Haveli, page 1
Haveli
AN INDIROM NOVELLA
PUBLISHED BY INDIREADS
Zeenat Mahal
Version 1.0
Copyright © Zeenat Mahal 2013
Published in 2013 by
Indireads Incorporated
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-927826-02-7
Cover Illustration by Mariyam Iftikhar
DEDICATION
To my wonderful sons, Nabi Noor, Shaham and Jalal.
ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS
I would like to thank Khadija Zulqarnain for suggesting Indireads to me and vice versa. You were the one, Khadija, who read that first embarrassing and hilarious romance ‘Koh-i-Noor’ and kept me entertained with your letters and cards while I recuperated from ‘mumps’. Thank you for being such a good friend then and now.
A huge thanks to Naheed Hassan for writing that first email of appreciation that got me going. And thank you for thinking of this fabulous idea of Indireads and giving me the opportunity to see my writing in print.
I would like to give special thanks to my editor, Sabahat Muhammad, whose invaluable assistance and hard work is much appreciated. I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful partnership.
ABOUT INDIREADS
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CONTENTS
Dedications and Acknowledgments
About Indireads
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
About the Author
Request for Feedback
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ONE
In the summer of 1971, I was still learning how to pour tea correctly from my grandmother. I was not Japanese either, nor a geisha. I simply had the misfortune of being the granddaughter of Zaitoon Begum, the widow of the last Nawab of Jalalabad.
Wearing her usual gharara and French lace duppatta, The Broad watched me impassively as I picked up the china teapot with a trembling hand and tried to keep it steady.
“Put it down. Tell me what is wrong.”
An easy one, thank God.
“One is supposed to have a firmer grip,” I replied with composure.
“Don’t be ridiculous. One is supposed to fill the teapot no more than three quarters. Now lift the Wedgwood, which is only half-filled, and therefore not an accident waiting to happen, and pour.”
I was convinced she was born from Satan’s rib, probably around the same time as Eve was of Adam’s. She’d married my poor unsuspecting grandfather, who had the foresight to play, and then use as escape route, the gentlemanly sport of polo. God was kind to him. Five years after their marriage, he died. The Broad never forgave him. It wasn’t his death that bothered her. It was that little detail that he’d died playing polo. She felt he should’ve died doing something useful.
I put the strainer on the teacup and lifted the other teapot.
“Oh dear,” she murmured.
I looked down.
Ooops. One must always hold the strainer in one’s hand and never, ever make one’s life easier by putting it on the teacup. In a swift movement, I lifted the strainer, and poured the tea. Unfortunately, in my nervousness, some of it spilled in the saucer.
She was still watching. She was always watching, like God.
I searched my mind frantically, for what ‘one’ was ‘supposed’ to do in such a dilemma. Change the saucer for formal tea. Although it wasn’t comfortable, it was still an informal gathering. It had to be, we were related. So, place paper napkin on saucer, hide offending article in a plate away from the discerning eye of the guest, or in this case, omniscient grandmother.
I looked up again. She smiled.
Well, not really. She relaxed her mouth a little, and that was what passed for her smile. I shifted my sieve-holding hand to the next teacup and poured.
“Ahhh.”
Now what? I wasn’t born to pour tea, couldn’t she see that?
Baba caught my eye and winked in encouragement. The highlight of my childhood and adolescence, was that twice a year, a big, genial man who reminded me of Santa, used to visit us. Jovial and funny, he brought me presents—useless things that The Broad never did, like chocolates, and heels and other girly things and I loved him with all my heart. I could laugh, relax, make mistakes and not hate myself for making them. Baba didn’t mind a little spilled tea in his saucer.
With The Broad I could never laugh. We appreciated each other’s sarcastic verbal punches but an honest to God laugh was rare, if ever. As my sarcasm had honed, she’d livened up more and more and so by twenty, I was quite adept.
Baba, and his wife, whom I called Bua, a less intimidating version of The Broad, had returned from England for good that summer. Bua wore a uniform garb like The Broad. Hers were saris. She wore them day or night, formal or informal; rain or shine it was always saris—immaculate and tasteful. She was an Indian Muslim and, like so many Pakistanis, had relatives on both sides of the border.
“Sorry, Bi Amma,” I murmured.
Major faux pas. One was not supposed to fill multiple cups of tea and keep one’s guests waiting while their tea got steadily cold before their helpless eyes.
The Broad waved a delicate bejeweled hand and said, “Oh, never mind, we’ll try again tomorrow. Now I need my cup of tea. Sanaullah, bring us some tea and pour it for us.”
I was a disappointment to her, like my mother. She’d taken after her father rather than having the decency to be her mother’s carbon copy. All I ever heard was how she’d had a ‘foolish nature just like her father’, which meant that she was a pleasant, trusting person, unlike The Broad and me. We were sarcastic, cynical, know-it-alls.
