Hijabistan

by Sabyn Javeri

  That day, while the professor droned on, she decided she was not going to fight it. It was exhausting. Let them pit all the Muslims together, measure all fingers equally, for when it came down to it, what he thought really did not matter. Her actions only mattered in the eyes of Allah. Only He could judge her. She pulled her headscarf closer to her skin, sank a little lower in her seat and decided that she would get through. She would get through till she had to, and when she could no longer bear it, she would join those who knew how to put the arrogant bastards in their place.

  Nasira tuned out the lecture and opened her laptop. The cursor hovered over the tabs for a few seconds as a fresh wave of loathing washed over her. And then, with a single click, she shut down the tab for US graduate school applications and opened a new one. ISIS, she searched.

  Fifty Shades at Fifty

  Premji came home to find Buddhi sitting cross-legged on his favourite armchair. It was a 1950s’ Victorian, upholstered in purple velvet, and he had spent many an evening snuggled in its lap, his head resting on one arm, legs cradled over the other. Now, as he watched his wife sitting with her feet up, her cracked heels grating against the pristine plush of the velvet, he felt a violent shudder pass through his body. He clamped his mouth shut and clenched his fists to stop himself from tossing her out right away. Buddhi, as he sometimes affectionately – often annoyingly – called his grey-haired wife, was a good ten years younger than him, but had gone prematurely grey. Among her many habits that seemed to irritate him, the topmost was that she loved sprawling out on the furniture to read whenever Premji’s mother was out of sight. They had been married thirty years; yet, this was one habit she had not grown out of. They had no offspring, but Buddhi’s childish habits, Premji thought, more than made up for the absence of children.

  Now, as he stood there seething at the doorway, he noticed that Buddhi had not even registered his presence. She carried on unperturbed, engrossed in the paperback she was reading. He watched in disbelief as she stretched one leg out, hitched up her shalwar and scratched at her calf. Like a stray, Premji thought sourly. His resentment was beginning to build up at this unceremonious welcome and he wondered if he should shout out his arrival. Then he thought perhaps making his presence felt by slamming his weathered old leather briefcase hard on the floor would have more impact. But then, looking at its tattered edges and frayed condition, he thought better of it. As it was, they were a poor couple, reduced to eating burnt food since they could no longer afford a cook. Leaving her cooking on the stove far too long was another of Buddhi’s talents. This too, Premji blamed on her books.

  He decided to clear his throat. As soon as the noise erupted from his throat, he looked away so as not to seem desperate for attention.

  His gaze fell on the cobwebs in the corner of the doorway and he shook his head, for he knew full well what would happen if he pointed these out to Buddhi – she would blame the spiders. ‘These spiders too could not find another place!’ she would lament. And then feeling sorry for them, would add, ‘But they have been living here for so long now. They are like the Burmese and the Bangladeshis. We can’t just throw them out now that they’ve been found out as illegal immigrants.’

  He sighed. Her logic was out most of the time as it were, and now, with money so tight, it was even more useless to argue with her. He looked back to see if she had noticed him and was shocked to note that she was still engrossed in the dog-eared novel.

  ‘Ahemmm,’ he cleared his throat slightly louder and looked away again, this time reflecting on how cruel time had been to them, reducing them to this suffocating little flat where they were forced to take in lodgers. He sighed again, thinking it wasn’t easy living with his bedridden, cranky mother in this tiny cramped flat at the edge of Parsi colony. Many of the richer Parsis had moved out to the more affluent suburbs of Karachi, but Premji could not afford such a folly. Not just financially but also because he felt that here they were safe, away from the city’s ugly, corruptive culture. He rubbed his chest and swallowed, thinking of the urban youth he came across in his administrative job at the university and the kind of good-for-nothing things they got up to. Not for the Parsi community all this nonsense, oh no, he thought, shaking his head vigorously at no one in particular. The Parsis were a fine community with none of this newfangled nonsense the confused Karachiwallahs immersed themselves in.

  Neither here nor there, he chuckled, thinking he would just have to shake Buddhi out of her reverie. His stomach growled and he marched forward.

