The Escape

Manchester, UK and Lahore, Pakistan, present day

In the packed prayer hall of Darul Uloom mosque in Longsight, the Imam concluded the Eid prayers with a passionate plea for world peace, and for terrorist activities around the world to cease. Seventy-three-year-old Samir, perched on a plastic chair because of his bad leg, kept his hands raised, quietly mouthing his own personal prayer.

"Please, Allah Pak, bless her soul ... And let me escape!" Rows of seated men had arisen from their prayer mats and reached out to energetically hug others and offer the festive greeting, "Eid Mubarak!"

Samir took his time. There was no one in particular he was seeking to greet or hug at this mosque. Most of the men around him were strangers, and of the younger generation, several sported beards – a marked shift between the two generations. His own face remained clean-shaven. Nowadays he prayed at the Cheadle mosque in Cheshire, joining the congregation of Arabs and other nationalities for the Taraweeh prayers during the fasting month of Ramadan. Nostalgia tugging at him, on a whim Samir had asked his son to drop him off in Longsight to offer his Eid prayers at his old community mosque.

Painfully rising to his feet, Samir began the hugging ritual, smiling cordially. Unlike the others leaving the hall, he loitered; he was in no hurry to get out. At the door, he dutifully dropped a five-pound note in the collection fund box.

Whilst looking for his shoes he bumped into his old friend, Manzoor. They greeted each other, smiled broadly and warmly hugged. Outside, in the chilly autumn day, his friend, who lived a street away from the mosque, invited him to his house for the Eid hospitality of vermicelli seviyan and chana chaat.

The smile slid off Samir's face. He was reluctant to visit his friend's house – afraid of the old memories, shying away from the normality, the marital bliss of his friend's home. In particular, he was loath to witness the little intimacies between husband and wife. The look. The laugh. The teasing banter.

Instead he waved goodbye to his friend and stood waiting for his son. "Thank you, but I'm being picked up," he informed a young man kindly offering him a lift home, before sauntering on his bad leg down the street.

"I have all the time in the world," he wryly muttered to himself, savouring the walk down streets he had cycled and scooted along for over three decades.

A lot had changed, the area now thriving with different migrant communities: the Pakistanis and the Bengalis living side by side with the Irish and the Somalis. Many Asian stores and shops had sprung up. The Bengali sari shops and travel agents jostled happily alongside the Pakistani ones and the Chinese takeaway. Mosques catering to the needs of the Muslim community flourished, from the small Duncan Road mosque in a semi-detached corner house to the purpose-built Darul Uloom centre on Stamford Road. The Bengali mosque for the Bengali community on one corner of Buller Road was only a few feet away from the Pakistani and Arab Makki Masjid on the other corner. Not surprisingly, on Fridays, for the Juma prayers, the street was gridlocked.

He noted that the Roman Catholic church and its primary school on Montgomery Road had disappeared, along with the quaint little National Westminster Bank branch that had been in the middle of Beresford Road with a communal vegetable plot at the back. That had been pulled down twenty-odd years ago. St Agnes' church was still there, however, at the junction of West Point and Hamilton Road and it still enjoyed healthy Sunday-morning congregations.

Samir stopped outside a shop on Beresford Road that had been called Joy Town thirty years earlier. It had been his children's favourite toyshop, especially on Eid day, when they ran to it with their Eidhi money, eager to buy toy cars, skipping ropes and doll's china crockery sets. In its place there now stood a grocery superstore with stalls of vegetables and fruits hogging the pavement area. On Fridays and Saturdays, families like Samir's, who had moved out of the area, still returned to do their shopping, visiting their favourite halal meat and grocery stores, carting boxes of fresh mangoes, bags of basmati rice and chapatti flour back to their cars. The hustle and bustle of these shops always brought out a smile in him.

His son, Maqbool, a well-to-do sportswear manager, dutifully returned to pick him up half an hour later. By that time, Samir was shivering in his shalwar kameez and sherwani, and gladly climbed into the warm car. He had wanted to go to the Sanam Sweet Centre to buy a few boxes of Asian sweets to distribute to friends but he hesitated, suddenly overcome by trepidation.

"Do you want to go somewhere else, Father?" his son asked, as if reading his mind.

Samir shook his head, not wishing to inconvenience his son further, and feeling guilty for already taking up enough of his time.

"No. Let's go home," he murmured, eyes closed.

He had a large five-bedroom detached house – but with his wife and family gone, all the joy of living in it had fled. He kept himself in the master bedroom, hating to enter the other rooms in the house, especially the one containing his wife's clothes. Only when the grandchildren visited did he unlock some of the doors. These days, he spent his time in his new favourite spot, the chair at the dining table next to the window and radiator, where he would sit, leafing through The Times, the Daily Jang and The Nation, watching the traffic go past on the busy road.

His son dropped him off at the door with the words, "I'll collect you in an hour's time." Samir nodded and watched him drive away before letting himself into the house. Another hour to kill. He shrugged. Oh well. It was better here on his own, with the TV and the newspaper keeping him company, than politely waiting around at someone else's house for dinner.

He felt hungry, but the dining table in front of him lay dismally bare. On Eid days it was normally stacked with bowls of delicious food: boiled eggs, seviyan, chana chaats and a hot tray of shami kebabs. And these were just the breakfast starters, heralding a busy festive day of eating.

Last year his entire family had been there. If he closed his eyes he could see his children helping themselves to the food, with him happily beginning the Eidhi money-giving ritual. Five-pound notes for the little ones, ten for the older teenagers, and crisp twenty-pound notes for his daughters and daughters-in-law.

In the steamy warm kitchen with the noisy fan purring away at the window, the smell from a pot of pilau rice and trays of roast chicken and kebabs in the oven would set everyone's mouths watering. Dinner was a prompt affair: always at one o'clock, served by the women of his household moving elegantly around the room, their rustling ghararas and lenghas sweeping the floor and the long dupattas hanging at their sides. The boys would be in their shalwar kameezes and sherwanis. By two, the whole family would be sitting around the table chatting, relaxed and happy, some still tucking into trifle and gajar...