Maqsad-E-Wajood (2)
One wants to avenge a bestfriend.
One wants to avenge a brother.
And you? How far will you go for love revenge?
Mulaqaat
Word Count : 5.4k
Shehzaad’s funeral had been a quick affair in the dunes of Balochistan, along with those of the four other boys. It was supposed to be a long hour of mourning, but the decaying bodies demanded a rushed goodbye. Mahgul had returned home with a quiet certainty that she would not be staying here for long. She had a motive, and to accomplish that, she had a very important person to meet.
Convincing her Ammi and the elders to send her back to Lyari had been a challenge. She had given the excuse of collecting Shehzaad’s belongings from his university, even if that would give her only a week’s time to do whatever she was about to. Daadu had agreed only on the condition that Bahad would accompany her this time as well, and a strict warning that they were supposed to return as soon as possible.
Her mother however, an emotional woman with an afraid heart who knew the epistemology of loss well enough, had teared up at her stubbornness. Mahgul couldn’t see her mother’s glossy eyes but she winced when her mother pulled her hair too tightly while tying it in a braid and turned around to face her with a scowl on her face.
“Ammi, iss mein rone waali kya baat hai? Ek hafte ka sawaal hai! Bahaad bhi toh aa raha hai na mere saath!”
Her mother let go of her hair, the half-tied braid slowly falling apart, as she complained.
“Main kehti hu, tujhe jaane ki kya zaroorat hai? Koi aur jaake aajayega.Aur Bahad kya karlega? Woh bhi toh abhi bachaa hai!”
“Ammi, Shehzaad mera sabse qareebi dost tha! Mera eklauta dost tha! Uske liye itna karna mera farz banta hai! Mein jaaungi!”
Her refusal to back down only frustrated her mother further. The elder woman stood up abruptly and walked away towards their stove, settling down in front of it while wiping her tears.
“Bilkull apne Abbu pe gayi hai! Unko bhi farz nibhane ka bada shauq tha! Tu bhi unki tarah mujhe yahan akela chod kar chali jaa! Phir toh tere dil ko aaram milega naa!”
Her mother always did this. She couldn’t even call it blackmail, when her mother recalled her father because she had seen that woman suffer through everything alone and yet stay strong for her.
Mahgul did not know her father. But from the melancholic remembrances she had heard of him, she knew it was a pride to be called his reflection. Her Abbu had been an active member of the Baloch United Force. He was martyred in the attack near Panjgur when Mahgul was merely six years old. Even before that, when he was alive, he used to be away stationed in Quetta and Gwadar for most of the times. So instead of memories, Mahgul’s nose, her fierce loyalty and leadership, and the anecdotes from their past were the only things she possessed of her father.
She crouched down next to her mother, and tilted her head to meet her eyes.
“Ammi, sirf iss baar jaane dein! Hum sahi salaamat wapis aa jayenge! Aapki kasam!”
She knew her mother couldn’t resist much when she spoke in that earnest tone. When she saw her mother’s gaze soften, like she was considering relenting, Mahgul nudged her and asked.
“Aap kahe toh mein bhi ek AK leke jaau?”
Her mother finally smiled and squeezed her cheeks lovingly, as she muttered begrudgingly.
“Jaldi wapas aana hai,gul!”
Mahgul found herself in that very same hotel of Karachi once again, but this time in a different room and with an unwilling Bahad.She hadn’t told him or anyone for that matter, what she was going to do.She had seven days in her hand, and it was more than enough.
In the sweltering heat of the first afternoon itself, Mahgul and Bahad waited in the Principal’s office in the Karachi Medical College. Bahad tapped his foot on the floor idly, and Mahgul nudged him to stop the irksome noise while they observed the numerous trophies and certificates lined up on the wall behind the Principal’s chair. The college looked prestigious and influential, and yet it had not been able to protect its students.
A few moments later, a frail old man walked in while cleaning his specs, and a lady janitor trailed behind him carrying a large box. The box of Shehzaad’s belongings.
The Principal clearly expected them to collect the belongings and leave. He had already opened his register without even sparing them a glance. Bahad almost stood up from the chair, but then Mahgul’s sharp voice startled everyone present in the room.