  But as soon as he came close to her, he paused in his tracks. His glance fell on an upside-down placard by his wife’s foot.

  ‘Apna khana khud garam karo,’ it read in roman Urdu. Premji felt heat rising to his face and, if he could, he would have emitted smoke from his ears, so inflamed was he by the sight.

  ‘What is the meaning of all this?’ he thundered, making Buddhi fall off the chair in surprise. Her orange and parrot-green nightdress fluttered nervously as she scampered to her feet.

  ‘What, what?’ she squawked, flapping her arms about. Her eyes darted from side to side like a sparrow that had fallen out its nest. ‘What happened?’ she said, with the disorientation of someone who had just risen from deep slumber.

  Feeling vindicated, Premji marched royally up to the placard and, with the sigh of a martyr going to his grave, said, ‘This. What is this?’

  ‘Oh this!’ Buddhi let out a high-pitched cackle.

  ‘Yes, yes, this!’ Premji repeated, his smug expression replaced with a pained one. Warming his food himself was a preposterous suggestion. As if he didn’t do enough work in office, he was now expected to work at home too!

  ‘This is Hannah’s.’

  ‘Hannah’s?’ Premji’s frown deepened.

  Hannah was the daughter of their Parsi friends who had migrated to Canada. She had moved in with them as a paying guest while she waited for her paperwork to come through before she joined her family. She taught gender studies at a local college and in between she filled her time by doing little marches and protests that Premji had noticed she called feminism.

  All those marches and protests are fine, he thought, as long as she’s helping the poor oppressed Muslim women. But why in God’s name, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, is she bringing these provocative signs into a Parsi household?

  He decided to ask Buddhi, bracing himself for anything but a straight answer.

  ‘What for?’ Premji enquired in his sing-song tone, his voice losing some of its edge as he saw Buddhi picking up the novel again.

  ‘I asked what the sign is for.’

  Buddhi reluctantly tore her gaze away from the paperback and said, ‘Arrey baba, it’s for protesting, what else!’

  ‘But what are you protesting?’ Premji hollered, his face taking on a strange red hue as if his breath supply had been cut off at the neck.

  Slowly, deliberately, Buddhi put down her book. Then she turned to face Premji with the patience of one addressing a mentally challenged patient: ‘The sign is to use in the Aurat march.’

  Letting out a loud sigh, she returned to her novel. But before she could open it, Premji slammed his hand against his forehead and said, ‘All I am asking is what does this sign have to do with any protest and why is it in my house?’

  This time, Buddhi turned her whole body to face him. She put down her book, smoothed the folds of her nightdress and touched up the loose hair escaping her bun. Then, getting up with some difficulty, she came and stood close to Premji. When the tips of their noses were millimetres apart, she screamed, ‘So grumpy old men heat their own food when they can see their women are busy reading!’

  Premji felt as if a strong wind was trying to knock him down and it took all his might to stay standing. He could sense her mood darkening, and knew from experience it was not worth it.

  ‘Acha, okay, okay,’ he said with an air of dismissal. ‘Anyway, all this happens in Muslim households, no? Our community is very enlightened. Men and women all eq
ual. Not for us all this nonsense.’ He sat down and peeled his socks inches from Buddhi’s scrunched-up nose.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked, throwing them on the floor.

  Buddhi stared at him, hard.

  Once Buddhi had heated his food and slammed it down in front of him, she settled in with the book again. Till now, Premji had been immersed in the 9 o’clock news. Now he suddenly noticed her presence.

  ‘Are you not watching the Kamran Khan show?’ he asked, looking at her curiously as she swung her good leg over the sofa’s arm and began reading.

  ‘What’s there to watch?’ Buddhi snorted without looking up from her book. ‘Same doom and gloom, stale breaking news, this political scandal or that. If you ask me, all these talk shows are gossip shows. I’d much rather read my book.’

  Now this was highly unusual. Premji couldn’t help but peer closely at his wife. Is she sick? he wondered. No, he decided, just preoccupied. But what was this book that had engrossed her so completely, he wondered. He and Buddhi watched at least three talk shows in a row every night. It had to be something extremely interesting to draw her away from these current affairs programmes where they both joined in the bashing of the Sharif family.

