was no watch close by, he felt he could hear time tick. He looked at Kaloo who was looking at him anxiously from his bed across the room. Yes, it must have been Kaloo’s watch – stopwatch – for though it didn’t tell him what the time was, it most certainly informed him of how much was left.

Kaloo didn’t have much time, and so Imran knew he had to start soon. Time waited for no one, and who knew it better than the occupant of Bed 19, now occupied by the shaggy, dark, and weathered Kaloo. Bed 19 had never entertained a guest for more than three days and Kaloo was already half way through.

sometext

BED 18 was the best Imran had ever slept on in his life. The four restraints were a bit of a downer, the leather buckles were worn with use; their edges dug deep into his ankles and wrist, leaving purple abrasions. Nevertheless, it was a fine arrangement.

It was the buckle tugging him towards Kaloo, however, that really hurt. Kaloo’s neck was constantly bent towards Imran’s side as if he had already rolled over and was playing dead. Imran liked Kaloo, so he couldn’t really wish him better dead, even though the vigil, the expectation of a story, Imran’s story, wobbled in Kaloo’s eyes like a tear enslaved.

Imran could feel a grumble in his stomach, so without much ado, surprising himself, he began to talk, ‘I was born…don’t know where or when…I guess it must have been around Rawalpindi, I…’

Kaloo got up and sat with his legs crossed on his bed. This sudden action made Imran ever more self-conscious. It would’ve helped if Kaloo had said something but he just sat there transfixed. Imran didn’t exactly yell, but his voice was hoarse and heavy, ‘I don’t even know where I end and it starts. Why not think of what has befallen you, why you are here, where you will go, those you love, and those you are loved by. You really don’t have time for my story.’

Nothing happened.

Then something did.

It was a monotone. There was unison in the sound, unlike a siren undulating; it had no beginning or end, like a small cup of water from an endless stream. It was – more so than exploding bombs, children’s screams, and funeral prayers – the sound Imran associated most with death. On the heart monitor, there was a straight stubbornly unswerving green line.

Kaloo was motionless, cross-legged, with watery eyes staring at Imran, demanding the awaited story. He didn’t budge, as if being turned to stone was his fate in death. Far away, everything else was going on as it always did: Kulsoom was barking orders like a sergeant; Nida’s clicking heels were approaching at a hysterical pace; Anwar was yelling something nonsensical. Imran could make out only one word – Bed 19!

One by one, they came to the door of the room. Nida, her stethoscope wound around her neck like a noose, Kulsoom with her tray of goodies in a turquoise pack and Anwar with his resuscitation machine. They stood at the door, looked at Kaloo, and then looked at Imran. And as one, the tense expressions of Nida, Kulsoom and Anwar were replaced by relief, derision and amusement, respectively. Anwar broke into a fit of uncouth laughter. He stepped forward, bent over and picked a lead from Kaloo’s bed which had come off in Kaloo’s effort to sit up. He placed it back on Kaloo’s chest and the tide returned to the green line. Kulsoom’s hands were on her hips in fists.

‘These damned patients, each one of them, should be kept in chains! Anwar...’

‘We don’t have any more buckles, Madam.’

‘Well, then...,’ she raised a finger with a long painted nail sticking out like a bayonet at Imran. Anwar responded, taking off the restraint from his left arm and right leg, and putting them onto the respective limbs of Kaloo, who lay back in his bed without resistance nor acknowledgement. With both patients secured to their beds, Nurse Kulsoom left the room in a huff. Anwar looked at Kaloo, and then towards Imran, ‘Bed 19 seems to be in a hurry!’ He exposed his tobacco-worn teeth and dragged his machine out. Dr Nida, arms crossed, was reciting the Ayat-ul-Kursi under her breath; her eyes met Imran’s, drowned under falling eyelids. With eyes closed, she turned and left the room, leaving Imran and Kaloo, whose neck was still craned exactly where Imran had hoped it wouldn’t be, alone in the room.

≈

It became a sledgehammer falling upon an anvil over and over again, echoing like the last drops of blood dripping from a monster deep within a subterranean labyrinth, wobbling like a sandbag being thundered relentlessly, and this time, Imran knew, there was no escaping it’s call, for he no longer saw in himself the strength to stand up in its face.

