The Terrible Appeal of Humsafar: Addendum

The conversation at the park revised:


Ashar:  Khirad, Your middle class simplicity and sensibility and little girl vulnerability has won my heart all over again.. I want to protect you, provided you distance your self from your debaucherous past.  I forgive you, I do.  Now come closer..

Khirad: Aap ki aala zarfi ka shukriya.  I am having too much fun knowing you think I committed adultery, so I am not going to try to clear up this misapprehension.  This confusion is what I have become, and you want to take that away from me?  I get pleasure in my martyrdom, and you want to deprive me of that...

Ashar:  But why do you want to be a martyr when I am willing to overlook the past?  Look, I can have any girl I want.  Girls swoon when I look this intense.  They jump from bridges.  Why does it not work on you, Khirad?  Why do you hate me so?  Daddy said I could mold you any which way because you are simple, poor, and chaste..

Khirad:  You may be handsome.  But I could have had Miss Hyderabad Club bite the dust if only Abbu had allowed me to go for the trials.  Its just that martyrdom demands this doleful look.

Ashar:  I don't understand.  I am the one wronged.  You cheated on me with with....I can't even take his name.  I forgive you.  You should be groveling at my feet.

Khirad:  I only grovel before God.  And aap ki aala zarfi ka shukriya...

Ashar:  Don't you get it?  I spent sleepless nights imagining you and Khizar in each other's arms.  It killed me...It made me cruel, cold, loveless...I wanted to kill you and be hanged for it..I fantasized about it, but business kept me busy....That and dissing Sara.

Khirad:  Okay, calm down.  This look is sexy on you, but you are about to pop a vessel.  I never cheated on you with Khizar.

Ashar:  What?

Khirad: There I said it.  I wanted you to finally see through the shining light of my soul and discover for yourself that your Khirad could never be deceitful.  (Non disclosure of the truth and willfully concealing facts that could clear up a gross familial misunderstanding and provide an innocent child the love of a father, and the benefits of an upper income household is not deceitful as omissions are not treated the same way as willful commissions in the law.)

Ashar:  But, but..what about the games in the kitchen?  I saw it with my own eyes. And this ommission bit is a bit much....I''ll let Sara handle it.

Khirad:  It was an accident.  He dropped fluid on me.  He was trying to help me.  Actually it was a big scheme devised by your mother to make you think I am a slut...and it worked

Ashar:  My mother!!  You dare to blame my mother.  My mother works for blind children.  I resent the use of the word slut and mother in the same sentence..what fluid???

Khirad:  There you go again..  Lets just wait another four and a half years before we have this conversation all over again.

Ashar:  I was looking forward to make up sex.

Khirad:  Aap ki aala zarfi ka shukriya..

Ashar:  I went to Yale, and I really don't know what aala zarfi means...Oh God, why did you do it with Khizar?  It makes me feel dirty and disgusting,  the mother of my child, my flesh and blood, in the arms of another man..

Khirad:  Khizar is gay, Ashar.  He liked my duppata.  Gay men go nuts for chiffon and pretty girls.

Ashar:  I thought you said my mother devised a plan.  And that is a stereotype, Khirad.  I went to Yale.  I had gay friends.

Khirad:  Well, obviously that line of argument was not working on you.  You are obsessed with your mother.  You Freudian mess up.   Do you like mother and bitch in the same sentence?

Ashar:  Oh goodness...Khirad.  A girl from Hyderabad, a Math teacher's daughter, swearing like a sailor..I don't know if I can ever have you again.  This new persona is shattering my image of you...

Khirad:   You can have your mother then...Ashar.  When you were four and she never had time for you, when you were seven, when she missed the sports day for a meeting, at eleven, she filled your life with computer games and dvds, so you would not cling to her.  You were always so needy Ashar.  And now, you have ultimately attained her through sacrificing your own love, knowingly and consciously, because that was the only way to pacify her callous heart.

Ashar:  Ok, that was SO not nice.  Throwing my past at me like that...I told you in confidence.  I like the occasional glass of wine with my mother just like every other Karachi boy.  But  yes, I do need to reevaluate my relationship with my mother.  You make a good case for that...She sounds manipulative.

Khirad:  I may be sweet and simple, but I appreciate human complexity.

Ashar:  Okay so you are saying.  Khizar is gay.  Mom is conniving.  I am clingy.  What about Sara?

Khirad: Sara is dispensable.  On a side note, she is an omen for all girls who devote themselves to their careers.  They end up single, suicidal and even worse, single, suicidal and over 30.  Its much better to be simple, chaste, poor, and pure.. But that is like stating the obvious.

Ashar: So where do we go from here?

Khirad: Um...don't know.  Lets just pretend we never had this conversation.

Ashar:  Great idea.  I will continue to oscillate between hate and love for you, emote passion and pain, grope you occasionally, try to hug and touch you once in a while on the pretext of our mutual concern for Hareem's wellness.  And let the tension build up in these hospital scenes?

Khirad:  Okay, as long as we are clear that I have no love left for you in my empty heart.  I have every intention of going back to Hyderabad, where I will live in chastity, poverty, valor, and honor.  I will abandon Hareem but miss her everyday because I am a devoted selfless mother.  I will remember that she has a better deal in Karachi.  I will pray, and abandon all interest in worldly possessions and outward appearances.  Love and sex will have no place in my life, just struggle, strife, sajda, and samjhota.  I will get a job as a Maths teacher, and I will wear torn slippers and cotton shalwars to school.

Ashar:  OMG, Khirad.  Keep going...I SO abhor and adore you...