7-C[1]
Zargoon road,
Quetta Cantt,
Pakistan.
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A white wall and an exposed brick wall, take turns to form
the boundary of the house.
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The white walls protruding a few inches forward.
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Black gate.
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This black gate is placed somewhere in the left half of the
front wall.
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Lawn on both sides of the drive-way.
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Bricked drive way, or was it concrete?
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Car porch at the end of the drive-way.
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The drive-way makes a bend to the right, just before the
porch, and extends itself to cover the front/width of the house
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Two (or was it three?) steps to the veranda.
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The veranda covers the entire width of the house.
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The veranda is supported by four pillars. Two at the
corners and one on each side of the steps.
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An entrance door, right in the center.
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A long corridor.
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To the left is a door leading to the drawing and dining
room.
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To the right is a door leading to my brothers’ bed-room.
Inside my brothers’ bedroom is the storeroom, right across their toilet. Oddly
enough, you have to pass through my brothers’ bedroom to enter the living room.
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At the end of corridor is my parents’ bedroom.
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Right outside my parents’ bedroom, is the telephone.
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The telephone is white and the digits are arranged in a
circular finger wheel. For each digit, the finger wheel is rotated from its
original position, all the way to the right, until it stops.
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To the left side of the telephone is the passage to the
kitchen.
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To the right of the telephone, is another small corridor.
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This small corridor has a door on the left, which leads to
the third bedroom, the sisters’ bedroom.
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The kitchen has two doors.
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One leading to the pantry. The pantry is small and gets no
air or sunlight.
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the other, leading to a small garden outside and then the
servant quarters.
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Somewhere in this house, was a vegetable garden.
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I forget where.
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Certainly not in the garden outside the kitchen, where it
would have made most sense.
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Certainly not in the front garden.
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It was either in the area on the side of the house,
opposite the garage.
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Or, the area behind the house. Where my brother and I,
spent the afternoons catching butterflies and then leaving them to slowly die,
in air-tight jars.
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Under my brother’s influence, I also shot sparrows. Which
were then handed to the bald cook. He grilled them for our late-afternoon
snack.
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I tried not to play with girls or dolls, fearing that it
won’t sit well with my brother’s taste.
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In the pantry the cook and I played in secret.
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The fat brown Sony T.V, sat in the tiny square living room
facing the wall with the window.
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Outside the window, hung the grape vine, on which
purplish-black grapes appeared once in a while.
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In the drawing room, the narrow but long print of a
Japanese painting, hung in the corner of the wall with the arch.
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This archway leads you to the dinning area.
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Everything in the drawing room was either grey or black,
including the grey aluminum frame of the Japanese print.
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Except a table.
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This table sat in the corner, in front of the long narrow
Japanese print.
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The hexagonal top of this dark-brown wooden table is
supported by a single leg in the middle.
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