A Day In The Bazaar

“Meray darzi say aaj meri jang ho gayee, kal choli silayee aaj tang ho gayee,” blared in Hameeda’s ear as a skinny teenager with oily hair and a roving eye, perched precariously on his bicycle, zoomed by, casually touching her backside. He turned his head and grinned lecherously, his yellow stained teeth flashing against his olive brown skin, before disappearing into the bustling crowd of Icchra bazaar on Lahore’s Jail Road.

“Ulloo ka pattha,” Hameeda screamed, brushing past the throng of people to get to him but he had already zoomed off, laughing, not the least bit shamed at teasing a woman his mother’s age. “Rascal, bastard,” she screamed. “Don’t you have a mother or sister at home?” People pushed past her, eyeing her curiously but not stopping to listen to her rant. She pushed her dupatta firmly back on her head with trembling hands, took hold of her little girl, Afifa, by the elbow and furiously started to push her way through the throng of people in the bazaar.

Today was a particularly bad day. Anwar, Hameeda’s sixteen year old son, was in trouble at school again; his Pakistan Studies teacher, who was also Hameeda’s sister-in-law’s friend, had called her at home to tell her that the principal was threatening to kick him out for good. Anwar was often seen teasing one girl or the other outside the government girls’ high school in their area. He hung around waiting for ‘chutti time’ when the girls, covered with large white chaddars, came out of the school, giggling and chatting, pink with the bloom of youth. They stopped by the golay wala who sold them crushed ice covered with sticky sweet red syrup. Anwar and his lanky, awkward gang of pimply-faced teenagers had made it a point to stand around the golay wala’s cart, eyeing the girls, whistling off-tune Hindi film songs, all the while raking their hair with their hands. Anwar was the ringleader. He was better looking than the rest, with skin that was so far free of any marks or pimples, hair that was shiny and straight, naturally highlighted with golden streaks from the sun, and an endearing devil-may-care grin that often let him get away with more than his age warranted. One of girl’s fathers had complained about the gang and since this was the fourth complaint in two months (the first one had been ignored, the second had elicited a warning and the last two beatings by the principal), this time the Principal Sahab had had enough. He had announced in the assembly (which took place every day on the street outside the school because there was never enough room inside to accommodate the 200 plus boys) that he was going to severely punish the boys seen outside the girls’ school. Word had reached Hameeda the very next day that her boy was amongst those who were in danger of being kicked out of school for good.

Hameeda always indulged Anwar, far more than she indulged her twelve-year-old daughter, Afifa, and her twenty-year-old daughter, Nusrat, because Anwar was her lifeline. He was the one who was going to take her out of this lower middle class rut that she had been in all her life. He was the son, you see. He was going to study, become a ‘big officer’, earn good money, buy her a way out of this everyday monotony of middle-class living.

Oh the celebrations there had been when Anwar was born, the mitthai that had been distributed. All the women of the neighborhood and even those of her in-laws had been jealous to see such a beautiful baby, so pink and fair and ripe. Anwar had been born after two miscarriages and his birth was celebrated as if he was a first-born (Nusrat did not count, for she was a girl). In those days Hameeda and her husband Muhammad Mukhtar had been better off than they were nowadays. They had had more land back in the village, and even their modest business in Lahore’s Old City was doing well. They had a house of their own with two bedrooms and a small drawing room and even though the locality of Qainchi Amer Sidhu was crowded and dirty, owning a 10 marla house was a big feat in itself. Ah life had been good then. Hameeda would wake up early, send the husband to work and the children to a nearby private school, and spend the rest of the day gossiping with neighborhood women. The houses were small and close by and Hameeda was popular in her crowd, because she was the funniest, the friendliest and the prettiest. Her sharp, angular features, fair skin, thick straight hair, and doe-like eyes had not aged in those days, even after three children. When she and Mukhtar had got married, people had thumped her groom on the back for finding himself such a beautiful wife, and female relatives had come from the village especially to see the new, fair ‘dulhan’.