“Uss din aap kahan the?”
Bahad glanced at her in surprise as he lowered himself back onto the chair, after taking the box from the janitor. The Principal looked up at her over his glasses, and raised a questioning brow.
“Kya?"
Mahgul leaned forward over the table, and asked with a strong determination to get her answers, a sign that she was not going to back down.
“Uss din- jis din LTF ne Shehzaad aur baaki ladko ko college se uthaya, tab aap kahan the?”
The Principal bristled at the audacity of this twenty-something year old girl to demand answers from him. Especially when she was in a position of disadvantage to him due to her tribe and her helplessness. He realized that the condescending pity he had shown her beforehand had been misplaced. She did not seem to need it at all. Pushing his glasses back up, he muttered gruffly.
“Hum college mein nahi the. Koi masla?"
A sudden anger erupted in Mahgul’s chest at the Principal’s careless indifference. As if lives had not been lost that day. Or rather, the lives lost mattered any less simply because they were Baloch lives. She clenched her fists on the table, and tried hard to keep her voice low.
“Masla hai! Aapke college ke ladko ko aap hi ke college se koi utha leta hai aur aapko unki kadar bhi nahi! Jab aapko iss haadse ke baare mein pata laga toh aapne kuch bhi koshish ki, un ladko ko waapis laane ke liye? Unka haal jaanne ke liye?! Ya phir aapko bhi rishwat mili thi kisi namakharam officer se?!”
Mahguls’s blunt words and her angry demand for an explanation left the room stunned. The Principal glared at her in disbelief, mainly at her unapologetic exposure of his failure to take the right action. He banged his hands on the table, and yelled at her furiously.
“Apni zaban sambhalke baat kare, mohtarma! Ye humara college hai, aapki basti nahi! Waise bhi, LTF ne unhi ladko ko uthaya tha jo dehashatgard the! Bloody terrorists!”
His hatred for their clan dripped from every single word of his. Mahgul could not take any more of it or the humiliating accusations of terrorism. She stood up abruptly with such force that her chair was pushed back with a scraping sound against the floor, and she banged her hands on the table so loudly that even the Principal’s photoframe on it shuddered in its effect.
“Shehzaad dehashatgard nahi tha! Naa hi woh chaar ladke!”,she yelled and her voice trembled with rage.
Bahad who had been reluctantly quiet until now, finally intervened by grabbing Mahgul’s wrist trying to calm her down. However, she did not listen to him and shrugged his hand off harshly.
“Mujhe bolne do, Bahad!”
She turned towards the baffled Principal, and spoke again.
“Aapko kya lagta hai? Aise Balochon pe zulm karke aap apne mulq ki hifaazat kar rahe hai? Itne jurm karne ke baad usse Allah ka nek kaam ka naam dene mein sharam nahi aayi aapko!”
“Bass! Salma! Inhe bahar fek do!”, the old man yelled at the janitor, fuming with rage and humiliation.
But before the lady could step near them, Bahad was already pulling her out of the office. Until the Principal was out of their sight, Mahgul hadn’t stopped glaring daggers back at him.
Mahgul settled down on the cold blackened floor of the room, and pulled the large box of Shehzaad’s belongings towards her. Ever since they had returned back, Bahad had been scolding her for speaking so out of turn in front of the Principal. He had begged her to swallow her anger and not invite any more danger than what was already hovering over them like a low-hanging sword.
She went through the stuff in the box.Thick textbooks, notebooks half-filled with Shehzaad’s beautiful handwriting. His stationery. His college bag. Inside it were some more textbooks and notebooks. Mahgul went through those too, because to her, it meant feeling nearer to Shehzaad than she could ever get the chance to be after his death had created this insurmountable distance between them.
At the bottom of the bag, she found a crumpled piece of paper. Two, actually.
Maybe it was some rough work. An errored note. Pass-time sketches, perhaps. Her brows furrowed in curiosity and concentration as she slowly unfolded the ball of paper.Pressing her palm onto it, she glided it downwards to flatten the wrinkles on it. There was something written on it, and Mahgul understood at once from the structure of the writing that it was a letter.
