Shatranj: A Game of Life

Chapter 2

1980s - 1990s
Looking back, before Mahmood moved away, our entire childhood seemed to be a setroutine for the most part. During the school year, we had a daily schedule. Since we shareda bathroom, Mahmood showered first while I slept a little longer. Then when he cameout, I dragged myself to the bathroom to shower and change. By the time I was donebrushing my teeth, Chacha jee would have his hand pressed down on the horn, shoutingchalo, chalo to make sure that I hurried up so that we weren't late for school. Mahmoodalways sat in the front seat, having had his breakfast of milk and jam sandwich and Ammipatiently stood outside with a glass of milk and my sandwich, ready to hand it to me as Irushed by.Grammar School was located in Saddar, Karachi's business district, in a yellow brickbuilding that was famed to have been there since when the British ruled the subcontinent.Mahmood and I always looked forward to school and hanging out with friends. We hadbeen at the Grammar School since we were in kindergarten and so the school had becomelike a second home for us, familiar and welcoming.When the bell rang, we lined up in the front yard, forming lines around the flagpole as thenational anthem was played and the flag was hoisted up. As the leader of the Boy Scouts, itwas Mahmood's duty to hoist the flag. I distinctly remember him looking proud as he did it,the flag bearer for our school. Once the flag was raised, we all lined up and marched intoclass. After 4 lessons of Math and History, break time for Coke and samosas and 4 lessons ofScience and Art later, we'd be done for the day.After school and after our homework was done, Mahmood and I biked and skated in theneighborhood. We lived in Defence Phase 1 on Korangi Road and so Mahmood skated and Ibiked behind him on East Street where there was less traffic. Mahmood had given me hisBMX bicycle when Abba had bought roller skates for him. I had always wanted the bike.The bike had a straight handlebar with black rubber grips and a seat on which you couldrecline. The spokes and the body frame were a sparkling blue color. I loved the blue color.Mahmood's skates were yellow with red straps and when Mahmood skated, they became ablur of red and yellow. We raced each other up and down the street, yelling, laughing,falling, the yellowish red and blue trailblazers enjoying themselves on the streets ofKarachi.During the weekends, Abba and Ammi sometimes took us to Seaview Park located alongthe beach. We played on the jungle gym, hanging off the bars, seeing who reached the topfirst, slid down the slides rolling into the sand as we came down or stood and watched theairplane-shaped kites flying in the sea breeze. I still remember when a kid stopped me fromgoing on the slides because he said that I was too fat and Mahmood pushed him off theslides. He had rolled down and bruised himself and started crying. We ran off laughing andtold ourselves that he deserved it.On Sundays, it was Sunday Bazaar time. If Ammi was buying groceries for a few days, wetook turns carrying them. If the groceries were a month's supply and too heavy for us,Ammi hired one of those Pathan kids not much taller than us but who were able to carrythrice the amount of weight we could in their straw bags. Halfway through groceryshopping, we slipped away and either browsed through the second hand children's booksat Imran's Second Hand Book store, snuck fruits from the stalls when the shopkeepersweren't looking or tried on T-shirts with funny slogans on them. Anytime we foundsomething we liked, we told Ammi who, with her super bargaining skills, haggled it outwith the shopkeepers to lower their prices, which they almost always did, something whichnever worked when we tried.When it were the holidays or summer vacations, we slept in late, had breakfast and thenwaited for the Polka ice-cream man to come by. Soon, we would see him approaching down the street and eagerly waited for him to pedal by. I had a kulfi and Mahmood bought himself aPop Cone. We would then eat the ice cream, licking and slurping as we read our HardyBoys adventure books until it was evening, lying in our hammocks that were tied betweenthe palm trees in the garden, enjoying the time off.At the start of summer, one clear memory I had was of us going to the hairdresser, to ashop in Khadda Market called Mennen, named after the international grooming brand buthaving no other affiliation with it. I remember climbing the stairs into the shop andsmelling the shaving cream and Dettol that was so reminiscent of hairdressers all overKarachi. The barber shops in Karachi looked pretty much like each other; three barberchairs facing the right, three facing the left, with men sitting on them, and Mennen's shopwas designed the same way. When my turn came, I watched as the barber placed a plank onmy chair and I sat with my eyes closed, as the barber went about his business. The softmusic playing in the background helped because I closed my eyes and drifted off into themusic.Occasionally, we went to Capri Cinemas on Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road to watch a movie.We once watched the movie Prince of Darkness and I was so scared that i couldn't sleep allnight after that, waking up every time a car went by and its headlights shone through mywindow, casting shadows that looked like shapeless monsters out for a midnight snack.Cricket was a daily routine, during schooldays and on holidays. Mahmood and I lovedcricket though he was good at it and I was just mediocre. In the evening, we always went tothe empty plot at the end of East Avenue. The plot was empty and full of dirt with smallpebbles and some weeds in the corner. Mahmood was the first one to put the metallic