Sheedah Badma’ash

Daikhain kiya guzray haiy qatray peh guhr honay tak. (Ghalib)

Abdul Rasheed Butt and I were class fellows at high school in the senior years. Our School was an Islamia School but was more popularly called the “Khudd School” – a hole of a school, a pit-school, or something of the sort. The general sense that this pseudonym conveyed was of a singularly degraded school in every respect. The student population was a weird mix of kids from the neighboring areas and many from the far-flung suburban villages. Some students walked five to six miles to and fro to attend the school. The age-range was also spectacular; the youngest kid (let us call him Meem because he would appear in this essay every now and then) in our ninth class was in his early teens and was so small that his feet didn’t touch the ground when he sat on his bench in the classroom. The oldest young man in the class was in his mid-twenties and was married with a couple of his own kids. The young men in the class (including the parent student) were usually peaceful; they wouldn’t indulge in the usual hooliganism that seemed to rage incessantly in the classroom. Such tantrums were left for the old teenagers who enjoyed every bit of the uncontrolled indiscipline. Abdul Rasheed Butt who had become Sheedah in no time, did not partake in such commotion but enjoyed the childish insanity all the same.

It soon became clear to me that Sheedah came to school not for education but simply because his parents wanted him to be there. His parents probably also had no clear idea why Sheedah needed any education; they sent him to the school because it was a social custom to send the kids to school. Sheedah’s father sold car spare parts and had a shop in Neela Gumbad, Anarkali, and it was a foregone conclusion that Sheedah would follow in the foot steps of his father. He didn’t need any school education to do that. There were many other kids who came to school just for the heck of it.

The teachers were also a mixed lot and they were quite diverse in both appearance and their attitudes. Our Deeniyat (Islamic Studies) teacher was a Maulvi (it used to be a title of great respect in the past but had now gradually degraded to a despicable appendage) with a mid-size (about four inch long) beard which was occasionally dyed with henna (mehndi). He always had a harsh expression on his face and seldom displayed even as little as a wisp of smile. We were all scared of him. Then there was a teacher who taught us mathematics. He had a degree in History but was assigned to teach mathematics in which he was not well-grounded. You wouldn’t believe it but it’s true. The honor of teaching Algebra and Geometry to my class fell prematurely on me. This was an assignment from the teacher which I couldn’t refuse without enraging him. So I started this chore and tried to perform it as best as I could. The teacher was not unpopular with the students because he had an easy and playful manner with the kids.

The History teacher who also taught English to the class was also easy-going but for different reasons. He seemed to have homosexual proclivities and wouldn’t desist from lightly seducing some kids even in the classroom. I did not know if he practically indulged in such activities; I liked to believe that he had only a kind of Platonic attachment with some kids and Meem was one of them. He called him ‘delicate’. Many of us hadn’t even heard of this word and were pleasantly curious about its meaning. I am at a loss to find a suitable English word to describe his persona so I’ll use a Punjabi term to do so. He was kind of a “Tharki”.

In this environment, you could bloom into whatever you aimed for with your own efforts. The school curriculum was not completely devoid of educational content. The prescribed textbooks were standard and despite their lackluster background, the teachers tried to follow the course work as diligently as their capabilities would make them. The deficiency was not due to lack of effort. However the school was not called khudd school without good reasons.

Sheedah couldn’t make it in the high school examination, so that was the end of the educational road for him. He had a soft corner for Meem and Meem also seemed to respond to his advances. They became quite friendly. There were meaningful whispers regarding their friendship but such attachments were a way of life in the school.

Meem did go to college but dropped out in the first year. He spent all the money his parents had given him for books on buying the cricket equipment, e.g. bats, pads, gloves, balls, etc. It was not for the fact that he was seriously considering a professional career in cricket; it was just for ‘kicks’. He was a small kid in the school as I have mentioned above, but miraculously he grew into a tall, lean and lanky, healthy and handsome young man in a matter of a few months. This was like he was put into a tensile machine and was pulled and elongated mechanically. His friendship with Sheedah also grew into a stable and more mature kind of relationship.

I had lost frequent contacts with Sheedah after I went to the college but I heard about him every now and then. He too was progressing in the (under)world that he had chosen for his daily life. After a couple of years, I heard that he had earned a sobriquet from his peers which now had become a part of his name. He was now called Sheedah Badma’ash; badma’ash was not used in any bad sense; it was a kind of respectful title in the underworld. The highest station to which an underworld aspirant could rise to, was perhaps that of a “Ghunda”, again not in the bad sense as it was used in the underworld. The underworld had its own stations and titles like Sufism. The preliminary station in Sufism is that of a plain Sufi (Salik) and the ultimate is that of a Qlandar. Qutb is only a shade lower than Qalandar. So Ghunda was kind of Qalandar of the underworld.

Some people called him Sheedah Ghunda, out of some perverted kind of respect. Some of the stories that I heard about him were totally outlandish. According to one of such stories, Sheedah went to Heera Mandi one night to watch mujra. He was well known in that bazaar and was well-respected by many dancing girls and their ‘baiis’. He was short of money that night. When the mujra began, the focus of dancer’s attention was a nouveau riche who was putting bill after bill in front of him for the dancing girl to pick up. Not to be outdone by this show of wealth, Sheedah put a match stick in front of him which the dancing girl promptly picked up coquettishly after taking his ‘balain’. Because his credit was good in that bazaar, his match stick was as good as gold. Shortly, he ran out of his matches; the baii rose up gracefully from her place and brought a new box of matches for Sheedah and the fun continued without any break.

