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on 24-10-2003 14:13
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Narrated by Jabir bin Abdullah (radi Allaha unha): on the day of Eid the Prophet Muhammad (may peace and blessings be upon him) used to return (after offering Eid prayer) through a way different from that by which he went.
An irritated voice came echoing up the stairwell. “Oh unfortunate girl, hurry, or we shall be late!”Sanam stood in front of the steamed up mirror in her bathroom and arranged her hair for the third time. Her small hands placed and replaced her favourite lat*, and every new angle required Sanam to step back and judge its placement. “Oh ho!” she said angrily. “This stupid shampoo Abba bought is no good for my hair! I’m going to have to redo the whole mess!”
Rushing from the bathroom, not forgetting to grab her net shawl for propriety, Sanam ran to the top of the stairs and called down to her mother, “Amma, I’m having problems. Please go on without me, I’ll catch up in my car.”
Sensing her daughter might be having ‘lady problems’ and not wanting to mortify her by a thorough interrogation from the bottom of the stairs, Naseema Begum sighed and called back “Fine, but you know your father won’t be happy.”
Not having waited for her mother’s approval Sanam was already back in the shower, using the remaining bit of her preferred hair products and all the while lamenting her father’s frugality. The man doesn’t understand that these desi* shampoos are rubbish. For a few pai* he’ll have me looking like an old woman. His complaints that her French shampoos, lotions and make up cost more than the house grocery budget for a month fell on deaf ears. “Does he want me to marry well or doesn’t he?” she would ask her mother, who was often the messenger between father and daughter.
Sanam worked as quickly as she could, putting back on the outfit her aunt brought back from India, “Especially for you beti. I want you to look stunning on Eid.” The suit had a number of pieces, liners, vests, and shawls, which Sanam rifled through trying to make out head and tail. Parveen, Sunita and Maria won’t have anything half as beautiful, she thought with great satisfaction. Why, it’s just like that suit I saw on Beautiful Tears, her favourite Urdu drama, the one the tragic heroine was wearing.
Tina Auntie, as she preferred to be called, was Sanam’s father’s sister. She had married up, into an established trader’s family, and frequently went to India to buy herself saris. “You can’t even find half the banarsis* in all of Pakistan that one store has there,” she would say. Of course, when your husband’s a smuggler you can afford all the silk in the sub-continent, Sanam’s father would answer beneath his breath.
Doing a rush job with the blow dryer, all the while singing her favorite Creed song, Sanam styled her hair in record time, a tribute to her skill and practice, she laughed to herself.
She pulled on her heels, bought especially to match the new suit, and ran out the door. The couple of nights before Eid she’d gone to bazaar after bazaar, scanning through shops filled with desperate women, all trying to match shoes to their new holiday outfits, before she finally selected these. They were ice blue slingbacks and added at least two inches to her height.
Sanam went outside, locked the door, and teetered over to the little hatchback her father gifted her for passing her exams so well. The sight of the insignificant little auto made her wrinkle her nose, But at least it’s mine, she consoled.
She hurried to the vehicle, which she unlovingly called the ‘dabba gardi’, or box car, and stepped in a dark puddle at the end of the drive way in her haste. Sanam idly looked down at the liquid and fell back against her car in disgust. “Blood!” her mind raced with horrible possibilities when she suddenly remembered, Oof! this is Goat Eid! Oh I hate this one. Why can’t they both be Sweet Eids?
Sanam had always disliked the Eid of Sacrifice. She had foggy memories of keeping a pet goat named Bunti when she was very young only to find it chops one morning. She never ate lamb after that and wouldn’t touch any kind of meat for months after the holiday. Careful to avoid the pool of blood the second time around, Sanam stepped into her car and sadly noticed that her new heels had been stained already. This is just too much!
Butchers, men, and curious boys were standing outside their homes in the warm morning sun, helping prepare the sacrificed cows, goats and lambs. Sanam drove by at breakneck speed, hoping to make it to the city’s main prayer hall before prayer started, slicing through bloodied puddles dotting the roads. If I get there too late there’ll be no time to watch the young men or do gupshup* with the girls, she reminded herself, pressing the accelerator harder.