15. 11. 200X
Daadu,
Yahan sab bohot achaa hai, alhamdullilah! Saare professors ne sikhana bhi shuru kar diya hai! Hum bohot mann lagaake padhte hain. Zohrab, Baseer, Hassan aur Sangeen bhi dheere dheere idhar ke tareeqon se waaqif ho rahe hai.
Bas koi dost nahi ban paya. Hum sab Baloch hain isliye baaki ladke humse baat nahi kartey. Jo kartey hain, woh bhi sirf hum sab pe dhoons jamane ke liye. Par hume lagta hai kuch din aur agar yahan rahe, toh unke saat bhi rafaqat banaa hi lenge.
Magar yahan ka rehan sehan aur khaana bhi achaa hai. Aap sab ki thodi yaad aati hai, par hum yahan bhi bohot zyada khush hai. Humari fikar mat karna. Baki sab khairiyat? Badi ammi, chaachi aur Mahgul kaisi hai? Sabko humari taraf se adaab aur Assalam-alaikum!
Shehzaad.
Mahgul’s heart ached as she read the letter. This was her Shehzaad speaking to them from almost over a year ago. She couldn’t even imagine how out of place he must have felt in the first few days in this unknown city. All because the entitled sons of this land had been taught to despise the Baloch people and never accept them.
She looked at the second crumpled ball of paper. Maybe, it was a letter too. She unfurled it carefully, because this one was in a worse condition. As if someone had crushed it in the hopes that if they did it hard enough, it would disappear without leaving any trace behind. When the content of the paper was revealed, for a moment Mahgul could have assumed it belonged to someone else. The handwriting in this one was messy and sloppy and almost illegible.
The paper had dark blotches on it, where ink had spread away from the haphazardly-written words. Water? Something else? They couldn’t possibly be tears, Mahgul thought to herself. She would only know once she had read this letter too.
23. 08. 200X
Daadu,
Humne yahan rehne ki bohot koshish ki. Sach mein. Magar hum aur yahan nahi reh sakte! Hum jaante hu agar humne dakhila radd karva diya toh Rehman Bhai aapse naraaz ho jayenge, hume maaf karna daadu!
Yahan humara koi dost nahi hai. Ab toh Zohrab vagera bhi class mein nahi aate.Woh bhi tang aa gaye honge. College mein kuch ladke hai, woh hume bohot tang kartey hain! Gaali-galoch, exam ke pehle humari kitaabein churaate hain. Daraate hain, dhamkaate hain. Kehte hain hum wapas Balochistan zinda nahi jaa payenge! Aur bhi bohot kuch kartey hain!
Ek dinn hume aur Sangeen ko unhone college ke ek kamre mein band karr diya tha. Hum poori raat andar qaid the.Chilla rahe the, gidgida rahe the, par kisiko shayad sunayi hi nahi diya hoga Jab agli subah Professor ko bataya, toh unhone hume hi daatna shuru kardiya! Yahan woh log hume aatankwaadi kehte hai! Hume pata nahi humnekiya kya hai aisa! Par itna jaante hai ki aur yahan yeh sab nahi seh saktey! Hume lene aajao Daadu. Hum aur kuch bhi kar lenge, bas Karachi mein nahi reh sakte hai!
Hume ghar aana hai!
The letter wasn’t signed. The blotched paper once again became stained with tears. Mahgul’s fresh tears as she stared at the paper in disbelief. She had read the letter and heard Shehzaad’s voice in her head. And, he sounded scared. Desperate. Alone. He wanted to come back home, and she was certain that Daadu would have allowed him to do so without another question. But this letter hadn’t reached them.
Her shaking fingers traced over the dried blotches on the paper. Shehzaad’s tears. He had been crying, and she wasn’t there to console him or make him laugh like she had done every other time. Shehzaad needed their help, and they had failed to offer it.
Shehzaad and the other Baloch boys had become the scapegoat of the bullies’ cruelties, while everyone in Balochistan was assuming that they would be happy and learning and living a much better life than what they could have experienced in the deserts of Balochistan, a better life they had deserved.
