I have been in numerous awkward, potentially perilous positions before. But this one beat them all. There I was: flat on my back, the marbled floor cold against my skin, my legs held immovable under the ample thighs of a hefty Pakistani woman squatting in the V of my parted legs. No, we were not tangled in a sumo wrestling dohyo, pitting our strengths and skills in some championship. The Pakistani woman was inspecting me as would my gynaecologist, except that she was not my gynaecologist. She was a 'waxing woman', and was about to apply hot, molten wax to my most sensitive of parts.
Suddenly, she paused. Butter-knife dipped in caramelised sugar, suspended like an executioner's chopper over my lower belly, she queried: "Wayse meiN, aap kahaN ke haiN?" (By the way, where are you from?)
As an Indian in Pakistan, I debated the wisdom of stating the truth. Terrifying visions of 'accidents' involving my vulnerable 'under-legs' raced through my mind, along with a vivid flashback: My friend Ramesh, sitting in a chair while a bearded barber leans over him, swiping Ramesh's jaws and neck with an ustra, a traditional knife-razor. An overhead TV is tuned to the Kashmir Channel, while the zealous barber is spewing vitriol against the Indians, the kafir Hindus. And Ramesh Tharwani, a Hindu from Sindh getting a much-needed shave in the mountains of northern Pakistan after trekking, is fretting: "This shave is getting way too close to my carotid for comfort."
Ramesh had survived the encounter to later relate the anecdote to his Indian and Pakistani friends. The humour that had accompanied his yarn was missing in my recollection, however, laying apprehensively on the floor of my bedroom in Lahore.