The drive to the mosque was minimally slowed by traffic along the main road leading to the city’s biggest house of worship. Men in pale cream, blue and white shalwar suits were clustered outside, helping prepare the newly-sacrificed animals and offering their Eid greetings to one another with a hand shake and three hugs. Each house was marked by a line of blood issuing from under the gates. The rivulets of blood met in the road, and joined together to make a steady stream. “God, it looks like murder,” Sanam moaned.
As the car drew near to the main mosque traffic became congested. Sanam quickly checked her hair and make up in the rear-view mirror. She looked down at her hands, gripping the steering wheel. Sanam could rarely look at her hands without admiring her nails. A few years back she really wanted to grow long nails and be ‘a proper lady’. At first it was very hard, as her nails often broke, and she was negligent with their care. But I finally have them, she thought triumphantly. Her long, almond shaped nails, painted in fantastic silver, were her pride. It was difficult, but I finally have them. She had to give up her hobby of painting to keep them unstained, and even took up doing the dishes, nearly giving the maid a heart attack, to keep them clean and translucent looking, though she never scrubbed pots.
Sanam wheeled her car into the parking lot, narrowly missing a small girl bouncing up in down in a fluffy pink dress, to steal a parking space from a vanload of men in stiff cotton outfits and women in bright, even neon-colored, shawls. Paindoos,* she gloated. She rushed out of her car, avoiding the gazes of the people from who’d she’d taken the parking space, and walked as quickly as her shoes, draping outfit and concept of femininity would allow.
Her eyes scanned the many hundreds of people pouring into the mosque. Not seeing her trio of girlfriends at the fountain they’d marked ahead of time, Sanam inwardly groaned. Still searching for a familiar face she found a rotting limb thrust into her periphery. “By God’s name, some money please,” came the tired refrain. The sight of the yellow, putrid hand turned Sanam’s stomach, which was already agitated by the sight of blood from her morning drive. “Get, you animal!” she screamed, pushing the body attached to the limb away. Her hand struck bone, and Sanam looked back to see an old man struggle to keep upright in the crush as she darted away. “Beggars,” the word came out as a curse, weighed down by the poisonous thoughts building all morning.
With no time left to parade around with her friends before prayer, Sanam hurried to the main hall. Following the crowds of rich, poor, ugly and beautiful into the prayer area, Sanam strained on tiptoe to see her mother, aunt or friends. My fate is black today, she grudged, and felt herself falling into a blue funk. A crackling voice came over the crowd, calling for the beginning of prayer. Sanam found herself pushed in line with a number of women preparing to pray. “Excuse me, I don’t have wudu*,” she told the woman beside her. The woman, veiled and blanketed in a traditional burqa* snapped, “Then why come and take up space? This isn’t a fashion show, girl.” Sanam looked up at the source of this surprising reprimand, and noticed the conservative clothing. “Shut up, fundu,” Sanam said under her breath and retreated to the line of ‘non-praying women’ near the entrance of the hall. Just great, I’m stuck her with all these menstruating aunties. Gross. Where are Parro, Sunita and Maria? They said they would come.
Why did we even come to this zoo? Abba doesn’t pray at home, why would he pray here. I bet he doesn’t even remember the first thing about namaz*, she giggled to herself, imagining her father’s confusion as prayer began. I bet he’ll go up when he’s supposed to be down and down when he’s supposed to be up. In truth, Sanam’s father had come because a coworker had told him that all the big ministers would be there. “It looks good to be at Eid prayer. You’re likely to meet some big shot and you can get a good word in with them.”
Sanam rearranged her vest and shawl while hundreds prayed around her so that it lay with the embroidery showing, trying to shake off her spiraling feeling of annoyance and anger. When tiring of that she tried working out a biting remark to say to Parveen and the others when she finally met them to explain her lateness with enough nonchalance to come off looking together. What’s the point? They’ll be too busy trying to catch some boy’s eye to notice that I’m not there. Her thoughts turned dark and stewed over a day “thoroughly gone to hell.”
