Shatranj: A Game of Life

Chapter 3

After Mahmood left, much changed. I went to school alone, ate alone and went to play cricket alone. In the evenings, whenever I did go out to play, I was usually the last one to be chosen. I opted to field, standing far away, sometimes playing with the stray cats that were loitering around, sometimes throwing stones at the wall, while I waited for the ball. I almost never got the chance to bat and I was okay with that. Asad and Adil usually avoided talking to me and I steered clear of them.
At home, with Mahmood gone, all the attention from my parents was focused on me. I was still a straight A student but my parents wanted me to work harder, especially Ammi. I started spending more time in my room, studying, listening to music, reading but also avoiding the constant attention that Ammi was giving me. Since it got lonely at home, I preferred going to Bohri Bazaar and Zulqi's Uniforms after school. It was something that Mahmood and I did sometimes, going over to Abba's shop after school. Chacha jee would pick us up from school and once Bohri Bazaar was reached, park the Suzuki Bolan van right in front of Bohri Manzil, a tight squeeze between the two poles meant to keep out cars. As we would make our way to the shop, what often happened was the chaat wala, calling out to us by our names, would usher us to tables where two hot steaming plates of chaat and chutney would be waiting for us. After the chaat and some renewed energy, we race each other up the cement stairwell to Abba's office on the first floor. I still remember that the walls of the stairwell used to be white once upon a time but were now a sickly red from all the paan spitballs that passer-byes spat at it. We always slowed down on our dash upstairs to say salaam to the cobbler who sat near the top of the stairs, always busy repairing or polishing someone's shoes, but never too busy to give us sweets or kind words.
Mahmood and I always tried to be the first one's in Abba's chair when it was empty, the brown cloth matching the dull brown walls of the office. We mostly ended up sitting in the chair together, punching '0" on the phone and giggling when Asif, the sales manager picked up the phone. We do this until Asif complained to Abba that his sons were playing around with the phone which would be around the time that we headed home. With Mahmood gone, instead of going and playing in the office like we did, I now sat outside with the workers, sitting next to the cash counter on the table, my legs dangling off the edge. Asif and I had become good friends. I watched him ring up payments in the cash register and handle customer complaints deftly. Most of the complaints were focused on the collars of the shirt, how they were not circular enough or had too many threads coming out of them. Asif's way of handling this was to take the shirts, put plastic collars in them to give them shape or take them to the back, quickly neaten them up and hand them back to the customer, courteous and with a smile, who then left satisfied. It was Asif's breezy, chatty style I think in the end that really helped him with customers. Zulqi's Uniforms were known for its customer service representatives who dispensed friendly service and Asif was their leader who led by example.
Asif's son, Waqar also came in sometimes. He looked cute in his little sized uniform and Asif once told me that Waqar looked up to me, something close to idolizing. I was flattered but also wondered what he saw in me to idolize about. Someone who Asif idolized was Abba. Asif told me stories of the time when they had just started, about what he saw being the first employee of the start-up business then. When approached by Iqbal Uncle, Abba was surprised at first but willing. The closest that he had come to the garment trade was standing in line for military uniforms when he was conscripted for the 1971 war. Needless to say, he jumped in headfirst, seeing that this could be promising. Asif talked about how hard it was in the beginning, how Abba tried to schedule appointments with prospective clients over the phone, how he first got desperate and then disappointed when people told him that Monday didn't work and that Tuesday wasn't much better either. But that Abba hadn't give up, had worked on and perfected his sales pitch and eventually got a few people to agree to meet with him. It was a lot of hit-and-miss and failure got to him but Abba didn't give up. He came early in the morning around 7 o' clock, prepared for the day and left late at night. He also never gave up his faith, always told the truth and always remained kind to others. That was his Holy Grail and with Abba's quick mind and sound judgment, slowly the business started to flourish. Abba was living proof that hard work and self-reliance conquered all.
Listening to the stories, I reminisced about what he looked like back when he was a young, struggling factory worker or when he had just joined Iqbal Uncle to start their uniform business. I had seen the black and white pictures; it seemed like it was Mahmood that I was looking at rather than my father. Broad jaw, slightly crooked nose, big, brown eyes, black set hair. The only difference was that Abba had large ears and in some pictures he had grown a mustache. I also imagined what Abba and Ammi looked like when they were just married. Abba, short, brown and handsome, his smile uncommonly even, and his temperament imperturbable, in pants and a starched white shirt, Ammi, thin and petite, ponytail tied behind her back, a smile on an oval face dressed in a sari. There was a sepia colored snapshot that hung just above their bed and I sometimes sat and stared at it, imagining what it be like if I was there when the picture was taken.
