Maliha In Love

The only thing that Maliha ever kept from her father was her feelings for Qasim. It took her a long time to acknowledge them herself. And even after she became aware of her growing affection for Qasim it seemed like sacrilege to speak about it to anyone, even Baba. In fact, she had known Qasim for as long as she knew herself and for the most part of her life never felt anything except fear-induced awe that one feels towards the disciplinarian older brother of one’s best friend. Qasim was six years older than Maliha and Iqra and treated both of them alike.

Maliha and Iqra had been twelve when Qasim left the city to do B.Tech in Pune. At that time Maliha had not been biologically and psychologically equipped to appreciate the qualities that one starts to appreciate and get attracted to as one step into adulthood. In fact, the initial bouts of attraction towards Qasim took Maliha by surprise. Qasim was supposed to be the revered elder brother after all.

Before Qasim left for Pune he was in throes of one-sided love with Sabiha who was three years older than him. When she got married while Qasim was studying in Pune, Maliha and Iqra dutifully grieved on Qasim’s behalf refusing to partake of the batasha and chooara distributed to guests after Nikah. They returned from the wedding hungry and thirsty and visibly melancholic. It had taken Qasim about a year to get over Sabiha.

Last year Sabiha’s and Qasim’s visit to the city coincided and they came face to face for the first time since her wedding. She had been married for four years and had a three-year-old boy who was just starting to speak.

‘Junaid beta, say Salam to Qasim Mamu.’ Sabiha said introducing the apple of her eye to Qasim.

 ‘Salam Mamu,’ the little boy said obediently and raised his left hand to the forehead.

At that moment Iqra looked at Qasim with trepidation and Maliha looked at him with a feeling that she would later recognize as envy but at that moment it just confused her and angered her.

‘Wale Kum As Salam’ Qasim said joyfully as he gently brought down the boy’s left and raised his right hand in its place.

Qasim’s face gave away nothing. Maliha and Iqra both were relieved but for different reasons.

‘Majnu died, Ranjha became a vagarant, God knows what happened to Fahad, and Qasim became a Mamu’ Iqra said after Sabiha had left. Maliha unsuccessfully suppressed a giggle.

‘Your sense of humor needs to get upgraded.’ Qasim said.

‘We are not computers.’

‘Just go away nutcases.’

‘Let’s go Maliha. Qasim needs solitude to reflect on his Mamu-li muhabbat.’

‘Shut up and get lost.’

‘We had sacrificed delicious wedding food for your sake. Don’t you ever forget our Ehsan’ Iqra said as she and Maliha walked away.

‘You should sacrifice food more often Buffalo.’

That was a year ago. It was around the same time that Maliha’s feelings towards Qasim had started to undergo a metamorphosis, but which she had not yet acknowledged. During Qasim’s week-long stay Maliha had come across him every day, several times a day. Sometimes they came across as neighbour, sometimes Maliha was the younger sister’s best friend. They exchanged Salams and precisely as many sentences as necessitated by the situation. Their conversations revolved around the lending and borrowing of screwdrivers, hose pipe, garlic ginger paste and the absence or presence of Iqra, her mother and his father.

Once upon a time, this very Qasim pulled Maliha’s ponytail, loosening and dislodging it from its accurate point of origin which Baba located with much difficulty and called her bhains ki dost bakri. ‘Amma let's not buy any animals this Baqr Eid. Our home-bred bhains and bakri are old enough to be sacrificed.’ Qasim said to his mother as Maliha and Iqra sat playing with dolls on the veranda steps outside Iqra’s house. It was three days to BaqrEid. Five year old Maliha immediately ran away and determined not to venture out of her house till Baqr Eid was over.

‘Come out Maliha. No one is going to sacrifice you.’ Iqra’s mother called over from her house. ‘Take a look at the goat we have brought for Eid.’ Maliha pulled a chair, climbed it and stood on her toes to peep over the low wall that separated her and Iqra’s verandah. Her eyes met the goat’s eye and unspoken understanding passed between them. Qasim was the sworn enemy of both. 

That was exactly twelve Baqr Eids away. Now she would cherish any gesture indicating absence of inhibition and closeness between her and Qasim knowing well that such a thing is not possible without one or both of them crossing over the invisible, but very much present boundaries defining the rules of social interactions. Maliha herself was the greatest adherent of such rules. It helped her keep unsolicited male attention at bay. She was the girl whose coldness and forthrightness sacred most boys away. Maliha often congratulated herself on the success of her strategy.

