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 rich even if not around for most of the year. He worked in UAE, or was it Saudi Arabia? Doesn't matter! 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.  A marriage was  registered between the two before a district  judge who she told that she was divorced from her first husband.  A few weeks later, the first husband's family contested the divorce claim.  The court asked for a proof from her. 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 fees and police. Some of it was also spent on feasting relatives and friends for their support. The girl’s parents and her (first) husband’s family wanted her back. They approached an influential person in Mirasi's village through an influenti...