By Razia Sultana Khan

URMI saw the empty space near the window and flung her travelling bag like a projectile into it. Having ‘bagged’ her seat she allowed her generous behind to melt into it and manoeuvred the bag onto the floor between her legs. Her eyes circled the occupants of the private compartment of ‘Provati’, the morning train from Dhaka to Chittagong. Her defiant stance thawed to embarrassment as four pairs of curious eyes gazed back at her.
   Opposite Urmi, near the door, a man in his late thirties in dark trousers and a loose white qurta sat with a newspaper open in front of him. He scanned her from above the newspaper, turned slightly towards the woman sitting beside him, gave a limp shrug and retreated behind the paper. The young woman started rearranging the anchal of her red sari until only the tip of her nose showed. Two young children sat on Urmi’s side of the carriage, a boy of around seven and a girl a few years younger. All the empty spaces were filled with jute bags and tote bags.
   The woman in red kept darting looks at the door, her eyes pools of anxiety. When no one followed Urmi in, she finally let go of the end of her anchal and ventured a hesitant smile, her eyes resting on a point somewhere below Urmi’s chin.
   Urmi had been away from Bangladesh for three years and wanting to retrieve her sense of belonging, had bought an Economy Class ticket, against her mother’s wishes. When she arrived at the station 25 minutes before departure time, she hopped onto the economy compartment, her steps light, and a smile on her face despite the two heavy bags she was shouldering.
   Before her lay rows and rows of wooden benches packed with people. Sari-wrapped women, babies clinging to their hips or clutching bits of their mother, were busy stowing away bags and boxes. Urmi tried to wedge her way ahead, her eyes darting every which way, for a few inches to sink into, but the passages were blocked by impassive men standing listlessly, guarding baggage which spewed out onto the corridors. Over it all hung the smell of human bodies that had spent the night in crowded waiting rooms – doing just that, and the stale pungency of leftover food.
   Urmi’s smile faltered, then fell. Squaring her shoulders despite the handle of the cloth bag cutting into her shoulder, she forged ahead. She tried the next compartment and then the next, but with little success. That was when she gave herself permission to gatecrash into a private compartment.
   The picture of her mother, a knowing gleam in her eyes, her lips mouthing the words ‘I told you…,’ she firmly thrust from her mind.
   Once Urmi sensed that the family she’d barged in on wasn’t going to be nasty or have her thrown out, she relaxed and settled more comfortably into her seat. She made a mental inventory of the contents of her large leather handbag hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything: her purse with the train ticket and cash, three small bars of chocolate, the polythene bag with a bottle of drinking water and a packet of Bela Biscuit to remind her to bring back The Real McCoy from Chittagong.
   ‘But if you get Bela Biscuit in Dhaka, why do you want me to bring some from Chittagong?’ she asked genuinely puzzled.
   ‘It’s not the same thing,’ her mother had said furrows marring her otherwise smooth forehead. ‘It’s like your pizza. Don’t you keep saying, they don’t taste like the ones in the States?’
   Well, as always, her mother had her there. Urmi smiled now to think how her mother, despite never having studied beyond Matric, always had the last word.
   Ayesha’s wedding gift, a complete make-up kit by Avon, gift-wrapped in red and gold tinsel paper was in her cloth travelling bag with the rest of her clothes. Urmi gave a soft sigh, and pulled out the June issue of Write On! that she had picked up at Boston airport and still hadn’t had a chance to more than scan. But after flipping through a few pages, her attention was enticed by the scene outside.
   People streamed up and down the platform. Anxious faces peered over shoulders trying to catch a last glimpse of a friend or loved one. A family weighted down with carry-ons and bags, clustered around the male member of the group as he led them on like a modern day Moses.
   Vendors waylaid scurrying passengers, desperate to make a sale. Emaciated men in knee-high lungis, legs bowed with the weight of large open bamboo baskets piled high with bunches of green and yellow bananas or golden papayas, cantered past. One vendor passed right below Urmi’s window with crimson litchis nestling in their bed of robust green leaves. Urmi’s mouth watered as a burst of tangy flavour hit her nostrils and set off a pang of hunger at the pit of her stomach. The urge to reach out and touch the fruit was so great that she instinctively clenched her fist and drew it in, turning to see if anyone had noticed. She wouldn’t be surprised if they thought her capable of swiping litchis off a poor vendor, since she hadn’t hesitated to usurp a seat in their cabin. A young ganji-clad boy caught her eyes and ran up to her window with his tray of candy for her inspection. ‘Chewing gum, lozenge, candy, polo…’ he rattled off a litany of names gauging her reaction to each. The station vibrated with the energy of bodies in motion bent on a mission.
