Saba lay awake in her room hoping that her dad might knock and tell her that everything was okay. She could hear him arguing with her mother but it didn’t last long. Soon, the house was silent and her room echoed with time ticking away. The fluorescent stars on her ceiling reminded her to hold onto herself in times when she couldn’t see the light.
Her mind kept running in circles over the events of the evening. She had stopped journaling a long time ago for she had been caught too many times and her thoughts were better safe inside her rather than put on display for a shame game on a Sunday evening at the dinner table. What did she do this time? This question kept surfacing again and again which was another reason why she had been awake at two in the morning.
Mornings were now a thing Saba dreaded. Instead of imbuing her with encouragement to chase her dreams, they leeched her of ambition and self-worth. She was hardly getting enough sleep. The prospect of wasting a scholarship kept her wide awake at night and the fear of losing it made her restless. She had worked hard and it had finally paid off. But the final boss battle was something she had never thought about: her family standing in her way
‘Dad, did you, um, talk to mum?’ Saba asked her father two days later as she sat down to eat breakfast.
‘What’s out there that you can’t study here?’ her father asked.
‘Of all the people,’ she said and her voice started to break into a cough as her father looked at her. ‘I thought you would be happy for me.’
‘I am! I just can’t explain how much proud I feel for having a daughter like you,’ her father beamed as the sun eclipsed his face into the background.
‘A daughter you wouldn’t trust to be responsible on her own,’ she said in a low voice, still looking down at her bowl of cereal.
‘I trust you, Saba.’
‘But not enough to let me take the scholarship?’
‘It’s not about that! This is a tough decision -‘
‘About my future, baba! And I have worked all these years for it.’
‘We want what’s best for you, beyta’ her father tried to explain.
‘And getting a free education isn’t in my best interests?’ Saba looked at her father with eyes that were turning a light shade of red.
‘Girls are not supposed to go out and live on their own. You don’t know how twisted this world is,’ her mother chimed in as if taking to a wall. She then glided towards the stove, ignoring her presence and continue to cook an egg while she hummed on a tune from Waheed Murad’s film.
‘I gotta go,’ Saba said as she left the table without taking the need to explain the day’s schedule to her mother. Exhausted, she left the house with a polite ‘I’ll be back by sunset.’
She had no energy left to try and win the battle on her own. She wasn’t the enemy here. It was the entire patriarchal society and like most Pakistani parents, hers couldn’t see the fault in their judgement either.
Three days later
Today was just like any other day, except that Saba was woken up by her brother.
‘Baji, hurry, they’re all waiting for you!’
Startled by the loud murmur of the voices downstairs, she dashed into the bathroom, splashed water onto her face and hurried downstairs. She walked into the living room, a green dupatta thrown over her head and found it occupied by her parents and a guest that made her smile bashfully.
‘There she is, the future of anthropology!’ Professor Ahmad, said as he raised her hand to pat Saba’s head.
Professor Ahmad was the Chair of the Department of Applied Sciences and her mentor. He had also been her thesis supervisor last term and she would often call him her surrogate father.
‘What a surprise, sir!’ Saba bowed a bit and went to sit beside her mother and father.
‘Had a good sleep?’ Her dad asked as he handed her a teacup.
‘Ji, baba,’ she said softly feeling the air around her getting thicker.
‘I couldn’t sleep at all if you ask me,’ Saba’s mother said. ‘How could a mother sleep knowing that her daughter wants to go and live alone in another country!’
Saba caught a glance of her father with his eyebrows raised in a here-we-go-again manner.
‘Students, live in hostels all the time, bhabi,’ Professor Ahmad said.
‘Not girls from eastern families. All sorts of things happen at hostels these days, the news is full of that stuff. I wouldn’t put my daughter through that mess.’
Professor Ahmed gave Saba a defeated look and turned towards her father.
‘Well, in the end, you are her parents. And of course, you’d want the best for your daughter.
‘I, on the other hand, would request you as a friend, to send her for the year and see if things work out. She’s a gifted one in both arts and sciences. A girl with brains like her will always be an asset to her family.’
‘She’s turning twenty-four and she needs to get married, not another degree. People talk all the time and I feel ashamed to use academics as an excuse!’ her mother replied.
The rest of the things that were said after that moment held no meaning to Saba. She had excused herself from the scene explaining how urgent it was to attend a meeting at the office that she was running late from. Of course, the meeting only ever happened inside her own head. She couldn’t understand why her family was unable to see beyond the horizons of their inbred beliefs.
Her mother and father were highly educated individuals. Both of them were her role models in pursuit of her goals. Her father has pushed her to excel. Her mother had always told her that she was the best daughter anyone could have hoped for. Why would all of their love and pride end at a thing as petty as marriage?
Every time her mother brought up the subject of matrimony, Saba felt more isolated from her than ever. Constant comparisons of other girls in her family over how good their married life was pushing her to the edge every day and she struggled to maintain control of her temper in front of her parents and siblings.
Too often, she would pen up a poem or doodle on the blank spaces of the telephone diary. Sometimes, she would paint a picture or sketch a friend’s face as an attempt to get back at the society that was trying to steal her dreams. But it wasn’t enough.
People talk all the time!
Indeed they do, reassured the thoughts inside her head. In fact, that is the only thing they ever do.
The fear of words flowing from a man’s mouth about their reputation had ruined countless lives. Lives of talented people that more so often, happen to have breasts. The same thought had stopped girls in their tracks from pursuing their ambition, clipped their wings and forced them into invisible chains of slavery, just to feed the male ego.
But she had decided she was not going to be another victim. . .
. . . [4/4]
-> Next ‘Chapter 2’
It’s been a wonderful year writing here and I’m really honoured that many of brilliant writers connected with me and shared their insight and critiqued into my writing. I feel so blessed when I see a huge shift in my writing style. When I decide to read the first book that I ever wrote, I felt that a six grader could have written better than me.
wasn’t. We only had a few hours and the sun was racing against the horizon. Too soon, it was dusk and the moon was shining like a white orb on a starless night. I worried if I was stealing time from his family, but I was afraid of never seeing him again, something that was inevitable, something that I never wanted to happen. We sat down in the parking lot as I built up the courage inside me and looked at him. He was waiting for an answer.
Unwritten 