13 | Feeling
Although I wouldn't say I wanted to meet him again, I must admit I didn't feel the same apathy towards Hasan now that I did when I first met him.
It surprised me as I sat waiting for his arrival in the evening. I was sitting in my old living room, half-heartedly playing video games with Amaan while sniffing biryani-scented air. Lubaina, mamma, and the kitchen lady laboured in the kitchen, where, as it seemed, I was forbidden forever now.
"Addi," Lubaina called from the kitchen. "Do they eat a lot of spice? Or, like, moderate?"
I rolled my eyes. "Don't mind it, put the quantity you feel like putting. He'll survive if he eats for once what we do."
"Okay," she said, and after some seconds, "By the way, he likes rasmalai, right?"
"I don't know. But I do know that he likes halwa."
"Oh! You should've told me that earlier, ugh! There's not enough time to make one now!"
I then heard his car enter the driveway and quickly fixed my dupatta. When the bell rang, I threw the controller away.
"Baji!" Amaan cried. "At least finish the game!"
"Some other time, Amaan," I said and ran to the gate.
"Assalaam Alaikum," Hasan said as he entered, and Jebrail went to the kitchen to announce his arrival.
"How are you?" He asked me, and I nearly began crying again.
"Great. I cried several times and probably will cry more, but it feels so good to meet everyone again. Even Lubaina is here."
He looked confused. "Lubaina is . . . ?"
"My best friend! And perhaps my only true friend. I missed her so much, you have no idea. And do you know?! Since I was away Jebrail has decided it was okay to steal my speakers. And mamma and Lubaina are not letting me inside my own kitchen, can you believ- " He cut me off.
"You never told me if you missed me."
I smirked. "Yes, because I didn't."
He faked hurt. "What?!"
"Yep. I didn't miss you, Mr Ilmas."
"Yeah, right," he scoffed. "Where's Amaan? He'll tell me just how much you missed me, and aren't ready to confess. Amaan! Come here, bro, I need your help!"
Like you'd guess, I rolled my eyes as Amaan came running and slammed right into Hasan's flat belly.
"Hasan Bhaiiiii," he cried, hugging him.
"Amaaaaan! How are you?"
"Awesome! You?"
"Same! I got you gifts, bro, check it out," he handed him a plastic bag.
I stared at it.
He hadn't given me anything.
Before I could comment, though, Hasan looked at me. "Tell me now, Amaan, and with complete honesty. Did Adinah Baji miss me?"
Amaan looked at me.
"Adinah Baji - " he started, but I didn't let him finish. I covered his mouth with my palm.
"Shut up, you disloyal raccoon! Don't make me physically dump you in the trash can!"
I didn't look at Hasan while I did this, and when I did, I regretting ever having denied that I did, in fact, miss him. A little. Well.
"That's enough! I got my answer, Adinah," he grinned. "You can let him go now."
By now I was way too embarrassed to say anything in my defense, and just turned around and started walking away to save the dignity I was still left with.
Lubaina stayed inside, probably busy making a halwa in peace, but the rest of us sat first for refreshments, and after some time, for dinner.
They fed us, and they did it really well. But unlike typical Bollywood heroes, Hasan seemed to want more and more and yet more. That was how we sat on the dining table literally for hours, eating nonstop, and making fun of me nonstop.
But it was mandatory for me, as the new bride, to scowl once at Hasan and then once at Jebrail, unable to stop either as they laughed and mercilessly narrated in front of everyone about my embarrassing life before the marriage, and after.
Jebrail told him about the time that I crashed Papa's car when I was sixteen and just learning to drive, and ended up with barely a scratch on the car but a humongous swelling on my face where the airbags hit me through my glasses. Hasan told him of my adventures in the kitchen, and the time I accidentally fell asleep on the couch and his dad passed and caught me napping there.
Family meals at Hasan's place were odd. They were either totally chaotic because of too many relatives, or, when there was nobody except his parents, Hafsa and us, there was no conversation while eating at all.
But in my house, we were used to having fun every meal. Even after Papa left us, we tried hard to save a funny incident from school for dinnertime because all three of us wanted very desperately for at least that aspect of our house to remain the same as before, simply because it was one of the best things about our house and none of us wanted to lose it when we lost Papa.
And even now, after I got married and away, Amaan and Jebrail tried to keep mamma's spirit high on this table, because it was the only way they knew our family.
