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Our women Fridays
by Farah Mehreen Ahmad
Pablo
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PART III
7
Lamia found that boy’s presence to be quite unsettling. ‘What’s his name again? Oh, Shakil,’ she thought to herself every time he staggered into the classroom with his posse. Everything about that boy was pathetic to her – the way he left the classroom every half an hour to go re-do his spikes with tap water, the way all the girls stopped conversing with each other every time His Fabulousity made an entrance, and got extra giggly and straight-backed.
This happened every 32 minutes – exit every 30 minutes, followed by two minutes of copious amounts of whispers about him, and then his return. She could not decide what was more pathetic; his exits, their reason, his entrances and re-entrances, the moments in between, the people around, or the pest himself. Or is it her masochistic and fruitless obsession with this that takes the cake?
Quickly she snapped out of it, embarrassed at her banal indulgence, and realising her time would be better spent trying to bite dust.
She tried to concentrate on the in-class exercise Manowara Miss had assigned. Lamia realised she gulped a lot in her classes. That was probably because she found an exaggerated resemblance between her Manowara Miss and her Lady Hujur. In fact, the resemblance wasn’t exaggerated at all. It was just on the superficial level that both of them wore abaiyahs and covered their heads with wide white scarves. Also neither of them, Manowara being a chemistry teacher, and Lady Hujur being an Arabic teacher, needed to use English at all, but they both did so with millions of mistakes and unbent confidence.
Tanisha already had a ball picking faults and poking fun at the Arabic teacher’s mistakes. If by the time she reached Lamia’s grade, Manowara Miss was still there, she would probably do the same with her.
Lamia had an extra dollop of affection for Tanisha because she saw a lot of herself in her, especially in terms of humour. The only difference was all of Lamia’s articulations were in her head, and Tanisha’s were actually articulations. That was why on many occasions, despite having an urge Lamia refrained from asking Tanisha for details about her Arabic lessons.
For one, there was some barrier that she did not know how to overcome to address questions of this nature with her little sister. Besides, she figured if Tanisha did face similar ‘spectacles,’ she would bring it up herself. And if she wasn’t doing so, that is probably okay too, because they can’t exactly confide such matters in their father – they have had a proper upbringing – and telling their mother would bear no or negative results.
Their mother would either refuse to believe the allegation against the female voice of God, or slide it under the carpet with some excuse or explanation. She would however, not do so if this had happened to someone else’s child. In that case, she would dish out some stern advice and be genuinely enraged from the core of her being. We often don’t give importance to the injustice and tribulations of our close ones the same way we give to others. Maybe because we are, in one way or another, responsible for their instigation; or maybe because in case of others it is easier to dodge the obligation of taking action of any consequence, and a stance of any level against the atrocity is always applauded and put under a heroic spotlight.
For example when Lamia’s uncle had an affair, Nasrin was infuriated, supported her sister-in-law to the hilt suggesting she leave her husband (as in Nasrin’s own brother), and move on to worthier pastures. When her sister-in-law almost succumbed to her husband’s desperate pleas to give the marriage another chance, Nasrin explained to her that there really is no remedy or compensation for infidelity.
No one knew that Lamia knew about this, but when her father had an affair with his co-worker, Nasrin forgave him immediately, attributing stress, workload and frustration to this venture. When asked how she was taking it so easily, Nasrin explained that it is easy to forgive when you love someone passionately.
But Lamia disagreed wholeheartedly. She thought passion cannot, and should not allow for rational compensation and immediate respite. All this traditional loyalty hocus-pocus was a little too modern for her to digest, especially since it came from a woman who inculcated values of honesty and stability in her.
‘When did modernity creep up and possess tradition, rendering it devoid of any emotion but fear?’ she often wondered.
Her romanticism was sabotaged by the same person who instilled it. She had decided that once a grown-up, she would tell her mother,
‘The stories you tell me of your courtship days sound like somebody else’s. I cannot identify you as the woman who once contemplated elopement, wrote silly little love songs with jingle-like tunes, snuck out for crazy little romantic escapades. I had always wondered why you began your anecdotes whispering, “Don’t tell your father I told you this,” but I now I know he isn’t your beau in those stories. I have stopped wondering why institutionalisation of a relationship implies gagging deliberate experiences of raging passion.
You never lied to me when you told stories of “him.” You never said “your father and I.” My presumption should not be your burden, and your unloading isn’t mine now that I know. My only regret is I have never seen that classical heroine my mother once was. I process your efficiency in all you roles and chores with replicated rationale, but I wish I could have felt you in my gut. At least once.
It pricks like a fang, your modernity in my Neanderthal. You know, you can’t validate people to parallel your expectations.’
And then Nasrin Begum will know that her daughter is actually a mute raven perpetually collecting carcasses of choked stories, but finding them too unappetising to chew in the end.
Farah Mehreen Ahmad is working with BRAC Overseas and is also a freelance consultantComments: ahmad.farahm@gmail.com
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