She loved crimson. Not scarlet, not burgundy. Crimson. It was always there; whether it was something as diminutive as that muffler or as chirpy as that Emily van Camp inspired dress.
Baat se baat banti hai
Conversations, just!
Illustrations by Narmeen Allahwala
Because the eye only sees...
‘She loved crimson. Not scarlet, not burgundy. Crimson. It was always there; whether it was something as diminutive as that muffler or as chirpy as that Emily van Camp inspired dress. Do you remember how her hands were always covered in henna? I always thought that was maudlin. I miss it now.’
‘She was naïve.’
‘Her love was so tangible. I’d always thought she was blessed to have that talent. Now I think of it as nothing but a curse.’
‘A curse?’
‘Yes, it’s a curse. To feel everything so wholly.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘I’d met her just last week. Before it happened.’
‘I don’t think what he did was wrong.’
‘He threw acid at her.’
‘Isn’t that what sinners deserve?’
‘Have you no honour? It is right to hate sin, but it is not always right to hate the sinner. Especially when the only sin involved is to believe. And believe unconditionally.’
‘She was too opinionated. To have opinions is a man’s right - not ours. And that’s what makes her a sinner.’
‘Does it permit a person to destroy someone’s existence?’
‘Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it does. How can one ever be sure?’
‘By asking our hearts. There’s a reason God didn’t send us to the world with brains alone.’
‘Tragedies are always cognizant with putting trust in the heart, aren’t they?’
‘I was unaware you were capable of harbouring such cruel thoughts.’
‘I don’t sympathise with the perpetrator. I don’t side with someone who wasn’t practical enough to weigh her options before taking up a fight, either. But it is sad indeed. She was one of those candles meant to shine forever, but her stupidity shrouded her brilliance.’
‘It is unfair. How you talk of belief, faith and love so simply! When, in reality, it is far from being that. How can it be simple, when it isn’t even something that can be calculated on the basis of the peripheries we set? How do legends come into existence? Had everything been rational, how would’ve stories transcended the constraints of languages and borders? How can everything be so simple - when it simply cannot be?’
****************
While the heart questions...
‘I know why it’s her.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘It’s a funny thing then. I don’t.’
‘Maybe you do, you’re just too afraid to deal with it.’
‘I don-’
‘I’ve known you ever since you opened your eyes for the first time. You think you can hide secrets from me, but you can’t.’
‘Okay then. Why do you think I fear confronting the reason behind this love you think I have for someone I don’t even know that much?’
‘You just named it.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ve always been awestruck by things you couldn’t understand. Riddles enamour you. She’s one of them. She makes you wonder. Her smile hides more secrets than you can count. The way her honey coloured skin glistens so perfectly, so serenely under the sun, that melody in her gait, those luscious curls of her hair and that airy laugh - all leave you in a daze. She is a poem and you find poems intriguing; like a puzzle. And that is what you find extraordinary about her.’
‘What is so wrong if I feel that way?’
‘There’s nothing wrong.’
‘But?’
‘But what happens after you learn to read poetry, my child?’
****************
...and the smile knows.
‘Is this chair vacant?’
‘Oh yeah, totally! Have a seat.’
‘Thank you! Loved your performance by the way!’
‘I’m glad you liked it, thanks! Champagne?’
‘I don’t drink.’
‘Cigarette?’
‘Not a smoker either. I’ll just have coffee.’
‘All right. So, what brings you to this underground Karachi cabaret gig, love?’
‘A friend invited me over.’
‘It’s really hard not to notice that you’ve been alone here ever since the start.’
‘He pulled out. Last minute.’
‘And yet you stayed.’
‘I was about to go actually, but then I got assigned to cover this ‘gig’ for a local newspaper.’
‘You a journalist?’
‘Yeah. I work mostly on the rough side of business. Gang wars, rape, etc. This pleasure I rarely get to cover.’
‘You look soft for someone who’s a female journo on the rough side of biz.’
‘A woman’s gotta play her cards safe in this world, doesn’t she?’
‘You are so strikingly similar to someone I knew a few years back.’
‘I do?’
‘Ahan. Those long tar-black tresses tightly packed in a neat knot and that judgmental eye you all non-drinkers give us Hell-bound pagans. All very reminiscent. Especially the last part!’
‘I remind you of your mother?’
‘Even worse. You mirror my best friend who backstabbed me and married the man I loved.’
‘If you want me to go I’ll just leave.’
‘No. Stay. I’m just messin’ around. No one can backstab this little nightmare!’
‘You never know; sometimes we do get betrayed without our ever knowing it.’
‘Ah, so the tight-lipped, non-drinking badass journo has had her fair share of heartbreaks!’
‘I never claimed I was the perfect Eastern woman, did I?’
‘You never said you were the worst either.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Sorry?’
‘No girl in our part of the world envisions she’d be a 30-something in corduroy pants sitting beside a disgraced cabaret singer one day. So, what happened?’
‘That’s plain conjecture. You’ve just had too much Champagne.’
‘Doesn’t change the fact that I’m right. Besides, conjecture is good for inquisition. How do you think the Homosapiens made it till here?’
‘No girl in our part of the world dreams she’d be a disgraced cabaret singer sitting next to a 30-something woman in corduroy pants one day either. So, what happened to you?’
‘I like you, woman! I had a strong faith system. Of the bigot variety. I fell in love with the wrong guy. All went downhill from there. Now I am someone who smokes, drinks and destroys herself - and enjoys it!’
‘My father loved the ocean. He always spent his weekends at his summerhouse near the beach. He’d play his favourite Edith Piaf cassette, take me in his arms, and dance all day in the patio. I’d giggle and laugh and crackle with joy. This was how life was supposed to be, sublime. Without a single care in this world. He’d taught me it was all right to be free and I believed it. He had faith in this land and so did I. Then the hounds he’d never told me about came for him - and all my illusions came crashing down.’
