In Her Eyes

Chapter I

There used to come a moving circus that would set up in the silent town of Lyallpur at the end of every year. Little Shahmir who was would wait for it through the burning summers and the better half of the cold, dry winters, was as excited that year as he had been ever been since his father first took him to see it.

The moving circus, owned by the gypsies from the neighboring Afghania had been in the business long before Shahmir was born or his father was born. In fact, the Afghania circus as it become to be known at some point of it was older than the British Empire and the East India Company itself. His grandfather had once mentioned that the circus was as old as the great Mughals of India. "It's what families do," he would often say, "the sons pick up what their fathers and their fathers and their fathers did, and then they make it their own and pass it to their offspring."

This was true for most businesses that went around in Lyallpur, a town West of the grand mosque that Emperor Aurangzeb had erected more than two centuries ago. Mullah Sheikh who lived next door with his seven daughters and one son had a business of dried cotton that he had inherited from his father who had inherited it from his father who had inherited it from his father. Jahanzeb Khan, the tallest and the fattest man Shahmir would ever see in his life, worked selling sweet animal candies and everything sweet, the recipes for which he had inherited from his father who had inherited them from his father who had inherited them from his father and so on. Another of their neighbours had come from nearby settlement of Shadhara and had a small furniture shop that only sold stools, chairs, and tables. The Keamari family, in this aspect, weren't too different either. Little Shahmir's father Dost Mohammad was a butcher of small meat like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather were. "Son of a butcher will be a butcher," he would often say to Shahmir, "The only dream I have for you is that one day you will learn the art of cutting big meat which I nor your grandfather nor your great-grandfather could never succeed in learning."

Dost Mohammad would often talk about this. It was true that he had once took it upon himself to learn the skill of cutting big meat that only some had the privilege of learning. When he was still in his younger and more vulnerable days, he had sold the silver coins that he had inherited from his father and left his house for good number of weeks to look for the perfect bull to cut in God's name. For twenty-two days he had looked and had visited a total of seventeen villages nearby and had gone as far as the settlement of Jhang only to bring home a sickly creature that was all that his silver coins could afford. "It wasn't meant for me," he would say every time he would tell little Shahmir the sad, sad story - one of the only ones he had - for the bull had meat that was rotten from underneath and smelled like disease and death. It was the first and last time he ever tried to achieve his dream of being called a big meat butcher and his subconscious, without realising himself, had forced the very unfulfilled dream onto his son - who at that time, as children often do, had promised himself in the silence of the night that he would become what his father nor his grandfather nor his great-grandfather could become. "I will become big meat butcher," he would often tell himself lying on a string bed that his grandmother had made for him before old age and liver disease took her, "I will become a big meat butcher" he would say before drifting to a long sleep under a cloud of stars that filled the horizon from up to the farthest corner his eyes could see.

The circus would bring new rides and enchantments with it every month. In the midst of the fog and the cold weather that would sweep over the plains starting from October until early March was mostly spent indoors except when the circus would arrive. For a whole week, the town of Lyallpur that was mostly as abandoned as it could be, would come alive and you'll see the park by the magistrate's office where the circus would settle every night packed with children and adults alike. The year that Shahmir turned seven, there was a new small ferris wheel that had been erected, but only some dared to pay 10 paisa to ride it. There was a bow-and-arrow stall that would reward all kinds of things for the ones who could hit the bullseye three times out of five shots that were provided to them for two paisa. There was a horse named Shehzada, or prince, that would take you for a round ride for as less as a paisa. There were camels, monkeys that would dance, goats that would do acrobats, snakes that would swirl to the beat of its charmer, and dogs that could say your name.