“Here we are! America!” Shaan-daar proclaimed, as he and his best friend Jamal came out from the arrival lounge of the New York Airport. Jamal looked at Shaan-daar with a smile and said, “Yes indeed.” It was an afternoon of a late spring season. The weather was nice and the surrounding area of the airport looked beautiful. It was Shaan-daar and Jamal’s first travel trip together. They were both excited on their arrival in New York--the Big Apple. Jamal hailed a taxi, and they both left for their friends’ apartment in the Manhattan area.
The Pakistani friends greeted Shaan-daar and Jamal with warm welcomes, hugs and a New York-class Halal hearty meal. They shared funny stories and fresh jokes from back home with each another until the late hours of the night. The next day, they started their sightseeing tour of New York City. After staying in New York over a week, Shaan-daar and Jamal bought two “Discover America” travel-passes, from the Greyhound Bus Company and departed for their tour.
On their way they made stops to see Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, and the Capital, Washington D.C., and visited many other historical, fun, and beautiful places including the Grand Canyon, one of the master pieces of God on the planet Earth. Shaan-daar and Jamal were having fun on their tour like some illegal aliens who just won a million dollar lottery in America, and they were on their way back to their native country.
Shaan-daar and Jamal also made their stop to visit Las Vegas, the sin city, to do their fair share of sins. After eating a great buffet, the one fit for a king, in one of the top class casinos, they decided to see the rest of the casino. They did not know much of card games and tricks, so they ended up sitting in front of the slot machines. They started inserting quarters into the machines. Like many other “smart” people in the world, Shaan-daar and Jamal were doing the “Devil’s work,” but they were praying to God for their successes. They put God to test, on a casino floor, in the middle of the night. When they heard other peoples’ machines ringing, they started to drop more quarters into the machines, but they were careful that they did not go over their budgets. The machine gobbled up all Jamal’s money, and when he was almost leaving the machine, Shaan-daar’s machine started ringing and dropped a bucketful of quarters. Jamal got excited and hopeful again of winning. Instead of changing a few more of his dollars into quarters, he started to grab Shaan-daar’s money from the bucket. After a little while Shaan-daar’s bowl was almost empty. He looked at Jamal with a smile and started grabbing quarters from his bowl. A few seconds passed and Shaan-daar’s machine started to ring again and his bucket got full of quarters. This time he said to Jamal, “This is my lucky ending, and I am leaving this machine and the casino now.” Shaan-daar and Jamal left the casino with the buckets in their hands without changing the quarters into dollar bills.
On the famous Las Vegas Strip, they entered a casino named Circus, Circus. They went to the second floor and played with some game machines, and machines like the analyzing of person’s signature to determine their personality. When money comes easy, it looses its value; therefore, the quarters were pennies to them. They were wasting money on all kinds of gimmicks, right and left. They saw a booth for wining prizes by throwing basketball into the basket. Shaan-daar said to Jamal, “We are quarter rich; let’s try this one, too”. Jamal agreed and they both proceeded towards the booth. Shaan-daar paid the girl one dollar and got three basketballs to through into the basket. Shaan-daar threw his first ball, and the ball went inside. He threw his second ball; the second ball went along with the first one. He threw his third, the final ball, and the ball said, “I am going with the other two balls too.” Shaan-daar won the biggest prize of the booth. It was a life-sized stuffed deer, Bambi. The girl at the counter put the deer into an extra large see through plastic bag and handed it to the new basketball champion, Shaan-daar and said, “Bambi is happy that he is going places with you.”
Shaan-daar and Jamal went to a few other interesting places and people saw Bambi through the bag and gave compliments, like how cute it is. Shaan-daar agreed with the young and the old ones and said, proudly, “I won this baby in a game booth.” People said, “Lucky you”! Shaan-daar’s friend Jamal was a shy kind of a person. He suggested to Shaan-daar, “Why don’t you get rid of this Bambi thing, just give it to someone in the street”. Shaan-daar said, “No way, Jose! I am going to take this Bambi baby all the way to Los Angeles and give it to one of my Pakistani-American friends.” After completing their tour of Las Vegas, they proceeded to Sacramento, California. Their bus passed through the beautiful Lake Tahoe ski area, and they reached the capital, Sacramento. After they visited the state capital of California, they left for the city of brotherly romance, San Francisco.
From Las Vegas to all the way to San Francisco, Shaan-daar kept carrying the Bambi darling through the bus terminals. Whoever saw Bambi at the terminal and while in the bus up close, they could not resist Bambi’s charm and gave compliments to Bambi. Shaan-daar was new in America and surprised by his own experience about how much people liked the stuffed animal. Everyone was saying, how cute Bambi is. But he did not get any compliment from anybody for himself.
With this personal experience of discrimination, Shaan-daar developed a kind of envy between Bambi and himself, and he started looking at Bambi with jealousy. Shaan-daar said to Bambi, “You are not that cute. As a matter of fact, you are not cute at all. You are not from the beautiful land of America, Africa or any other land. You were actually manufactured with pieces of cloth, some nylon or rayon stuffing, and thread in some ghetto sweatshop in Taiwan by some illegal workers from a sidekick NAFTA country. No, not from Mexico; the other one. What its name? Canada. Yes, Canada. It says on the tag on your crooked tail, in English and French: Made in Taiwan/Fabrique de Taiwan.
Shaan-daar kept going with his emotions and said to Bambi, “You have no feelings at all. If I put you in a dryer and let it spin, you wouldn’t get dizzy. You will still have the same silly smirk on your face. You are just plain ugly. And you are not just ugly; you’re dumb, too. I bet you would not understand a word from a book like Microsoft Windowxp For Dummies. That is high-tech dumbness in this age and time. That is why even Timbuktu Dot Com would not issue you an email address. I wish that when I was in Las Vegas, I would have thrown you in some bowling alley towards the penguin-looking dummy pins and you would not have come out on the bowl stand, never ever.”
Shaan-daar and Jamal got on board the bus from San Francisco for their next stop at scenic and historic Santa Barbara. Afterwards they left to see Los Angeles. A lady was just behind Shaan-daar when he was getting on board. The lady said to Shaan-daar while she was looking at Bambi, “How cute it is.” After listening to the same compliment again from one more person, Shaan-daar said to the lady, “I can’t take it any more. Everyone give compliments to Bambi, how cute it is, how cute it is; but no one says anything about me. I am a human; I have a real heart. Oh, how about me, lady?” She smiled and said, “You are cute, too”. Shaan-daar said, “Did you hear this, Bambi?” “Smart Bambi” did not utter any word, but showed its grinning face.
When Shaan-daar and Jamal arrived at the Los Angeles bus terminal, their mutual friend was there to take them home, where they met other members of the family including a seven-year-old well-groomed girl, Noreen. She shook hands and gave greetings of universal peace and joy: “As-Salam-o-Alaikum” to Shaan-daar and Jamal in a very nice and a respectful way. Shaan-daar and Jamal liked this well-mannered girl. Finally, the time for separation came for Shaan-daar and Bambi when Shaan-daar handed over Bambi to Noreen and said with a smile, “Make sure it does not run a way.” The parents of the girl said to Shaan-daar, as a politeness, “You don’t have to give it to us. You should keep it; it is so cute.” Shaan-daar responded with a smile, “No, you don’t know my deep feelings. It is my pleasure that I give it to your daughter. Noreen is a smart and a cute girl. I believe she would continue to get high grads in school; right Noreen?” Noreen smiled, and said, “Yes, uncle!” Shaan-daar said to Noreen, Bambi is your prize and you are a prize for all of us.”