My favorite story was when in August of 1981, Asif had accompanied Abba on a visit to the principal of Karachi High School, one of their first clients. Asif described the principal as anolder lady, her hair pulled back in a bun, glasses in a square frame and with a mouth that always looked like she was smiling. Abba had developed good and cordial relations with the principal but it was her assistant, a younger woman who covered her hair with a dupatta and wore bright red lipstick to work, who that day was giving Abba a tough time. School had just started after a 2 month summer holiday and students and their parents were coming in droves to the shop to buy uniforms. Everything was fine until they started asking for ties. Since Abba had been told by the principal's assistant that ties were only required in the winter term, there were none available. Complaints from the parents were then directed to the school and the principal had called Abba to her office.
At the meeting, when Abba told the principal that it was her assistant who had told him that ties were not required, the principal asked her assistant if that was true. The assistant shook her head and flat out denied it. A tug of war ensued, with finger-pointing and a he said-she said continuing for a good twenty minutes. Abba was soft spoken but persistent while the assistant's voice kept on getting louder as time went on. In the end, the principal stepped into end the stalemate and directed everything to be done directly with her. Asif recalls that when they left twenty minutes later, they discovered that the car that the assistant's brother had come to pick her up in had a flat tire. Abba being the gentlemen he was, offered the assistant a ride back to her house. The next day, the principal called to apologize to Abba saying that the assistant had confessed that she was the one who had told Abba not to make the ties. Asif guessed that the change of heart was due to the courtesy that had been shown by Abba to the lady.
I had heard this story many times but every time I heard it, I listened silently. Mellow but persistent, my father had shown that honesty and uprightness always won. He had also always told Mahmood and myself to be honest and truthful as well and after all that persistence and perseverance, I felt it had been ingrained into our characters.
Abba's simplicity could be seen by taking one look at his office. On the first floor of Bohri Manzil, the office was sparsely decorated but adequate. There were two desks in the 10 inch by 10 inch room, placed perpendicular to each other with only enough space in between for a person to pass through. On one desk sat Abba, on the other sat Iqbal Uncle. Two desks, two chairs, two phones were the entire furnishings of the office. No paintings, no elaborate decor, not even a calendar. Abba had also worked for sometime as a carpenter, one of the many skills he had picked up when he was unemployed and was looking for a job, and so most of the furniture had been hand-built by Abba in his workshop. Ammi had been to the office only three times in eleven years and always complained about the Spartan settings that the office was in. I wondered what she have done if given the freedom to do what she wanted. I remember Iqbal Uncle had once said, "Let a man loose in the house and you can expect it to be burnt to the ground. Let a woman loose in the house and you can expect it to be completely made over by the time you return". Abba had smiled and just shrugged.
Our home in comparison was ostentatious. The colored cement driveway leading up to the gate was flanked by two palm trees. The floors in the house were of shiny white tiles and our front windows were long and wide, starting from a few feet above the ground and ending a few feet short of the roof. You could see the patterned railings of our staircase through the front windows. The front foyer had two lion statues which Ammi had purchased from the craft shop in Clifton and the four bathrooms had been redone with Italian tiles, two washbasins each and duvets adjacent to the toilets. Crystal chandeliers hung in the dining and drawing rooms on the ground floor and one hung in the first floor lounge. The upholsteries in each of the rooms were a rich color with strange names; alizarin crimson, harlequin, baby blue eyes, dark goldenrod. Upstairs were the bedroom and Abba's study, which perpetually smelled of rosewater and cinnamon. The study had bookshelves on both sides, filled with all sorts of books; fiction, non-fiction, biographies, autobiographies and on every subject that I could think of; history, war, nation-building, governance, science and the fine arts. Abba loved reading and on the weekends, I would see the light on from beneath the door if I ever woke up in the middle of the night. A large TV was in the middle and Abba and his friends often relaxed in the evenings and on weekends in the study. Downstairs, the drawing and dining room had mahogany brown furniture and were decorated with large framed pictures of pre-partition India. One of the pictures was a large framed one of the Indian Legislative Assembly with my great-grandfather circled in red. Abba loved to collect mementos and souvenirs and being the history buff that he was, had once told Mahmood and I proudly that my great-grandfather had been the Nizam of Sawantwadi in India.
