The Family Man

Our office has a doctor assigned to take care of our medical needs and expenses.

This benefit is not extended to our children or wives. So, whenever my wife gets unwell, just to save on expenditure, I pretend that her symptoms are mine and get everything covered by the doctor for free.

Ten or maybe twelve days of treatment went by when the doctor told me that after much contemplation he had come to the conclusion that I was pregnant ... yet, he said, I don't need to worry because pregnancy of ten to fifteen days can be easily gotten rid of.

Merrily I went back home and thought that now that my wife is pregnant, I would soon become a father. Then, exactly after eight months, when instead of my wife I gave birth to a most beautiful boy, the office doctor said that “It would have been better if you had gotten rid of this pregnancy”.

Translated by Romana Brohi

What's in the name

I was not Mehman Nawaz. It’s just that my name was Ali Nawaz. In my childhood, when I was first told that I am Mehman Nawaz, I was surly surprised, but I did not change my name. From childhood till class six, I was repeatedly told that I am Mehman Nawaz but I did not change my name. In Matric, when my highly respected neighbors emphasized that “you are Mehman Nawaz”, I changed my name to Mehman Nawaz … and then they started sending the guests over to me.

I made my guests welcome. I made them sit on my eyes; I made them sit on my head. When more came, I slid outside into the yard. When I saw more guests coming, I went outside and stood on the footpath. Today I am on the streets and via newspaper, I announce to one and all that I hereby revert my name from Mehman Nawaz to Ali Nawaz and from today onwards no one is to call me by the name of Mehman Nawaz.

Translated by

Romana Brohi

Zinda hoon is turhan ke...

Baba was ‘an open-air singer’: He would sing loudly, where other people would hum and be shy: Music and songs were his first passion. He had the most amazing voice, loud, clear, musically sound and full of pathos. His favorites were the songs from the movies Anokhi Ada, Humari Yaad Aai Gee, Merra Naam Joker, Awara etc. A lot of KL Saigal’s, Mukesh’s, Surendar’s and other older singar’s songs were always on his lips. Music was his language; his depression was raat undheree dur suwera...; his hope was ek bungla bune nyara; his anger was sujun re jhoot mut bolo; his lullaby was so jaa rajkumari so ja; and his welcome was tu aa gai ... 

Baba wanted us to learn to sing too, and usually would make us sing after him. Once he wanted the three of us to learn arre wah yahan to luga hai ye mela and got a non serious response from the youngest of us. This made him so mad that he gave us a talk on the importance of understanding music. The joke that my sister made was really funny and we could not stop laughing even though we were scared of his anger. Giggles were hard to hide and this made him madder, ending in his calling us unsophisticated donkeys.

I remember him singing loudly and us and our cousins following him as if he were a piped piper. He would jump over the sofas and tables and we would follow him in a line. Often, he would open the outer door and go out to the maidain and Eid Gah… singing and dancing. We were his biggest fans in those days. Later on, I came to know that one of his sisters and many of his female cousins were also his fans. I don't remember him refusing any requests of the songs he knew; in fact he seeked audience. 

In seventies, in his dismal days, he brought home a banjo. He invited all of us to play it but being the most obedient one only I tried… discovering that I was quite tone-deaf. Baba however got a few tunes right and next there was a harmonium sitting at home.  His love for harmonium stayed with him for the rest of his life. He sent his last harmonium to be fixed at a shop but could not get it back; all thanks to on of his sincerely insincere friend. 

Recalled by Romana Shaikh (Brohi)

Paapi (about Haleem)

Paapi

‘Our house is infested by females’, as per Baba. ‘House is infested by bugs, bees and lizards’, as per us. Mummy fought to keep the house as clean as she could. An occasional sighting of a mini or a mega cockroach could be handled by hitting it with full force with a tinkai walla jharoo.

We rarely bothered Baba with these issues. But a random sighting of a bug as beautiful as a moth would have all of us running around like headless chickens: same was true about wasps that were a plenty in our Jamshoro place. On such occasions, Mummy would sit expressionless and mum. Baba would try to ignore the four of us for the longest time and only on our persistent cries for help would he budge and try to show the bug a way out. Baba obviously detested this task but he would do it so that sanity would prevail again.