   A sharp whistle sliced the thick air and with a faint shudder the train jolted to life. The candy vendor impaled her with his eyes and started running, and too late Urmi realised he was trying to keep pace with the moving train to give her a final chance to buy something. Too late Urmi wished she had, if only to keep his short legs from trying to keep up with the speeding train. After about a minute he ran out of platform and stopped. He grinned and waved at her either in surrender or amusement at the terrified look on her face. Like a door closing at a party the buzz and energy gave way to the clickety-clack of the fast-rushing train.
   ‘Are you travelling alone?’ The murmur came from the woman in pink.
   ‘Yes,’ Urmi turned to meet a pair of dark eyes watching her with unveiled curiosity. A smear of kajal was all that was visible as her face peeped out from within layers of bright pink material. At Urmi’s answer she loosened the corner of her sari which she’d been clutching. The anchal slipped from her head revealing hair sleek with oil. Two tight braids, the ends woven into matching pink ribbons then twisted into two large bows, hung from either side of her head. She looked younger than Urmi, who was twenty-six.
   ‘Do you live in Chittagong?’ the woman continued, her eyes dropping to the bag lying slumped at Urmi’s feet.
   ‘Actually, I’m going to visit an uncle of mine,’ Urmi said, then added, ‘my cousin is getting engaged.’ She didn’t mention that the marriage would be by proxy, a marriage between two people separated by a distance of almost 13,000 kilometres, between two people who had never met, or even seen each other.
   The man put the newspaper aside and started rearranging their bags and packages. She closed her eyes, and withdrew into her space.
   There was a loud knock on the door and it opened to reveal a man in a white suit and a matching turban with red edging. He looked like a character out of a Kipling novel, a figure from the colonial past. The woman turned to look out the window, successfully shielding her face. He rattled out the lunch menu, ‘Chicken roast, bread and butter squares, rice and fish curry, mamlet, hot tea, cold tea.’
   ‘What’s mamlet?’ Urmi asked, willing to try something different.
   ‘Eggs, whipped and fried with onion and spices,’ the man spouted in all seriousness. Urmi’s lower lip quivered but she shook her head with a ‘No thank you’. She needed sleep more than a greasy omelette. She lay her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. Noticing her languor the woman tried to shush the children. The little girl’s interest, however, had been roused and now she wanted ‘mamlet’.
   ‘But you don’t like eggs!’ her mother reminded her.
   ‘I don’t want eggs. I want mamlet!’ the girl took up a chant. The waiter looked hopefully at the father who was unable to keep the reproof off his voice, ‘I don’t think we want anything here.’ The waiter moved on, his litany of lunch items following him down the corridor.
   Urmi relaxed, letting her body adjust to the movement of the train. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with her mother three months back.
   ‘Ayesha’s getting married,’ her mother had said casually.
   ‘Ayesha, Bublu Uncle’s daughter,’ she continued when no response came from Urmi’s side.
   ‘Mom! She’s just a kid!’
   ‘She’s eighteen. Some would call her a woman.’ Her mother’s voice suggested someone sane, unlike Urmi. Her mother used sarcasm when angry and here the sarcasm was the residue of long discussions, hours of cajoling and pressure to get Urmi settled before ‘the age of marriage’ passed her by. She wanted to ‘do her duty’. She didn’t want a 26-year-old daughter in her house. The only thing worse was a daughter returning from abroad with a ‘foreign’ husband.
   ‘The proposal’s very good,’ her mother drawled from the other end.
   ‘Yeah?’
   ‘Yeah.’ That sarcasm again. ‘He’s in some computer firm in California.’ Her mother paused, then flashed her ace. ‘He has a green card.’
   Well, that explains a lot, Urmi thought but only said, ‘So how did they meet?’
   Urmi’s uncle and aunt were conservative, very much entrenched in the customs and traditions of their society. Ayesha went to an all-girls school and was seldom allowed out alone without a chaperone. There was little opportunity for young women to meet young men.
   ‘Ayesha must really have changed.’ Urmi baited her mother.
   The response was quick. ‘Ayesha’s a good girl, a very good girl.’ The words unlike others hovered in the air waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
   ‘So how’d they meet?’ Urmi interrupted before the conversation looped back to her. She repeated her question when there was no immediate response. And then it hit her. ‘She hasn’t met him, has she?’ she said quietly.
   ‘I didn’t meet your father till after we got married. Anyway, she has the rest of her life to get to know him.’ An undercurrent of defensive aggression flowed beneath her mother’s assertion.
