The wedding was a good month away, and yet preparations had begun for it already.
“Bibi, look at these marigolds, you won’t find better in all Karachi—
“Oh, Mrs. Shamsi, name the color and it is yours, however you look stunning in this one right here, and it’s bringing an…an indescribable glow—
“A waterproof tent? That certainly will require more rupees,”
Flower vendors, food caterers, venue organizers—the list simply went on, the gates were left open as these people and alike bustled in and out, day and night.
Why Amirah, one of the many daughters of a wealthy businessman, wanted to marry in a bungalow in sultry Pakistan when she had glamorous London at the tip of her fingers, was beyond Zara.
She did not understand Amirah. She was very ahead of Pakistan, so far away from it, and without any second thoughts, she had chosen it as the place for possibly the biggest day of her life. Unlike Amirah, Zara could only dream of places far and beyond the borders of Karachi, Pakistan. The world far and beyond the sweeping bungalow, which seemed to get smaller and smaller the more she knew of it with each passing day. No doubt, the bungalow was certainly remarkable; with its impressive pair of wrought iron gates. A tall, sturdy wall enveloped the building, with thick green vines that clung to its creamy exterior. Upon entering, the foyer stretched to a soaring staircase twirling up to the second floor, which branched off into many bedrooms, each one roomier than the next.
Zara loved the way the stifling, humid afternoon slowly turned into a cool, breezy evening. She loved the way a single giant palm tree swayed in front of the bungalow’s wide terrace as if welcoming and bidding farewell to the many guests coming and going through the wide gates, or how the Shamsi family gathered on the lawn as the sun slowly set behind them, while they sat back in roomy lawn chairs enjoying tea. A pack of children often giggled and ran around the grass enjoying a game of kabbadi, keeping the place alive and careless of the time flying by. Or the way Danya, the bungalow’s head cook moved feverishly throughout the kitchen from morning to night, her plastic flip flops slapping against the shiny stone floor.
But none of this was hers.
Though Zara spent most her days and nights inside the bungalow, she had no business of calling it home. Her home was a grimy flat she shared with her parents. It had a single, lumpy mattress that Zara and her mother slept on, or rather tried to as they spent most of their nights tossing and turning, often left facing each other and finding each other’s wide open eyes. Her father had grown accustomed to spreading a thick sheet onto the floor after a day’s work, he’d sprawl down, too exhausted to complain. Zara and her mother would often catch him snoring peacefully, only to listen to his routine complaints of a searing pain in his back and neck the next morning, “One day he’d wake up with no backbones,” Zara’s mother would say.
Unlike the magnificent chandelier dangling inside the bungalow, a single fluorescent light tube clung to one of the walls in the flat. There was a small stove that took most of the room in the so-called ‘kitchen’. A tiny, cheap cooler lay next to it that Zara’s father had bought. A couple mismatched utensils, several pots and pans with missing handles and burnt surfaces were stored in a single cupboard over the stove. There was hardly ever any water coming through the sinks, and Zara would regularly bring water and leftovers from the Shamsis. The three of them would sit on the rackety wooden table to eat and drink, atop three wooden chairs that creaked with their weight.
But beside all this, Zara’s father was a grateful man, “Too grateful for his own good,” Zara’s mother would snicker. He was a man contented with what he and his family had, “Allah has given us much to be thankful for, mashAllah” He’d say, “He gave us the Shamsis,”
“Our family has served the Shamsis for as long as I can remember,” he’d say this as if it were a very grand accomplishment. When he was a young boy, he would go to the Shamsis bungalow and tend to their wide garden of bright flowers and small trees, pregnant with berries and fruit. He’d do the chores he was ordered perfectly, leaving Abdul Shamsi’s white Honda spotless. Abdul Shamsi had been so pleased with his servant that he had found him a good wife and had given him a place to call home, even if it had been just a dingy flat.
