For the last many hours she was staring dazed at everything placed in her room, unable to recognize objects due to misty eyes. The perturbations stormed inside her so much, that she felt everything around her like moving in a tornado.
A sudden knock on her room’s door jolted her mind and brought her back to senses and the things moving around her came to an end. Her clogged ears were restored and she could now hear the hum of the ceiling fan.
The door opened and she saw her mother entering her room. Her mother sat on her bed and asked. Beta! (My Child), why are you not listening to your Baba (father)? At least show some concern for my sake, why are you creating problems for me?
She started staring into her mother’s eyes, her eyes were bleeding red, tearing out continuously, yet she did not speak a single word as if every word would have been stuck into her throat. For a while, her mother looked at her with compassion and consideration but then God knows what alarm of a catastrophe changed her mother’s mood. And her mother started yelling out of anger: “Ok! Then observe your sit-in here rather do observe Chilla instead (Forty days retreat), but remember in the end it will be as your father would like it to be. You have taken the wrong doles of our love”.
Have I taken the wrong doles of your love? What do you mean Amma (Mother)? Can love also be paid back with doles? She replied by collecting her courage by talking her mind yet with a quivering voice and trembling Jaws. Today, I feel that you made a mistake by educating me. And I committed a terrible crime. She said while recollecting her guts.
Her mother holds both of her shoulders into hands and gives them a shake, “what do you mean? Do both of us (your father and me) never love you? Do you have any idea how much your father has spent on your studies so that you complete your Bachelor of Engineering? Moreover, you have no idea how much your father has tolerated the taunts of people and almost gave an end to her social life so that you may get an education. Wow! What a return of our care and love?”
While crying in the saddest mood she told her mother “Amma! Do you know I always thought that you and Baba love me so much that if I ask you to bring stars for me, you would have done this though it is not possible, even? But today I’m unable to figure out why Baba is against it if I want to do a job of my aptitude, for which Baba bore taunts of people and many other odds. Now it’s five years Amma! that I have passed my degree in Engineering. So many opportunities I lost for your ego and the so-called values of our family. Now this room comes to kill me and I tell you Amma, I would die here one day.
Why are you showing that much pickiness? What is something not available to you, here? What else is not provided to you? Her mother asked while showing goodwill offered to her.
The feeling of being existent is not provided, the feeling of being alive with an individual entity is not offered to me Amma!. She annoyingly crossed cut her mother’s talk and said.
Then what wrong we are doing with you? Did we attempt to kill you? You are having a normal life rather well enough than all average girls around you. Just be patient, Insha Allah, soon we shall find a match for you. Once you get married then do whatsoever please you. You know very well that females are not allowed to do jobs in our family, it’s not in our values. Her mother urged.
She took a deep exhale, and while admitting her defeat replied, “Alright Amma! I withdraw my wish of doing any job, yet Amma! The toxicity of fearful negative thoughts are diluting my soul to death, I don’t know how to chuck myself out of it?
Yes, my child! Tell me, what is disturbing you, my dear? Just release your catharsis. Her mother replied.
She held her mother’s hands into hers and said with the utmost sadness. Amma! I have read that in the dark ages of ignorance before Islam, the Bedouin Arabs used to bury their daughters alive.
Yes my child they were really cruel, may Allah Curse them, and they shall be punished by Allah on the Day of Judgement.
Amma! I have read that one of those Bedouin raised a girl unknowingly that she is his child. He raised her with full care, loved her a lot, and took adversities for her so that she may not get hurt. But when she was a grown-up teenage girl, that Bedouin man came to know that she is his child and then he immediately went to bury her alive because that was as their values were.
You don’t worry my child, one day the wrath of Allah will come upon him. Her mother replied with gentleness.
How come I should not get worried Amma!? She replied to her mother audibly while shunning her hands.
Think for a while Amma!, if I die here in this room observing family values and for that reason, if the wrath of Allah comes on my Baba like that Bedouin man, is that not enough for me to get worried and will that not make me shabby? I don’t want to see my Baba standing ashamed on the day of judgment before Allah. She started crying after replying to her mother.
Her mother while staring at her said with spitefulness. “Yes Maira! You were right, we made a mistake by giving you education”. You were better left ignorant.
Her mother was leaving her room while she saw her mother appallingly, noiseless with tears glittering her cheeks, feeling punier and tense, thinking whether it’s her room or she is left alone in a grave, buried alive.
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