Ameerdin (another one of those stories)

For those who might be wondering wtf is wrong with me; why am I writing stupid ass shit hole stories ever since I started this goddamn blog, the reason is this: I am trying to fill a magazine. They won't let me print anything I would write under normal circumstances and I'm really keen on getting my name up on a board. I'm not the sort of chap who goes around asking people to write because that makes me uncomfortable; I am somewhat anti-social. So, I am technically a prostitute, I suppose, but wtf? I realized much too late that the crownless who must be king, must be king. Otherwise the shit would just simply hit the fan. Enjoy.




Ameerdin

A man sat watching from afar as a small boy with frozen cheeks and a pink runny nose went about begging for money at the traffic signal where rich people were bound to stop for long enough. This man was almost invisible to the general public. Not that he had any unusual powers; it was just that he was proficient in the art of being inconspicuous. On a busy street or amid a mass of pedestrians, he would be the last man anyone would notice; his ordinary features, clothes, appearance and seemingly inconsequential presence made no impact in the mind of the average person, as if the image of his corpus never registered, except, of course, when he wanted it to. On this chilly, winter morning in Lahore, the man sat watching from afar, invisible but tense. There was good reason for his squatting in the cold; he was determined to investigate into the matter personally. It was the only way to find glory.

The boy went from car to car as it waited for the traffic lights to turn green; he stopped at the more expensive cars and lingered only momentarily at the smaller, cheaper ones, leaving nothing but a misty smudge or two on the windows. It was all part of the training: don’t waste time on people who have nothing to offer; the bigger the car, the better the chances.
The man went in to have a closer look; he watched with interest, as if observing some pattern of traffic with care, except that he was dressed too shabbily to be a sociologist. Even now he managed to remain unnoticed. As the boy now stood next to a Honda Accord, the watcher’s gaze grew sharper. The driver, an effluent young father flicked his attention for half a second at the pitiful form of the beggar boy, but without any kind of acknowledgement, shifted his glance back to the road, and then to the rear view mirror wherein he checked up on the two kids sitting in the back. He smiled at his children as the boy tapped on the window.
The beggar boy -observed the watcher- was dressed in rags much different from the clean uniform of the children in the car; his face was filthy, covered with marks of freshly cried tears that had left narrow traces of relative cleanliness as they made their way across his features through acquired dirt and left the appearance of a dried riverbed. As the boy knocked again and mumbled random prayers and evoked his pity, the driver toed the accelerator just enough to move the car very slowly forwards so that the beggar boy would get the hint and leave. The boy got the hint and moved on to the next car.

This won’t do, thought the watcher, but he felt somewhat relaxed; he had a theory, and a plausible one, in his opinion. He would present his views in front of the committee tonight and be noticed. Indeed it was a good theory and he hoped that the elders would soon realize what a brilliant man he was. On the other hand, there are always those who move in like vultures to take the credit, he thought, but never mind, never mind…this could be the break he was looking for.

The Beggar-Mafia of Lahore, as it exists today, is an intricate network consisting of many semi-autonomous cells that function under the auspices of various influential men. The mafia is a vast band of untouchables, in that nobody can cause them any harm; separate parts of the network are actively involved in kidnapping, drug dealing, theft, prostitution and so on but to trace these crimes back to the Beggar Mafia itself is, although not impossible, reasonably inconvenient.
The city of Lahore is divided into twelve districts by the elders or sarkaars of each cell and within this area only ‘authorized’ beggars can operate. Old men, women and young children are and have traditionally been the biggest sources of income for the Mafia. Nearly everywhere that one might go in Lahore, one would find such fakirs on the roads, at traffic signals and outside market places, but of course this does not mean that every individual beggar that one comes across on the street is a part of this organization; some are independents, others are slaves bought by the Mafia and thereby acting not out of their own free will.
Though invisible to the public at large, an overseer is always present somewhere close by where a beggar operates. The reason why most beggar kids don’t try to run off is because firstly, if they get caught, the punishment would be unbearable and they do generally get caught; secondly, the mafia always has a ‘next of kin’ in custody to threaten the life of, and to scare potential runners from attempting such a thing; thirdly, the Mafia offers an endless supply of something for which the marginal utility falls extremely slowly: drugs.
As it were, in recent times the amount of wealth being amassed by the Mafia through their agents decreased exponentially and it was primarily to investigate this phenomenon that overseers all over the city were charged with the duty to observe their subjects’ activities. The average overseer, however, being a man of lesser wisdom than cunning, always comes to the same conclusion: “the beggar boy, girl, person, isn’t pleading hard enough; they’re not putting enough effort into the exercise” and so on. Their suggested solution? Severer punishments to encourage beggars to put their heart and soul into the job.

