Leaving Lahore was one of the hardest things I've had to do. In many, many ways I was ready to go. But still, I did not want to leave things incomplete or loose ends untied; especially when people were relying on me not to. The trouble is that you could live for decades in Lahore and not feel satisfied that you have done all you could do.
Now that I'm leaving, I realise with some sadness that I have not made many friends among those with whom friendship was expected. With many, the difference in our views and perceptions of our surroundings was too difficult to overcome. I may have caused offence with what I said, but mainly, I think, problems lay with what I did. Paying my servants too much, offering to teach English to the servants of others, eating with them, smoking with them and, most unthinkably of all, making friends with them. And in this way, I accidentally isolated myself somewhat, but also got to see another world of juxtaposed lives, that otherwise I would have never known.
Friendship, I find, tends to be cemented when one or both parties need the other. I felt tremendously let down when colleagues in the 'upper classes' did not support me, or even try to or realise that they should, when I needed help. In the end, it was my 'lower class' friends who looked after me when I was ill, supported me when Pakistan felt too much and threw me a leaving party when I left.
To begin with, I felt very aggrieved by the lack of help offered by the people who could well afford to be supportive. But as I witnessed similar things again and again, I started to see it differently: the rich as victims of servant culture, just like the poor (admittedly on a lesser scale). The whole reciprocal cycle of giving to other people when they need something and receiving when you need something different, seems to be removed from this section of society. When you always pay for someone to cook for you, buy medicine and care for you when you are ill, you can't ever experience how wonderful it feels for someone to do those things just because they want to. And, furthermore, if you have never received such non-monetarily aided care, it is very difficult for you to realise when someone else (a visitor with no family there) needs it.
Sadly though, as wonderful as they were, I could also never completely fit in with the 'lower-class' friends and colleagues (who are inevitably more conservative), with whom I found myself much of the time. Although I leave with a great affection for them all, there is a gulf - gulf of different cultures and lives, which means I cannot be completely myself. I encountered enormous tolerance on the whole, but there have been moments which forced me to remember where I was.
During my leaving party, I was sitting with two children on my lap, laughing with them, and with my shalwar kameez all askew. The 18-year-old daughter of a colleague leaned across to me and said quietly: "Here, there is a proper way that ladies wear their shalwar kameez and a proper way for ladies to act when they are in public." I was taken aback, and suddenly very self-conscious of my behaviour, when only a moment ago I had been feeling so comfortable. I retorted, more sharply than I intended: "Well you must forgive me, as I am not from here. Where I am from, it is polite for a lady not to comment on other people's mistakes." The girl, I realised afterwards, thought that she was being helpful, and was upset by my response. Rather than being cruel, I think she felt it was her duty to let me know where I was going wrong, so that I could correct my errant behaviour.
Despite some moments like this one, I am very grateful for the care people took of me, people who didn't need to and often couldn't really afford to. I have tried to make this blog about people, so I can think of no better way to end than with a little about just some of them.
I shall start with my boss. I have been both astounded and impressed by her endless tenacity. She walks into a room and makes herself instantly known. She will not stand in a queue for anything. She will persuade, cajole, argue and tease her way to the front. Her enthusiasm and capacity to be endlessly positive even after we have lost one hearing after another, carried me through to continue working at the end of a week of 16-hour days. Working as a criminal defence lawyer, especially for clients facing the death penalty, and especially as a woman, you have to be as assertive as she is. Politeness will not do. I have never seen anyone manage to persuade a room full of hostile people - judges or prison supervisors - as successfully as she managed to. And for this reason, I admire her as a litigator both inside and outside the court room.
Salman. My friend and colleague who lost his wife and newborn child a month or so ago. I remember thinking at the time that his life would fall apart; after all, how could it go on? However, after one week off work (during which he still came to the office as he could not bear to be at their home), he returned to normal, or something that looked like it. Nothing more was said, the episode was over, she was dead. I almost wanted it to continue, for her life to be cried over for longer. But it wasn't people's cruelty or lack of caring, it's just that death here hangs with a heavy omnipresence. Salman has talked to me often about his wife, Shazia. About how she was a brilliant cook and liked rice, spices and watermelons but hated mangoes. And about the many plans she had made for their child, even years before that child was conceived. She had written out long calculations of how much money they would need to send him/her to a particular school and how they could find money for university fees. Salman carries her calculations around in his pocket still.
Salman's aim now is to clear his name. He is on bail, awaiting the appeal against his murder conviction; he has already served over a decade in prison. I've seen his court papers and the farce of his original trial takes some believing. It would be a travesty of justice if he doesn't win his appeal. But, then, it's Pakistan, so you never know what might happen.
Haroon Sahib. An expert in conciliation, he spends his days in meetings with feuding families or with the victims' families attempting to persuade them to forgive and/or reconcile. A slow and gentle middle-aged man, Haroon is not glamorous or immediately impressive. As someone from a lower class, his English is not very good and, so for me it was very easy to mistake his slow and considered conversation with slow-wittedness. In time, however, he became the person I relied on for advice, which was unfailingly sound, in a world of terrible advice. What has impressed me most about him was that he talks to everyone respectfully, not changing his tone for a millionaire or a murderer. In Pakistan, where you are meant to be humble in conversation with someone more powerful and authoritative when talking to someone weak, this quality cannot be underestimated. Inspired by religious teachings, Haroon Sahib is also an ambassador for religion in a country in which they can be hard to find.
My Pakistani family, last, but certainly not least. Sameena is clever, wily and manipulative. I love her spirit. She is the one servant I've met in Pakistan whose spirit has not been broken. She stands up tall, knowing she is more beautiful than any other woman in the room. She slams doors when she's angry, requests chocolate when no-one else is around and stares defiantly even when she is being reprimanded by someone in the office. I hope that her spirit is not broken, but I know, like her husband, how dangerous that spirit could be. And Zaid, her husband, less intelligent maybe but also faithful and loyal. I still don't know what language he uses to speak to me, as I rarely understand a word and have to look despairingly to Sameena for help. But he has always tried to make me more comfortable and is so grateful for everything and anything to help his family.
Rubab, the eldest child at 7, is already being trained to be a man. He puts fresh flowers on my desk every morning and his English is really starting to improve. Amon, the eldest girl, is quietly savvy and leads her two younger sisters around, making them eat leaves and climb trees, and picking them up when they fall. Saman, the shy one, is often overlooked. She doesn't ask for anything and hardly ever cries. But when you pick her up and put her on your knee, she looks like the happiest child in the world. At only 5, she has been recognised as being exceptionally bright and put forward by the school for a government scheme to have her schooling paid for. And then there's Annam, the monster. The baby at 2, she rules her family. Mischievous, cunning and gorgeous; I sense that she may well have that spirit of her mother's.
After my colleague, who I'd been living with at the office, left, my life at the office fell in to mild chaos. We all ate together, I bought huge, sweet mangoes for everyone each day, the children played in the office, I turned one office room into a classroom and raided the office stationery cupboard for classroom equipment. It was a good kind of chaos.
On the day I left I gave each of the children a wrapped present. They looked at the shiny wrapping paper in awe. They shook their heads when I told them to unwrap the boxes. They carried them off and put them first in their home, then in the garden, and finally back in the office. They organised the gifts into piles, swapped them and then just sat and looked at them. It took almost a day for that wrapping paper to finally come off.