The ticker beat. Tick. Breathe in. Tick. Breathe out.

So he began, not deliberately, but amiably enough to sound as if he were talking in a dream. The call of Kaloo, having reached its peak, began to soothe him, nudging him on gently. Where? He did not know. However, he was afoot.

Tales from

Mohajir Colony

sometext

CAN’T really tell you how it was back then. You would have to be there. You would have to stand under the searing sun, be uncomfortable in the clothes sticky with sweat, taste the dust in your mouth and have your eyes filled with the muck and the burning sun, to really know what it was like.

And that’s not something everybody is good at: exactly why everyone’s a bit edgy up here. But it’s not really their fault, is it? Not when it is this hot.

Yes, I could tell you it was a bright sunny day, with no cloud in the sky, and no worry in the world for Imran as he lay on the manjee. Therefore, I shall not let the occurrences of later times colour the boundless joy he felt in getting up in the morning for school.

There was no alarm clock to tell him it was time. The burning feeling in his eyes told him the sun was out and blooming. Without much ado, Imran was sitting upright in his bed rubbing his eyes. His spine jutted out of his back as a reptile’s. He had a thin frame, taller than most of his friends. But that was only because he was slightly better nourished than the others. He would have grown a good five inches more had he been born in a richer family, his father reminded him, however.

Interlocking his fingers, he raised his arms up to the heavens until his joints clicked, telling him he was ready. He sat in his bed a bit longer, acutely conscious of his erection and praying for it to go away. He did so silently, asking for god’s forgiveness, swearing he had been a good boy. Though his shalwar was loose and his excitement flaccid enough for him to go around suitably undetected, he still felt some contemplation was necessary. It had been a few years since the devil, Shaitaan, had started to address him. He had been warned of Shaitaan since he was a young child. Shaitaan was once an angel and was called Iblees then. But then he refused to bow in front of Hazrat Adam, refusing to acknowledge another creation superior to itself. And so he became the bad guy. And every year Muslims stone him during the Hajj, his father told him, ‘This Shaitaan-fellow, don’t listen to him, beta. It seems he will give you fun, but he is evil. He wants you to fuel his hell with your flesh.’ Imran remembered looking at his father then, ‘What kind of fun, Abu?’

At this point, Imran thought his father would repeat the story of the stranger who lured kids with sweets and then kidnapped them, burning their bodies in acid, selling their internal organs around the world, but he heard of a very different devil now. ‘He will show you bad things, you know, like smoking, drinking, women, similar to the ones in those Indian movies, but without the clothes. You will like them but they are in cahoots with this Shaitaan-fellow.’

‘What about Madhuri? Is she also working with this Shaitaan-fellow?’

‘Madhuri?! Have you been looking at my tapes?’

‘No, Abu, I would never dare! I just looked at the cover! I swear! Just saw the cover, I didn’t play it.’

‘Good, and you better stay away. Don’t look at the covers even. And don’t swear, Allah doesn’t approve of it.’

‘I promise. But is she also...’

‘No, beta, she is a great actress. She doesn’t work with Shaitaan, but that doesn’t mean you can watch those tapes.’

That was some time ago. Imran had watched all the Indian film cassettes that his father had. He had seen them many times over. All the women, Imran swore, worked for the devil. And this Madhuri was their leader; surely, she seemed most ‘fun’. Was she a witch who cast a spell on his father? And from behind and below her chunri, from her swivelling hips, the devil, that Shaitaan-fellow, spoke regularly to him, even when he was not watching the films. When he was sleeping, Madhuri would appear, and she was ‘fun’. Imran had never felt more distressed.

There were many bad things that he had done under the influence of the devil. It was a whip, Imran thought, nothing less. He had to stop listening to him, for unlike him, god’s wrath had a very real face in his world. But he was not ready to think of his Abu right now; he had to go to school.

sometext

IMRAN’S home was a modest affair. Actually, all the houses in Mohajir Colony were modest. Yes, modest was a good way to describe them, Imran would think.

