Pir-E-Kamil: The Perfect Mentor (33 page)

He was not in the clothes he had on in the government hospital where he had first been taken. He was in other clothes and his body may also have been cleaned up with water, because his arms exposed from the half-sleeved shirt did not show any dirt or grit. His wrists were wrapped in bandages and his arms bore a lot of small marks. His arms and hands were swollen. He could imagine innumerable such marks on his face and other parts of his body. He felt that one of his eyes was also swollen and his jaws were also aching, but worst of all was his throat. There was a drip in his arm which was about to finish.

The doctor was the first to see him regain consciousness. He was not their family doctor; perhaps, he was some other doctor working with their family physician. He beckoned Sikandar towards him.

'Has he come to?' He saw Tayyaba, who was seated on a sofa, move towards him, but Sikandar remained motionless. The doctor checked Salar's pulse.

'How are you feeling now?'

Salar wanted to say something but his voice failed him. He could only open his mouth. The doctor repeated his question, but Salar shook his head negatively.

'Try speaking.' Perhaps, the doctor was already aware of the problem with his throat. Salar again shook his head. The doctor picked up a torchlike instrument from the tray that the nurse was holding.

'Open your mouth.' Salar parted his aching jaws. The doctor examined his throat for sometime and then switched off the torch.

'The throat needs to be thoroughly examined,' he said to Sikandar Usman, turning towards him. Then he pushed a writing pad and pen towards Salar. The nurse, by now, had removed the drip from his arm.

'Sit up and tell what's happened to your throat.' He did not have difficulty in sitting up. The nurse had put the pillow behind his back. He kept thinking, holding the pad in his hand.

'What happened to you - to your throat, your body, your brain?' He was unable to write anything. He kept looking at the pen held in his swollen fingers. He remembered what had happened to him. He remembered his screams which had rendered him unable to speak. 'What am I to write? That on a hill I was robbed and tied up, that for a few hours I was lowered into a grave to find the answers to my questions....What is next to ecstasy?'

He kept looking at the crisp white paper and then briefly jotted down what had occurred. The doctor, holding the pad, quickly went through the seven or eight sentences and pushed the pad towards Sikandar Usman.

'You should immediately contact the police so that the car can be retrieved. As it is, a lot of time has been lost. Heaven knows how far they've escaped with the car,' the doctor sympathetically advised Sikandar Usman, who glanced at the writing pad.

'Yes, I'll contact the police.' The two talked for some time about the check up of Salar's throat after which the doctor and the nurse left.

The moment they left, Sikandar Usman flung the writing pad at Salar's chest.

Keep this pack of lies to yourself! Do you think that I'll ever believe you? No, never.' Sikandar was infuriated. 'This may be your latest adventure, another suicide attempt.'

Salar wanted to say, 'For God's sake! It isn't true,' but he looked at him unable to speak.

'What am I to tell the doctor? That he is in the habit of creating such situations, that he was born to create such problems?' Salar had never seen Sikandar Usman so angry. Maybe, they were really fed up with him. Tayyaba stood by silently.

'Every year, there's a new drama, new trouble. What sin have we committed in having you?' Sikander Usman was convinced that this was some part of a new adventure. Salar's injuries could not be taken as proof of a dacoity, particularly, when there was no witness, as the boy had tried to take his own life four times in the past.

Salar recalled the story about 'crying wolf. Some tales are indeed true. His constant lying had cost him the confidence of others. Maybe, he had lost everything: respect in the eyes of others, self-confidence, pride, honor—he had reached the nadir in all.

'It was a long time since a new drama had been created, so you thought "Why deprive my parents? It was long since they had been embarrassed and humiliated—it was time to give them a fresh blow.'

'Sikandar, maybe what he's saying is correct. You should at least inform the police about the car,' Tayyaba said after reading the message on the pad.

'Do you think he is telling the truth? Has he ever told the truth? I don't believe even a word of his rubbish. This son of yours will have me hanged one day and you're telling me to go report to the police? Make a laughing stock of myself? He must have done something with the car too—maybe sold it to someone or disposed it off somewhere.'

