Thread by @XilleIlahi

Well, ready or not, here comes Episode 1 of Season 2 of Muwakkils of Mehmoodabad. If you haven't read Season 1 yet, you can read the thread here:

https://twitter.com/XilleIlahi/status/1431044908446625797

https://twitter.com/XilleIlahi/status/1455998623515398144

Faizan Qadri had stayed the night at the hut in Hawkes Bay. It wasn’t something he liked to do – the TV reception was poor and cigarettes were hard to come by – but it was 1994, Operation Blue Fox was going on, and the Abyssinia Lines area where he lived wasn’t exactly the...

...safest place to be since his neighbour had died in a staged “encounter” with the cops. Faizan was a constable. His brother-in-law had pulled a few strings and managed to get him assigned on protocol duty guarding a Justice of the Sindh High Court...

....and the Justice’s wife had “assigned” him to guarding their hut on Hawkes Bay. This had worked out just fine for everybody concerned.

Faizan sat on the front porch in his bunyan, shalwar and a thick shawl and puffed on the second last of his Royals Filters. He was acutely conscious that he would have to venture out to get some more packs but was waiting for the sun to rise.

As dawn broke and the sky started to lighten, the waves lapping at the beach ahead began to get some definition in his eyes. It was a sight that Faizan had started getting comfortable with over the past few weeks.

A beach, a sea, a deserted expanse and the freedom of not being seen as a murderer by a charged up neighborhood. What’s not to like?

But this morning felt a little different.

The Quetta wind had blown relentlessly all night and even as sunrise approached with the promise of some warmth, Faizan could feel it was going to be a particularly cold day ahead.

Faizan went in to make some tea for himself but changed his mind when he saw that the milk had curdled.

He cursed the Nagori Milk Shop guy under his breath and went back outside on the porch debating with himself whether or not he should light up the last of his cigarettes or wait a while. It was then that he saw it.

There was something on the beach that the tide must have brought in. And it wasn’t the usual debris of rubber chappals and polythene bags and plastic bottles that the sea threw back at a city without a waste management plan.

From where he was looking at it, Faizan thought it was some kind of steel trunk. Something like the one his mother had received her dowry in and in which what was left of her belongings were safely secured in the small house in Abyssinia Lines.

Only this was clearly bigger. And, surprisingly for something that had emerged out of the ocean, it didn’t appear to have been eaten away by rust.

Faizan tightened the drawstring on his shalwar, slipped into a pair of rubber chappals, picked up his locally made clone of a 9mm beretta and walked out to get a closer look.

32 kilometers away, Rajab Affendi was making breakfast.

The three months since the flood had been relatively peaceful at the Ajmeri household if not so much in the city. Since Turab had left there had been no need to brew tea at night and Majid used to stay in bed...

...until the smell of Rajab Affendi’s breakfast parathas and eggs woke him up each morning. He would have his breakfast, read the newspaper and – if there wasn’t a citywide curfew or strike – drive to PCSIR and come back in the evening...

...to meet the throng of acolytes and disciples who would invariably show up asking for blessings and divine intervention to solve the problems they faced. Problems of love and economics, of choice and circumstance, of health and fortune and jealousy and greed.

Like they had before the flood, they came to ask for wives and husbands, children and grandchildren, for success at work, for peace at home, for freedom from disease and afflictions, for justice from persecution and for the devastation of their enemies real and imagined.

Rajab Affendi acted as gatekeeper and Majid muttered words of comfort. People came and unburdened themselves and left satisfied that the Pir’s words had changed their fates.

Sometimes on a quiet weekend afternoon he would sit in the former classroom with the curtains drawn while his soul soared over the city like a kite to see what was going on. And in a city of 20 million there was plenty to see.

He saw the people he treated and the ones he didn’t and he saw the forces natural and supernatural that shaped their lives. He would see a child crying over a spilt gola ganda and he would see the djinn who tripped her laughing in the corner.

He would see an old woman suddenly turn and look for her long dead sister whose voice she just heard and he would note the Hatif sitting in the tree who had mimicked her. He saw the Marids granting wishes and the dwarf like Shiqq running around causing havoc.

And he would see the evil men got to without any help from the hidden ones. The murders and rapes and beatings and tortures and theft and fraud and destruction that no one with a conscience can swallow and yet everyone is capable of.

Sometimes he would be drained of spirit after what he saw. And it was at times like these that Rajab Affendi would enter the room and open the curtains and ease Majid back into the world that he had control over.

Majid could smell the eggs and parathas but there was an uncharacteristic chill in the air and the blanket felt heavier than it usually did. Nonetheless he shrugged it off and headed downstairs.

He had just sat himself at the table with Rajab Affendi who was explaining that he hadn’t yet made tea as the milk had gone bad when they both heard the sound of glass shattering in the former classroom.

Majid and Rajab rushed there but found a room as empty as it would have been expected to be, windows intact and locked and everything exactly where they had left it at night.

Or almost as empty. There was a broken teacup on the floor.

Aslam Nagori was something of an oddity among his community. He lived in Bhains Colony where all his relatives did and he woke and ate and slept as they did but unlike everyone he shared a bloodline with, he was not involved in any way whatsoever with the dairy business.

