A long time ago, on a calm balmy morning in October, a woman arrived at Phuphee’s house. She had brought with her a basket full of kandi kulchas (sweet kulchas). Her name was Muntazar. I had seen her at Phuphee’s house many times before. In the past, whenever our paths had crossed, she had always looked grief stricken and small, but today she seemed brighter and stood a little taller.
Phuphee greeted her warmly and asked Aisha to bring an extra pyaale (teacup). We sat as Aisha served hot nun chai and lavaasa (a soft flatbread baked in a clay tandoor) with homemade butter. Once everyone was done with their food, Phuphee took Muntazar into her room.
Muntazar had left the kulche zaen (wicker basket with the kulchas) behind and, seeing that no one was around, I sneaked one onto my plate. A few moments later, Aisha walked in and as soon as she saw it on my plate, she gave me a disapproving look and said, ‘Aem zann aasan ne yima ainmyit assi kheatre?’ [What if she hasn’t brought them for us?] I replied with silence. She sat down next to me and poured me a cup of nun chai.
I asked Aisha what Phuphee had done for Muntazar that she had gone to the trouble of bringing her kandi kulchas at the crack of dawn. Aisha explained that Muntazar had had a troubled life. Her parents had worked with the government and so they had to move around a lot. She would often be left with her maternal grandparents for months on end.
Later, when her parents had finally risen to a rank where moving around was no longer mandatory, Muntazar had been brought home but had a difficult time settling in with her older brother. I wanted to ask why he hadn’t been left with the grandparents too but I didn’t, as Aisha didn’t like being interrupted and also because I already knew the answer.
There had been friction between the siblings ever since. Aisha said that Muntazar had tried to be a good sister, but it was never enough. Over the years, her ill treatment by her brother had gotten more and more vicious, and she had sought refuge in Phuphee. She had been coming to see her for many years. In that time, Muntazar had started working, got married and started a family.
With every milestone in her life, the abuse from her brother had increased but like a good soldier she had absorbed every blow, until the day her brother spread his tentacles towards her children. He had started spreading rumours about them and even though people knew the stories were false, they felt no hesitation in passing them around. The more people that passed them around, the uglier the rumours became, and one day they landed upon Muntazar’s ears.
According to Aisha, what had upset Muntazar was not the rumours themselves but the fact that she hadn’t felt shocked when she heard them. In that moment, she had realised that, like a simpleton, she had waited for the people in her life to register her humanity, but that moment never arrived.
Aisha stopped talking and picked up a piece of kandi kulcha from my plate and popped it into her mouth. ‘These are fresh,’ she said, momentarily closing her eyes. ‘You know, kandi kulchas are the only sweet kulchas that are baked in the tandoor. Every other kulcha is savoury.’
‘Did Phuphee give her a taaveez [spiritual prescription] against her brother?’ I blurted out, not the least interested in kulchas.
‘Sort of. She gave her a zaen [wicker basket] full of kandi kulchas the last time she was here and told her to give them to wakeel saab [the lawyer] and now her brother is not allowed to speak about her or her family to anyone. If he does, he will be locked away in jail,’ Aisha replied.
I sat there confused. I was relieved for Muntazar, but it all felt strangely underwhelming. Why would Phuphee send her to a lawyer when she could just put a curse on him or turn his tongue into a bed of nails? As if she had read my mind, Phuphee walked in, without Muntazar. She asked Aisha for a cup of nun chai and sat down by the window and took out two cigarettes.
‘Why didn’t you just put a curse on her brother?’ I demanded, unable to hide my irritation.
‘Put a curse, put a curse,’ she replied dramatically. ‘When have you ever seen me put a curse, my goodness?’
She was sipping her nun chai when she suddenly put her pyaale down and said, ‘You know, myoan zuv [my life], what still surprises me about this world? And I say this with some caution, because not much surprises me anymore, is how people forget that this kulcha that is so sweet on the tongue, has been forged in the fire. People just seem to overlook that!’
She paused, as if she was trying to remember something else, something she didn’t want to leave out, before carrying on, ‘And it never occurs to anyone that the tandoor that bakes bread daily might just get up one fine day and decide to burn everything in its path simply because it can.’
‘How does it not occur to people?’ she asked before turning away.
I watched her sitting there, with a hint of mild disbelief and a lot of questions dancing on her face. She looked out of the window, puffing away and relishing her nun chai with a kandi kulcha, the only sweet kulcha to be forged in the fires of the tandoor.
Saba Mahjoor, a Kashmiri living in England, spends her scant free time contemplating life’s vagaries.