Gunnah e Shab

5. Celebration • جشن

"Mama?" Ayana questioned.

Her voice heavy with sleep as she turned under the sheets. Sleepy eyes looking up at her with a frown marring her features. Ayna yawned, scratching the back of her shoulders, wiping the drool with the back of her hand as she stared at her mother. The worry on her face, the tears in her eyes, the drooping of her shoulders. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

"Ay — Ayna! Asma Bi she —" Sarah sniffed.

The heels of her palms rubbed at her eyes, furiously. Rubbing the frustration in them away, her throat burning from a backlog of tears. Sarah was cloaked in misery, from top to bottom.

"Kia huwa hai?" [What has happened?] Ayna touched her hand softly.

Her voice, like a zephyr. Eyes observing her with worry. Searching for the usual giddiness inside them.

"Asma Bi did not agree. Laila will start entertaining customers after tonight!" She choked.

Ayna stared at her mother for a few seconds. Shell shocked. Frozen. Her mind reeling back to the night of her own first time. The night of destruction. The icy cold night, filled with pain and torture on her body. The dread filling her up, her fingernails dripping with blood — a gory sight. With a shaky breath, and eyes rimmed red, Ayna hugged her mother tight. Sobbing into her bosom. Her shoulders shivering with the many possible ways the night could end in.

"Mama ap bas phir yahi dua karein keh Laila ka saamna kisi darenday sai na ho. Woh seh nahi sakay gi!" [Mama then you just pray that Laila does not encounter a savage. She won't be able to handle it!] Ayna wiped her own tears with the back of her hand.

Sarah nodded, kissing the crown of Ayna's head. It seemed as if she was stuck in time, everyone around her, sipping on fine wine out of the fancy goblets. And she alone braved through the trickling of time, each drip, a drop of her own blood. Sufferings had been a  part of her mere existence. She knew pain before she ever knew her own name. As fate would deem fit, Sarah believed it would be a part of her till the day she died.

"Yeh kia baat huwi bhala? Meray beghair hi eik dusray kai galay lagay huway hain?" [What is this behaviour? You guys are hugging without me?] Laila barged into the bedroom.

The two women, hurriedly wiped their tears and Ayna rushed inside ths bathroom, lest her younger sister see through her. Laila, who was much too engrossed in the celebrations of the night, jumped onto the worn out bed. Her head resting on her mother's lap. The tiny, silver koka [nose ring] radiant under the minimal light that streamed in from the open doors. The thick curtains, still drawn over the boarded windows.

A nose ring on the left side, was a depiction of your status. Of the title that these women held. It had been an old tradition, carried on hundreds of years later, the cruelty of it still the same. It was a collar for women, a piercing on the left side. A ritual began at a time in history no one remembered. It gave aid in distinguishing between the tawaif [dancers] or kanjri [prostitutes] from the women and wives of respectable homes, who pierced on the right side. To Laila however, it was a symbol of pride. A sign of power that she now held in herself.