A Walk in Midnight

CHAPTER 1—FAKEER’S EARLY UPBRINGING

Fakeer hailed from a large family. His mother was only 14 when she married. After the first few pregnancies resulted in spontaneous abortion, she had 8 live births. However, three died in infancy due to poor prenatal and postnatal care, one due to prematurity-related hyaline membrane disease, the second from congenital cardiac defects, and the third from encephocele. Each death saddened their mother and the family.

One sister and three brothers survived to adulthood. The eldest was Hakim, then came Fakeer, then Hamza, Shakira, the only girl, and finally the youngest, Nazeer. In the 1930s and 1940s there was no artificial method of birth control. His mother was spared arrival of a new issue every year for at least two years because of the natural hormonal protection against pregnancy provided by breastfeeding, from which all of his siblings had benefited. When breastfeeding would discontinue, she would get pregnant.

All of Fakeer’s siblings did well in their lives, except Nazeer, who had autism. The children’s successful careers deeply pleased his proud father. Hakim became a chemical engineer. Fakeer, of course, became a doctor. Hamza became a famous neuroscientist, highly published and sought after for national lectures. Shakira married well.

With no hospital confinement and no skilled nurse, it is amazing his mother lived through giving birth to eight offspring. All births took place at home, aided by an old midwife who had no concept of sterility or infection prevention. Fakeer could vividly remember the birth of Shakira. His mother lay in a thatched annex covered by a barely clean white sheet while the midwife freely scouted his mother’s birth canal wearing no gloves. The baby was delivered and handed over to a maternal aunt who was there to help, as was the usual custom. The placenta was thrown in the garbage pile on the side of the home; the bleeding genitals were covered with ash, which was universally considered “sanitary” and an anti-infection medication.

Fakeer’s early upbringing was typical of lower middle class families in Pakistan at the time. They lived huddled together in a two-bedroom home. The homes in the neighborhood were constructed shoulder to shoulder. To provide some additional breathing and living space, almost every family had constructed a clumsy annex that usually comprised an additional bedroom and a shed for a buffalo. It was considered good economics to own a source of fresh milk. Not only could one get fresh milk, one could enjoy home-made curd, a kind of yogurt, and lassee made from the churned yogurt, which they diluted with as much water as required to satisfy the needs of the family and of the neighbors who felt free to ask for it. Often women came for it from a mile away. It is a great drink for hot summers and at lunch time. In addition to the milk and its multitude uses, there was one more use for the buffalo; their dung cakes were plastered on the walls to dry and then used as fuel. Fakeer remembered an English official visiting his neighborhood who saw these dung cakes stuck to the walls and asked innocently, “How does the buffalo relieve herself on the wall?!”

Fakeer’s father had a relatively well-paying job as a conductor in the Pakistan Railways. It was a much sought-after position. He grew up in the village of Noorshah, but was lucky to have received a good education in the nearby town of Zafarwal. He used to walk five miles each way to get to school and return to his village. Occasionally he was happy to be invited to stay at his uncle’s home in Zafarwal.

Fakeer never got to really know his grandfather; he had passed away when Fakeer was only 3 years old, and he had no memory of having ever met him. But he was told his grandfather adored him. His grandfather lived in Noorshah, where nearly all the population was uneducated; only a fraction had managed to receive some rudimentary Islamic studies taught at the village mosque by the mullah. His grandfather, however, had finished his high school matriculation in Zafarwal, after which he went to college in Narowal, 50 miles away from his village. He was the only person in Noorshah that educated. For a long time, he lived in a ramshackle boarding house where he had to cook food for himself and sleep in a rickety charpai. But he was ecstatic to have his education. He was bright and thirsty for knowledge and was always eager to learn more. He eventually married and had children, but though he had to do menial jobs in the town, he was always working on mathematical problems, which he would occasionally take back to the college for his former professors to review. His intelligence and mathematical skills soon won him considerable recognition and eventually a job teaching mathematics at the college. Only one thing made him unhappy: his village was so far away from the college that he could only visit his wife, family, and friends once every 3 to 4 weeks, depending upon the availability and affordability of renting a horse.

Fakeer’s grandmother was illiterate. But she made certain the household was in order and all household chores were attended to when her husband was away. And she took great care of her children. She had four, two boys and two girls. Like Fakeer’s mother, she had also lost two girls in their infancy, both from pneumonia. Sadly, though, she never missed them much; she would say it was difficult to get them married and give a dowry. One boy never received an education; he remained in the village and became a farmer. And, of course, Fakeer’s father received an education and landed a respectable job. The two girls helped their mom until they were married, and then stayed in the village with their families.