(Series of stories inspired by real events)
“Salam, I’m up!”, Salman exclaimed back to his father.
Like clockwork every morning at 6 am, his father would stick his neck into the boys' room that Salman shared with his younger brother, Rehan. Always looking to impress his father, Salman would make a point of acknowledging him.
Weekdays in Salman’s household followed a set routine.
Mother would be the first one to wake up. Deeply religious, she would get ready for the morning prayers. Offered before dawn, his mother would first wash. An activity that took longer than the prayer itself. She insisted on a perfect ablution. As she exited the bathroom and if any part of her body touched anything she deemed not clean, mother would promptly head back to wash all over again. It was a crippling obsession, she would suffer for the rest of her life. From the prayer rug, she would affectionately shout out the names of her older kids.
“Salman, Zara, wake up. You will miss Fajr!”
“Common, Shaitaan (Satan) is going to win if you don’t get up!”
“God will give you so many blessings if you pray on time!”
No matter what the mother invoked, Zara and Salman would consistently ignore. They would wait for round two when their mother would walk into their rooms, first gently and then with urgency urging them to pray. Reluctantly, both would comply, while the mother looked proudly upon them.
Zara would slide back in her bed. A sleep hog. Salman would wait for his father’s wake up call.
Mother would head downstairs to the main kitchen of this 5-bedroom decent size house in an upper-class neighborhood to prepare breakfast. Father would make his way outside for his morning walk at the neighborhood park. Salman didn’t wait for the reminders that the mother would send every few minutes asking kids to get ready. Instead, he would be the first one to show up in the dining room. Hoping to catch some time with his father when he returned from the walk, sipped tea, read the morning paper before the kids were whisked away to school.
That day started like any other.
Salman hummed a tune as he walked down the stairs. He avoided music in front of his father. It was disrespectful, he was told. He said his verbal greetings to his mother. There was not a lot of physical show of love in Salman’s house. No morning kisses or hugs. It must be disrespectful too, he had thought. As usual, he opened the newspapers. He would panic if they weren’t already on the table. It may mean the paper delivery was disrupted due to disturbance in the city. Karachi was full of many disturbances and chaotic strikes back in the 1990s.
But that day like any other, the newspapers were waiting along with a couple of fried eggs and toast. He looked and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Malai. Thick full fat cream that he loved as a dipping sauce with toast. Little did he know, he would spend his adult life getting rid of the same fat he would accumulate around his belly.
“Perfect”, he thought. Already sensing a sense of accomplishment. Absentmindedly, he took the first couple of bites and an even bigger eyeful of the newspaper.
Salman read everything. From the headlines to the business, sport, and fashion pages. Real estate for sale. Entertainment, especially photos of the latest movies playing where no matter the genre, the printers managed to bolden the breasts of the featured female actresses. Matrimonials. Advertisements. Retractions from yesterday. Horoscopes, although his mother frowned and would remind him of the sinful nature of predicting the future. Smaller pieces that were obviously positioned to fill up awkward white spaces between news stories. A Quran verse serving as a daily reminder. Opinion columns. He would be careful to fold the paper back to its original crisp form. His father would disapprovingly notice if he didn’t.
Suddenly his mother ran into the dining room wearing the most fearful look. She came right up to Salman and slouched behind his back. Holding him tight. She was looking to hide. He instantly remembered Eid. Twice a year religious celebrations, when family and friends would hug each other. Those were the only times, he would typically embrace his parents.
Salman kept on looking at the kitchen door. In came men. Big and rough-looking men. Men, he would see all the time lounging by the roadside. Salman stared at them, while his mother held his back firm. Still hiding. The men didn’t really stare back. In fact, they ignored their hosts’ existence entirely. The men spread out. A couple made their way to the living room. A couple went up the stairs. A couple just stood. Almost bored. Still no eye contact.
An eternity later, the men assembled back in the dining room. They communicated with a few words. Finally, one of them looked at Salman.
“Take your mother to the living room”, he said in the most uncle type tone possible. He then pointed to the living room, as if Salman needed direction. This is when Salman noticed the gun in his hand. Now he noticed all their guns. Like a robot, he stood up. His sobbing mother clutching her son’s back, her head down followed Salman in unison.
The men placed the mother and son on the sofa. One of them came up close to Salman. The proximity made this always modest mother move to the other end of the sofa. The man looked straight into Salman’s eyes and said like a concerned adult.
“You see this?”, he pointed at his handgun. Salman had seen guns before. Security guards. Police checkpoints. Movies. He even owned a couple of pellet guns. A self-appointed lizard control expert around the house. Whenever his sisters shrieked and leaped up on the bed or hid underneath the table depending on the sighting, Salman would appear with his rifle and box of pellets.
This gun was different. Small, shiny. A toy almost. But the man holding it made it very real. He took the handgun and touched the muzzle onto Salman’s sweaty forehead.
“I will shoot you if you make any noise”.
Salman nodded his head in complete agreement.
It was settled. It was clear who was in charge. It was simple. Cooperate and you will live to see another day.
Salman’s mother had quieted down. Both the mother and son were observing what would happen next. Rehan, Zara, and Salman’s two baby sisters, 5 and 6, were all upstairs still sleeping.
