Zakia
Zakia was a fourteen-year-old witty girl with a lustrous smile. She was born in a family of nine with three older sisters, two older and one younger brother. Her family lived in a village close to Toba Tek Singh in central Punjab and owned some land where her father grew seasonal crops and raised livestock. She went to a public school along with her sisters which was situated not far from their house and had large playgrounds where she loved to play kikli kalerdi.
Zakia had a fascination with colors and bought a new set of colorful bangles on every Eid, with the money saved from last year’s Eidi. She loved to laugh, a laughter that she always tried to muffle to avoid being shunned for being loud. She would every so often hear an angry shout “Hasdian kyun jay” (why are you laughing?) if the sound of laughter went outside of the room and her father could hear it in his adjacent room. She could feel a sense of shame and dishonor connected to a laughing woman and so she got accustomed to feeling guilty as if she was sinning if she laughed loud. However, a sudden burst of laughter would often surprise her at least expected moments and would get her in trouble unless she put a firm hand on her mouth to remain soundless. She never understood how a laughter could be a source of shame.
She enjoyed long winter nights, half sitting and half lying in charpai with a warm and heavy razai, sharing jokes and stories with her three sisters and mother who she shared room with, while eating roasted peanuts her younger brother bought from a street vendor. She had a sharp sense of humor and a natural gift of imagination which she leveraged to come up with most entertaining and creative stories that made everyone laugh and forget about their daily troubles. Zakia was a soft-hearted person and felt deeply about the small and big things alike. Like the day when her father lost his temper and slapped and kicked her elder sister for not putting narra in his shalwar on time, she cried silently for three nights. The softness of her heart and healing energy of her being put people at ease around her. It was almost like the ugliness of the violence in the house felt a bit eased when she smiled.
She would often look up to her mother hoping she would say something or protect her or her sisters when their father would beat them on pettiest of matters as if they were his punching bag to let out the frustrations of the day and not humans who could feel each slap on their soul, feeling degraded and having their delicate bodies bruised and dishonored. It was almost as if assaulting them and seeing them shiver in terror gave him a sense of fulfillment and control when other aspects of his life felt out of control because of his incompetence, erratic personality, and lack of talent. However, her mother just stood there with her lips tied. Often, she would say nothing in the fear of being beaten herself or admonish them together with their father to earn some goodwill from him.
Her brothers would just look away since they didn’t want to invite their fathers’ wrath by interfering in his fists and punches landing on their sisters’ face or bodies. Her brothers had both hit puberty and were aware of their imminent transition to manhood. They knew that being a man entailed keeping the women of the house in their place. They had grown up seeing their grandfather, father and uncles hurling vulgar abuses at women of the house, so they learnt that women were inherently promiscuous, and it was necessary to keep them in check. Not the least, they wanted to stay in their father’s good books lest they lose the little bit of mercy and favoritism he showed them when they made mistakes. So, they stayed silent.
One of her happiest time of the week was when she visited her Naani’s (Maternal Grandmother) house which was situated three hundred meters away from her father’s house. She will hover around her Naani watching her make perfect round chapatis in the mud tandoori oven with bare hands. Being around her grandmother made her feel safe from the violent slaps and vulgar slurs uttered from his fathers mouth more often than her fragile heart had capacity to endure. Her father often had arguments with their Naani who lived with her youngest son and his wife 300 meters away and would stop Zakia and her sisters from visiting them.
Zakia’s mother was a housewife. However, Zakia wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. She wanted to have her own money so she didn’t need to ask for it from anyone like her mother asked their father and would often get an insulting rejection. Her father brought the “souda” from a nearby shop and so didn’t feel the need to give any household allowance to her mother.
