wtaf_babygirl

twenty four, twenty five, twenty six.

you put a stop to your counting as you hop off the final stair, onto the tarmac of the road.

looking back into the cramped stairway, you call out,

'yumna, kidhar reh gayi tu? jaldi chal, warna zohra bibi saara dukaan sar par utha legi'

'aa gayi, chal ab, arrey kya ho gaya?'

you do not answer, in fact yumna's sure you haven't heard her at all when she follows your gaze and her eyes finally take in what you have been gaping at.

your little brother, zaid, aged 13, having jalebis with literal gangsters, namely, the younger brother of rehman dakait and his friends, even worse, skipping school.

you had woken him up at 6 in the morning, asked him to get dressed and go to school. in your defense, you had also given him some money and permitted him to have something nice to eat on his way back home, which was something you did quite often to bribe him just to get him to go to school. for the past few weeks, he had shown much less reluctance in getting up. you had started to believe that perhaps, the idea of going to school had grown on him.

there were reasons as to why you were so adamant that he attend school. you wished for him to have a life outside of lyari, for him to get a decent job when he grew up, wanted him away from the bloodshed, away from the dirt of the streets of lyari. you knew it was a bit far-fetched, thinking that he would never be coming across all that mess, when it was impossible to stay away from the ever-lasting feud between the balochis and the pathans, especially when they made it their mission to drag as many people as possible into it, made sure the buildings in cheel chowk were witnesses to it, made sure that one would think about it while deciding which shop to buy flour from, lest one doesn't enter into the shop in the area controlled by the rival. still you had wished it, and tried to make your wish come true all that you could.

of course, you should have figured it out sooner. but you had been quite busy in the shop, along with yumna and the others, as it was wedding season and there were orders for lehengas, shararas, and what not flowing in from all sides. zohra bibi, the senior-most seamstress, was quite strict about the dates, obviously she was, as a professional she knew better than to dissapoint her clients, that is how she had kept the business going for decades. and the girls knew better than to work late hours and risk having to walk the streets at night, so you all had collectively decide to reach the shop early and get as much stitching and altering done as possible. hence, you and yumna, who shared the flat with you and zaid, and had become your closest confidante would wake up early, and leave, trusting zaid to walk to school with the couple of other boys from the street. now that most of the work was done, you and yumna, had decided to revert back to old timings, safe to say zaid wasn't aware of it.

and now you see red. storming over to the shop, you grab zaid by the wrist. the look on his face you don't care to notice.

'assalam-u-alaikum bhab-' uzair begins, but you beat him to it with a glare. you do not want anyone even saying anything to you right now, forget being called 'bhabhi' in association with a person who keeps finding reasons to disappoint you.

and who might this person be? siyahi.

he had always found a way to hurt you, hadn't he?

'zaid, yahi sikhaya hai na maine tujhe? mujh se bhi jhoot bolne laga tu?'

'maaf kar de aapa, wo mai-'

'hairat ki baat to ye hai ki hame kisi aur ne bataya bhi nahi ki hamaare peeth peeche kya chal raha hai. tu isliye subah khud jaldi uth raha tha na aaj kal? meri hi galti hai jo maine tujh pe bharosa karliya. aaj se tu sirf padhai karega. chal ab, dukaan jaane mai bhi der karwadi hai tune.'

just when you reach the stairway, you look back when you hear yumna speaking, telling you to calm down, but your eyes lock with siyahi's instead. he has a pleading look in them, and for a moment you want to go up and kiss the birthmark on his face, tell him it is alright, that you forgive him for everything.

but you've become quite good at starving yourself of things you want. and so, you adjust the dupatta on your head and turn away.

you and siyahi went long back, if there was a you and him anymore.

(there is. atleast in your heart, there will always be a you and him.)

back in balochistan, you were just kids, living in the workers' colonies. you had always been fond of embroidery, when you weren't reading, you were working on a handkerchief or a dupatta. sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, you were always ready to argue with the elders. albeit all conversations about your future were carried out through the unfortunately typical lens of misogyny, your parents had agreed, perhaps just to cajole a child's heart, that you would be allowed to start something of your own someday.

you must've been 12 then.

on a dusty afternoon, so typical of kalat, you were sitting on the floor, behind a cot in the courtyard, trying to decipher the words of a book you found lying somewhere in the storage rooms, ignoring the constant bickering of the boys, before someone could call you inside to help with the household chores, when a football flew straight over the large space and wacked you on the head, as if it couldn't have found anyone else to give a hard time to.

