The streetlamp was blinking persistently as if naughty air had thrown some sand in her eyes. Iqbal’s attention would have turned towards incompetence of the incumbent government – from municipal to central level – and then he would have hurled curses and abuses, in his mind, on those in power, if not loudly. But all this did not happen as Iqbal saw a dirty but cute little boy with a thin and heavily roughed book in hand and a torn schoolbag lying carelessly nearby. The boy was shrugging himself and he continuously stared up at the blinking streetlamp, in hope or in complaint, Iqbal did not know.
The scene sent Iqbal in a flashback mode and he suddenly found himself 30 years younger. He was a cute little boy then, a boy with big dreams, dreams to fly in the skies! His father was a construction-labourer, whose earnings, as one can guess, was insufficient for the family of seven to say the least. The contractual nature of job and income implied that whenever his father lost job, as happened too often, he would get angry, beat his wife and would lock the door after throwing all the children outside home; home: a hut of tin and plastic located in a crowded slum. Iqbal never blamed his father for his later act, he had to throw his children outside for he couldn’t see their hungry faces and he couldn’t feed them all either.
Iqbal had only two problems with his father. One was his constant thrashings that he inflicted on his wife, Iqbal’s mother, and another thing was his constant pressure on Iqbal to quit studies and do some menial job – preferably as Khurshid Bhai’s apprentice in his garage. Iqbal understood his family’s poverty, after all he never complained of the meagre amount of food that he occasionally got and he never ever demanded new clothes – which in any case he couldn’t get. But in lieu of his ‘respect’ for the family’s poverty he wanted his family (read father) to respect his dreams. To avoid the daily skirmishes and mainly to deny this excuse to his father for expressing his wrath on Iqbal’s mother, he joined Khurshid Bhai’s apprenticeship on part-time basis. He didn’t give up on his dreams and also joined Al-Khair Evening School. He wanted to fly, he wanted to become a pilot – a man with the wings – and to fulfil his dreams, he knew, that he had to go to school.
“Boy, you are wasting your time… [invectives] What do you think? These books cannot give you bread and wine [invectives]. You cannot eat or drink these [invectives] pages. I say, shun these [invectives] books, these are luxuries that we do not afford.
There was no question of electricity at home, even if it was there, illegally, there was no room for him to study. The moment he would open a book there, his father would start pouring lamentations in his ears and he had to run outside. Usually he used to read for an hour or two beneath the streetlight, in the quiet of the night, undisturbed by all except a few stray dogs and occasionally by a few beggars. The hustle bustle of the traffic at the distance of a yard or two usually had no impact on him. Iqbal remembered the day when, finding his father away from home, he opened his history-book and started reading about Sir Syed and other social reformers of his age and their thoughts on the indispensability of the modern education. He was barely reading third page of the day when, unexpectedly, his father came back early and chased him away from home. He was angrier than usual and his curses followed Iqbal long after his father had actually stopped chasing him.
Iqbal was very much nervous as he had his exams next day. He was a good student and his first ranks gave him confidence that he will surely become a pilot after growing up. That day, a day before the test, when Iqbal, ran away from home and, was studying beneath the streetlight, the streetlight started blinking… just like today. He too was staring at the light in a terse complaint. Complaint to whom? To the streetlight? To the government? To the dark sky? To the merciless God? He was not sure. But all his thoughts were disturbed by a drunkard urchin who, shaking himself miserably, came up to him as if from nowhere and seeing the book in his hand started scolding him, “You fool,” this was followed by a barrage of unquotable invectives after which he managed to say, “Boy, you are wasting your time… [invectives] What do you think? These books cannot give you bread and wine [invectives]. You cannot eat or drink these [invectives] pages. I say, shun these [invectives] books, these are luxuries that we do not afford. Go work somewhere, feed your [invectives] family, you are not going to become a scientist after all… O’ one minute…” he paused, still shaking and stammering, “you seem tensed, drink this and all your problems will be solved.”
Iqbal ran away from the scene with all his might. The drunkard didn’t give a chase but Iqbal stopped only at a few paces from his home. There was a crowd and a commotion. He pierced the crowd and made his way towards home only to see his father lying in the lap of his crying mother, bleeding profusely. He couldn’t talk, his throat was slit from where blood was oozing out. He had paid for his honesty, or was it defiance? He had refused to pay hafta to Diesel Bhai and this was the result. People were afraid of Diesel Bhai and no one helped his father while he was first mercilessly beaten and then slashed open. Such was the fear that no one helped the bereaved family in taking his father to the hospital as well.
Death of his father was a rude shock for Iqbal… and his dreams! He missed his exams. He discontinued his studies. He had to feed his ailing mother and younger siblings. He had to repay the loans taken by his deceased father.
Today, Iqbal owns another hut besides the hut in which he lives. He also runs a small garage besides occasionally working as middleman in selling second hand cars. Today he was coming from a tiring labour of 12 exhausting hours from his garage when he saw that little boy beneath the blinking streetlamp.
He stepped further towards the boy, boy looked up to him. Iqbal was tired and tensed but the boy who was visibly perturbed earlier was smiling now for no reason whatsoever. “Go to home” said Iqbal tersely only to see the complexion of boy changing dramatically, “Education is a luxury that, apparently, you do not afford, do not waste your time, do not waste your family’s money, go support your family with some income that you can obviously earn with hard labour, you are not going to become a pilot after all…”