There was movement and the men brought inside their gatekeeper. His hands tied and a piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth. Then followed the gardener. Then chauffer. All three were neatly placed in the corner of the room on the floor. Even these men respected the custom of having servants sit on the floor while their masters occupied sofas and chairs.
Salman was anticipating any moment one of his sisters come down with her blanket. Complaining about a bad dream. His mother must have been having simultaneous thoughts as she too kept a firm gaze on the stairs.
The same man who had threatened to blow Salman’s head came up.
“Let’s go upstairs”, he said.
There was no option but to do as told. He further whispered, “Bring your sisters down”.
Salman felt a bit braver. He was in on the plan. Without hesitation, he first made his way to Zara’s room. The men behind him but on the side.
“Zara let’s go. Ammi wants to see you”, he firmly whispered. If Zara was paying any attention, she could immediately tell he was bullshitting. Instead, she took her default position.
“Get out of my room. I will tell Aboo!”, she sleepily screamed.
Salman used to hear variations of this.
“Give me the remote. I will tell Aboo!”
“Get off the phone. I will tell Aboo!”
With an almost perfect record of success, she knew Salman would back off. In front of their father’s court, there was always the same ruling.
So when Salman repeated, “Zara, Ammi wants you to come downstairs”, she took some notice.
“What does she…” and before she could finish, Salman had already yanked her off the bed. Zara was a skinny girl. Although, a year older than Salman probably was a few pounds less. Their mother would worry about Zara’s inability to gain weight. It was somehow connected to Zara’s ability to improve her looks and consequently be ready for a marriage proposal. As she found her balance, Salman was shoving her towards the door and onto the stairs.
She mumbled some protest but within a few seconds, she somehow managed to get pushed downstairs. Their mother grabbed for her and dissolved Zara in her arms. For a mother who took her modesty very seriously, her teenage daughter in PJs while stranger men watched was wrong at every level. You could tell that this woman was ready to protect her daughter no matter what the cost.
The men must have felt the energy, as they got back to business. Salman made a few more trips to bring his other three siblings. He felt a strange sense of responsibility towards the men, who had given him this important assignment.
As Salman got settled on the sofa, the man assigned to him thrust the gun on his face. Through the opening between the gun and the hand holding it, Salman observed the men discussing their next move. They spoke perfect Urdu, Pakistan’s official language. A fact that would come handy later when Police would try to narrow down their unsuccessful investigation to find these men.
The doorbell rang. Everyone knew who was next. Father was returning from his walk. A collective sense of tension appeared on everyone’s face including the men. This would be the make or break part of the morning. Resistance by the man of the house would frequently result in violence in such armed robberies. Just recently, a distant relative was killed in a similar scenario not too far from their own house. Salman was sorry he didn’t pay much attention when his mother would relay such stories at dinner time. Perhaps there were lessons from those that he should recall, he thought.
Men were dispatched to get the father from the main gate. A couple of minutes passed. Then the father’s voice came, “Rani, we have guests”. Rani was the mother’s nickname meaning Queen. Father would use that term frequently when kids were growing up. Over time though the word would disappear from the dictionary, along with most communications between mother and father. They would spend the last several years of their lives as complete strangers that avoided interactions to perhaps not remind themselves of what they had become for each other.
Father was playing this very intelligently. Assuming these men had not yet gone inside the house, he was trying to tame the situation for his wife that he knew would be cooking breakfast. He entered the living room, made a mental count of all the people he would expect to be present including the household servants. Gave everyone a visual x-ray ensuring all were physically ok.
He then turned towards the men and typical of him, he took charge.
“What would you like to eat for breakfast”, he asked the men.
The men looked at each other and shrugged as if they would be good with anything. Salman watched in amazement as his father got the men settled each with a plate of warm food. Had there been no guns, had there been no tied-up people on the floor, had there been no irregular sobbing of the mother, had there been no gun blocking Salman’s total view, this may have passed for a weekend brunch with friends.
With nourishment taken care of and while one of them kept a keen eye on everyone, the rest of the men went about their business. Later Salman would discover what a thorough search had occurred in every room. Every piece of furniture moved around, all drawers emptied, every cupboard swept. Salman kept a wallet in one of his drawers with some cash that he would use on Saturdays when he got a chance to visit a general store with his cousins assembled at their grandmother's place. There was a business card size prayer he had received from the mosque that was meant to protect your belongings. In plain sight, the wallet had been left on the table. The cash was intact. The prayer card in one of the inserts.
When the men had left along with one of their cars, the family and servants sat frozen in their positions. The threats of shooting, if anyone did not comply still rang. Finally, the father made the call that it was safe to move. He immediately ordered the family upstairs and untied the servants to secure the outside. Upstairs, Salman witnessed the only time he can remember the complete breakdown of his father. He sobbed uncontrollably. He wailed like his infant sisters when they couldn’t find their blankets. He held his wife and both of them joined in celebrating the best-case outcome of such a traumatic event. No one was physically hurt. No daughter was touched.
Similar to other life-altering events, this one was also no different. In the sense that it too was brushed under the memories. Never talked about again. Never mentioned ever again.
