Nayyara Rahman
Nayyara Rahman (1984– ) is a freelance contributor to local magazines and online forums. She was born and brought up in Karachi and graduated from the Institute of Business Management. As a student, she received several creative-writing prizes, including first prize in a national essay competition held by National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan. Her short story, “Clay Fissures,” was one of five winning entries of a nationwide British Council contest and published in a collection called I Belong (British Council, 2004). Her work has also appeared in Neither Night nor Day (HarperCollins, 2007).
“Clay Fissures” is another exploration of identity and belonging in Pakistan. The references to the singers Noor Jehan and Mehdi Hassan and the film star Waheed Murad reflect the admiration for popular performers and the role their art plays in defining a young country’s self image. The narrator, Pradeep, is marked as different primarily because he is an albino, but also because he is not Muslim. The story makes an interesting comment on color—whiteness—as identity, particularly when Pradeep migrates to the United States, where white skin is commonplace and yet he remains an outsider. The reference to Mr. Ruknuddin, who chose to remain in West Pakistan after the 1971 civil war in which East Pakistan became the independent Bangladesh, presents the concept of nationality as a choice and a commitment, rather than a birthright.
• • •
“Pradeep, go sit on the bench.”
I sighed and trudged toward the shady end where Sir Gul Muhammad had placed the benches. Watching the shining faces of my classmates as they ran after the football, I wondered, “Will I ever be like them?”
It wasn’t just the game that made me ask that. My eleven-year-old self was an outsider in many ways. It was 1953 and patriotism was still a young, strong spirit in Pakistan. People were proud of being Pakistani. They were proud of being Muslim. They were proud of their brown skin, which reflected wheat—the lifeblood of Pakistan. And here was I: Pradeep Sehgal, the adopted albino son of a Hindu merchant and a Eurasian seamstress.
There was a long cheer. I looked wistfully at the field and then looked away again. Sir Gul meant well. But he didn’t seem to realize that a fiercer sun shone down on me than the one he meant to protect me against.
I had never really known what it was like to be a part of anything; to belong anywhere. At seven, a quarrel with my brother had resulted in the discovery of my “adoption.” I was also accustomed to being excluded from every game that is woven into the tapestry of childhood because of what my parents called my “colorless skin.”
Even at school, I was different. Arithmetic was a general favorite at Rossmoor Academy. I hated it, for I had no patience with something everyone loved to do. After all, bullying “Sunflower Pradeep” was also the most popular sport there.
Thankfully, those were years when sport hadn’t overtaken the appreciation of culture. The Beatles may have swung the rest of the world into the 1960s, but Pakistan had its own way of biting into that delicious slice of time. Waheed Murad was a rage. Mehdi Hasan and Noor Jehan were moving the nation with their beautiful music. It was an insane, ecstatic time.
For me, growing up was floating in the wind like a seed. It was fun, but it was fleeting. I needed solid ground to settle down and take root.
Besides, I was still different, still “apart.” I still didn’t know who my real family was. My foster father’s marriage to a Christian had demoted his caste, which, in effect, confirmed my “outcaste” status. I resolved that I would never follow any belief that would make a man a stranger in his own land.
Land! I still marvel at fate for igniting this passion within me. The smell of loam, the dance of the monsoon, the gift of rain coursed inside me and gave me reason to grow, despite myself. I literally dug in. All my drive poured into my work. In 1966, I graduated second in a class of 250 with a double major in geography and geology.
I worked for the government after that. To my delight, my job made me tour the country frequently. To my dismay, I was treated as an outsider wherever I went. The partiality would have been unbearable if it hadn’t been for Mr. Ruknuddin.
I always thought my boss was an intriguing fellow, partly because he truly enjoyed his work in the geology department. In a year when Bangladesh was lauding itself for its independence and Pakistan was mourning the loss of its “Eastern” bloc, Mr. Ruknuddin’s presence in a Pakistani government office stood out like a rock in a stream. It was ironic that he should have chosen to continue working in Karachi for his family lived in Dhaka. His younger brother had been killed in “the war,” fighting on Bangladesh’s side. No matter how I thought about this, I just couldn’t understand why Mr. Ruknuddin still worked in Pakistan. I ventured into this daunting territory during lunch when I asked Mr. Ruknuddin how he felt about Pakistan after his brother’s death.