"You know, your great-grandfather had had refused to accede to the British, was taken away by the Indian Gurkhas in the middle of the night while your great-grandmother and your grandfather, Dada had looked on. He never came back. Dada had never truly recovered from that event and remembered that event even the night before he died".
Abba said solemnly.
We listened quietly, reminded of our Pakistan Studies textbooks and what they said about the British Raj. As for me, my room was located on the side of the house and I remember having crisscross grills on my windows. At one time, whenever I looked outside, the picture I saw was of two coconut trees right outside the boundary wall. They served as landmarks and always made the house easy to find. I fondly remember Aqib and Ali Nawab, our domestic help and  gardener, chasing the coconut-thieves as they climbed up the trees to get themselves some coconuts that they could sell. Sometimes Aqib and Ali Nawab lay in wait for them, hiding in the shadows, letting the thieves bring the coconuts down and nabbing them once they reached the ground. Then they claimed the coconuts for themselves and shared the coconut juice with everyone. The coconut bounty was shared with the thieves as well but the poor coconut thieves made no money out of their hard work. Now the coconut trees and the shrubs outside our gate were gone to make way for road expansion, much like the rest of the city was being converted into a concrete jungle. The trees had helped stifle the noise of the traffic but after they had been cut, I could hear the buses blowing their horns all night, loud and clear. It sounded much like a quartet blasting their instruments at full volume. I found it hard to sleep and sometimes after having fallen asleep, woke up in the middle of the night from the bus horns, blowing at top volume as they sped down Korangi Road.
It had been three months since Mahmood had left and things were beginning to settle in. Then while I was having milk before I rushed off to school, Ammi came to me and told me that next weekend, Mahmood would be coming back. I gulped my milk down and in my excitement, tripped over my shoe laces as I ran to sit in the car. I could see Ammi standing in the doorway smiling as the car pulled out of the driveway. I waved to her and she waved back. I was happy that Mahmood was coming back, the 90 day isolation period that Petaro required to accustom out-of-station students having finished and allowing the students to return home for a visit.
The days went by quite slowly. I had started counting the days in my head. Abba and I were to go to the bus station after Friday prayers and I had gotten ready so we could head there right after we had prayed. Then Friday came and we stood there as the Daewoo bus pulled in to the station.
There were all kinds of people who disembarked, from mothers with babies to younger men who looked like they had brought all their belongings with them. Then we saw Mahmood. He jumped out and pulled his suitcases behind him. It looked like he had matured over those 90 days, the mischievous grin now being replaced with a broad but serious smile. We hugged. He told me that he had many stories to tell me once we got home.
Mahmood had bought gifts for all of us; a Sindhi topi hat for me which I proudly wore on my head, an ajrak shawl for Abba to wear around himself in the winters and the colorful bangles for Ammi that Sindhi women wore on their wrists. Dinner that night was a family affair. My mom bustled around like a mother hen, serving the main courses to the men in her life while my father quizzed Mahmood about his first few months at Petaro. I waited impatiently for Mahmood to tell me the many stories that he had promised that he would tell me.
Mahmood also brought along two of the famous Bombay Bakery coffee cakes and after my parents had gone to bed, Mahmood and I sat in the TV lounge outside our rooms, catching up with everything since Mahmood had left, munching on slices of the cake. I told him all that was there to be told, which was not much. Mahmood's stories were much better. He had made friends fast, which no one had any doubt of. His best friends had become Farhan who was called Charsi because of his lackadaisical attitude and Naveed who was called Chunni because of his diminutive size. Charsi had a stuttering problem and a lackadaisical attitude but he was sharp like a butcher's knife. Other students whispered that the reason he stuttered was because his mouth couldn't keep up with his mind. Chunni was small but fat and when others teased him about his weight, he got defensive and retorted that he wasn't fat, just overweight. Both Chunni and Charsi had gravitated towards Mahmood and in a few weeks time, the trio was inseparable. They hung out together all the time and talked till late night as they lay in their bunks, Mahmood on the lower bunk, Charsi on the top bunk and Chunni on the lower bunk next to them.
Petaro was an all boys college located 20 kms from Hyderabad and the distance from any large city made the students antsy, Mahmood even more so. Since all three; Mahmood, Charsi and Chunni were always together, there were many instances where they scaled the walls to get out of the campus and went to Jamshoro or played pranks on other students so as to let their pent up energy out.