the entire world felt like it was spinning rapidly, and the harsh glare of the sun made it difficult to open one's eyes, but once you did, you were met with the sight of a herd of boys looking sheepishly at you, all of whom you recognized. they were murmuring among themselves, and if you didn't feel like someone was using a hammer on your head, you would've stood up and smacked all of them like they deserved.

you could now see your mother and aunt approaching, inquiring about what had happened. the boys started to disperse, and your mom and aunt helped you stand up, the former soothing the growing bump on your head with her touch. as you trudged to the house with them, you caught a glimpse of a boy still standing on the edges of the courtyard, hesitating to go back, while the rest of the boys had already returned to their precious game.

so this was your guy. he must have been the one who kicked the ball. you filed his face away in the throes of your mind, though you doubt you could forget it, his face had marks on it just like the moon did. comparing his face to something as permanent as the moon would make sure it never slipped out of your mind, right? ....

then, on another similarly dusty, hot afternoon, the fates gave you a chance to take your revenge.

you had climbed up a pomegranate tree, one of the many that were grown in kalat. these weren't huge trees, just small ones, but a child like you could easily climb them, though it would often end in slightly scratched clothes, not like you could care too much. the bunch of trees around were your own father's, and so were plucking a few of the fruits, throwing them to the ground, so you could collect all of them when you climbed back down. that is when you saw him, advancing towards the trees. as soon as he was close enough, you plucked a fruit, and hauled it straight towards him.

to your dismay, it did not hit his head, but rather it found its way to his shoulder.. he was still, looking quite affected, he wasn't really expecting to get ambushed. the fruit had burst open at the impact, and pomegranate seeds were lying all over the ground near his feet.

fine enough. atleast it hit him. and you climbed down, now face to face with him. what he said next, to say the least, surprised you.

'maaf kariyega uss din ke liye. khair.. aapne to apna badla le hi liya.'

oh. so was he here to apologise? you almost felt guilty for being so agressive earlier. but you weren't about to show it.

'isse bhi bura hona chahiye tha. sar pe lagti tumhaare tab asli maza aata.'

and then you both ended up laughing till your stomachs started to hurt.

you learned his name was siyahi, that his mother had died during childbirth, and his father had started to gamble. that was all you needed to know. even if you didn't, you think you would still've loved him just as much.

you both didn't meet too much, since there were eyes everywhere, now that you were both 'growing up'. but sometimes, near the cracked wall towards the boundaries of the settlement, he brought things to you, a sharpened pencil he found, marbles, a stone which 'looked like a goat' (according to him.) in return, you gave him a handkerchief on which you stitched his name yourself. you had once risked passing a note to him. in it you had described the clothes you would wear on eid, and asked him what he would be wearing. simple, but if one of the elders saw it it would mean trouble.

there had been no reply to it, but when you met afterwards, he told you, embarrassed, that he wasn't able to read much of it, because he had never learned to. and he couldn't possibly have asked someone else to read it out to him. when you thought about it, you never did see him reading much, he had learned just the necessities, and he preferred a match of football over going to school.

then your brother was born, and your parents started to consider moving out to karachi to provide better opportunities for both of you. (you knew it was mostly for your brother, but who would you be if not a loving sister, who wanted the best for your brother?). you tried to argue, but the prospect of going anywhere near karachi seemed promising. you would actually have much better chances of running a successful boutique, so why not?

and so it happened. you and your family moved to lyari since most of it was controlled by the balochis themselves, under rehman dakait, it was the closest place in proximity to karachi where you all could find living quarters without economic burden, as rehman knew your father, he had been mentioned by your community's head to the sher-e-baloch.

you were 17 by now, and for a while you were forced to forget about the place you used to call home once.

because too much was happening all of a sudden.

your mother caught typhoid. 'just change of environment,' is what doctors said at first. 'perhaps the air here doesn't suit her', sometime later. till it was too late. when she used to cough, it used to wake you and zaid up, and you had to stay awake the rest of the night trying to put zaid to sleep, which would often make you feel groggy and tired. you didn't know that thinking about it would make you cry later, when she was gone. then your father caught a fever, and when he was taken to the doctors, he refused treatment. you knew it was because he missed your mother. but you couldn't help but think of him as selfish.

by then, you had already started to work in zohra bibi's shop. strict though she was, she stood by you during your most uncertain times, offered you a flat to live in, and though it wasn't much, it was everything to you, you had a brother of 10 to raise and it was enough for you to keep going through all that grief. a few relatives from balochistan had contacted you after, telling you about how after you had went away, misfortune had befell them as well. many more people had left,

that was when you heard of siyahi again, apparently he had also left after his father passed away.

