“Meray darzi say aaj meri jang ho gayee, kal kurti silayee aaj tang ho gayee,” blared in Hameeda’s ear as a skinny teenager with oily hair and a roving eye, perched on his bicycle zoomed by casually touching her.
He turned his head and grinned lecherously before disappearing into the bustling crowd of the Icchra Bazaar, Lahore.
“Ulloo ka pattha,” Hameeda screamed, brushing past the throng of people to get hold of him, but he had already sped away, laughing, not the least bit ashamed at teasing a woman of his mother’s age.
“Rascal,” she screamed. “Don’t you have a mother or sister at home?” People pushed past her, eying 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 crowd.
Today was particularly a bad day as her 16-year-old son, Anwar, was in trouble at school again. His Pakistan Studies teacher, who was also a family friend, had called her at home to tell that the principal was threatening to drop out Anwar of the school.
Anwar was often seen teasing school girls of the area, who would, after the school off time, stop by a golay wala, selling 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, eying the girls, whistling off-tune Hindi film songs, all the while raking their hair with their hands.
One of girl’s fathers had complained about the gang and since this was the fourth complaint in two months, this time the school principal had had enough. He had announced in the assembly 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 had always indulged Anwar, far more than she did her 12-year-old daughter, Afifa, and 20-year-old, Nusrat, because he was her lifeline.
He was the one — Hameeda thought — who was going to take her out of the lower middle class, 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 the everyday monotony of middle-class living.
Oh the celebrations when Anwar was born, as there had been two miscarriages before. 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, Mohammed Mukhtar, had been better off than they were nowadays, as a downfall came; business became bad; relatives sued each other for whatever land they had in the village, the family moved into the crowded confines of Icchra Bazaar, and Hameeda’s whole life changed.
Gone were the days when she could dream of owning a colour TV, sending her children to private schools 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.
She had lost most of her beauty now. She was thicker around the waist, her hair thinner, skin with wrinkles and her eyes had lost their sparkle. 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 done before. Anwar had caused her nothing but pain. All he did was spend his time chasing middle-class girls.
She looked at Nusrat and she saw a reflection of her own life. She looked at Afifa and 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.
Life was one big wheel that went round and round. How much is the rice going to cost; who will pay Anwar’s tuition fee; who will buy the 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 and 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 body.
She had cried long and hard, and with each tear her dreams had rolled out of her life. And what replaced them 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, 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 a lava inside 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 had escaped. 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! 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 boy.
“What did you say?” Hameeda turned around.
“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. 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, who was now the centre of her anger.
She was not thinking. She was just feeling. 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. She couldn’t stop.
Afifa was crying and 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 out. And she couldn’t stop.
“Meray darzi say aaj meri jang ho gayee, kal kurti silayee aaj tang ho gayee,” blared in Hameeda’s ear as a skinny teenager with oily hair and a roving eye, perched on his bicycle zoomed by casually touching her.