Her hiccups echoed in the empty room, as Mahgul folded back the two letters into proper squares. She did not put them in Shehzaad’s bag again, she would keep them separately with her. She couldn’t stop sobbing.
Just as she was about to zip the bag, Mahgul spotted an envelope at the back of it. Her heart twisted in dread at the thought of reading another painful letter, an account of what Shehzaad had suffered. She picked it up with careful fingers, and turned it over. It had Shehzaad’s name and ‘Balochistan’ written over it.
Tearing it open, she pulled the folded slip of paper which was inside it. A teardrop fell over the new clean paper and dampened it. Mahgul took a moment to wipe away her tears, not wanting to ruin it if it could be anything of importance to Shehzaad. A moment later, she unfolded the crisp clean paper.
It was another letter. Dated after the last one. The most recent letter. But it was different. Different from the last two she had read, but similar to all the ones they had received from Shehzaad before. He talked about his well-being, and how he was happy and grateful to be in Karachi and that college. There was no mention of the alienation he faced or of the bullying he was forced to tolerate. Not once.
She almost felt like the last two letters had been wrongly planted there. They felt like a bad dream after reading this new letter in which nothing bad had happened to Shehzaad. Supposedly. Or maybe-
The realization dawned upon Mahgul like a fever, slow and terrible. Shehzaad must have written the first letter, trying to tell them that something felt wrong there and he felt out of place. But then, he must have decided to not send it. She assumed the second letter, the worst one, must have been written immediately after something bad had happened with him again.That explained the unintelligible writing, the tear stains.
And the third letter. The nice and clean one. The one wherein Shehzaad was once again happy and grateful, and the one which was folded in an envelope must have been the letter he was meaning to send, but never got the chance to do so.
The three letters now laid in front of Mahgul. Two times Shehzaad had tried to tell them, and the one time he had been successful in hiding his fear and pain. Three times they had been so close to finding out what he had been going through all alone in Karachi, and three chances they had lost to save him.
Mahgul now knew that even before his death- brutal killing by that SP, Shehzaad had been going through a lot for a long time.
All because he was a Baloch boy.
Mahgul had had seven days in her hand when she had entered Karachi, and now she was only left with two. Two days, given the resistance the big brawny man was showing her, were not enough to do what she wanted to.
The day after they had collected Shehzaad’s belongings from his college, Mahgul had started showing up at the Baloch Haveli ambitiously. It was a little farther away from the hotel they were staying in, so she had to take a taxi that drove her through the narrow alleyways.
Upon reaching there, she wasn’t allowed inside. As expected. When she told one of the men standing outside that she was here to meet Uzair Baloch, they had exchanged a confused glance and then had raked a suspicious gaze over her before going inside the haveli. It seemed that it was unusual for visitors to come asking for Uzair Baloch.
The man who had gone inside had come out minutes later with a big brawny man alongside him.The big brawny man had introduced himself as Hamza, and had asked her why she was seeking out Uzair Baloch. It took her some time to recognize the man, but soon she remembered him from one of Rehman Baloch’s visits to Balochistan.
He had stood out amongst the men in earthy Balochi kurtas. A new man in the gang. Later when the Sher-E-Baloch had sat for lunch, she had overheard him telling Daadu that this new man was the one who had saved Faizal and had tried saving Naieem too. Ever since then, he had accompanied Rehman on every visit. Recently, he had started arriving alone as well, if there was any urgent task or shipment of weapons due.
Years later, Daadu had told her on one of their routine walks that Hamza had been the one to bring a dying Rehman Baloch to the hospital in a desperate effort to save him, but it had seemed like Azra’il, the Angel of Death himself had made his decision.
Hamza, whom she still liked to refer to as the big brawny man hadn’t allowed her to set foot in the Haveli, much less meet the younger Baloch brother. It had become a pattern over the five days. She reached the Haveli, Hamza interrogated her. He asked her the reason for her requested meeting, and she refused to tell him. He didn’t allow her to come inside. She kept insisting for half an hour more, and then she went back to the hotel disappointed with her failure. The four days of back and forth travel had emptied her pockets and now she would have to walk all the way to Lyari on foot.
