have opportunities to do anything they like. What will you do in Pakistan? It will take you another ten-fifteen years to get to a good post. And till then?” his second cousin Abdul had said to him during one of his visits home. “I’ll help you with the papers, aap sirf haan bolo.”
It hadn’t been an easy decision to make, and it hadn’t been an easy move to make. The cold, the isolation, the culture, had jolted the family more than they expected. But Aman took on this new life as an adventure. He adapted to the alien environment with great ease. Even when his parents and older siblings struggled to find an acceptable kebab house, Aman and his younger sister Zara were wolfing down unfamiliar foods like cheeseburgers and hot dogs.
To begin with, both Ashraf and his wife worked in his cousin’s little restaurant – Badshah. Ashraf also did a morning shift at a local petrol pump to supplement the family income. It took four long years but the Ali family finally set up their own ethnic grocery store specializing in Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan and West African ingredients.
The store, Ashraf & Sons, was a runaway success. The family now owned a chain, including two across the border in America. The ‘Masala Empire’, as it was dubbed in a feature by The Vancouver Sun a few years ago, was now headed by Aman’s eldest brother.
As their financial situation improved, Ashraf grew adamant that his children study, and study well. His two oldest kids were already getting involved in the store, but he wanted the others to have the opportunity to be doctors or engineers or lawyers.
The day Aman got his acceptance letter from Oxford to study Economics had been a very special day for Ashraf. In fact the whole family had been euphoric. And very Punjabi.
“Beta! Tu ne izzat badha di!”
“Shabash, beta! Shabash! I’m going to call everyone in Pakistan to tell them our Aman is going to England! To Oxford. Allah ka lakh, lakh shukar hai.”
It was exactly the opposite reaction of what he had received eight months ago, after he’d received his Masters degree, and before he’d started on his musical journey. He had held his job offer in one hand as he shared his new plan with the family over an excruciatingly long Skype call.
“I don’t want to work in an MNC. I want to make music. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m taking the year off to see if I can do something with it. If I can’t, I’ll go back to Economics. But I don’t want to go through life without even trying.”
His parents, and his father in particular, had balked at the idea.
“You’ve worked so hard for your degree, why throw it all away, Aman? You could really make something of yourself here. Are you ready to let it all go on a childish whim?” he had argued.
Aman could almost see his father pacing around in that neat living room in Vancouver, trying to find some comfort in the frantic, repetitive action, while his mother tried to calm him down.
“We left Lahore so that you kids could enjoy opportunities we never had,” he had continued, “and now you want to waste it on music? Beta, you have a gift, but it’s not this gaana-bajaana; it’s your brain. The sooner you realize this, the better it will be for all of us.”
“Socho, Aman, who will want to marry a musician? Most of them end up … playing on some dirty street corner, performing for cents. No, Aman, that will not be you. Absolutely not,” his mother had added, her voice wobbling with an endless stream of tears.
Aman had spent the rest of the evening staring at a painting of old Lahore that his parents had given him before he moved to London. The watercolour, a replica of a painting by Dr. Anwar, portrayed a typical Lahore bazaar. The grand old structures stood stoically as Lahore’s chaos unravelled below them – tongas, cycles, rickshaws, strays, men, women, children, wares, fruits, stalls, all managed to squeeze into the frame. Aman barely remembered what that life had been like. They had returned to Lahore only once – to see his Badi Ammi, his aunt, who had stage four lung cancer. He only remembered flashes now, and what he saw in the movies, or what he heard from his parents.
He remembered the rickshaws and their motors that sounded so much like farts; he remembered walking through a crowded market, clutching his mother’s hand with an iron grip; he remembered colours, bright ones like orange and green; he remembered aromas of foods he had now forgotten; he remembered running around barefoot with cousins and friends; he remembered eating mangoes. But that was all. He wondered where they’d all be, where he’d be, if they had never left.
The words had stung Aman. Of course, he had been prepared for a parental showdown, but there had been a tiny part of him that remained hopeful of convincing them. That hadn’t happened.
His music was a representation of his story – it was Pakistani and it was Western. No one part could stand alone without the other. He was a sum of two identities, and like him his music was a little bit Sufi and a little bit Jazz, and the two styles did amazing things together. He was unsure of mainstream success, but he knew there were pockets, particularly those with connections to the Indian Subcontinent, that would understand and appreciate his music.
So far he was doing well for himself. He was constantly performing, drawing a bigger and more diverse crowd than he had accounted for. His growing success had also eased the tension between him and the family. After his parents heard his music, and were reassured that he’d never be a busker, they had relented. A fragile peace process was underway, and he was determined to fix things between them, fix them without having to sacrifice the only passion he had.
Aman picked up a bottle of water as he made his way to the vanity van, draining it all in one go. He should have picked up another one, he thought as he discarded the empty one into a rubbish bin. It was a cool evening but he was soaked to the bone. His shirt was stuck to his back and his brow was dripping.
“That was great man!” Dominic, his festival man Friday, said falling into step with Aman. He magically produced another chilled bottle of water. “Here, drink up. You need to keep hydrating at gigs like this. That’s the secret: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.”
“It was. It felt great. What a crazy rush!”
“You bet. Now drink.” Dominic had attached himself to Aman since he arrived in Edinburg four days ago. It was his job of course, but Dominic had taken a bit of getting used to. The man was a ball of energy, launching into conversation right off the bat.
“I’ve been assigned to you, mate. Get used to this ugly mug. Where you go, I go. What you need, I’ll get, or try to get. I’m the last thing you’ll see at night and the first every morning. Well, almost. But yeah.”
It hadn’t been love at first sight for the two: the first day Aman wanted to punch the chatty and obnoxious Dominic in the face, maybe take out the nose and a couple of teeth with it; the second day they got drunk at The Headless Horseman, a corner pub because alcohol was the only way Aman could tolerate Dominic’s non-stop energy. He wished to God the man had a pause button. On the third day Dominic brought along a miracle hangover cure, a secret family recipe, and became a friend for life.
Right now he was very glad for Dominic’s presence. It meant there was someone to make the decisions and issue instructions. All he had to do was follow. The adrenalin from his back-to-back performances was now wearing off and the exhaustion, a by-product of the anxiety and pressure leading up to them, was finally beginning to creep up on him, crawling up from his toes, to his knees, to his hip bone, his ribs and finally anchoring on his shoulders.
Hopefully