Now, he was really abusing Salar, who had never been spoken to abusively before. Sikandar would only scold him but even so Salar would react vehemently. Of all the four brothers, he was the only one who could not even stand being reprimanded and Sikandar would be very cautious speaking to him, because he would over-react. But, today, Salar did not react even to his abuses.

He could understand how his father despaired of him. For the first time, sitting on the bed, he was trying to understand his parents' predicament. What had they not provided him? They had fulfilled his every wish without his having to utter a word. And what had he been giving them in return? What was he meting out to them now: mental anguish, worry, pain? Apart from him, none of his brothers or his sister had ever caused them problems. He was the only one who

'Someday, because of you, we both may have to commit suicide. You would then be at peace with yourself.'

Last night, tied up on that hill, for the first time he had longed for his parents. He realized for once how much he needed them, what would he do without them, who would worry for him except them. For once, Sikandar's words had not hurt his pride. He was always close to Sikandar and he quarreled the most with him too.

'I don't want to see your face again. I want to have you dumped back in the place about which you are lying.'

'Now stop it, Sikandar,' Tayyaba remonstrated.

'Why should I stop? Why doesn't he stop? Why doesn't he take pity on us and stop his antics? Has he been sent to make our lives hell on earth?' Sikander said with greater agitation.

'In a while, the police people who'd found him on the street will be here to record his statement, and he'd give them the cock and bull story that he, the innocent soul that he is, had been robbed. It would have been better if indeed he had been robbed and been thrown down the hill, so that my problems were over.'

Salar began to weep uncontrollably; he was crying with his hands clasped. Sikandar and Tayyaba were taken aback. For the first time, they were seeing him cry and that too with his hands clasped, as if pleading. What was he doing? What did he want? What was he saying? Sikandar Usman stood absolutely still; Tayyaba sat next to him on the bed and embracing him, tried to pat his back in consolation; and he, like a child, clung to her. Sikandar Usman, standing at the foot of the bed, suddenly felt that, perhaps, this time he was not lying, that indeed something might have happened to him. Clinging to Tayyaba, he was crying uncontrollably like a little child. Tayyaba, trying to console him, herself started to cry. Let alone small things, he had not shed tears over big issues too—so what had happened that his tears did not cease that day?

Standing there, Sikandar Usman had a change of heart. 'What if he was really tied up there all night ?'

He had been up all night waiting for Salar and fuming at him. He thought that he had again gone off gallivanting in the car to Lahore or some place else. He was getting anxious but he knew Salar's behavior and, so, was more angry than worried. He had gone to bed at about three in the morning when he was informed on the phone by the police.

Sikander Usman had gone to the hospital and found him in a very serious condition, but he was not prepared to believe that he was a victim of some incident. He knew that he would, from to time, inflict pain on himself. For a person who would cut his wrists, plunge his bike into oncoming traffic on a one-way street, take an overdose of sleeping pills, or tie himself up and jump backwards into the water, it was not difficult for him to get himself into such a state.

His body was swollen where the insects had bitten him. In places, his skin had turned purple. His feet were also badly injured. Similar was the state of his wrists, neck and back; and there were wounds on his jaws. In spite of all this, Sikander Usman was certain that this was his own doing.

Perhaps, even if Salar had been able to speak and convince him, he would never have been moved, but seeing him weep uncontrollably he had begun to believe that he was telling the truth.

He came out of the room and contacted the police on his mobile. An hour later, he came to know that a red sports car had been found and the two boys driving it had been taken into custody. This happened during a routine check for the car's papers and the police, suspecting at the boys' nervousness, nabbed them. They did not say from whom the car had been snatched; they had insisted that they found the car abandoned and took it for a joy ride. Since no FIR had been registered for the car, it was difficult to verify the boys' statement.

But shortly after filing the FIR, Sikander Usman had learnt about the recovery of the car, and now he was in real anxiety about Salar

Sikander and Tayyaba did not bring Salar home that night. He stayed at the hospital; by the next day, his body ache and swelling had considerably lessened. Around 11 in the morning, his parents came to take him home. Before that, two policemen had come and taken a long written statement from Salar about the events that befell him in Margalla.

