Finding Judas

By Faiza Hameed

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Phuit. An oppressing darkness seems to settle down like a mist on the computer screen and everything around it, as I realise that the old boys had done it again. Those joy-stealing, hysteria-inducing, good-for-nothing 'boys' at WAPDA never fail to surprise us with their superfluous punctuality, do they?

I sigh and walk out onto the terrace adjoining my room. It is dark outside. There is no moon. A quiet night -- magically dreamy and mystic -- sounds like the stuff romance is made out of. And yet here I am, unromantically sweating my guts out and cursing people I've never even met! My clothes seem to stick to my body and my eyes just about boil out.

It is good to know that in a few days, I'll be on a plane to New York…hopefully never to return.

I almost keel over the terrace railing as the sheer magnitude of it all hits me somewhere between my chest and my stomach. "GPM, you are one hell of a lucky guy," I breathe and then chuckle softly. I have to stop calling myself that and get used to my real name: Ghaus Pir Muhammad. The lady at the embassy had taken one look at the name on my passport and then stared at me long and hard. And I had stared shamelessly back. After all, I couldn't possibly tell her the story my mom had fastidiously beaten into me -- the one about how I'd been named after the pir sahib whose miraculous 'taweez' and 'parrha hua pani' had been instrumental in my birth after ten long years of my parents' marriage. Of course he'd got a fortune from my parents. I, on the other hand got migraine, trying to figure out why pir sahib's parents couldn't have named him Arnold Schwazznegar…or maybe even Shan (was I desperate or what!)

Of course, in due time, other reasons appeared to make me want to change my name to one that was less…imposing, not the least of which was that I shared my initials with a prominent political figure who was…well not exactly the biggest love of Pakistani public. School wasn't much of a problem, thanks to the general political ignorance of my peers. But college arrived in due course, bringing with it the retributions of all my past-unpaid dues.

I try unsuccessfully to rub the kinks out of my sweat-soaked neck as I recall how I'd been ragged on my first day at college. As soon as the seniors found out my name and worked out the details and the attached implications, word seemed to spread through the entire institution and I became their ultimate punch bag. I was actually asked (and not very nicely) to take off my uniform and when horrified at their suggestion, I refused, they staged a protest and a sit-in, demanding my resignation. One of the cheekier students even went as far as miming a suicide attempt aimed at me. I was ultimately rescued by the teachers who were themselves trying hard not to laugh. It was a terrible day indeed and hence quite naturally the most vividly chronicled in my mind's eye. Nevertheless, I try not to think about it.

But that was six years, four months and thirteen days ago. I am no longer the sad little excuse of a man that I was then. I'd got a first-class degree in business administration and then went on to get an even better job. A job that's now serving as my launch pad into paradise; away, far, far away from this last stop to hell that I am living in now. True, it is just a five-year contract, but anyone who'd hung around in the field long enough knew that contracts got extended all the time. You just had to pull the right strings and press the right buttons. "I'm a realist," I tell myself proudly. And realism demands honesty, just like patriotism demands sustenance. It demands a good life…a safe life…a life free from all those unscheduled hours of load shedding, and food crises and unforeseen water shortages and big shot politicians snivelling and squabbling over things that had happened some six hundred million years ago! I want out and I am getting it! Heavens yes! I am getting this once-in-a-lifetime chance of finally breaking free from these loathsome manacles, these self-concocted perceptions of a patriotic conscience. And really the joke isn't on me. It's on all those cocksure cheeky old popinjays, those 'phir bhee dil hai Pakistani' chanting naive old ninnies. I feel like spreading my arms out and shouting at the top of my lungs! Stay where you are, you shining epitomes of denial! Waste the best years of your life in this rotting old ash heap! And in a few years' time when you'll be standing in those abominably long queues for sugar outside utility stores, I'd be safe and worry-free, living somewhere in the very centre of heaven's lap.

And, as the heady euphoria of a foreseen victory fills me with an inner light, the moon creeps out from behind the clouds, washing everything around me with its milky whiteness…dimming, nearly extinguishing that inner light of euphoria in me. Stunned, I look around as if seeing everything for the first time. That illuminated, snoozing python of traffic that lies below on the road seems almost mythical...magical. The trees, the stars, the terrace…everything suddenly seems to come alive, beckoning me, almost pleading with me to take a close look before raising my accusatory finger. I suddenly understand why our elders had named it 'Land of the Pure.' This great, magnanimous, forgiving land that held me and weaned me and shaped me for 26 years of my life. Heck, if it hadn't been for it, I wouldn't have been what I am today. It provided for me when I needed it. And now when I had reaped my fruit and partaken of all the goodies, I was leaving it like it had never even been there! I was leaving it for good and couldn't care any less. And all that for 30 bloody pieces of silver; or $75,000 a year if you will, I reflect bitterly.

"So is it treason?" A tiny voice asks from somewhere inside me. And at that moment the tube light in my room blinks to light. The 'accursed' one hour is up.

"Is it treason?" The voice persists, though it seems to be coming from far away now.

I think for a moment, questioning myself, looking deep inside me…and then I smirk. "Not if I'm GPM, it's not."

The voice is silenced. I walk back inside my room.

source: jang.com.pk