Today, Mahgul had decided that she would not leave the haveli until she had met Uzair Baloch, be it by hook or by crook. She left the lodge early when Bahad was still asleep, and began her journey to Lyari.
Even at nine in the morning, the scorching heat was taking a toll on the crowd. The narrow lanes that lead to the Baloch haveli smelled of metal, grease and the spice of fresh paya being prepared. The hawkers yelled loudly to attract customers as they were setting up their shops and stalls. Large banners with Arshad Pappu’s photograph, half-burnt and destroyed, loomed from the roof of some chawls but nobody dared to look up at them. The only image that came to the mind of the fellow citizens of Lyari when they heard the Pathan leader’s name, was the image of a feral Uzair Baloch gripping his severed head and kicking it to the ground like it was a football. It was the most horrific sight the people of the lawless town had ever witnessed.
Mahgul reached the Baloch haveli and spent the next few hours observing the routine of the people that lived inside it. One by one, the men of the gang had arrived and she watched them as they made their way inside the house. Some time later, a young boy whom she recognized as Faizal, Rehman Baloch’s youngest son, pranced out in a rush, stuffing a rolled roti in his mouth, dressed in a school uniform that she had noticed on many students here. He got into a car, accompanied by a man and the car drove out of the gates of the haveli.
Minutes later, Hamza had emerged from the haveli. When his gaze fell on her, something flashed through his eyes. Frustration or dread, she wouldn’t know. But their routine followed again. She requested him, very impolitely with her patience running thin after all these days, and he denied her. Again. She glared at this big brawny man whom she wished to punch in the face at the moment, but all she could do was huff indignantly and stubbornly sit on the steps of the Haveli.
She knew better than to expect that Hamza or any of the men would show pity or even acknowledgement at her insistence. But she stayed there anyway. In the afternoon, when the sun had positioned itself right on top of everyone’s head, Mahgul’s luck finally seemed to shine.
She heard the footsteps first, quiet and intentful. Her back straightened up when she noticed the woman who had almost walked past her. Almost, because the beautiful woman, dressed in plain blue, had halted in her way when she had noticed her. Mahgul felt self-conscious under the observant scrutiny of the woman’s gaze, while she stood up immediately and stepped in front of her.
She knew who the woman was. Ulfat Baloch. Wife of their Sher-E-Baloch.
As far as Mahgul’s memory went, she remembered seeing Ulfat only twice. Once when she had come to Balochistan with a toddler Naieem in her arms. The second time, when she was pregnant with her younger son, Faizal. Mahgul herself was a child of five years the first time, but she remembered wanting to look as pretty as the wife of Sher-E-Baloch. The second time however, she had observed the woman and her actions closely. That, and how the woman held herself were enough to tell her that Ulfat Baloch was a woman of quiet power. She was the matriarch of the household, whom she imagined to have some say in the affairs of their political and criminal world.
“Assalamualaikum!”,Mahgul greeted her with a respectful gesture of Adab, which was returned by the woman.
What better way to step into the forbidden house than to do so with the permission of its matriarch?
Ulfat narrowed her eyes at the young girl in front of her and asked, “Aap kon?”
“Ji, main Mahgul. Balochistan se hun. Aapki madad chahiye thi.”
She could see the doubt flicker in the elder woman’s gaze, so she took the cue to explain herself further.
“Karachi Medical College mein padhne waale humaare kuch ladko ko Chaudhary Aslam ne dehashatgardi ke naam par uthaya aur unhe berehmi se maar diya. Unn ladko ka dakhila Rehman Bhai ne hi karvaya tha.”
Mahgul noticed how Ulfat visibly winced at the reminder of her late husband. She continued, “Rehman Bhai humaare rehbar the, muhafiz the. Unke guzarne ke baad hum Baloch bebas ho gaye hai. Hume insaaf chahiye tha, isliye yahan aa gaye.”
She lowered her gaze solemnly, and muttered.
“Hum Uzair miyan se milna chahte the. Par…humse kaha gaya ki woh mumkin nahi hai.”
