Mohsin Hamid - Moth Smoke

Murad Badshah, MA, rickshaw fleet captain and land pirate, at your service. Allow me to begin at the outside and move in.

Huge (and also massive, enormous, and gigantic) describes me well. I am very, very rarely called fat. Perhaps you smile thinking this is because I inspire a certain sense of caution in more modestly proportioned persons? I must most respectfully take issue with you on this matter, and I beg your indulgence as I present a simple proof.

What is fat?

‘Fat’ is a small word which belies its size in the girth of its connotations. Fat implies a certain ungainliness, an inefficiency, a sense of immobility, a lack of industry, an unpleasant, unaesthetic quality; unmotivated, unloved, unnatural, unusual, uninspired, unhappy, unlikely to go places or to fit, under the ground with a heart attack at fifty-five. In short, fat somewhat paradoxically involves the lack of many attributes which, you must concede, are generally held to be good.

When the word ‘fat’ is mentioned, people do not tend to think of the awesomely powerful rhinoceros, the supremely efficient and magnificent sperm whale, the deadly grizzly of North America. They do not say, ‘fat as a well-fed tiger.’ No, they say, ‘fat as a pig,’ a creature which eats its own feces and has never in our literature been a symbol of dignity.

Very well, then. The collective consciousness has assigned to fat a meaning, and as I speak this language I must accept fat on these terms. Fat is bad.

And so I am certain you will not disagree when I say the word can hardly be considered to apply to me. I am weighty, yes, but I carry my mass wonderfully. I am quick, light on my feet, and graceful. I have poise; delicacy and elegance characterize my every movement. My fingers are nimble, my hands deft. It is no secret that I dance well and most willingly. Furthermore, I possess those very qualities the lack of which is assumed by the word ‘fat’: industry, drive, dexterity, cunning. I am the living embodiment of so many unfat qualities that their enumeration would be a project of enormous scope.

If A has fundamental characteristics the very absence of which characterize B, it cannot be said with any degree of accuracy (or, may I add, sophistication) that A is B.

Thus, I am not fat. Quod erat demonstrandum .

But I do stutter, it is true.

You pretend not to understand the logic which links this last statement to that which preceded it? Come, come, now. There is no need for such modesty on your part. A stutter, like fatness, is considered a bad thing, a flaw. I simply wish you to understand that I am not perfect and I am aware of my imperfection. I stutter. I stut-tut-tut-tut-tut-tutter. You perhaps have noticed that my mind works at quite an exceptional speed? (I hope you share my feelings about modesty.) As a child, my mouth struggled to keep pace with my thoughts, but the race was so unequal that my tongue would inevitably stumble like a blind camel with vertigo. It took me many years to realize that the secret to speech lay in speaking slowly, training my trotting tongue not to chase my galloping mind.

So I do not stutter obviously or often, but I do stutter. And strange though it may seem, I am proud of my stutter, much as a comely woman is proud of the black lump which on her face is called a beauty mark.

But enough small talk. Let me tell you how I met Darashikoh Shezad.

My father was a gold jeweler, the son of sons of gold jewelers from time immemorial. He died before I was born, in a freakish accident involving a cigarette and the open valve of a balloon vendor’s gas cylinder. My mother was of a more modest background and unloved by the members of her husband’s family, who at the time of my father’s immolation had no knowledge of my imminent arrival. We were soon living with her brother, my uncle, who worked for the British Council library.

So it was that I had access to all the books I could want and the opportunity to learn the nuances of English speech from a people who, if nothing else, do one thing excellently: speak English.

I received my MA in English twenty-some years later and was of course unable to find a job. To sum up what followed: I went to see my father’s eldest brother, whom I had never met, and in a five-minute interview was given a sum of money (in exchange for a promise never to show my face in his shop again) that I used to purchase a rickshaw. In the short years since then, I acquired four more, and am now captain of a squadron of five little beauties.

My rickshaw fleet specialized (as much as it is possible to do so in my line of business) in servicing the students and faculty of my alma mater. It so happened that on one rainy day an occasional client of mine, the inimitable Professor Julius Superb, brought one of his favorite students into my rickshaw with him. I had made Dr Superb’s acquaintance in my days as a master’s candidate at the university, and he always sought me out when he had rickshaw requirements to be met. He introduced me to his student, we shook hands, I felt a strong grip, and the seeds of a partnership in crime were sown. When next Darashikoh needed conveyance, he sought me out.

Darashikoh was an intriguing fellow. Excuse me for speaking of him in the past tense, but that is how I think of him. He was ruggedly handsome (like knows like, as they say) but cold, with a steady gaze and a cruel mouth. A solid boxer with a quick mind. We talked, and I took a liking to him, and he to me, and we became friends.

Socially we moved in somewhat different circles, although I must say his friends were always very respectful. We met for tea and talk on Tuesdays, after which I gave him a ride (gratis) to wherever he was going. Our conversations ran from economics to automotive maintenance, broken noses, and Aretha Franklin. (A word about this last: a foreign tourist once left a cassette in the back of my rickshaw, and when I took it home and played it, I discovered the Queen of Soul. Life was never the same. In the past, when people said America has never given us anything, I used to agree. Now I say, ‘Yes, but America has given us Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul,’ and they look at me strangely. I never explain any further: one cannot explain Aretha Franklin; either you are enlightened or you are not. That is how I view the matter.)

With the arrival of yellow cabs in Lahore, the rickshaw business took a bad turn. Profits became increasingly slim, and to say competition was fierce is an understatement of unusual proportions. Business is a tough business, as they say, and I am fairly handy when it comes to mixing it up. In my post-MA years I have been shot at three times, hit twice (stomach and thigh), and was unfortunately once obliged to kill a man with a wrench. I took to carrying a gun quite some time ago, and it was but a short step from protecting my own on the high seas of Lahore’s streets to realizing that piracy was the wave of the future. The marauding yellow cabs had devastated the rickshaw industry, so I conducted a little redistribution of wealth on my own. Robbing yellow-cab drivers as they slept put my finances back in the black.

But this didn’t last. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, and I was flattered to the point where yellow-cab drivers were forced to take precautions, parking to sleep in places that were extremely inconvenient from my point of view, carrying less money, and so on. Pickings became slim and profits dropped off.

Around this time Darashikoh was in rather difficult straits himself: he was in debt, had no job, and was saddled with the heaviest weight of pride and self-delusion I have ever seen one person attempt to carry. I trusted him, knew he was bright, ruthless, capable, and that he could tolerate my sense of humor. And so it was that I enlisted him in my plan to rob boutiques, and together we formed a duo that would strike fear into the hearts of purveyors of fashionable clothing everywhere.