The Holy Woman (9 page)

‘Y
OU ARE
TO
become a Holy Woman, Zarri Bano!’ Habib imperiously informed his daughter.

It was now two weeks since the incident in the
dining
room. In all that time, father and daughter had said very little to each other, systematically avoiding the other’s company.

Sikander and his mother had left to return home. He was due to go to Singapore on business. Sikander and Zarri Bano didn’t have a chance to speak privately, nor for that matter had his mother been able to say
anything
to Zarri Bano’s mother. Shahzada was never quite available to have a private
tête-á-tête
. Thus both mother
and son had left without sorting out anything about Sikander’s engagement to Zarri Bano.

Zarri Bano had noted her father’s almost
antagonistic
attitude towards Sikander. It just didn’t make sense: once her father had begged her to marry
someone
, but now he appeared to be giving his future son-in-law the cold shoulder treatment.

Most of the guests and visitors had departed. Only very close members of the clan remained behind, for the fortieth-day special prayer ceremony
chaleesema
, for Jafar.

Like cowards, Shahzada and Fatima had opted for silence, and kept away from Zarri Bano. Guiltily, they guarded the evil secret, waiting fearfully for Habib to break it to her. And then for the world to explode around them.

In the end, it had taken Habib two weeks to
summon
his daughter to see him. Now, standing in front of him, he could tell that her tall body was like a coiled spring. She had refused to sit down. Standing up, Habib cleared his dry throat. Never before had he found it so hard to speak to his beloved ‘star’. Once they had never stopped talking to one another. Since Jafar’s death, an ocean seemed to have sprung up between them.

‘I think Zarri Bano, my daughter, it is time we had a talk about your future,’ he said heavily, and began to pace around the room.

‘You mean my marriage,’ she ventured boldly,
causing
her father to flinch. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

‘No,’ he said coldly, then decided to grasp the nettle. This was no time for dilly-dallying. ‘Not your
marriage
. Your
future
, Zarri Bano.’ He paused. Then: ‘There will be no marriage for you, my daughter. Instead, there will be a ceremony of a different kind. We have
decided that you should become a Holy Woman, a
Shahzadi Ibadat
.’

Zarri Bano stared blankly at her father. What was he saying? Surely he couldn’t mean it!

‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be a Holy Woman, Father. But you don’t mean it, do you? It is a joke – and a terrible joke at that.’ She looked at him reproachfully.

‘No, my dear daughter, it is no joke. I have never been so serious in my life.’ The ruthless, clinical voice speared through her. ‘You know very well about our tradition, about the male heir dying and the eldest daughter becoming a
Shahzadi Ibadat
. I have no choice. You must try to understand.’

‘No choice? I don’t believe you. There is no way I will become a Holy Woman, Father,’ she warned him. ‘I know what it entails and I am not cut out for that role. As you know I have hardly ever covered my head properly. I know very little about religion. I am very much a worldly woman. I
cannot
become a nun!’

‘You will grow into the role soon enough,’ Habib said implacably.

‘This is madness. Father, you cannot be serious,’ she said steadily. ‘I have accepted Sikander Sahib’s
marriage
proposal. You yourself blessed and encouraged the match. I have decided to marry him. I
want
to marry him!’ She was ashamed of the appeal in her voice and the colour that she knew had rushed into her cheeks.

‘The situation has now changed,’ came that same implacable voice. ‘We have lost your brother. There will be no marriage ceremony for you. I will not grant permission for you to marry this man or any other man, Zarri Bano.
Ever
.’

‘Father, no!’ Zarri Bano stepped away from her father as if he was the devil.

Habib watched the fleeting expressions of disbelief, horror and anger chase over his daughter’s face. He saw her struggle with herself, trying to make sense of his words. Then as the reality of the situation hit her, her face turned deathly white and she stumbled out of the room.

Once in the corridor, she didn’t know which way to turn. A continuous ringing noise roared in her ears and her eyes were blurred with tears. Somehow, she found her bedroom door and, fumbling with the handle, she thrust it open and staggered inside. Her legs gave way and she slid onto the floor in a heap.

This weakness was followed by a merciful blackness. Blissfully unconscious, Zarri Bano lost all sense of time and space. On the wall clock, the seconds and minutes ticked away, while Zarri Bano lay on the cold marble floor and her father paced up and down in his room.

