Fiction: Rabiya's dream of becoming a teacher is shattered when she's married off to an older man

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28-04-2025

Her breath, hot inside the veil, has nowhere to go. Perspiration trickles along the sides of her face, crawling down the length of the glass beads of her three-tiered earrings, disappearing into the grooves of her neck, somewhere below the filigreed flowerets of the gold necklace. Beads of sweat form in the creases of her eyelids. A taste of dust fills her mouth. Taking a deep breath, Rabiya flaps the front of the burqa for air as she peers at the bustle on the railway platform.
It is an early morning in May. A dense heat rises from the dry, arid earth and meets the sunlight in a swath of blinding glare. A few wispy clouds hang about droopily in a white sky with promise of neither shade nor rain. Carried on a slow, scorching band of air is a mélange of smells – urine, cigarettes, sweat, freshly cooked roti.
Having begun its journey elsewhere, the train is stopping to pick up passengers from Sahiwal, one of the innumerable cities that crowd the Punjab plains. As always, the railway platform is like a marketplace. Undeterred by the heat, railway passengers and those who have come to see them off, like Rabiya's family, are standing about in small groups, waiting to board the train, waiting to say their final goodbyes. Others, mostly people without reservations, rush about for seats, many clogging the doorways of third-class compartments with families and luggage as they strive to get in. And weaving around and among the sweating, agitated bodies are the noisy snack-vendors and tea-sellers and tired coolies bent under the weight of trunks and bed rolls.
Not quite a full day's bride, travelling with her in-laws and a bridegroom she has yet to see in person, Rabiya is about to begin a journey to Lahore. A new home and a new life await her in that city like a novel she is yet to read. Swaddled in the burqa, her face wet with perspiration, she thinks she will faint if the train doesn't start soon and the window behind her offers a breeze. She shifts uneasily, fidgets with the edges of her burqa, conscious that it doesn't altogether hide from view her red Banarsi shalwar-kameez, nor the matching organza dupatta worked in gold thread, nor her feet, encased in golden sandals, the toes and heels deep orange with henna. Her hands – palms decorated with miniature paisley designs interlocked with dots and lines, the fingers ringed – and her wrists, each full with colourful, jangling glass bangles, are not hidden either.
She tugs at her veil, hoping to get some air. She has never worn a burqa before and does not like wearing it now. That the fabric, black and shining in its newness, is Japanese crepe de chine, very popular these days, the top edged with two-inch wide scalloped nylon lace and the single veil, fine black chiffon, does little to make the covering more agreeable. She remembers well that her grandmother always wore the shuttlecock burqa, usually white cotton with a netted window for the eyes, and which later her mother too wore for a short time before she too opted for the crepe two-piece. More modern and fashionable, it appears to have a special advantage: a strong wayward gust can make the veil fly away from your face, suddenly affording you an unobstructed encounter with the world on the other side.
Earlier this afternoon, while preparing for the trip to Lahore, Rabiya had gasped at the sight of the neatly folded burqa lying on top of the wedding clothes arranged in the small suitcase from her in-laws. Her brother, Faruk, standing nearby, overseeing last-minute details, had observed her expression and had said curtly, 'It's only a burqa, not a suit of armour.'
Tall and bony, his hair already thinning at twenty-seven, a dark bushy moustache sitting atop his lip, the expression on his face serious and severe, he had added with irritation, 'Now don't make a fuss – it's such a small thing.'
She had wanted to say it was not a small thing, but she was leaving soon and didn't want to create a scene.
As little girls, her friend Peena and she often played a game by wrapping themselves in makeshift burqas, acting out the seemingly exotic and seductive fantasy of being a grown woman. Seeing them so taken with the drama of veiling, Hajra Phupi, Rabiya's young aunt, had sewed a burqa for Rabiya's bride doll, which was to be married to Peena's male doll. The petite cape was daintily stitched and hemmed, the borders of the top finished off with the narrowest bit of satin ribbon, and the veil a little swatch of black chiffon.
Rabiya had been excited at first. In its miniature form the burqa was like an artist's handiwork, perfect in its minutest detail. But when she placed the doll inside the burqa, she could not see her fat, white happy face, or her colourful shiny clothes, not even her tiny, fingerless, stubby hands, which had been swallowed up by the sleeves.
For a few minutes Rabiya had stared at the doll in dismay. Then, quietly, despite Peena's protestations, she had pulled off the burqa and hid it in a dusty corner behind her bed. A few days later, she retrieved it from its place of hiding, rolled it into a ball, and threw it into the garbage pail in the kitchen when no one was looking.
When her aunt asked about it, Rabiya avoided her accusatory gaze, and lied.
'Hajra Phupi, it's lost. I've looked everywhere and I can't find it.'
Hajra Phupi had pursed her lips and given Rabiya's head a little tap in mock anger.
Rabiya's father had not insisted she take the veil when she reached puberty. He was a quiet, rational man who had seen injustices meted out to an older sister by her husband – constraints, verbal and physical oppression, cruelties that he could not imagine anyone could impose upon anyone, let alone on his beloved sister. He had finally lost her as she descended into depression. Thus, he had developed an abhorrence for the kind of restraints many men exercise over women, and encouraged his wife to give up the veil. But a burqa habit is hard to kill. While Rabiya's mother had made several brave attempts to take advantage of her husband's liberal views, she had in the end abandoned the idea. Yasmeen, Rabiya's sister-in-law, did not observe the veil either, although her brother would have liked to see his wife in full naqaab and cloaked when she was outside her home, especially in the bazaar among strange men loitering about, as he put it, for the sole purpose of ogling with dishonorable intent at the women.
Sighing, her thoughts in disarray, Rabiya again turns her gaze to the people on the platform. Her brother is chatting with a tall young man, his arm resting deferentially on his shoulder, three other men standing next to them, all of them smoking, engaging in back-slapping humour, seemingly undaunted by the heat or the newness of their circumstances. Searching awkwardly through the darkness of her veil, Rabiya tries to identify the groom, whom she had seen in a small photograph.
The nikah ceremony, short and taking place with Rabiya sequestered with the women, and Kareem, her husband-to-be, sitting among the men, had prevented her from taking a proper look at him. That was to come later, when the two would finally be alone in the privacy of their bedroom in Lahore. At this moment, she can't make him out among the men gathered on the platform around her brother. If earlier he had a garland or some other distinguishing mark setting him apart as a bridegroom, he doesn't have it any more. Everyone is dressed for travelling now. Everyone except her. She is still a bride.