She often wondered what it would be like to be free, and a vision of meadow would shine in her consciousness where she is walking freely on green grass catching butterflies and laughing as loud as she could until her lungs were tired, where her father didn’t exist and she did not have to worry about the terror of his sudden and violent tantrums. She indulged herself in daydreaming at every chance she got to escape from the reality and to find some joy for her soul. She always imagined that her husband will be a kind man who will respect her, and they will together build a home where their children will feel safe. A place where her children will thrive, instead of wanting to escape to find safety and protection from violence.
Her daydreams involved walking in corn and sugarcane field together with her husband holding hands, exploring the bazaar of the Toba Tek Singh which was not far from her village, and buying roasted peanuts. She would often get so lost in her daydreaming that the idea of time and space would diminish and the chapati would get burnt or the chai would over spill. However, despite facing frequent consequences of her oversights due to daydreaming, she could not overcome it. How could she? it was the only thing which gave her hope of a different future. It was the only thing which kept her going despite the harshness of her circumstances. It was secret of her survival and the coping mechanism to escape the pain of the present moment.
It was a crisp winter morning when Zakia woke up and heard the routine sound of her mother making butter from the fresh milk that her father had brought home from the farm. She went outside to wash her face and get ready for school which was on a fifteen-minute walk from their house. She used to walk to her school together with her sisters and that fifteen-minute walk was the only time on most days which made her feel free and fearless. The cold winter sun and the light winter breeze made her heart swell with joy as she continued to walk while lost in her imaginary world.
As she arrived the school, she got to know that her teacher was absent and all classes were going to be cancelled. There were mixed reactions in the classroom. Some students were ecstatic to be able to go back home and play while others were frustrated to have come to school in the first place. Zakia saw it as a good opportunity to go to her Naani’s house and see the film she had heard all her friends obsess about. The wife of her newlywed uncle had got a TV in her dowry and Zakia along with her mother and sisters often visited them to watch TV dramas that aired at 8 pm. While the schoolgirls dispersed, some going back to their homes while others tagging along to their friends’ houses, Zakia slowly started walking towards her Naani’ house.
Why have you come so early? Why didn’t you go to school? Inquired her aging grandmother with a worried voice as she saw Zakia dressed in school uniform.
The teacher is not well so classes are cancelled. Replied Zakia with a joyous voice.
Hearing this, the old grandmother released a sigh of relief and got back to separating stones from the rice with her chaaba.
Zakia walked to kitchen and asked her aunt for permission to watch the movie which her uncle had rented two days ago, and she had got to know from their mutual house help.
Her aunt finished washing the dishes from breakfast, dried her hands with an old and half torn ‘’dastarkhwan’’ and they both went to her bedroom. She put the film in VCR, both sat on her bed wrapping warm razai around them and got immersed in the romantic comedy. The movie engrossed them so deeply that they completely lost track of time until Zakia’s grandmother called them to come out of the room and help with preparing lunch. She had lost track of reality and moved to realm of utmost happiness where it was just the movie characters celebrating their love and she was witnessing their joy. Her aunt got up quickly and went to kitchen to cut the sabzi for lunch while Zakia picked her school bag from her Naani’s charpai, carefully put her dupatta around her body and started walking towards her house.
As she reached the intersection, she noticed three men sitting outside the small ‘’karyana’’ shop in the corner and looking at her with sleezy look in their eyes. She ignored their uncomfortable, probing, and lustful stare and continued walking, trying to look confidant as if she was not scared by the filthy stares which later changed into repulsive whistles and cat calling.
She increased the speed of her walking until she reached home, found the door unlocked and closed it behind her. As she caught her breath and walked towards kitchen to tell her mother about the cancelled classes, she heard an aggressive knock on the door. She bent down to peep through the gap between floor and the door and saw her fathers’ shoes; her heart skipped a beat as she sensed his anger from the loud banging at the door.
Did abbu saw me walking from Dadi’s house home? Did he notice those men whistling at me?
The thought of her father’s possible reaction to knowing that she went to watch a movie at Naani’s house made her tiny, fragile body shiver.
Looking at her standing still despite the continuous knocking, her mother quickly came from the kitchen and opened the door.
