Thursday 23 July 2009

A Day From Life of Chador

A day from life of chador.
Mohsin Riaz Khalique

“I can remove this stain but I was afraid that I may damage the fabric of this cover,” said Greg. Both of us look at the stain on the sofa cover. “How about using that product on TV, what’s it called, Oxy clean?” I asked with some hope. “Already tried that. I am telling you I tried every thing different bleachers, tide, extra strength stuff, you name it, the only thing remaining is my special blend of fabric cleaner but I know that it will cause some damage to this fabric. So I wanted to ask you before I use it.” I picked up the sofa cover and took it close to the window. The stain was obvious. I was very disappointed. Greg runs the best cleaner in town, ‘the American cleaner’- patriotic name to attract more post 9/11 sentimentalist. If he can’t remove this stain than that’s it. So I thanked him and paid for this no good cleaning job and for my black suit, I am going to wear for tonight’s graduation party.

I must tell you that I am an under paid, over worked medical resident finishing my residency training. The second hand sofa that I bought upon my arrival in this country was not too shabby for the price I paid. It became classy when I stylishly placed this red chador, as a throw, on it. This was a beautiful red ‘chador’ from the Thar Desert in Pakistan. My mother brought this for my apartment. It went well with the rest of my eastern decor. It had a red background, gold and blue embroidery, tiny round glasswork interlaced with patchwork- an extremely intricate piece of cloth. It was made of small torn pieces of old shirts. The women in Thar wear these beautifully embroidered shirts. Their old shirts are used to make bed sheets, tablecloth, cushion cover, etc. It had a familiar smell, which evoked many memories. I could not figure out what did it remind me of, just a lot of unclear, jumbled up emotions. This beautiful chador added a lot of culture to my living room but now it has left a big red stain on my sofa and worse of all ‘The American cleaners’ can not wash it away.

Disappointed with this news I thought of cheering myself up by reading a little. I wanted to be in better spirits for tonight’s graduation party. Before I knew, I was falling in and out of sleep. I pulled the red chador to take a short nap.

Ah, there’s that smell again. I go crazy trying to recall- so familiar yet indistinguishable. It is peculiar of Pakistan but I cannot pinpoint a situation, place or incident.

A young girl seems from rural Pakistan, lies on the ground, naked, and unable to get up. She is bruised and bleeding from every orifice. Broken pieces of her jewelry surrounds this emaciated young girl. Men and women of all ages stand around her. An angry voice from the crowd, ‘bitch! Cover your head’, this is what happens if you don’t cover your face’. A woman shouts, ‘your own fault’. A man yells ‘what did you expect?’ I could only see their heads. The naked bruised girl tries weakly to pull chador on her head. The same red chador, mirror and patch work. She manages to stand up and after much effort covers her head and her face, in a way that one can only see her eyes. The chador is too small to cover the rest of her body. She stands in front of the crowd head and face covered but rest of the body is naked. A young man’s voice, ‘shabbash (well-done) that’s like a good girl’. They go back to their lives.

She waits until they are gone and then she uses the same chador to strangulate herself. Her screams are weak and tired. She falls on the ground and starts to shake but nobody could see that except me. I see her, hear her meek screams but where are my hands? I want to help her, I want to reach out to her, but I don’t have limbs. I want to scream and call people for help but I don’t have a voice. What should I do? I have to do something. I cannot let her die like this. The strength of her arms gets stronger and more forceful. The arms keep on working even after she passes out. The stronger they get the feeble she becomes. Now she is listless. She lies naked, lifeless, helpless and unprotected, but the hands keep working. Her eyes bulge, her tongue sticks out, but the hands are still working. Her veins pop out of her skin, but the hands keep working. Her neck keeps getting narrower and with a loud bang, her head shoots away from her chest. A loud bang and red color everywhere.

I jump out of bed. Afraid of closing my eyes again I lit up a cigarette and started to pace. It took me a while to dissociate from the dream. I was drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf. I wiped my face from the chador. After a few minutes, I regained some sense. I finished the glass of water on my nightstand and checked the time. It was 5:30 pm. I should be getting ready for the graduation party.

As I switched on the bulb in bathroom, I found myself covered in red stain, exactly like the one on my sofa. It took me few seconds to understand that the chador must have left its stain as I was sweating while dreaming. It took me some heavy scrubbing to wash that stain but a light red hue persisted on my fore head and neck. I tried every kind of soap I have and I tell you this, American soaps can wash away anything, but a faint hue stayed. It is amazing that the color of chador sticks faithfully to everything except itself.

While driving to the party, I kept thinking of ideas to cover the red hue on my forehead. A turtleneck easily covered the neck, but the forehead cannot be covered. I kept thinking and then it hit me. How about sipping on red wine and telling every one that I get flushed every time I drink red wine. I was proud of myself coming up with a brilliant cover.

Graduating from the residency position is a bitter sour feeling. Some shed tears and some try hard to stay composed by cracking jokes. Overall, it turns out to be a fun and memorable evening. Many people noticed my forehead but did not bother to ask, maybe because they saw me with a glass of red wine.
Reaching home, I sat and reflected of all the years of training. My journey form a small town in Pakistan, school years, college and then coming to USA- a long and tough journey. Maybe some day I’ll write something about it. Nevertheless, right now I must sleep since tomorrow is my research presentation.