Entering his room with his parents, Salar was embarrassed—for the first time—about the life-size posters of nude models plastered all over his windows. Tayyaba and Sikander had come into his room many times and the sight of those posters was neither new nor objectionable for them.

'Now rest. I have had fruit and juices kept in the fridge for you. Help yourself if you feel hungry or send for the servant—he'll serve you,' said Tayyaba.

Salar was on his bed. His parents stayed with him awhile and then drawing the window curtains shut, asked him to sleep and left the room. As soon as they had gone, Salar sat up. Then he locked the bedroom door and drew the curtains open. Swiftly, he began to pull down the posters, pictures, cut-outs, all that adorned his windows and walls. He piled them up and put them in the bath tub. When he switched on the bathroom light, he caught sight of his face in the mirror—swollen and bruised as he had expected it to be. He went back to the room where several pornographic magazines also lay around. He gathered them all up and dumped the lot in the bath tub. Then, one by one, he took the videos from the racks and began to pull out their tapes. In no time, his carpet was covered by a mangled heap of video tapes. He trashed the cases and scooping up the heap of tapes threw them into the bath tub too. Then picking up a lighter, he set the tapes alight. As the sparks turned into flames, the bathroom was filled with acrid smoke. He turned on the exhaust fan and opened the bathroom windows to clear the air. He was burning this heap of pornographic trash because he wanted safety from the flames of Hell that would embrace him. The fire was consuming the paper and plastic as though it had been created for the flames.

He stood watching the fire without even blinking as though he stood on the edge of hell. A night ago he had stood on the hill watching the lights of Islamabad below and thinking that it was the last night of his life and he would never see the Islamabad lights again. In that hysterical condition, he had been shouting at the top of his voice, 'Once more, just once more, give me a chance! Just one chance and I promise that I will turn away from sin and never look back again.'

He had been given the chance and now it was time for him to live up to his promise. The fire had reduced everything to ashes; as it smoldered and died down, Salar washed away all traces with the hosepipe.

As he turned towards the washbasin, Salar noted that though the gold chain around his neck had been snatched away, the platinum and diamond stud in his ear lobe was intact—they had not paid attention to that probably because his long hair had concealed it, or even if they had seen it they might have thought it worthless.

Salar took off the stud and put it on the counter. Then taking a pair of clippers from his shaving kit, he began to chop off his hair—mercilessly, heartlessly. The water from the running tap was draining away the cut hair. Then he began to shave his face. It was as if he wanted to remove all signs of his former self. Then he took off his clothes and unwrapped the bandages on his arms. He stepped under the shower—for one whole hour he washed every part of his body, reciting the kalima as he did so... as if he had been brought into the circle of Islam for the first time...as if he had become a Muslim for the first time.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he opened the fridge and took out an apple. Having eaten it he lay down to sleep. He awoke when the alarm he had set before sleeping rang out. It was two in the afternoon.

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'My God, Salar! What have you done to your hair?' Looking at him, Tayyaba forgot for a moment that he could not speak up. Salar pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and put it before her. It said 'I want to go to the market.'

'What do you need?' Tayyaba looked at in surprise. 'It's been a few hours since you got home from the hospital and you've not even recovered completely....and now you want to go roaming about again.' She reprimanded him gently.

'I want to go and buy some books. I'm not going gallivanting.' He wrote and passed the paper to her.

Tayyaba looked at him and replied, 'Very well; go with the driver.'

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It was past sunset when he stepped out into the market. The lights had come on, creating an ambience of color and life all around. He saw young people moving about, dressed in Western clothes, carefree, laughing, enjoying themselves. Among them, he felt—most unusually—the same sense of fear that he had experienced 48 hours ago in the Margallas. He too was one of these youngsters—laughing, joking, teasing girls, passing unsavory remarks. Head bowed and without caring to look anywhere, he entered the bookshop that lay ahead.