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Short Story

And Then the World Changed

SABYN JAVERI-JILANI
It wasn't easy, steering a car through the narrow streets of old Karachi. Tiny beads of sweat formed on Bobby Uncle's forehead as he craftily navigated the big hooded vehicle. Much to tire amusement of passers-by who looked on with unabashed curiosity at the strange contraption making its way through the brick-paved alleys, he continued to struggle with the giant steering wheel.
• Short and thin, he seemed dwarfed by the car he drove, ft was the kind of motor car they had only seen in a cinema hall. Usually, a donkey cart or, if there was a special festival, a small taxi would occasionally grace their streets--but to see an actual bright and shiny motor car make its way down the narrow paths of their neighbourhood was not just cause for curiosity, but an actual thrill.
Some shouted at him to get the evil invention of the West out of their mohalla while others slapped the bonnet, screaming directions. “Here, here, take a left, back up a little, brother. Arre* Watch out for the pole!“ the lads shouted advice while the children jumped up and down, trying to catch a glimpse of the interior.
Munna. Bobby Uncle s five-year-old nephew, ran out in the alley to see what the commotion as all about. He nearly fell into an open manhole in his excitement when he discovered that it was his very own uncle who was the owner of this glossy motor car. He ran back inside the house, announcing at the top of his lungs to his deaf grandmother, his baby sister, his next door neighbour and his mother who was busy preparing the afternoon meal, the arrival of the shiny contraption into their family.
“A motor car! A real motor car, I've seen Bobby Uncle drive up in one."
“Are you making up stories again, Munna?" asked Munira, his ten-year-old neighbour who spent more time in their house than she did in her own.
■ "1 swear on your Dad's grave, he has a real live
motor car!” replied Munna.
“Ove! You son of the devil!" she screamed at him, "How many times have I told you not to do that. My father is alive, thank Allah."
“What are you shouting at my son for?" Munna's mother came to his rescue.
“Look at him, Apa! He does it deliberately to upset me, sending my Pa to the grave when he is alive!"
“Oh, come now. He probably picked it up from the rogues on the streets," she consoled. “Munna, stop disturbing the women and go and play outside.” She shooed him out.
Outside. Bobby Uncle was still struggling with his Chevy. Turning corners with a Chevy in the maze of narrow alleys that formed the old town was no joke. Bobby Uncle was half leaning out of the front window while well-wishers hung onto the sides, offering their expert advice. Suddenly the car lurched forward and then, witha grueling screech, it shuddered to a stop.
Bobby Mama fell forward over the steering, knocking over a roadside seller s wares. The seller cursed him, but Bobby Mama was too embarrassed by the dead engine to care about the seller's loss. To save face Bobby Uncle announced to the neighbours that he had stopped the car there because it was the best parking spot in the neighbourhood. The fact that it blocked old woman Hajjin's doorway and the turning into the next lane, seemed of little concern to him.
He tooted the car's shrill horn and Munna’s Hindu neighbour, Luxmi, rushed out with a pooja thali to ward off the evil eye. Other neighbours like the deaf Jewish musician and short-sighted Parsi uncle also stepped out of their stooped doorways to look at the novelty in their neighbourhood. When Munna's Amma saw the motor car she couldn't stop gushing to anyone who'd listen, what a success her brother was. She would go on for hours and Munna's poor father regularly bore the brunt of her praise for her brother and his motor car. Especially when they had to travel by bus on the rare occasions that they left the neighbourhood.
The car was grand--to that everyone agreed. Nobody seemed to care that it never started. It coughed and groaned but never ran. The rides by the sea that Munna and his other had been looking
forward to would have turned into haunting complaints had it not been for the car's sleek new radio. Every Saturday, Munna’s mother and other women from the neighbourhood would get into the car and tune in to All India Radio. They would listen to the gossip about movie stars, and sing along with Indian film songs banned by the strict Islamic regime. A stranger to the neighbourhood would find it very odd and perhaps a little spooky to see a car bulging at the seams, its windows covered with dupattas in respect of the veil, shaking from side to side with music drifting out. But while the women held a weekly gathering in the car the men met up at night. At nine p.m. sharp, the neighbourhood men would gather round the car and Bobby Uncle would tune the radio to the World Service.
Beep. Beep. “This is BBC London," the announcer's voice would boom out, “You are listening to Muhammed Shafi with the latest news in Urdu.” A silence would descend on the mohalla as the men concentrated on happenings around the world.