Mr. Ruknuddin looked up. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time he had been asked that. His half-empty biryani plate lay before him when he said the words I would remember in another age. “We all make our own identities. He was willing to die for his land and race. I choose to live for mine. This doesn’t make him a martyr or me a traitor. It simply makes us who we are.”
Time, I imagine, abrades all. In 1972, destiny veered my life again. Mr. Ruknuddin summoned me into his office one morning and handed me an envelope. With hands that shook like autumn leaves, I ripped it open.
It was an offer to join the American Geologists’ Council! My work in exploiting the Karez, or salt lake system in Pakistan, had apparently made quite an impression on observers abroad. My academic credentials were impressive, Mr. Ruknuddin had already sent a most glowing reference, and so the letter went on.
For a moment I stared at Mr. Ruknuddin. Then I grabbed him in a bear hug. He returned it with a grandfatherly smile. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I cheered, all thirty years of me jumping. “Allah bless you, sir!” At that moment, everything about the universe became insignificant. All that mattered was that I had received every Pakistani geologist’s dream job.
Three months later I was working in the United States. My work centerd on environmental hazards. Earthquakes took me to Los Angeles; the oil crisis took me to Texas. It was an exciting life and a happy one, too. Any racism against me was squashed merely because nobody could be too sure of my “Asian-ness.” So, although my name and accent continued to raise eyebrows, I fitted in quite nicely in Every Man’s Land.
A geologist will never say, “It’s a small world,” because for us the world grows more mysterious and challenging every day. I have seen more climatic disasters than any weather reporter can dream of. Indeed, there were so many that their horrors simply consigned themselves to a mental compartment labeled “Unfortunates” in my mind. Indeed, there was only one “horror file” that my thoughts consulted again and again.
In 1988, a drought struck the West Coast and was making its way to the Great Plains. It had decided that its final whiplash would be in the Mississippi River Basin. I was assigned to go there.
I regretted it.
There was something about the faces of the drought victims, a tired, defeated vulnerability that reminded me of a past I was eager to forget. I sighed, muttered expletives, and made no secret of the fact that I couldn’t wait to escape. I regarded these people with a callous impatience I had never felt before. Yet, for some reason, I could not be resentful for long. Pity replaced contempt. I plunged into the rehabilitation work with a drive I didn’t know I had and worked hard to alleviate their suffering.
Perhaps I was trying to make up for lost time. Perhaps I was trying to make up for lost loyalties.
Whatever it might have been, it was then that I realized that sometimes you learn to value things too late, and by the time you do it’s best to just forget them.
Time passed quickly. Color fever was high in the 1980s. The United States had seen a new rival in Japan, Americans discovered new villains in the “yellow people” and recognized old slaves in the “black” ones. They had just begun to realize what it felt like to have Mexicans in their land, and considering how many of those there were the Americans weren’t overly enthusiastic about the new brotherhood. Still, remembering their loyalty to their former “white” masters, brown people continued to take pride in subserving themselves in an alien land.
I know the worth of race; after all it is something that has tried hard to make my life worthless. I had been through stilted friendships. I had seen promotions sneak past me to glib, rakish subordinates. Perhaps one reason why I never married was that I always thought a potential wife would look at me in the same way as everyone else. For many years I blamed myself. I did all I could to be like everyone else, but the more I did the more unfamiliar I became to myself.
It took some time before I realized that people didn’t react to who I was. All they saw were the pink eyes and flaxen hair. They heard the singsong voice, heard the foreign-sounding name, and decided that I deserved to be treated like an outsider. I had spent years blaming myself for something that didn’t come close to being my fault. But the discrimination also taught me that the only place where color really matters is in a rainbow. Imagine those colors geometrically allotting themselves a square meter each of the sky, and you will know what I mean.
