PukhtunWomen

Reema’s Story

When I got married, I moved into my in-laws joint family house and since I was a virtual outsider to the village and family, it took me time to make friends and familiarize myself with the extended family. I was lucky that there were a lot of friendly people in the family, and that there were lots of friendly neighbors too.

There was one little neighbor girl who made it a point to be there first thing in the morning and last thing at night, disappearing during meal times. No matter how many times she was told off by my sister in laws or my mother in law, she never failed to be sitting in front of my door with her big bright smile and the question, “can I fix your hair and can I help you clean your room”.

In the beginning I politely declined but after a while I would let her keep me company as I gardened or cooked or cleaned. Her name was Akhtaray and she was the second daughter of Rekhamay.

Rekhamy had been a singer and dancer in her youth and was still an amazingly beautiful woman. She was someone who was full of lots of laughter and jokes and would usually joke about herself, “I couldn’t dance or sing for peanuts, but they would see one twist of my white delicate wrists and they would be mesmerized.” She had sung the traditional tapey while her husband had played the rabab for her. She said she had been well off in her twenties till her thirties but now people no longer asked for her and would just call her a dama.

Akhtaray despite her beauty, intelligence and friendliness could not escape the stigma of being called the daughter of a dama. She confided in me that she would like to go to school, so I bought her some books and off to school she went. I missed her in the mornings, but she would come straight from school to do her homework while I helped with the evening meal, but she always surprised me by leaving her books beside our front door when she left. I always meant to ask but never got around to asking why.

One day I woke to the most heart wrenching sobs I had ever heard. On rushing out my room to find out who was crying I nearly fell over the crying Akhtaray who had balled her sadar into her mouth and had covered her face with both hands and was shaking uncontrollably. Our whole family was around her asking what had happened, had her father died, had someone hurt her, was she in pain, but to no avail.

One of my nephews came in to tell my father in law that Akhtaray’s father was outside and wanted to have a word with him. Since Akhtaray was not talking we all followed my father in law and stood listening inside close to the front door.

Akhtarays father was livid with anger, he ranted on and on about how we were interfering with his family in sending her off to school with little regard for his ghairat and honor. How dare we put dreams in a little girls mind when she had no way out other than be a dama. How dare we buy her books and put alien ideas in her mind.”

He demanded we hand over Akhtaray immediately and stop interfering in her life. My father in law tried to calm him down, and said that she was very upset right now and just to give her a couple of hours to compose herself and we would send her over immediately.

None of us had noticed Akhtaray come out and stand beside us. There was a big bruise on her face, where she had been caught by a sharp corner of a book when her father had thrown them at her, and her swollen eyes were heart breaking. We tried to stop her from leaving, but she said “I want no trouble for you”.

We never saw Akhtaray again, but heard that her father had apprenticed her to a dama in Peshawar. After that there was one more piece of news, Akhtaray was married to an older man who had become a great fan of hers. The man had grandkids Akhtary’s age, but he was very well off and we heard she was happy.

After that I moved away and when I went back to visit some 12 years later I woke to find a little girl outside my door. She immediately reminded me of Akhtaray and I wondered what had happened to her. I thought it was just my imagination, but she had the same smile and sparkly eyes like Akhtaray.

She held out her hand for a hand shake and said “I am Reema, can I clean your room?” I said to her” You know what, the room doesn’t need cleaning, but if you stick around you can play with my daughter when she wakes up.” She skipped behind me following me to the kitchen. I asked if she would like some tea, but she shyly shook her head. She watched me have mine though, and then suddenly blurted out, “You are exactly as my mother said you were.”

I asked her who her mother was, to which she replied, “She said you may not remember her, but she came here a lot when you first got married. Her name is Akhtaray”

I found out that Akhtaray had been widowed when Reema was a couple of years old. Her in laws did not want anything to do with her, but gladly gave her what her husband had willed her and told her to take her daughter and never show her face there again. Akhtaray, who had given up all ties to her parents, but now finding she was all alone, came knocking at their door.

After a couple of years she married again, but her new husband would not let her have anything to do with Reema, and the poor girl was dumped on her grandparents.

We got to know a lot about Reema during our stay there. She was a talkative, lively little girl who had big ambitions to be someone rich in her life. She wanted to become a movie star, and have a chauffeur driven car, she wanted to wear the latest fashions and be looked up to by other girls. She said she was going to have two kids and would make sure they never lacked anything in life and she would definitely marry a young man so her children would never be orphaned.

One day, a kochai stopped at our house and soon all the kids were running in circles around her. Everyone wanted something from her basket of trinkets and junk. When each child had made their selection I also threw in the plastic glasses that Reema had been eying and had then tried on. I saw her sad look turn into a flicker of hope and then immediately disappear behind a face whose eyes said, “I am used to disappointment.”

Her joy, on receiving those glasses was worth taking a picture of. She put them on and took them off and could not seem to stop her infectious smile.

Later that day, she stopped by my room and said, “I don’t like taking things I can not pay for, so, can I dance for you to show my appreciation?”

Thinking she would dance a silly little dance like my kids do when they are happy, I said, “Certainly.” Reema made a big show of selecting a song and then fixing her hair. She started out with gently tapping her feet to get the rhythm of the beat and then she launched into an amazing complex dance. I watched stupefied as her movements started to get more provocative, I turned off the music to make her stop. She gave me a sad surprised look inquiring if I thought she wasn’t good enough. I asked her where she had learnt to dance like that she shrugged, “Grandma says I have to be a good dancer if I want to be in the movies, so she takes me to learn from the best dama in Swat. So what do you think? Will I be great dancer?”