The Holy Woman (18 page)

Ruby maintained her distance from Zarri Bano for the next few days. It was made easier for her by the number of guests present and the so-called ‘religious women’ who came to visit her sister, all eager to impart their knowledge of Islam.

Sakina remained like a dark shadow by Zarri Bano’s side, making Ruby jealous at times. Zarri Bano now
appeared to be forever praying, rolling beads from her rosary bead chain and reciting verses from the Holy Quran, visiting local religious schools and holding sisterhood seminars with groups of women.

As far as religion was concerned, Zarri Bano
acknowledged
to herself that she was very ignorant indeed. However, blessed with an agile mind and an academic brain, within two weeks she had not only imbibed the basic knowledge of her faith, but had also progressed to reading scholarly works. Books on Islam now littered every corner of her room.

By the third week a chasm had naturally opened between the two sisters, and both were experiencing a reluctance to have a heart-to-heart talk. Zarri Bano was succeeding in deliberately suppressing memories relating to her past, and Ruby, her beloved sister, was a direct link with her old self. By the time a month had elapsed, Ruby sadly accepted that she had indeed lost her sister to her faith.

It was true. Zarri Bano had now become a
fully-fledged
Holy Woman. She never did anything
half-heartedly
.

P
ROFESSOR
N
IGHAT
S
ULTANA
thankfully left her room on the campus at Karachi University. With aching legs and her briefcase bulging with assignments to mark, she wasn’t looking forward to the Friday holiday.

The telephone rang in her study just as she reached her bungalow.

‘It’s for you, Mother. It is Aunty Zeenat,’ her daughter shouted from the study.

‘Thank you, dear. I’ll take it,’ Nighat told her daughter. ‘See if the table is set. I am starving. I also have a splitting headache. The tutorials never seemed to end today.’ She sat down on the leather-backed chair at her desk. Taking the receiver in her hand she began to talk to her best friend.

Rucksana left her mother alone and went to the
dining
room, where she saw that the table had been set for their meal by their woman helper.

Five minutes later, Nighat came into the dining room. Rucksana stood up and, out of respect, held the chair for her mother to sit down. The worry lines were very prominent on Nighat’s forehead. Since she had been widowed, seven years ago, they had become a permanent fixture.

‘Is everything all right?’ Rucksana asked, leaning over the table to fill her mother’s plate first.

‘Yes, dear. You eat, I am not so hungry,’ she replied and went into the drawing room to sit down on the sofa.

‘You said you were starving, a moment ago!’ her daughter called out to her.

Nighat began to massage the tension away from her forehead. It was like a weight of lead.

‘Mother, what is wrong?’ Rucksana asked in concern, following her into the drawing room.

‘Nothing. You go and eat. I’ll join you later.’

‘Not until you eat as well. I know that you are extremely tired and hungry.’

‘I have lost my appetite, my darling. I am just so angry!’

‘Why?’

‘Something has happened to one of our APWA
women members – one of my old students, called Zarri Bano. She has written a number of articles on our behalf in the magazine she founded. According to Zeenat, she has become some sort of a Holy Woman. Rucksana, I cannot believe it of her. What has happened? Is it a sensational rumour, has it really taken place? Zeenat says that it is something to do with her family’s ancient traditions and her only brother’s recent death in a horse-riding accident.’

‘Mother, what is a Holy Woman?’ Rucksana felt confused. She had never heard the term before.

‘I’m not sure, my dear. Zeenat says that she has become sort of a recluse, and lives in isolation, away from menfolk. She goes around everywhere in a black
burqa
. And the most scandalous part of all this is that she can never marry anyone – ever! Zarri Bano was one of my most brilliant students,’ Nighat said wistfully. ‘She had everything going for her – intelligence,
personality,
beauty, and a wealthy family behind her. Most importantly, she has campaigned strongly for women’s rights. If this has happened to such a strong member, then we are all lost. Our cause, our aspirations, our wishes – everything, Rucksana!’

‘Don’t fret, Mother. Why don’t you talk to this Zarri Bano, or visit her? It might not even be true,’ her daughter suggested helpfully, holding her mother’s hands in hers to give her comfort.

‘I definitely intend to talk to her,’ Nighat replied, the preoccupied look still in her eyes.

‘Good! Now let’s eat. I am ravenous,’ said Rucksana, pulling her mother with her into the dining room.

Sitting in her seat, Nighat toyed with her food. Her thoughts remained firmly with Zarri Bano all that evening, the assignments to be marked now totally
forgotten. At night-time, she lay awake, her mind ablaze with strange images, molten anger racing through her body. Anger at Zarri Bano, at what she had done, at her family and above all at the Pakistani women’s ineffectuality in the face of overwhelming patriarchal power.