Not only was I late, but I got blood on my shoe, I can’t find my parents, I don’t think the girls have come and I haven’t seen any fellow worth looking at! I should have stayed home! Sanam fumed until prayer finished. As the imam* called out the greeting of peace to the angels on his right and left Sanam rose to beat the crowd. She hurried down aisles of prostrate women, each praying into folded hands. Yeah, they all want God to make their sons doctors and their guts smaller, she thought. After bumping into a number of exited children and stepping on the toes of an African girl, Sanam finally located her mother.
“Oh mum, get off it, you can’t seriously be praying now. We’ve got to get out before the rest.” She pulled her mother’s joined hands and led her off the prayer rug. The two picked their way between praying aunties and groups of women “meeting necks,” or sharing the traditional Eid hug.
“Beti, we haven’t met necks yet; it’s Eid,” Naseema Begum pleaded. Sanam allowed her mother to hug her before weaving through the throng again. She met her father outside the hall, looking uncertain and expectant.
“Abbu, I can’t find Parro and them,” Sanam said.
“Shhh,” he whispered, straining to see above the crowd, “I heard the prime minister is coming this way. You and your mother should stand beside me and stay quiet.”
The ‘your father’s word is law’ came into effect and Naseema quelled her daughter’s complaints while they stood and looked happy and obedient beside their father.
“Leave this Ammi, the PM doesn’t give a damn about us. Can we go now?” They waited a little while longer, Sanam’s father expecting the head of state to find him and shake his hand at any moment.
“This was all khwar*” she snapped. “I couldn’t even find my girlfriends.”
“Sabra,*” Naseema Begum said, stressing her daughter’s given name, “remember, this is supposed to be a holy day.”
“My foot!” Sanam answered. “And don’t call me Sabra.”
“Fine my moon, if you want to be angry I can’t stop you. Don’t forget you have to drive the Suzuki home,” Naseema Begum reminded as turned to walk towards the parking lot.
Sanam walked decisively to her car, keeping her eyes down in front of her and making sure to well avoid accosting beggars and groups of villagers. She couldn’t help but notice the amazing variety in feet as she hurried to her car. Why, you can almost definitely tell where they’re from and who they are just looking at their feet.
She passed the kussay* clad feet of well-to-do farmers, small petite feet in huge brightly coloured platforms (middle class ladki*, she labelled), many pairs of peshawari chapal*, polished and unpolished, the worn down soft leather sandals of tired grandmothers, smart sophisticated mules in sedate colours on manicured feet, though very few of that variety and many more.
As the walk back to the car was long Sanam entertained herself in this game of ‘people predicting through footware.’ She noticed the dark calluses along the top of feet beneath raised painchay* from long prayers. There was a surprising amount of chunky, swollen feet crammed into small delicate shoes belonging to the upper-middle class ‘wife of retired civil servant’ grouping. Many quick-stepping feet in well-polished moccasins and wingtips passed by, as if racing to be out of the throng, stepping on other interesting feet in their haste. Sanam looked up and found these hurried shoes belonging to the type of men she’d have been looking for to tease before prayers; the young, highly educated, very rich and very desirable young men of the ‘ruling class,’ or ‘marriage meat’ she and her girlfriends called them. Even more surprising were the amount of barefoot people in the fray. They were usually small, dark feet, belonging to tiny, jaded children, weaving through the crowd of Eid-prayer goers, picking pockets and begging for alms. Sanam made sure to clutch her purse firmly when they came her way.
When the distracting walk was through Sanam rushed to her car, hoping to get home in time to watch the Eid concert on cable being broadcast from the Gulf. Throwing the vehicle into reverse, she turned her head to watch as she backed out of the tight parking space, only to find her tiny car blocked in by a hulking black SUV. The owner of the obnoxious vehicle was sitting behind the wheel, chatting on a bright red cell phone. Sanam honked her car’s horn and motioned for him to move. The driver idly glanced in her direction and went back to talking. Oho, so he thinks he’s something special! I’ll give him something to listen to, she thought, thrusting her car door open and marching to the drivers’ side window.
