Summer nights would bring a strange and a wonderful potpourri of people out on our street.
After sundown, muggy heat would give in to a cool wind which would ruffle the mogra flowers to release their bewitching fragrance.
Giggling girls would play badminton as boys shyly oogled them while pretending to keep score of the game.
The odd camel or two would pass by carrying vegetables on huge carts.
Aunties would sit on their doorsteps gossiping about somebody’s marriage and husband’s woes.
Some fathers would take their little kids out to Lala’s store for jaw breaker taffy.
The aroma of chai(tea), mangoes and curry would mingle in the air while a new singer, Mohammed Rafi could be heard crooning on Baiju Bhais beloved gramophone.
The odd skinny street cat could be seen gnawing at a drumstick some kind soul had thrown.
Only the newlyweds would be inside.
Too busy in their sweet world to bother with the practicalities that lay in wait outside.
I, would sit and wait on my front steps.
Wait and wait.
For her window to open while I munched on almonds or Falsays.(berries)
On humid nights such as these, she would open up the curtains to let in the breeze
but she wouldn’t join the crowd.
Her long thick plaits would hang outside as she took in the dark blue sky, stars and then
glance down at me.
Her face would carry a wistful smile.
But I could never guess what lay behind. Longing?
Freedom? Friendship?
I would smile back.
Feeling light and happy.
We both studied in the same school, but had never spoken a word to each other and this was our last year. Our last chance.
I would be going away to Lahore, at Atchison’s for my bachelors next year.
I thought it was high time, I should stroll by her window and introduce myself. And let her know how much she meant to me.
And how lost I had been in her thoughts for the past two years.
Anyway, that’s what my Appi (elder sister) had been urging me to do for a long time.
My Appi was married and would visit Karachi every summer bringing exciting and fun tales of the glamorous Bombay where she lived with her husband.
He was a diplomat and they led a charming life.
For a few years though they had been worried and had been urging my parents to move near them.
There were talks about Karachi separating. My parents and Nasir uncle, my father’s best friend, would simply scoff and laugh.
Kabhi bhai bhai alag ho saktha hay.
Can biological brothers ever separate?
Seasons changed.
Leaders altered their words.
Frown lines deepened.
Each day we would hear things like the Mehta family left. Or Shokla jee left as well.
The Khatris moved to Lahore.
Despite it all, the neighborhood’s nightly sojourns continued.
We celebrated Holi and Eid that year like any other year.
Our mothers continued to feed us and our friends regardless of the rumors and news of riots.
One humid oppressive night, I think it was the end of July, I put away my books and went out to meet Ali and Bashir, my best friends, as our custom.
As I stepped out, I glanced at her window by habit.
It was closed.
In this heat, I wondered.
Then I saw a big padlock on her main door.
My heart fell in its pits.
I ran towards Ali’s home where both my friends were waiting for me.
“She’s gone, ” Ali said with a fragile sadness only teenage boys possess.
“I’m sorry, brother” said Bashir.
My family migrated to India on the night of 14th August just as someone on the radio station in Lahore cleared their throat at 11:59 pm and said this is Radio Pakistan.
My grandmother had to be forcibly removed from the door in our courtyard.
My grandfather yelled at her for the first time in their married life. She had been 13 years old when she had entered this house and it was the only real home she had ever had. Our graceful mehrabs, the chinioti woodwork, the swans and verses written on the pillars and the memories… in every sense a beautiful home.
My father broke down handing the keys to Bashir’s father. I could hear my friend sobbing in his room. Ali was holding on tight to my little suitcase packed with my books, few clothes and a book of Islamic verses for protection given to me by Bashir’s mother. She had fed me her milk when my weakened mother couldn’t produce it after my birth. In every sense I was her son as much as Bashir. She was tying the Imamzabind (protective amulet) on to my mother’s right upper arm and telling her repeatedly to write as soon as she reached safely or to phone at Lala’s store which had the only phone in this area then. The streets were dark and dangerously quiet as Ali’s older brother silently led us to Raja Jee’s house.
He was a confirmed bachelor and an accomplished lawyer of our neighborhood. He wasn’t leaving his bedridden mother and so was staying on, but he had a car and was dropping us off at the airport. We all piled in.
Later, my father came to know through another lawyer who had migrated, that Raja jee was hacked brutally into pieces by an angry mob a few weeks after our departure. It was a bitter comfort to know that his mother was safe with Ali’s parents until she died naturally, a year after her son’s untimely death.
That night, our plane carried us to safety, over a fresh horizon and to new dreams. We were welcomed by my sister and her in-laws. We were the lucky ones. We never had to witness the slaughter that ensued as a mother was cut in two by politicians and her sons argued which limb was theirs.
I don’t remember much of the plane ride nor the settling down period in a new city.
What I clearly remember to this day is looking out of Raja Jee’s car and seeing the locked up window of my love and the figures of Ali and Bashir standing on the street, waving ferociously till ethnomanic darkness swallowed them up for always.

𝓩𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓪 𝓚𝓱𝓪𝓷.

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