The shop in Neela Gumbd was just a shop and not a bottomless gold mine. In due time, it dissolved into thin air and Sheedah fell into bad times. I remember, I was in Lahore on a short vacation from Warsak where I was employed, in late 1950’s, that Sheedah came to see me at my house. I don’t know how he learned I was in Lahore at that time, It was a hot summer day in the afternoon when he knocked at my door. I was surprised to see him because we had lost touch with each other for quite some time. I felt a little unsettled because that was the first time (also the last) he had come to my house. I let him in and I could feel the tension in the air.

Embarrassingly, he began, “I don’t know how to express the purpose of my visit today.” Then he abruptly said, “I want to borrow some money.” Now it was my turn to squirm and sweat. I had only a couple of hundred rupees in ready cash with me and I didn’t know how much he wanted. So falteringly I asked him, “How much?”
“Fifty will do,” he said.
I heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Okay, no problem.” He took the money and went away thanking me in some broken sentences.

I came to Lahore from Warsak to work in WAPDA in early 1960. I was posted in the Barrages Directorate, which had office on Queens Road at that time. One evening, I was out for a walk when I met Meem on my way back. He greeted me with a show of profuse and genuine pleasure at meeting me. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and then I asked, “How are other friends?” He said Sheedah was in bad times and he needed my help.
I said, “What kind of help?”
“He is looking for a job and he knows that you are in Lahore and working for WAPDA. He thinks you can help him,” Meem said. I asked what kind of work Sheedah had in mind. I was in a little bit of quandary because I knew well that Sheedah was ill-equipped to do any kind of office work.
Meem said, “A driver’s job should be good enough.”
I said, “Ask him to see me in my office.”

After a week or so, Sheedah materialized in my office unannounced. In the meanwhile, I had talked with our Transport Officer who had been my colleague in Warsak also, and he had promised to hire Sheedah on my recommendation. Sheedah was immaculately dressed in a well-pressed blue suit with a ‘three castles’ cigarette stuck in his lips. I took him to Mr. Makhdoom, the Transport Officer, who immediately got up from his chair and greeted us shuffling his feet somewhat nervously. I said, “Makhdoom Sahib, this is my friend about whom I had talked with you.” Makhdoom sat down in his chair slowly and said, “Okay, Gill Sahib, nothing to worry. I’ve a job for him.” I then returned to my office.

Makhdoom informed me at the end of the day that he had given the keys for the Deputy Director’s car to Sheedah for whom he was going to work. I thanked him appropriately. I didn’t see Sheedah afterwards thinking every thing was fine with him. After about a month, I met Meem again accidentally. He apologized in behalf of Sheedah and said, “He is so ashamed that he doesn’t have the heart to see you face to face.”
I said, “Why? What happened?”
He said, “Sheedah couldn’t continue with that job which was mostly sedentary. He couldn’t sit on a stool all the time outside the office. He wanted something more relaxing.”
I said, “He should have talked to me before quitting the job. I could have had him reassigned to some junior engineer with whom he would have been on tours most of the time.”
He said, “He didn’t want to ask you for more favors.” That was Sheedah Badma’ash.

Then I heard that he had started working for the Lahore Ominbus Service (LOS). In 1961, I left Pakistan and went over to Nigeria. I used to return from Nigeria every two years on vacation. On one of my vacation visits, a friend told me a chivalrous story about Sheedah.

One day, a girl boarded his bus and he recognized the girl. She lived in Baghbanpura where Sheedah also lived. The girl did not realize she was on the wrong bus but Sheedah knew it. After the designated stop time, Sheedah shifted the gear and let the bus roll towards Baghbanpura. The passengers thought the driver had taken the wrong route by mistake and started making noises to draw his attention. But Sheedah ignored the hubbub and continued heading towards the girl’s destination. The conductor held a hushed conference with him and then announced, “Be patient, we have to make a little detour but every thing will be fine.” Sheedah dropped the girl at her destination, turned around and plied the bus on its normal route.

In 1970, I got married after finishing my Ph.D. Sheedah came to the wedding ceremony, the dinner, and the walimah lunch the next day. I didn’t have much time to talk with him. I went back to Nigeria after my marriage. It was probably mid-1970’s when I returned to Pakistan on a vacation visit and heard about his mishap.

There was a LOS bus hold-up on the Ravi bund one evening in which both the driver and conductor were killed and the perpetrators had made away with the bus fare money. An investigation was held in which all the LOS employees were questioned because it was suspected that that was an ‘inside job’. The cloud of suspicion fell on Sheedah. There were plausible reasons for this suspicion. He was the only employee who had a life style well beyond his own income and the resources of any other employee. And wasn’t he a badma’ash?

He was arrested and put into prison. He was subjected to a severe pressure for confessing the crime. And he kept on saying, “How can I confess to something, which I have not committed?” The police beat him up mercilessly but failed to get a confession. Consequently, he was in a terrible physical mess. Around that time, the Pakistan National Hockey Team had won the Olympics championship and the players were received with a great fanfare on their return to the country. Sheedah managed to get the word out to Major Hameedi, the Captain of the National Hockey team, and Munir Dar, the full back, about his situation. They intervened and got him out of the prison. Soon after, the police nabbed the real culprits and Sheedah was cleared. But his heart and spirit had broken.

After the prison, he started a rather quiet life avoiding social contacts with people. And then after a couple of years, I heard that he had passed away. He had contacted a virus which was called probably the “Bakra Virus” or something like that and did not survive.

Haq maghfarat karay ajab aazad mar’d tha.