One of the stories that Mahmood told had me laughing so loud that I had to stuff the pillow in my face to stifle the sound, afraid that I would wake my parents up. The story was about Omar, who slept on the top bunk while Chunni slept on the lower bunk. He kept mostly to himself, either studying or reading. All the students kept their distance as he did his. Omar every weekend got a parcel from home and when he opened it, jars of food would come out. He then neatly stored them in his cupboard and kept the key with himself so that no one could steal his food. The other students eyed the food voraciously but since Omar always kept a close guard and the key with himself, no one could do much. Omar, who Chunni had named Shakma because he was really suspicious, even took the key with him when he went to the bathroom.
Now one day, tired of the cafeteria food, Mahmood decided that he wanted some home cooked food and the only food close to that was in Shakma's cupboard. But since the cupboard was locked, there was no way they could get inside. Chunni then came up with an idea. They decided to mix a laxative in a Coke that Chunni offered to Shakma. After two hours of drinking it, Shakma had to run off to the bathroom. In his undue haste, he forgot to take the key with him. Mahmood then opened Shakma's cupboard, emptied two of his prized jars into a plate, had a big bite and passed it around the common room. Shakma returned half an hour later and went off to bed not knowing that the cupboard that bore his delicious food now had nothing but empty jars. In the morning when Shakma opened his cupboard and saw the two empty jars sitting there, he raised a hue and cry.
At this point, Mahmood tucked his chin and paused so as to give full effect.
"Where did my khana go?" he said, mimicking Shakma's deep baritone voice that had a thick Sindhi accent. When all he received were blank stares, Shakma went to complain to the petty officer on duty who rounded up all the boys outside the residence hall and demanded an explanation.
"Who took Omar's food? I want an explanation," were the petty officer's words when he gathered everyone.
Since everyone in the dorm room had had some of the food, no one said anything. Frustrated at the silence that he was greeted with, the petty officer called for lights out at 9:00 pm and made everyone do 100 laps off the school grounds the next morning, including Shakma. Mahmood told me that he still gives sheepish looks to Shakma who looks away in anger, unable to do anything but knowing that it was Mahmood and his friends who had stolen his food.
There were other stories and we chuckled late into the night. A game of chess however was always a must before we went off to bed. Since we had been taught how to play, we had spent many hours on the weekends sitting around the chessboard, battling it out till late night.
Chess known as Shatranj in Urdu was played more in the rural areas than in the cities of Pakistan when Abba was growing up. But it was a popular game nonetheless. Abba had played a lot of Shatranj in his youth when he had started his first job. His love for the game was immense and he hoped to pass it on to his sons. I still remember him sitting in his study, the chess board in front of him, telling us about chess.
"It teaches you how to assess, how to make decisions. It makes you think about what lies ahead, gives you endurance, helps you with problem solving. The discipline, the patience... anything to do with life, you can get it in that game".
He had been successful in convincing us about the merits of the game and both of us loved to play. Mahmood and I pulled out the chessboard, a heavy piece of wood that one of Abba's friends had gifted him when he came back from Zambia. Even the chess pieces were in the form of Zambian tribesman, the king wearing the top hat of a chieftain, the queen identified by the large round necklaces and the pawns shaped like tribal warriors. Abba had taught us how to open in chess and we had caught on fast. Mahmood always lets me make the first move. But so good was Mahmood that he also always made the last move, checkmating my king no matter what I did. Maybe that was my folly. Maybe I should have let him move first, see where he was going, reconnaissance, reconnoiter and then release my forces. But I know he was a better chess player than me. Every time I thought I got his queen, his rook checkmated my king. Every time I made my rooks come out so that they could wipe Mahmood's forces dry, his horses cornered and checkmated my king. In this particular game, he had struck early, taking my Queen. Knowing that it was hard to recover from such a loss, I was determined to go down fighting but I still ended up losing quite badly.
The two weeks we spent playing chess made me aware of a connection between us that I hadn't felt in a long time. Maybe distance does make the heart grow fonder. A bond, a brotherly bond, a bond of childhood affection had grown stronger. I look at Mahmood's face while we were playing. Yes, he had grown older, a little different. But he was still my brother. We had a hundred teenage adventures, played many hours of cricket on the streets and hundreds of hours of chess in the room and the bond had just grown stronger and stronger.