|
Our women Fridays
by Farah Mehreen Ahmad
PART IV
8
The inherited intrinsic doctrine of middle school life dictated that friendships should only be established with people only within their particular sections, and then be recycled and redistributed as sections were rotated. So the partings that day would not only stretch over three months, but threatened to extend over a longer, indefinite period of time.
As was the tradition, everyone stayed an extra couple of hours that day to play and engage in mild, harmless debauchery. Lamia too stayed back to absorb the only place that gave her a sense of belonging and ownership. It is not as if she did not feel at home at her home; it was just that she did not feel so at all times. Those are the gaps that were filled by the shade of this mango tree, which honed all her secrets, talents and musings.
She desperately needed those extra hours at her sanctuary because the upcoming vacation might entail some sacrifices. Sacrifices as grave as subsiding brownie points from above by way of deterring divine despotism.
She knew what rape was. She knew it was the physical and emotional incarceration of a female rodent by a male scavenger. She was grateful that she was never raped. She also knew that it is not only the infliction of severe explicit trauma that called for condemnation, but that inducement of morbid awkwardness was also of substantial gravity. She did not need to be told this, she just knew. This realisation replaced her mother in the void of her gut.
She felt her fists clenched, eyes dewy and jaws stiff as the failure of identifying the reason for her angst dawned upon her. Although she felt her Hujur meant well, she knew there was something wrong with abrupt stories embodying contrived lessons.
‘Whatever Allah has given is divine. You should never challenge God. Once this girl threaded her eyebrows and shaved her arms and legs, and the next day the removed hair was replaced with caterpillars,’ said the Hujur, interrupting Lamia’s stuttered skimming of the Arabic text before her.
‘She means well,’ thought Lamia, and went back to reading.
‘I am happy to see you are showing breasts. They are small now, but as you grow older, they’ll get bigger… like mine.’
And she flashed.
That was only the beginning. From then onwards, every chance she got, she would exhibit her blessings.
‘I am thinking of getting my daughter married off. Her breasts are almost as big as mine.’ Flash.
‘Your mother might ask you to wear VCR [brassiere] when you grow older, don’t. You shouldn’t try to manipulate what God has given you. I never have and never will.’
Flash.
‘I am so lucky my husband gave me a daughter before he died. I have nothing more to ask for. God is great. The greatest feeling in the world is breast-feeding your child.’
Flash.
At the time Lamia did not know why she felt violated. She wanted to tell her mother, but she didn’t know what to say. She wished during one of those ‘flash parties’ her mother would wake up from her siesta and walk in on them. But as divine dictations would have it, that never happened.
The maid at their house, Rahima bua, was not their surrogate mother, but was surrogate motherhood for sure. Lamia wanted to address this with her, but her struggle with this avenue resembled that with her mother’s. On top of that, Rahima bua would never take her side and malign the Woman of God. She had immense faith in people of God.
When Lamia used to hide upon her Lady Hujur’s arrival, Rahima bua would help the prophetess hunt her down. She would later lecture Lamia on not disrespecting religious authorities since they were holders of unimaginable power. She would give examples of how at different points in time, making small donations for milads in mazhars had fulfilled her wishes. She told stories of how chits of prayers had cured illnesses. Apparently once, a prayer had to be written with deer blood for it to work, but the Hujur at her local mazhar was so powerful, that he had attained the desired result with plain red ink.
At the time when Lamia was receiving her Arabic lessons, she hadn’t menstruated, and had no idea as to what menstruation was. No one had briefed her – no mother, no teacher. She remembers that when her Lady Hujur brought it up out of the blue, she had no clue as to what she was being told, but she remembers being terrified. She remembers the skinny dark lady with lines of fatigue on her skin, and eyes too big for her face leaning over and saying,
‘Have you had your feeriot [period] yet?’
‘My what?’
‘Feeriot…mens…It is something girls must go through. I won’t tell you anything about it, but if you don’t get it on time, you are going to have to put a glass through your lojjar jayga [shameful place].’
Lamia did not know how to process that, and she did not know why she was scared. When Rahima was putting her to sleep with folktales that night, she asked about ‘Feeriot’ and Rahima comforted her with, ‘If Hujur says so, it must be true. One way or the other, you will be fine.’
Then pausing for a moment she said,
‘Even if women can do damage, how far can they go? Your parents know what’s best for you shona.’
9
Age-wise, Lamia and Tanisha weren’t that far apart, but by virtue of menstruation catching up with Lamia without the aid of glass, they were, like two different generations (at least temporarily), separated by a stream of blood.
Lamia had heard elders speak of sacrifices generations have made for justice, morality, conscience, consciousness, gratification, but mostly for the next generation.
Lamia felt a responsibility towards her little sister. Depending on the situation, she would either warn or threaten the ‘Woman of God.’ She did not care about disturbing divine dignity and the consequence(s) that it might bear.
She conceded that sacrifice was a battle that left heaps of rubble to be cleared off afterwards. Post fulfilling all strata of decorum, warriors are too tired to enjoy the fruits of the sacrifice, and too desensitised to feel its zest. The optimum execution of the ‘humanness’ of humanity rips humanity of the same ‘humanness.’
For humanity, Lamia was willing to forego her humanness.
10
Shakil did not know he was in Lamia’s neighbourhood, and that he was walking right by her house. He was too overwhelmed by the bitterness of a lost cricket match to notice that he had treaded upon an unknown neighbourhood to seek solace with his stars.
While he approached Lamia’s apartment building, inside, Lamia’s mother had just served slices of mangoes to her husband. He’d given the aati to Lamia, since that was her most favourite part of the fruit. Lamia being in a sacrificing mood, handed it to Tanisha.
Tanisha felt bad for the crows in the vicinity, and in a zest of magnanimity, she threw the seed out the window so the crows could fight it out. Incidentally, the seed landed on Shakil, who got even more agitated, and threw the seed back at the building. The seed then bounced off the wall, and fell on the Lady Hujur as she was entering the building to teach Tanisha.
It is at this point of bones chasing banes on a Friday afternoon, that these jarred pickles failed to harmonise; unless cancelling each other out at an uncoveted equilibrium can be called harmony. u
Farah Mehreen Ahmad is working with BRAC Overseas and is also a freelance consultant
Comments: ahmad.farahm@gmail.com
|
Also
|
