He stands up on the stool and returns the stack of A-4 sized papers on top of the shelf. His hand hits the corner of the shelf and his balance is distorted, and as one of his legs flails in the air, he manages to put it down on the floor, carefully followed by the other one and picks up his ‘namaz ki topi’ which had fallen on the floor during this attempt of his.
The silence is broken by the entry of a young girl, no older than 18 years of age, into his small shop lit by a white light.
As she walks inside, the shopkeeper examines her person from head to toe. Her head is smothered with a chaadar, her hair barely visible. Her eyes are on the ground and her tone, resolved.
She saw that the pictures of the ‘4 Quls’ and the ‘AyatalKursi’ adorned the walls of the shop. She felt slightly less perturbed.
She opens a notebook and starts flipping page after page and marks a starting and an ending point. “These are a total of fourteen pages,
I want them photocopied.” She told him. The shopkeeper embarked upon what was asked of him, every now and again stealing a glance at the girl who stood right in front of him. A girl about the age of his daughter. A girl that refused to look up.
The photocopier machine beeped one last time and she knew that her work was done. The shopkeeper started gathering the pages one by one. He counted them twice, in a manner that was almost too meticulous.
“That would be 28 rupees.” He tells her. She reaches out into her purse and hands him a fifty and waits for him to sort out her change, all this time without meeting eyes with him.
He withdraws a bundle of notes from his pocket and starts whistling to a Madam Noor Jehan song as he sorts through them.
He extends his hand forward, with a twenty and and two in his fingers. He gives her the twenty in two tens, she reaches out for it and he manages a slight graze at her unassuming hand.
She is immediately taken aback by what had just happened a few seconds ago. As she struggles to make sense out of the shopkeeper’s behavior, while still not managing to meet eyes with him, she is consumed with feelings of disgust and confusion. The two coins worth 2 rupees are still left, she didn’t want to experience what she had just did. “Keep these on the counter.” She instructs him as her voice slightly quivers. She wants nothing more than to make an exit as quickly as she can manage, but her small nails restrict her from picking up the two 1Rupee coins swiftly off the counter. As she struggles to get a hold of them, she can feel his eyes upon herself, and she grows more and more repulsed by the second.
She finally collects her change and walks out of the shop. Occupied with the thought of how this man, her father’s age, could even allow himself to behave as he had done. And how his appearance was so misleading and unfamiliar to his conduct. How someone, who looked like he practiced his faith could even do such a thing. She questioned her own judgement. She tried to tell herself that maybe it wasn’t what she thought it was. She tried to blame herself for it. But she couldn’t make any sense out of it.
That same night, the shopkeeper went home, like he did every other night and rang the bell at his gate. He wanted to place his scooter inside.
As the gate swung open in front of him and he gained sight of his daughter on the other side of it, his face changed color. He glanced over his shoulder at the teenage boys that were playing cricket, desperately hoping that none of them were looking in their direction. He gestured her to go inside. Initially, he didn’t say anything. But as soon as they were inside the house, and out of earshot, he scolded her for attending him at the gate. He took the girl by the wrist and dragged her all the way to the kitchen where her mother was preparing food. “If I ever see her cross the gate again, I will cut off her legs.” He shouted.
He let go of his daughter’s wrist violently and proceeded, “Any woman who leaves the four walls of her house is solely responsible for anything and everything that comes her way.”