A
N HOUR LATER
Shahzada joined her husband. She found him standing near their bedroom window, as usual gazing down into the courtyard at the flowers in full bloom. She noticed the dejected angle of his head. Without further ado, he obeyed the urge to tell her what he had done. ‘I have spoken to her, Shahzada.’

The tray of food in his wife’s hands shook and she placed it on the dressing table.

‘Wh-Where is she?’ she stammered, her eyes
swelling
with tears.

‘I don’t know.’ He turned to stare out of the window again. ‘She left some time ago,’ he said flatly.

Shahzada walked quietly out of their room. Blindly, she made her way across to Zarri Bano’s room. The door wouldn’t open: something was blocking it. Pushing it further ajar, Shahzada squeezed her head in.

In the semi-darkness of the room Shahzada saw her daughter lying in a heap on the floor, her eyes open but staring blankly into space. Choking back a scream, Shahzada stepped inside the room. At the back of her mind she still remembered that there were a lot of guests in her home and most were prone to eavesdrop.

Squatting down on the marble floor, Shahzada raised her daughter’s head in her arms. Cradling it, she began to rock her gently to and fro. Rivulets of tears trickled down her cheeks.

‘Zarri Bano, speak to me, my child. Are you hurt? Why are you lying on the floor?’

Heaving her daughter up by the shoulders, Shahzada dragged her across the cold floor and managed to lift her onto the bed in the centre of the room. ‘Ruby! Ruby!’ she called out to her younger daughter, down the corridor.

‘What’s wrong?’ Ruby asked, as she came running out of her room. Shahzada didn’t answer but gestured her into Zarri Bano’s room and switched on the bedside lamp.

‘What’s the matter with Zarri Bano, Mother? Why is she staring like that?’ Ruby asked in concern.

‘Go and fetch a glass of water for your sister, she is not well,’ Shahzada told her. ‘I think she has fainted.’

There was no reaction from Zarri Bano as her mother moved around the bed and cradled her head in her lap once again. The girl’s eyes remained open but they
didn’t focus on her mother’s face. She drank the water held up to her lips by a solicitous Ruby, but said nothing.

‘Shall I call Father?’ Ruby asked, panicking. She had never seen her sister like this. It was too frightening, on top of her brother’s death.

‘No, Ruby,’ said Shahzada slowly. ‘It is your father who has done this.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ruby didn’t understand.

‘Your father has just told Zarri Bano that she is to become a
Shahzadi Ibadat
,’ Shahzada whispered. A quiet stillness cloaked the room.

‘Oh my God!’ Ruby gasped. ‘Mother, it cannot be true. Zarri Bano is engaged to be married.’

‘No. There will be no marriage for my beautiful daughter,’ Shahzada said tiredly.

Her faraway voice frightened Ruby more than
hysterics
would have done. ‘But Mother, listen to me! Who says that she has to become a
Shahzadi Ibadat
?’ she asked, pulling sharply at her mother’s arm.

‘It has been decided by your father and grandfather.’ Shahzada recalled the occasion when she was
summoned
to see Siraj Din, and was informed that Zarri Bano was to become a
Bibi
– the Holy Woman. And that she, as her mother, was expected to prepare her for that role. ‘Don’t turn against us in this, Shahzada,’ Siraj Din had warned her in his quiet, semi-menacing tone.

‘I will not let this happen!’ Ruby shuddered. ‘Mother, this is insane. How can Father do this – hide my gorgeous sister behind a black veil?’ She recoiled at the images in her mind. ‘Oh my God. To have my sister enveloped in a
burqa
, covering her from head to toe. Surely it cannot be? I will see my father! He cannot do
this or let it happen.’ She turned to leave but her mother caught hold of her arm and pulled her back.

‘No, stop, Ruby! I have tried to persuade him, but it is no use. How can you succeed where I have failed? From this fate our Zarri Bano can never escape.’ Ruby watched her mother with horror dawning on her face by the second. ‘He has his traditions, his father and all his male relatives to support him,’ Shahzada continued fiercely.

‘But Mother, why are they doing this?’ Ruby was now trembling with fear and rage.

‘Don’t you understand?’ Shahzada’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Don’t you yet know that your sister is to be tied to these rotten fields of sugar cane around our property?’ At this Shahzada broke down.

‘Are you saying that my sister is to be wedded to our
zemin
– she is not allowed to get married,
ever
?’ Ruby gasped. ‘But Zarri Bano doesn’t need our wealth. Sikander can provide well for her.’