  Scratching his chin, he glanced at the cover of the book she was reading. It was not even in colour! What kind of a book had a black-and-white cover, like an old film? Now Premji was intrigued.

  He turned the TV to mute and cleared his throat, ‘You have eaten?’

  Buddhi grunted.

  Premji stared at the dirty dishes in front of him, wondering if he would have to clear up after himself.

  ‘That damned book,’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘What?’ Buddhi raised an eyebrow without looking up from the page.

  ‘Nothing. I was just asking where you got the book from.’

  ‘It’s Hannah’s.’

  A silent alarm went off in Premji’s head.

  Clearing his throat some more, he said, ‘And what is it about?’

  ‘You won’t understand,’ came the response.

  Now Premji was offended.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he roared. ‘BA Honours I have from Karachi University and you tell me I would not understand a paperback? I have read Tolstoy, Chekhov, Shakespeare! What the bloody do you mean? How complex can it be? What is this book that is so un-understandable, huh?’

  ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’

  ‘It’s a colouring book?’

  ‘No,’ Buddhi said slowly, keeping the book down again. ‘It’s about a Mr Grey and a girl.’

  ‘And what is so complex about that?’

  ‘Well,’ Buddhi dropped her voice, ‘he does things to her.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ he asked, a hint of excitement apparent in his voice.

  ‘Bad things.’

  ‘What?’ Premji blinked.

  ‘Very bad things. He ties her up, he spanks her, he…’

  ‘Tauba!’ Premji exclaimed in the Islamic way, then quickly added, ‘Ahura Mazda.’ Getting up from his chair, he cried, ‘What kind of trash are you reading, Buddhi? I’m telling you, I won’t have this kind of nonsense in my house. You know how I feel about—’

  ‘Arrey, no,’ Buddhi pushed him back into his chair. ‘She likes it. She likes it when he ties her up or blindfolds her with his tie before tickling her privates with a feather and …’ the more Buddhi described the scenes from the book, the deeper Premji’s disbelief grew.

  For a good few seconds, Premji was shocked into silence. He was not sure if he was more surprised that such a book had been written in the English language or that his wife was reading it. And that too so casually while he sat eating, under Kamran Khan’s watchful eyes.

  Feeling as if the TV were watching him rather than the other way around, the first thing he did was to scramble for the remote. He clicked off the TV, sending Kamran Khan’s wordless face into a spiral of darkness. Then he turned to the breaking news in his own household.

  ‘But, Buddhi, but,’ he spluttered and stammered, ‘you … should you be reading this kind of thing? I mean at your age … I…’

  He nearly fell off his chair when he heard what Buddhi said next. She looked squarely at his face, and with slow deliberate words, and a ferocious batting of lashes, said, ‘Oh Premji, I’m not that old.’

  Barely had he recovered from the shock when she added, ‘And neither are you.’

  Premji swallowed. This could only mean one thing. But it had been so long … should he … could he?

  As if to answer his doubts, Buddhi flicked her hair, the way she used to when they were newly married. And then a sudden gust of wind made her blink, making Premji freeze and wonder if she had winked at him. That was it. He got up so abruptly that he knocked back his favourite chair.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ he said gruffly. ‘Put away the food. And get my constipation medicine out.’

  And then, as if it was a premonition, a second gust of wind knocked the placard onto his feet.

  ‘Ahh!’ he hopped on one foot, screaming in pain. ‘That … that silly Hannah! Get up, get up right now. Throw that sign out of the house, trash that trashy novel. And … and …’ his face went from red to purple as he searched for some fault to pick, ‘and close that bloody window!’

  Buddhi stared after him with a stoic gaze. Slowly, she pulled her hair back into her usual untidy bun and, pressing her arthritic knee with her palm, she got up. She tossed the book onto the chair with a kind of force. Then, as if overcome with guilt, she picked it up again.

  ‘I’m only fifty, after all,’ she told herself. ‘Even Rekha is older than me.’ Then, humming ‘In ankhon ki masti’ to herself, she picked up his dirty plate and started hobbling to the kitchen, her stiff knee making the progress slow and painful.

