The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Ahmad EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: Aamina Ahmad
- Language: English
- Genre: Literary Sagas
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 5 MB
- Price: Free
Lahore, 8th November 1968
Faraz stared into the fog, sensing the movement of men, their animals. As
the mist shifted and stretched, he glimpsed only fragments: the horns of a
bull, the eyes of shawled men on a street corner, the blue flicker of gas
cookers. But he heard everything. The whine of the wooden carts, the strike
of a match, the snuffling of beasts.
He wasn’t sure where he and his men were. They had been led by the
officers from Anarkali Police Station through winding streets and now they
were somewhere near Mochi Gate, one of the twelve doorways to the
walled city, but that was all he knew. The sound of the riot was distant, like
the static of radio. The street vendors who’d lingered longer than they
should have were nervous now; they dropped their wares as they packed up
their things, clipped their animals and their apprentices about the ears,
berating them for being too slow. He sensed the nerves of his officers, too,
as they lined up next to him. He was jittery himself. This wasn’t their beat;
he and his men were just reinforcements driven in from Ichra, a place
known only for its bazaar crammed with cheap goods, far from the elegance
of Mall Road, from Lahore’s gardens and the walled city’s alleys.
“Closer,” he said to the men on either side of him, and so they pressed in,
their shoulders touching his. They could not afford to get separated or lost.
He felt the men lined up behind him pushing. They were panting; the air,
the city, was panting. Or perhaps it was him, perhaps he was panting. He
couldn’t see much so he tried to still himself to hear better. The
troublemakers couldn’t be far; they had gathered just outside Mochi Gate to
wait for Bhutto, who was just as impatient for battle with President Ayub as
they were, who was, they said, bringing a revolution with him. They didn’t
know police orders were to stop Bhutto from getting to Lahore, but it didn’t
matter. Bhutto or no Bhutto, everyone knew there would be trouble.
The gardens could only be a few hundred yards away but just now he couldn’t
hear them, couldn’t hear anything anymore. Closer, he thought, and his men
pressed in again, though he had not spoken out loud. He was still listening
when a minute later, or perhaps just seconds later, a dog trotted out of the
fog. It looked around, tongue hanging out in the cool air. It took a few steps
one way, then the other, skittish, sensing danger. Thick black letters had
been painted on the dog’s brown fur: AYUB, they spelled. The officer next to
Faraz gasped, incredulous at this smear on the president’s good name. A
rifle somewhere in the line was cocked, an officer poised to shoot, to
obliterate this insult, but before that could happen, the air cleared and there
they finally were: the rioters.
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