But that’s not how she wanted things to go with Qasim. That morning on the terrace her strategy had assumed auto-play. It had been a good thing considering that the catastrophe called Rakhsana Chachi was just around the corner, Maliha later reasoned. However, her attitude wasn’t about helping her Qasim cause one bit. Not that she could bring herself to be any other way. She couldn’t even get herself to send a friend request to Qasim on Facebook. What if he did not accept? He had no dearth of friends, male as well as female. They were all there, his school friends, his classmates from the engineering college, and now his colleagues at the company. His friends from school and college were almost exclusively boys (with rare exception) but now there were ever-increasing female faces in his friend's list. And what girls they were. Not one of them is short of gorgeous.

Iqra claimed the cursor and clicked on one of the profiles. There were just two profile pics available to be seen by those who were not her friends. In the first picture, she was clad in a figure-hugging sari of a lemon green hue. Her hair was like Iqra just more stylish. In the middle of her forehead was a small dark green bindi creating a contrast with the sari. That picture has 343 likes. In the second picture, she was leaning against a fancy lamppost in a knee-length floral print flare-up skirt matched with a black slightly off-shoulder top. The bend of her shoulder shone like a polished doorknob but it was her khol lined eyes that stood out in this picture. It had 579 likes.

‘Do you think your brother will marry her?’ Maliha wanted the ground to open up and swallow her as soon as she uttered those words. What an incredibly stupid question that was. Maliha couldn’t believe what she had just said but now she believed what they said about love and jealousy. That love and jealousy both made people insane and now her insanity had been established beyond doubt.

‘She is just an acquaintance, not even a real friend of Bhai. 

 She considered for a moment spilling to her best friends the feelings she had for Qasim. The words walked up to her lips then suddenly retraced their steps and refused to move. Then Iqra’s mother called and she left. Maliha sat before the laptop a long time looking at Qasim’s only picture and considered and recon

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sidered sending him a friend’s request.

‘In all probability, he wouldn’t accept her friend request and the rejection would kill Maliha more quickly than Baygone killed cockroaches. She would be dead within two minutes of his not accepting the request.’ Maliha said to herself aloud. Self-preservation triumphed and Maliha gave up the idea of sending a friends request to Qasim on Facebook. For a fraction of a second Maliha imagined Qasims friend request appearing on her screen. What absurdities I am capable of imagining, she said to herself.

Allah can cause hearts to change. Iman Chachi often said. Maliha prayed four rakats of Asr prayer and then raised her hands for dua. ‘Ya Allah grant Baba a long and healthy life. Forgive the sins of my mother and grant her Jannat. Keep Imam Chachi and Imam sahib in your Hifz o Amaan. Make me capable Ya Allah of cracking the UPSC exam. Keep Rukhsana Chachi from making a scandal out of this morning’s event. Make Qasim love me Ya Allah. Make him love me the way Baba loves Amma and Imam Sahib loves Imam Chachi.’

That night Qasim left for Delhi. His leave was over and if Iqra was to be believed he won’t get another leave for six months. Although she couldn’t be believed to the hilt for she always professed to know more about things than she actually did. She added full-baked assumptions to half-baked facts and what came out sounded like the gospel of truth. It was this logic Maliha used to prevent her heart from shattering into subatomic particles.

The next morning as Maliha caught an unusual sparkle in Iqra’s eyes as she hopped onto the rickshaw from one side while Maliha hopped on from the opposite side. It was a sparkle reserved for the rarest of rare events- super-joys and super-reliefs of life-those extraordinary events that changed life for the better or announced the aversion of an impending disaster. Only twice before had Iqra’s shone like that.. One when she scored 98.2% in her class tenth exam topping the state preceding the second ranker by a full 1.5%. Another time when the doctors had suspected pancreatic cancer for her father and the family had remained in excruciating suspense for three days. At the end of the third day when the night and day melted into each other and Iman sahib called the faithful to pray before their lord on the masjid loudspeaker, Qasim entered the house with relief writ large on his face. The report had ruled out cancer. It was just an infection that will be cured by medication. At that moment Iqra's eyes shone as if a million stars of the universe have embedded themselves behind her dark black pupils.

