“BROKEN BANGLES”
BY AYESHA NOOR
Tears were falling down from her
glittering but wrinkled and visibly veined eyes. Something had died inside her.
The desires, love, and the wish to be loved, all that was being washed away by
the flowing salty water which she could no more hide. She strokes her furrowed
brows with crumpled and shivering hands. The creased and crinkled face showed
the death of dreams and the hardships which she had suffered.
While she was gently and lovingly
stroking her wedding dress, and caressing it with her withered hands, she
thought about golden memories of her wedding ceremony. She uttered with a
shivering vocal “the shine is the same as it was in 1990’. The same embellishments,
the same beads, the same embroidery. The shine didn’t get fade at all. It was
all new as it was carefully packed, in my dowry. Anybody can wear it” She
looked up onto the ceiling, as she was complaining to God and concluded her
words “Because it is still beautiful……, I never got a chance to wear it
again….” downhearted she, repeated her words with a sorrowful and regretful
voice “I swear I never wear it …….”. She had led a miserable and hard life
which was obvious through her mourn.
She looked at the front wall of the
room with a little, cute but ironic smile. There used to be her dressing
table at that damaged end of the room. On that, she used to keep her makeup, her
jewellery and other accessories. But as those golden and beautiful days had
vanished, so her smile too. Before marriage, she used to think that marriage is
a fantasy, she wants to hold the hand of his prince and enjoy their lovely fairy tale.
What a girl demands as a wife is a support, mentally and physically presence
of her husband. A relationship with love and affection. But in Catherine’s
case, things were beyond it. She was the woman who hadn’t been in a
relationship that was full of love, care and attention. Because her husband
was a poor man. “Poor couple doesn’t have rights to celebrate their marriage,” she
said.
Her husband was ignorant of her
wife’s love. He didn’t pay attention to her beauty. Never be intimate with
her. Never looked at her with affection. He didn’t know about the dimple nor
the pimple on her face. He hated her because now he had to feed her too. One
more person was added to the tribe was his issue. In that tension, he moved to
another city to earn his livelihood. She was called Mrs. Peter, but not
honored. She waited a long, long time for her husband to come. She used to
keep the doors of her house open. What if Peter came, he should not wait
outside even for a moment to knock at the door. She used to stare at the door
whenever it is a slight noise. She used to sit, sleep and eat near the
telephone to not miss any call from Peter. But he never called nor visited her.
Catherine worked for her in-laws day
and night. She cooked, she washed, she cleaned, and did all the chores. Her life
was full of dying desires and miseries. She just wanted love and care from her
husband which she never received and enjoyed all those emotions which a newly
married couple wanted to. She never celebrated any occasion, nor a festival.
But those passing years transformed
her from a newly married and beautiful young girl to an old desperate and ugly woman. She started working, from the very next day of her marriage and
never put on her new clothes. Her accessories placed on her dressing table got
covered with dust. Her bangles were broken in the box though unused. But Peter
never came back and broke all the ties with her. Her life meant nothing.
She closed her closet and shut her
eyes!!
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