Thanks to the generosity of some of my family and friends, the family will soon own a rickshaw, which I hope will give them some security and the means to make a living. And, I must remember that, just like all the others, they will probably survive, in one way or another, long after I've gone.
So, as I feel let down by some people there, I feel buoyed up by the enormity of the care and love I received from others. I feel relieved to be removed from the pollution, heat and lawlessness of the city as much as I miss its vibrancy and its indefinable charm. Pakistan defies conclusions, as much as it defies almost everything else.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Friday, 29 June 2012
The Pakistani countryside
On Saturday, I set off on a long, exhausting jaunt into the Punjabi countryside. Fitting myself and all my companions for the day, Sameena, Zaid, Haroon Sahib, Rubab, Amon, Saman, Annam into the small hire car was a squeeze. (Thankfully, four of us are only half-sized). As our car pulled away with Haroon Sahib at the wheel, me in the relative comfort of the front seat with a four year old on my lap and with five people in the back, I felt shamefully adrift from British safe driving principles - seat belts, child car seats, children not standing up in the car etc. But then the art of existing in Pakistan is accepting the unacceptable.
Our destination, Faisalabad, is about three hours' drive from Lahore and was reportedly 52 degrees centigrade that day. The hottest day of the year and a good three degrees hotter than the already unbearably hot Lahore. As I told friends about my planned trip to meet the family of Sameena and Zaid, who I've been living with for the past 3 months, their reaction was uniformly unimpressed. What on earth are you doing that for? You are mad. You'll get really sick. You have no idea how these people live, trust me this is the last place you want to go. And finally, my boss: "You will get so ill if you go. In fact, I won't allow you to go.” When she conceded that it wasn't really within her remit to forbid me, she said: "Well at least promise me you won't eat or drink anything at their houses". I'll try not to, I answered. Inshallah.
My reason for not following the advice I'm given here is that when I do it invariably ends in disaster. My (possibly flawed) judgment of the situation was that, ever since I had suggested it four days ago, Sameena had been preparing for our trip. The children had been made new clothes. Family members had been informed. Non-spicy food had been ordered. Everybody was excited. Cancelling the plan due to the minor issue of 52 degree heat was going to cause more sadness and disappointment than can easily be imagined by people who have holidays and cars and regular day trips.
And so, armed with water and rehydration salts, we set off. All four children stood up, fighting with their siblings to get the best view from the car windows. Having never been in a car before, they refused to sit down for much of the journey there and were almost completely silent in their fascination.
I had been expecting to visit three houses of family members. Of course, ten houses later, I realised this was not to be.
Perhaps the most interesting home to me was that of Sameena and her family, being by far the most rural of the families we visited. As we started to get near, the roads became mud trails. The village itself was a mixture of old huts made from all different types of material, and newer tiny brick houses. Chickens, cows and goats seemingly roamed freely. As we approached the right house, heads popped out and then whole bodies, until the road in front of was full of them, all out to great us.
We were ushered inside through the small yard area into the only room of the house, where a small generator, which had been bought solely for my visit, powered a fan. I was placed in front of the one fan and provided with bottled water, like a delicate foreign flower that might wilt and die in the heat. Huge numbers of people swarmed in, one after the other. A tiny baby was placed protesting into my arms and I was introduced to everybody from great-grandparents to nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles. I found myself strangely unable to find anything to say. Although Haroon Sahib was there to translate for me, I didn't know who to address as everyone was waiting silently for me to speak. Each time I thought of something, a new person came in to meet me. Eventually I decided to focus my attention on Sameena's mother and try as hard as possible to ignore everyone else.
Given my preconceptions of poverty, the biggest surprise was how healthy everyone looked. A long way from the downtrodden, skeletal poor of Lahore, the family looked well; the women were beautiful and the men handsome.
I quickly reneged on my promise not to eat anything, as large quantities of food had been prepared just for me. Sameena had forbidden spicy cooking and requested raw vegetables, just the way I like them. I tried not to eat the raw food, but in the end, I thought to hell with it, I'll take my chances.
And food was a common theme of the day. Pakoras, chicken and mutton dishes, rich dahl, biryani, mangoes, ice cream, parathas. There was no end to the eating and the hospitality. I was given flowers, material to make a shalwar kameez, hair clips, glitter and bangles.
In one house, I was shown a picture of a relative and his American wife, who he had met through internet dating and now lived with in America. The matriarch of the house (by this point I'd lost track of who was related to whom) chuckled heartily as she told me, and showed me with hand gestures, how fat this poor woman was. She then said to Sameena, accompanied by great laughter, "We were so excited when she (the American woman) came to visit but then when she got here, she was sooooo fat, and we thought that all goris must be that fat. But now you've gone and brought us a slim gori." Later, in the car on the way home, Sameena reiterated this proudly, saying "My gori is a slim one."
It was a day filled with new faces, colours and sounds - most of which I didn't understand - that will stay with me forever. Although, I have to say that as I got in the car after out last visit, I heaved a huge sigh of relief to be away from the curiosity of a thousand eyes.
Our journey home was punctuated by an unplanned stop at a Sikh Temple, and the birth place of Guru Nanak. We sat for a long time, in the serenity within the walls, dipping our feet in their large marble pool used for washing by Sikh visitors. It was surprisingly cool, and as we all sipped tea, I don't think any of us wanted to return to the craziness of Lahore.
Sameena, who had not known about any religions besides Christianity and Islam, took a great interest in the temple and asked lots of questions about Sikhism. After obviously giving it a lot of thought, she asked in the car; "But if there are all these religions and all these Gods, how are we meant to know which is the right one?"
People are fascinating. People who don't know that others worhip different Gods. People who cannot read, who don't know where Europe is and have never seen the sea. People who have never ridden in a car, who can't tell the time and who think all white people are obese, can still be some of the most interesting and multi-faceted people I've ever met. Discovering this makes me smile and yet leaves a knot of sadness somewhere deep inside.
Our destination, Faisalabad, is about three hours' drive from Lahore and was reportedly 52 degrees centigrade that day. The hottest day of the year and a good three degrees hotter than the already unbearably hot Lahore. As I told friends about my planned trip to meet the family of Sameena and Zaid, who I've been living with for the past 3 months, their reaction was uniformly unimpressed. What on earth are you doing that for? You are mad. You'll get really sick. You have no idea how these people live, trust me this is the last place you want to go. And finally, my boss: "You will get so ill if you go. In fact, I won't allow you to go.” When she conceded that it wasn't really within her remit to forbid me, she said: "Well at least promise me you won't eat or drink anything at their houses". I'll try not to, I answered. Inshallah.
My reason for not following the advice I'm given here is that when I do it invariably ends in disaster. My (possibly flawed) judgment of the situation was that, ever since I had suggested it four days ago, Sameena had been preparing for our trip. The children had been made new clothes. Family members had been informed. Non-spicy food had been ordered. Everybody was excited. Cancelling the plan due to the minor issue of 52 degree heat was going to cause more sadness and disappointment than can easily be imagined by people who have holidays and cars and regular day trips.
And so, armed with water and rehydration salts, we set off. All four children stood up, fighting with their siblings to get the best view from the car windows. Having never been in a car before, they refused to sit down for much of the journey there and were almost completely silent in their fascination.
I had been expecting to visit three houses of family members. Of course, ten houses later, I realised this was not to be.