I looked at Hasan's face every two minutes now, and every time, undeniably, I noticed the grin he had whenever he was completely content.
And each time that I saw that grin, I felt it - I felt deep within my heart a small, soft glow of gratitude, for it felt that at least this something in my dramatically incorrect universe had fit correctly; at least this something had thankfully proved right.
This man who was dropped onto my life with barely any warning and without my own wish had wound up fitting into my family and my heart in a strange way that I hadn't ever imagined in my dreams. I had hoped, but I had never let myself expect the graduation of this level of affection for him, at least not this soon.
Something still wasn't right though, and this feeling was just as strong as any other that I was feeling lately. Hasan made eye-contact with me after noticing after some time that I was staring through him and really was far away. He signalled and asked me what happened.
And what happened?
I didn't reply. Instead I just gave him a smile; my smile of calm reassurance that everyone always fell for, because even I didn't know what actually had happened.
"When Aunty Rumana asked, I couldn't say no, Ammi," Lubaina said. "Ji. Yes, we will study together insha Allah. Ji. No, I'll come to collect some clothes and my books after some time. We'd wait till Hasan Bhai leaves. No, Ammi, of course not alone, it's too late! I'll come with . . . with Adinah. No, Ammi, she will not be driving; her brother's going to drive us. Ji. Okay. Assalam Alaikum."
"What did Aunty Amna say?" I asked when she hung up.
"What do you expect," Lubaina sighed and sat beside me on my bed. "As usual, she was wondering what the need was, to which I did not reply because I myself have no clue why we are doing this!"
I widened my eyes to make a dramatic shocked face. "Of course we needed to do this. But look at you! I mean, Astaghfirullah! I never would've guessed you wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore just because I was forcibly hanging out with a guy now!"
She sighed again. "Come on, Addi. You're a married woman now. No matter what we say or think, things are not the same anymore. And you didn't even ask him! You should try to spend more time with your husband now, Adinah. He has all the right, and we don't have any."
Now I turned away from her, my eye brow raised and brain enraged. But I controlled myself somehow from snapping at her with an impolite comeback. The last thing I wanted was to fight with Lubaina right now.
"Never mind," I said, instead of taunting her for saying that only Hasan had any rights over me now. "Tell me what else Aunty Amna said."
"Well, she almost refused to let me in when I told her I would be coming to pick my stuff up with you. But when she heard that your Mahram would be with us, she relaxed."
I smirked. "Mm hmm? Guess Aunty Amna trusts Jebrail."
She stared at me for a second and then grabbed one of my cushions to hit me.
I'd have attacked her back, but when I looked at her hands, suddenly I was reminded of the beautiful art they made.
My best friend was like one of those flowers that she particularly loved to draw. She had innumerable mehndi designs that she chose from, much like the infinite number of colours on a painter's palette, and I can't escape admitting that each one was more gorgeous than the other.
But her flowers, they were different.
She filled in every petal attentively, with acute precision, until every leaflet, every flower was a beauty in itself, and the entire design an extraordinary artwork.
And Lubaina was like her flowers. Her personality was enticing to the point of mesmerism, her calming aura just like a flower's hypnotically sweet fragrance. She was loved and cherished by everyone, just like flowers are.
But the similarity doesn't end at that.
Her roots were just as strong as of a plant, and they disabled her to move, to even look up. All she was allowed to do was to remain and sustain where she was, and just look pretty.
And she was just as fragile as them. One pull was all it would take to break her into half; the slightest shake would destroy her beauty and her existence once and for all.
I stared at Lubaina for a long time, thinking of all the things fate gave her, and all the things it deprived her of.
Upon realising that I was staring, I looked away, but not before I figured that she was looking at me and thinking about something, too.
"How come I had this idea in my head all this while that you have a unibrow?" She asked suddenly.
It was her attempt at lightening the awkwardness that did not belong between us. And it worked - I rolled my eyes. "Because I had, duh!"
"Oh Allah! Do you mean to say you got it plucked off, Addi?!"
"Yeah . . . "
"But it's haraam to get your eyebrows done!"
"But it's not my fault," I cried. "I fell asleep when they were giving me a face massage, and apparently it's not necessary to ask a would-be bride if she wants her facial hair removed or not; it's assumed she requires it and then they just decide to go for it!"