He kept no buffaloes, did not sell or distribute milk or butter or cheese and had no interest in doing so. Aslam was a Cost and Management Accountant and worked at a textile mill in Landhi.

He woke up early every day, had a breakfast of jam and leftover bread from the night before and was on his trusted Yamaha GTO-100 on the way to work before his wife and children woke up.

He would normally stop at the paan shop at the corner of his street to stock up on Morven Gold and Tasty chhaalia for the day.

This day was not like other days. Firstly, it was proper cold. The “Quetta” wind had an unusually vicious bite to it and Aslam could have sworn the temperature was lower than he had ever experienced.

He was going to mention that to the guy at the paan shop but there was a lot of swearing in Marwari going on there anyway.

From what he could gather, several buffaloes in the colony had mysteriously died overnight and to top it off entire truckloads of milk canisters had inexplicably gone bad for no ostensible reason.

Aslam kept his views on the weather to himself – it seemed like a minor inconvenience compared to the other stuff – and rode off on his Yamaha thanking the Almighty for a life that depended on the vagaries of the Sales Tax Act of 1990 and not the curdling of milk.

On that morning in January 1994, Karachi experienced, perhaps for the first time, what happens when everyone is deprived of their tea.

Tempers flared, blood pressures skyrocketed, productivity plummeted, and normally peaceable individuals succumbed to bursts of fury at the most minor of inconveniences.

Not that these things are documented in history but those who remember say that people’s hair did not brush as straight, clothes were wrinkled despite a heavy ironing, school vans came late, teachers were harsher in their disciplining of students,...

...bosses were crabbier at work, traffic police harsher in their petty extortions from those committing infractions, drivers more violent in their road rage, hawkers of fruits and vegetables less inclined to negotiate on prices, barbers less gentle on the client’s scalps...

...and even the matches used to light fires didn’t seem as willing to light up as they ordinarily did.

And to top it off, it was cold.

Faizan Qadri plodded over the cold, wet, beach sand to the trunk.

***to be continued***

(If reading this as a single post is easier for you, you can read it here: patreon.com/posts/muwakkil… )

The thing with dowries is, when you put them all together, they don’t really amount to much. And so is the case with the remnants the dead leave behind. Saltanat Ara Qadri’s trunk, stowed away safely in Faizan’s house in Abyssinia Lines, was barely 3 feet long and a foot wide.

This thing on the beach though… Faizan calculated it as at least 8 feet long and much wider and deeper than his mother’s trunk. And, he realized as he gawked at it on that cold grey morning, this wasn’t made of steel.

It was cast iron and probably weighed more than the Justice’s car. But boxes of weird dimensions don’t usually give you goosebumps on your skin or send shivers down your spine.

They don’t make your palms wet with sweat or cause rumbles in your belly. Not even if they’re engraved with calligraphy from some ancient language.

Faizan took three steps back and then turned and walked fast back to the hut. This wasn’t a box. It was a coffin. A coffin with padlocks.

Naveed Alam lived in FC area but his butcher’s shop was in Mohammadi Market in Nazimabad. Before the troubles began, he had worked five days a week like clockwork, getting the best beef and mutton he could source for his clientele.

But the strikes and curfews of late had meant his shop’s shutter was down almost as much as it was up over the past year or so. Wednesday was officially a meatless day when he wasn’t legally permitted to sell red meat...

...as the government dealt with a decades long livestock shortage but there wasn’t a strike today so Naveed had planned to sell from behind a dropped shutter. He hadn’t planned on it being so cold though.

Naveed knew a thing or two about the cold. Years ago, at the age of 22, he had gone with some friends and family on a legendary adventure to Pakistan’s northern areas. A broken down jeep in a snowed-in Skardu hadn’t stopped him from coming back with a Balti bride in tow...

...but he had lost three toes to frostbite. One of the better trade-offs he’d made in his life. But now, nearly a decade later, as he stepped out of his building in FC Area, Naveed felt like he’d never been this cold in his life.

There was static in the air, a cold dry wind was blowing and his phantom toes were itching like crazy.

Naveed had never felt much pain in the foot since he’d lost his toes. Sure, he couldn’t run any more and personal vanity dictated that he wear socks at all times regardless of the weather but that was about it. This though, was excruciating.

He was having trouble balancing on his Honda CD-70 on the short ride from his home to Mohammadi Market. He took off his shoe as soon as he reached the shop and slipped in under a half raised shutter and nearly fainted when he looked down at his foot.

What had normally been an empty pocket of air in his sock since he left his toes in Skardu was now very occupied. He gingerly peeled off the sock, wincing in pain at every twist of hos foot and looked dumbstruck at the three icicles where his toes used to be.

It normally starts with news of snow in Quetta. The weatherman on the PTV’s Khabarnama will warn of an impending drop in temperature in Karachi as the winds from Siberia head to its coast having dropped all moisture on the way.

The Quetta wind, as it is called, is dry and it is cold and when it is on its way it blocks out Karachi’s sea breeze that brings in some much needed humidity in the winter months. Karachi’s houses and buildings are built to grab as much of the wind as possible.

