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

St Joseph’s would be nice, she thought, but that was an impossibility. Maybe President’s College, if she could get a first division.

Her mind meandered to her imaginary house—a house, not unlike the Kashana, where she, as the begum, would rule from her august divan, dressed in her expensive Banarsi saree, sipping imported coffee and talking mostly in English or refined Urdu. What a great life it would be! She imagined being taught by Sadiq Mirza in his nurturing tone. Was he her ticket to riches? No longer uneasy about him, she smiled. From a distance, she saw a packed bus, coughing out thick, noxious fumes, approaching her. As it stopped, a few passengers got down and Mehrun boarded it from the women’s entrance. She paid for her ticket and stood sandwiched between two buxom women, both of them veiled. Summer stretched the daylight, and sparrows flew longer in search of food. The cloudless sky sighed as the cool evening breeze provided some relief from the heat.

Ten

When General Dundda gave the nation a brand-new second Constitution in March 1962, Noor declared to his son, ‘Two Constitutions in fifteen years is no ordinary feat, Sahibzadey. By the time this country of yours is fifty years old, this version could very well become a collector’s item!’ His father’s use of the word ‘sahibzadey’, which in Urdu means a sahib’s son, was a sarcastic third-person syntactical way of telling Mansoor that he should have known all this. It was a word that always irritated him.

At first, Mansoor did not understand why his father lived in his country if he hated it so much. Why did he not move to the United States or Britain, the two countries he admired the most? But later, Noor’s constant cynicism about his country and his leaders began to rankle his mind. In school, Mansoor was taught the binary lesson of ‘My country, right or wrong’, that being patriotic meant never criticizing your country. At home, he was lectured about the perils of blind patriotism.

‘If you just sweep the dirt under the carpet, you don’t actually believe in cleanliness. And if you don’t criticize what’s wrong in your country, you are not serious about its future,’ his father would say. And Mansoor, his shoulders slumped, his hands cupping his chin and his eyes cast down in a desolate gaze, began paying attention to his father’s critique of his country.

*

General Dundda shed his stuffy military uniform for a sombre business suit and made himself the President. He banned public gatherings, prohibited political meetings and reined in the ‘irresponsible’ journalists. Haider Rizvi, a well-known irresponsible journalist, tried to play hide-and-seek with the government and often got into hot water with the censor board. When the progressive coalition, in tandem with the mullahs, took to the streets, Noor felt betrayed. It was as if he had rested all his hopes on the liberals. The mullahs and their left-wing foes were protesting together. The former were incensed that a country like Pakistan, formed on a religious identity, still had a secular Constitution, while the latter were enraged that there was still a dictatorship. Banding together, the opposition formed a new party, the Combined Opposition Party of Pakistan (C.O.P.) and protested in more cities.

To placate the vociferous religious parties, the general had amended the Constitution, and by the stroke of his Montblanc pen, inserted the word ‘Islamic’ in front of the word ‘Republic’. When he heard the expected news, Noor exclaimed to Mansoor, ‘A simple word, a simple insertion, and voilà, you are a grand theocracy!’ The man who had repeatedly told Mansoor that nothing shocked him about this country was stunned by this cold official conversion.

One Sunday in August, Noor invited his friends to the Kashana, but only Zakir, who was in town visiting his family, and Haider came. As usual, they discussed politics and drank Scotch.

‘So, the brilliant Oxford-slash-Berkeley educated lawyer is now our brilliant foreign minister. What do you have to say to that, Noor?’ Haider asked, referring to the appointment of the new foreign minister.

Noor kept quiet, but Zakir answered, ‘And he is a brilliant feudal lord, don’t forget that.’

That Zakir’s sarcasm was aimed at a government official did not go unnoticed. Had he started to see the reality of the government he served under?

‘General Dundda has at least lifted the martial law. Maybe he is serious about democracy after all,’ Haider said.

When no response came from Noor, the friends looked at each other. The barrister was not his usual self that day. He seemed weary and restrained, and his friends, unable to instigate him into making any bold predictions, left early.

*

On that cold day in November, when the dry wind scattered scraps of discarded newspapers everywhere, rubbishing every report that came in its path, the C.O.P.s held a massive protest rally in the city. Unaware of the protest call and feeling slightly ill, Kaneez had already left for Dr Minwalla’s clinic to work her morning shift. But by early afternoon, she began complaining about dizziness, headache and nausea. When her condition became worse, she begged the doctor to let her go home early, but Minwalla refused. Kaneez pleaded several times, but the doctor remained steadfast in her refusal—the midwife had already used too many days off by ‘pretending that she was sick’. Unable to take it any longer, Kaneez grabbed her tattered black burqa, picked her burlap bag and sneaked out of the clinic. Feeling fortunate to find a waiting bus at the nearby bus stop, she climbed on gingerly. Her entire body quivered as she sat down, the bus’s violent lurching and jerky movements jarred her spine, as it picked up speed.

Kaneez had been dozing in her seat when the bus, virtually empty, suddenly stopped with a loud screech, jolting her awake. Kaneez heard a ruckus and, looking out of the window, saw an angry mob surrounding the bus. The protesters were yelling obscenities at General Dundda. One young