An American Woman in Pakistan: Memories of Mangla Dam by Irene Aylworth Douglass by Irene Aylworth Douglass

Author:Irene Aylworth Douglass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRV015000, BIO508000, BIO000000
Publisher: Wheatmark
Published: 2013-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

THE FOLLOWING WEEK, TRUCKS AND swarms of people filled the central courtyard of WAPDA Flats. Pakistan’s flourishing movie industry was shooting a romantic film, and the company took over WAPDA Flats where our courtyard was the setting of the film. Workers bustled around the compound, laying long, snakelike cables along the stairwells from the front terrace through the breezeway beside our front door, and past the playground to bring power from the poles behind the complex. Other crewmembers positioned the large cameras and platform in the driveway. The director consulted with the actors, a handsome, tall Pakistani in an open-necked shirt, and the star, a dark-haired woman in a deep red sari. Makeup men hovered over her while attendants scurried to do the bidding of the directors.

We watched the children carefully with all the electrical cables and so many people in the yard. Jim warned me to lock the doors each time we came in or out. The transient workers had a reputation for stealing anything that wasn’t under lock and key.

When the filming began, I found a perfect vantage point on our terrace near the front corner of the living room. Here I could sit and read between the action scenes as they filmed from my balcony seat. The director shouted to the star several times, then showed her how he wanted her to run up the seven steps, stop, and turn with her arm up toward the sky. She was animated, her makeup and expressions were colorful, and she threw herself into the role with emotion. The high heels she wore caught on the bottom of her long sari. After several takes, the director had her clutch the sari and lift the skirt as she ran up the steps. Her long, red-painted fingernails accented her delicate hands as she gestured. I aimed our movie camera at her as their cameras rolled, hoping to capture a part of the drama she portrayed so well.

Later when they took a break, I put the movie camera on the hall credenza and locked the door as I went outside to call in the boys for lunch. Sherif usually went in and out through the kitchen door that opened onto the breezeway. He went ahead, carrying the boy’s toy trucks while I chatted with Marge for a few minutes.

When I opened the front door of our apartment, the first thing I saw was the hall credenza with nothing on it. The movie camera was gone. We were outside for only a few minutes, but it had disappeared from where I’d left it on the credenza. The front door required a key to open. Perhaps the kitchen door was easier for someone to pick the lock, enter, and sneak out.

But Sherif remembered closing and locking it with his key. Our movie camera had disappeared, along with some precious memories of our boys and the movies of our early explorations of Lahore and the trips to Baral Colony. I felt violated and angry that this

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