Children of Dust_ A Memoir of Pakistan - Ali Eteraz [33]
“Make sure that you rock back and forth as you read,” Qari Jamil said, extending his stick to pat my shoulder. “Rocking makes it easy.” I looked around and saw that all the other students were rocking quickly.
After I had spent a whole day on my assigned ruku, Qari Jamil called me up along with two other students. We started reciting simultaneously from disparate places in the Quran while he closed his eyes and listened. If any of us made a mistake, the qari simply stated the correction; then the talib, or student, reversed mid-sentence and carried on as before. Most students made at least a few errors each time. If a student persisted in the same error, however—or if there were too many errors sprinkled in a recitation—Qari Jamil sent the offending talib out of the group and back to his place. This wasn’t seen as particularly embarrassing, and Qari Jamil usually gave the student an opportunity to reclaim his spot later in the day. However, if the errors continued, it was likely that the student would be beaten. The severity of punishment depended on the qari’s mood, the student’s previous performance, and the student’s reputation for either laziness or diligence. Once a student got a bad reputation, beatings became progressively worse; and one’s reputation couldn’t be reclaimed except through an intervention by the student’s family.
I completed my first lesson without getting beaten.
15
Before I became a regular student at the madrassa, though I did occasionally play with Flim, I didn’t have any real friends. With so many of the boys from the mohalla in school, I had to play with girls. They particularly liked to play wedding. They took turns being bride, drafted me to be groom, sang songs in Siraiki and Punjabi and Balochi, fed me and my bride sweetmeats (which were really rocks), and saw off the happy couple with rose petals (which were really tiny pieces of cow dung). Sometimes I played house with a pair of girls named Bina and Samia and married both of them simultaneously. Up on the roof they lived in two separate “houses” that I constructed for them out of turned-over charpais covered with sheets, and I took turns spending time with each. This continued until I was caught by a stone-faced Pathan widow while running my hands over my wives’ bodies. Fearing that she would report me to Dada Abu, I regretfully gave up this activity.
At the madrassa I became friends with Marjan and Ittefaq. They were also part-timers. Marjan was mild and mellow—a short guy with a white topi. Ittefaq was aggressive and rambunctious—a taller guy in loose shalwar kameez. He was older than Marjan and me and was the leader of our little crew.
During school breaks and on Fridays we played cricket at the Old Hospital or looked for soccer games near the dusty roundabout.
Marjan told me that his older uncle had a spot in one of their family homes from which they could look into other people’s houses and see naked housewives. We did that for a little while, but the women were old.
One time we stole adult bicycles and scissor-kicked them—with our legs through the frame—all the way into the military part of town, turning back when some soldiers in a Jeep glared us away.
Another time just Ittefaq and I went for a long excursion in the afternoon on the dusty streets heading out of town. We passed withered, turbaned men walking with their bullocks; wooden carts tilted back from the vast amounts of weight on them; women in the bright-hued scarves that Gypsies wore. Eventually we came upon a clearing amidst a collection of dunes where a carnival was underway. There was a tent with freaks of nature which we wanted desperately to enter, but we were too afraid to go near because we’d heard there was a backward-footed churayl inside, and Dadi Ma had warned me against those. Beyond that tent there was a merry-go-round, a massive seesaw, and many stalls selling food. After wandering among those, we made our way to one of the main attractions at the festival.