Free Tunnel Vision by Shandana Minhas Page A

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    So that ’ s what happened to our aged Mazda. We had been told the standard story of boys and balls.
    No one was supposed to live on the low hills that circled Hussain D ’ Silva town, but the number of lights winking in the darkness above us on a moonlit night had been steadily increasing for some time. Some of the Christian residents had begun to leave already, in some cases moving out of the country altogether.
    â€˜ You be careful of yourself, child. Don ’ t walk alone on the street anymore, you hear? These savages don ’ t respect anyone or anything, ’ kindly old Mrs Pereira had pinched my cheek as she spoke, ‘ and a young girl as pretty as you … well, never mind.Times are changing, is all I ’ m saying. ’
    The Pathans as a corrosive tide lapping hungrily at the edges of our town; there were others who subscribed to Mrs Pereira ’ s line of thought.

BURI NAZAR WALAY TERAY BACCHAY JIYAIN,
BARAY HO KAR TERA KHOON PIYAIN
    BACK OF BUS
    ~
    T he orderly in the St John ’ s ambulance was a Pathan. Zarin Khan, the nameplate read. He looked uncomfortable in the white trousers and the short-sleeved shirt, with the classic fairness of skin, high cheekbones and light eyes that make so many Pathans look like a movie version of Jesus. His eyes were kind. Despite my mother ’ s rabidity towards all things and people ‘ tribal ’ , I had known too many of ‘ them ’ after Abba disappeared to buy completely into her prejudice anymore. Sure, I blamed the Afghan Pashtun for bringing drugs and ammunition to Karachi, but I didn ’ t see a whole lot of other ethnicities marching beneath the peace banner either. Motorcycle murders, sociopathic law enforcers, the hathora gang, torture chambers, drilling through kneecaps, there had always been violence in the city. That was just the nature of the beast. And all those fossils who moaned about how ‘ things used to be different ’ and ‘ you know the water came all the way to the bridge ’ just couldn ’ t bend their tired minds around the thought of the town growing into the city. But that ’ s always been our attitude towards the maturing of something we loved. Stop it now! Control, that ’ s what it was all about.
    Zarin Khan settled himself back into a corner after fiddling with the collar placed around my neck for the journey. How appropriate. All I needed now was a leash, and I would be Saad ’ s faithful little mongrel bitch, just like Ammi said I was.
    Zarin left room for Adil to sit by me.
    â€˜ Ammi couldn ’ t come with you, her knees, ’ he explained helpfully to my closed eyes. ‘ She wanted to though, ’ he added.
    How sweet. Mummy ’ s little favourite comforting the underdog. But then Adil did display flashes of sensitivity every once in a while, perhaps gleaned from an adolescence spent mostly around women. Like Saad, whose extraordinary level of sensitivity (for an Asian man) became understandable once I realized just how much of a mummy ’ s boy he was. I ’ d never met his mother; Clue 7 to why we had that fight this morning. And indirectly, why I went head-first through my windshield. I hated her already.
    The ambulance came to a halt at a traffic light. I wished the driver would turn the siren off. It was giving me a headache and no driver moved aside for it anyway, not since those horns with fire, police and ambulance siren settings had started flooding the market. Adil looked pained and kept glancing out of the window as if willing the traffic that enveloped us to move. The FTC loomed through the windows on my right. I realized I was back at the scene of my accident. Was there still coloured glass left by the side of the road from my lights? The devil ’ s car lights? Dear Allah Mian, let me at least have done some superficial damage to his car. And what had happened to my car? Was it a candidate for the yearly safety