Foolishness

Mir Mahboob Ali

He has been an insensible rascal not to recognize genuine love. In his ignorance he has been knocking at the wrong door. All these years growing together Muntazir has been under the impression that Nazia likes him as he likes her. As Nazia’s elder sister Nimmi has been an object of respect not an object of amorous feelings.

They are neighbors in a residential area for civil servants. Muntazir is a Bengali boy and Nimmi is a Punjabi girl. They are neighbors for many years and in these years, they barely have talked to each other. Both families know each other well. Silently from their childhood, they step into their adolescent years and now they are students. In their teens, they feel like being adult and independent. Largely they are. The daily tension of facing teachers is gone because control is much relaxed in colleges. Parents start behaving differently, treat them with much respect, and even on occasions ask their opinion on important matters.

Nimmi is advanced in studies and is probably a bit older than Muntazir. There is nothing notable about Muntazir. He is a normal sixteen year old lad trying to adjust to his teen years with very natural attraction for the opposite sex. He is a shy lad and always avoids girls though deep in his heart he craves for their company. He has friends among Bengalis, who are generally his classmates or schoolmates and non-Bengalis who are neighbors. His healthy liking for girls does not help him get over his shyness and he generally shuns their company. The shyness must have developed because of segregation in school that he attended. He is never easy among girls. He likes many girls but most particularly, he is attracted to the younger sister of Nimmi who is younger to him. Never has he paid any attention to Nimmi, though, she is equally beautiful in her own ways, as she is older. Nimmi’s sister Nazia is the most beautiful among the three Nimmi sisters. Almost all of Muntazir’s friends vie for Nazia’s attention.

Muntazir and his friends grow together with the sisters attaining their puberty at about the same time. While boys start showing traces of moustache. Previously flat chest females begin to cover their breasts with a piece of clothe, called dupatta. A sudden surge of attraction begins to glow around them. That unexplainable subtle titillating attraction made the boys curious.

“Have the girls been known to them all these time!” boys wonder.

“Why all this while they have not attracted us, as they do now! They think”

Older and more experienced boys lecture them on the anatomy of girls and the younger novices gulp each word of it enriching them. Older girls and married classmates for early marriages are common in this part of the world and free mixing is taboo, give interesting lessons to new entrants, about boys. Married girls are generally a bit older because in most cases girls after marriage return to their studies after a lapse of a few years. These lessons flare up interest in the opposite sex in both groups. Consequently, they are eager to explore for themselves. Thus unaware of their quest they intently seek a relationship with the opposite sex. Suddenly everything about the other becomes interesting.

Before the Nimmi sisters moved around freely often with boys but now gradually they begin withdrawing from their care free merry making. Muntazir and friends earlier had greater opportunity to watch them as they played with others. This opportunity has been wasted in the innocence of childhood. Nobody had any inkling that these girls could be so attractive and would soon disappear behind doors. It is not the pardah of the Muslims which forces them inside but social restrictions, for they are not pardah observing girls. These girls are allowed to go out but mixing with unrelated boys is not permitted. At the advent of puberty, they appear less and less outside their house. Now sighting them is like sighting rare birds. Therefore, their appearance in their gardens or at their doors is a source of happiness for Muntazir and others. Now watching them has acquired a new dimension. There is this thrill of the unknown. A slipping dupatta now excites the intoxicating ecstasy of a revelation of the unseen.

The youngest of the sisters of no consequence to Muntazir’s age group remains care free. As Nimmi and Nazia are not confined in their house and as their playing outdoors has stopped, so their lawn appearances and traveling to and from their house are the only occasions when their admirers get a glimpse of them. The fleeting appearances are also progressively becoming rare. Their father drives them to and college in their Volkswagen and that is the one other time they are seen outside their home. Muntazir has to get up early in the morning and stand on the way pretending to do something or the other to have an early glimpse of the sisters. He does this with a passion just to remain ahead of his friends. So that he can boast of seeing, the sisters while others are still trying their luck in the evening. In the name of playing cricket and other outdoor games, boys gather around their house. On occasions, her father has to intervene to disperse the crowd when that gets noisy and approaches too close to their house for their comfort. Occasionally, Muntazir sees them while retuning from college in the afternoon. That is a bonus. The object of interest is the second of the sisters, Nazia.

On these trysts, Muntazir often sees Nimmi watching him intently through the window of the car or standing at the door of their house. He dismisses those intent looks as the watchfulness of an older sister like a mother and tries his best to avoid her. Nimmi is a bit shorter and bulkier than Nazia but is not much less beautiful. She is only as less beautiful as she is shorter and bulkier.