Perhaps the most interesting home to me was that of Sameena and her family, being by far the most rural of the families we visited. As we started to get near, the roads became mud trails. The village itself was a mixture of old huts made from all different types of material, and newer tiny brick houses. Chickens, cows and goats seemingly roamed freely. As we approached the right house, heads popped out and then whole bodies, until the road in front of was full of them, all out to great us.
We were ushered inside through the small yard area into the only room of the house, where a small generator, which had been bought solely for my visit, powered a fan. I was placed in front of the one fan and provided with bottled water, like a delicate foreign flower that might wilt and die in the heat. Huge numbers of people swarmed in, one after the other. A tiny baby was placed protesting into my arms and I was introduced to everybody from great-grandparents to nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles. I found myself strangely unable to find anything to say. Although Haroon Sahib was there to translate for me, I didn't know who to address as everyone was waiting silently for me to speak. Each time I thought of something, a new person came in to meet me. Eventually I decided to focus my attention on Sameena's mother and try as hard as possible to ignore everyone else.
Given my preconceptions of poverty, the biggest surprise was how healthy everyone looked. A long way from the downtrodden, skeletal poor of Lahore, the family looked well; the women were beautiful and the men handsome.
I quickly reneged on my promise not to eat anything, as large quantities of food had been prepared just for me. Sameena had forbidden spicy cooking and requested raw vegetables, just the way I like them. I tried not to eat the raw food, but in the end, I thought to hell with it, I'll take my chances.
And food was a common theme of the day. Pakoras, chicken and mutton dishes, rich dahl, biryani, mangoes, ice cream, parathas. There was no end to the eating and the hospitality. I was given flowers, material to make a shalwar kameez, hair clips, glitter and bangles.
In one house, I was shown a picture of a relative and his American wife, who he had met through internet dating and now lived with in America. The matriarch of the house (by this point I'd lost track of who was related to whom) chuckled heartily as she told me, and showed me with hand gestures, how fat this poor woman was. She then said to Sameena, accompanied by great laughter, "We were so excited when she (the American woman) came to visit but then when she got here, she was sooooo fat, and we thought that all goris must be that fat. But now you've gone and brought us a slim gori." Later, in the car on the way home, Sameena reiterated this proudly, saying "My gori is a slim one."
It was a day filled with new faces, colours and sounds - most of which I didn't understand - that will stay with me forever. Although, I have to say that as I got in the car after out last visit, I heaved a huge sigh of relief to be away from the curiosity of a thousand eyes.
Our journey home was punctuated by an unplanned stop at a Sikh Temple, and the birth place of Guru Nanak. We sat for a long time, in the serenity within the walls, dipping our feet in their large marble pool used for washing by Sikh visitors. It was surprisingly cool, and as we all sipped tea, I don't think any of us wanted to return to the craziness of Lahore.
Sameena, who had not known about any religions besides Christianity and Islam, took a great interest in the temple and asked lots of questions about Sikhism. After obviously giving it a lot of thought, she asked in the car; "But if there are all these religions and all these Gods, how are we meant to know which is the right one?"
People are fascinating. People who don't know that others worhip different Gods. People who cannot read, who don't know where Europe is and have never seen the sea. People who have never ridden in a car, who can't tell the time and who think all white people are obese, can still be some of the most interesting and multi-faceted people I've ever met. Discovering this makes me smile and yet leaves a knot of sadness somewhere deep inside.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
The Lahori Summer
I have resisted writing about the weather so far, mainly because I know that it is a much mocked and dull 'English' pastime.
However, after three months, I can no longer avoid it. For a few weeks now, the rising heat has been the most central aspect to my life. Well the heat and its trusted companion: load shedding, ie the many hours of the day when there is no electricity.
Lahoris with the means are experts at dealing with load shedding. In our office we have a complex web of battery powered UPSs which are connected to the most essential apparatus, such as fans and computers. We even have a tiny generator for emergencies. As Lahore gets hotter and hotter, electricity fails for more hours each day. The cruel load shedding joke: the more desperate for air conditioning and fans your become, the less they work. Our UPSs make these ominous boooooooop booooooop booooooop sounds when they are just about to die, usually after about 30 minutes. Always accompanied by shouts in the office of, "save your work, save your work, save your work - the UPS is about to die."
My working day is planned around the electricity dying. When I first got here, I swore and kicked my computer when it died five times a day. Now, I'm like a savvy Lahori. I know when it's coming. I know at precisely 10.28am and I have almost 4 minutes to frantically finish my email and press 'send' before my screen goes black and I relax for 25 minutes until we get electricity back. Even unexpected power failures do not reduce me to tears any more. Every two words I press save.
At night, I know I will not have air conditioning in my room between 10pm and midnight. So if I'm really tired, I must sleep before 10pm or I won't sleep before midnight. Huh, bloody load shedding, you are not going to catch me out. A good deal of my life is spent planning around the electricity going, exactly so that a good deal of my time is not spent crying over the electricity going.
But still, inconveniences and annoyances aside, it wasn't until three weeks ago that I experienced heat that could truly be termed unbearable. Up until then, it had hovered around 42 to 43 degrees celcius and I quite smugly noted that, apart from at night, I didn't need air con. And then it happened. The temperature soared a mighty 6-7 degrees to 47-48. Now, when I sit at my desk, I feel sweat drip-dropping down my skin. I grow accustomed to my permanently sweaty forehead. I do everything slowly. I do not even dare to type fast, as I just can't afford to use the extra energy. Eating is only done as an absolute necessity. And no matter how much water I drink, it's never enough to keep hydrated. I complained to a colleague about feeling permanently weak and she responded "of course you're weak - its's 50 degrees right now. We're all weak and we're used to it!"
And then about a week ago, the air con in my room completely stopped working. As I heard the nice comforting whirring sound it makes grind to a halt and not recommence after an hour or two, I knew I was in for a long night. I tried to find a comfortable way to lie but it wasn't possible. The fan swirled the hot air around me, pushing it against me but not cooling me in any way. As the night went on, and insanity crept in, I had shower after shower, the cool water providing temporary relief. I thought I would grow used to it in time, and be able to sleep. But I don't think you can ever really adapt to this heat properly. Even the most accustomed Lahoris suffer if they can't afford air conditioning.
There have been lots of times recently when I have been sure I would get ill, but my body has surprised me with its stalwart steadfastnedness. Despite low level stomach upsets and insomnia, I manage on. The colleague who has been living with me at the office has not been so lucky. After a nasty bout of gastroentitis, she has been unable to get well since. Each time she thought she was maybe improving and ventured back to the office for an hour or two (she moved out, sensibly, to a house with air conditioning that worked) she would leave again. Faint and sick. Finally after a month of this, she has had enough and is returning to the UK next week.
Last week, I went to visit a client in Karachi central jail. We were led to a private visiting room that was even hotter than the usual: so hot that I thought I might suffocate. Instead of focusing on what my client was saying, I just concentrated on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. I didn't care about my client, in that moment, i just wanted to be free. When we left, my colleague bundled me, embarrassed and laughing, into our car. My white shalwar kameez was completely see through and, as she put it, "you're giving the whole prison a great show of your pink gori flesh".
