Part III - My Adolescence Memoirs - Larkana in 1970s

Part III

Being a younger sibling I was completely copy-cat of Munir, my elder brother. While he was brimming with confidence I was a very shy and lacked confidence, on the contrary. Whatever venture he would attempt I copied and tried the same, with less passion and skill though. From swimming to watching movies, from exercising /jogging and body building to playing cricket, and from acquiring reading habits of Sindhi literature to Urdu stories, digests and novels I poked my nose into everything and everywhere. Since Sindhi literature was not my cup of tea, therefore I spent little time on it whereas I tried my level best for the rest of the stuff. Nevertheless, I excelled in kite flying where Munir was a mere novice one. We both had read almost entire lot of books at Sultan’s Library numbering in nearly 500. Sultan didn’t charge us the book reading rent after some time, and in return we both managed to run his library in our spare time.

In our spare time (we had all the time in the world) we used to sit on the hardware shop located at the mouth of our street. The shop was selling paints, glass, nails, screws, nuts and bolts etc. The owner had full trusted in us and he would often leave his shop in the sweltering hot afternoons to dozing at his home while we ran the shop as salesmen. Interestingly, the top of the line Robbialac (Berger, now) Paint Container weighing 1 gallon (or nearly 5 kg) was priced at 49 Rupees while SPD Paint (the 2^nd best category) Container was available at 25 Rupees.

It was a time everyone used to be called by their nicknames or distorted and broken names, like I was called in the street as Ijjoo (distortion of Aijaz), my elder brother as Munnu (Munir). Other such names in our street were; Manda (a boy who limped named Aslam), Gullri (Rehmat Gull), Gheeta (Zaheer), Wadero (Aslam), Rachhoo (Waqas!), Mukhra (Mukhtiar), Golai (Rehmatullah), Deno (Salahuddin), Lubbi (another Salahuddin), Balloo (Iqbal), Kuro Kuro (Aslam Kathiawari), Jugnu (Karamullah), Diesel (Shabbir), Jhirki (Munir), Punhoo (Muhammad Hassan), two sets of brothers called: Waddo (big; Atta-ur-Rahman and Hafeez) and Nandho (small; Ebad-ur-Rahman and Kalimullah) and so on. Mukhra’s elder brothers were Goldsmiths. They were wealthier and Mukhra had a habit of lifting/slipping some coins from his shop without his elders’ permission. With this ‘lifted’ coins we would enjoy hanging out eating and watching cinema etc.

During this time we used to wear shirts that had pockets underneath the collars too; on either side. We would hide coins in the collar pockets because they were safe from pick pocketing. Some boys would also put currency notes in them. In case of more coins we would push those into the narrow closed funnel like round space for shalwar (pajamas) belt (Azaar-bund) fastened around the waist.

All street boys would usually roam the city in nights particularly in the month of Ramadhan either aimlessly or playing a game. One particular game was “Rung Rung” (color color). After doing Taraveeh we would often begin playing this game. It was like making two groups consisting 4-5 boys each and one group would ask the other to find for them purple (or any other) color and then bring it to them. After that the first group would search for purple color i.e. any piece of pencil, paper, piece of cloth, thread having purple color. Once they get hold of it they would begin a massive hunt in the dark alleys and closed city bazaars for the other group members. On capturing them they would show the purple color to them. The game ends. Now the other group will declare its color. Normally, this went on till Sahar (fasting) time when we retired to our respective homes.

During one such occasion when we two brothers returned home we found our father in waiting and in absolute furious mood over our wasting the whole night instead of studying our books. He tied our hands and feet with Azaar-bunds and left us crying with pain on the floor till our mother came to our rescue.

Punhoo, my friend, just lived across the street. His father Nabi Bakhsh ran a shop selling coal and firewood that was attached to rear side of our house. Punhoo was a special kid of our street because he used to attend one of two English medium schools in the city while rest of us, went to Sindhi/Urdu schools till class five. Punhoo and I had a couple of things in common; we used to watch action English films (without understanding dialogues) and then narrated stories to each other based on our visual comprehension. Punhoo had a quality of narrating in a dramatic way as if he was watching the movie at that moment. Besides, almost every sweltering afternoon in sizzling summer, he would walk to a bus / taxi stand, trap a foreigner tourist and bring them at his house for gossip over a cup of tea. I would usually join them and then we would begin a chat with the European and Caucasian tourists in broken (Tooti Phooti) English. We would resort to asking text book questions: What is your name? What is your country?  What is your father? Do you like our culture, food, and people? Did you like Mohen Jo Daro? Did you like Pakistan? When did you come here? When will you return to your country? Can you give us some gifts? Our vocabulary would not last long, therefore, much of the time the tourists would talk.

 

Once, Punhoo went to Jodhpur, India for a couple of months to meeting his relatives. On return, I grabbed his arm, forced him to sit on the doorstep of our house and asked him to narrate all film stories of about 60 Indian movies that he had watched in Jodhpur, starting from the fighting movies. While sitting with him listening to loud action packed narration, my young sisters also enjoyed listening to Punhoo from inside of the house. This story-telling went on for many days. Continued…..