Know what?

What?

We didn’t see each other yesterday

Oh really?

Bhai was leaving so badi phuphu and Chachu had come over with her families so I got no time to come over to you.

‘Hmm’

‘All day I was dying to tell you that Rukhsana Chachi thinks that you and Bhai are having an affair.’

‘Since when has Rukhsana Chachi started thinking?’

‘She knocked at our door at 6 am to tell Ammi she feels duty-bound to inform her of the things that her happening above her head.’

‘What did your Ammi say?’ Maliha’s heart had now dislocated from its place and lodged herself in her throat.

‘Ammi thanked her and went back to sleep. But then at night after the guests left she talked about it. Abba was amused and Bhai had that expression on his face in which you can read anything you want to. If you want to believe he is angry, he will look angry; if you want to believe he is in pain, he will look in pain; if you want to believe he has sympathy for you, he will have sympathy for you. And at that moment I wanted to believe that Bhai loves you. And I read in his expression a readiness to acknowledge the fact. So I said to Ammi, Abba, and Bhai ‘who can’t love Maliha, and what better than Maliha becoming a part of this family. After all, we all love her. And she loves all of us too. Qasim included.’ Then Ammi nodded and said ‘hmm’ which was something between an acknowledgment and a question and Abba being the matter-of-fact guy that he is asked Bhai right away ‘do you want to marry Maliha?’ Bhai flushed and his cheek started to look like ripe cherries and when I pointed out his metamorphosing into a cherry he threw a newspaper at me and said ‘you all are advocating child marriage, besides she wants to go in IAS.’ So Ammi looked at Abba and me and said ‘See what a hurry he is in. Did anyone say that he will be married right away?’ Now it was too much for Bhai to bear so he got up and went into his room and we got busy packing eatables for him. Then when he was leaving he kissed me on the forehead and asked me when Ammi and Abba were not in hearing range to convey his salam to you. Now, don’t you fall off the rickshaw hold tightly!’

Maliha considered jumping and somersaulting on the asphalt road but gave up that idea after a couple of seconds because she obviously did not want her baraat to arrive at a mental asylum. Instead, she threw her arms around Iqra and hid her face behind Iqra’s shoulders.

‘Come out shy bride. Come out.’ Iqra said as she nudged Maliha behind her.

‘How did you guess that I like Qasim?’ Maliha raised her head and asked.

‘Guess? What was there to guess? Every time I mentioned bhai your feelings for him emerged on your face as embossed letters emerge –slowly but unmistakably- when you place a paper on them and stroke it gently with a pencil.’

Looking at Maliha then was like looking through a Kaleiscope. Her expression changed from shock to joy to shock again to self-consciousness to joy to love for Iqra- in each she was beautiful. Iqra threw an arm on Maliha’s shoulders.

‘I can’t believe my façade was so transparent.’ Maliha said as the rickshaw sped on an almost empty road and the fresh morning breeze caressed their faces.

‘Your façade wasn’t transparent. It’s just that I have an X-ray machine fitted in my eyes as far as you are concerned. Remember we have been friends since you were peeing in your pant?’ Iqra said.

‘Actually since you were creating world record of peeing in the bed and Chachi was chasing you with a chappal in her hand.’ Maliha retorted light heartedly.

‘Don’t exaggerate now! That might have happened just a couple of times.’

‘Ask Rukhsana Chachi’s mother-in-law, even she will tell you how when your mother found the bedding wet and reeking in the morning you blamed it on your brother. We thought we will have to set up a panchayat to sort it out between you two.’ Maliha said falling off her seat with laughter.

‘Haan and you would have been made the head of that panchayat. Right? That poor old lady by the way suffers from amnesia now.’

‘That’s what I am saying; even amnesia can’t come between such profound memories.’

Their college came and they both got down. Iqra made a terribly twisted face at Maliha as she was paying to the elderly rickshaw man.

‘Don’t make those faces bitya. There is a wind that blows and settles people’s faces into permanent expressions. God forbid you should be looking like this when the wind blew.’

Iqra immediately straightened her face and Maliha’s entire body vibrated with suppressed laughter as they walked into the college gate. There was so much joy in the world. It was such a beautiful place.