Ours was a quiet house - only girls, all students, and a mother and a father engrossed in teaching and writing respectively. In such a house, entry of a creature that had to be killed by Baba used to bring on an upheaval. We would be traumatized and Baba would grudgingly squash the bug with our instructions about how to go about it. On such occasions, he would revert back to the language of his childhood and call us paapi. In our trauma on encounter with the bug, we would start laughing at Baba’s constant grumbling about our paap.

To date, right after taking care of a bug, I loudly call myself paapi.

Romana Shaikh (Brohi) 

Palmistry and Face-Reading (about Haleem)

Baba kept skipping between astrology, palmistry and face-reading. Young people are anxious about future and so were we when we were young, but Baba was an exception. He always stayed anxious about his future. In his idle times, he would smoke, drink tea and be lost in his thoughts or look at his palms: either past or future captivated him as his present was always unacceptable for him.

His astrology was what we engaged in the most. He needed us to look at his ephemeris and find out planetary positions on particular dates and times but palmistry was his secret which he never taught us directly.

Books on palmistry and face reading appeared in the house out of nowhere. I read a few books and tried my novice expertise on my friends in the college so I thought I shall discuss it with Baba. I caught him sitting one day and asked him about the impact of a type of life-line on a person. Baba looked at the life-lines and replied “These are formed because a person holds lottas in bathroom with his hands.” I was so disgusted that I never again tried to learn palmistry from him.

Learning about face-reading also invoked similar responses from him and so though we discussed it whenever he wanted to, I never asked him any serious questions about it. I felt that his astrological predictions were mostly combinations of a person’s face reading and his birth chart.

Astrology stayed his passion for life as he did not know his own birth date or time of birth and continued making his own charts till the very end. My sister face-read Baba's face and shared with me that he would stay unchanged throughout his life: holding on to his imagination like a child. She took on his legacy and became a face reader for a long time… and Baba stayed the same.

Baba’s handmade astrological charts still appear out of nowhere to break our hearts all over again. 

Romana Shaikh (Brohi)

From Astronomy to Astrology (about Haleem)

In those days there was no load shedding. However, most of the evening there was no electricity due to one fault or the other. We would sit in the sahan and look at the stars: that was mostly Baba and I. Mummy used to spend her time sorting out the problems of household and three younger children who were not that interested in stargazing.

Mummy taught geography and therefore we used to have a large Readers Digest Atlas at home.. This Atlas has maps of constellations with the fascinating names that are given to the stars. In the dark nights, Baba and I would stargaze for long hours and try to find out the constellations that we were familiar with. When there would be light again, we would divert back to the Atlas and pat ourselves on the back on our findings. This was astronomy for us: till Baba and I gazed at the outer space on our visit to Washington, some eight years later: we were unable to make much sense out of what we saw.

Like all other friends of Baba, Chach Ahad Jan entered our lives and became a household name in our lives till he too fell out of Baba’s favor. He was into Astrology so he converted Baba’s passion of astronomy into that of Astrology and I became his horoscope drafter. Baba stayed a diehard astrologer all his life and passed on his passion to one of his child: that is not me.

Romana Shaikh (Brohi)

Anecdote from life with Abdul Haleem Brohi

Anecdote from life with Abdul Haleem Brohi

On a day like any other, we the girls were all busy studying as if that was what we were created for. Mummy came inside the room and told me to make two cups of tea and give them to Baba who was sitting in the drawing room with his ‘friend’. Willy nilly, I made the tea and knocked on the drawing room door. The door was open leaving me partial view of the insides. Baba came to the door, said “Thank you ma.” and took the tray back in the room. By default, I saw the profile of the guest as I turned towards the kitchen. The glimpse of the guest piqued my curiosity and I ran to mummy to ask her about Baba’s guest.

The profile of the guest was beautiful: Fair in color, chiseled jaw line and short, graying but well trimmed hair. I was so impressed by the sight that I believed my famously infamous father had a foreigner woman interviewing him. So, confident about this new happening in our life, I admired my modern Ma who was so undisturbed by all this interaction going on in the drawing room.

Mummy was not amused at my question, “Who is Baba sitting with?” Her reply was just a name, “Zaffer Ali Shah”.

I went back to my studies and that was that.

Recalled by Romana Shaikh (Brohi)