‘Ruby, my darling Ruby, listen to me. Zarri Bano is your father’s heiress. She cannot escape from that role, or from her inheritance. The two are forever entwined. It is only by taking on the role of Holy Woman that she can become the legitimate heiress …’ Shahzada stopped, staring wide-eyed at the open door, as Habib’s shadow fell across the floor.

He read the scene in one glance. Ruby’s accusing glare; her mouth half open ready to shout at him, his wife’s restraining pinch on her arm from behind,
stopping
her. Ruby then turned and glared at her mother, Shahzada signalling with her eyes to calm down. ‘So Ruby knows as well.’ Habib came heavily into the room. A tall, stiff figure, he stood by the bed and looked down at his eldest daughter, lying motionless
before him. He felt low. A novel experience, for him to be so estranged from his family.

‘Please, Shahzada and Ruby, will you leave? I wish to be alone with Zarri Bano,’ he requested. Shahzada made no move to leave.

‘Please do as I say!’ he ordered. ‘I am her father. I love her too. Don’t treat me like a leper. Do not usurp or undermine my authority.’

The iron timbre of his voice immediately prompted Shahzada into laying her daughter’s head back on the pillow and pulling an angry Ruby out of the room behind her. Only years of filial duty and respect for parents and elders had prevented Ruby from shouting back at her father and venting her rage openly on him.

Habib watched them leave. Sighing, he turned to look down at his daughter. Zarri Bano was still staring into space. Bending down, he lifted her head and cradled it in the crook of his arm. Almost squatting on the cold marble floor, Habib gently turned Zarri Bano’s face towards him. Smoothing away the curly wisps of hair from behind her ears, he whispered, ‘Look at me, my beloved daughter. Do not shut me out!’

At his firm, quiet tone Zarri Bano’s eyes lifted to his face.

‘Thank you, my beautiful princess.’ He caressed her cheek the way he used to when she was a little girl, and used to fall asleep in his lap. Once she was grown up, propriety dictated that they just talked, or at the most he kissed the top of her head. What he had always wanted to do was to caress her beautiful dimpled cheek, especially when she laughed and smiled teasingly at him. Today he wanted to communicate with her pain, on a level which did away with propriety.

Zarri Bano continued to look at him. All of a sudden
everything came jolting back like a black cloud and she hid her face from him.

Habib stood up, letting his arms fall to his side. No matter how he tried to pretend to himself, the rejection hurt.

‘Forgive me, Zarri Bano, but it won’t be that bad,’ he told her. ‘I have no choice …’

Zarri Bano stared at her father in horror. Habib saw the look of a trapped animal in her eyes.

‘Of course you have a choice!’ she told him. ‘Every human being has a choice! There is nothing in the world that is bound for ever. What you really mean is that you don’t have the choice of whether to give your daughter acres of land or nothing at all. I don’t want your fields, Father! And I don’t want to be your Holy Woman, your
Shahzadi Ibadat.
’ She paused, scanning his face closely for signs of having penetrated his core of human decency.

The implacable expression, the cold, distant eyes only spelt one message to Zarri Bano. She was merely clutching at straws. Her voice sinking in appeal, she burst out anew, ‘I want to be a normal woman, Father, and live a normal life! I want to get married. I am not a very religious person, as you know. I am a
twentieth-century
, modern, educated woman. I am not living in the Mughal period – a pawn in a game of male chess. Don’t you see, Father, I have hardly ever prayed in my life, nor opened the Holy Quran on a regular basis. How can I thus become a Holy Woman? I am not suited to that role. Father, I want—’

‘What you are trying to say is that you want a man in your life,’ he sneered, cutting her short.

Her cheeks crimson with shame and shock, Zarri Bano stared mutely at her father. Then her gaze fell as
embarrassment and a torrent of boiling rage assaulted her body. For the first time in her life, she hated her father as she never thought possible. The sexual
connotations
to his words had shaken her to the core.

‘I didn’t say that I wanted a man!’ She spoke so quietly now that he almost couldn’t hear her. ‘I just want to be normal and lead a normal life, like any other woman.’

‘If you don’t want …’ Habib stopped. One didn’t talk to one’s daughter in this vein or manner. ‘If you don’t want the company of a man,’ he amended, ‘or desire it, then why are you so against becoming a
Shahzadi Ibadat
? As a normal woman, as a wife, you will be tied to one man. That life in no way can
compare
to the
izzat
, the honour and the fame that your new role will bring to you and your family.’

