Of Smokeless Fire by A.A. Jafri (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📕

of the city where cheap hookers were the leading merchandise. The more expensive but anonymous call girls hung out comfortably in small pockets within the newer settlements—invisible amidst bungalows and mansions. Extreme poverty pockmarked Sona Mandi at every twist and turn. Conspicuous by the absence of light, it was a red-light district only in name. The only red colour that one could find in Sona Mandi was the cheap lipsticks smeared on the lips of its prostitutes, who subsisted without any of the usual singing or dancing. Around here, life itself had become a memento mori. The hookers of Sona Mandi were destitute, pathetic and revolting. Existing only for the grubby green rupees that their customers left behind, their squalid quarters cluttered with sleaze, they offered unpretentious, mechanical sex and cut-rate primordial thrills, day and night. In the sleepless alleys of Sona Mandi, a putrid odour hung heavy in the air. A steady multitude of faceless, nameless poverty-stricken men sauntered in and out, ogling at the prostitutes through open windows and doors, exchanging vulgarity with them as they, in turn, tried to seduce them with their tired bodies and lewd gestures.

His eyes wide with excitement, Joseph followed a throng of men as they walked through Sona Mandi. Someone from the crowd made a crude remark about the whores and his companions guffawed; one man laughed so hard that he was overtaken by a fit of bronchial cough. A small boy, hardly ten years old, singing a hit Punjabi song, tried to sell jasmine garlands to the men. A little girl, probably his sister, her eyes hollow and her cheeks sunken, pushed her plastic begging bowl in front of the gang of sex-hungry men. One of them pushed her so hard that her begging bowl went flying as she fell to the ground, but she didn’t cry. Life had impounded all her tears. Joseph lifted her up, found her begging bowl and gave her a few coins. Leading her down the narrow footpath, he admonished her to stay close to her brother.

Joseph wondered about these children, trying to earn a living at this godforsaken hour and in this hellish place. Was he better off than they were? Did he, Joseph Solomon, have a future brighter than these beggar children? He walked away from them, but then he came back to buy a jasmine bracelet from the little girl’s brother. As he smelled the garland, he heard an enticing female voice singing a lewd parody of a Pakistani Punjabi song:

Apni biwi de ishq biyan kar kay

Aa seenay nal lug ja tha kar kay

(After declaring your love for your wife

Come cling to my breasts with a bang)

Joseph turned, and under the hiccupping fluorescent tube light, he saw the withered frame of a woman dressed in a cheap brocade shalwar-kameez, her jet-black hair cascading down her left breast. She looked tall, perhaps because of her thin frame. The grotesque make-up on her face that would have repulsed anyone else seduced Joseph. But what was precisely seductive about her was hard to say. Her dreamy kohl-lined eyes divulged tales of misery, her oversexed body chronicled stories of exploitation. Joseph sauntered towards her and handed her the jasmine bracelet, which she willingly accepted.

‘How much?’ he asked her the price of pleasure.

‘Ten rupees for me and seven for the batli, the liquor bottle,’ she replied casually.

‘Five for you and five for the batli,’ he haggled.

‘The bottle’s price is not fixed by me,’ she replied.

The haggling continued until they settled upon a price of six rupees for her and seven rupees for the bottle. Even the crudely made liquor is more valuable than your trampled body, Joseph thought. He gave her thirteen rupees and smiled at his bargain. She motioned him to follow her, and they walked through a narrow, dimly lit corridor into a dull room that stank of sweat, stale cigarette smoke and cheap liquor. An unwashed rag of a curtain tried in vain to cover a grilled window, opposite the door. The only furniture that decked the room was a dirty charpoy that was wide enough for a single person to recline. Ordering Joseph to sit on it and wait for her for a moment, the woman went outside the room, leaving him alone to survey the bareness. A small lizard hugged the wall above the door, waiting for the show to begin, while a spider in the other corner slept soundly in its web. After a few moments, the woman came back to the room, carrying a green bottle and a plastic tumbler. Setting them down on the floor beside the bed, she raised her arms and set off tying her hair in a bun with her hennaed hands. The slit of her kameez rose up, revealing her bare waist. Joseph’s heart started pounding like a tabla, a drum, and sweat beaded on his forehead from nowhere. Done tying her hair, the woman latched the door and then turned around to pass the tumbler to Joseph. She poured the liquor into the tumbler, then put the bottle to her mouth and finished the remaining alcohol in a single gulp. Joseph, on the other hand, had hardly taken a sip. The woman then took off her clothes, threw them in a corner and, after climbing on to the charpoy, waited for him to finish his drink. Joseph, however, was in no hurry, for at that moment, what interested him most was satisfying his voyeuristic itch. Plunging forward into coital ecstasy could wait a while. The woman destroyed both the burning itch as well as the anticipated thrill by ordering him to speed it up.

‘The meter is running, hurry up. I don’t have all night for you,’ she said.

Joseph placed his drink on the floor and began undressing. Then he climbed over her, lusting with a frenzy while she lay there on the charpoy, cold as a fish, as if brooding over the ensuing transaction of feigned lovemaking. It was all over in a few minutes,