Opening Our Eyes

 You wouldn't guess Oji Baji was well travelled. She looks like she has spent a lot of time crumpled in a corner of her brother's house where she lives, having been rejected by her husband long ago. She hobbles; her teeth grow outwards (Baji means sister, by the way) as if straining for sunlight; her hair and clothes need an airing and a hot iron. But she did go to Murree in the hills once and also to a district of Lahore called Charburji. She says that if you haven't seen Lahore, you haven't been born. 

Our daughter has been born. 

The driver of the first rickshaw I take her on makes sure I am seated comfortably with the baby in my sling then, with a flourish, flips a switch to turn on a tiny fan for us. It sounds just like a jet engine. We leave our cul-de-sac then go over speed bumps so fast we fly; cruising at an altitude of several inches. Uber. 

What of Lahore does she see out of the corner of her eye? Even the thin slice of the city visible to her, with her head squashed against my sweaty kameez, reveals enough to dream about through many nights and naps.

We go to Landa Bazaar to get woolens for our upcoming trip to the hills. To see Landa is to see the world, at least the flotsam and jetsam of it. The clothes and shoes on the rows and rows of barrows have been on epic journeys from the bargain basements and charity shops of Europe, Oceania and the Americas. Washed up here are sneakers worn out slower than their teenagers have grown, last season's high heels and sandals and shoes no longer fit for the career ladder their wearer is climbing, all sorted onto their separate tables. They have been polished and sewn where once there were holes, re-heeled where broken. 

Behind these barrows are dark passageways leading into a vast thrift-store cavern. It is dark and the air is heavy, moving only when the stall holders use rags on sticks to flick dust off their repaired wares. Women circulate and pick through bargain treasure surreptitiously, a little ashamed for buying used goods, collaborating with pirates. There are jean stalls, tee-shirt stalls, blouse and blazer barrows where everything is ironed and folded, organised by type. Gap and Gucci, George and Armani all happy together back in Asia where they started their lives, being haggled over by housewives. They will see Lahore; they are being re-born. 

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A week later and we are visiting a friend keen to see the baby. Travelling in another rickshaw, my daughter is learning the topography of this city: bumpy, and like me, I think she likes it. We visit my friend's neighbours first, where the baby is much prodded and measured, described and assessed. The mother-in-law, brazen without a scarf, looks at her with kohl-dark eyes and mutters behind the cigarette smoke. She pokes out her chin and tosses her head when I speak, demanding that my words are repeated by our friend. But when it is her turn to hold the baby she rocks her tenderly and asks me to pray for a baby for her son and daughter-in-law.

Back in my friend's room, my baby on her bed is her longings made flesh and now she voices them: pray for a child for me, too. The baby is briefly lying in a place of loneliness, where her husband sometimes takes his place, when not in the village with another wife and his bustling big family. Here all that is big is the dressing table, crowded with little bottles of this cream and that, eyeliner and lipstick. My daughter's kicking and gurgling is revealing a new place: a space in this lady's heart.

After eating spicy bitter vegetables off tin plates together we leave and pick our way down brick steps. Once again the baby is strapped to me in the sling; I would have liked a bannister but I take it slow in the dark. Her neighbour going ahead of us wears a burqa of midnight blue, for going out in. I am grateful that it is richly sequined. By the twinkling starlight of her gown we get down safely. 

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The baby lies back in her buggy and sees the sky of Lahore, these days blue. Kites glide on thermals and she is learning that though they are above and enchanting in their movement, they are not toys in her baby gym, she cannot reach out and touch them. Sometimes flowers from boughs above float down onto her and when I check to see of she's asleep yet, I am startled by a bloom of orange on her vest or magnolias round her head. Faces swathed in bright dupattas loom over her, dangly earrings sparkling. She sees fingers reach in and pinch her cheeks or reposition her with a jerk so she is lying 'as she ought.' Lahore is seeing her. 

I feel like I have got to know this city quite well: soaring above it on the metro fly-overs before lockdown; piecing together a mental map; memorising the elegance of crumbling old buildings before they are demolished; taking afternoons off to wander as if wandering's an Olympic sport. But there are times I also look up when I hear the azan, winding along airy arpeggio trails into new heights of sound and sky. I realise then that there are unknown realms, vistas still to be beheld.