Muntazir’s friends much before him spot Nimmi’s interest in him. They mildly tease him too. However, Muntazir always denies his own weakness, for he is not sure that Nimmi has developed a liking for him. Nevertheless, gradually it starts to unfold and Muntazir becomes conscious of Nimmi’s affection for him. Though he has strong liking for Nazia, he does not dislike, Nimmi. He rather never thought that Nimmi would be interested in him, as he is younger. His non-Bengali friends often force him to stand in Nimmi’s path for Nimmi has to cross his house traveling to and from her house. Nimmi keeps on looking at Muntazir as long as she can through the back window of the Volkswagen, risking her father’s admonition, whenever she spots Muntazir. Luckily, for all, Mr. Naqvi remains intently attentive to his driving. Muntazir’s interest in Nimmi earlier has been confined to an interest of a teenager to another of the opposite sex. He has taken as much interest in Nimmi as he takes in other beautiful girls.

When faced with Nimmi’s affection Muntazir realizes that it is he, who is responsible for igniting passion in Nimmi: “Once he was plucking Jujube from a neighbor's tree climbing on top of the tree. From the top he spotted Nimmi passing under the tree and dropped some jujube on her, she stopped, did not look up, and silently left the place. An apprehensive Muntazir quickly descends from the tree and returns home. Bewildered, apprehensively waits for a complain but no complain comes as he is expecting for there is strong possibility of Nimmi seeing him on the tree for he has been visible on top of the tree from quite a distance. He is cross with himself for doing such a foolish thing. Muntazir has a reputation of being a good boy and now he is faced with losing his reputation without any gain. No complain comes but the episode troubles him for months. He is remorseful that Nazia will take offence at such misbehavior with her elder sister, Nimmi. Nimmi’s reaction is of no consequence to him.”

Now, Nimmi’s attention is more than a compensation for his foolishness. He is happy and begins to feel an irresistible attraction towards Nimmi. He resolves to build a relationship with Nimmi, ‘such a kind hearted girl!’ he thinks. She is beautiful as well. Now Nimmi begins to seem much more beautiful than Nazia. She is now the object of his interest.

Muntazir is falling and falling fast for Nimmi. Nimmi totally takes control of his thoughts. He begins to long for Nimmi’s short appearances at her doorsteps. He hopes that those fleeting moments would lengthen to hours and days. Muntazir leaving his studies will for long, long time remain blissfully lost in Nimmi’s thought, “…Beautiful Nimmi. …Darling Nimmi. …My Nimmi.” “Is it love?” he thinks.

Nimmi’s brother Akmal the older of the two brothers she has is a friend of Muntazir. The other brother Arham can barely speak. Muntazir gets friendly with him too and begins teaching him his mother tongue Bangla, in all earnestness. The kid is bright and begins learning Bangla very fast. After sometime, he is using more Bangla words than Urdu or Panjabi. Everybody knew but Nimmi’s father, Mr. Fida Hussain Naqvi. As soon as he comes to realize Arham’s language proficiency, he is furious and demands to know of the source. Nimmi and others plead their ignorance but Mr. Naqvi guessing that Muntazir and family may be the source forbids the kid from mixing with Muntazir or other members of his family. Muntazir loses a vital link to Nimmi. As Muntazir decides that it is time to acknowledge Nimmi’s affection, he comes to know from Akmal that they are planning to move to their newly built house very soon. Since they are not leaving Karachi or not going out of the country, the news did not disturb Muntazir much. He is sure that some how they shall maintain a link. Muntazir knew Nimmi would join the University of Karachi before him. Nevertheless, he resolves to join Karachi University not joining the Medical College, as his parents want him to.

At around this time Nimmi’s family shifts to their own residence in a middle class locality. Nimmi and her sisters are the last to leave by their Volkswagen. Muntazir against his wishes is forced to stand on the path by his friends while Nimmies have been driving past. Nimmi keeps on looking at Muntazir and her eyes glistens with tears …perhaps. Forcing him face the car two of his friends hold him tightly so that he can not move or look away. Muntazir for the first time feels a peculiar pain reaping through his heart, an indescribable pain and for the first time realizes that he loves. A vacant feeling seizes his senses and his sight becomes blurred with tears. At long, long, long last, he realizes that he loves Nimmi, the beautiful damsel from Punjab. “He lost valuable time, precious time, time that will never come back … if he only knew earlier that Nimmi’s family will move to a different place …….,” he broods with a saddened heart.