Dial S for Sherlock
By Abdul Haleem Brohi
The Land
Sherlock said: “Pray hold my little finger if you don’t want
to lose yourself to get yourself to get lost. I am not clear to myself, but I
hope you get me. People here have a habit of getting lost and later discovered
as murdered! I don’t know what pleasure they get out of it! I for one would
prefer to be the one who does the murdering!”
“ In this Islamic State of Pakistan you are not supposed to
be seen in the company of a woman other than your wife as four wives is
considered enough of fire-works for a man to cope with. But enough is enough,
and be content with that."
The Association
The building was known as the Association. The President of
the WTDA was a jolly good fellow which no one in the Association could deny in
his presence, and was armed to the teeth of other. Modest and docile while at
home where he kept to his room to avoid getting grounded under the feet of his
wife, he gave it all out in full blast at the Association.
“I don’t get these law enforcing species, Mr. Holmes.” He
said violently, “They are after me and my likes. Do I look that ugly? Do I look
that bad? They are after my blood as if they have to settle a score with me!
What score is there to be settled, Mr. Holmes? This is what you will have to
find out for us poor Ts and Ds, Ts for terrorists and Ds for Dacoits, What have
we poor Ds and Ts done to be hunted like this?”
“This Association is the only place where we Ts and Ds gather to get solace, and the law enforcing species are bent upon breaking this Association! You, Mr. Holmes, will have to find out why this is being done to us, how they intend to go about it and, finally, when do they intend to do it. The three questions are the ones that every scientist asks himself when he gets about doing some research. Thai is what Einstein did and discovered a whole set of new dimensions now freely available at affordable prices in Baara Bazaars of Rawalpindi and Peshawar!”
“The law enforcing species are not doing the job they ought
to be doing. They know in this Islamic State no man is to be seen in the
company of a woman other than his wife, but they are not arresting me or my
wife, for that! Merely because myself and my wife have been living together for
thirty years and have become parents of a few dozen children does not prove
that we have been married. Where is the Nikahnama!”
“Millions and millions of people are living in this very city without a Nikahnama affixed on their doors, and the law enforcing species take all of them for married couples only because they have been living like married couples! And only because they have littered their houses with their begotten children! What the hell! Not a single person from any of the law enforcing species has knocked on our door to ask for Nikhanama. … has a Islamic State! And you call it an Islamic State! How dare you call it a Islamic State? And that also in my presence!”
“I will see what I can do,” Sherlock said, “And I have
already located the mischief that Saturn is up to in Aquarius which happens to
be your third house, that is, the house of your near and dear ones, provided
you are Sagittarius, which I doubt as the Sagittarians are supposed to be mild
mannered, humble, docile, and as a rule are endowed with a tendency to keep mum
even in the most adverse situations.”
“You should see me in my house, Mr. Holmes,” Said the President, “you will discover a perfect Sagittarius in me in my house specially when my mother-in-law is also around.”
The Residential Area
“Yes Watson,” Sherlock said, pointing at the rows and rows of the houses, “None of these has a Nikahnama displayed on their doors. The Islamic State of Pakistan takes it for granted that couples living in the houses must be married only because the neighbors or relatives have known them to be so married! Having` a few children, however grown up , and living together for say thirty or forty years does not prove a couple married unless there is a Nikahnama displayed on the door.
“The President of the WTDA has correctly pointed out a flaw in the working of the law enforcing species. Why, Watson, I myself have never been questioned on that count in London! Every neighbor takes myself and Mrs. Holmes as a married couple only because they think they know us for a married couple since centuries! And you call London an Islamic City! How dare you? And that too in my presence!”
The other Association
The building was known as the Association, and the President
of Professional Women’s Association strangely though, was a woman.
“No, Mr. Holmes,” said the President who, strangely though,
had a woman’s voice, “And by no, Mr. Holmes, I mean yes. My worthy mother
taught me to counter every man with a no and to shift to yes through a perhaps
and a probably. I have heard of the other Association, but only heard, not
understood. That is the way we women are made, God being a male and all that
male chauvinism which we hear and talk about but fail to understand as that is
the way God made us, God being a male and all that male chauvinism. We have
worries of our own to bother about.”
“My husband is a Leo with Capricorn rising. With Jupiter in Virgo, his second house, he is getting all the money that he can collect with his hands from my handbag. He is my twelfth house as I am Virgo with my salary rising every year. We have nothing to do with that other Association of Ts and Ds. Good day, Mr. Holmes, and good day, Mr. er?”
“Watson.” I said. She smiled and I swooned away out of the
building.
“Imagine, Watson,” Sherlock said, “The husband she was
talking about belongs to her twelfth house! When a woman speaks of a second
house or a third one, I start wondering about Mrs. Holmes. Astrology
accommodates every person, woman as well as man, with twelve houses, and every house
presupposes a husband and a wife, I wonder who are the eleven others! Please remind
me of that in London so that I may investigate what may turn out to be the
greatest adventure of my career as a sleuth. We will call that case the
Mysterious Eleven Others of Mrs. Holmes.”
... to be continued
PS 1: I have reproduced this article as I found it in my father's belongings. This was written and published in some newspaper in early nineties. But I have no source to confirm this. My sole purpose of reproducing it here is to preserve it in electronic form as my father would have wanted it.
PS 2: No change has been made to the original text, hence a missing word. The continuation would be posted soon.
Excellent piece.
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