As with almost everything in Lahore, I have noticed that rather than uniting people, the overwhelming, all-consuming heat divides. Those who have air conditioning and generators and those who do not. (Even load shedding is worse in poor areas.) Those who escape Lahore in May/June to the fresh Pakistani mountain air and those who have no means of escape. Those who are able to remove themselves from the heat, and those for whom it becomes a norm, a way of life and existence. I, in part, have joined the latter group, although I recognise the very considerable limits to this: choice, short duration, escapes to air conditioned restaurants, cafes etc. But watching how others, and even myself, cope, I have seen how much discomfort, and even suffering, people can endure, and even laugh about. I wondered how the man I visited in prison did not die from the heat. But people do not die from these these things it seems; they may not ever adapt, but they manage on.
However, after three months, I can no longer avoid it. For a few weeks now, the rising heat has been the most central aspect to my life. Well the heat and its trusted companion: load shedding, ie the many hours of the day when there is no electricity.
Lahoris with the means are experts at dealing with load shedding. In our office we have a complex web of battery powered UPSs which are connected to the most essential apparatus, such as fans and computers. We even have a tiny generator for emergencies. As Lahore gets hotter and hotter, electricity fails for more hours each day. The cruel load shedding joke: the more desperate for air conditioning and fans your become, the less they work. Our UPSs make these ominous boooooooop booooooop booooooop sounds when they are just about to die, usually after about 30 minutes. Always accompanied by shouts in the office of, "save your work, save your work, save your work - the UPS is about to die."
My working day is planned around the electricity dying. When I first got here, I swore and kicked my computer when it died five times a day. Now, I'm like a savvy Lahori. I know when it's coming. I know at precisely 10.28am and I have almost 4 minutes to frantically finish my email and press 'send' before my screen goes black and I relax for 25 minutes until we get electricity back. Even unexpected power failures do not reduce me to tears any more. Every two words I press save.
At night, I know I will not have air conditioning in my room between 10pm and midnight. So if I'm really tired, I must sleep before 10pm or I won't sleep before midnight. Huh, bloody load shedding, you are not going to catch me out. A good deal of my life is spent planning around the electricity going, exactly so that a good deal of my time is not spent crying over the electricity going.
But still, inconveniences and annoyances aside, it wasn't until three weeks ago that I experienced heat that could truly be termed unbearable. Up until then, it had hovered around 42 to 43 degrees celcius and I quite smugly noted that, apart from at night, I didn't need air con. And then it happened. The temperature soared a mighty 6-7 degrees to 47-48. Now, when I sit at my desk, I feel sweat drip-dropping down my skin. I grow accustomed to my permanently sweaty forehead. I do everything slowly. I do not even dare to type fast, as I just can't afford to use the extra energy. Eating is only done as an absolute necessity. And no matter how much water I drink, it's never enough to keep hydrated. I complained to a colleague about feeling permanently weak and she responded "of course you're weak - its's 50 degrees right now. We're all weak and we're used to it!"
And then about a week ago, the air con in my room completely stopped working. As I heard the nice comforting whirring sound it makes grind to a halt and not recommence after an hour or two, I knew I was in for a long night. I tried to find a comfortable way to lie but it wasn't possible. The fan swirled the hot air around me, pushing it against me but not cooling me in any way. As the night went on, and insanity crept in, I had shower after shower, the cool water providing temporary relief. I thought I would grow used to it in time, and be able to sleep. But I don't think you can ever really adapt to this heat properly. Even the most accustomed Lahoris suffer if they can't afford air conditioning.
There have been lots of times recently when I have been sure I would get ill, but my body has surprised me with its stalwart steadfastnedness. Despite low level stomach upsets and insomnia, I manage on. The colleague who has been living with me at the office has not been so lucky. After a nasty bout of gastroentitis, she has been unable to get well since. Each time she thought she was maybe improving and ventured back to the office for an hour or two (she moved out, sensibly, to a house with air conditioning that worked) she would leave again. Faint and sick. Finally after a month of this, she has had enough and is returning to the UK next week.
Last week, I went to visit a client in Karachi central jail. We were led to a private visiting room that was even hotter than the usual: so hot that I thought I might suffocate. Instead of focusing on what my client was saying, I just concentrated on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. I didn't care about my client, in that moment, i just wanted to be free. When we left, my colleague bundled me, embarrassed and laughing, into our car. My white shalwar kameez was completely see through and, as she put it, "you're giving the whole prison a great show of your pink gori flesh".
As with almost everything in Lahore, I have noticed that rather than uniting people, the overwhelming, all-consuming heat divides. Those who have air conditioning and generators and those who do not. (Even load shedding is worse in poor areas.) Those who escape Lahore in May/June to the fresh Pakistani mountain air and those who have no means of escape. Those who are able to remove themselves from the heat, and those for whom it becomes a norm, a way of life and existence. I, in part, have joined the latter group, although I recognise the very considerable limits to this: choice, short duration, escapes to air conditioned restaurants, cafes etc. But watching how others, and even myself, cope, I have seen how much discomfort, and even suffering, people can endure, and even laugh about. I wondered how the man I visited in prison did not die from the heat. But people do not die from these these things it seems; they may not ever adapt, but they manage on.
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Feminist lawyers and illiterate women
Contrary to expectations, I have not found inequality between men and women to be high up on my agenda of problems to worry about - most of the time at least. The office I work in is run by strong, powerful women, who all benefit from an excellent education, supportive families, ambition and, naturally, lots of money.
These young women think, with good reason, that they will be able to achieve as much as their male counterparts. I would even go so far as to say that career-wise some things are actually easier for these women than they would be in London. My boss, for example, has a pampered toddler who lives just around the corner from the office. The toddler has a live-in nanny. The toddler and nanny have a driver, who brings them in to the office at least once a day to see mummy. Mummy holds office meetings with toddler on her lap. Such a scenario is hard to imagine in London. If expense and distance between home and work didn't make it impossible, unaccommodating views about children in the office certainly would.
My female colleagues still always seem to feel that they must fight the cultural bias towards men. They are competitive towards male lawyers and some treat the men who work beneath them with a fair amount of contempt. Shouting at the office is a daily occurrence, and one that is rarely challenged.
One particularly hardworking and affable colleague is employed as an investigator, and is excellent at his job. However, his English is only just passable and his IT skills are pretty shocking. (English seems to be an almost perfect indicator of class - the better someone's English is, the higher up the social scale they sit.) Recently, half way through a long and complex meeting, I saw the look of panic cross his face when he was told to take minutes. He spent the whole of the following Sunday typing up the minutes, at a rate of a half-a-word-a-minute, until I couldn't take it anymore and offered to do the typing. He later received a ten-minute dressing down in front of the whole office for saving the document in the wrong format and was called 'stupid', 'lazy' and 'useless'. When I brought up this treatment with my boss, I was merely told they had no choice but to be tough with the men or they wouldn't respect the authority of the women in charge. And, although I'm sure there is more than a grain of truth in this, I suspect there are, in fact, other, more substantial reasons for this treatment: status and social hierarchy.
An aspect of 'feminism', which strikes me as ill thought through (at best) is rich Pakistani women judging poorer women for veiling. It seems to be lost on some people that in Pakistan it's a hell of a lot easier to wear tight jeans and a tank top when jumping in and out of your posh car, with a driver at its wheel, than when you have to walk the streets or ride public transport.
