Being a woman is a curse!
Being A Woman Is A Curse?
"Look shakeel there goes that hustler, doesn't she even walk like one. I am going to talk to sheikh sahib to throw her and her bastards out of the house. Reasonable families live here, there is no place for such wretched women" sajid seemed boiling with rage talking about Tayyaba. "couldn't even keep her husband, must not be satisfied wit him".
Haji sahib went upstairs to meet her that evening. Asked her politely with to leave the house in ten days, his politeness was very much felt by her over the shoulders and thighs. It wasn't the first time she had already changed so many houses that she even stopped unpacking her luggage.
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It never remains same after you hit puberty. You are forcefully removed from school, given abayas and hell loads of house chores until you reach the age to leave and take care of a man who is not even able to pour a glass of water for himself. My own brother was badly abusing me. My younger brother beat me black and blue when he heard. I wanted divorce from my so-called indolent and drugs addicted husband. I was married when I was 16. My parents always thought that girls would be spoiled if they would get education. They would become snobbish and cheeky.
My father asked me to go back to my in-laws. How would I live with such a man who was not only drugs addicted but brutal in nature. to be beaten before, during and after intercourse. That is all I was taken as a sex slave and a punching bag. I never came to know what I feel, I was numb all that time. My mother consoled me by saying that if you would get divorce. How would you survive in this society without a man? People would consider you as stigma on the face of society? How would you take care of your two small children? Little did she know, I wasn't able to take care of anything during that time. It wasn't the same for my brothers. Oh how much I envy them. That leg piece in their dinner plates still mock me. I would not blame my mother for she was a woman just like me, she always craved for trifle things in her life. We lived in a small rented house. And every month we were worried to pay our rent and bills. My mother never grudged and supported her husband in every thick and thin of her life. Women have been deprived of their true and basic rights. I always noticed since my childhood my brothers were given more importance as compare to me. Although I was the eldest sister of two young brothers but treated as youngest among all. I never had liberty to choose and select anything for myself. Neither a piece of a cloth nor my husband. My father was a bike mechanic. I always wanted to learn to how to stand on my feet but never given any opportunity. I was always taught that husband is a Majazi Khuda. And wife needs to tend and worship him but what about my own identity. Being a woman was it a curse for me?
I took the plunge, filed divorce and after seven and a half months of intense proceedings. I was finally out of that prison of a relationship. But I didn't know what lied ahead of me. My father didn't take me in and I had no money to rent a decent place for my kids. I borrowed money from everyone I knew and somehow managed a place to live on. I was only 28 with no idea of the backlash of the society. People tried to take advantage of me in return of false promises of giving work or lend groceries. But I wonder if a man had been in my shoes would there be the same treatment? God forbid, these men are exonerated for anything, any extra marital affair or divorce. Ah Patriarchy, never have I heard about men killed in the name of honor.
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Parents are forced to give heavy dowry otherwise it's a lifelong course of taunts, torture, abuse and sometimes painful deaths. Parents can do everything for their daughters but are helpless when it comes to their fortune. It does not stop there. Women are mostly not allowed to pursue education or career but should be able to make round chappatis and are expected to be utmost obedience. Subjugation to metal violence is part and parcel of life. I still remember my nuptial night when my husband entered the room. He was nervous and sweating. He might have taken some kind of dose. He wanted to prove his superiority not by love but by sex. He treated me as a whore. Every girl dreams of this beautiful night in her life but for me it was rather a nightmare. My blood smeared handkerchief was to be presented to the family proving my virginity and chastity. And yet I had to keep shut and not complain. I couldn't say anything to my parents when I got back my home after my reception when my mother asked me about intercourse with my husband. I just passed the smile and unable to say anything because I still remember the words of my parents on my marriage departure. They said to me clearly that now this is no more your house and now your husband house is your real house if you were unable to settle your life in your husband house your dead body should have come back to this house. My mother eyes were welled up but she kept on smiling to see my face. My relatives who knew well about our financial condition mocked at the dowry and the food which was served on my wedding. It was a beginning of a new life and ending of all my relations with my mother and father who brought me in this cold world.
My mother in law who used to praise me before my marriage and always said that she would take me as a daughter treated me as a servant or slave. I had to serve a large joint family of 12 members. My mother in law never took pity on me. She asked me to cook and clean all the time even when I was expecting. I thought I would be obliged and gratified after becoming a mother. But my trials never ended when I gave birth to a baby girl. My in-laws started mourning and cursing me to give birth to a baby girl. My life always whirled around so many questions. First time I thought in my life. Is it a sin to be a woman or to give birth to a baby girl?
But nothing stopped after divorce. I was subjected to marginalization by my family. People were reluctant to rent me a house. My two angelic girls were bullied at school and I was constantly changing places. I don't mind people like sheikh sahib any more for I am used to it. Sometimes I take a look at my daughters and think about what lies ahead. For now, with no financial stability, pressure to return to my ex-husband by my mother and lust hungry people around me I feel constantly falling into this deep abyss where the only light I see is the radiance in the eyes of my youngest girl.