Houses were built shoulder-to-shoulder, a stout army ready for the parade. There was only one window in the house that witnessed even a glimpse of sunlight. It was on the upper floor in the room where Imran slept. There were two bedrooms in the house. One for Imran, another for his two elder sisters Zaitoona, the eldest, and Resham, the less-elder, and his mother, known to everyone as Khatoon Bibi. The three ladies shared a double bed, even though Imran felt his mother was entitled to a bed of her own. Both the bedrooms were on the upper floor with a common bathroom. His father, Haji Hassan, slept in the television room downstairs. Adjacent to the television room was the kitchen with a table for four.

On said table for four, there were four steel plates. Three were dirty. Zaitoona and Resham, who worked as maids, had already had their breakfast and left for their respective houses, where they were employed. She was preparing a paratha for Imran. The jar of pickles was open and its smell had settled in the entire kitchen and the television room. She placed the paratha on the empty steel plate, juggling it between her fingers to avoid any being burnt. She couldn’t call Imran downstairs, not wanting to risk waking her husband with the holler. She went upstairs to find Imran combing his hair. It was the same hairstyle he had donned since he had hair long enough to be combed. His mother had combed his hair till he was eight. With a straight part on the left side, his hair, plastered with oil, ended in disdainful curls. No matter how many times he tried, those curls at the ends of his hair would remain. Slick with oil, not a single hair fell out of order. As time would pass, his hair would curl more, much to the dismay of all concerned.

‘Beta, the paratha will go cold.’ Imran looked back from the mirror in the washroom. He could see a section of his mother in the door. Her frame did not fit in the door horizontally. She could get in only if she sidestepped. Imran tried a few other times to draw his curls out, but the hunger for a fresh paratha took precedence.

A glass of milk awaited Imran when he sat at the table. Drops of sweat appeared on his forehead so he asked his mother to turn on the exhaust fan. The pickle-paratha combination would appear strange to the uninitiated. The pickle was only meant to add some taste to the tasteless paratha. The paratha, of no nutritional value, was a greased-up loaf of flattened bread that would keep the stomach full. When Imran sipped the milk, his eyes darted to his mother, who was looking back at him as she washed the dishes. Imran’s eyes were tired, not really up for a conversation he had run over a thousand times already:

‘Amma, this milk seems tasteless.’

‘Beta, the milkman – Allah curse him – he has been polluting it with too much water.’

‘It seemed fine when he gave it. It looks very light now…’

At this point his mother would shrug. Both knew she was lying. Both knew it would be easier to admit they didn’t have enough money to be drinking pure milk every day. But both realised the necessity for such charades to continue.

The milk did not leave any whiskers on his face; nevertheless, he used his wrist to clean whatever was there. When his mouth became smeared with sweat off his wrist, he dried his palms on his school pants and used them to wipe his face dry.

Imran stepped outside the house and immediately the glare of the sun caught him as if by the scruff. His hand went up to his brow with the crisp motion of a salute. Outside, he was on the pebbly, dust-filled, narrow alley-amongst-many of Mohajir Colony. Many pipes carrying water and gas ran across the sides of the streets, acting like metallic curbs. Most of the alley was shrouded in shadows and he soon stepped out of the sun’s watchful eye.

There were men in the alley going to work in shalwar kameezes in light hues of green, blue, brown and khaki. Some of them had bicycles, those sturdy Sohrab ones; slow, heavy, and a menace for the short-legged, but they could take a lifetime of wear and tear with a few accidents thrown in. This durability made them the cycle of choice, though some mountain bikes had appeared in Mohajir Colony recently. Few and far in between, the mountain bikes had gears, better grip and were less heavy (not light, less heavy), without the durability claim to fame. If he managed to pass his matriculation examinations, Imran intended to ask his father for a mountain bike. They were cheaper in Peshawar, he had heard.

The alley opened up into one of the larger streets in Mohajir Colony like a small vessel enters a main artery.

There was a narrow, blotted asphalt strip running through the middle of the street. On both sides, there were wide spaces of dirt. There were many carts selling an assortment of fruits and vegetables. Many apples, many bananas, but it was the arrival of mango season that was being eagerly awaited by both the vendors and the vendees. There were many paan shops, general stores, cigarette stalls; there was also the Medina Restaurant, the main gathering spot of the colony elders. There was television, there was tea – all that was good in the world.

