Liberty and Other Ambitions

“Things are getting bad, you know?”

My mother clutches at her dupatta, taking the scarf over her head in brisk movements. The air is thick with breath crammed into far too small a space. Light from the streetlamp catches in the side mirrors of our second-hand car- the mirrors are bent at the wrong angle, my father says. The orange glow streams into the car, breaking the unspoken vow of darkness. It’s understood practice: you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in Liberty Market.

“Things have always been bad,” My sister scoffs.

Dadi makes a reprimanding tutting sound in response. “Don’t say that Simal. You owe a lot to your country,”

My sister looks at me, and we both know what’s ensuing. It’s the same conversation, rehashed over and over again, rewinded at every dinner table and played at half speed. For Dadi, she chews on her argument like a cow chews on fodder, a cycle of tasting and swallowing and regurgitating remnants of it in the absence of anything else to graze on. It has been going on since my sister announced she’d be going to study outside Pakistan two weeks ago.

“Let’s get out of this stuffy car, eh?” one of my aunts starts, “I swear I can’t breathe in here,”

With that follows a clicking of car doors as the entire party of 8 women exit the vehicle. I’ve only very recently been included as part of the women, though Simal has been a member for a few years now. I was initiated when I turned sixteen, with an invitation to forgo the kitchen stools and horde of baby cousins at the children’s table at family gatherings in favour of the fancy sofas in the drawing rooms. It came with tradeoffs, crossing your legs when you sit and never laughing loudly except at the aunties’ jokes, but such visits to the market are one of the perks. As soon as the car is emptied, the great shuffling begins. Everyone starts to tuck their phones and valuables in their pockets and purses. Dadi stands still, holding onto the flip-phone she’s carried over the generations with one quivering arm.

“Everyone set?” My mother, the de-facto leader of the aunties, asks.

At the acquiescence, she starts walking and everyone follows behind. Simal stays close behind me. She’s only three years older than I, and yet for as long as I remember she’s been the one to help me cross roads. Today though, her expression is more solid, eyes looking straight ahead, and I sense a cold distance between me and her. Or maybe it is between everyone and her, and I got lumped into everyone else. The thought bothers me. We cross into a larger parking lot and the market twinkles bright and lively against the plain black sky. It’s been long since the stars were visible in this part of the city. The walk is silent except for the sound of many pairs of shoes clacking against the concrete and the cool air of the night occasionally perforated with the smell of fried foods. At some point, Dadi starts talking again.

“What they’ve done with the place!” she exclaims almost suddenly, “I don’t remember this much cement back in my time,”

“Her time was like last century,” Simal whispers in my ear and I pretend to give a small laugh. I don’t like it when the two fight. The whole household feels it, only second to when Simal fights with Papa. Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t. She has a reply, a response, a rebuttal to everything sometimes and I grit my teeth and hope she doesn’t say it. Papa is always mad for hours afterwards. Dadi, though, forgets soon after. Maybe it’s on account of her age.

“When I was a girl,” she tells my mother, “The children used to play cricket here under the trees in the summer. My brother would join them sometimes. What rubbish they’ve made of it now!”

We keep walking and the market draws closer, the noise becoming a squawking cacophony of chatter. Liberty Market, ancient as ever, sprawls itself across a web of interconnected streets and passageways, each one littered with stalls, some feeling like the tunnels of a kaleidoscope. There is no room in the market for cars anymore hence the expanded parkings. Every twisting street winds into another, each one piled with vendors and people like the interconnected veins of a large organism. When Liberty Market breathes, it breathes together.

A child appears out of nowhere.

“Sister! Baji please!”

We don’t stop walking, but my eyes meet those of the child. He’s small, coming up to my waist, skin darkened by the sun. His eyes are wide and the hollows of his cheekbones contrast grey against the rest of his face. He’s wearing a small brown kurta that seems just a bit too big, sleeves dangling as his bony arm extends towards us. He’s grinning as he begs.

“Please! Please, just 100 rupees! Be generous, please,” he continues, tugging at the hem of my mother’s dupatta.

“Leave us alone,” my mother says sharply though quietly, but it doesn’t seem to deter him.

“Please just- please I haven’t eaten today just 100 rupees only 100 rupees,” he continues, a consistency in his tone, flat desperation on his face.

His insistence, though, was never meant to make us give in. Soon enough, a hoard of boys his age and size surround us, echoing the same begging cries: please, please, please! Dadi whispers something and curses at them.