Ulfat’s brows arched at that. Nobody had visited from Balochistan after Rehman’s death, except a messenger from Shirani Sahab to offer his condolences. Nobody had come asking for help. But looking at this girl who trusted their family enough to come all the way here, Ulfat felt responsible to ensure that Rehman Baloch’s protection existed over his people even after his passing. She wanted his enemies to tremble after hearing his name alone.
With an approving nod, she glanced at the haveli and spoke confidently.
“Aapko Uzair se milna hai, mil sakte ho. Main unse keh doongi aapse jaldi mulaqaat karein. Filhaal hume Faizal ko lene jaana hai, aap deewankhaane mein intezaar kar sakti ho.”
Mahgul nodded instantly, eager and relieved that her week-long struggle could finally come to an end if the man agreed to see her.
Uzair reeked of cigarettes, alcohol and blood. Maybe the last one was just his mind playing tricks on him again, but he knew he was in a bad place. Willingly. He didn’t want to get out of it or improve. He felt like he didn’t deserve to be well and happy after what had happened to his brother. So even after many warnings from Ulfat Bhabhi and Hamza, he hadn’t stopped the drugs or the self-destruction that came with it. He had also noticed that Hamza was effortlessly taking over the duties he was supposed to carry out, so there was no immediate fall-out in the working of the gang.
Hamza had also been telling him about a woman who had wanted to meet him for the past few days, but he had paid no attention to it. The boys snickered about the strangeness of a woman coming in search of their Uzair Bhai, because that was a first.
Had the stern scolding call from his sister-in-law not come, he would have never agreed to see whoever this woman was. But in this Haveli, everyone listened to Ulfat and that was a rule set early on by his brother. Regardless, he would have obeyed her instructions because that’s how he had always been. And if not for that, she had given him an eye-opening speech on how he was obligated, after Rehman, to take over the duty of endowing the same favors his brother had bestowed upon his people.
After the call had ended, he had reluctantly asked Hamza to let the woman in.
A few minutes later, the door to the room opened and Hamza walked in, stepping aside to make way for the woman. Uzair sat up from where he was practically sprawled out on the sofa, leaning forward to take a better look at the door where he expected the strange woman to appear any moment now.
What help could she want from him that had compelled her to wait outside their haveli for five days straight?
The swish of her blue dupatta appeared before the person itself. Uzair slowly settled back against the sofa, but his eyes still remained trained on the door. The woman stepped in quickly and assertively, as if she had imagined this- walking in, several times.
He did not fail to notice the smug glance she shot at Hamza, like something had transpired between them. Something that he did not have an idea of. The woman then turned her focus on him, and greeted him with a polite nod.
“Assalamwalaikum!”
Without looking away from her, he brought the forgotten cigarette dangling in his fingers to the wooden armrest and snubbed it out with a decisive press.
“Walaikumassalam…?”, he greeted in his gravelly voice, still rough from all the substances he had inhaled prior.
“Mahgul.”
She quipped in quickly at his expectant prompt for her introduction.
Mahgul. Uzair mentally repeated the name once, registering it. Had he known her from before? Probably not.
“Kya kar sakte hain hum aapke liye?”
Mahgul narrated her tragedy to him, the painful words which had become desensitized due to the multiple repetitions, now came mechanically to her. Uzair heard it all- how the boys were abducted by the SP and their orchestrated deaths were framed as a terror elimination.
Uzair mourned them, he really did. But the unfortunate had already occurred. He did not know how he could be of any help to her now. So, he waited for her to explain further and when she didn’t, he raised a questioning brow.
“Toh, ab aap kya chahti hain?”
A moment of silence later, he added.
“Talaafi?”
She visibly recoiled at his words, looking like she had been struck with his audacity to think that she would want compensation for those lives lost. As if any amount of compensation could be enough.
Mahgul had meant to use her knowledge of Rehman’s death to provide Uzair Baloch an incentive. However, it was decided that she was only going to use it as a last resort. That decision was nullified when Uzair made that insensitive offer of remuneration.
