Of Smokeless Fire A.A. Jafri (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

‘Are you a wimp? It’s not cold.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Can’t you see I am reading?’

‘What are you reading?’

With pursed lips and a frown on her face, she reluctantly showed him the book. The English Reader: For Urdu-Medium Students.

‘Read to me what you were reading.’

‘No!’

‘I swear I’ll not make fun of you.’

‘No!’

‘I promise.’

‘No!’

‘Please.’

‘If you make fun of me, I’ll kick your ass. Twice.’

When Mansoor persisted, she started to read one of the book’s stories, ‘Mrs Ahmad Goes on a Shopping Spree’, haltingly.

‘Mrs Ahmad told Mr Ahmad that she went to Bohri Bazaar in her motor car to shop for a biloo saree.’

‘Blue saree,’ Mansoor corrected her.

‘Biloo saree,’ she repeated.

Mansoor puckered his lips to sound the word ‘blue’. As Mehrun imitated him, she began giggling. After a bit of merriment, she continued to read more, making more mistakes, feeling the traps of her mother tongue, unable to tackle the nuances of the foreign language, moving her lips, dancing her tongue under Mansoor’s guidance. After she got the hang of the words, she beamed and said, ‘Mansoor Babu, you are a good teacher. Why don’t you teach me English?’

‘I can if you want me to, but I have a better idea. After the vacation, when Zaidi Sahib comes back, why don’t you ask him to teach you too? He can give us both English lessons.’

His eyes lit up when he proposed his grand idea, but Mehrun did not seem thrilled. In fact, she seemed bothered about that proposal, and after a pause, she said, ‘Did you eat charas for breakfast? Where will I get the money to pay him for the lessons?’

‘Oh, he is a nice man! He will teach you for free.’

Mansoor declared this with much confidence, as if being Zaidi Sahib’s pupil had given him an insight into his teacher’s complex mind. And Mehrun, though still not so sure about Zaidi’s benevolence, started imagining about chattering away in English, watching English movies, reading English magazines, and best of all, giving orders to people in English. Dreams of becoming a high society begum started to percolate in her mind. Ah, the begums she had heard so much about, the begums who did nothing all day long but gave orders to servants like her, the begums who ate delicious chocolates and wore beautiful clothes and shopped at Elphinstone Street, or Elphi, as they so lovingly called it. She had heard about them from her mother, who was well acquainted with them from being on the rounds with Dr Minwalla to deliver their babies.

‘They stay at home and smoke cigarettes and talk git-pit git-pit in English,’ her mother had told her.

Kaneez had raved about their grand houses, their expensive furniture, their spoiled children and their servants, all in one breath. Yes, indeed, the first step was to learn their language; the rest would come later.

Joseph, however, shattered Mehrun’s fantasies about these begums. He sauntered towards Mansoor and Mehrun from his new living quarter, singing the hit song from the Bollywood film Awaara:

Awaara hoon, awaara hoon

Ya gardish mein hoon aasman ka tara hoon

(I am a loafer, I am a loafer

Or perhaps an orbiting star in the sky)

Holding a bidi in his fist, he inhaled it with gusto, as though it was his last bidi before his execution. After exhaling, he continued with his song. He offered the bidi, ever so nonchalantly, to Mansoor, who declined it, and then to Mehrun, who accepted it as if it was the most natural thing to do. Mansoor was surprised at Mehrun’s apparent ease in handling the bidi; he had never seen a girl smoking, let alone somebody who was only a few years older than him.

‘Do you want to see my new house?’ Joseph asked.

‘That’s not your house, you thief of Baghdad!’

‘I am not talking about this house, but my house in Bhangi Para.’

‘Is it finished?’ Mehrun asked.

‘Almost. I can take you both today, on my bicycle.’

‘Where did you steal the bicycle from?’ Mehrun continued.

Joseph laughed. ‘I stole it from my uncle, who stole it from Pappu, the dalla.’ Mehrun did not believe him, but she did not pursue the matter any further. Mansoor, however, squirmed on hearing Joseph use the word ‘dalla’, which was the Urdu word for a pimp, so easily, and that too in front of Mehrun, not that she seemed to mind it.

‘So, what do you say, boss?’ Joseph asked Mansoor.

Mansoor wanted to go, but he still wasn’t feeling well. Besides, what if Amma discovered that he was hanging out with Mehrun and Joseph at Bhangi Para? What a scene she would create! He could see her standing there, grinding her teeth, flaring her nostrils and furrowing her eyebrows in anger, and he knew exactly what she would say: ‘Not only did you play with them, but you also went to his house!’

‘You two go ahead; I have a cold,’ Mansoor said, sniffling.

But Mehrun saw that wimpy look, the look that he had whenever he heard his parents calling him back inside. Yep. She knew it all too well, the puckered face, the knitted brows and the bowed head.

‘Nobody will know! And we will be back before Begum Sahiba returns,’ Mehrun coaxed him.

‘Come on, Mansoor Babu, I’ll show you a world that you have never seen before. You will never want to go back to your house,’ Joseph said, snickering.

‘Okay,’ Mansoor said weakly, giving in.

Joseph brought in the dilapidated bicycle that he had parked outside the Kashana and told Mansoor to sit on the crossbar, and Mehrun on the back rack. Once everyone was seated, Joseph pedalled the rusty bike without any exertion, singing a lewd Punjabi song as they went:

Main kasai nu bitya vikhia

Usana mota keema liaia

Usana kolhi nala maria

Aur chhati nala dabaia

(I saw the butcher’s daughter

She brought the fatty minced meat

Whacked me with her hips

And minced me with her chest)

*

The way to Joseph’s new house seemed to stretch on for an eternity, and throughout the journey, Mansoor’s heart throbbed rapidly. He had been up to the railway lines, but never had he