  ‘Are you tidying up or trying to do the catwalk?’ Premji called out bitterly.

  Buddhi hummed even louder.

  ‘You are not a heroine in some film, you know,’ he said, then in the same breath he shouted, ‘Where is the soap? Why is there no soap in the bathroom?’

  Buddhi stopped humming and shouted back, ‘Then go use Hannah’s bathroom. Unlike us, she has enough money to buy soap, at least!’

  Suitably chastised, Premji made his way to his lodger’s room, tail tucked firmly between his legs.

  Buddhi went back to her humming as she washed the dishes. That is until an earth-shattering scream sent her heart racing. Leaving the tap on, she rushed to the room as quickly as her painful knee would allow her. But when she reached the room, she saw her husband frozen, his stare fixed unblinkingly on Hannah’s unmade bed.

  ‘What is it?’ she pleaded. ‘Have you turned to stone?’

  When he didn’t answer, she asked, ‘Did you spot a cockroach?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘A rat?’

  Again, he shook his head in silence.

  ‘A ghost?’

  ‘Worse,’ he shuddered.

  As if the bones in his body had melted, he sat down heavily on the mattress.

  His face was ashen as he looked up and said, ‘Ya Khudai, what is happening to our younger generation?’ He shook his head and flung his hands above his head. ‘Buddhi, I was on my way to the toilet when my eyes fell on her bed and … and … you know what I saw in the covers? You know?’

  He waited expectantly for her to ask what, but when she denied him the pleasure, he went on anyway. ‘Arrey, Buddhi, I saw … I saw …’ he paused, wondering if he should indeed expose Buddhi to such a thing. He suddenly felt protective towards his fifty-year-old wife who knew so little about the big bad world.

  As if making the decision for him, she said, ‘Acha, now whatever it was, it’s gone. Now get up.’

  And then, before he could say ‘stop’, Buddhi yanked the bedspread straight.

  ‘No!’ Premji yelled, but it was too late. The thing fell on the floor with a thud and began vibrating.

  Red-faced, he looked away and mumbled, ‘Ya K
hudai, I didn’t want you to know, but oh, this new generation … oh Buddhi!’

  Buddhi looked at the long, narrow, tube-like rubber instrument writhing on the floor and, with some difficulty, bent over to scoop it up.

  ‘Oh, this little thing!’ she exclaimed with a chuckle.

  Premji felt the world shake just a little. ‘You,’ he stared incredulously at her, ‘you know what this is?’

  Now it was Buddhi’s turn to look surprised. ‘Why? You don’t know?’ she asked.

  He flared at this. She might as well have accused him of being impotent.

  ‘Of course, I am knowing,’ he shouted.

  Buddhi, sensing the downward turn the conversation was taking, pressed a button on the offending piece of rubber and switched it off. Then she looked up, a mischievous glint in her eyes. ‘You know I often borrow it to massage my neck. It is very good for relaxing myself.’

  Premji felt as if nothing in this world would ever surprise him again. But, just as quickly, his disbelief was replaced by an angry panic.

  ‘Buddhi, how could you!’

  ‘Oh, I’ll show you how,’ she said, the calm of her voice in direct opposition to the panic in his.

  He opened his mouth to stop her, but it was too late. She had turned it on and, as the instrument slithered, buzzing and vibrating in her hands, she raised it slowly towards her neck and rolled it up and down.

  ‘Ahhh,’ she moaned, ‘this is the best neck massager I have ever come across. Not even our old maalish-wali’s hands can do the magic this little fellow can.’

  Premji felt himself shudder at the term ‘little fellow’, but felt relief flooding his being at the realization that his innocent old Buddhi didn’t know what this thing was really meant for. He felt slightly heroic, as if he had saved her from a great evil.

  ‘Here,’ she said, breaking into his thoughts.

  She held it up as if it were a prize and, for a second, Premji wondered if this was a proposition. Was it a way to bridge what they were both feeling but could not voice, for they simply did not know if what they were feeling was desire or sheer fear?