Then came the downfall; business became bad, relatives sued each other for whatever land was left in the village, the family moved out of the house into the crowded confines of Icchra market, and Hameeda’s whole life changed. Gone were the days when she could dream of owning a colored TV, sending her children to private school and maybe some day shifting to a better locality like her younger sister, Naseema, who was married to a doctor. Hameeda often thought of what life would have been like if Mukhtar had done well for himself, if Anwar had gone to a private school instead of the government school he currently went to where he often had to sit under a tree for his classes…if, if, if. Hameeda was not a happy woman, and like other such women who see only bleakness in the years ahead, she took all her anger out on her children and husband. Hameeda had lost most of her beauty now. She was thicker around the waist, her hair was thinner, her skin sallow and her eyes…her eyes were like someone had turned a light switch off. They were always angry and dark, and there was a permanent mark between her brows, from scowling constantly.

Today, when Hameeda had learnt of Anwar’s impending expulsion from school, she had cried like she had never cried before. She had wailed and howled. Anwar had caused her nothing but pain. All he did was spend his time lusting after middle-class girls and no amount of ‘pyaar’, ‘daant’ or ‘thappars’ could make him change his ways. She looked at her elder daughter Nusrat and she saw a reflection of her own life. She looked at Afifa and she saw yet another Hameeda. She looked at the defeated old man Mukhtar was now and she saw failure, resentment and anger, but most of all, she saw dejection. The spark had gone out of their marriage a long time back. There were no more chameli kay phool waiting for her every morning, no more secret caresses, no more sweet nothings. Life was one big wheel that went round and round and round. How much is the daal going to cost today, how much is the chaawal going to cost, who will pay Anwar’s tuition fee, who will buy the new Eid clothes for the children? One long list of endless, painful questions, with no answers. Hameeda was sick of life, sick of being let down, sick of being angry, sick of being a poor housewife. Today, she had cried. She had wailed. She had howled. Every drop of resistance and fight had been drained out of her. She no longer dreamed Anwar would be able to give her what his father never could. She no longer dreamed Nusrat and Afifa would marry well and be saved the drag of living like their mother did. She no longer dreamed Mukhtar would somehow find the will to live and start his life over. She had cried long and hard, and with each tear, her dreams had rolled out of her life. And what replaced these dreams was a ball of violent, red-hot anger. Oh she had been an angry woman for a long time, but not like this, not this furiously. She had left the house today, taking little Afifa with her, to buy rice for lunch. She looked the same, with the same dark, troubled eyes and the set expression on her face, but there was lava inside of her. She just needed something to set her off. The young boy bumping into her made her mad, madder than she had ever been, but he escaped on his bicycle, grinning, that little bastard. He had escaped her like everything else had escaped her all her life. She took Afifa by the elbow and she set off in the crowded bazaar, following the path the boy took even though he was lost from her line of vision now.

“Aray, watch it, bibi. Dekh kay chalein,” a middle-aged man called out when she bumped hard into him, not looking where she was going in her pursuit of the rascal who had dared to touch her.

“What did you say?” Hameeda turned around slowly, eyes blazing, mouth quivering.

“I said watch where you’re going, lady. That’s all.” Seeing the mad look in Hameeda’s eyes, the man backed down. “You have a child with you. She could be hurt, you are moving very fast and bumping into everything.” He rubbed his stomach where Hameeda’s elbow had dug into.

Hameeda slowly moved towards the man, holding Afifa by the elbow.

People stopped to stare.

The bazaar was vibrating with the noise of people, far-off music, the clip clop of animal hooves moving through the crowd. But all Hameeda could see was this man, this man who was now the center of her anger. She was not thinking. She was just feeling. Oh God, so much anger, so much rage. She lashed out. She felt the sting of the slap on her hand as it made contact with the man’s cheek. She saw him take a step back, and shout something but she couldn’t hear. She slapped him again. And again. And again. She couldn’t stop. Afifa was crying, she was screaming ‘Amma stop! What are you doing?” The man was shouting, “This woman is crazy”. People were watching silently, mouths hanging open. And Hameeda kept hitting him on the cheek, her bangles caught on his skin, tore it, blood poured. And she couldn’t stop. Oh, it felt good to finally let it all out.