after the passing away of your parents, rehman baloch had visited you.

he had come with his brother, uzair baloch, whose face you had seen in the posters alongside rehman's, and another bulky, mountain of a man, whose name you heard when uzair called out to him, hamza. you suppose he did it out of formality, because he had known your father, he even offered to take you in, but you had refused, telling him that whatever payment you got from the shop was enough to fend for yourself and your brother, besides, your friends helped you out as well. you had been quite stubborn in refusing as well, and he had understood, he saw a reflection of himself in you. he had left, but not before asking you to ask for help unhesitatingly if you ever needed it.

all the seamstresses in the shop had immense talent; you were all like a big family in itself, working together to always come up with exactly what the client wanted, and so it was safe to say that the shop was most sought after by the richer ones in lyari as well.

so when one day, ulfat baloch, the wife of rehman baloch, was to visit, the girls were bubbling with excitement. everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of 'chand-e-ulfat', everyone had heard about the grace in her walk and the elegance of her speech from the senior seamstresses, but most of the junior ones, like you and yumna hadn't seen her yet.

what you did not expect was to see the moon that hadn't graced your sky for years.

when the cars arrived, a man got out of the second car and rushed to open the door of the first, in which ulfat must be sitting.

but as the door opened, and she got out, and a ripple of murmurs went through the girls who were flocked together, you were as still as stone.

it couldn't be mistaken, that man had to be siyahi. it was the same face, with the same mark.

he had changed, obviously, but so had you. he was taller, no longer lanky-

'arrey kya hua, chal dekh liya na baji ko, ab waapas kaam pe lagna hai- kise dekh rahi hai tu?', yumna asked.

'tu chal, mai aa rahi hu.'

so he had been here all along?

(he will recognise you, right? he has to, your face hasn't changed much anyway-)

you take the chance before he disappears back into the car, and raise your hand, waving at him, a faint smile on your face, a grin waiting to break through like sunshine through clouds for the moment when you're certain he will look at you and recognition will flicker across his face.

it never has the chance of doing so, because though he looks at you, and recognition does flicker across his face, he does not make any move to show it, moving back to the car, not once looking back.

your reverie of despair is shattered by the loud noise of the jeep's door closing behind him, only then you realise that you need to go back to the shop. zohra bibi was very particular about all the staff being present when a bigshot client came through, so you blink away the tears and go, but not without looking back. ....

you don't like spending too much money, you aren't privileged enough. but buying two doodh sodas at aalam bhai's store isn't much, so you visit sometimes.

right now, you were walking out of the shop with yumna beside you, complaining about how it was already dark outside, when you saw him in the garage on the other side of the road.

today, siyahi was alone, sitting on a bench while the mechanic, a lanky, greasy figure, was repairing a bike, probably siyahi's.

masahallah, hamesha se bike chahiye hi thi use.

'yumna tu aage chal, mai bas aayi.'

'phir? dekh tu mujhe bata ye kuch dino se kya chal raha hai, warna kahi nahi jaa rahi hu mai.'

'tu chal, mai aaj tujhe sab bata dungi pakka! meri chinta mat kar.'

you cross the road hurriedly, dupatta fluttering behind you.

'nazar andaz kar rahe ho, ya waqai bhool gaye?'

he is startled, that much you can figure out because his shoulders flinch, but when he really looks up at you, it knocks the air out of your lungs. for one moment you're paralysed, but the next you feel almost stupid.

he probably doesn't even recognize you; you're just making a fool out of yourself.

but what he does next eliminates that possibility completely.

within the next few seconds you're trapped against him and the wall in the cramped alley right next to the building, with his hand tight around your right wrist.

'dekho, mera aur tumhara koi waasta nahi, aur sach maano, tum mujh jaise se waasta rakhna chahogi bhi nahi. isliye chor do mera peecha. tumhare liye bhi wahi behtar hai.'

and then he's gone.

this whole outburst is so brutally out of character that you almost doubt your own memory. is it your mind that has failed you or him?

you're dazed on the entire walk home; and then crying in yumna's arms when you reach.

presently, you're sat on the bed beside your brother, who is sitting with a book open in front of him, perhaps from shame. or maybe he feels bad about his sister, who seems to be losing everything she wants, and has only him and another friend as a tether? who knows. you still have rents to pay and dresses to stitch.

author's note: kuch nahi mere paas bolne ko sorry guys 🥀🥀