“Shoo!” She says, waving a hand at the children, “Don’t you boys understand us?”

They’re relentless. We know to keep our heads down and pace brisk as we walk ahead, and eventually the chorus dies down as the crowd of boys disperses when we enter the main market. Though that is not to say it is quiet. The road grits against the soles of my shoes, random patches of wet and sticky coming under my feet from time to time. Every inch of our surroundings ooze with life. As we walk by each stall, the vendor shouts and beckons us to whatever they were selling, the voices all overlapping into one indistinguishable vocal chord that reverberates to the core of my bones. The stalls at the entrance mostly contain jewellery. Light glints off the gold and silver and it suddenly doesn’t matter anymore that the stars in the sky aren’t visible. At some stalls, little girls are sitting holding the hands of their sisters or mothers while these men on the street took tools to their earlobes and pierced their ears. That is the culture of the market, a bond of trust between the vendors and the customers. Somehow, despite the temporariness of the pop-up table stalls, they have regulars at each one.

“Right,” my mother says, “Where are we going?”

“I’m going to look at those jhumkay,” an aunt says, and trails off with a few others towards a stall with a piling amount of earrings and necklaces. We follow behind, though not with the intention to purchase, but that is common practice here.

When my aunt reaches the stall, the dance starts. At her every comment, the vendor reaches into different nooks and crannies and pulls out more pieces of jewellery, each one apparently having a backstory worthy of biographies.

“This one was made in Afghanistan!”

“This one came from Mongolia through smuggling pirates,”

“These are hand-made by Sudanese girls!”

“Cheap metal,” Dadi says, and the vendor smiles.

“If you’d like the gold pieces, I can show those too,” he offers, pulling out glinting studded necklaces without waiting for confirmation.

“Leave it,” Dadi almost scolds, “I know the kinds of prices you hold here,”

The vendor though, good-natured in manner, doesn’t back down, and the mostly one-sided altercation continues. Simal taps my shoulder.

“Do you want to go check out dupatta gali?” she asks.

To me, there was no other possible answer as I follow her away from the now crowded stall and into the deeper parts of the market. Dupatta gali is a more foundational part of Liberty. It’s in a roofed alley, with the shops all baked into the concrete structure of the street. Most are open, some have doors and plastic chairs inside. The place is known for its variety in dupattas, scarves, shawls and all other terms given to lengths of fabric.

As we cross over to its direction, we cross a man on the sidewalk resting upon a low wooden platform on wheels. His body is at an unnatural angle, face speckled with dirt and dust in a stubble, hands dragging on the ground. When we get closer he looks up at us, scanning us from head to toe. He plants his hands on the ground and starts pulling the cart-like contraption towards us, pushing grimy the road with his bare hands. He has no legs.

“Please, have mercy,” he begins, “I have to feed my children,”

I instinctively back away as the man gets closer, his face near my knees. Simal stays firm and starts looking into her purse. The man’s voice is high-pitched and yet hoarse, as if worn out. Blue shadows are placed firmly under his eyes. Simal crouches to hand him a few notes, and he extends his hand upwards.

He then drags himself away again, towards two small children sitting in a woman’s lap on the ground. The woman has a veil over her face and rocks the smaller child who looks barely above two, to sleep. The man hands the money to the woman who holds the notes up to the light, then places them into a box. The elder child is using a stick to play with a ball, laughing periodically. He pauses. He looks at his mother, then points in some direction. I follow his finger towards a young couple standing at a fries stall. I notice about them what the child must’ve noticed too. They signal wealth. They’re not wearing anything opulent, no phones in sight or visible jewellery. They’re standing taller than their surroundings though, and just seem more clean: beard trimmed, hair done up, perfectly fitting clothes.

The woman takes her baby and gets up, trailing in the direction of the couple. I wonder if the child scouted us out too, and sent his father our way. Simal grabs my arm to signal me to keep moving.

“Seems like an easy job,” I remark. Simal gives me a look that makes me regret saying it.

“It costs him everything,” she says quietly. I stay silent, so she elaborates. “He is a man dragging himself across a road to beg for money. He’s given away his dignity.”

We get to dupatta gali a little later, entering the vibrant curtains of fabric and tulle. The street is straight through from one road to another, and I can see ahead into another clearing. A bunch of boys are playing cricket. Their frenzied shouts and calls ring through the alleyway. I stand behind my sister as she shops, occasionally asking my opinions on shades of blue. Someone passes by us with a plate of fries and samosas, and my stomach grumbles.