Some rickshaws were parked, awaiting customers headed for work. There were no cabs here, other than those whose drivers lived here. Nobody could afford a cab. There was much activity, much more so than would be in an affluent area, considering it was about seven-thirty in the morning. Rich Rawalpindi was yet to get up from its sweet slumber.

Imran moved on, entering another narrow alley, one of many that formed the capillary supply of this slum. The alley gushed into the railroad graveyard.

≈

There was a time, some time ago, when the railroad graveyard was living. That was a great time for the residents of Mohajir Colony. Most were employed in the railways and the area was well maintained. There were painted trees. There were passengers who needed a taxi, hotels that needed waiters, thirsty travellers who needed lemon soda. That was before the world moved on – both metaphorically and quite literally.

The authorities said the railroad graveyard had no more room for expansion to meet growing demands, that it would have to move to the outskirts of Rawalpindi. At that point, the people of Mohajir Colony never realised how symbiotically they were linked to the railroad. And when it did move, left behind were the broken rails, the decrepit tower and the many rusting transport cabins, for the children to play in, and for the old people to remember the good old days by.

And Imran had played hide and seek many times in the graveyard with his sisters, Zaitoona and Resham, and other children. The way children come together, united in play, never ceases to amaze. The society of children shows the greatest promiscuity for playmates. They assemble like a well-organised army and disperse as soon as their overlap of interest ceases. During their hours of play, they undertake much hardship in order to be king of the railroad graveyard. It involves hanging onto the under- carriage long enough till the others give up, climbing the most inaccessible of broken walls, or stalled carriages, and sometimes it involves using the cover of the very-obvious.

Now that he was eighteen-something, hide and seek was nothing more than a far-gone memory. The railroad graveyard was the last patch Imran had to transverse before he left Mohajir Colony on his way to the school every day. It was a transition zone. There was an uneasy peace here. The abandoned carriages looked like the face of slow death. They were relics of better times, and they were awfully quiet.

At the end of the railroad graveyard, there was a broken down wall. Imran put his foot in a notch, jumped over, taking care not to drop his books from his satchel.

sometext

BRAKE screeches, asthmatic engines and crude horns welcome him as he lands on his feet. His school was now just a five-minute walk away. After the ill-at-ease solitude of the graveyard, it was always a joy to be out here; he could see many boys dressed in a similar uniform – dark grey trousers, white shirts and cheap maroon ties – on their way to school. The realisation of him being part of something greater became apparent when he jumped out onto the main road, as a small stream enters a large river. Most of these boys were from parts other than Mohajir Colony. He felt secure in the midst of the flow, part of a collectivity here.

Imran trudged along, noticing that polishing his shoes was an exercise in futility. He felt a thump on his back, and then he felt a pain surge through his back. He didn’t need to be told that Farhan had caught up with him. Farhan only knew one way to greet his friends: he came up to them from behind and gave a resounding thwack bringing them to submission. He had a good laugh and after a while, his friends started to lose the humour in it all.

Farhan was stocky for a guy any age, but for a matriculation student, he was huge. He was shorter than Imran was, but had a broad frame with lots of fat to round off the edges. He was already shaving every day and had a constant flush on his face. Nothing, not even jaundice, could take that away from him. And it only became more apparent when he laughed, and though he laughed like an ass in pain, it was still common enough a sight for people to forget what he looked like when he didn’t have a dumb grin on his face.

Still grimacing with pain and with Farhan’s teeth bared in his face, Imran’s mood for bonding plummeted. ‘This is getting old, Farhan. Can’t you come up with anything new?’

‘It never fails to get your blood boiling!’

‘Oh, get lost!’

‘Did your Abu give you a mouthful in the morning?’

‘Nah yaar, just really not in the mood.’

‘Moody boy! Imran, don’t give me that.’

‘Just – oh well, go on, it’s not like you’ll listen to me or anything.’

sometext

THEY were a thousand bobble heads standing in the morning assembly, giving the impression of a weakly simmering pond. As the heat increased, the heads bobbled more. Sometimes one would disappear underwater, dehydrated. The other bobble heads would pick the one that fell, drag him to a bench and give him water to drink.

Sir Qudoos stood on the platform overlooking the assembly. He kept the feared wooden baton behind his back, like a terse police inspector, at all times. Imran had never personally been the recipient of the dreaded caning, but Farhan had been through it enough number of times, and narrated the events at ever-vivid lengths. Just hearing the whole tale from Farhan made Imran feel it was he who was being caned.