Ah, the peculiar smell. There is the same girl again. She is working in cotton field. I know this place- the vast green fields of Punjab, soothing green fields- men and women harvesting together. The breeze makes the yellow mustard flower dance in the lush green land, the passionate tango of sun and earth. I can even smell the freshness of air. There she is, picking cotton. She swiftly put cotton in her brown backpack and when it is full, she goes and dumps it all in that four walled room. There, her younger brother shoves cotton in another bag. As she turns to go back to the field her younger brother looks at her and says, “sis, do take chador to cover your head and chest”. She playfully sticks out her tongue and turns around saying, “shut up”. I catch a look at her brother’s face and I am stunned, cause it is my face.

It’s the end of the day and she is helping her brother to stuff the bails. Tiny thorn of cotton flower nicks her finger. Blood drips down her finger. Her brother looks at her bleeding finger and runs westward, shouting, “help! help! My sister is bleeding, my sister is hurt”. Her blood accumulates into a puddle. The puddle rises up in the air and becomes a red cloud. I follow the floating red cloud. It goes flying across the plains and fields. Over the cities and lanes of Pakistan.

I follow the cloud to Thar, a mean desert, where clouds are afraid to pass. There is that girl again. She is stitching small round mirrors on the front of her embroidered shirt. She is singing a song as she stitches it. I reckon the tune. It is a song sung by virgins at the time of wedding. Suddenly there is shouting and crying outside her house. Women screaming; ‘is there someone to help us, save us, please save us, in the name of God, someone help us’. She runs to the window with the unstitched red shirt in her hand and my eyes follow her. I see what she sees. Three middle aged women stripped naked, their feet tied by a rope to each other. The end of the rope is in the hand of this man in white clothes, who sits up on a horse and rides in front of them. Behind the three naked women walks another man in white clothes. Every time any one of the women tries to cover her private areas, she gets a whip on her back. Their backs are bruised and bleeding. They are yelling and screaming. They are begging for mercy. However, the people of village stand quietly watching helplessly. These women are forced to walk through the village’s main street. The man on the horse declares, “Let this be a lesson to all”. He rides with a proud smile on his face. As the procession proceeds, she sees the man with a whip in his hand. As he swings his arm to whip, it accidentally hits this girl in the eye. She covers her eye and screams. Blood flowing down her cheek. I try to move forward to help her but I only have eyes and ears, but no hands. When she uncovers her eye, puss oozes out. Blood, mixed with pieces of her brain.

I jump out of the bed. My body trembles sweat flowing down by neck and my forehead. I am nauseated. I want to throw up. I run to the toilet and turn on the light. The red stain covers my body like a wrap. Red colored sweat drips down like blood. I shiver in fear. I don’t know if I am bleeding or sweating. I am confused, dazed and afraid. Its 2:00 in the morning. I am tired and want to sleep but too afraid to close my eyes. I recall my mother’s saying, ‘whenever you are afraid recite verses of The Quran and then you will be able to sleep safely.’ As my breathing returns to normal, I go back to bed. I am still terrified to sleep. I kneel beside my bed and recite all four Quls and Ait-ul-kursi. My breathing gets much better, I am not nauseous anymore, and start to relax. Slowly I close my eyes and try to sleep again.

This time I am in Karachi. I know this neighborhood. I used to pass by it everyday while going to medical college. I remember my college bus making a stop here to drop off my class fellows who would vanish in these narrow lanes.

Screams welcome me in this lane. I enter the house with the loudest one. I see two police officers tying up a father and his son to chairs. On the other side of the room stand two more police officers, holding two girls on a gunpoint. Both of these girls have the face of the same naked girl, who strangulated herself, who bled in the fields of Punjab and lost an eye in the cottage of Thar. This time the police officers were raping them in front of their brother and father who were tied up to see the fate of their daughters and sisters. Their bodies were firmly tied to chairs. All they could do was to watch and shout.

They take turn to rape and hold gun to the head of tied up father and brother. And so they shouted angrily and cursed vehemently. Their resistance was limited to screams. Their screams mixed with many others in the narrow lanes of Karachi, loud yet unnoticeable. Soon they realized that they were helpless. They started to beg for mercy. “For the sake of God please let them go”, “have mercy, please stop, we will do anything you want, just stop”, but there was no end to it. The brutality continues. Father screeched a loud “Allah” and his head dropped to his chest. He quickly became breathless but the brother continues to beg. After some time he started reciting verses from The Quran; the last attempt to provoke guilt. One of the police officer tore up a piece of tablecloth. A red tablecloth with mirror work, interlaced with gold and blue embroidery. He rolled it up and shoved it into brother’s mouth. “Bastard was disturbing me, try to shout now, asshole”. He sits there; a silent voyeur. Tears keep rolling down his cheeks. He cries incessantly. He can hear her sisters crying, begging for mercy, he can see them being raped but he cannot do anything. He shuts his eyes but could still hear them, the merciless laughter and the relentless begging. How will he erase this stained memory? He closes his eyes but the tears keep falling.

It starts to rain. Ah ‘that smell’ again! I remember it now. It is the smell of mud after rain. When the first drop of rain falls on the dry sand of Karachi, it gives a very peculiar smell. I have only smelled that in Karachi. It remains in the air for days. I used to love this smell. I used to call it ‘smell of my land’.

There was no end in sight. I wanted to help them but I am in a state of sleep. I have no arms, legs or voice in this dream state. I wanted to wake up but somehow I cannot. I am in a deep sleep as if I have taken a tranquilizer. No matter how hard I try, I stay asleep. My eyes would not open. I am physically in pain, I don’t want to see this anymore, my sweat has turned red but I cannot wake up. I see the ongoing brutality but I lay there helpless, useless and unable to stop this painful dream. There has to be an invincible force, one that is mightier than my efforts to wake up. Oh! I got it, the verses of Quran- keeping me ‘safe and asleep’.
Mohsin Riaz Khalique.

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