“I never wanted your father to work for that Shamsi,” Zara’s mother, Farida, would scowl to her. “I wanted him to do something on his own. I knew he was capable of it. Besides, if I hadn’t been forced by my father to marry him, I would be with a man who would have realized it,” Every time this came up, she would knead the dough a little harder, she’d toss the rice in the air a bit more forcefully, spilling some around. She would teach Zara the little she knew, one of them being sewing. When Zara would return after a long day of chores at the Shamsis, Farida would be sitting inside the flat. The fluorescent light making her look ghostly. She’d pat the spot next to her and Zara would skid down next to her mother. After watching her mother’s hands working through the fabric, the shiny silver of the needle poking back and forth, she too would hold the needle in her hand, and she too would make a stitch here, a stitch there.
“Who taught you to sew, mama?” said Zara one evening, impressed by how fluently her mother’s hands worked.
She smiled, “Just like you have a Farida in your life, I had one too,”
“Nani jaan taught you? She was obviously very good,”
“She was,” Farida sighed, “There’s not much a woman can do here, Zara”
Halfheartedly, Zara nodded in agreement.
Her mother was mumbling something, bending over the piece of fabric, “…women like us, best we can do is to find something one of us already knows, pass it along, hope to keep the chain going,” She brought a piece of thread to her lips and licked the tip, passing it through the needle’s hole, “Only doing my job,”
“You’re doing a very good job, mama, did you see that new shalwar kameez I made?” Zara could see her mother was tired, the light gone out of her watery brown eyes. Zara was trying very hard to bring that light back.
Farida beamed, “I did, and it was beautiful,” she paused, “one day you can open your very own boutique…make clothes of your own…name it after someone special…”
Just the thought of it made Zara giddy, “I’d like that very much,”
“Like what?” Zara’s father had just appeared after a long day at Bata shoes, the hinges of the door creaked as it slowly shut.
“Your daughter would like to own a boutique one day,” said Farida proudly.
Azim frowned. “There will be no such thing,”
“Why not? You want her to rot like the rest of us?” Her voice rose, bouncing off the shed’s thin walls.
“Don’t you dare say such things, you evil, ungrateful woman. What would Abdul—
“Oh, Azim miya, you are Abdul’s little stooge. Abdul this…Abdul that. I am tired of it.”
“Abdul, has given us everything we’ve needed, and yet you hold strange grudges against him, Farida. He’s found me work and this place. He gives Zara work in his home, as he knows it’s the only place I will ever allow her to go. He’s even promised me he will find Zara a suitable boy to marry once she is of age, now what man does all this for a servant?”
“He has certainly found us a palace, don’t you say so?” Farida snorted, “He bribed my father in order for him to give me to you. I will admire no such man. I had dreams for us, Azim. I had dreams of us getting ahead and stepping on our own feet,”
“You are like a broken tape record Farida, repeating the same rubbish over and over again,” He spat, and with that, he stormed out of the shed.
Fat beads of tears formed in Farida’s eyes, she hastily wiped them away. After a long, awkward silence, “You know Zara, when I first married that bloke, I had no idea that he had been—a, a servant,” She said. Zara could hear the loath in her voice, “when I came to Karachi for the first time, I was shocked. I don’t think my father ever knew this about him. I think that Shamsi wamsi told my father that he had a good, stable job, Bas. That was enough for my father. His servitude was kept a secret, but it’s me that has to live with it,” Zara listened to her mother quietly, feeling a mixture of pity and sympathy for her mother.
“Listen to me, Zara,” She let the fabric slip from her fingers.
Zara looked up at her mother’s blotchy face.
“Promise me, you will not end up like me, or worse, promise me that,”
“I promise, ma,”
“That idiot Abdul doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of us. He can provide for us so much more, and yet he provides very little. Your father is blind to it all. He has devoted almost all his life to that man, and this is his repayment,” She gave the flat a long, sweeping look, “He has lost both ways,”
“Yes, mama,”
“You’re a beautiful girl, Zara, you have fair skin and the striking features of my mother, mashAllah. All that good-for-nothing Abdul will do is find some sick, old man. As for your father? Your father will happily hand you over,” She grimaced, “He will be blind to it all and see it as nothing but a favor from Shamsi,”
“One last thing,” She picked up the fabric, her fingers searching for the needle, “It is better to marry a poor, hardworking man than it is to marry a blind coward ready to lick another man’s feet, remember that,” She wagged her finger.
“Always,”
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