However, despite these initial observations, a recent visit to a prison with my boss made me to see my female colleagues' assertiveness/ agressiveness in a difference light. Whilst we were treated kindly on arrival at the prison - allowed to wait in an office and given tea and biscuits - this was actually a pretext for patronising and making everything difficult for us. We were told there was no way we could be allowed to do what we'd come to do. Faced with lots of official-looking men telling me no, my instinct was to retreat and eventually accept defeat. But luckily my colleague took an infinitely tougher stance and fought them every step of the way. Every time they refused us something, she grew more determined. She cited law, journalism and politics. She teased, cajoled, raised her voice. And she did not back down. I was so impressed that rather than coming out of the prison, feeling the size of a Borrower, she came out (admittedly hours later) with everything she came for. It gave me a glimpse of how hard she fights to be taken seriously as a female lawyer, and that I shouldn't take her achievements or the achievements of those like her lightly.
For poorer women, of course, things can be difficult on a very different scale. I have been teaching our cook, Sameena, English. She was very keen to learn, but, as she's illiterate I thought it was easier and more useful to stick to spoken English. However, during our first lesson, she woefully picked up an exercise book from my desk and mimicked writing. She was so happy when i started teaching her the alphabet that it suddenly struck me, like never before, how strange and difficult life must be if you can’t read a single letter. The English I'm teaching her will not be any significant use, but she gets to join, to a very small extent, the exclusive club of words, which means the world to her.
It quickly became evident that she's very bright, and unfortunately much brighter than her husband, who I've also been teaching. I decided to separate their lessons, as he was getting angry and frustrated by her picking things up more quickly than him. One day, I made the mistake of saying, "you are both very intelligent", to which Javad, who is usually a well mannered and kind man, replied, "I'm intelligent and Sameena is stupid," with such force and anger that I was quite taken aback.
Don't get me wrong. Illiteracy in Pakistan is a hardship faced by men and women. But, whilst the overall literacy rate in Pakistan hovers at about 46% (a shocking figure in itself), the literacy rate among women is only 16%. This figure gives some idea of how unusual my experiences have been and how different the picture is for ordinary women. Particularly in rural areas, it is not uncommon for girls to receive no education at all. Sameena, having never spent a day in a classrom, is the absolute norm.
Women get a tough deal in Pakistan. Especially poor women. But then all poor people get a tough deal in Pakistan. Someone said to me: " I just don't understand why these women don't want to fight for their rights." But how can a woman who can't read be expected to care about her rights? And how can a man who can't afford to feed his family be expected to care about his wife's rights?
These young women think, with good reason, that they will be able to achieve as much as their male counterparts. I would even go so far as to say that career-wise some things are actually easier for these women than they would be in London. My boss, for example, has a pampered toddler who lives just around the corner from the office. The toddler has a live-in nanny. The toddler and nanny have a driver, who brings them in to the office at least once a day to see mummy. Mummy holds office meetings with toddler on her lap. Such a scenario is hard to imagine in London. If expense and distance between home and work didn't make it impossible, unaccommodating views about children in the office certainly would.
My female colleagues still always seem to feel that they must fight the cultural bias towards men. They are competitive towards male lawyers and some treat the men who work beneath them with a fair amount of contempt. Shouting at the office is a daily occurrence, and one that is rarely challenged.
One particularly hardworking and affable colleague is employed as an investigator, and is excellent at his job. However, his English is only just passable and his IT skills are pretty shocking. (English seems to be an almost perfect indicator of class - the better someone's English is, the higher up the social scale they sit.) Recently, half way through a long and complex meeting, I saw the look of panic cross his face when he was told to take minutes. He spent the whole of the following Sunday typing up the minutes, at a rate of a half-a-word-a-minute, until I couldn't take it anymore and offered to do the typing. He later received a ten-minute dressing down in front of the whole office for saving the document in the wrong format and was called 'stupid', 'lazy' and 'useless'. When I brought up this treatment with my boss, I was merely told they had no choice but to be tough with the men or they wouldn't respect the authority of the women in charge. And, although I'm sure there is more than a grain of truth in this, I suspect there are, in fact, other, more substantial reasons for this treatment: status and social hierarchy.
An aspect of 'feminism', which strikes me as ill thought through (at best) is rich Pakistani women judging poorer women for veiling. It seems to be lost on some people that in Pakistan it's a hell of a lot easier to wear tight jeans and a tank top when jumping in and out of your posh car, with a driver at its wheel, than when you have to walk the streets or ride public transport.
However, despite these initial observations, a recent visit to a prison with my boss made me to see my female colleagues' assertiveness/ agressiveness in a difference light. Whilst we were treated kindly on arrival at the prison - allowed to wait in an office and given tea and biscuits - this was actually a pretext for patronising and making everything difficult for us. We were told there was no way we could be allowed to do what we'd come to do. Faced with lots of official-looking men telling me no, my instinct was to retreat and eventually accept defeat. But luckily my colleague took an infinitely tougher stance and fought them every step of the way. Every time they refused us something, she grew more determined. She cited law, journalism and politics. She teased, cajoled, raised her voice. And she did not back down. I was so impressed that rather than coming out of the prison, feeling the size of a Borrower, she came out (admittedly hours later) with everything she came for. It gave me a glimpse of how hard she fights to be taken seriously as a female lawyer, and that I shouldn't take her achievements or the achievements of those like her lightly.
For poorer women, of course, things can be difficult on a very different scale. I have been teaching our cook, Sameena, English. She was very keen to learn, but, as she's illiterate I thought it was easier and more useful to stick to spoken English. However, during our first lesson, she woefully picked up an exercise book from my desk and mimicked writing. She was so happy when i started teaching her the alphabet that it suddenly struck me, like never before, how strange and difficult life must be if you can’t read a single letter. The English I'm teaching her will not be any significant use, but she gets to join, to a very small extent, the exclusive club of words, which means the world to her.
It quickly became evident that she's very bright, and unfortunately much brighter than her husband, who I've also been teaching. I decided to separate their lessons, as he was getting angry and frustrated by her picking things up more quickly than him. One day, I made the mistake of saying, "you are both very intelligent", to which Javad, who is usually a well mannered and kind man, replied, "I'm intelligent and Sameena is stupid," with such force and anger that I was quite taken aback.
Don't get me wrong. Illiteracy in Pakistan is a hardship faced by men and women. But, whilst the overall literacy rate in Pakistan hovers at about 46% (a shocking figure in itself), the literacy rate among women is only 16%. This figure gives some idea of how unusual my experiences have been and how different the picture is for ordinary women. Particularly in rural areas, it is not uncommon for girls to receive no education at all. Sameena, having never spent a day in a classrom, is the absolute norm.
Women get a tough deal in Pakistan. Especially poor women. But then all poor people get a tough deal in Pakistan. Someone said to me: " I just don't understand why these women don't want to fight for their rights." But how can a woman who can't read be expected to care about her rights? And how can a man who can't afford to feed his family be expected to care about his wife's rights?
Saturday, 26 May 2012
A friend and his family
This post is about a colleague and a friend, whom I'll call Salman.
Yesterday Salman had to bury his wife and their newborn child. Women dying in childbirth, although I know a far too common occurrence in many parts of the world, are not something I have ever had to give much thought to. Until two days ago, I had no concept of the desperate worry some face with the arrival of a baby. Not the kind of first world worry about becoming parents, but worry that rather than creating a life, you may be about to lose one.