These were the days before television made its way to Karachi and radios were a luxury of the rich. But the dedication to the nightly news was due more to strict media control by the state. The country was under the grip of a Martial Law leader who edited the
news himself. If it was a dry day and the President wanted it to be a wet one, you could be sure the announcer at Radio Pakistan would read out news of rain. With parched skin and dry throats people would curse the dictator and turn to other sources of information, like independent newspapers. But not everyone could read and this is where Bobby Uncle's radio came in.
He had a passion for gatherings which he referred to as mehfils. Being an unmarried man with no family other than his sister, he would cling to company. These nightly gatherings with him in the driving seat made him feel very important.
Dressed in starched white kurtas the men would bathe, change and hurriedly eat their dinner in time to get a good listening spot around the radio. Luxmi's husband would close his shop early and bring along his son who always dressed like heroes on the big screen, with slick hair and tight trousers. Parsi Uncle would also arrive early with his own chair as he didn't like to stand. Parsi Uncle had a radio in his house but the women in the neighbourhood said it was an excuse to get away from his bossy wife, Munizeh.
Munna, too, would tag along with his father. Most of the children would be shooed off as they inevitably found some cause to make a noise. But Munna, being Bobby Uncle's nephew, would park himself on his lap and listen to the entire bulletin until he fell asleep. Munna found the announcer's voice very pleasant and soothing. He was too young to care about what Nixon said or how many people died in Gaza, but Mahpara, the female presenter's voice, would make him dreamy and transport him of faraway journey to strange lands. Of course, he knew there really was no America or Ireland, at least that's what Munira had told him and Munira was older than him. Munira didn't go to school because she was a girl and had two older brothers who needed education more than her. They would make it up to her by giving her a grand wedding some day, her mother said, when Munira protested. But even without a proper education Munira was smart--she knew the names of all the prophets and most of the holy words.
Sometimes when her mother let her off kitchen duties before eight, she would sneak to the back wall and try to listen to the car radio. The next day she would show off her knowledge of the bulletin to Munna. "Do you know who stole the sewer lids off our alley?" Munna would shake his head and she would say wisely, "It was America. It comes in the dead of night and steals the lids of our sewers so disease and illness spreads and we drop off like flies.”
"America is a country, not a person. Bobby Uncle told me so,” Munna would say.
"Oh, you're such a child!” Munira would tease him and run off.
While Munira thought the West was behind al) the cvi|s in their neighbourhood, thanks to the Ustani who taught her.the Holy Book, the men at the nightly
radio gathering seemed to think that India was behind all the trouble in their country. The Bulletin always had a few shift-the-blame stories, and most of the time the next-door enemy was the root cause of evil.
But lately the gatherings around the car radio had grown more somber. Conflict with India was escalating and there was tension in the air. Men would gather around the car at eight and stick around after the bulletin to discuss matters. Intolerance seemed to be on the rise. Luxmi no longer came to Munna's house and her son Gopal did not attend the news sessions at night. There was a rumour that some over-zealous religious fanatics had burned the temple by the sea.
Most of the uncles who didn't go to the mosque did not show up after that night. And the next day when the broadcaster with the sweet voice announced that Indian soldiers had killed Pakistani villagers along the border, Munna noticed that none of his Hindu and Christian friends came out to play.
Munna was too young to understand all this but he knew that he missed his friends and neighbours. The car radio that had brought them together seemed to have created an immeasurable distance between them. Even Munira seemed withdrawn. She had stopped blaming America for all that went wrong. Instead she blamed it on the religious minorities in the country. “It's all Luxmi's fault,” she would say. “She could be an Indian spy, you know! She probably gets a commission to steal the sewer lids so there is disease and illness in the neighbourhood and we all drop off like flies.”
Munna listened with his head cocked to one side. He found it hard to believe that sweet, plump Luxmi who always gave him sweets when he passed by her door, could be the enemy. But Munira was right. She did look different from the rest of the women in the mohalla. She wore a fiery red dot on her forehead and worshipped little dolls that Munna secretly longed to play with. She was different--so were the other people whom Abba and his friends referred to as Minorities.'
Still, Munna found it hard to hate them. It was easier to hate the men in parrot green turbans who went around burning temples and churches and shouting slogans against white-skinned foreigners but then Munna was only a little boy. He was too young to pick and choose whom to hate and whom to admire, but deep in his heart he knew one thing for sure--in the days to come when people had been divided into categories of Mohajirs, Masihs and Sindhis by invisible lines and uncrossable borders, he would miss his old mohalla in the city by the sea, where difference did not mean distance.
Reproduced from And The World Changed contemporary stones by Pakistani women reviewed below,
Sabyn Javen-jyiam was bom in Karacfr and lives in London She writes -or venous Pakistani and British publications.