As he entered the house and Zakia saw his face, she knew what was going to happen next and prepared herself. He took off his leather shoe, dragged her towards the bedroom she shared with her sisters and started beating her. He slapped her so hard that her head hit the wall and she fell on floor. As he was hitting her with punches, kicks, and his solid leather shoe with a sharp heel, he kept uttering his usual profanities “es kanjri nu jamdeyan hi dafnaa dena chaida si” . For some reason, the words were hurting her soul more this time than the slaps and punches. After hitting her for good fifteen minutes while her mother watched in silence, he got tired, spat at her and left the room.
Not a single drop of tear fell Zakia’s cheeks this time. She had been beaten for fifteen minutes and she was still alive. She stood up in a trance with her mind disheveled and her capacity to think disrupted.
She felt an utter disgust for herself as dark thoughts were reeling through her mind. Why am I still breathing? Why don’t I die after so much beating? Why didn’t I die when I was born? Everyone will be happier if I didn’t exist.
Her father had left the house as she walked to his room engulfed by the fleeting clouds of dark thoughts reminding her about her worthlessness. She opened her fathers’ closet, took out the pistol he had kept there under his clothes and aimed it at her chest.
This is it. All the pain ends here, she told herself as she slowly started moving her finger to pull the trigger. The fourteen-year-old had never held a pistol before. She pulled the trigger not anticipating the push-back force. The pistol fired the bullet, but the aim was missed; it went through her ribs hitting the spine and missing the heart which was her intention.
What followed was a nightmare which Zakia never imagined she would have to live. As the bullet missed her heart, she survived and had to be rushed to the hospital. She was taken to a small street-clinic in the city to avoid the police case which is a standard procedure for gun wounds. The bullet had hit her spinal cord resulting in loss of leg function and she became completely dependent on her mother and sisters. She hated being dependent, this was not what she had imagined. She hated hearing her mother ask visitors to pray for her death while she laid in her charpai helplessly.
It was almost like she became more invisible and worthless than ever before.
Her chachas who lived in a nearby city would curse her for bringing shame to the family every time they visited. They would remind her of the clothes or small presents they had bought her from the city and that how ungrateful she had been by completely disregarding their honor while committing such a disgraceful act.
Her brothers would throw shoes and spit at her, laying helplessly on charpai and ask “kadun marna ay tuun” (When are you going to die)? She became a punching bag for everyone to let out their frustrations of their miserable existence. Every relation who she had loved, or who she had thought cared for her, wanted her dead as soon as possible. Being immobile already, she numbed herself to an extent that she could barely feel the hurled abuses. She silently witnessed this horrendous chapter of her life unfolding as her body continued to become more frail due to the injury and lack of proper medical care.
Zakia spent 10 months laying on that charpai, her body in physical pain and mind gripped by dark clouds of anxious thoughts. The panic attacks would often make it challenging for her to breath and she would feel her creeping death, but her body would still persist until one day..
…when laying in the charpai her mind drifted to a lush green garden. She found herself running and playing in the warm embrace of sun and laughing her heart out. There was no one to kick or spit at her. Her pain was finally gone and her legs were working as before. She touched her legs in disbelief, but it was real! She had made it to a place where she was not burdened by the thoughts of being a nahoosat, a worthless punching bag or a mere shame for her family. She was a person who mattered.
She looked up at sun, smiled and started running to chase colorful butterflies.
Her life and her story leave me in awe of her beauty, her bravery and resilience. Her unfulfilled dreams, her voice which was stifled mercilessly, and her unlived life make me furious for all those girls who become victim of domestic violence and never get justice.
But I continue to hope that their stories inspire change and encourage other girls to believe that they are worthy, that they matter.. although society tells them otherwise.
I am reminded of Maya Angelou’s timeless poem “I will rise”, as I think of Zakia’s muffled laughter and shimmering eyes
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I will rise