   Keep calm, keep calm, Urmi steadied herself. Take a deep breath, let out. Slowly. Take another breath…
   Feeling a little more in control she said, ‘That was half a century ago, Ma. Things are different now – they don’t have to be the same.’
   ‘We’re still Bengalis, aren’t we?’
   ‘So what’s he like?’ Urmi probed.
   ‘He’s 5’8”, weighs 220 lbs, fair of complexion…’
   ‘Ma!’ Urmi interrupted, a note of impatience leaking into her voice. ‘You sound as if you’re reading from his bio-data.’
   The long-distance line crackled impatiently.
   ‘Ma, please, please tell me you’re not reading from… For God’s sake! You are reading from his bio-data!’ She couldn’t keep the accusations off her voice. ‘At least tell me my uncle and aunt have met him?’ she pleaded.
   Urmi’s mother believed in the adage that the best form of defence was offence. ‘You know how expensive air travel from America is, Urmi. That’s what you say every time I ask you to visit. It’s been almost three years…’
   ‘I’m not asking them to come to the States. What about the guy, the groom, what’s-his-face. Hasn’t he come?’
   ‘It’s a lot of money, what am I telling you?’
   ‘He’s too stingy to buy a plane ticket?’
   Her mother ignored the jibe. ‘He’s busy. He’s got a new job. You’ve heard how many people have lost their jobs there. He can’t take the risk…’
   ‘He’s too busy?’ Urmi spluttered. ‘He’s too busy to come and meet the woman he’ll be spending the rest of his life with?’
   ‘Urmi, we’re not in the States. Your father and I …’
   ‘Yea, Ma, I know, I know. You and Baba had an arranged marriage. You’re very happy. You’ve told me, remember? But that was fifty years ago.’
   ‘Forty-seven… actually.’
   Urmi wanted to hang up before she said something she’d regret; something that her mother would repeat till one of them passed away. Now, however, she wanted to know more.
   ‘So tell me what you know about him,’ she said softly.
   ‘He’s 5’8”, weighs 220 lbs, fair of complexion…’
   Urmi closed her eyes and listened.
   ‘He has very attractive eyes.’
   ‘So who’s seen him? Talked to him?’
   Another pause, while Urmi took a couple of deep breaths. Think of a spring. The water’s flowing over you, all your negative feelings are dissolving, dissolving…
   ‘Well, we’ve seen his picture and we have his bio-data.’ Her mother’s voice yanked her back from her alpha level.
   It wasn’t uncommon for couples to get engaged or even married without having seen or spent some time with one another. Her mother’s marriage, as she kept reminding Urmi, had been arranged. Her mother had found the family making preparation for a party and had asked what was happening. ‘You’re getting married,’ she’d been informed. Her mother would always tinker a laugh whenever she related the anecdote.
   She would tell how ‘emissaries’ from both sides had gotten together and the male members of the groom’s family had come to ‘see’ her, and ‘talk formalities’ over with her elders.
   ‘So except for his picture and bio data which he has sent, we don’t know anything about him, do we?’ Urmi summed it up in the direct way that her mother so disliked.
   Back on an even keel now that the worst had been disclosed, her mother took on a more aggressive tone, ‘Baba, I don’t know the nitty-gritties; as long as your uncle and aunt are happy, what’s it to us, eh?’
   Urmi didn’t have an answer to that. She wondered how parents who were so protective of their unmarried daughters and never allowed them to venture out of their homes without a chaperone were content to see them married to strangers on the evidence of a photo, often black and white, and a faxed bio-data, as long as they thought they were buying secure futures for them. The magic was in the words ‘green card’. Like a magician’s wand once a green card was waved at them, people were transported to a make-believe world.
   Urmi thought of the movie she had seen during her first year in the States called ‘Picture Brides’, where Japanese women had come all the way to Hawaii to marry Japanese men on the evidence of pictures. Young girls on arrival in the foreign land would search desperately for the handsome young man in the picture, only to find a much older version waiting for them sheepishly. Some of the pictures could be as old as thirty years.
   But the circumstances here were different, the culture was different. Only time seemed to have stood still.
   ‘And you… and … where do you live?’
   Urmi realised that the woman in pink had not given up trying to have a conversation with her.
   ‘I’m from Dhaka.’ Urmi paused and then added, ‘But I’m studying at Boston University.’
   The woman’s eyes opened wide and then thick lashes slid over them as she retreated into her corner. The woman made as if to cover her head with her anchal, hesitated, then just slumped back.
   ‘And what are you studying?’ Urmi’s male travelling companion now asked, his voice low, polite.
   Somehow there’d been a shift in Urmi’s position, she realised sadly. ‘English. English literature,’ she murmured.