On Friday afternoon, a week later, Nighat left her home in Karachi and went to visit Zarri Bano at Tanda Adam. As she drove along the dry, dust-covered Sindi roads, her mind dwelt on what she was going to say.

When she reached the family residence it appeared to be alive with people. A group of men with thick dark moustaches and long black jackets were coming out of the courtyard when Nighat parked her car in the drive. She could hear the laughter of adults and children from the rear courtyard.

An old male helper led her into the drawing room, informing her that Zarri Bano had gone out on a visit with her special friend and spiritual guide, Sakina. Nighat waited patiently, helping herself to
refreshments
served by Fatima. On learning that Nighat was a university professor, Fatima couldn’t help talking proudly about her own daughter Firdaus, ‘the Deputy Headmistress’.

A few minutes later, when Zarri Bano entered the drawing room, Nighat blinked in shock. The
dark-cloaked
vision assaulted her senses; a feeling of outrage sped up her spine. The urge to rip the garment from Zarri Bano’s body gripped her. Her eyes crying
disbelief,
her lips moved to greet her ex-pupil but the words had simply fled.

Painfully aware of the reaction she had aroused in her old Professor, Zarri Bano read the negative expressions
on Nighat’s face. They gave her an insight into what people like Nighat, in her station of life, thought of her becoming a Holy Woman.

‘
Assalam-Alaikum
, Professor Nighat. What a
pleasure
to have you here,’ Zarri Bano greeted her tutor warmly.

‘
Wa Laikum-Salam
, Zarri Bano. How are you? I heard about you from my friend Zeenat.’ Nighat at last found her voice, but the smile still eluded her.

‘Thank you for coming to visit me. As you can see, I am fine. How is your daughter Rucksana?’

‘She is well, Zarri Bano.’ Nighat’s eyes dropped awkwardly from her former student’s.
It is all true
, her mind thundered.
Zarri Bano has gone through with it.

The young woman waited with resignation for Professor Nighat to explode. She was, therefore, taken aback by her one, softly spoken word.

‘Why?’

Zarri Bano didn’t know how to begin. She appealed in her quiet, dignified voice. ‘I had to, Sister Nighat. Believe me.’

‘You
had
to?’ Nighat’s voice rasped with raw
emotion
. ‘Of anybody else I would have expected that reply, but not from you. You said that women held their destinies in their hands. What a travesty! You have betrayed and let down a whole generation of us Pakistani women. If it has happened to a mature university-educated woman – a feminist at that, an extrovert, a modern woman – then Allah help a young, uneducated woman in the backwoods of rural Pakistan, who is at the beck and call, and at the mercy and whims of her menfolk. Zarri Bano, I feel so angry, so impotent. All our years of work down the drain. Why, Zarri Bano?
Why?
’

Zarri Bano had listened silently to her friend’s
outburst
.

‘You ask why, Sister Nighat. I will tell you. I owe you an explanation for you are my friend, my tutor and my role model. I woke up one morning, Sister Nighat, to find my identity stripped off me and learned that somebody else, my father, held it in his hands and that
he
was going to shape it for me. I woke up to find that books, feminism, campaigns and education are all
utterly useless
against the patriarchal tyranny of our feudal landlords. Stupidly I had convinced myself that as an educated, urban, upperclass woman, I was
different
from those “poor” women, lower down the strata of our society, who had to do as they were told.

‘I found out, however, that in the end we are all in the same
pingra
– a birdcage to which our fathers and elders hold the key. My heart continues to ache for the quivering seventeen-year-old whose fate is decided and she is told to marry such and such a man. Our faith explicitly says that a woman must decide for herself. Moral and psychological pressure, however, is placed on her to accept male family members’ decisions. Well, I wasn’t even offered that choice, my friend. Marriage was forcefully denied me by my father. He said that I could never marry anybody!’ Zarri Bano took in a heaving emotional breath.

‘What?’ Nighat looked disbelievingly at Zarri Bano.

‘Yes, my father stopped me – psychologically
blackmailed
me – from marrying the man I fell in love with and so wanted to marry.’

‘Oh my God!’

Zarri Bano sadly accepted her friend’s expression of horror. She had laid her soul bare to this woman, and to nobody else. She owed it to her.

