Puranay Rastay ✓

chapter ‣ 18

Chapter ‣ 18

I began my exams with a basmalah, and watched it carry me through the end.

Eight long, strenuous exams that left me empty and exhausted.

How did it go, I was asked by many different mouths in many different ways. It's over with, I would say, not knowing how to articulate the fragility of my situation. My success hung by a single line in a chart listed with names, many months into the future. Until then all my decisions hung in a vacuum, patience and prayer my only consolation.

"You know you studied hard, so leave the rest to Allah," Mama advised, seeing me lost in my thoughts.

I loved her for this gentleness. There is nothing better than a parent who makes an effort to understand your soul and adjust their attitude as you grow in age. I was her little boy, but I was also now a man.

"Go out with your friends, have some fun," she encouraged the first weekend after my exams. "Take some time to relax before you have to start working."

Asim bhai, our tenant from the flat on the other end of the community, had asked me if I could join his tuition academy and teach Pakistan Studies. Some income was better than no income, besides, if I did hope to marry Rida or anyone else, I needed a job.

"Mamoo said he has to get the car oil changed, I'll just go with him," I suggested.

In the past year, I had distanced myself from the only friends that I had. My empty hands could not bear the sight of their brimming ones, and so to save them from evil eye and my heart from resentment for my circumstances, I had taken recluse until I felt ready to re-engage. Besides, Mamoo was my friend.

Mama wasn't particularly satisfied, but neither did she stop me. On Saturday morning, full with breakfast yet with enough space for a second cup of chai, Mamoo and I sat side by side at a neighborhood auto workshop,

"It's getting a little too hot," Mamoo commented, swiping at the sweat lining his forehead.

"It's a lot better than it is this time of year," I informed him with a grin. He had lived in Murree, a hill station for so long, he was forgetting how hot Lahore was.

Although Mamoo had tried to visit as often as he could, there was a lot he had missed out on over the years; little moments that had defined the girls' growth, comfort they had wanted with his being there. I had missed him too, my mentor and confidante.

It was unfortunate that it had taken a tragedy for him to come back.

"Bhai jaan, you people can afford ACs, think about the poor in this country," the mechanic said, chiming into our conversation about the heat. He glanced at us from under the car. "Load shedding, climate change, and corrupt government, this place is as good as hell."

I exchanged glances with Mamoo. The first part had been reasonable, the second was not.

"That's not entirely true," I found myself saying before I could stop. "Statistically, load shedding has gone down eighty-four percent in recent years, and although Pakistan is only responsible for less than 1% of the world's greenhouse gases, it has planted over ten billion trees in the past couple of years alone. As for the corrupt government, I can't argue against that." Months of studying my country closely, I now had sufficient knowledge to speak with confidence. It was a good feeling, even if the discussion was in a little auto workshop during small talk.

"For the record, hell is hotter," Mamoo added.

The talk sizzled down soon after, but the mechanics words and my consequent response stuck with me.