The Sweet Sorrow of Parting

The Late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

With my second year coming to an end, word is getting about that I am leaving. The staff set up a farewell party in a Chinese restaurant. The students are agitated.

The space-mobile

I am still teaching Omer on the other side of Hill Park, but these days he picks me up in his space-mobile silver minibus, which is driven by a a maniac - Fareed. Fareed is a young, clean shaven northerner from Neelam Valley in Kashmir. Normally he is a smiling, mild mannered gentleman. Inside the silver lightspeed van he turns into some kind of demon.He's the same in Suzukis, Toyotas - anything with wheels. He also likes playing Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan"s "Mast Qalandar" (Remix version) VERY LOUD. Omer himself has learned the art of "peeling" using the wheels of whatever vehicle he gets to drive, spinning them while remaining stationary, producing a high pitched and painful screeeeeech. Boys. (He makes sure his parents don't find out.)

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Dam Mast Qalandar Mast Mast

Niggle is getting more... niggled... as he has a lot of disagreements with Appa. Appa is the mistress of generating a lot of short term hatred aimed at herself - until the hater realizes she is only just trying to make him or her learn. Niggle doesn't have the sense and blunders back to our flat and rants while I sit quietly and listen. I am alarmed, as his rants now include diatribes against his chosen religion. I can't blame him, after his marital disappointments, but I feel I ought to tell someone about his toppling towards "unconversion" if that is possible. I know Appa won't be the right choice, so I think the daughter of our founder might be best. She, however, thinks I have some rivalry with Niggle and may think I am making it up. I decide it's none of my business.

Near the end of term, and the school year, a delegation of students from Class IX corner me in the school. They want me to stay with them at least till they take their O levels in two years. I am touched.

At home, while Niggle is teaching Hafeez to "keep his pecker up" he is ranting against Appa.

"When I leave here - the night before - I will take the Quran and throw it through her window," he says. It's the last thing I remember him saying. I will always have a feeling of pain when I remember Niggle.

One day before going back to England, I walk through Hill Park. It is an evening and quite balmy and hot. There is a lake where some lonely looking birds wade and a few children float boats about, their parents chatting nearby. Hill Park is like Safari Park, a dusty expanse with a few trees and some abandoned fairground rides. I realize then, sitting by the lake, that I have fallen in love. And all my affections and feelings will stem from that first feeling of attachment.

I decide to return.

http://www.techofheart.co/2008/08/dama-dam-mast-qalandar-translation-of.html

Hill Park Lake - not the most romantic of locations...?