Lenin for Sale by Mustansar Hussain Tarar

Author:Mustansar Hussain Tarar [Tarar, Mustansar Hussain]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sang-e-meel Publications
Published: 2018-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

22

My name is Shawki Jhoota. I’ve never consciously told a lie and yet all my life I’ve been called Jhoota – The Liar. Shawki, The Liar. The simple reason for this is that in the past some ancestor of mine, a grandfather or great grandfather, had considered it expedient to tell a lie, whether to keep a secret or for the sake of some benefit, and was found out. In small, far off villages each person is connected to his biradari, his network of relations, his kith and kin. If a young man sees a girl coming towards him in the alley and gives a cough the news spreads to the whole village, in fact to every leaf and plant in the fields. Nothing can remain hidden. So if there’s a lapse on the part of someone from the biradari he gets labelled with it, not just him but his future generations. The lapse – or it could be a disability, or even a mark of beauty – gets attached to his family and becomes a part of their name.

Thus, some one hundred and fifty years ago an old man in the village was born with a frog in his throat. To clear the irritation he would go Gh-Gh before he spoke. So from plain Hakim Bakhsh he became Hakim Bakhsh Ghiga, Hakim Bakhsh, The Stutterer. All his children – and he had many – were called Ghiga, not just men but women as well. And they didn’t feel the slightest revulsion in being distinguished by this name or accepting it as their own. In fact, they were proud to introduce themselves as Ghigas, to the extent that when the population began to creep up towards their ancestral lands and they decided to set up a housing colony on it they called it Ghiga Town. Ghiga Flour Mill, Ghiga Superstore and Ghiga Fast Food were other feathers in their cap.

Similarly, in olden days one of our elders was mad about parrots. He taught them to speak and would spend hours conversing with them, so much so that he forgot his family and spent all his life beside his well chattering away with dozens of parrots. He was called Totaji, The Parrot Fellow. And today his descendants make it a point to attach Totaji to their name: Totaji Transport, Totaji Cold Storage, Totaji Dar ul Uloom, etc. I am telling these old stories so that all you folks who’ve been brought up in the culture of cities and are ignorant of the customs and traditions of the villages around you can understand that there’s no shame in being called Jhoota. It’s a matter of fate that an unknown elder of mine told a lie consciously or unconsciously and now all of us, his descendants, call ourselves Jhoota till today and we are not ashamed of it at all. My sisters proudly introduce themselves by saying ‘Ji, we are Jhootas.’ Even my daughter-in-law prides herself at having married into the Jhootas.

So . .

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