The Broad never mentioned Nameless, the penniless adventurer my mother had had the gall to ‘fall in love’ with and marry. The story was that my handsome father, the charming cretin, had come to Jalalabad for a trip and my nineteen-year-old mother, having fallen in love, had eloped and married him.
When they returned obsequiously for The Broad’s blessing, she was having none of it and turned them away in anger. They loped around for a while, till Zainab—my mother—became pregnant, no doubt in some dark and dingy room Nameless had rented. Depositing her promptly at Gulaab Mahal, he disappeared. My mother died two years later of pneumonia, I’d heard told, but I knew she’d died of a broken heart. Nameless killed her.
If I hadn’t had Zafar to listen to my cribbing, I might have gone mad. Zafar was my half-brother. The first secret and deserted wife of Nameless found out his most recent whereabouts and followed him to Jalalabad when I was two. She didn’t quite die on our threshold the minute she gave Zafar into the questionable care of my grandmother, as gossip seemed to suggest. She died three days later. He was seven at the time and remembered that she’d been sick for a long time.
Zafar and I loved one another the moment we set our green eyes—a common legacy from our absent father—on each other. No one ever noticed his green eyes though, the lucky bastard. No one even mentioned that they were green. Mine though, were the bane of my life. People melted as soon as their eyes met mine. ‘Unusually green’ and ‘almond-shaped’ were words I’d heard so many times, they didn’t mean anything anymore. If my eyes made people want to love me, my caustic tongue cured them soon enough.
Zafar hated Nameless. I had a love-hate relationship with the idea of him. I wanted him to come back, cry and beg for my forgiveness, which I would grant after a lot of emotional blackmail. That was how the story ran through my head for years. As I grew older though, questions cropped up in my mind that left me disturbed. Why hadn’t he ever tried to come back to find out what had happened to me? Didn’t he love me at all?
I tried not to think like that. My imaginary scenarios were so much better.
I was probably the only citizen of this country to be homeschooled. I knew we were amongst the privileged few. We discussed the fate of the nation as if they were problems our friends were having; thrilling but sad.
The Broad and two retired army oldies with a huge crush on her, were my tutors. I learnt everything she did as a child, even ballet. She’d had a tough
“Back straight,” Miss Brown, intoned patiently for two of the longest years of my life.
“Is that all you see, Miss Brown? Look at her feet,” The Broad countered, or something similar designed to criticize Miss Brown and her methods. She was told every day that she knew nothing, and if The Broad herself were younger, she’d do a better job of it herself. Every day, I had to sit with Miss Brown and comfort her for hours afterwards. Until the day I decided to steal ancient family silver to buy her passage to England, and provide enough money for her to survive on till she could earn her livelihood. Even though nothing was proved to incriminate me, I had to do extra French for a whole month in penance. The Broad knew. She always did.
My homeschooling was fun, though. My education encompassed old Hollywood, Indian and Pakistani movie classics. I read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Milton, Rumi, Shakespeare, Iqbal, Saadi, Voltaire, Plato, and Al-Ghazzali. My head was full of philosophies I was too young to understand, or appreciate fully. Nonetheless, I enjoyed them and I had a great foundation.
I was even subjected to a free lesson on sex education by The Broad. I was twelve and saw two birds at it, only I thought that the aggressive bird was trying to eat the sparrow and I ran screaming around Gulaab Mahal, “Save the bird! Save the bird! It’ll kill her!” Instinctively I knew the sparrow was female. When Tariq Chacha found the bird in alleged danger, he snorted, turned red, and ran. I screamed. He didn’t slacken his whirlwind speed.
The world was a cruel place that day.
That summer of 1971, things began to change. The most momentous event was the return of the dreamboat, the prince among mortals, my one and only, Kunwar Rohail Khanzada.
After thirteen years of living a nomadic life of leisure, he’d come back with his daughter. His wife had died in childbirth. He was a distant relative and would have been Nawab since he was the only male descendent left, if the custom hadn’t been abolished. I’d last seen him when I was about nine. That was when I’d fallen in love with him. By the time I was ten, I’d made plans to marry him. Zafar knew and had made promises to aid and abet me.
It was time to set the plan in motion because Kunwar was here, at last.
≈
TWO
Kunwar was even more magnificent than I remembered. He was darker than was fashionable but the hazel eyes made an intriguing contrast. He was tall-ish, very broad, and had silky, black hair. I’d touched it when I’d sat in his lap as a nine-year-old. He’d been twenty-eight, I think.
