Days passed on in dark barns of Faridkot. Friends and some of my family
members, especially my mother, kept passing on food and drink to me. Never once
did my Abba come to visit me. I roamed around with my friends in search of
work, but everything was in vain. No one entertained me in their shops; nor did
they talk. Finally, my futile search took me to a sweetshop owned by dad’s best
friend and I lifted up my hopes.
“Chacha, can I get some work,” I asked. Karim Chacha was my dad’s best
friend and Karim Chacha was the brother my dad never had.
“So finally you appear at my shop looking for work. Your dad is a very
good friend of mine, and his son should deserve work at my shop. But, on the
contrary, if I give you work; it would be an insult towards your father, as he
has cut off his ties with you. Frankly speaking, no one in this town will give
you work. As you are like my nephew, I would like to give some advice to you. Resolve
all of your issues with Amir; then come back to me. I will provide you with a
job and even a salary,” Karim Chacha told me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Chacha, thank you for your advice. But, I am seriously not interested
in listening to Abba. I don’t even want to talk with him. And if you or anyone
in this town will not give a job to a sincere boy like me because I’m his son,
then that would be called discrimination,” I countered calmly, but there was a violent
storm brewing in my head.
“Ajmal Beta, that is how life works. This is not discrimination.”
“Then I’m going. Away from here; away from this town. And I will earn
more than any of you; I will be more famous than any of you; and then you all
will welcome me here,” I said, now literally shouting. Turning away, I walked
out of the shop in the wake of incessant muttering, with no clue whatsoever about
what I would do. Karim Chacha called out to me, but I didn’t stop; and after
that he got back to breaking up the throngs.
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