The Pakistani Bride Read Online Free

a compartment. Zohra held up the baby. Someone took him and passed him to his father. Lifting Munni, arms outstretched, Zohra too was hoisted up by friendly hands.
    â€œAbba, the calf! There it is!” cried Munni, pointing it out. It tottered below them on spindly, unsteady legs, its face raised, mute and trusting.
    â€œGet the calf, Abba. Don’t leave it, she’s a baby, she’ll die!”
    â€œShush,” her mother scolded. “We haven’t room for ourselves and you want to take that beast!”
    â€œAbba, don’t leave the calf . . . I want my calf,” Munni wailed, and Zohra, overwrought and on the verge of tears herself, raged, “Shut up, or I’ll slap you.”

    â€œDon’t be angry with the child,” said Sikander, holding his daughter close.
    A few paces from them, jammed between two men, a boy sat cradling a newborn calf. Munni dug her face into her father’s shirt. She wept inconsolably.
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    The train sped through the throng awaiting it at Jullundur and stopped instead at a siding a few furlongs past the station. It was a prearranged halt and the small, clandestine group awaiting it squeezed in as best they could. Qasim, a roistered pistol slung across his chest, a rifle swinging down his back, walked rapidly towards the engine, scanning the compartments. He tried one, but was churned out by the pressure of brown bodies. Afraid that the train might leave without him, he began to run. Just as it pulled away, he hauled himself on to the roof of the carriage nearest the engine.
    Sitting on the roof Qasim could see the refugees who had been bypassed at the station closing in like a tide. Men and women carrying children surged forward with their cattle. The train picked up speed. There was an angry roar from the scrambling mass, and some, leaving their families, rushed forward.
    But the train, with an indifferent hiss, drew away into the growing darkness.
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    An old man with a wispy beard sits next to Qasim. Their legs dangle over the roof and from time to time the old man, afraid of losing his balance, grips Qasim’s thigh. He chirps like a bird, philosophizing, sermonizing, relating the histories of various members of his family in his impeccable Aligarh Urdu. Qasim, who has picked up only a broken, make-do Urdu in his three years in the plains, is at a loss before the onslaught of such poetic fluency. Yet he nods his head. He gathers that the old man is from Central India and is eager to settle in Pakistan with his
wife, four sons, and their families, all of whom are scattered about the train.
    Smoke from the engine spews into their faces, and except for their irritated red eyes, they are black with soot. Brushing away sparks and tears, patches of Qasim’s skin show unexpectedly white. Tall and bristling with weapons, he is unmistakably a mountain tribal. His narrow eyes, intent on the landscape, combine wariness with the determination of a bird of prey.
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    It is nearly four years since Qasim left his mountain village. From the remote Himalayan reaches of Kohistan, he had traveled straight to Jullundur where his cousin worked as a messenger in a British firm. His cousin found him a job as watchman in the National and Grindlays Bank. The work suited Qasim perfectly. He stood all day, resplendent in a khaki uniform and crisp turban, guarding the bank entrance. The double-barreled gun that he stood beside him and the bullet-crammed bandolier swathing his chest gladdened his heart and gratified his pride, for a gun is part of a tribal’s attire. It shows his readiness to face his enemy and protect his family’s honor.
    Touchy and bewildered to begin with, Qasim nevertheless had been fascinated by Jullundur, a busy city in the North Indian plains. Each common object he saw was to him a miracle. Torches, safety pins, electric lights, cinemas, and cars whirled magically before his senses. The language posed a problem. Although he spoke