Sanam impatiently tapped on his window. The young man turned his head, looking surprised as if noticing her for the first time, and rolled down his power window.
“What?” came the smiling question.
“Your car has me stuck. Could you move?”
“Sure, what’s your name?” he asked, eyes liberally traveling over her new suit and French-toileted face.
“Pardon me?”
“We’re all grown-ups here, what’s your name darling?”
Sanam felt herself blushing and angrily checked herself. “Listen here you lafanga*. You move your car before I plow through it.”
“First tell me your name, then I’ll move my car,” he calmly answered, welcoming this exciting challenge to his dull morning.
Sanam was at a loss for words. She was just about to go back to her car and wait him out when an aged man walked over and asked, “Beti, is there a problem?” Sanam looked up and saw a sun-baked face behind thick glasses and thicker eyebrows.
“Yes respected uncle, this boy won’t move his car. He keeps asking my name. I just want to go home,” she found herself telling the man.
The face hardened. Clutching his cane firmly, the stranger walked over to the guilty party and rapped on his window.
“Boy, move this car now,” came the harsh order in finely polished Urdu.
“Master ji*, what’s it to you?”
“Boy, if you don’t move this car you’ll be in some serious trouble.”
“Hey man,” the youth began in English, “This isn’t’ your mamila,* so be off and let the girl handle it.”
A crowd had begun to gather around the spectacle of a retired professor facing off against a rich man’s scion. Two men clad in stiff, starched white shalwar kameez* who had been sitting on a bench nearby greeted to the professor and asked, “Dear sir, can we be of help to you?”
“Yes gentlemen, this boy will not move his car and let this young lady out,” the elderly man gestured to the obstinate boy, now looking a bit concerned, and the small car in front where a girl presumably sat.
Relations of the starched men also had come and stood behind them. The elder of the two, well mustached and hair shining with tonic, stood before the SUV window and said, “Excuse me sir, but you must move your car. I think you understand,” he said in Potohari, mincing no words.
Sanam in the meantime sat in her car, red faced and miserable. I can’t believe this is happening to me. She tried to sink down into the seat to avoid the curious stares of passers-by, wondering at the girl who started such a silly fight on Eid day. It’s not my fault!
The gathering crowd now stood behind the old professor and his two newfound allies. The boy in the offending vehicle surveyed the situation, and fearing for the safety of his father’s car, pulled out, tires squealing, and quickly drove away. The old man walked over to Sanam and stooped down to tell her, “Beti*, you can go now.”
Red-eyed, Sanam looked up and replied “Thank you.”
“A word of advice beti, this is a day of prayer, I know you did nothing to be treated by that boy so shamelessly, but it is good to come to a day of prayer with family, and dressed modestly. There are lots of men like him in the world who look for pretty, unaccompanied girls like yourself. You should be careful.”
Swallowing down her indignant reply, Sanam quietly mouthed, “Ji* uncle.” She too quickly pulled out from the lot, trying to escape the looks from the many who’d seen the hangama*.
After driving, foot firmly on the accelerator for a number of miles, Sanam slowed down. She wanted to clear her mind before arriving at home so her mother wouldn’t guess at what had happened. She glanced at herself in her rear-view mirror and could still see the marks of shame and crying, red eyes, flushed cheeks and pale lips. Her discolouration made her make-up show up like a painted mask, rosy and pale in all the wrong places.
Sanam slowly threaded through the streets of the city, trying to burn a few more minutes so she could return home looking calm. She drove in silence, not bothering to find her favorite radio station with the cute DJ. The monotony of methodically passing lampposts and trees pacified her irritated mind.
The ten-minute drive stretched out to 20 minutes as Sanam drove her car through winding side-roads. She passed many flesh colored mounds at the end of many driveways and street corners before they caught her attention. Sanam slowed her car in an attempt to figure them out when she remembered that today was the Eid of Sacrifice, and those mounds were the discarded innards, stomachs and intestines of animals sacrificed. She’d not seen them on her way to prayer, as the day’s sacrifices were just underway at that time.