“I’m going to go get something to eat from right there,” I tell Simal, gesturing behind me.

She hesitates for a moment, debating whether I’m responsible to be trusted alone. It’s moments like these that put distance between me and my sister. Sometimes she’s my friend, and sometimes she’s my mother. I like it better when she’s my friend.

“Sure. Take this money,” she quickly thrusts a few notes into my closed palm and pushes my hand back towards me. I nod and wander off.

As I walk out, a child holding aloft a light-up toy aeroplane bumps into me, trips backwards and continues running ahead. A cat licks its paws and rubs its face sitting next to a crook in the wall facing trampled remnants of food. Somewhere music is playing faintly. The whole market is more alive than ever, and that is how it will stay through the night. The vendors at food stalls glitter with sweat standing in front of huge fires, and focus on their craft as if nothing around them existed. Most of them aren’t wearing any shoes, or bathroom slippers at the most. I walk up to one of them and ask for a samosa.

“150 rupees,” he says, putting a fresh batch into the sizzling oil which spits back at him.

I hand the man the money and wait. He stirs the angry boiling mess. His tattered apron is barely a shield from the dangerous outbursts of oil. I’ve heard rumours that the oil they use is motor oil or something worse, but the deliciously guilty aromas wafting  from the pot make me disregard any qualms. As the batch emerges from the oil, he scoops up one samosa and hands it to me on a paper plate with newspaper laid onto it.

“Thank you,” I say.

I start to walk back when the child with the plane bumps into me again. My foot catches on the wheel of the vendor’s cart and I trip forward. I managed to stay upright, but watch helplessly as my fresh samosa hurtles to the ground. I turn back to the vendor, fishing out cash to buy another.

“No no!” The man explains, “I give you another one for free,”

“No, please, it’s my fault,” I insist, extending the money towards him.

“Beta take it. Everyone makes mistakes. You take this samosa,” he says, handing me another plated samosa.

He’s smiling at me, a drop of sweat lingering onto the curve of his moustache. I thank him a couple of times and take the offering, heading back to where Simal was. When I get there I find that my mother along with Dadi and the aunties have conglomerated at the scene as well. Dadi is murmuring something about it getting late, and one of the aunts is holding her arm. Soon enough though, her murmuring works and my mother declares we have to leave.

The walk back to the car is quieter than the walk here, primarily because Dadi is quieter. Simal has bought a few shawls, and my mother is carrying several shopping bags full of jewellery and shoes and everything else. Someday I’ll be like them too, but a part of me clings to these days where I am not. My eyes meet the gaze of the man on the wooden platform as we cross by again. I lower my gaze. The moon is no longer visible in the sky. The night has progressed and yet it is still the night. We get to the car and everyone starts getting in again. Just before my mother starts the car though, there’s a knock on the car window.

There stands another boy, this time carrying a stick laden with thick rose and marigold bracelets called gajray. He knocks on the window again, and holds out the goods he is selling. Dadi beckons him over to her side of the car, and rolls down her window.

“How much are you selling them for?” Dadi asks.

The boy mouths something, but nothing more than a barely audible squeak exits his mouth. His expression is pained and desperate. A smaller girl suddenly appears by his side and answers the question for him.

“100 rupees!” The girl said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“Give me one,” Dadi says, pulling out her wallet. She shuffles through the spare change, the 10s and 20s, but is apparently unable to find enough because she pulls out a 500 rupee note and hands it to the boy.

The boy takes the note and places two gajray on the dashboard, returning 300 to Dadi as change.

“No, I said one. I don’t want two,” Dadi protests, handing one back.

The boy, practically wincing, mouths a single word: please. He mouths it over and over, before placing the second gajra on the dashboard as well and walking away backwards, still facing us until he ultimately turns away before Dadi can protest any further. Dadi closes her wallet and we sit there, watching as the boy hands the two notes to the smaller girl who dances around holding them, pausing to draw shapes in the dust gathered on empty car windows.

“He needed it,” Dadi declares to the quiet car, “Things are bad these days,”

Simal, never one to miss an opportunity, says “Doesn’t he owe a lot to his country too?”

Dadi takes a moment to respond:

“We are his country.”

.

Rida Asim is a high school student from Lahore, Pakistan, who turns to writing in her spare time. With a vivid love for cats and observing the little things in life, she often turns her pen towards her surrounds and brings to light mundane truths from her own perspective.