Speaking of skies, my American stars shone down on me one evening—or so I thought. I was in San Francisco when I received an unexpected phone call. It was from Mr. Ruknuddin. After an exchange of pleasantries he congratulated me for receiving the National Explorer’s Award and a recent Fellowship Grant. Surprised at his acumen, I thanked him. He then mentioned that he’d kept abreast of my work and was wondering if I would be willing to offer my expertise to Pakistan.
“I can’t tell you why right now, but we really need you here,” he said.
“I’ll come.”
It was only after I hung up that I realized what I had just done.
The phenomenal stupidity of it! Was I supposed to leave my work and rush over to satisfy the whims of a former boss? Not everyone receives a Fellowship Grant—was I supposed to just forget it? What did Pakistan have for me, anyway? I hadn’t returned to the country in years! Why had I said yes?
That was the problem: I knew why.
As Mr. Ruknuddin had requested, I took the first available flight to Pakistan, landing in Balochistan, the country’s biggest and most wasted province. In my hotel suite, Mr. Ruknuddin explained: Foreign investors were interested in helping Pakistan establish a copper and gold refinery at Saindak. This was wonderful, except that the project had been stalled until it received security clearance.
“Pradeep,” he said, his eyes grave. “We think that place is dangerous. We need your help to know for sure. A lot of people are counting on you.”
“What’s the problem at Saindak?”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong there. But Koh-e-Sultan is showing signs of waking up again.”
I stared at him. Koh-e-Sultan may have been a formidable volcano once, but it hadn’t erupted in 800 years. “That’s absurd!” I cried.
Quietly, Mr. Ruknuddin said, “We certainly hope so.”
To appease all, the government insisted on keeping the investigation as low-key as possible. That meant limited research, limited funding, and big risk.
I thought nostalgically of the United States.
In any case, we submerged ourselves in the task. The seismograph spat out pages of data like the ECG reading of a coma patient. The prognosis wasn’t exactly discouraging. Koh-e-Sultan would either erupt any time in the next fortnight, or remain dormant for at least another 52 years. At least we had time to prepare for the disaster.
Unfortunately, it was our preparation that gave us away. Although we had been discreet in our collection of mud samples and seismic information, we could not have been secretive about evacuating the locals and their cattle from the scene. “Soil testing” was quite a plausible reason. Or at least it had been until our delineation marks were discovered. The Chinese investors were the first to hear of it. Then came the locals. Next was a large array of reporters from all over Asia. Most annoying was a European diplomat who doubled as an amateur geographer.
We had tried our best to evacuate the place but the public’s love for show prevailed. On what we imagined was Judgement Day, the outskirts of Takht-e-Sultan were a circus! The locals had gone through a lot of trouble. Thanks to them, the “spectators” in question could witness the entire event from an adjoining plateau, which, despite its awesome view, was safely several kilometers away. Heaven knows that I have seen nature at its most ruthless. I have worked myself through calamities without flinching, but that day I prayed. Every vein in my body quivered as I imagined lava licking off life.
Eventually restlessness got the better of me. Ignoring the incredulous glances of my teammates in the Research Office, I headed to the outskirts. The frenzy there was unnerving! I could sense the fear and the excitement. We all stood together and waited.
4:30, 5:30, 6:30 . . . The lion would continue to sleep! Relief flooded through us like an elixir. We hugged and shook hands and cheered. Europeans, Chinese, and Baluchis: Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and a Hindu all brought together by circumstance. Fate had painted these disparate backgrounds into one picture.
I saw a Pakistani journalist help a Sikh one photograph the scene. An Indian journalist who had come up to cover the economic benefits of the refinery was discussing it with a Chinese businessman—no notebook in hand. Suddenly the sting of having once been “Sunflower Pradeep” dissipated. When I saw the diplomat hug a tribal chief, I remembered Mr. Ruknuddin’s old words and they started to make new sense. The tribal chiefs, notorious for their love of war, posed for photographs and then went off together to offer Prayers of Thanks.
When one of the Chinese businessmen boomed: “Pakistan zindabad!” tears filled my eyes and I cheered, for I knew exactly what he meant.
At last, I had come home.