Page 134 - Leadership in the Indian Army

"I don't want to be a mozahem."

"Imposing?" Tariq's mother said. "We leave for a couple of weeks and
you turn polite on us?"

"All right, I'll stay," Laila said, blushing and smiling.

"It's settled, then."

The truth was, Laila loved eating meals at Tariq's house as much as she
disliked eating them at hers. At Tariq's, there was no eating alone; they

always ate as a family. Laila liked the violet plastic drinking glasses they

used and the quarter lemon that always floated in the water pitcher. She

liked how they started each meal with a bowl of fresh yogurt, how they
squeezed sour oranges on everything, even their yogurt, and how they

made small, harmless jokes at each other's expense.

Over meals, conversation always flowed. Though Tariq and his parents

were ethnic Pashtuns, they spoke Farsi when Laila was around for her

benefit, even though Laila more or less understood their native Pashto,
having learned it in school. Babi said that there were tensions between

their people-the Tajiks, who were a minority, and Tariq's people, the

Pashtuns, who were the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Tajiks have
always felt slighted, Babi had said. Pashiun kings ruled this country for

almost two hundred and'fifty years, Laila, and Tajiks for all of nine

months, back in 1929.

And you, Laila had asked, do you feel slighted, Babi?

Babi had wiped his eyeglasses clean with the hem of his shirt. To me,