"Oh, Adinah," she sighed again. "Pray Nafl Salat and apologise to Allah! May He forgive you, He's the Greatest."
"I have," I said, "And Ameen."
Just then we heard a knock.
"Adinah Baji, Lubaina Baji!" Amaan cried from outside.
We both looked at the locked door.
"Go, Adinah, open."
"You go, pretty please?" I said with puppy eyes.
"Nope. Your room, your door, you responsible."
"But my room is a different one now, right? I mean, since my house is a different one now," I smirked, repeating her words from earlier today.
Then there was another knock.
"But you used to use this room before you moved out, so it's still yours!"
"But since you're sleeping here tonight with me, you get the privilege of undertaking such trivial tasks. Now hurry and open the door, Lub."
When I finished, she scowled, defeated.
"If it weren't haraam to say so, I would've said I hate you," she muttered before going to open the door.
When she did open it, she screamed. Because it wasn't my younger brother who stood at the door.
It was Jebrail, my mother's mistake, the personification of disturbance.
Lubaina wasn't even in hijab. She didn't even have a dupatta draped on.
"Astaghfirullah!" She cried and jumped behind the door.
"Woah," I said, stunned. "The hell, Jebrail? We thought it was Amaan at the door!"
"It was, but now it's me," Jebrail said, annoyingly calm. "This is your final call. Come downstairs. Hasan Bhai is demanding to see you, and I think he's mad that you never asked him before deciding to stay."
So they told him, I sighed.
I rolled my eyes and then rolled over on the bed. "No, thanks. Tell him I'm spending quality time with my best friend and he will survive the night if I don't come to Salaam him. Send some of the leftover halwa upstairs, may Allah give you a palace in Jannah. Oh, and you may close the door when you leave."
He put his hands on his waist. "Yeah? Listen, princesses," he said, looking at the ground, "if you two aren't coming down right this instance and getting in my car after seeing off Hasan, I'm going to sleep, which means no one's going anywhere. And Addi, you know for a fact that my threats aren't empty."
And then he left. I rolled my eyes again.
"You know, Adinah, I'm actually having second thoughts about my interest in this guy," Lubaina said as she shut the door again, loudly, irritated.
"You should," I said, and although it must've sounded totally not serious to her, I actually was pretty serious when I said that.
Nobody is perfect, but my brother was especially flawed.
Jebrail had countless small errors in his character; I, being his younger sister by a year knew that best.
I was witness of how he showered like an animal and left a wet trail from the bathroom to his room practically his entire life despite our scoldings; the way he picked out the most hurtful things to say even in the smallest of quarrels; how if he was tired he couldn't be bothered to get up and give a glass of water to a man dying of thirst; the evenings he would roam the city with his friends without thinking once of informing at home, or the way he liked to pick out paneer and eat it right from the dish, grossing me and mamma out when we caught him, and then laughing and making faces at us.
But these were all small flaws that could be overlooked. What couldn't be ignored, however, was most definitely the ignorance.
Nearly all my life I had struggled with trying to handle my life according to my own judgements and biases and ideologies, and hence nearly all my life, as can be imagined, at every other small incident I had had drastically draining, yet totally vain arguments with my mother.
It's what happens when there are two different kinds of thinkings within the walls of the same house and coming from the same spiritual focal point, yet advocating completely different rules and paths and boundaries. Years went and I still couldn't move my mother's parachronistic concept of masculine superiority a single inch, and the same way, she couldn't make me budge from my feminist interpretation of Islam's teachings and gender-equal outlook towards life.
But in all this, Jebrail wasn't even a little inclined to figure out my side of the argument.
Not once in his whole lifetime.
He'd sit and swallow food sitting right beside us as we tried to debate our contrasting interpretations of Quranic statements on female empowerment and the extents of women's rights over lunch or dinner, and he'd sit with a perfect poker face. A face so totally void of suggestions that we couldn't comprehend at all if there was any side he supported; if he was even listening.
But in the later years of our youth - when we had become older than fifteen and mamma officially counted us as adults - when he had arguments of his own about his own issues, I found myself devastated. Because studying the same books as me, living in the same house, listening to the same ignorant, hypocritical bullshit coming from the same uneducated (or partially educated) cultural imperialistic relatives, my brother someway still managed to raise a negative opinion towards my beliefs.