   ‘I had English in my intermediate syllabus. I enjoyed the stories we studied. We had a fine poem, it was called the “Sands of Dee”.’
   And suddenly, to the surprise of everyone in the compartment, his baritone boomed out in strong South Asian English.
   They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
   The cruel crawling foam,
   The cruel hungry foam,
   To her grave beside the sea;
   But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
   Across the sands of Dee.
   He stopped, cleared his throat and said, ‘Very powerful, very powerful,’ then went back to reading his paper.
   Urmi nodded, grateful that he had chosen to recite the last stanza. She didn’t think she could have kept her composure for the duration of the poem. Wondering how his wife was reacting, Urmi sneaked a look. The woman’s eyes were wide with pride as she looked at the newspaper behind which her husband had retired.
   After a while the woman whispered something to the man and he folded his paper and got up. He took out a tiffin carrier from a large brown jute bag and soon the aroma of parata and curry crowded out any other smell. Urmi’s mouth watered and she had a moment of regret for the chicken roast and bread and butter squares, or even the fish curry. She toyed with the idea of walking down to the dining buffet and ordering something but a sense of lethargy overcame her. She closed her eyes, not wanting to intrude in the family ‘picnic’.
   Light and shade played on her lids as the scenery whizzed past and with the rhythmic jogging of the train, the little girl’s chatter became indistinct and then gradually faded.
   ‘Shush! Can’t you see the nice lady’s sleeping?’ the mother whispered. Fragments of conversation drifted to her ears, ‘Once upon a time… princess… unhappy… wedding day… the “daine buri”.’ Urmi tried to unscramble the words, ‘old hag’? ‘Witch’? It was too much effort.
   The train was slowing down. Urmi craned to catch the name of the station. A sari flapped over half of the large rusty iron post which once proudly declared the station’s name and only the word ‘__bishpur’ peeked out from underneath. There was an unknown hypnotic quality about the name. Like the mermaid in the Indian Ocean that her grandmother had told her about, whose enchanted singing drew the sailors and fishermen. She sat on a rock and beckoned them with one hand and waved a ‘no’ with the other, so that the men were torn in their desires, pulled in two directions. Urmi felt a similar pull now as her adventurous spirit beckoned. She had to see what the place was like. Seconds later she was on the platform watching the train pull away.
   She stood alone. But not for long. A line of rickshaws came cruising by and then she was in one speeding down the winding lanes. And now they were in front of a two-storied building and Urmi was heading for the door. A tall blond woman in a cotton sari stood smiling. Urmi couldn’t make out what she was saying but it was an invitation and then Urmi was in the living room. She sat down in a large couch and stretched her legs. It felt good to be able to spread herself after the cramped compartment. The woman’s name was Mia. She was an American married to a Bangladeshi. She picked up a picture in a glass frame from the side table and passed it to Urmi. Almond shaped eyes with thick long lashes, courtesy of the photographer, stared at her. Urmi felt a tension and turned away. The frame slipped; crashed to the floor.
   ‘Look what you’ve done!’ the voice broke through a thick fog, and Urmi, groggy with sleep, squinted, trying to lift the heavy weight on her lids. Voices were raised in harsh accusation. Her travelling companions were obviously in the middle of an argument.
   The little girl stood in the middle of the compartment, eyes swimming in tears.
   ‘You shouldn’t have let her play with the glass,’ the man said.
   ‘She needed a drink of water. She’s at the stage where she wants to do everything herself.’ The mother sounded vexed, defensive. She glanced at Urmi then looked away.
   ‘So you’re going to let her do everything she wants?’ His voice rose.
   The woman squatted to pick up the glass fragments from the floor.
   ‘Now be careful and don’t cut your finger,’ he admonished.
   Urmi rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. She decided she was hungry and brought out a bar of chocolate. The girl wiped her eyes and looked at Urmi with interest. She whispered to her mother but got a stern look in reply. Urmi brought out the two remaining bars of chocolate and offered them to the children. Both of them turned to the father.
   ‘Is it ok to offer them some chocolate?’ Urmi asked the mother. The mother slowly turned to the father.
   He smiled and said to the kids, ‘Say “thank you” to the kind lady.’ The girl took the chocolate and smiled. ‘Thank you, Kind Lady,’ she said. The boy mumbled something. Urmi smiled at the children and turned to look outside. She couldn’t make herself look at the woman.
   The flat plains outside gradually gave way to the little hilly dunes which bordered the suburbs of Chittagong.