trashcans as wickets in the center of the plot and chalk out lines to make a cricket pitch. Hetaped the tennis balls so that they bounced faster and setup the wickets to get the gamegoing. Slowly other boys from the neighborhood joined us. There was Asad, Adil, Shahriyarand Mohsin who were the regulars. We also asked the domestic help, the drivers and gardeners and cooks to play and soon there would be enough people to make two teams. A coin was tossed to see who batted first and the game was started.Playing street cricket wasn't just all fun and games. There was a lot of sledging that wenton. The most common phrases were abbey out kar and chaka mar chakay par, one usedagainst the batsman, the other used against the bowler. But other than that, cricket let us betogether. When the game was close and the sweat broke, the better players stoppedworrying about themselves and the lesser players got swept up in the moment where theonly thing that mattered was who won.Mahmood was an all-rounder, I was just a swinger. Let's just say, my passion for playing thesport always exceeded my limited talent. I put all my energy into hitting the ball when itwas tossed at me, hoping that it connected. If I missed and the ball hit the trash can, it madea loud dhung sound. I had a poor track record, failing to hit the ball most of the time. Everytime I came to bat, shouts of dhung went up in the field.Mahmood bowled really fast balls but they were batta, where his arms stopped short ofmoving in full circles. Batta wasn't considered proper bowling but no one complained.Mahmood tried to be like Wasim Akram, Pakistan cricket team's internationally renownedfast bowler, and took a long run up to throw the cricket ball, which then traveled like astone. More often than not, when Mahmood came to bowl, he bowled quite a large part ofthe other team out.When Mahmood and I were on opposite teams and it was time for me to bat, Mahmoodbowled really slowly to me. I would then aim and swing with all my might. More than not, theball usually connected and traveled fast, either passing the telephone pole we used as a boundary or rolled under one of the cars parked outside. I preferred being on the opposite team for this sole reason. It made me look like a better player than I knew I really was.As a rule of street cricket, a direct hit in neighborhood homes was considered out. ifsomeone got out in such manner, we used to request one of us to bring back the ball. He would then climb the wall and retrieved the ball for us since most of the times, the annoyedneighbors simply refused to answer the doorbell, no matter how many times we rang it. Iremember that once Asad hit the ball in Aunty Sarah's house and even after much ringing ofthe doorbell, no one came to open the gate. Mahmood was the fielder and he elected to gointo the house to get our ball back. I can still see Mahmood as he climbed the wall, ready tojump into Aunty Sarah's house. His face was starting to resemble Abba's face; broad jaw,crooked nose, big, brown eyes, black set hair. He had pixie ears, pointed and stuck to theside of his face and a peach fuzz mustache. With those signs of adolescence, you could tellthat he was growing up, a little Abba in the making. After a few minutes, Mahmood had climbed the wall and slowly lowered himself down into the garden. We watched as he disappeared, heard some footsteps and saw the ball come flying over the wall. As we waited for Mahmood to hoist himself back onto the wall, there was the sound of running feet. We had forgotten that Aunty Sarah's son was visiting and had brought his German Shepherd along.A growl, a bark, more running feet, a shout and yelling followed. We ran to the side of thehouse where through the wrought iron-gates, we could see Mahmood running on theredbrick driveway, shouting for help, with the German Shepherd in hot pursuit. Mahmoodmanaged to hoist himself on the branches of one of the palm trees, just out of reach. Thedog stood under the tree, barking and growling, trying to nip at his ankles.Asad reacted first, yelling and pulling on the gate with both hands. We all chimed in with allthe famous dog names we could think of."Lassie.""Scooby.""Snoopy."Someone even said "Garfield". It was enough to distract the dog that ran to where we wereas Mahmood climbed down from the tree and vaulted over the side gate. All of us ran backto the side only to see Mahmood leaning against the palm tree, out of breath. Everyonegathered around Mahmood while he caught his breath."Are you okay?" inquired Asad, a concerned look on his face."That was close. The dog almost got you," Adil stated.We all gathered around Mahmood, waiting for him to say something.Two minutes later, he stood up and we could see the smug expression on his face, afacetious smile spread across his lips."Ball kahan hai. Where's the ball?", he asked loudly. "Let's finish the game".It was after that day's event that Mahmood became the defacto leader and our street cricket league became a gang. We weren't thugs by any means, preferring to hang out by ourselves in the corner of the plot. The worst we did was to stay out until the sun faded out to the west and the orange light of early evening turned a bluish gray. Maghreb call for prayers from the twosurrounding mosques would permeate the air and all of us would carefully avoid our fathers as they raced off to the mosques to offer their prayers.Two years into playing cricket almost daily and we had become good friends and talkedamongst ourselves, mostly about the latest games on the Sega Mega Drive or the girls in ourschool. We were essentially living out a caricature of upper class Pakistani maleadolescents, those who lived in posh neighborhoods, went to the best schools and hadenough to eat.