‘You have probably heard about our tradition of a Holy Woman and heiress of a clan. Well, when the only male heir dies, in our clan, the inheritance, and
especially
the land, goes to the next female heir. The condition is that she stays and never leaves her paternal home. In effect, she can never marry. To make this more legitimate, our forefathers concocted the notion of a Holy Woman, a
Shahzadi Ibadat.
It is a measure for men like my father of ensuring that the land stays in the family.’ There was a world of bitterness in her voice.

‘You could have refused to become the heiress, and turned down the inheritance if you wanted to marry,’ Nighat persisted.

‘Whether I like it or not, Sister Nighat, I became the heiress. I had to! The land is now like a millstone, a hated talisman around my neck. I have gazed at the acres of our land so many times over this past week, unable to take in the fact that my freedom, identity and womanhood has been bartered for acres of soil. The land that God has generously bestowed on to us, which my family has protected like gold dust over the centuries, means more to them than humanity itself.’ Zarri Bano suddenly stopped short, fearing that she had said and revealed too much. Family loyalty and filial duty were steadfast traits of her character.

‘If you had told me about this Holy Woman farce, I would have helped you,’ Nighat said passionately. ‘This is against our Islam. Our
shariah,
our courts, both secular and Muslim, would have made a case for you against your family.’

‘No, Sister Nighat, you do not understand. Yes, I could have refused. I could have turned to hundreds of people for help, if I had wanted to. It is the
important
“if” Professor Nighat. This is what you have to
understand. I could have married my fiancé,
if
I had wanted to. He said and accused me of the same things as you have done. He too offered me support and refuge, and when I didn’t take him up on it, was astonished and outraged like yourself.

‘Yes, I could have refused my father,
if
I had wanted to. But I didn’t at the end, for the same reason as thousands of other young women in our patriarchal society end up saying “yes”. For our
izzat
’s sake, and our family’s honour, like other women, I became a coward and a victim rolled into one, by suppressing and sacrificing my own needs for the sake of my family. I just couldn’t be the cause of turning my family and tradition upside down.’

‘So you became this.’ Nighat swept a dismissive hand at the black garb Zarri Bano wore.

‘Yes, Sister Nighat, you are right. There is more to say, but I cannot talk about it. It is very personal and painful. All I can say is that women in our society also become prisoners of female modesty. If a father refuses to grant permission for his daughter to marry, how can she actively pursue marriage? She’ll be labelled
besharm,
a wanton.’

‘I am all confused now, Zarri Bano. You are an adult, a mature woman. You do not need your father’s
permission
and you wouldn’t have been labelled as
besharm,
if you had wanted to get married. Our faith, our society, encourages marriage. You wouldn’t have been criticised.’

‘Yes, what you say is true. But in the end, female modesty and my pride imprisoned me into a role of obedience and going along with my father’s wishes. He said something that spoiled it all for me. After that I could never think of marriage again. He achieved his
goal and I can never forgive him for that. I am learning, however, to come to terms with my new self and with my new identity.’

Zarri Bano suddenly stopped and a humourless laugh escaped her lips. ‘Professor Nighat, you can devise a new title for your research and fieldwork for your post-graduate students – based on me … “A feminist turned Holy Woman”.’

‘You will be in seclusion, won’t you – almost like a semi-
purdah.
These are the things we have campaigned against, Zarri Bano. We are still recovering from Zia AlHaq’s policies and their negative influence on women’s lives. We have worked to get women out of their homes and to stand on their own two feet and have careers. And what have you done? Gone into seclusion yourself.’

Zarri Bano listened patiently to Nighat. ‘No, Sister Nighat, you are mistaken. There will be no seclusion for me in that sense. It is true I won’t have much to do with men, but I will be very much a public figure. I will be out there and everywhere. In fact I am hoping that I will have gained greater freedom than I had hitherto.’

‘In this garb?’ Nighat’s stare was incredulous.

‘Yes, in this garb, Sister.’

‘Zarri Bano, I couldn’t wear a
burqa
or cover myself like that. I would be suffocated.’

‘Yes, Sister Nighat. I too have been suffocated by it. It’s like a black shroud around my body. I had wanted to tear it into shreds, and to burn it on the first day. I learnt to respect it by the third day. I got used to it by the fifth day. Today I am just about comfortable in it. This is not an ordinary veil or
burqa
, but a symbol of my role. As I am getting used to the role, little by little I
am getting used to the
burqa
too. I cannot, however, look at myself in a mirror yet. Nor am I used to the speculative glances I receive from people wherever I go. I have learnt one thing, Sister Nighat. People
physically
and psychologically distance themselves from me now, whenever they see me. Especially the ones I know. My father …’ Her voice died away.