The first I knew of any serious problems was a week ago, when Salman came in to work looking terrible. After he struggled through an office meeting holding his head in his hands and looking misty-eyed, I finally asked him what was wrong. He told me he was suffering from high blood pressure and migraines brought on by stress. His heavily pregnant wife was suffering complications and had been scheduled for a C-section the following week. I gave him some of my migraine tablets and tried to calm his nerves. I said this time next week he'd be a dad. I couldn't really understand why he seemed so worried.
Later, I mentioned to another colleague that I was concerned about Salman's health. He said immediately, "well I expect he's worrying about how he'll pay for his wife's operation." My naive NHS-accustomed self was surprised by this: "Really? How much will it cost?!" Of course, the cost would depend on how good the hospital was. Naturally. Because richer women need better caesareans than poor women. I made some enquiries and found out it would cost the equivalent of about 150-200 UK pounds at a decent enough hospital. At About 2 months salary for Salman, it wasn't surprising he was worried. I suggested to a few of my better-off colleagues that if we clubbed together we could easily help him with that money. I just wanted to put his mind at ease. As I handed over the cash, I felt that awful smug benefactor's satisfaction that now his worries were over.
A bit about Salman, because I'm sorry to say I never knew his wife, Shazia. I've got to know him quite well whilst doing some investigation work together. He is without question the kindest and gentlest person I've met in Lahore. Which is strange because he is also a convicted murderer and spent nearly 15 years on death row. He told me once that he was wrongly convicted, although I never asked, and it would make no difference to me either way. If a person is a sum of their acts, then Salman has proved himself to me.
He is the kind of person who would do anything to help anyone. When, during our work, we have frequently come in to contact with people who cannot afford to eat, he always reaches in his own pocket, even though, I know, he has next to nothing. For me, going out and about in Lahore on appointments could be a risky business if I wasn't with a colleague I could trust. Recently, we left one appointment to find that the car that was meant to drive me back to the office had disappeared. It's dangerous for me to stand around in the street or get in a rickshaw on my own. Although Salman had his motorbike and another important meeting to get to, he abandoned his plans, without complaint, and rode his bike alongside me in the rickshaw all the way to the office, not leaving its side, no matter how crazy the traffic got. Most importantly, when I leave here, Salman is the person at the office who I know I can rely on to feed my stray cat, Isis, just because I've asked him to.
On Monday Salman was giddy with excitement and nerves. On Tuesday he went off work. He told me the plan was to be at the hospital on Tuesday, with the operation scheduled for Wednesday. By Thursday I hadn't heard anything, but I'm only a colleague after all, so I just assumed he was busy enjoying his new family. If only.
Piecing things together now, it seems that Shazia had got scared - scared of the operation, the needles, the hospital - so they did not go to the hospital on Tuesday or Wednesday as planned but Thursday instead. By this time her blood pressure was already through the roof and her health very fragile. She had a panic attack before they could begin the surgery. The panic attack brought on a heart attack, which she survived. The hospital attempted to get her to another hospital that had the expertise to deal with the precarious situation. Only, the ambulance meant for her got stuck in traffic and never arrived. They had no choice but to rush her into theatre for the operation. She suffered a second heart attack and haemorrhaging that neither she nor their baby survived.
Shazia had waited for Salman for 15 years whilst he was in prison. His life has certainly been tough; it doesn't get much tougher than the torture and suffering that accompanies a death sentence in Pakistan. I imagine Shazia's life was tough too - she was poor after all. They had not been on speaking terms with her family for years, due to his lengthy prison term and her decision to stand by him. He has almost no family alive making them, very unusually for Pakistan, a unit of only two (and almost three).
Before we went to the funeral yesterday, some of the people in the office recounted their experiences of childbirth gone wrong. All of the poorer people spoke of someone in their lives/extended families who had died in childbirth and even some of the richer ones too. Although upsetting for everyone, this grave turn of events was nowhere near as shocking as it should have been.
Would they have lived in a better hospital? Would they have lived if they'd not delayed? It does no good for me to comment now on the quality of their medical care. I am no doctor or nurse and I do not really know what happened that day. It does no good to suppose that, had they been British, things would have turned out differently.
Pakistan holds many firsts for me. I don't think I've ever seen a grown man break down and weep uncontrollably from grief. When I saw Salman yesterday, I wanted to say something to bring solace, but of course I could not do that. You are left with only platitudes. I hope that Salman will find some comfort in his God. I will not try to write something meaningful here; I have nothing to write. I will have to turn to Dylan Thomas for that, and for my comfort:
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
Yesterday Salman had to bury his wife and their newborn child. Women dying in childbirth, although I know a far too common occurrence in many parts of the world, are not something I have ever had to give much thought to. Until two days ago, I had no concept of the desperate worry some face with the arrival of a baby. Not the kind of first world worry about becoming parents, but worry that rather than creating a life, you may be about to lose one.
The first I knew of any serious problems was a week ago, when Salman came in to work looking terrible. After he struggled through an office meeting holding his head in his hands and looking misty-eyed, I finally asked him what was wrong. He told me he was suffering from high blood pressure and migraines brought on by stress. His heavily pregnant wife was suffering complications and had been scheduled for a C-section the following week. I gave him some of my migraine tablets and tried to calm his nerves. I said this time next week he'd be a dad. I couldn't really understand why he seemed so worried.
Later, I mentioned to another colleague that I was concerned about Salman's health. He said immediately, "well I expect he's worrying about how he'll pay for his wife's operation." My naive NHS-accustomed self was surprised by this: "Really? How much will it cost?!" Of course, the cost would depend on how good the hospital was. Naturally. Because richer women need better caesareans than poor women. I made some enquiries and found out it would cost the equivalent of about 150-200 UK pounds at a decent enough hospital. At About 2 months salary for Salman, it wasn't surprising he was worried. I suggested to a few of my better-off colleagues that if we clubbed together we could easily help him with that money. I just wanted to put his mind at ease. As I handed over the cash, I felt that awful smug benefactor's satisfaction that now his worries were over.
A bit about Salman, because I'm sorry to say I never knew his wife, Shazia. I've got to know him quite well whilst doing some investigation work together. He is without question the kindest and gentlest person I've met in Lahore. Which is strange because he is also a convicted murderer and spent nearly 15 years on death row. He told me once that he was wrongly convicted, although I never asked, and it would make no difference to me either way. If a person is a sum of their acts, then Salman has proved himself to me.
He is the kind of person who would do anything to help anyone. When, during our work, we have frequently come in to contact with people who cannot afford to eat, he always reaches in his own pocket, even though, I know, he has next to nothing. For me, going out and about in Lahore on appointments could be a risky business if I wasn't with a colleague I could trust. Recently, we left one appointment to find that the car that was meant to drive me back to the office had disappeared. It's dangerous for me to stand around in the street or get in a rickshaw on my own. Although Salman had his motorbike and another important meeting to get to, he abandoned his plans, without complaint, and rode his bike alongside me in the rickshaw all the way to the office, not leaving its side, no matter how crazy the traffic got. Most importantly, when I leave here, Salman is the person at the office who I know I can rely on to feed my stray cat, Isis, just because I've asked him to.
On Monday Salman was giddy with excitement and nerves. On Tuesday he went off work. He told me the plan was to be at the hospital on Tuesday, with the operation scheduled for Wednesday. By Thursday I hadn't heard anything, but I'm only a colleague after all, so I just assumed he was busy enjoying his new family. If only.
