by Samia Altaf
I was perhaps ten years old when I had unending cups of Eatmore’s fresh handmade mango ice cream while sitting on the lawns of Services Club Sialkot. It was one of the brightest days of my life, with my parents all to myself, undistracted by the demands of their daily doings, and the crystal cups of ice cream brought to us. We sat on reclining garden chairs on the perfectly manicured lawn, bordered by fragrant motia plants and the chambeli vine clinging to the tall peepal tree, all in full heady bloom.
My mother ordered Coca-Cola with crushed ice—a very hip fizzy drink that had just appeared in our lives and our city, taking sleepy Sialkot by storm. She ordered sizzling –hot shami kebabs and cool cucumber sandwiches and French fries—another recent and grand addition to the club’s menu. All of these were strictly forbidden to her because of her “weight problem” and her recent bout of “slipped disc,” which her doctor thought was the result of the former. But she was happy, breaking frequently into her characteristic ringing laugh, her head thrown back.
Clad in magenta-pink French chiffon sari, a daring sleeveless blouse and a string of pearls around her neck, pearls brought back all the way from Tokyo by my father. On her feet she had pointed-toe kitten-heel slides in pearl-colored leather, hand made by Hopson, the exclusive Chinese shoemaker on Mall Road, Lahore. She had just returned from the city, where she got, from Hanif’s Mall Road salon, the stylish Jackie Kennedy haircut that along with Coca-Cola and French fries had become quite the rage. My father in his white “bush-shirt”—half-sleeves, tennis collar, buttons down the middle, worn untucked, and white linen trousers sipping nimboo-pani in a tall glass with generous chunks of clinking ice, gazed lovingly at her, and since she looked so radiant, felt that nothing could do her any harm. Read more »