The Boy from Depalpur

It was the bairs that caught my eye, those succulent yellowish-green berries that appear a few weeks out of the year on donkey carts in Lahore. Regular fruit sellers rarely stock them since they spoil quickly and are considered a “fringe” item, unlike staple fruits such as apples, oranges, bananas etc. I loved them when I was growing up. When we were young, we rarely bought them, preferring to steal them off a neighbor’s tree by throwing stones at it and then gathering the fruit that fell down. It was also an excuse to meet with friends, hang out and get away from the house. I was driving back from the gym when I saw them on a street corner piled high atop a donkey cart driven by a young boy with dark skin in a thin, torn shalwar kameez. Eleven years in the US and I had never tasted a bair except on one late winter visit to Lahore many years ago. I motioned to him and he stopped his cart and approached. I asked him how much they were and he gave me the rate. I debated whether I should stay in the car, since in Pakistan, apparently, one never does things for oneself, preferring various minions and underlings perform all sorts of duties. Then I saw him struggling to stop the donkey which kept wanting to move off and I got out and went over to his cart. He was about to weigh the fruit.

“Acchay walay dayna“, I told him.

“Babu jee, jo pasand aaye lay lo“, he said.

I asked him where he was from.

“Barkat Market”, he said, naming a local market.

I persisted and asked him where he was from originally and he said Depalpur.

“Where’s that?”, I asked, displaying my all too obvious big city ignorance.

He didn’t seem to mind and explained to me where it was. I asked him how much I owed him and he said thirty rupees. I had learned that the asking price for anything in Pakistan, be it a house, a car, a DVD player, grocery, anything at all had no relation to what it was actually going to cost. It’s more like a wish that the merchant has and it’s the buyer’s job to bargain him down to whatever they feel its worth. Seeing his worn out donkey, his torn shalwar kameez and his cheerful demeanor though, I did not have the heart to haggle with him. I handed him the money and he slipped it into a broken wooden box lying next to the fruit.

“Meherbaani, babu jee“. I thanked him and left.

I had thought about giving him something extra but thought better of it. I had tried that one time in a local market when a little Afghan boy had approached me and tried to sell me a pack of chewing gum. He wanted five rupees. I handed him the five rupees but told him I didn’t want the gum. He threw the money in my face.

“Layna hai to lay, bheek nahin chahiyay“. I accepted the gum, rather ruefully.

As I drove home, I thought of countless children like them who wander the streets trying to scrape together a living. In a place like Lahore, they are vulnerable to neighborhood “goondas” who may rob them, assault them physically or sexually or both. If they resist, they may be beaten or killed. If the hoodlums don’t get them, the police might since they, too, respect only money and power. Yet, every morning they set out from their slums to see if they can make a living that day.

The next day, my father insisted on taking me to a couple of weddings. The time on the card said 8.30. We got to the first one at around 9.45 and the guests were just beginning to arrive. We sat around for a half and hour then headed off to a local hotel for the second one. There, women dripping with jewelry and obese men in suits a size too small for their bellies were gorging on dinner, cold drinks, ice cream and what not while white liveried waiters were scurrying about carrying drinks and plates. On the way back, we went our usual route past huge billboards
advertising cell phones, housing schemes, bank loans and the latest gadgets. I wondered as we drove home how many people spared a thought for the boy from Depalpur or the hundreds of millions like him in Pakistan
who are forced to migrate to the cities and eke out a living any way they can. How many survive, how many succumb to illness, accidents or the ever present criminals willing to exploit them in all ways imaginable. I looked for the boy again the next day but never saw him again. Every time I eat a bair though, I think of him.