Piecing things together now, it seems that Shazia had got scared - scared of the operation, the needles, the hospital - so they did not go to the hospital on Tuesday or Wednesday as planned but Thursday instead. By this time her blood pressure was already through the roof and her health very fragile. She had a panic attack before they could begin the surgery. The panic attack brought on a heart attack, which she survived. The hospital attempted to get her to another hospital that had the expertise to deal with the precarious situation. Only, the ambulance meant for her got stuck in traffic and never arrived. They had no choice but to rush her into theatre for the operation. She suffered a second heart attack and haemorrhaging that neither she nor their baby survived.
Shazia had waited for Salman for 15 years whilst he was in prison. His life has certainly been tough; it doesn't get much tougher than the torture and suffering that accompanies a death sentence in Pakistan. I imagine Shazia's life was tough too - she was poor after all. They had not been on speaking terms with her family for years, due to his lengthy prison term and her decision to stand by him. He has almost no family alive making them, very unusually for Pakistan, a unit of only two (and almost three).
Before we went to the funeral yesterday, some of the people in the office recounted their experiences of childbirth gone wrong. All of the poorer people spoke of someone in their lives/extended families who had died in childbirth and even some of the richer ones too. Although upsetting for everyone, this grave turn of events was nowhere near as shocking as it should have been.
Would they have lived in a better hospital? Would they have lived if they'd not delayed? It does no good for me to comment now on the quality of their medical care. I am no doctor or nurse and I do not really know what happened that day. It does no good to suppose that, had they been British, things would have turned out differently.
Pakistan holds many firsts for me. I don't think I've ever seen a grown man break down and weep uncontrollably from grief. When I saw Salman yesterday, I wanted to say something to bring solace, but of course I could not do that. You are left with only platitudes. I hope that Salman will find some comfort in his God. I will not try to write something meaningful here; I have nothing to write. I will have to turn to Dylan Thomas for that, and for my comfort:
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Performance and cocktails
My outbound bag to Pakistan consisted mainly of my own travelling pharmacy and the baggiest, most unflattering clothes I could find. It took me about a week to realise that whilst my phenomonal pharmacy was a good idea, my wardrobe was not.
The rules of dressing are complicated in Lahore, and I do not pretend even now to understand them. However, when it comes to the self-termed 'elite' of society (the powerful, the connected, the richest of the rich) the only rule is that you should be glamorous and beautiful, or at least stylishly clever if beauty is not within your grasp.And so I realised quickly that my quest for modesty was both mistaken and bizarre.
In the early days, the extent of my misunderstanding of this section of Pakistani society became clear. Sitting in an icily air conditioned restaurant eating faux French food with friends of my boss, I was invited to a cocktail party. I thanked the inviter, and explained that unfortunately I didn't have clothes to wear to that type of thing. "You didn't bring a cocktail dress?" I was asked incredulously. I thought I could make a joke of it so I explained: "you see the thing is, my frame of reference when planning my trip was a Palestinian refugee camp....". Everyone looked confused so I continued quickly, 'I know how stupid that seems now, but you know, I worked in Palestine a couple of years ago and..." I dried up with the looks of incomprehension/pity/concern. "Right, so anyway..." said the person next to me and they quickly moved the conversation on in a damage-limitation kind of way.
Luckily, none of this was held against me and I have been invited to a handful of cocktail parties since. The grandest of these occurred recently. The beautiful lawns of the garden were cooled by strategically placed fans, whilst alcohol flowed freely from professional looking bars. Exotic flowers lined the numerous lawns. When I complimented them to the host, he proudly explained that he had imported flowers from every corner in the world. These all came with complex maintenance routines which his staff had to learn. Glamorous young people kissed cheeks, puffed on cigarettes and sipped vodka tonics. The house peered down on the gardens haughtily, with dozens of well dressed servants standing to attention by its side, almost outnumbering the guests.
If you discount the odd Cambridge University Ball, I had never been to a party as glamorous as this one. I imagine some Londoners in Chelsea or Kensington throw this kind of bash, but certainly not anyone I know. And yet strangely, even with my awful wardrobe and my embarrassing habit of trying to chat to the servants, I am still one of the elite here.
People, for the most part, in this crowd are friendly and accommodating. They take an interest in the work we do and ask me about my impressions of Pakistan. As my boss introduces me to her friends, she complains about everybody knowing everybody, families being too close and the incestuousness of relationships within the group. "The thing you'll learn, Liana," she says, " is that Lahore is sooooooo small."
(Not long before this party, my boss had taken me to her husband's hunting ranch in the low salt range mountains. About 3 hours outside of Lahore, the flat landscape of the Punjab changed completely in to a green ledge of mountains.
The ranch itself surprised me in being quite understated. Without the usual ostentation, it blended in to its surroundings and made me feel like I was camping, albeit in luxury (and with a few servants). In the evening, we sat out in the slightly cooler mountain air and ate dinner from a round stone table in the centre of the site. The party consisted of only a few close friends of the family and me. As dinner was coming to a close and we all tucked into some green tea our host said, "I think we should come here every weekend. I hate those big parties...the people who go there really think they are something, when actually only a handful of us are from really good families." Clearly, small incestuous Lahore was not small enough.)
At around 1am the cocktail party was swiftly broken up. There were hushed whispers as the music stopped and the news spread that the police had been to the house. I was told that they'd been paid off, but that we had to leave as they could come back any time. One woman was incensed. "What is Lahore coming to?" she asked incredulously, "when the police think they can come and intimidate people like us!" People mumbled that the police were getting above themselves by thinking that they could close down a party like this.
This reminder of the country we were in was brief. Our huge car purred up the drive to whisk us away from this tiny glimpse of larger Lahore. Before I came here, lots of friends and family expressed concern about my safety in dangerous Pakistan. It seems, however, that the protection of powerful people keeps me safe. The only threat to these partygoers will be from the 'forgotten' Pakistanis, if and when they cannot feed their families and have nothing to lose. And, nothing to lose will make for dangerous people.
The rules of dressing are complicated in Lahore, and I do not pretend even now to understand them. However, when it comes to the self-termed 'elite' of society (the powerful, the connected, the richest of the rich) the only rule is that you should be glamorous and beautiful, or at least stylishly clever if beauty is not within your grasp.And so I realised quickly that my quest for modesty was both mistaken and bizarre.
In the early days, the extent of my misunderstanding of this section of Pakistani society became clear. Sitting in an icily air conditioned restaurant eating faux French food with friends of my boss, I was invited to a cocktail party. I thanked the inviter, and explained that unfortunately I didn't have clothes to wear to that type of thing. "You didn't bring a cocktail dress?" I was asked incredulously. I thought I could make a joke of it so I explained: "you see the thing is, my frame of reference when planning my trip was a Palestinian refugee camp....". Everyone looked confused so I continued quickly, 'I know how stupid that seems now, but you know, I worked in Palestine a couple of years ago and..." I dried up with the looks of incomprehension/pity/concern. "Right, so anyway..." said the person next to me and they quickly moved the conversation on in a damage-limitation kind of way.