   
   URMI looked at her cousin Ayesha sitting quietly, head bowed, and felt a tightness around her chest. Ayesha looked up at her with sparkling eyes, then blushed and looked down. The last time Urmi had seen her, three years back, the little cousin had been in her mid teens and her ugly-duckling figure had been a far cry from Urmi’s elegant one. She had idolised Urmi and copied her every move. She would run around Urmi in circles introducing her to the local people, showing her around and willingly cater to the smallest of Urmi’s whims.
   And now here she was, hardly eighteen and getting married. Urmi felt her frustration return. Her uncle obviously thought he was doing the right thing. The prospective groom was a computer engineer in California and had a green card. Her aunt was ecstatic. Ayesha was the envy of all her friends and her face reflected the happiness on her aunt’s face.
   Urmi sat down close to her cousin and put a symbolic arm protectively around her shoulders. She realised Ayesha was playing a part, a part she had rehearsed well, when she had played Bou Bou and given her doll in marriage to her sister’s doll. A part that grown-ups watched indulgently.
   ‘Are you happy then, Ayesha?’ Urmi said in an undertone.
   ‘Yes.’ A whisper, meant only for Urmi’s ears.
   ‘My brother-in-law, is he handsome?’ Urmi teased.
   ‘Jah!’ she said turning a bright pink. She lowered her head. Any topic relating to her in-laws brought the pink spots to her cheeks. No enticement would make her talk of her prospective husband. It was left to her best friend, Jasmine, to ask Ayesha’s mother for the photo of the boy to show Urmi. Urmi would have asked herself but did not want to deprive Ayesha of the tableau. After much laughter and ‘Ooos’ and ‘Aaas’ and the photo changing hands, it finally reached Urmi.
   It was a black and white photo, 5” by 7”, with frayed corners. Urmi glanced at it, then her eyes popped wide. A pair of very attractive eyes stared back at her. Eyes she had seen very recently in another photo, in a glass frame.
   The following afternoon, Urmi excused herself from all the commotion of the ‘Wedding House’ and took a taxi to the train station. There was a queue of men waiting for tickets. The line moved slowly and Urmi craned her head to see how many were ahead of her. Her action caught the attention of the man at the ticket counter who motioned her to come forward.
   ‘Can I help you?’ he said.
   ‘Yea. Thanks.’ Urmi said and gave a guilty look behind her. ‘There’s a station not too far from Chittagong, I mean between Dhaka and Chittagong. It ends in -bishpur…’
   ‘Say that again?’ the man’s eyes narrowed.
   ‘A return ticket to -bishpur, please,’ Urmi mumbled the first part of the name.
   The ticket seller’s small mongoose-like eyes looked at her from under very bushy brows. ‘What’s the name of the station?’
   Urmi felt the damp under her synthetic shelwar kameez. The buzz of voices around her had died and she could feel the male gaze piercing her back.
   ‘Look. There’s a station between Dhaka and Chittagong, nearer Chittagong. It ends in the words “-bishpur”. I’m not sure about the… ehm… first part. There can’t be too many of them.’ She tried to laugh it off. ‘I wanted a return ticket for that station.’
   ‘No such station, Ma’am.’ He obviously did not share her amusement.
   ‘Are you sure? Can you please check?’ Urmi persisted, taking care to keep her voice down.
   ‘I’ve worked here twenty years, Ma’am. No such station.’ He paused, then said, ‘Next.’
   Urmi moved away. She closed her eyes and tried to relive the conversation she had had with Mia, but it was getting a little fuzzy now. The only thing she could recall with startling clarity were the eyes looking tauntingly out of the glass frame.
   The next three days passed very quickly. Her Uncle and Aunt introduced her to all their friends who came to visit. Every time Urmi looked at Ayesha she felt a twinge in her guts accompanied by the stale smell of the waiting room at the train station. The smell of guilt, she thought.
   Soon it was time to leave for Dhaka. Urmi was thrown back into the rollercoaster of farewell parties, shopping sprees and farewells. And then it was time to leave for Boston.
   A month later she heard that Ayesha had left for the US. Another month went by and she got a call from her mother.
   ‘Your uncle phoned me yesterday. Ayesha is back in Chittagong with her parents.’
   ‘Already? But it’s only been a month!’
   ‘She’s come back alone... For good.’
   Urmi caught the strain in her mother’s voice. She waited. The muted whirr of a vacuum cleaner next door – or perhaps it was a hair dryer – permeated the thin walls. Over the phone, more than 12,000km away, she could hear her mother’s raspy breathing.
   ‘He’s married; to an American.’ The vacuum cleaner – or hair dryer – stopped. The line was clear. ‘Kopal. It’s all written on Ayesha’s forehead. She’s an unlucky woman.’ The phone went dead.
   Razia Sultana Khan is a freelance creative writer.