Once again Sanam brimmed with disgust and indignation. Dirty people, why do they throw such horrible things onto the roads where they can be seen? She was still slowly driving along when she noticed a young boy, very small, but moving with a quickness and surety that marked his age at 9 or so. He was barefoot, wearing a stiff kameez far too long and a shalwar far too short. He spotted the innards that Sanam had just been agonizing over, and rushed towards them. Taking a semi-full sack from his back, the boy extracted a grass-cutting scythe and set to work on the pile of flesh. Wasting no time he slit the stomach, threw out the contents, scraped clean the lining and threw it in his sack in a matter of seconds. He then set about collecting useable fat and meat bits, rummaging through the pile without hesitation, sizing up odds and ends and pocketing those he approved of. Within five minutes, the pile was one-third its size, and the little boy was on his way, seeking out more abandoned heaps.
Sanam was in utter shock. She’d never seen anything so savage in her life. Shaking, she pulled up along side the boy to yell at him, to tell him that he shouldn’t be taking that garbage, and that if he must, he should have the decency to do so at night, when people won’t see and be disturbed. She stopped her car alongside the child, whose sack now looked as big as the boy himself. His wide, deep-set eyes turned to her, questioning. Sanam leaned forward and rolled her window down, gesturing for him to come over to her. The boy, unsure but unafraid, set down his sack and walked over to the car window.
In a dialect so accented and thick Sanam barely understood, the boy said, “Big sister, Eid mubarak”.
Sanam, not recognising the language, though understanding the greeting, fumbled in her rusty Punjabi and answered, “What was that you did?”
The boy looked confused, but seeing her hands gesturing to the offal he’d just salvaged, he replied, “Today is a happy day for us sister, I collected fat to make oil and meat for salan*. We will eat well this month.”
“But you shouldn’t do this now,” she garbled, regretting avoiding her native language all those years in school.
The boy cocked his head and looked even more confused. Only hearing the chide in Sanam’s voice he cautiously responded, “They didn’t want it, that’s why it’s outside. I just took a little bit that they didn’t want. It’s not stealing sister.”
Sanam felt ill. She couldn’t communicate with the boy to tell him what she wanted to. The boy stood anxiously by the car window, waiting for Sanam to explain why she’d stopped him, or finish her business. Seeing her struggle for words, he once again shyly offered his greeting, “Eid mubarak sister.”
Sanam looked up into his questioning eyes, taking in his dirt smudged face, the cautious smile, the matted and sun bleached hair, ill-fitting clothes and blood-caked hands and began to cry. Not knowing what to do, she groped for her purse, took out a red note and pressed it into the boy’s hands. “Eid mubarak brother,” she mumbled, and pulled away.
Sanam steered on, accelerated and braked, in a calm haze. She looked on, across the roads with their rivulets of red, and headed home.
*Sanam: Urdu for darling, Arabic for idol. *lat: curl or strand. *desi: from the homeland, Pakistan or India. *pai: cents. *banarsi: a type of heavy brocade fabric preferred for saris. *gupshup: chitchat or gossip. *paindoos: derogatory term for villagers, paindoo from pind, meaning village in Punjabi. *wudu: ablution for prayer. *burqa: South Asian long gown and veil worn by conservative Muslim women, usually black polyester. *namaz: ritual prayer. *imam: leader of namaaz, ritual prayer. *khwar: wasted, useless. *Sabra: meaning patient one, a woman with ‘sabr’ or patience. *kussay: flat South Asian leather slippers, curled at the ends and usually covered in embroidery. *ladki: girl *peshawari chapal: the leather, heeled shoes worn made famous by the city of Peshawar. * painchay: pant cuffs. *lafanga: street trash, punk *master ji: title for a teacher, can be used insultingly. *mamila: matter, issue. *shalwar kameez: traditional Pakistani clothes consisting of a long tunic and loose pants. *beti: Daughter. *Ji: Urdu for yes, ok, right and/or fine. *hangama: hoopla, to-do *salan: typical South Asian food, consisting of a spicy stew of various ingredients. *eidhi: A gift of money given from elders to those younger on Eid.
Last update : 24-10-2003 14:13
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