I was completely unaware, nor could I ever have imagined that such horrifying cruelty, such savage brutality could be inflicted on a young innocent girl with such depraved indifference. I speak here about personal calamity at the hands of the devil himself. Perhaps only an expert psychologist can understand my humiliating degradation, my paralysing depression, the depth of my despair. My tragedy, or perhaps my preordained destiny, however insignificant in the eyes of this merciless world, deserves some explanation, some acknowledgement, some understanding, some philosophical discussion.
I want the world to know what happens to such a girl when she is plucked like a flower and then crushed and trampled upon without a moment’s hesitation or thought. What happens to her? What about her shattered psyche, her mental anguish, her dejection? Her very soul is branded. She is trapped in a permanent dark maze where the danger of exposure lurks at every corner, where her memories like her shadow are always with her, ready to confront her at every turn. She burns in the towering inferno of hell from where she can never escape. I welcome the readers to my nightmare.
There were two happy events in our family, the first being my nikah ceremony, for which most of our extended family and friends had come from far and near. There was much revellry, jubilation and festivities, with all kinds of singing and dancing, and of course endless feasting on the most delicious of fares. It had been decided that my rukhsati (when I actually leave my parental abode and move in with my husband who so far, I had never set eyes on) was to take place after he finished his police training. He was a new recruit in the police department.
Soon after my nikah, the whole party of friends and family, along with the children and servants, were to travel by train to attend the wedding of my maternal uncle’s daughter, who apart from being my cousin was a great friend and confidante of mine. On the day of the departure, our party of nearly forty or fifty people descended on the railway station. My mother, along with some other older ladies, was to travel in the second-class ladies’ compartment. The rest of us, young girls and children, were to travel in the third-class compartment. There were about thirty of us altogether. The station was crowded, and between the overwhelming heat and the din of the vendors, the cries of the coolies carrying our luggage, and the general confusion, we were all quite exhausted even before we had begun our journey. We couldn’t all find seats together, and so our party was split into two, half of us in one third-class ladies’ compartment, and the other half in another. It was difficult to figure out who was sitting where. The train was crammed full but somehow I was lucky enough to find a seat in the corner, right next to the window.
My aunt gestured to me to come and sit next to her, but she was sitting in a very uncomfortable spot so I smiled and politely declined her offer. It was without doubt very boring and dull to be sitting alone without any interesting company, but I was content where I was. We had departed by the 12 noon train, and were to arrive at our destination at 11 pm. At the next station a crowd of peasant women got on board with their foul-smelling belongings and dirty children and as if this was not enough, at the third station another bridal party, with about two dozen women were stuffed into these two women’s compartments. The result was such utter confusion that nobody could move or change places. I was at the other end, calmly sitting in a corner, my back resting against a pillow. Other women from the family were further ahead in another corner. My mother was in the second-class compartment while there were family members with me who were dull and uninteresting and I couldn’t really have a conversation with them.
Exhausted by the day’s events and stuffed like sardines in this small crowded train car, dealing with the shoving, pushing and unbridled, uncouth loud behaviour of the peasant women, sitting apart from everyone with nothing interesting going on, I felt as if I was in hell. I thanked God when the other bridal party departed at the next station. But my relief was short-lived because at the very next station another group of twice as many peasant women and chamarni’s came barging in. I was so overwhelmed I could barely breathe.
I couldn’t bear all the noise, the heat, and the stench that had permeated this compartment. It was giving me a headache. At dinnertime, first I refused all refreshments, then when parathas and other delicacies appeared before me, I realized I was hungry, started eating and ate too much. After such a delicious meal I started to feel drowsy. The sky had darkened, the heat had abated, I had opened the window and the air was cooler. The rocking movement of the train, along with the exhaustion of the day and the rich meal, made me drowsy and I started to nod off. I think I was awake until 10 o’clock, I’m quite sure I was awake and alert, but I found a little space to spread my legs and I finally fell into a deep, deep sleep. God have mercy. What was written in my destiny had to be, even in this way.
Life is nothing but a series of coincidences, sometimes one coincidence coming after another.
The first coincidence was that I fell into a deep sleep, the next one that the station which was my destination came on the opposite side from where I was seated, the third that my companions left without thinking about me. They left me behind like a useless piece of luggage. Finally, the last coincidence was that I was in such a sleep of death that waking up became impossible.
Excerpted with permission from Vampire: A Novella, Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai, translated from the Urdu by Zoovia Hamiduddin, Speaking Tiger Books.