‘What did you do next?’
‘I bought a gun, some anti-depressants - and enrolled myself in journalism class!’
****************
It’s the touch that feels...
‘They named the women of my country birangona.’
‘I hear they’ve cut up Berlin in pieces. Those vile men.’
‘There was an old wood cabin near our lake house. I left it in excellent shape, in Chittagong.’
‘I’d met someone from Chittagong a long time back. Told me he was Indian. Lad didn’t stand a chance against those Nazis.’
‘My grandfather used to be Indian as well. My father was Pakistani.’
‘What about you?’
‘My family is Bengali now. I am just another person no land wants to own.’
‘Like myself. I suppose we get to choose who we are.’
‘If choice is a prerogative we’re entitled to have, I’m surprised we ended up in the backyard of a decrepit US mental facility.’
‘We’re entitled to it all right, son. We just find out a little too late to do anything about it.’
‘Besides, truth is subjective.’
‘Subjectivity is why mankind is still trotting this globe. Objectivity helped no one.’
‘You’ve been thinking again. Dr. Humphrey specifically asked you not to.’
‘Dr. Humphrey loves to concoct stories. He wanted to join Broadway, you know, but then his mother beat the life out of him. Now he concocts stories here. Where he thinks people believe him.’
‘How do you know for sure?’
‘That’s the thing about faith. You can never be sure.’
‘Asiya used to say that a lot.’
‘So did Rachel.’
‘Does the pain ever end?’
‘You learn to live with it.’
‘Do we, really?’
‘You’re young Mahmud, you should have the privilege of belief.’
‘I do have it, Aaron. My concept of belief is just a little different.’
‘How exactly?’
‘I plan on ending this nightmare.’
‘How do you plan on doing it?’
‘I hear trazodone overdose helps.’
‘How did you get this?’
‘Tricked Mrs. Jacobson into getting it for me. Do you want some?’
‘If it cures all the pain; oh Lord, yes!’
‘It’ll work much better than the ones Humphrey gives us. Here, take some.’
‘Thanks! So, it is goodbye then?’
‘Of course it isn’t. We’re not falling asleep - we’re waking up from one!’
‘But when we do wake up, I wake up in Hell according to your faith. And you in Hell according to mine. How do we get to see each other again?’
‘Hell and Heaven are for commoners. You and I are beyond that. We’re beyond the ties of space and time. We’re the afflicted. We get to see each other somewhere reserved only for us. Where there’s Asiya and Rachel. Someplace where there’s music and children’s laughter. The kind of laughter which enables you to feel again. Where the sun kisses the clouds and raindrops shine like diamonds. Someplace where milk, honey and the holiest of wine are served in pristine, golden cups. And where the only shade of red we see is the one at crack of dawn. Maulana Rumi often tells us that out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. A field for the broken-hearted and healers alike. It waits for the likes of us. We just have to ask ourselves one simple question.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Are we ready to close our eyes, take a leap of faith and dive into the unknown?’
****************
...and the soul? It connects.
‘Have you tried inhaling the air when it rains? Or detecting the taste of clay in a cool spring breeze?’
‘Everybody tries, but not everyone succeeds.’
‘I figured by now you would have learnt a thing or two.’
‘Life has a bad habit of becoming the giant wall that comes between you and the things you’d want to love.’
‘Look at you, Haris, as suave as ever.’
‘When I’d told you I will be a charming 53-year-old in the college canteen, you should’ve taken me seriously.’
‘I suppose I made a mistake.’
‘Sometimes trifles go on to cost us heavily.’
‘And more often than sometimes, we tend to remember them all through our lives.’
‘Until we meet their source one fine morning, just by chance and everything falls into place?’
‘Until we implode from within. Or explode from without.’
‘You talk of our story as if it’s a neatly scrunched lollipop.’
‘But there is no such thing as a neatly scrunched lollipop.’
‘My point exactly.’
‘I am talking of paradoxes - and paradoxes exist.’
‘Someone’s turned into a philosopher!’
‘Of all the people in the world, you shouldn’t be the one pointing that out!’
‘I know, but I’d like to dibble with time as long as it’s on my side.’
‘All that chic verbosity! Reem must’ve been proud.’
‘Till the very end. I made sure her ride was fun while it lasted.’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up that subject.’
‘Its fine - been three years since she’s gone. I’ve moved on.’
‘Is it that simple?’
‘It’s not like she was ever you, Farah.’
‘You make it all sound so easy.’
‘Maybe everything looks easy 27 years down the road.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘It’s strange how after all these years, we had to meet at Reem’s memorial ceremony.’
‘Frankly, I wasn’t expecting you here at all. Heard you’d left after they - after they’d shot her. She was so brave. Not everyone has the courage to stand against tyranny and face the consequences.’
‘I have been away; visiting this year to sell my ancestral place. Dublin is a good city - helps me forget things.’
‘NYC is brilliant as well. Until it’s autumn. Autumn reminds me of things I’d rather forget.’
‘It reminds me of the same things. Turns out autumn’s the same all around the globe!’
‘Even after all this time?’
‘Plato doesn’t say love is a serious mental disease for nothing, does he?’
‘Why did we have to come to this, Haris?’
‘I wish I knew, Farah.’
‘I try to trick myself into believing we couldn’t have done anything about it. We were young. I was ambitious. You were laid-back. It wasn’t possible.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Everybody tries, but not everyone succeeds.’
‘Where do you think we go from here?’
‘Forward. Our moment’s now lost to the past.’
‘It’d have been better had we left both our souls there, too.’
‘Therein lies the irony, my friend.’
