Dr Ayaz Qureshi

Village mela  (village fair) was not a new thing but this year Nabla loved  maut ka kuwan very much.  Transgender performers  danced on Bollywood tunes, mixed with  motorcyclists' gravity-defying stunts inside a circular arena of wooden planks - 'the death well'. The onlookers stood on a platform circling the top. From there they could see the action below - the dance of life and death. They whistled and jeered at the dancers, applauded the stuntmen and showered money. Some made lewd gesture to the dancers, others were held in awe of the whole thing or screamed with joy or fright.   Nabla loved it. He was 20 something, not married, one of many siblings, lived with his parents in the village and commuted daily to a nearby town to work in a motor mechanic's workshop.  The mela  lasted three days, the performers packed up and went away. Nabla craved for more. He could not wait for a whole year for the dancers to comes back. With some m...

They got her married to someone who was already married. He was well off financially even if not around most of the year as he worked in UAE, or was it Saudi Arabi. Does that matter! But she fell in love with a Mirasian da munda, a   boy from a different village who worked at a barber shop in the town.  This  Mirasi boy brought her home.  His family accepted her at once. They thought s he was clever and beautiful.   They registered a marriage between these two.  She claimed before a judge that she was divorced from her previous husband.  The husband's family contested this claim.  The court asked for a proof of divorce.  She presented her two sisters and a brother-in-law as witnesses.   Nikha was done with the court's approval but the litigation that followed cost them dearly. The Mirasi family had saved some money by selling an old house to buy a new (bigger) one. This money was now spent on lawyers,  court f...