The man, who had sat and watched, spent the entire day roaming around the streets of Lahore, thinking of how to articulate his thoughts properly. He even left his charge –the beggar boy- to operate on his own; by now he was convinced that the kid would not even think of attempting to run or pocket anything; it’s not hard to read the face of a child and in any case, the kid in question was completely brainwashed into submission.
By sunset he reached the place where the elders met to collect the day’s earnings and confer with the overseers to see where things stood; naturally, they were interested in knowing how business was doing and why.

The elders were, in fact, six men, representatives of the higher ups. Of course nobody really knows for sure how many links there are in the chain of command in this particular set-up but as far as an overseer is concerned, an elder is just about as high as you can get if you’re lucky enough to not get knifed by a competitor. An overseer who has committed murder and has a warrant against him is always given preference because by now he is considered as loyal a subject as it is possible to become. Having such competitors is a major source of worry for anyone in this field who has yet to commit a felony that deserves a life sentence and/or capital punishment.

The elders sat on personal charpayis and neither would ever sit on any but his own. It was considered a transgression to do so. Each overseer would come and one by one touch the knee of every elder, starting with the head of his own particular area, and then the head of the nearest area and so on. After the preliminaries, the overseers would start speaking in order of seniority.
The overseers spoke and the watcher listened to all of them, growing lighter in mood with every speech. He felt assured that none of the seniors had quite hit the nail precisely on the head and with this assurance came the guarantee that he would probably get the chance to make a brilliant impression on the elders. His turn was to come at the very last and might not have come at all, had he not requested an audience. This was a bold step and his companions were all intrigued. He addressed the elder of his area: “I thank you, sarkaar, for your patience. Although my fellows have reported their findings and their insights have been heard, I believe they were all off the mark. I believe the crux of the matter lies not in the level of motivation of our subjects but in how we are packaging the product. Times have changed sarkaar. Our target audience has changed. In olden times, a rich man would look at a child begging and see in him his own children; this would evoke pity within him and force him to reach deep into his pockets. Now when a rich man looks at the child begging he sees nothing but an animal and feels no obligation to be charitable.”

“And what do you suggest my boy? How do we change the view of the rich man?” spoke the elder indulgently. His tone was jovial. Such a tone, thought the watcher, did not bode well in this business. He must get to the point quickly or be considered a mad fool. The elders were always very conscious of the behavior of the overseers in their charge. An impertinent overseer implied an impotent elder. Such a thing would be disastrous.

“Sarkaar, it is not in our power to change the sight of a man but we can change the appearance of the object he is seeing. The matter is this: the rich man sees an animal in place of a child because the beggar does not resemble his child anymore; he is dressed in rags that the rich man does not identify. This lack of recognition I have seen in his eyes myself. The appearance of the beggar child does not strike the same note on the chords of his heart as it used to because he does not recognize it. He simply averts his gaze, and by refusing to acknowledge the humanity of the beggar, feels no pity. We must dress these kids in somewhat better clothes, so that in the place of the beggar, the rich man can see the image of his own son and daughter. Once he sees a boy or a girl who is dressed in western clothes on the brink of decay, his pity will be roused. This is the age of the burger, sarkaar, and we can only be successful if we move with the times.” The elders heard this speech in silence, exchanged significant glances and then the one spoke to him.

“What is your name son?” he asked in a condescending tone.

“Ameerdin, sarkaar,” answered the watcher with affected humility. He was much pleased.

“You have done well Ameerdin. Be sure that we do not forget those who think of us.” said the elder and got up with the rest of his fellows. The conference was over; the crowd dispersed.

Ameerdin sat watching from afar as a small boy with frozen cheeks and a pink nose went about begging for money. This boy was dressed in reasonably patched and frayed modern clothing and to any observer would seem as if he belonged to a decent middle class family that had run into a patch of tough luck. The drivers passing took pity on him and felt the eye of God upon them. God can turn the fortunes of a man overnight if He so pleases, they would think and the thought would send a shiver down their spines. Car windows rolled down and eyes that beheld their children’s future in the face of the beggar boy glanced at him. Coins and notes were stuffed in his dirty hands as he moved from car to car; each car was waiting for the lights to turn green.
Ameerdin sat squatting in the cold for good reason; he wanted to bask in the faint light of the sun that washed over him. This was glory.