Then when she went to my chacha’s daughter’s house, she would gossip about my mother. Everybody was very well aware that she did this. She was our akhbaar, after all. But they all awaited her arrival eagerly because she was the best entertainment. She loved to chew paan and oddly also coal. In fact, she had a deep craving, an addiction almost, for chewing coal that was left over in the chulha and had had ample time to cool down after the last meal had been cooked. The moment she came into somebody’s house, she would sneak in a chunk of cold coal from the stove into her mouth, not unlike somebody would place a betel leaf and then begin chattering away.
Somehow, this never affected her health. She lived well into her eighties and passed away only recently.
* * *
Sukka Pehelwan earned his moniker from his looks: he was gaunt, skeletal almost, but yet so skilled and strong in a way no wrestler could match. During Eid, he would collect money from everybody. ‘Everybody’ were the fifteen to sixteen kids in the mohalla who were suddenly rich thanks to the Eid money they had received, which they now wanted to invest in something. He would then ask us to meet him at the village garbage dump, which we called kuriya. He would take us through not the normal route, but an array of strange, shady shortcuts. Like the mice followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin in the German legend, we too followed Sukka Pehelwan as if in a trance. After all, he was going to invest our wealth in our favourite treat: he would help us watch a film.
You see, he had this uncanny talent for getting tickets by negotiating through big crowds—I have not yet seen anybody else who can pull it off like that. Tickets in black were ridiculously expensive; obviously, we were not in any position to afford them. He would shoot right through the wild throng and put his hand through the tiny ticket window. It was of the same teeny size and shape as the house of Jerry in the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. Some seven or eight hands would be inside that window at the same time. Sukka Pehelwan would then return gallantly with the tickets, swimming through the crowd, his hands bearing scratches and blood from the battle. Each of us would pay him 50 paise extra for this extraordinary service. Only he could get us the tickets. Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to watch the film. He was only a few years older than us, around sixteen, while we were all between eleven and thirteen. Everybody respected his talent. He was more than our champion, he was our hero.
Today, Sukka Pehelwan sells fruits and vegetables on a thela. If he sees me, he hollers and cuts me a piece of the sweetest mango he has and feeds me with his own hands. Or a piece of the sweetest guava, laced deliciously with salt. He loves feeding me, that’s how he shows his love. Every time I visit, he nags me to come to his house right away for a meal. Unfortunately, I cannot accept his impromptu invitations every time though I wish I could. But I have to say, I have not eaten a tastier meal in my life, in any corner of the world, than in his house. His wife has magic in her hands. He is a very poor man with about a dozen children. One of his daughters has just graduated. Today too, they would rather spend money on me, and their pride is so strong that they will not accept any sort of monetary help from me. Their love and honesty melt my heart and bring tears to my eyes every time.
All of my poor friends in Budhana are like this. Ninna has a barber shop. Another has a kebab shop. None of them will accept a paisa from me. On the contrary, they will do favours for me. You cannot find people like them in today’s world, even if you had a magic lamp with a genie.
* * *
My father’s brother’s daughters had married and moved to Pakistan. They were now coming to visit us from Lahore. It was the first time that somebody from such a big city was coming to visit us. To us village kids, the thrill of Pakistan was the same that city kids might feel when their cousins visit them from fancy countries like America or England or Australia. This relative who was visiting us was called Mussarrat and her teenage daughter Asma was ravishing. So ravishing that I almost fainted at the sight of her fair looks. Once, it was dusk and I was by the kerosene lamp, moving my face closer and closer to the lamp. She was sitting across me—we were of the same age and were hanging out—and realized what I was doing.
‘No matter how close you come to the light, you will always remain black and invisible,’ she quipped mercilessly. ‘Only your teeth will be visible.’
Her bluntness sliced through me. I was heartbroken. For the first time in my life, I felt a surge of emotions rising in me that I had never known before. Because I had never been insulted before by a girl I had put up on a pedestal and worshipped. On the other hand, there were people like Sukka Pehelwan’s sister whom society looked down upon because she was from a lower caste but who had praised me several times: ‘How beautiful your eyes are, Nawaz!’
For the first time, I became conscious of my colour. I did not know then that this would happen many times in my life. But I realized
