The year was 1992 or 1993 and Benazir was in power. To oppose her government the opposition parties had made what was known as the C.O.P (Combined Opposition Party)…It included MQM, Jamaat-e-Islami, PML-Nawaz and couple of others which I don’t remember…
As member of the APMSO, the student wing of MQM, our branch of the college APMSO along with thousands of other volunteers were settled in Islamia college in PECHS…
The dress code was blue jeans and a white shirt, but me being me, wore a white malmal ka kurta on jeans instead…
In the night, groups were formed of about a dozen guys each with one group leader, each was given a pass with a passport photo which we hung on our necks and in the night went about cordoning the streets in preparation for the upcoming Jalsa which was three days hence…
So me and these few other guys went about at night laying barbed wire across the entrances to the Gullis which ran along the Islamia college…Each person was given a street to guard and each had to let the inhabitants of the Mohalla in by moving the barbed wire and letting their car through…I thought people might get ticked off about it, but they were all very accomodating…
I was lucky in the sense that the Gulli that I was guarding, had a house with a tree whose branches overhung the footpath underneath which was a small Chabootra…So I just sat there under the tree safe from the crackling heat of the midday sun while the other poor saps had to stand in the heat…
The Gulli which I was standing guard at had a pan ki dukan at the corner where I was stationed…Right across from me was another Gulli which was guarded by two Shalwar Qameez wearing MQM guys and judging from their demeanour, big moustaches and lack of IDs, I knew they were a little different from the rest of us students…Not to mention they were the only ones with chairs…
One of them came over and sat with me for a while…Found out they were from ‘90’ and were sent over to take care should any major problem arise…I felt sheepish and asked them if it was OK for me to be sitting and taking it easy…The guy said no problems and asked me if I smoked or ate pan…I told him I smoked, so he told me to go ahead and take whatever I needed from the panwalla in the corner…That day I smoked a lot of cigarettes…I asked the panwalla if he is going to be paid or am I taking a sort of Bhatta from him…He said don’t worry…Those guys are good…
Our duties were to be for five days as the Jalsa was supposed to last 2 or 3 days…
During my standing there on that corner, there was this Pagal woman with raggedy clothes and white disheveled hair that used to come by…She was small in height and thin and judging by her age would be no less than 50 or 60 years old…
I could tell there was psychological problem with her…But there was something about her, an aura which regular Pagal people of the streets don’t have…She carried herself with grace, even in the tattered condition that she was…She didn’t have that ‘Wahshipun’ or that crazed look that most Pagals of the streets have in their eyes…I gathered she lived in a house in the Gulli I was guarding because she would come every often and stand in front of the panwallas shop…She would look at me every so often and smile and I would return her smile…
On the second or third day she came and sat down on the chabootra that I sat on…I turned to look at her and she smiled to which I returned her smile…
I thought maybe I’d say something, maybe talk to her, but I feared that what if she went psycho on me? What if I said something to her that would trigger a psychotic episode in her and she’d start screaming and shouting and probably attack me…So I just stayed quiet and turned my head…
Then she said in a very soft voice, ‘Kia naam hai tumhara’? I was not startled by her talking to me, but the way her accent was…It was a very educated and cultured way of talking…I was expecting a gruff, crazed voice, but this Pagal of the streets sounded very gentle…
I hesitantly told her my name…She asked ‘Parhte ho?’ I replied yes
‘Kuch peenay kai liye laaun? Garmi bohat hai aur tum kaafi dair sai kharhay ho…’ I refused, fearing God knows what kind of utensils or what kind of water she might bring me…I refused her with a polite thanks…
Then she asked me, ‘Favourite subject konsa hai?’ I replied English…
She then asked me in an amazing English accent, the one which is a hallmark of well-bred, educated and cultured families in both India and Pakistan, ‘Really? Do you also speak it?’
The accent was not British or American, it was that peculiar accent that comes from studying in British convents under strict, disciplinarian teachers…
I was taken aback…I replied, yes I do…
‘And where did you learn to speak it, dearie?’ I told her I was educated in a British school in Germany…
‘That means you also speak German, right?’ I laughed and told her lack of practice makes it hard to keep up…
She replied, ‘Yes…Some things are hard to remember and some are hard to forget…’ She became quiet for a while after that…
Then she asked me out of the blue…‘Do you have a sweetie?’ I started laughing and told her yes, I do…‘What’s her name?’ I told her the name, which was actually the nick of my sweetie…‘That sounds very English…’
This was most interesting and intriguing for me…This lady, who by her accent alone seemed from a cultured bygone era, who spoke perfect English with a upper crust accent, would be roaming the streets with disheveled hair and dirty, soiled clothes…I had the greatest urge to engage her in a conversation, to slowly and gently with as much tact as possible, discover and uncover the secret behind this weird facade…Was she a Qalandari? She didn’t look the religious type…Was she someone who, like in the Indian movies, banged her head someplace and was overcome with lifelong amnesia only to roam the streets? Was she like a Maharani or Nawabzadi who had lost everything? The questions in my mind were endless…
But before I could ask her anything, she suddenly got a confused look on her face and walked away…Without saying a thing…I didn’t call after her…I knew she’d be back, she always stood at the corner near the Panwallas Dukan…I’ll next time she comes around, I’ll say Salam to her and engage her in conversation…Find out about her…
But she never came…It was my second last day, I thought she’d come back the next day…She didn’t…
The Jalsa had ended…We were all supposed to wrap up the barbed wire and head back towards Islamia college…I kept waiting for her, hoping she’d come and explain the enigma that she was…
I wrapped up my barbed wire, went over to the Panwalla to grab a cigarette…In the absence of anything to quench my inquisitiveness, I asked the only person I could get some answers from: The Panwalla…
He made her life story seem just blase…She was married to a wealthy man in India, had 2 sons and a daughter, both sons abandoned her and daughter lives somewhere abroad and she stays with some relatives…The abandonement of her family left her shattered and that’s why she is the way she is…
That’s all…That’s all I could find out about her…
Now, who knows? Where is she? Is she alive? Dead? I never bothered to find out…
It’s strange I’d remember her after all these years…
1993 a critical moment in the history of the MQM ..it marked the beginning of the end of the 1980’s MQM.
and we were stuck in the middle.