A snooker players story

A Snooker Player.





It was in summer showers at Leeds, where I was spending my vacation after arriving from Pakistan and residing with my relatives who settled in Britain. In my home country, I was a teetotaler as alcohol drinking is a big taboo and unlawful in that ostentatiously principled nation. I used to drink wine occasionally when it was legal in Pakistan but abstained from it since I cannot get the costly items from bootleggers or illicit traders that only moneybags or high government officials could afford to indulge with that luxurious pastime in my country. Due to easy availability in UK, I again pampered with a glass or two of beer in the evening stealthily as my hosts, who were devout Muslims knew that I was on my routine evening walk. As the drizzle became more intense, and I saw a steel staircase leading to an upper storey pub, I ascended to that building on the downhill side of a mixed locality of more dark skinned than natural British citizens.

The door of pub was locked and when I a pressed a buzzer, a lady peeped from the eyelet, examined me and then ushered me inside a crammed hall with rounded tables and chairs strewn haphazardly, a worn-out snooker table abutting the entrance with blazing headlight and a bar at the other end of the room. I took a glass of German beer and sat on a vacant table to slowly sip the drink; on next table two dark colored men were also drinking beer while a stout lady in her middle ages wearing small shots over loose blouse showing parts of her boob from her black bra was playing snooker with an old Yorkshire man. Her shouting awed me, which was,

“I am a costly woman”.

The two dark colored men were ogling at me and seemed to be inquisitive to know about my actual identity. They were positive that I was from Indian sub continent, though hesitant to come over to my table and chat in their lingo as the fair shade of my skin was preventing them to speak to me where as they were chatting in Punjabi, which I knew well. In the meantime we all watched snooker, the lady player again shouted her slogan, “ I am a costly woman” and her lanky and toothless opponent rubbed his cue’s tip with chalk for his final victory over her in the play, but missed an easy pot. After that, the expert lady player potted all the colored balls to claim a big victory and her adversary gingerly laughed at her. She then went to toilet for her urgently needed pee following drinking so many glasses of beer and the Yorkshire man scratched the stubs of his white beard, subsequent to that he went to bar counter to fetch more booze for her.

And eventually the dark colored men broke their silence and inquired from me in Punjabi,

“Are you from Lahore? Just visiting or an immigrant to UK.”

“No! I am on a visit visa here from Karachi to call on my relatives in England.”

I replied to them in Urdu. It took them some moment to reply to me,

“Yes! Karachi, we have relatives there, however I have not seen your city. On occasional trip to Pakistan, we visit Punjab and Kashmir, as our ancestor home is at Mirpur.Come with your drink and join us”.

As they were rather poppycock looking fellows, I declined their invitation by saying that I properly sat at my table and had better view of game from that point. The lady snooker player then arrived from loo for her another game with the old man; therefore he placed the glasses of alcohols in front table for her to drink and then she enchantingly permitted him to kiss her right hand up to elbow which tantalized him as that hand was whipping him repeatedly. All of us were watching their game of snooker, while two colored men sitting on the right side of my table were chatting and I assumed that they were leering at me. Perhaps my refusal to sit with them originally from same country had affronted them as I lacked the camaraderie they desired from me., Hence through half loud derisive dialogues they were communicating to me that the pub we were sitting was also a brothel where even Pakistani girls were available and the woman playing snooker was a Polish ex- prostitute and now an ace snooker player. Sensing the wacky vibes of pub from the talks of those native folk’s, I scurried from that place and stumbled twice before finding the locked exit door’s latch and vowing never to call that pub.

For days I visited other saloons of the lower class quarters at Leeds, where I had to remain silent as some locals took me as a stray foreigner and they preoccupied themselves with watching football world cup on large plasma TV screen hung at the pubs. Neither they nor I ventured
Into a conversation except exchanging glances and that lack of dialogue between the Yorkshire men and women were rather disquieting to me and I felt odd man out among them, may be it was my sub conscious apprehensions that if they knew that I was a Pakistani, therefore instantly disliked. Therefore I made my routine to buy cans of cold beer or ale from a store and sip it while sitting on a bench in the local park which was mostly visited by Indian or Pakistani origin folks.

Two young Indian girls clad in saris whizzed passed me and from their back side one of them lifted her cell phone, furtively clicked the mobile and took my picture from it while I was on way to park to enjoy the mild sun of early summer, one day of my sojourn. They were enjoying their gadget while fleeting from side lanes to park and then again, to the streets however nobody had any concern about their playful antics and show of their national dress to all for examination. After that, I saw some lads probably of Pakistan origin sipping beer from small glasses in groups where interference of their parents was not likely. The park looked like any other recreational area in the Indian sub-continent except that two brick colored tall steeple buildings on upper elevated street was reminding me the legacy of bygone British empire whose past subjects were enjoying the serene aura and mild climate of the play ground in Yorkshire. Never the less in my reflections, I frequently remembered the Polish snooker player of that peculiar pub whose antics were hard for me to forget.

After some weeks at Leeds, one day I decided to break my earlier vow by calling on that clandestine inn where the Polish snooker player played her game well and to find out whether she was a professional or just a hang out of pub gamesome. I rang the bell and a serene looking middle-aged bartender opened the door for me, I bought beer from her and to my utter surprise the lights of snooker table turned off. In dimly lit room, I found few people watching television and after glancing all around, the face of Polish player appeared to me at a corner table, sitting alone with a glass of drink and her right hand swathed in white plaster.

That sight of bandaged hand had a mournful effect on me and putting a great nerve, I approached her at the table and greeted her by saying,

“Hi! Ya”

To my colloquial Yorkshire greeting, she also replied to me in the same welcome and after that, I asked her,

“Excuse me. May I take a seat with you at the table”

“Why not”

I then sat on the chair on the front of her at the table and after placing my glass, asked her,

“I had seen you playing wonderful game of snooker. Will you mind me in telling how you broke your right hand as it seems to be on hard plaster.”

“No! Not at all I will mind that query. I was climbing the stairs, fell on my right hand side, and broke the bone. That’s that.”

She confidently declared to me in chaste local lingo. After some hesitation, I asked her,

“I am really concerned about your accident. Shall I buy you an alcoholic drink of your choice”?

She appeared rather annoyed towards me and after gesturing to lady bartender some signs that were incomprehensible to me, replied,

“You seems to me a foreigner, Are not you? Anyway thanks for your concern for me. Well everybody in this pub knows that I do not take drinks from locals without beating them in the game. I loathe free drinks without toil at the snooker table.”

I became remorseful at her curtness towards me and hurried back from pub after saluting my cheers to her, however admiring the grand playing ethics of that snooker player.