Luckily, none of this was held against me and I have been invited to a handful of cocktail parties since. The grandest of these occurred recently. The beautiful lawns of the garden were cooled by strategically placed fans, whilst alcohol flowed freely from professional looking bars. Exotic flowers lined the numerous lawns. When I complimented them to the host, he proudly explained that he had imported flowers from every corner in the world. These all came with complex maintenance routines which his staff had to learn. Glamorous young people kissed cheeks, puffed on cigarettes and sipped vodka tonics. The house peered down on the gardens haughtily, with dozens of well dressed servants standing to attention by its side, almost outnumbering the guests.
If you discount the odd Cambridge University Ball, I had never been to a party as glamorous as this one. I imagine some Londoners in Chelsea or Kensington throw this kind of bash, but certainly not anyone I know. And yet strangely, even with my awful wardrobe and my embarrassing habit of trying to chat to the servants, I am still one of the elite here.
People, for the most part, in this crowd are friendly and accommodating. They take an interest in the work we do and ask me about my impressions of Pakistan. As my boss introduces me to her friends, she complains about everybody knowing everybody, families being too close and the incestuousness of relationships within the group. "The thing you'll learn, Liana," she says, " is that Lahore is sooooooo small."
(Not long before this party, my boss had taken me to her husband's hunting ranch in the low salt range mountains. About 3 hours outside of Lahore, the flat landscape of the Punjab changed completely in to a green ledge of mountains.
The ranch itself surprised me in being quite understated. Without the usual ostentation, it blended in to its surroundings and made me feel like I was camping, albeit in luxury (and with a few servants). In the evening, we sat out in the slightly cooler mountain air and ate dinner from a round stone table in the centre of the site. The party consisted of only a few close friends of the family and me. As dinner was coming to a close and we all tucked into some green tea our host said, "I think we should come here every weekend. I hate those big parties...the people who go there really think they are something, when actually only a handful of us are from really good families." Clearly, small incestuous Lahore was not small enough.)
At around 1am the cocktail party was swiftly broken up. There were hushed whispers as the music stopped and the news spread that the police had been to the house. I was told that they'd been paid off, but that we had to leave as they could come back any time. One woman was incensed. "What is Lahore coming to?" she asked incredulously, "when the police think they can come and intimidate people like us!" People mumbled that the police were getting above themselves by thinking that they could close down a party like this.
This reminder of the country we were in was brief. Our huge car purred up the drive to whisk us away from this tiny glimpse of larger Lahore. Before I came here, lots of friends and family expressed concern about my safety in dangerous Pakistan. It seems, however, that the protection of powerful people keeps me safe. The only threat to these partygoers will be from the 'forgotten' Pakistanis, if and when they cannot feed their families and have nothing to lose. And, nothing to lose will make for dangerous people.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Careless people and good intentions
Since I've been here, I've often been reminded of the 'carelessness' of Gatsby's Tom and Daisy: "They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into the money of their vast carelessness.”
It's not that Pakistanis are more careless than the British. It's just that the people with money hold so much power and the people without are so vulnerable that carelessness can cause great harm. I witness it, in one way or another, all the time. One evening, a poor colleague is told he needs to go to Kashmir the next day for a case; there's no car to take him, he's told, he can get there by bus or bike. When I see him next, he tells me he had to ride his motorbike all the way through the night to get there on time and all night afterwards to get back for work the next day. Or a graver example: a servant borrows money and does not repay it on time so, to be taught a lesson, is accused of a ridiculously unsubstantiated crime. He is then tortured so badly by the police that he can no longer walk.
Carelessness is an easy trap to fall in to, as no-one ever points it out, or tells you to pack it in. Even if they can't afford to eat. For over two weeks we didn't pay the family that lives with us as we thought someone else had and in that time they could not afford to buy food or send the children to school.
However, despite some failures like these, I have really tried to avoid Tom and Daisy behaviour. In my relationship with the family that live with us, I have always erred on the side of being over-generous and making it clear that I would help with anything that was needed.
In this way, we have lived happily side by side. It is hard for me to believe now that there was a time when I was opposed to them living with us (or being cooked for, or having my clothes ironed). In the beginning, at least, it was a fairly lonely life here, and they did a great deal to make me feel at home. They have come to feel to me like family. My Pakistani family.
The children are as lovely as children can be. They seem to be easily pleased and enjoy whatever game I come up with, however unsuccessful. “Duck, duck, goose”, I know now, does not work unless you are able to explain the point of the game. Hide and seek requires less explanation, as if all else fails, you can just run around chasing each other. They call me 'mamaji', meaning mumma, and Sameena jokes that I’m their second mother.
Sameena and I have developed a particularly close relationship. She and I chat over dinner happily in our respective languages. At times neither of us has any clue what the other is saying, but imagine a line of conversation and reply to it. Recently, we have started reciprocal English/Urdu lessons. She does, however, have zero tact or respect for privacy. She will look me up and down in the morning and say “Liana madam, what are you wearing?” and each day she reminds me that if I drank lemon tea and not tea tea, I would be as slim as she is. And I must add that Sameena is slim. And beautiful. And 25.
Then, a few days ago, I found out she had been stealing from us.
The information about this was relatively conclusive, given that the informant was her husband. He told my colleague and his friend, Zahid, that Sameena had been taking more money than she needed for things and keeping the extra. I had given her some money to take the children to the doctor that day, which she had pocketed. All this was told to me fairly reluctantly, and only because I could tell something was wrong and was worried that one of the children was ill.
I wasn't angry, just surprised and sad. Zahid told us to leave it to him to sort out. He spent hours and hours with the family and afterwards he told me that the matter was resolved and that Sameena now understood that she shouldn't have stolen. I wanted to know more. I was indignant and had lots of questions: Had it been happening right from the beginning? Why had she done it? I wanted us to sit down and talk about it. Zahid sighed at my request in a world weary way. Yes it had happened for some time and he could give me a thousand possible reasons why she’d done it, but the real reason was for her and God. “Look, she is very young, she is silly, she is from a family as poor as I doubt you can imagine, Liana. She has lived in a small village all her life and this is her first time in the city. She will never have seen a real bed, let alone a white person.” He said that we could talk about it and Sameena apologise, if I really wanted, but what would that really mean? She knew now that what she’d done was wrong and that should be enough. Yes, I agreed, a bit reluctantly, it was enough.
I wasn't at all sure that it was enough though, and only when I saw Sameena did I know that it was. She looked dishevelled, embarrassed and sad. The following day, when we were in my room she broke down in tears. She said she felt so awful as we were like her sisters and asked if we could ever forgive her. I cried too and said 'bas' - enough - and we hugged. For really, I do care for like a sister.
I can understand why she did it, I just wish she hadn’t. I thought I could prove the others wrong, and create a relationship of trust between us all based on mutual respect. I was wrong.
I worry for her also. As in not long, the bizarre English people will be gone. If she stole from a Pakistani family things would be different. It is likely that her whole family would be on the streets within 24 hours. Even worse, her brother and her husband could be arrested. And as poor Christians, it's best not to think about what would happen to them then.
I think, on reflection, our generosity created this problem. In a society based on status, unequal relationships and mistrust, by giving money freely we must have created a great deal of confusion and, I suspect, a feeling that we would not miss dents in our never ending reserves of money.
There's also the problem that soon I'll be gone and then they'll be back to bare survival again, only now with expectations of a slightly less hard life.
So I'm learning that good intentions in an environment you don't understand can be the most dangerous thing of all. So much hardship is needlessly caused here by carelessness. But this episode has reminded me that all the care in the world does not make you get things right.
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