“Hum jaante hai,” she began. “Rehman Bhai ke inteqaal ke peeche SP Aslam ka haath hai.”
Uzair stiffened at that and so did Hamza. She had clearly touched a raw nerve. Rehman’s death and the person behind it was an open secret. Everyone in Lyari knew it, but not a single soul dared to speak aloud about it.
“Wohi SP Aslam ne inn Baloch ladko ko bhi maara hai. Khair,maana agar unn ladko ke liye nahi- par, woh Sher-E-Baloch, aapke bhai ke gaddi tak pohoch gaya aur aaj bhi azaad ghum raha hai?”
Mahgul scoffed bitterly, and then made a clear statement.
“Jahan tak hum jaante hai, Rehman Bhai ne unke saath hue har galat cheez ka badla liya hai.”
Uzair understood what this woman was trying to insinuate. His fingers curled into a tight fist, as he muttered with restraint.
“Lyari ke siyaasati haalat thik nahi hai. Badla lena naamumkin ke barabar hai.”
That earned him a look of disbelief from her as her gaze flitted between him and Hamza. He could hear the hypocrisy (or was it deceit?) in his own words. Since when did the law-defying gangsters of Lyari begin caring about politics?
“Humne suna tha Naieem ke guzarne ke baad bhi waqt sahi nahi tha. Phir bhi Rehman Bhai ne bhare baazaar mein Babu Dakait ko maar diya tha, aur nateeje mein unki party ko unhi ki wajah se bhaari matra mein votes mile the. Hum galat toh nahi ho sakte.”
Oh, she was opening all the floodgates. Uzair sighed, and for a second he wanted a cigarette in between his fingers so he could take the habitual long drag he was used to, when he got quietly frustrated.
“Toh aap kya umeed rakhti hain humse?”
“Yahi, ki aap uss SP Aslam ko wohi berehmi dikhaye, jo usne hum Balochon ko dikhayi hai. Uss ke saath waisa hi bartav kare, jis rawaiyye se woh humaare saath pesh aaya hai.”
She lowered her gaze solemnly and muttered.
“Ek aap hi hain jo hume barhaq insaaf de sakte hain.”
Uzair felt the same sense of responsibility which he had felt when Hamza made him realize that he was Rehman’s successor. The same way he had felt when Ulfat Bhabhi told him that he owed it to his people to protect and shelter them.
A contemplative silence fell in the room. Moments later, Uzair asked her.
"Filhaah kahan thehri hain aap?”
“Bilaal Hotel.”
Mahgul wondered if that was it. A dismissal? But then, Uzair announced his decision.
“Hum aapko apna faisla iktala kardenge. Abhi aap jaa sakti hain.”
She pressed her lips in a thin line as she decided not to push further, and ended the conversation with a curt nod. This did not mean anything, but it was also not a straight-up refusal. Maybe, it could mean something if her words had played the right way in his mind.
Uzair glanced at Hamza, and gave a quiet order as she was about to leave.
“Hamze, inhe chhod aa.”
“Shukriya”, Mahgul responded softly. Uzair knew she meant it for everything, especially listening to her.
Hamza had realized that this woman was more clever than he had initially given her credit for. She knew what things to say and what was the right time to say them.It did not require a genius to understand that she was trying to mold Uzair into working towards what were her intentions, just like he was.
Uzair was an easy target. Like a soft clay that could be shaped into any desired form, given the slightest touch with enough pressure and the right amount of water.
That night, while pouring him a drink, Hamza casually asked Uzair.
“Bhai, tu uss ladki ki baat maanne waala hai?”
Uzair heard the underlying condescension in his tone, which was enough of a hint of discouragement. Clicking his tongue, Uzair responded just as casually.
“Dekhte hain. Waise bhi ye…bhaukne waale kutte kaatte nahi hai.”
[Author's Note: This chapter became lengthier than I had imagined it to be. It is based on the character of Uzair Baloch from Dhurandhar and not the real person. In this story, Uzair is neither sent to Dubai, nor is he arrested there. I hope you enjoyed reading it! Do tell me if you think there is any scope for improvement. Thank you!]
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