From: memon@acsu.buffalo.edu (Naveed Siraj Memon)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Strawberry Fields Forever (part 2 + some addition)
Date: 27 Aug 92 10:13:11 GMT
Organization: UB




[part2+latest flashback of crazy recollections]


On our way to Hill Park, a favourite spot for our weekly girgit-hunt,
was the Khooni Jheel. Legend had it that that one fine muggy evening
a young boy was fishing by the lake when a giant turtle bit on his foot 
dragged him into the lake, thus giving it the name, khooni jheel.
The winds of change may have swept Tariq Road. The place where the giant
monster feasted on the poor kid's leg, there may well be a video-arcade,
but the only turtles around are what we now know as the role models for our
geekazoid younger generation, the ninja turtles :)

70s were a great time to be a kid growing up at Tariq Road. Kids were kids. 
The VCR had yet to plague the innocence but you could hear Saturday Night 
Fever from some dubai-return's open window :)

Kids of the neighbourhood improvised any fun that was
affordable. So the girgits of the neighbourhood succumbed to our sadistic evil
rituals. Pretty soon the grand council of kids gathered from far off 
un-heard-of territories of Nursery and Kashmir Road declared the girgit an
endangered specie and the hunt restricted to the monsoon season. The next target
our innocent and vicious little minds could think of was the bakreeyaNz(goats)
in a local rayvaR(herd) that the owner used to leave for "grazing" the gandee
gali. Yes there was a time when alternate streets in the Tariq Road area
were meant for garbage disposal. Everybody's backyard was basically a heap
of sanitary napkins and 'baloons' ;), you cannot believe what a 12 year old 
can learn in such an environment. Many a evening was spent milking these goats
and waking up the khan-baba who owned the herd. He would throw stones at us and
we would show him our respects by crossing our arms and giving him the intimate
signal :). Of course after that, our next stretegic move was that of 
slipping out of our chapalz(assuming that we were wearing any when we left home)
and run like hell.


Another famous pathan in the neighbourhood owned a bhutta-stand(corncob).
He had the most sizzling concoction in one of his chutnee-containers. Being
broke as a 10 year old, the most change I ever had was a chavanee(25 p) 
A good sized bhutta was more than bara-annaz. Though my chavanee brought
on a frown on the gajak-vendor's face, this khan-baba with a red-mehndi-
colored-ZZtop-beard was kind me. He would find a small deformed bhutta 
put it on the flame, dip in into the chutnee-container and hand it to me. First
bite into it and .....ariba ariba ariba. I was speedy gonzalez. It was hot!
damn hot! smoke coming out of my ears hot. I guess you get the picture.  
By the time I am done with my bhutta, I am exhausted. Thirsty as hell! I dig
into my pockets, and find some loose change. Head to yet-yunder pathan who
owns a gola-ganDa stand. He looks at the 13 paisas and looks at me, and 
ignores me. I pull his shalwar. He knows I mean business. He says something
about my sister, gets hold of an ice cube, puts a piece of cloth that has
not been washed in a long time, over the ice that sits on a blade and does 
his thing. The glasscup under the blade gets filled with crushed ice and I tell
him that I don't have a sister. He smiles that "you'r alright kid" smile
and gives me a bonus topping of condensed milk, and crushed pistachio. 


Lousy lazy hot Karachi afternoons forced us to search for shade.
One peepal-ka-payR(tree) provided just that. It was a favourite spot for
the mohallay-kay-aavaara-laRkay and I. Actually we had climbed upto to top of 
our favourite tree so many times that our body weight had created a
perfect hideaway all the way up in the tree. Getting hold of cigerattes was
not too difficult but did not want the butts to give us away. The guys smoked
dried stems of a weed that grew on the peepal. I did not like it too much,
it was too strong. My brothers had already been caught smoking and though I 
had enjoyed the sight of mother's chapal and brothers' heads, I did not think
that I would survive her chappal. The best part about the tree was 
togetherness, sharing our personal secrets with fellow 10 year olds. Eversince 
that age I learned that dirty jokes always helped in breaking the
ice. I also promised myself never to pretend like a grown up and tell one of
these jokes to break the silence over the dinner table. It is not a pretty 
sight to see your parents choke on their food. 


After the brothers were caught smoking, they found themselves on a train to 
Petaro on June 29th 1976. I can see cleary now, the rain had stopped, Karachi
had had it's record rainfall of 8 inches in one day. After they left the 
house felt empty. All the fun was gone, the pillow fights, the hide and
seek, the patang baazi boarded that train on that soggy afternoon. Maybe
it was a part of childhood that came to an ubrupt end, cause the next time
the brothers visited us over the winter break, they were not kids anymore. To me
they were'nt grown ups either. But they had been through a rigorous initiation
of the real hostel life and the seniors and the bhains(seniors are refered to 
bhai-jan but what one hears is bhain). It was hard to relate to their fauji 
style hair cut and their tales of cutting classes and their secret trips to 
Hyderabad to watch the movies. In a way I felt jealous of their new life. It 
seemed fun, almost mystical. 

The parents sensed that I was alone, so they did what any parents would do, 
they bought me a dog. A labrador(sp). A real cute animal but it was a bit 
curious about everything. It had to be returned to the pets clinic after
it bit a lady in a shuttle-cock burqa. The thing was just too confusing.
I remember opening up the encyclopeadia(sp) for the first time to look up
the section on dogs and found that labradors were hunting dogs, this mutt
was more into chick hunting I suppose. It was hard to return it to the
pet shop. I was fond of watching the veranda-light reflecting in its thick 
shinny black hairy coat.

The brothers and dogs came and went every summer. There was nothing stable
to hold on to.  The house was full of other people that seemed to be invisible.
Dad's side of the family. Kids are always turned off by these folks. 

Next 2 Brittanica was Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape. My first book. And what an 
initiation into the wonderful word of adolescence(sp). 12 and learning about
monkeys in heat. This book is why I had a bigger laugh when Wayne shwinged at 
Babia-Majora, not so much so at Babe-raham Lincoln though. Soon the Study had 
been thoroughly sniffed from top to bottom and all the tota-pages in all the
books including Grays(sp) Anatomy, marked for future reference. Too many 
detailed accounts by Erol Flynn(sp), so little time. I had a renewed respect
for Dad. The guy had taste. It grew everytime a new treasure was uncovered. 
Over the next couple of years, I lost so much weight that had to be taken to
a renowned child specialist. Why the hell did she have to treat me a like a 
child and ask me to cough. I did'nt have throat allergy, it was'nt flu season
either. Her hands were so cold. I felt so ashamed. I was 12 goddamnit. I was 
a man. I deserved more respect than being used like just another piece of meat!
Did'nt she read Desmond Morris. Later that evening, I over-heard mom mention 
the DoctoraRNi was still un-married. That explained at a lot of things. 
  



Naveed


PS:  :)