Kunwar, a Hindu title some people had retained, suited him. I referred to him that way because it sounded so romantic, and he was so dreamy. I just couldn’t call him Rohail…uh…no way. His daughter, Manhal, loved me immediately. I’d been counting on my eyes—some good out of them at last. How long was he going to be able to resist them?
Turned out, nearly all summer.
His stubborn refusal to acknowledge me as the possible mother of his thirteen-year-old and all his future children rather flummoxed me. I was at my wit’s end. I called up my partner in this ill-fated scheme for help.
“Zafar, the eagle has not landed—the eagle refuses to land actually. I need help.”
“What?” He sounded tired.
Zafar had trained to be a lawyer. He’d even started working with a respectable firm in Jalalabad. However, that was no excuse for dullness.
“I said, the eagle…”
“I heard. I just don’t know what that means. You’re not going to start on about your grandfather’s prized falcons again are you?”
“Zafar, eagles are not falcons, they’re…oh, forget it. I’m talking about Kunwar, you idiot.”
The fool started sniggering. I didn’t like that. I knew exactly what to do, to keep him in line.
“Remember our pact, Zafar. You help me with Kunwar, and I’ll help you with Mahnoor.”
Mahnoor was Colonel Farhat’s daughter. The only law firm in Jalalabad, and where my foolish brother worked, belonged to Rtd. Colonel Farhat Ullah. Zafar and the boss’s daughter seemed to have caught each other’s eye and so I had to pretend to be her friend, pass on love letters and arrange meetings when I could. I was a regular pimp.
Zafar wanted to marry her eventually. Everyone knew Zafar’s story. Sadly, the world was a prejudiced and judgmental place. The Colonel, however, would do anything The Broad told him to. He’d even accept abandoned sons of ‘Nameless’ adventurers as sons-in-law.
“Fine. What do you want me to do?” He sounded just a bit cross.
I smiled. It vanished as soon as I realized I didn’t have an answer to his question. What was one supposed to do in such situations?
“I don’t know. Tell him I know how to pour tea correctly. I can impersonate Ava Gardner.”
Silence.
“Zafar?”
“I was contemplating the repercussions of those disclosures.”
I did sarcasm well. I didn’t take it as well.
“You know, I think Uncle Farhat just dropped by. I’ll pop down and see what he thinks of prospective sons-in-law, shall I? Did you know Baba’s son’s coming soon? Must be of marriageable age and—”
“Cut it out.”
I laughed. He sounded so churlish.
“Well then?”
“You’re too young for him and it shows. Behave in a more grown up way, if you can manage that? You can start with showing proper respect to your older brother.”
Of course. That was it.
“You do have brains! I need to make him realize I’m fit to be a mother. Brilliant, thanks Zafar.”
What I needed was a different wardrobe. I was up and away on a shopping spree.
I returned home later that day to find The Broad sitting with someone, their backs towards the entrance. My eyes went straight to Kunwar, sitting on the opposite sofa. Those hazel eyes in that darkish complexion just made me all gooey inside. I put on my dazzling, innocent-but-yours smile, and looked into his eyes, which were full of shy amusement and doubt.
Soon, my love, I promised. Soon, all the doubts will vanish.
I was dressed up older, thanks to Zafar’s input. My hair was curled into flirty abandon. I would’ve worn red lipstick and clinched the deal but I’d desisted, knowing The Broad would likely kill me. ‘Good girls’ wore red lipstick only after they were married.
I gave a pretty little sigh and sat down beside him. Kunwar smiled but wouldn’t look at me. God, how shy could a forty-year-old millionaire be? The more he procrastinated, the more determined I became. I had saris with tiny blouses lined up as my next sensual attack on him. I really couldn’t figure out what else to do. The tiny blouses were my last resort.
Just about then, the compulsion I’d been feeling to look left became too strong and I did…to behold a specimen of alpha male. He was perfect; from his dark, slightly wavy hair, cut to perfection, to his dark, dark eyes with defined eyebrows, a straight beautiful nose, the sexiest mouth I’d ever seen, and a golden complexion. Even though he was seated, I could tell he was tall.
I hated him on principle.
First off, he was too perfect to be any good to anyone else. Secondly, he was looking at me with his eyes full of mocking laughter. I could tell he knew what I was on about with Kunwar, because he shot a bland stare towards him. Kunwar chortled. Alpha Male narrowed his eyes and looked a little dangerous.
My attention was diverted by The Broad’s glare.
In icy tones she said, “Chandni…”
No matter how many times I’d heard it, no matter from whom, it remained sickening and horrifying. It was disgusting. I hated my name. It made me sound like some prostitute from Pakeezah. Apparently my mother had thought sensible names were not for daughters of Nameless abandoners. What was wrong with a good old-fashioned name like Salma? Anything was better than this.
“Please, Bi Amma. Call me C.” I choked with embarrassment.
