When we were kids, Baba would sit in front of the heater in cold Karachi evenings, and open the newspaper with a square saucer of peanuts on his lap. Before he started reading, Ayesha and I, on the lookout, would scramble onto his lap, one on either knee and ask him to read out loud the comic strips on page 8 of The News. Baba would be waiting for that too. He would translate them in urdu, and change the characters into caricatures of seven-year-old humor that we could understand. Charlie Brown would get a new name, “Peanuts” would be called “Moong phalli”, and Alley Oop would be pronounced with a tarzanlike guffaw that would have us rocking in giggles. We would munch on peanuts, laugh, on occasion, request for repeats, and when he was finally done, we would scatter. Then he would read the “serious-but-boring” black and white lines, which we both thought was a very insensible way to write about important things. Mama would be in the kitchen, I could hear the sounds of cooking, the plate being placed on something, the hiss of steam from the pressure cooker, a knife on the chopping board. Kitchen sounds that hovered around our heads, and hands and feet as Ayesha and I brought out a Ludo playing board and argued about which one of us had a higher claim to the red “goties”.
.
One doesn’t miss the big things.
And how do we even talk about what we miss? Except, in “not’s”.
Not the big things.
One doesn’t miss the big things.
