Libre Magazine

The thunderstorm from the day before has finally stopped. The atmosphere had been stifling. Only one more tree left to fall. It feels like the hour in between this and that  jannat and jahnum  neither quite here nor there. It is a little after three and the air is still charged.

At this hour only one or two autorickshaws can be heard in the distance. All other traffic is still sleeping, waiting for the crack of dawn to start buzzing like a bee or a young lover desperate to suck the nectar before it falls prey to some other, before fading in the summer heat, amidst cows, stray dogs, hawkers, beggars, road-side Romeos, shoppers, buses, trucks, cars, more rickshaws and anything and everything that can stir and crawl.

It is at this hour that she stands with her back against the about two and a half feet high balcony handrail. To say that her back was resting against the banister would make no sense, since she was far from it, even though she was touching it. Though, she might have felt at peace having made up her mind on how to escape.

She pushes herself up to sit on the still-wet railing, not even wondering if she would fall in the process. If it would all end before it all began.

Droplets of fear race down to her swollen lips which she licks without blinking hoping they would quench her thirst. This was not the time to give in to the urge, run to sip that last sip. Let fear cripple, society hold back, and love to vanish. They had given some, taken some, and now was the time to exchange some more. It was to be now or never.

He had said, “I love you.” They had said, “Never.”

Having got this far, she does not look down, her mind does not waver, even though her body quivers. Chickening out, pulling back, giving up, running away had never been her style. Instead, she lowers herself down holding on to the vertical balcony rails. By now she’s dangling. In spite of herself, she wants to cry out for help, but does not. She does not want to wake anyone up. Already her arms have begun to ache. She tries to pull herself up, but cannot. By now she’s convinced that climbing back up would be impossible, besides even if her parents did show up, they wouldn’t be able to help her up. Any attempt to do so would result in the inevitable. So she lets go first of her right hand and then her left hand.

Before time could travel, she had done so and landed on her back in the lap of mother earth, to whom it did not matter if is she had worshipped Lord Shiva or fasted during Ramadan.

Her name was Pooja Ramnani and she was eighteen when she decided to escape.

She had not stepped out of her room the night before to have dinner or to apologize to them. Instead she lay curled in a tight ball, in her bed, crying until she had no more tears left, biting her tender lips until she had tasted blood.

She had heard their muffled sounds, whispering about a couple of matrimonial prospects the matchmaker had told them. Her father, Ishwar, had wondered if she had been hungry since he was having his dinner and wanted her to join him.

“I think she’s asleep,” her mother, Parvati, had said.

“How could he have done that?” She had thought. Humiliate her in college, in front of them all. What was worse that even her mother had not helped her. And this was after she had grown up hearing over and over her mother say,

“We are all one. God is one. Hindus and Muslims are alike. We are all human beings, made from the same clay; must learn to love and understand. Here, dear Khala, take some flowers for me to the Darga; say a prayer for our good health and so that Pooja may find a good boy.”

Understandably Pooja had not wanted to speak with either of them that evening or later that night. But she knew that she could not tell them this. If they had found out that she was awake she would have to talk to them, because that’s how it was. Parents were to be respected. If they wanted to speak with you, you couldn’t say,

“Later, not up to being with you folks right now, or, leave me alone; this is my life.”

What could she do, but pretend to have fallen asleep, while all along hearing random words like “suitable boy, Muslim, Hindu, shame, name, game, dowry, marriage within a few days, or else too late.”

A couple of hours later when Ishwar had stood at his youngest child Pooja’s bedroom entrance he had not switched the light on, since there had been enough coming in from the kitchen and the sitting room to see if she was still sleeping. They had suspected about him, all along. But what in the God’s name could they have done? They could not allow it. They had left their home in Karachi to run away from people like him. And now, how they now allow her to marry him? What would the people say? He must be using her they had thought, like they all do in movies.

But now that he had caught them red-handed, they had done something about it  taught her a lesson.

When Ishwar had seen that Pooja had not stirred even though he was in her room, he knew that this time she was really asleep. Before he quietly stepped out, he covered her with the bed sheet since it was a cool night.

As soon as Pooja had seen the kitchen light go off, she had thrown off the cover even though it had been a little cool. She had done this because she had not wanted to be tricked by the mistress of sleep. As she saw it, the only option she had was to climb down from her bedroom balcony. That way she could escape from her parents and marriage to a complete and absolute stranger.

A sensible option would have been to pretend to go along with the marriage. And then just as she and the chosen by the parents stranger, to whom she was to be handed over so that their name would not be completely tarnished, were about to make the sacred rounds around the fire, she could have untied the knot and walked away. Just like that.

But this had not occurred to her. This could have made it clear to the general public that this in fact had been a forced arranged marriage, one to which she had never consented.

She had ruled out setting herself on fire, because her intention had never been to hurt herself or destroy her parents home. She knew how hard her father had worked his entire life to provide for them.

The bottom line was that she wanted to escape, but without harming anyone, or financially ruining her family. So she had decided to stick with her balcony plan.

Having thought that if she could get herself down from her balcony, she would walk fast or even run down the dark, quite, narrow streets of her neighborhood to get to Mustafa’s apartment, which was no more than a couple of miles away. She had been aware that the possibility of her getting a fractured limb or two existed, but she was willing to bear the pain, as long as she could escape. With her new-found tolerance for pain, she would be able to make her way through to Mustafa’s.

By now he seemed to be her only hope. She had reasoned that if she walked close to the edges of the narrow street, where it was bound to be darker, perhaps no one would notice a pretty young girl out alone in the middle of the early hours of the morning. The planned time to escape was around three in the morning, because by that time there would be minimal traffic, and hence less people would notice her. Even the homeless would be asleep a little after three.

Having decided her route of escape, she had concentrated on details.