Free Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa

every two or three years. The tribesmen’s broad, bared backsides are much paler, and splotched with red, and strong dark hair grows down their backs. In place of mugs there are small mounds of stone and scraps of newspaper and Imam Din sniffs: “What manner of people are these who don’t clean their arses with water?”
    A particularly pale bottom arrests Imam Din’s attention. The skin is pink, still fresh and tingling from cold mountain winds.
    â€œSo. We have a new Pathan in town!” he muses aloud.
    At that moment the mountain man turns his head. He does not like the expression on our faces. Full of fury he snarls and spits at us.

    â€œWelcome to Lahore, brother,” Imam Din calls.
    Months later I recognize the face when I see Sharbat Khan, still touchy and bewildered, bent intently over his whirring machine as he sharpens knives in the Mozang Chawk bazaar.
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    The sun is up, dispelling the mist. Filthy with dust, exhausted, we roll into Wagah, a village halfway to Amritsar. We have covered sixteen miles. I’ve stopped talking. Imam Din is breathing so hard I’m afraid he really will have a heart attack. He pedals slowly down the rutted bazaar lane and, letting the cycle tilt to one side, stops at a tea stall.
    After a breakfast of fried parathas and eggs we get a ride atop a stack of hay in a bullock-cart. Imam Din stretches an arm across his bicycle, and lulled by the creaking rhythm of wooden wheels, we fall asleep. Two miles short of Pir Pindo the cart driver prods us awake with his whip.
    We rattle along a path running between irrigation ditches and mustard fields. As we cut through a cornfield a small boy, followed by three barking dogs, hurtles out of the deepening light gathered in the stalks. He chases us, shouting, “Oye! Who are you? Oye! What’re you up to? Oye! Corn thief! Corn thief!”
    The cycle wobbles dangerously. Cursing, Imam Din kicks out. A ribby pup yelps and backs away. Imam Din roars: “Oye, turd of Dost Mohammad! Don’t you recognize your great-grandfather?”
    Ranna stops short, peering at us out of small, wide-set eyes. He bends to scrape some clay from the track and throws it at the dogs, shooing them away. He approaches us gingerly, awkwardly. He is a little taller than me. His skin is almost black in the dusk. He already has small muscles on his arms and shoulders. A well-proportioned body. But what attracts me most is his belly button. It protrudes an inch from his stomach, like a truncated and cheeky finger. (Later, when he sees me walk, I can tell he is equally taken by my limp.)
    As soon as Ranna is within range Imam Din ministers two quick spanks to his head; and, the punishment dispensed, introduces us. “Say salaam to your guest, oye, mannerless fellow!”

    Ranna stares at me, his mouth slack. His teeth are very white, and a little crowded in front.
    â€œHaven’t you seen a city girl before?” Imam Din raps Ranna’s head lightly. Ranna flinches. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt, oye? Shameless bugger... Go tell your mother we are here. We want supper. Tell Dost Mohammad we’re here.” Both Dost Mohammad and Chidda are Imam Din’s grandchildren. Muslim communities like to keep their girls in the family; so marriages between first cousins are common.
    Ranna appears to fly in his skimpy drawers, the pale soles of his feet kicking up dust as he dissolves down the path.
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    In Ranna’s village we dwell close to the earth. Sitting on the floor we eat off clay plates, with our fingers, and sleep on mats spread on the ground, breathing the earth’s odor.
    The next morning Ranna and I romp in the fields, and Ranna, fascinated, copies my limp. I know, then, that like Papoo, he really cares for me. I let him limp without comment. In return, he shows me how to mold a replica of his village with dung. And, looking generously and intently into my eyes, he permits me to feel his belly