Snippets!
By Shoaib Hashmi
Not many old
style Lahoris will dispute that for some time now,
Lahore's favorite pediatrician has been Dr. Anwar
-- of his own fame. Any number of people who live
in Gulberg habitually quote their formal postal
address as 'Four houses down from Dr. Anwar' or
'up the lane down from Dr. Anwar's'. This despite
the fact that his lady, Surraya,is much the better
half of the family. The reason is obvious. If you
have any children in the house, or in the neighborhood,
you must remember a time when the infant suddenly
stopped eating, grew cranky and came out in purple
spots.
That sent the
parents into a blue funk and utter panic, and lunging
for the Doc's. He barely looks up, mutters, "It's
a virus that's going the rounds, it'll clear up
in four days. Keep him warm, give him lots of liquid;
and you take two aspirins and get out of my hair."
The panic evaporates and you can go home. The result
is that parents of young children acquire a habit
of kowtowing to the Doc; sending him presents, and
generally sucking up to him whenever they meet him
socially. Then the kids grew up, and when I ran
into him at a friend's, I thumbed my nose at him,
and blew a raspberry, "Yah! Yah! I don't have to
suck up to you any more.
My kids are
teenagers now, and can go to a Proper doctor!" He
was as smug as a meanie who knows something you
don't, "Watch your mouth and wait a few years, until
you acquire grandchildren. You'll be back at my
doorstep, and on your eyelashes this time round!"
It burns me up no end to admit that he was right!
Meantime there are the minor irritations of life
in the boondocks, like wearing a watch. If you wear
one, and not one of those fancy gizmos with a metal
clasp, but a proper he-man watch with a leather
strap, and the strap ever wore out and you had to
get a replacement, you will know that the manufacturers
in this land of the clever have never bothered to
find out how thick the human wrist is.
They invariably
make the strap too long so that the watch knocks
against the knuckle until you get a wart. All it
requires is that they get hold of the first five
adults who pass by, wrap a tape round the wrist
and read the inches, but they cannot be bothered.
So you have to live life with the timepiece riding
up your elbow. Or they make it so short you can
squeeze it on and get gangrene of the wrist before
the batteries run out. But this inability to measure
the average length required seems to be a national
habit which functions all the way up to the multinationals
who crow about their international clientele and
credentials. Like the two shoemakers who have red
logo signs and always get showrooms right next to
each other.
They make pretty
darn good shoes, and you get along fine -- until
you give one tug too many and the shoelaces snap.
Then you have to get replacements, and you go to
the self-same showroom and get a branded replacement
and thread it in. They are either so short that
even if you thread them only through alternate holes,
there are only the two ends with metal sheet wrapped
round them sticking out, and you shatter your nails
trying to put a reef knot into two pieces of folded
metal. Or they are too long, and you can take them
twice round your ankle and once round your waist,
and there will still be long ends left over trailing
behind you in the cow dung. The odd thing is that
when you buy a new pair of shoes, they do have laces
of a proper length threaded through and obviously
made by the same people. Immediately after, they
burn down the factory, fire all the people who can
read a tape measure or know their inches from their
centimeters, and never again make a pair of laces
the same length! If you are still not daunted, remember
that these people also make socks.
They are the
most wonderful sophisticated designs and come wrapped
in their own individual cellophane envelopes. They
have these fancy labels telling you exactly how
much cotton and rayon have been mixed into the fabric,
and give detailed instructions about washing them
in warm and soft water to get years of service out
of them. And they fit perfectly. Except that they
have top ends which are threaded with elastic, to
hold them up, but done by people who have never
seen a naked human calf in their life and do not
know how big it is. You wear one all day and your
foot falls off like an unwanted corn. Happy shopping!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
