Short Stories

excerpt from "soot"

“You must eat our milky rasmalai,” the taxi driver said in perfect English, shaking his head continuously, as if in full agreement with himself. “It is the best dessert in all of India.”

Tired from a day of travel, Zahra leaned into the back seat, barely acknowledging the driver’s comments with her own nods.

“There is much to see here:  the Marble Palace, Nakhoda Mosque, Eden Garden, and all our temples.” Intrigued to learn that Zahra was from Pakistan via Chicago, he had travel advice for her. “My recommendation to you, do not talk about the ’71 war. People are passionate about Bangladesh, so it will be a difficult topic for you. If you stay away from talk of wars between our countries, you should feel very welcome.”

Karachi to Kolkata was not far, but flight delays, late connections, and airport security checks had made Zahra’s travel excruciatingly long, Exhausted, she had little energy for the driver’s running commentary. As they entered the city, she stared out at the yellowed buildings, which looked older than the ones she knew in Karachi. The streets, packed with moving bodies, were different too, filled with cars of all shapes and sizes, buses, and two-wheeled rickshaws pulled by thin, muscled men.

After scribbling down his mobile number for her, the driver dropped her at the youth hostel off Ballygunge Circle. “Yes, if you need tours of our city of joy, please telephone me and I will show you around.” He winked, and drove away. 

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Zahra made a mental note to toss the paper as soon as he turned the corner. She rang the bell and the door clicked open. She clutched her heavy canvas suitcase with both hands and clambered up the dark stairwell. In the hallway upstairs, Raj and Shoma, a husband and wife team who managed the hostel, greeted her with smiles. Shoma patted Zahra’s hand, then disappeared through a doorway, and Raj silently ushered Zahra to her room. It didn’t take long for Zahra to figure out that he spoke mostly Bengali, and didn’t understand much Hindi, which she could speak since it was so close to the Urdu used in Pakistan.

Freshening up, Zahra walked up to the third floor balcony, where sunshine trickled in through bamboo mats. In a serene space, far removed from the commotion of the streets down below, two American students settled into cane chairs and sipped tea. Through the introductions that followed, Zahra learned that Melanie and James were doing research for anthropology doctorate degrees in the United States. They too, like the taxi driver, like the hostel managers, and anyone else Zahra met on the journey from Karachi to Kolkata, asked: “What are you doing here? You’re from Pakistan, you’re studying in the States, and you’re doing an internship in India?”

Zahra tried to find a parallel for them. “Well, it’s like Americans doing internships in Cuba.” To bolster her comparison, she pointed out some similarities between being a Pakistani in Kolkata and being an American in Havana: there was a history of war, different languages were spoken, and how it was almost as difficult to travel between the US and Cuba as it was between Pakistan and India. James and Melanie’s furrowed eyebrows matched each other’s. Giving up trying to explain her reasons for being there—which she herself didn’t fully understand—Zahra listened to their stories about Kolkata.