“Could any of you recommend a good guesthouse?”

“We can.” Gullo looked at the others, as if for confirmation, before continuing. “If you have a drink with us before you go.”

“I don’t drink.”

“When you say you don’t drink, do you mean you’ve never had a drink or that you don’t want to have a drink?”

“I don’t want to have a drink.”

He had read a news item on the plane that Pakistan’s foremost brewery – there were only three – had paid a record Rs 314 million in taxes from sales in the first four months of this year alone. He felt he was in the company of people who contributed significantly to that amount and did not feel, that day, like he wanted to add to it.

“We’re not sharab kay tablighi, you know,” Gullo said gently.

“Speak for yourself.” Shaukoo feigned indignation.

“Anis left this fine beverage on his bedside table. Unopened. With a ribbon around it,” Ifty told Asfandyar.

“Liar,” Shaukoo threw that over his shoulder as he headed for the ice cubes still melting on the counter.

“Fine. There was no ribbon. There was a note though. For my son. Drink it with him so that he knows who I was.”

“ – An old drunkard with not much to show for his life except a bunch of good for nothing friends,” Gullo added.

“And a cute nurse.”


“Was that in the note?”

“Fine, that wasn’t in the note.”

“But the bit about drink it with him so that he knows who I was, that’s true. See for yourself.” Ifty turned the bottle around so Asfandyar could see it. There was a note taped to the side of it. For my son. Drink it with him so that he knows who I was. It was printed in block letters, in fountain pen.

“I don’t drink.” But his protestation was weaker. For my son … had his father written that? Had he been thinking of him, before he died? Had he thought of him at all in the decades between them? His stomach was lined now. And he wasn’t averse to the occasional beer, when he could be confident that his mother or his fiancée would not know about it. How different could whiskey be?

“Until this morning, neither did we.”

“Really?”

“Really. Like your father used to say, every day is a fresh start, the slate wiped clean.”

“And if every day doesn’t feel like a fresh start, get back in bed and stay there till it does.”

“How do you know I’m not going to call the police and tell them there are people in this apartment breaking the law?”

It took five minutes for the laughter to die down.

“Son,” Ifty managed to say finally, once he’d patted Shaukoo on the back till he stopped choking, “there have been four bomb blasts in Karachi in the last forty-eight hours. You know what the police are going to say if you call them and say there are three old men drinking peacefully in an apartment? Well, don’t just sit there, join them!”

“If your father was here, instead of being dead,” Gulloo added, “he would have told you that the story of Karachi is the story of alcohol. Once upon a time, you could drink in peace as long as you didn’t break the peace. Now you have to drink in secret so you can find peace. And he would have told you that the story of alcohol in Karachi is the story of bootleggers. First, there was only one bootlegger that everybody seemed to use. His name was Ramesh. One day people compared notes on how he managed to do seven different deliveries simultaneously. Then they realised it was several different people who all used the name Ramesh because Muslims were more comfortable buying from somebody they thought was non-Muslim. After that, it was a string of khaalis Urdu-speaking uncles who had compact cars and impeccable manners because the Muslims had realized how much money there was in it. And now it’s burger kids in four-wheel drives who went to good schools. They bring a servant to carry bottles from car to car.” He laughed. “Your father found that hysterical. He said new money always went straight to old habits.”

“I’m assuming my father wasn’t a religious man.”

That only set them off again. This time, Shaukoo answered. “Oh, he was. He was a deeply religious man. He was so religious,” he took a moment to have another fit of giggling, “he was so deeply religious he went right through it and came out on the other side!”

“Did he pray?”

“All the time. If you believe, like he did, that these days living itself is an act of faith.”

“Did he fast?’

“Well, I can assure you, he certainly never slowed.”

“Where will he be buried?’

“In the naval graveyard off national stadium. Next to your dada, dadi.’

“When did they die?” He knew he would be hurt if they had been alive too and he hadn’t known them.


“Before you were born. In a shipwreck. When we were all cadets. He’d taken your mother to the cinema. We were waiting outside to tell him when they came out.’

“Your mother hit Gullo with her handbag for making him cry in public.”

“I didn’t know he was in the navy.’

“He wasn’t. We were in the merchant navy.”

“Your grandfather was in the other navy.”

“It seems you don’t know a lot of things you should have known.”

“Tell me.”

“Have a drink with us, and we’ll tell you.”