Dedication: To my Mom, i know you have been fighting all your life, and I'm proud of you.
I am only a little girl, and I’m not perfect. I do not know what it takes to be the greatest woman my bloodline has ever seen. I was born full of hope, but also into a world that taught me silence from day one.
I was a little girl born in love and affection. Even as a day-old baby, I knew I wanted to live and grow- loud and unashamed, free and wild.
I was too little to understand that I was just another little girl. My will, my dreams, my freedom were just pawns, sacrificed for the one who ruled over the chessboard.
They said I sinned a lot. And they were correct. The first sin I ever committed was leaving my mother’s comfortable womb only to be born within the suffocating borders of a small town with narrow lanes. That was the first sin of thousands of little girls like me.
Nevertheless, I kept growing, elegant and beautiful like a gazelle. Little did I know I was committing my second sin. I was a Gazelle. Always meant to be the prey with a hyena chasing down its tail.
I bet every three in four girls have spent 66 minutes under a steaming shower as afraid as a student staring down a loaded gun, all because a monster chased or stalked her down the damn street where she LIVED. But she either had to or was asked to shut up, keep quiet, place her index finger right over her lips, and never open her mouth about it, because if she told one fellow human what happened to her, her family would lose their fabricated reputation.
I was too little to understand why a young girl who was barely even 12 was asked to keep away from fellow humans who were born with a pair of testicles. Until one day I saw another little girl, laughing and talking to her friends in a café around the corner. And a few fellow humans, two tables across her, calling her names and talking lowly about her. And when I didn’t approve of it, they said “She’s only trying to invite their bad gazes and their attention, why do u think she’s laughing with them?”
But again, I was too little to understand. I had always learnt that emotions, whether it was weeping, smiling, or laughing, came naturally to humans. And everyone was entitled to their emotions. Only later did I learn that little girls had a right to their emotions, too, but only conditionally.
But then again, I was too little to understand why her laughter was termed “staged” and their gazes were termed “valid”.
I was too little to understand, but maybe one day I’ll be 56 years old and still be too little to understand why the reputation of the whole goddamn house was woven into a crown of thorns and jammed on the head of the daughter despite the fact that every finger, every limb she moved will ruin the fabricated reputation of a so-called sophisticated household.
Eventually, I grew over it. But then one day I met my friend and she told me that she had sinned, she said she bled through her vagina. She said her fellow humans told her she was impure. She couldn’t touch anyone. Nor could she enter the kitchen.
Again, I was too little to understand, because I had always touched everyone, and I had also entered the kitchen when I scratched my knee, and it was bleeding, and when I cut my finger on the kitchen knife. So I didn’t say anything, because I knew I’d probably be proved wrong again.
I didn’t pay much attention to it. Until one day, I saw a lady commit yet another sin. The sin of growing into a beautiful young woman.
I was too little to understand why she was dressed in red, laden with gold and emeralds and rubies, but still cast away to scrub the floors for a stranger.
I always thought that when someone’s life came to an end, their body was dressed in white; little did I know women met their ends in red, laden with gold and jewels.
I knew one day I would turn 90, and I’d still be too little to understand why a woman in red who refused to meet her end was silenced, asked to super glue her lips, not say anything, be obedient, and be a good lady.
My fourth sin was asking a fellow human what a good lady was. I thought I already had the answer, so I said, “One who is strong, respectful, nice, and takes care of herself and her people.”
Turns out I was wrong. A good lady was someone who understood that the only reason he gave her bruises was because he loved her. So she kept her mouth shut and accepted those wounds as a token of affection.
Yes, I was little, but I was always an athletic kid, I had had multiple bruises, of all shapes and kinds, and to me they always hurt. I loved the game I played, and sometimes also the bruises I got, too. But that was because they were MY bruises, MY scars, they reminded me that I was strong, that I could heal, they were medals, I carried with pride. They belonged to me.
I wondered if she felt like that, too. Since they were given to her by someone ‘who loved her’.
I was a little girl, but I knew my friends loved me and my mother loved me too, and they always tended to my wounds, put a band-aid on my scars. They’d never bruised me, I could swear my life on that.
I was confused, were scars a way of showing affection? If so, then why didn’t SHE ever give him scars? And why was she asked not to talk about them? Be obedient and go back?
I was too little to understand everything that happened, so I never really understood why everyone came to her funeral, all the fellow humans who called her names, talked about her lowly, asked her to stay quiet, be obedient, even the one who loved her and gave her wounds, the ones who forced her to wear the red dress, the ones who gave her the gold and jewels, the ones who asked her father for quadruple the amount of riches.
I was little, but deep down, I knew she had died way before they called her dead, that day in the elegant red dress of hers. I was too little, but I understood very well that they lied when they said “she is at peace now, forever resting”. A few days later, the one who loved her but gave her bruises also passed away. This time, all the fellow humans said, “they’re together now, forever, at peace. But I cried, afraid and helpless, all I could do was shed tears.
I was too little, but I was scared. What if in the afterlife he didn’t stop giving her bruises, they said ‘forever’, will she survive it forever? Is she happy dead, is she at peace? Or the bone-crushing burden of the wedding ring, of the ten kilograms of gold that her father forfeited as a price to send her away, still lay on her? Is she free of what all the fellow humans did to her? Or is it the same even in the afterlife? Does God tell her that she’s impure? Or does God order his angels to bruise her because I was always told that God loved us all?
. . .
I was too young to understand, but maybe you are not. This may not be my story, but it is the story of millions of women trapped in a place that asks for them to shrink, get beaten, dissolve, bend, and get hurt just to fit the shape of a monster. A monster, a coward who blames her, who beats her, who curses her, who asks her shrink, who asks her to bend down to him, all in the name of fabricated affection like the fabricated reputation of a brown household.
I have heard thousands say, “Women in today’s date have all the rights possible, what are feminists fighting for?”
I agree, women have all legal rights, and yet they are told not to exercise them. Because a woman who speaks up, who refuses to stay quiet, suddenly becomes the center of attention, and God forbid, a woman ever speaks up. Teach your women to be quiet, obedient, and enduring. They teach women in my country that love is enduring. We live in the 21st century, yet nothing has changed.
The world gave rights to women, yet some people threaten to cut off her oxygen supply if she dares talk about her rights. Tender, tiny, and timid is all she was supposed to be.
What are all these fellow humans for? Why do we call them fellow humans when I see but not a sliver of humanity in them?
Maybe the legal system was never supposed to give women rights. Maybe they should have confiscated the rights of fellow humans. Maybe then we’d see a world where young ladies didn’t meet their death, shrouded in a red veil, laden with gold.
Vir Das once said and I quote; “I come from an India where we worship women during the day and rape them at night.”
Mahira Khan in Razia; one said and I quote; “زمانۂ جاہلیت میں بیٹی پیدا ہوتے ہی دفنا دیتے تھے، ہم زندہ رکھتے ہیں تاکہ روز دفنا سکیں۔”
(In the age of ignorance, they buried their daughters right at birth; we let them live, only to bury them every day.)
I might not own the narrative, but I sure can tell a good story. I was born in love, but millions of girls aren’t. I refuse to be too little to understand anymore. I stand as the voice of every little girl whose tongue was cut off to shield the reputation of a house. Because I am very familiar with the fact that no fellow human will come, save a woman. A woman must always stand for another woman.
It’s not too late, we may perish, but the will of a woman must always live on…
For every woman to come, and for a time as long as eternity…