When mamma would disapprove of my clothes, or deny me something I asked for but not him, he'd tease me about it, overwhelming me to the point of tears each time.
"You should've fought this way when you were up there; who knows, maybe Allah would've sent to our family an Aydin, not an Adinah!"
And he would laugh.
But it wasn't funny; not in the least bit.
Because here's the thing : feminism is not a funny concept. It's only a way towards a much better society than the shitty one we live in, and also one that Allah Sub'Haan Wa Ta'ala approved of and our Great Prophet highlighted and showed example of.
And besides, which girl in the whole goddamned world even wants to be a guy, you tell me? I don't think there exists such a girl; guys are gross.
All we want is for us to have access to the rights Allah gave us already! That is literally all there is to feminism. And the world calls it names like defiance and rebellion.
It is just simply the gist of ignorance - what these people require is to take a look at Google's definition of the word, not to judge us and assault us further than we are already struggling to live through.
Jebrail opposed my ideologies most of the time if not each, and this was why I wondered what Lubaina found in him and liked so much, not to even mention, Naoodhubillah, how modestly not-pretty my brother was.
But I acknowledged this was a mystery that I didn't want to solve, and tried to focus on the quandary that posed in front of me now : how to face Hasan now that he knew I was going to stay over without letting him talk me into having a joint sleepover.
Not to even mention the elation it would bring to my family, my mother and brothers who seemed to like Hasan more than me, I was certain he himself would want to stay over with me. Which I couldn't let happen because I was looking forward to a night with Lubaina.
While Lubaina dragged me downstairs with a dubious urgency, I planned my words carefully. To place them well was the only skill I attributed to myself and hence I tried to use it cleverly for whatever brownie points it may gain me.
His expression, in absolute accuracy, was a question mark followed by two exclamation marks when he found me.
"You're staying over with your friend and kicking me out?!!"
"That's about right," I said. "See, Hasan," I flopped on the couch, not far from where he was sitting, "Lubaina and I are planning to plan how to tackle the syllabus together, because if I don't study at this point, I will fail the semester. If I fail the semester I'll probably get major depression. Depression doubled with my already half sane brain would not be a great combination to have in an already unstable wife, in my magnificent opinion, do you understand hoe petrifyingly intolerable that could be for you? What if I turn into more of a pain in your butt than I already am? I don't think a business man like your esteemed self would want to undergo a loss like that. I mean, don't even be so selfish, okay? Think of me?! Think of Aunty Husna. Think of our unborn children! You ought to leave me here for a night so everyone is saved. You ought to."
Now, in my head this all sounded so okay. But out loud, I sounded like a pathetic comedian nobody laughs at. Although Hasan was trying his hardest to not laugh, by the looks of it.
"Okay, okay. As long as you promise you'll be back by tomorrow afternoon."
"Why," I whined, greedy now. Indeed, mankind can never be sated. "Why not through the next evening?"
"Because I said so!"
I squinted. "And why would you say so? It's not like we even do anything when we're together all day that you're being so over affectionate at letting me go!"
Soon I realised how weird that must've sounded when Jebrail cleared his throat and then coughed and then started laughing uncontrollably.
Now everyone was laughing. I could even hear Lubaina laugh from the kitchen.
"Fine. But can I at least get some coffee before you push me out?"
Before I could say anything, as can be expected, mamma jumped to go to get him some. For some reason Jebrail and Amaan followed her, and now I sat alone in the lounge staring back and forth between the food lying on the table and Hasan . . . who was suddenly frowning.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"Sure?"
"Yeah. Just that I'm highly disappointed in you."
"Oh Allah. Now what??"
"You couldn't possibly forget?!" He cried.
I raised an eyebrow. "I might have . . . "
"Adinah!! I leave tomorrow!"
"Oh."
I had forgotten. Indeed I was a talented woman.
"Well. It's what you get for leaving me behind!"
"Does that mean you won't meet me once before I leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon?"
"Nope," I said while, like the paradox that I was, I made a mental note to tell Jebrail that he must drop me to Hasan's place before noon tomorrow.
"Ya Allah! How can you even say that?!" He exclaimed in frustration.
"I can, because I don't like you!"
Yet there was a grin on my face as I said that, and I tried hard to suppress the small voice somewhere in the back of my mind that wouldn't stop asking me how true that really was.
A.N.
Please tell me your thoughts on this one!