There are no heaters or boilers or furnaces. It’s a hot city normally so the normally brief winters are felt quite intensely – much to the amusement of their countrymen up north who mock them for their low thresholds of tolerance to cold.

Be that as it may, once the news of snow in Quetta reaches town, the lofts and trunks and cupboards and suitcases where the shawls and jackets and sweaters and blankets are stored for 10 months of the year are emptied and the city prepares for its blood to freeze.

The hawkers come out with their roasted peanuts and boiled eggs and chicken corn soup. Men with their shoulders laden with jackets and waistcoats for sale throng the major bus terminals.

TV ads for Oxford and Cambridge sweaters punctuate the otherwise never-ending biscuit, cooking oil and tea blends promotions. For two weeks Nescafe becomes a hot selling item at most grocery stores as the middle class rediscovers its love for dalgona coffee.

Caterers add gajraila and Kashmiri chai to their menus for the busy wedding season. The louts who hang outside girls’ colleges in the afternoons on their motorbikes now wear black leather jackets to look more appealing.

Couples go to the beach so that they can enjoy the cold in an open area. Private schools ask the boy students to start wearing neckties. The citizens with the privilege of having shelter enjoy the brief cameo the Siberian anticyclone weather system makes on its way to the sea...

...and those without that privilege gather around bonfires made of uncollected garbage and hope to avoid pneumonia and bronchitis and all manner of other winter-borne viruses.

But before this wind blew in, there had been no news of snow in Quetta. The Siberian anticyclone weather system was still very much in Siberia and there was no earthly reason for the temperature to be below 10 degrees before factoring in wind chill...

...and heading lower at this time in the morning with the sun apparently shining down with what was its customary force.

Meteorologist Muzaffar Tunio was stumped. He sat outside his boss’s office waiting for an audience wondering what he could say without looking like an idiot.

In Mehmoodabad, Majid Ajmeri was very worried. Not because of the cold or the fact that Turab was concerned enough about something to make a re-entry. Something had triggered the normally unflappable Rajab Affendi.

For the two hours since they’d found the broken cup in the former classroom, he’d been mumbling something that Majid couldn’t even figure out the language of let alone understand the words. He made some green tea for the old man and brought him a blanket from upstairs.

As he tried to calm him down, Majid felt the sunlight that filtered in from the window dim and a familiar deep voice rumble from the darkest corner in the room. Not a greeting. Not a warning.

Just a translation of what Rajab Affendi had been mumbling in Aramaic.

“He’s back.”

Faizan Qadri sat on the porch wrapped in the thickest shawl he had. He could have been warmer in the hut he supposed, but it made him feel a bit better to have his eyes on the thing on the beach.

He had got himself a pack of metro milan agarbattis from the paan shop along with his cigarettes and a couple of them were burning away a meter from where he sat, sending the sanctifying scent of incense his way.

It’s not much to ease the nerves caused by an apparent coffin washing up on your beach but it’s something. He gripped the butt of the beretta knockoff and stared ahead.

Faizan had learned the art of patient observation in the police force. Protocol guard duty is usually a lot about just sitting and waiting and watching. And Faizan had never been the type to crave physical activity anyway.

So even if he was up against an inanimate object, he fancied his chances of winning the game of wait and see. In any case, the next tide would surely take the box back into the sea where it belonged.

He had several packets of smokes, namakparay and litre bottle of Teem to ride this out. Faizan Qadri was prepared.

Faizan Qadri was not prepared for the music.

It started with a faint sound of what he thought were wind chimes at first. The nearest neigbour was a good 300 metres away but wind carries sound across the beach so it could be rationalized.

What couldn’t be explained was why the sounds seemed to come from the direction of the box. And then the trumpets began. Not like the shehnai Faizan had heard many times on wedding processions and the like. These were something more ancient.

As he listened closely he realized trumpet wasn’t the right word. This was more like a horn or a conch shell. He knew the word for it but before it could register the voices started calling. Not like a song but like a chant.

And the only word he could understand in the chant was his own name. “Faizan Raza, Faizan Raza” over and over again.

Faizan felt the incense sticks lose their potency.

The wind had stopped and the smoke from the agrabattis seemed to blow out towards the box on the beach. And much as he had decided not to, much as he still didn’t want to, Faizan felt himself get up and follow the smoke trails towards the box.

“Faizan Raza” called the voices, in the lusty mezzo soprano of young maidens. “Faizan Raza” called the voices, in the high pitched treble of young children. “Faizan Raza” in the tones of old men and dead men and the unborn and the undead.

And Faizan could do nothing but obey. He headed toward the box, the beretta knockoff still in his hand.

The shopkeeper at the small grocery store down the street from where Faizan bought his cigarettes heard two gunshots before the cold suddenly stopped and the sun seemed to rediscover the heat it was supposed to emanate.

“Karachiites can even kill the cold” he joked to himself.

Unnoticed by him, on the small table beside him, the water in the glass turned red.

***to be continued***

If it is easier for you to read this as a single post, you can do so here:

patreon.com/posts/muwakkil…