Hot Pot Magazine

By Mehreen Ahmed

I.
Her pale face is radiant under an August setting sun; she sits on a bench at the bus stop 94. A rusty
rooftop above, and the bench under is where the pastel green paint is peeling off to a hard, grim
dour. Waiting for bus no 94; it is late. Instead of searching for an alternative route, she walks here
quarter of a mile every day and waits. Day in and day out. Year in and year out until one day, she
turns ninety-four herself.

Her tired eyes stares into oblivion, and notes a solitary restless daisy through a lonely crack of the
cemented road; across the bus stop, bobbing its breezy yellow head, anxious, to fly away, had it not
been for its root spiralling all the way through the gaping, jagged cranny. She lets out a sigh; her
eyes light up. All she is left with is desires nestled within the cozy warmth of her heart; a place gone
cold from all the wait.

Where is he? The man, her one true love? He asks her to pick him up from this very bus stop, the
last bus at 94? She wears a pink, floral sari which wraps around her young, smooth body. The bus
never comes. She waits hours until the day is gone, afternoon and the evening. Still, no sign of
buses here. An empty, abandoned stop.

She continues to look at the empty road ahead, should the bus arrive. The daisies are in full bloom
of spring. She hears someone call her name, “Ayesha, Ayasha, look, look, I’m here.” She turns her
head and a shiver runs through her; she views a bare tree by the river, leaves growing out of it,
disproportionately, insanely psychedelic. “Where are you, I don’t see you, I don’t see you
anywhere, Mohabbat, Mohabbat, where are you, my love? Do you see me?” Ayesha asks, her heart
is swelling; shallow breathing with excitement, she inhales his faint hair oil dispersed in the air.
Anytime, anytime he will be here and pick her up and hold her against his chest. His soft lips
pressing down on her ruby red, melding into rich hot chocolate cake.

II.
At Fajr, Mohabbat Ali Khan wakes up to the sound of the azaan. It drifts through the minaret of a
local mosque of his neighbourhood. He descends the narrow stairs, and steps outside into a mosaic
court-yard through a floral inlaid arched architrave. This mosaic square is fenced in by stucco brick
walls on two sides. He nearly sleepwalks toward a tap near the western wall and turns it on to do
ablution, wazu, before the namaaz. He begins to wash this hands, elbows, face and ankles three
times. Rinses his mouth three times, and three splashes into the nostrils —three splashes for each of
the body extremities.

During the partition at the time of independence from the British, his parents opt to stay in India,
After they pass, he continues to reside in the old capital of Delhi. In the same house too, the
ancestral property. A blue arched house, beautifully antique. Accustomed to communal riots, love-
hate relationships are common with the Hindu, Christian and his Parsi friends, but in a complex
social conglomerate; he grows up through much political turmoil, not alien to situations
increasingly volatile.

He hears the water trickles, also from the other side of these thick walls as the neighbours, the
Dilliwallas are walking up. Hot tea brewing in a shack restaurant, the deep frying smells of samosas,
daal puri, parathas and omelette swimming through the morning’s air. After prayer,
Mohabbat Ali Khan steps outside the gates to go for his customary morning walks. Munshi
Giasuddin, the local barber’s salon down the alley is open. This early, but he already has a client.
He is sitting in a wooden straight-backed chair by the roadside. Munshi is rubbing up soap on his
beard and chatting away. He nods at Mohabbat as he walks passed.

Mohabbat walks a mile. His usual rounds are all the way up to the Jama Mosque, and then looping
back. He usually performs Fajr at the mosque which takes care of both the namaaz as well as the
morning walk. Today, however, he is pressed for time, and prays at home. He looks at the barber
through the corners of his eyes, and runs a finger absent-mindedly through his thick beard twisting
up his moustache, thinking that his beard also needs a trim. He walks a couple of steps ahead and
sits down on a hard bench at the shack restaurant for some hot tea and samosa.

“Salaam Janaab, how are you this morning?” a tea boy asks.

“Walaikummassalam,” Mohabbbat replies over a slight cough.“Yeah, I’m very well.”

“Tea and samosas? Freshly fried,” The tea boy asks.

Mohabbat nods, and sees that the tea boy is disappearing around the corner to fetch the
order, while he sits in the mellow morning light, watching the barber’s precision cutting next door.
His client spits betel saliva occasionally on the side, at which the barber lifts his razor sharply away
from his face.

Mohabbat has a date today with his Ayesha in an unkempt mossy garden near her house. His eyes
dilute just thinking of her. He must wear her favourite hair oil, today. His thought is interrupted as
his order of tea and hot samosas arrive. He bites into its crunch carefully, sipping and savouring the
white tea at the same time. He wants to pop into the barber shop next door after he finishes, here.
Over to the barber shop, he looks at all the hair oil bottles from various brands shelved around a
glassed window bay. He picks up Jaba Kushum which is her favourite. He pays up at the front and
leaves the shop. The barber smiles at him; he leaves with a polite nod.

Mohabbat walks home. He enters through the gate and climbs up the stairs. He decides to take a
shower before he leaves for his date. He puts on a white embroidered kurta and pajamas. He
lavishly oils his hair with Jaba Kushum and runs a comb through his beard. He comes downstairs,
and steps out on the road; he hears howls closing in like the fury of tsunami. He sees a huge mob
approaching toward his house; a sporadic riot is at his gate.

The bus no 94 arrives in time. Mohabbat is lucky to escape the mob’s scourge. He stands almost
camouflaged against the wall’s whiteness. People enter his home and they drag out his possessions;
rattling, rusty trunks, his books, his charpai bed, his father’s easy chair, hookah, and his violin,
hurling them all out on the street in a heap. He says nothing—an innocent bystander, he trudges
along the wall with caution until he arrives at the bus stop. He falls a few times before he is able to
ascend the bus; a sweaty forehead, a few drop falls over his eyes lids, an already wet beard. He
wonders if there’s riot also at Ayesha’s place. He finds a window seat through the crowd.

Stumbling, he sits down.

The bus is moving. He lets out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, there’s hope. He is thinking fast to start a
new life with Ayesha some place safer, perhaps abroad where there’s peace and stability. As long as
the bus is moving, there is some hope. He looks around him and sees panic in the wet frowns of his
fellow passengers. This bus will take them away where all can rest in peace. Suddenly, an explosion
catapults the bus.

III.
Young Ayesha’s sweet pink sari comes undone; it is noosed around her neck, strangulated. The pink
hue reflects a bluish blush on her silken, smooth skin. This place is eerily deserted. Doctors know
better. She lies in a white starched hospital bed. Her skin is decrepit; mottling. Mohabbat is here,
coming toward her, she waits, she hears his voice, echoing through her comatose brain. She desires
to go on a safari with him, maybe not on the unlucky 94 after all. He is smiling … she sniffs the
odour … her favourite oil brushed into the strands of his hair. Glib winds whisper into her ears.
Ninety-four years of wait cannot atone for this

Multiple contests winner for short fiction, Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh.Her historical fiction, The Pacifist is an audible bestseller.Included in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction Anthology,her works have also been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review,and DD Magazine,translated into German, Greek, and Bangla,her works have been reprinted,anthologized,selected as Editor’s Pick, Best ofs,and made the top 10 reads multiple times.Additionally, her works have been nominated for Pushcart, botN and James Tait.She has authored eight books and has been twice a reader and juror for international awards. Her recent publications are with Litro, Otoliths, and Alien Buddha