Dear Asif

Dear Asif,

I’m alive. It’s been two weeks. 14 days. How have you been? Did you miss me?

You must be mad at me, you deserve to be. Maybe you’ve left me a hundred messages on my phone. I’m sorry my phone’s broken, just like my insides. I guess I’m not making any sense and since I owe you an explanation, let’s start at the day things started, or maybe started to end.

 

“Where to, Madam?” the rickshaw-driver smiled, displaying his paan-stained teeth.

“Aminabad”, I replied.

I remember telling you that I needed a new chikan kurti to wear on Abba jaan’s birthday, which was on the 13th, by the way. He must be terribly upset with me.

“You want to buy chikan clothes?” he asked me with his limited vocabulary.

“Yes”, I replied out of courtesy.

And then without warning, he took a sudden turn and started driving in the opposite direction. Before I could even grasp the situation, he had played the radio so loud that my voice got drained easily.

After about five minutes, we entered a crowded galli. I’d never been to such a place before. Each inch of the road smelled of human and animal faeces, the houses were too close to each other, numerous vendors selling innumerable things occupied half of the road, and the road itself was full of bumps. We stopped before a rusty three-storeyed structure. My sixth sense tried to make sense out of it.

“Here we get best chikan in Lucknow”, he smiled, his same paan-stained smile again.

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Remember how you used to buy me paan every time we had dinner together? You even introduced me to that Banarsi friend of yours. Ah! Those days were the best. I wouldn’t trade them for anything else in the entire planet. Remember our evening walks whilst at Jamia Milia? Remember Afzal chacha’s masala chai? I do, every bit of it.

Remember the time when we had bunked Prof Sethi’s class to have samosas in Kamala Nagar? Do you remember once when you were down with jaundice how almost the entire class took turns to attend to you? We’re extremely lucky to have always been surrounded by love, aren’t we?

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“If we’re lucky, we’ll get shop open”, he said. 

“What are we doing here, bhaiyya?” I almost screamed.

When he turned to smile his peculiar smile, I turned my face away.

As expected, there was no lift in the building. By the time we reached the third floor, I was panting like a kid who had taken part in a 200-m race for the first time. I was sweating profusely, and was irritated beyond limits at this man who had tricked me into coming here, and at myself for letting him do so.

After some continuous knocking, a young girl of about fifteen finally opened the door. Her name was Pari, I would later learn.

“Show madam some nice chikan. I will come in the evening”, he winked at her and left.

“Can you please explain to me what’s actually going on here?” I said to her.

“You’ll soon find out, Rosy”, she said, staring at my pink kurti (yes, the one you’d gifted me).

“My name is not Rosy”, I said.

“No one cares”, she laughed. Her laughter, one of mockery, anger, sadness but mostly, mostly of submission, still echoes in my ears.

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“The best part about you is your laughter”, you’d said to me on the very first day we’d finally gathered courage to talk to each other. Three years later, you still say the same thing. I’m glad nothing has changed between us, unlike all those other cheesy couples from college. I’m glad you still treat me like someone you’re trying to impress for the first time.

The restaurant you took me to last month, it was such a beautiful place, wasn’t it? The amber lights and the posh décor gave it such a warm feeling. The slender finish of the mahogany tables, the intricate pieces of artwork adorning the dark walls and the jazz in the background, perfect. What more could I possibly ask for?

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Perfect would be the last word to describe the house I’d just entered. I walked along a dimly lit corridor, and the air around me tasted like a mixture of tobacco and cheap wine. There were paan stains everywhere. At the end of the corridor, there were around 6-7 rooms. Pari took me to the one on the extreme left, and told me to go in. Without a single word, she turned back and left.

The place looked nothing like a showroom displaying chikankari, more or less resembling a brothel from some low-budget Hindi movie. Shutting down my instincts, I pushed the door and went inside.

“Welcome, madam”, the lady in the dark blue sari smiled. Hers was a paan-stained smile, too, but a more crooked one. She had heavy make-up on, and looked, in one word, evil.

“What am I doing here, again?” I asked, completely frustrated by now.

“I will tell you once you freshen up and change”, she said, with a haughtiness I’d never encountered till now.

“I want to go”, I almost screamed.

“You think we will let you?” she laughed a sinister laugh.

“I will complain to the police”, this time, I shouted at the top of my voice.

She looked at me for a split second, turned her face towards the balcony and shouted, “Bhola, take this girl to Sheila’s room”.

A big, burly figure emerged out of nowhere. He must have been a little more than 6’2” (I always compare people’s heights to yours) and wore a dirty grey kurta. He had a big gun in his hand. I swear to Allah, it was just like they show in the movies. I had never been so terrified before. He took me by the arm and almost dragged me out of the room.

The lady called out, “I hate disobedient girls, baccha”, and smiled her crooked, paan-stained smile.

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I did notice your crooked smile each time you whispered my name that night. It was a smile I hadn’t seen earlier. Maybe it was your private, mischievous smile that you treasured, just like people treasured their private, mischievous fantasies. Isn’t it strange that I remember every single detail of that night?

I remember we were watching ‘Doctor Who’ (correction, YOU were watching, I was barely awake) when the lights went off. You brought the candles from the kitchen and lighted them on the corner table on the right side of the living room when I woke up and sat on the couch. Outside, a storm was approaching, just like the one within us. I remember the sparkle in your eyes when you came and sat next to me. I remember how my lips broke into a smile when our fingers intertwined and our legs played footsie beneath the creased shawl of yours that hid our legs.

I remember falling in love with you all the more. I remember every bit of our scandalous yet uncorrupted act. I remember being amazed at the strange familiarity of your body and being spellbound at the boldness I carried within.