‘The glory? The
izzat
? The fame? I don’t want any of those, Father. Don’t you understand? Please leave me alone!’ Zarri Bano shouted. ‘Am I banging my head against a brick wall?’

Habib stood up and crossed to the door. There he stopped and turned, and with a sinking heart, Zarri Bano read the cold, determined glint in his eyes.

‘You can shout as much as you like, my proud, beloved daughter, but you will do as I say – I know you will. We are two of a kind. You will never let me down, I know, nor our traditions, nor your grandfather. If you cannot abide by my decision, at least think of your grandfather.’ He saw her eyes, shimmering with tears like huge emeralds in her face, but today they had no impact.

Zarri Bano was hit by the first panic attack of her life. Sheer terror engulfed her: her mouth was dry, her breathing laboured.

Her father had set a trap and had captured her neatly, using sexuality as ammunition. The words thundered through her head: ‘
what you want is a man
.’ Zarri Bano physically recoiled, holding her arms against her chest as she recalled her own feelings for Sikander. Yes, she desired him, but her father had cheapened and degraded marriage and what it stood for, insulting both her and the essence of her womanhood, by his underlying insinuation that what she
really
craved was a man’s presence in her life.

Still wrestling with the terrifying sensation of being at the bottom of a dark pit, Zarri Bano recognised
bitterly
that her father had won. For she could never let him or the world know that she wanted and desired Sikander. It was an impossible situation. And there was no way out for her.

Minutes lapsed into hours. The clock remorselessly ticked away in the night. Nobody came to her room. Thoughts fled and dashed through her mind as she gazed up at the high whitewashed ceiling.

‘I cannot let him or my family down,’ she sobbed. ‘He has won! He has psychologically managed to blackmail me.’

She definitely couldn’t look at Sikander ever again. Her father had spoiled it all, tarnishing something so natural, so beautiful, and making it into something sordid. Even mothers didn’t allude to such matters with their daughters, let alone a father. Again Zarri Bano’s cheeks smarted with the heat of shame. Hate for her father burst out anew and inflamed her whole body.

She got off the bed and went to stand in front of the mirror. She stared bleakly at herself. She knew what she had to do.

When Shahzada entered a little later, Zarri Bano was in full control of herself. Her hair, combed and swept away from her face, was tied into a simple knot at the back of her neck. There was a certain calmness in her expression that Shahzada hadn’t glimpsed for days. Shahzada smiled tentatively.

‘Are you all right, my daughter?’ Zarri Bano was sitting on the sofa with a book in her hand. Then she stood up. Shahzada’s sad eyes took in her daughter’s tall, proud figure.

‘Yes, Mother. Today I have grown up. I am not only your daughter or my father’s daughter, I am me! But you and Father have brutally stripped me of my
identity
as a normal woman and instead reduced me to a role of a puppet. I am, he said, to do his bidding. And so I shall.’ The bitterness pierced her mother’s heart. ‘I never knew my father could do this to me. I used to feel sorry for other women, whose menfolk were tyrants. Little did I guess that I was being brought up in the lap of male tyrants myself. My father made me believe that he would “sell the world for me” when in fact he
eventually
decided to “sell” me to his male whim and ancient traditions. What can I do alone, Mother? You have all jailed and numbed me into a commitment, which I will have to go along with – but not willingly, Mother. Never willingly. At this moment in time, I feel nothing but burning hatred for Father. Only time will tell whether he will ever have his old Zarri Bano back.’

Zarri Bano held Shahzada’s gaze steadfastly, noting her surprised expression. ‘Here I stand before you, Mother, my father’s
Shahzadi Ibadat
.’ She spread her hands in a flourish. ‘The Holy Woman. The woman he created by killing me. Did you not know that men are the true creators in our culture, Mother? They mould
our lives and destinies according to their whims and desires. The irony of all ironies, for which I can never forgive myself, is that it has happened to me – a
feminist
, a defender of women’s rights. I have been living in a glass house of make-believe, Mother. Your Sleeping Beauty has been rudely awakened to taste the true world of patriarchal tyranny. Don’t look so sad, I absolve you of any guilt. I know you can’t help me. I do not hold you responsible for anything.’