The morning assembly was a mandatory part of the Federal Government Boys School. It started with an attendance of the boys, conducted by the prefect of each class. The proceedings were then started with a recitation of a passage from the Holy Quran, followed by its translation in Urdu. Boys who were very adept at Arabic recitation would nominate themselves for this. After that, there would usually be a speech by one of the students. The student chosen for the speech was given a topic a few days in advance and he had to prepare a declamation of approximately four minutes.

The declamations were heavy on rhetoric, delivered in a fiery style. They were decorated with poetic verses forced in, which reflexively garnered a round of loud applause. Imran found it fascinating yet strange how his schoolmates had the ability to infuse blazing emotion into the words. Most topics dealt with patriotism, the conquests of early Islam and the leaders who brought about the independence of the country from the ‘British yoke’. These boys could take any piece of paper and make others believe that their words meant the world to them.

Imran was dazed; he hardly heard the student’s speech. But he was fully attentive when Sir Qudoos came up to the microphone for his daily speech.

‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim. I start in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. I address the matriculation students today. Sons, your papers draw closer with the day. Put your heart and soul into these exams. The youth are the future of this country. The responsibility on your shoulders, whether you choose to accept it or not, is immense. The founder of this nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had faith in the youth, and the youth of yesterday have brought us here. Pakistan is a proud nuclear power. We are a great Islamic nation, able to defend ourself from the greatest enemies. For we have many of those who want nothing more than to have a world where Pakistan does not exist.

‘Now…the torch has been passed on to you. Prove to everyone your worth, these papers are a challenge, and though your journey does not end here, it is certainly the end of the beginning.

‘Moreover, as a reminder, those of you who have not paid your fees, should do so by next Monday, or your names will be struck off the admission register. Secondly, I am tired of boys who do not wear their ties in the morning; I want prefects to assemble them all and bring them to my office right now.

‘We may proceed to the National Anthem now.’

Sir Qudoos always wore the same coat to school. It was a green-brown chequered coat. He never wore a tie. He rode his trouser high up on his belly. He had a moustache. He had thinning grey hair parted on the side, much as Imran’s was. He wore his spectacles low on his nose. He was of average height, and only slightly plump. He taught Urdu literature.

An old, black tape recorder played the National Anthem louder than it should have; the sound was torn up and corroded. However, it was something that would only surprise the newcomer. Most of what happened here, in school, was numbingly monotonous.

The speech reminded Imran that he had much to study. Much of what Sir Qudoos said today, he repeated every day under one pretence or another, especially ‘the end of the beginning’. Yet Imran had to study, if only he were constantly reminded of it. Sometimes he would remember the mountain bike and that would make him study. Sometimes he would remember the sting of his father’s hand on his cheek and that would make him study. Sometimes he would feel very hot, very poor, and that would make him study. All this wasn’t enough and the classes would rush through until the lunch break.

The lunch break was only half an hour long but it was half an hour of freedom – a controlled anarchy, of sorts. Everything happened in those thirty minutes. Since there were no girls, the possibilities were theoretically reduced. Nevertheless, groups were made, fights were fought, and more were promised. Friendships were made, discarded, coloured and faded. Secrets were revealed, scandals were created. Some were put down, others revelled. Bun-samosas were put together, and munched on. Some lunch boxes were shared while others were opened in a corner. Some shed tears, others did inhibitions. Greetings, homework, insults, jokes, gossip, grins and threats were exchanged. Games were played, invented and improvised. Stories were exaggerated, excitement was faked. The seductive stink of the beheaded pig ruled supreme, if only for half-an-hour every day, before the world of adults came storming back in.

This very lunch break, Farhan took Imran to the corner behind the washroom.

There were about five boys there. All of them had undone their ties – a sure sign of dangerous delinquents. But that was not what confirmed their status as such – it was the cigarettes they held in their fingers (!). Imran recognised them to be grade twelve students. Being in the tenth grade, Imran had hardly ever talked to these boys but had often seen Farhan do so. ‘Oye, Farhan! How are you? Who’s this kid, is he safe?’

‘This is, Imran,