Saturday, October 24, 2015

Drunk aur Darweshh!

Islamabad, the city that sleeps like a baby, after killing a 100 cats, each who killed a 100 rats, but failed to go on the pilgrimage, those who did, sleep tight in parliamentary lounges. Cleaned, dried and wrapped in the laundry.
The night was the dawn of freedom for the devil. Although, Aleem sort of fell short of hydration on this night, he could be no less lethargic. Now if an idiot all-alone, eats up the entire cuisine of fried things, its not going to give him body water.
Raz came to pick Aleem, on his modified Yamaha heavy bike that his elder brother once bought from Torkham border for 1 lakh, at the start of American war in early 2000s. Now after one and half decade, it makes the sound of a silencer affected by a bad choice of desi ghee. A pang went through aleem’s spine, in effort to balance himself at the back and to not cross the line of bromance and romance.
Zara had Celebration on this night. She had got accepted at Bahria University, with three Es. And tonight, a gazillion of selfies will get uploaded on her ‘open access’ instagram, from Margalla avenue,15-A  street 1. She has invited the few who had managed to keep their judgment of her to themselves or by stroke of luck, fail to reach her as yet.
Amad was, as of recent, romantically involved with Zara. But in light of(which was shed by Amad’s parents), Zara’s ‘religious sect’, her taste for learning and her prospective ability to snatch their son away and make converts of their grandchildren, Amad was made to break up with her right before the CIE results came online. Was Amad responsible for it? Or were his parents? The thing was, its all in the hate speech.  You listen to your parents and elders, talking about the cult of vicious women, who manipulate, burn, black magic, incinerate your holy innocent ace, and take it all the way to ‘hell’, away from your parents, in the end, you think ‘hell! She is a witch’.
But once Amad gets out of the sphere of his family, upon inquisition this is how he recalls:
‘How does your life feels like? Once there was someone, who said that she loves reading my manuscripts. Once there was someone who said that I have got words to express my feelings, while she can not. Once there was someone who thought of me as someone who would really make her happy.
I mean, I don’t know what to feel. I don’t have that someone in my life anymore.  Life is strange.’
 And anyone in his right mind, will never take this shell-shock, on a fun hangout! He is a block! Fun-block!
Now, this party was practically an ode to survival, for Zara. She might have not invited Amad but further showed her inconsiderate attitude and i-am-above-him mindset by inviting Aleem and Raz, close but baygairat friends aka chuddy buddies of Amad, who also happen to be ‘very-good-friends’ of her. These poor souls manage to keep up with an unbearable Amad and zealous but denial-stuck Zara.
This is a capital’s October, when the summer flirts with the winter and ends up with autumn. The nights are cold and the days are hot, quite like a desert paradox. So, on a bike and in his nike trousers,Raz was feeling cold at the speed of 60 km/hr. The thought of finding any drinks from stash of Zara’s dad, was the only hope, as the famous’ Shandy Bass’ was off market shelves since 3 months.
Thing about the Margalla avenue is that it’s the best kept secret of party places in the capital. The only way to distinguish one is by finding a bunch of cars parked together. Zara’s house was in an adjacent lane, once you enter, there was a smell of lavender in the air, the place was dark due to presence of unrepaired street lamps, but compensated by presence of a guards sitting outside each house in front them, in a dead end street.  Five vehicles were parallel parked on the grassy patch next to the side walk. Raz turned his bike infront of black A4 audi, Mian Waheed’s car, their classmate whose dad is recently fighting the local election.
Dim neon bulbs had illuminated the car park, of house that was designed to look like a back porch and lawn from the entrance. Waheed in his white shalwar kameez and a black waist coat, was doing a great job reflecting his father. He was standing next to Shiza, Zara’s BFF, trying to explain how Islamabad is capital that has status of a province, inhabited by citizen’s who do not have the rights of living in a city! And how his dad is planning to end this disparity after winning the election. Shiza was more concerned with Waheed’s commitment to her than his father’s to the union councils.
Raz and Aleem, got greeted by the couple once they got noticed. They proceeded to the house, to find the rest settled in different corners with the element of their amusement, Raz had to find his. This was a place where one can finds black label and he liked what he saw. Kemistry lab ki flat bottom flask ki tarha dekhnay wali nay Kemistry ka A lagwa diya tha.  He was one who believed more in drowning the fear of failure then finding a way to increasing his heart rate blurring it with smoke. This bottle in the kitchen was next to two girls, Zara and Ayla, Zara’s neighbour and O-levels’ classmate who left school due to the fact that her parents believed that she has more chances of getting into medical school with Fsc.
Lamenting over her lack of recognizing a lost cause, the two were connecting with an anecdote cum love flick from bollywood and how Amad can still learn from it. They saw Raz enter the kitchen, overhearing their conversation.
‘Apparently 20 year old lads want to know the girl’s name, 25 year old guys want to know who is her dad and 30 year old men want to know the mother in law… and the 45 year old uncles…. Well they just want attention!’, Raz tried to say in his pre-drunk-wise-man style, sounding a bit arrogant, ‘ Don’t be too surprised with what men choose to do.’
He grabbed a glass and had some poured into it by Ayla. They moved off to TV lounge, a much more fascinating side, with leather sofas and LCD running the popular G channel, as somebody wanted to know about the development of byelection, which was most probably Waheed. The next thing they do is start taking shots of a foreign vodka. With half hour of camera work and no order made  for food, the bunch seem as CID team at a crime scene. Apparent no selfies were to be made tonight from 15-A. No one cared to come either. Half of the class was out of the capital to LUMS, GIKI or IBA, or the rest waiting to fly off to America or England, unlike Raz, none on this list were bothered to get drunk. Those who could come, were out of Zara’s list for gossiping on her recent breakup.
Aleem felt like a darwessh, he could see Zara’s mature aura. To him she has grown up. She looked up and smile at him. In that moment, he realized why he had fallen for her long ago. Left at home by his retired general of a father, who also left his wife long ago and found solace in becoming a muslin evangelist. Now Aleem was left with nothing else but follow his father’s footsteps, getting into EME college. Whereas, he did not believe in love nor wish to get involve in such manner. His unshaven face had nothing to do with religion. Aleem has grown up too.
This, party of the lost generation came to an end on fine twilight. Some rode, some drove, back to the land of the frustrated… the university.
p.s. as an old line from a friend's debate goes by… rul tey gaye ah, par chas bari ayi ah!

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