Your breath played with mine as your lips placed a moist kiss on my eyelids. Our eyes locked as our lips quenched their thirst. Your fingers drew the outline of my body like a sculptor giving finishing touches to his masterpiece while mine raced across your well-toned torso. When you’d finally managed to slid off my dress, you marveled at my body like you’d seen the most beautiful thing in the entire world. You left no inch of my skin unexplored, I was your territory now. You touched me like I was fragile; you said the intricate details on my delicate skin intrigued you. You played with my bosoms like a kid and chuckled when I blushed.  I giggled lightly when your cold tongue tickled near my navel. With a sly, stupid smile, I pulled your trousers down as you undid my messy hair. When you finally entered me, I let out a deep whine as you kissed away the drop of tear rolling down my cheek. A blend of ecstasy and fear gushed through my veins. The warmth of your body engulfed me. Our souls became one.

Outside, the wind roared and the leaves ruffled. The candles flickered, gladly wiping away their existence. The windows witnessed an act of indomitable passion. The stars twinkled in approval. Even the darkness seemed to sway to the rhythm of our bodies. Our bellies were famished, our souls fulfilled. We had never before felt so complete.

They say making love is an art. That night I realised why.

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“Rule 1: Never reveal your real name”, Jayanti bai said.

“Rosy”, she paused, “that’ll be her name”, said Pari.

“Next time someone, anyone, asks, tell them your name as Rosy”, Jayanti said with a tone of unflinching authority.

“What if I don’t?” I asked defiantly.

“Do you want your Abba jaan to find out you’re a whore?” Jayanti laughed like she had cracked the funniest joke in the world.

And at that moment, exactly at that moment, I knew. I was not going to live long enough.

I was made to put on a yellow sari (yellow is no longer my happy colour, Asif) and wait for a regular client. When I told them I wouldn’t, Bhola threw his cigarette at me. They had already broken my phone, wiping out the last streak of hope. I wept so much that even my tears had dried up by then.

Sitting on the untidy bed in the untidier room waiting for my ‘client’, I thought about the Sociology project I had done for my Class 12 boards exam. It was based on “Status of women in and around Lucknow”. Funny how life takes turns, isn’t it? Who would’ve thought I’d be writing to my fiancé from a brothel in the same city where we both grew up?

The door creaked. A faint smell of tobacco and paan reached my nostrils. The rickshaw-driver entered the room. “I’ll come in the evening”, my head felt dizzy when his words started playing in my head, and then, I blacked out. When I regained my senses, I found a strangely familiar paan-stained smile staring at me. I screamed in horror when I realised where I was. He thrust himself on me till I could barely breathe. He tore open my blouse with his long nails and scratched my breasts till they hurt. His teeth left marks on my skin while he let his haphazard hands do all the talking. I winced in pain while the beast continued to bruise my body. Just when I thought I had had enough, he pushed himself inside me like I was a sex toy and not a human. I screamed and screamed till my voice died. Every time I screamed, he would enter a bit more, thinking I was doing it out of pleasure. 

“You like the chikan, madam?” he winked at me.

When I couldn’t bear anymore, I finally let it pass.

You wouldn’t believe if I told you this happened every day, or rather every night, each time, a different face.

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I still remember her face very well. Though I was only five when she died, I remember the smile that never left her face, even in her death. Ammi was an amicable person, primarily why Abba jaan was in love with her. Theirs was an arranged marriage, love marriages were not so common back then, Abba jaan often tells me. He had fallen in love with her much later, somewhere around the time when I was born.

“Her smile made me forget about every problem, every sorrow. Just took a while to realise that’s what is called love”, he laughs. I can feel his fondness and longing for Ammi in that laugh. 

She was the one who gave me my name. You know, Asif, I’m glad she’s dead. She wouldn’t have been too pleased to call her daughter Rosy. She’d have found it distasteful and downright cheap.

People say she endured a lot in her childhood and adolescent years. People also say I’ve got her smile. Have I got her endurance, too?

She died young, Asif, a bit too young. I sometimes wonder, is death genetic?

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“These girls should be hanged to death”, the police inspector said as he spat on my sari. “Ruining family’s name for money, chi”, he spat again.

“What is your name?” he asked, tapping my breasts with his stick.

“R-R-Rosy”, I said. It had been two weeks and I still couldn’t bring myself to say my new name.

It is a funny thing how almost all places in the word are so alike in their differences. I realised this as I looked down at the dirty paan-stained floor of the police station while the inspector scrutinized my body parts one by one as if I was a second-hand car put up for sale in the wholesale market and he was ready to ride me over.

”Don’t make eye contact with big officers”, Pari had taught me some days earlier.

“This one”, he said to Jayanti, pointing at me. She smiled sheepishly as she led Pari, Sheila and the others out of the room.

He took me to his quarters during lunch. He told me to wait for a while as he undressed himself. He said I could wait in the living room or could walk around the house, as I wished. 

After about ten minutes, he came down the stairs and took me up to his bedroom. I asked him for a glass of water. When he stood up, I told myself to be ready. I didn’t have time to think. I observed him carefully as he walked to the door. I knew that time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. “Ten, nine, eight, seven…”, and then I did an unbelievable thing.

I stabbed him with the knife I had stolen from his kitchen a few minutes back and which I had kept hidden in my sari until now. I stabbed him once, twice, thrice and went on till I was sure he would bleed to death. I felt like letting out all my emotions all at once. I laughed and cried at the same time. I felt free.

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Dear Asif, tell Abba jaan to take his medicines regularly. Tell him I’m sorry I couldn’t be a good daughter. Tell him I love him. But never tell him this, his daughter is a whore. It will break him, Asif.

I’m sorry everything went wrong. Promise me you’ll marry someone beautiful. Promise me you won’t mourn my death. Promise me you’ll be happy.

I love you.

Yours,

Zoya