"Sometimes the most brilliant and intelligent minds do not shine in standardized tests because they do not have standardized minds." - Diane Ravitch
"Did you tell them?"
"Tell them what?"
I kicked mud and dust up the path as we strode along, breathing in the overwhelming stench of smoke and pollution. The smell of pakoras and samosas cooking on old, rusty stoves tickled my nostrils. "Did you tell them about your exam?" Daniyal replied as we walked up the road towards school. "We haven't even received our marks, yet." I retorted, shaking my head. "Now can we talk about anything else? Please!"
He laughed, "If you insist."
There was something so courteous about him that made me want to laugh. He was chivalrous, indeed. Like a prince in an old fairytale. You could tell in his eyes that he had an utmost respect for woman and just people in general. His emerald green pupils twinkled with satisfaction when he spoke. The same colour as my father's, though his were bright and glimmering. My father's were murky and dark. It really was quite the contrast. Both eyes were the same colour, yet one was beautiful and one was not.
We walked in silence, the white noise of the bustling streets of Kashmir filling the absence of sound. Once we'd reached the school he departed again, making sure to say goodbye properly before he did. I walked up the steps to our classroom door and leant against one of the large white pillars that held up the old building. We had arrived early and Sarafina was not yet there. Afreen definitely wouldn't be here, surprisingly she wasn't.
Suddenly, peaking her head out of the side of the door, I heard Mrs Khan begin to whisper my name. "Aqsa! Aqsa, come here!"
I stared confusedly at her, looking around me before walking towards her. "Yes, Ma'am?" She opened the door slightly ajar so that I could slip into the classroom and then she shut it firmly behind her. I looked through the door as it slammed shut and then looked up at her with confusion and doubt. "I need to talk to you about your exam." She stated, clasping her hands together.
"Oh."
I looked despondently at the ground before being lead to a table and sat down. Mrs Khan picked up a pale yellow booklet of paper from her desk and dropped it in front of me. "Your test paper. Do you understand how you did?"
I read the bright red inked letters that illuminated my page with sharp crosses and exclamation marks. "I did bad."
She huffed, clearly aggravated by my careless words. "Not bad, Aqsa. You did absolutely awful! This-" She shoved the test paper closer to me so that I could really see the full extent of how badly I had done. "-this is shameful! Have you no shame?"
I nodded, slowly, looking down at my feet and drowning in the pool of shame that she had just pushed me into. "You know, no one will marry you at this rate. This isn't good, at all."
I looked up at her fiercely. She couldn't just claim that every woman's purpose was to get married to a lazy Asian man that constantly demanded food and clean clothes. Why bother with exams and going to school when we'd just end up marrying strangers and being prisoners in our own homes?
"What if I don't want to get married?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Aqsa. You're sixteen. Do you even understand?"
"Yes, I do. And I'm not getting married. As you said, I'm sixteen."
She gasped at my impudent remark, "Aqsa! I'm trying to help you and it seems all you want to do is cause trouble!"
I remained silent. I knew that my fierce temper and need to constantly be right all of the time would get me in trouble. "Well?"
"I'm sorry, Ma'am."
I nodded my head slowly, looking down at my sandals with utmost despondence as they tapped against the thin blue carpet.
"You're not doing well Aqsa. I may be forced to call your parents in."
I rolled my eyes underneath my dupatta so that she couldn't see my primitive attitude. My parents finding out would only cause more problems then it was worth. All of my teachers called me a hopeless case, now I could see that they were all right. "How do you think your father would feel if he found out he raised a stupid, un-marriageable girl? Education isn't free, Aqsa."
"Education isn't just the foundation of marriage, either."
She gasped. "Go back outside. And don't come back till I come personally and get you."
"But-"
"Aqsa! Now!" I jumped back, her loud remark instantly shocking me. I managed to whisper a feeble sorry before standing up and leaving the room but I just didn't understand. She was trying to prove a point that no good, well-educated man would want to marry a stupid, un-intelligent woman like me. But education isn't just so you can grow up and throw your life under the foot of an unappreciative stranger. Is it?
I opened the door wide and ambled out, pulling a dull expression as I walked out onto the massively heated courtyard. Afreen and Sarafina were talking together, looking up at me as I joined their little conversation. "Hello."
They both greeted me back, watching as students began to merge with the crowd that was gathering at the classroom door. "What were you doing inside?" Sarafina asked, staring curiously into my eyes. I hesitated, contemplating whether or not I should tell them why I was really sitting inside. "I was helping Mrs Khan... with the books."
They nodded slowly. "Come on then, let's go." Afreen said, linking onto the end of the large line that was snaking away from the classroom door, Mrs Khan at the front. "Um... actually, I was told to stay out here."
"What? Why?" Sarafina queried, standing behind Afreen in the line. Before I had time to reply they were both dragged along with the crowd, only looking back once, a suspicious face full of curiosity. I looked over to see Daniyal also staring at me, eyebrows tilted in confusion, his green eyes sparkling with worry. I smiled in reassurance as he drifted away with the crowd.
When everyone had gone inside I took my seat on a bench in the courtyard. I leant against the black metal arm rest and let the heat from the sun burn my olive skin. The light intensity was so bright that I nearly drowned with fatigue. In Kashmir, the heat was never too far away, even at night. I sat for a long time, beginning to think that Mrs Khan had forgotten about me. Time flew by, leaves falling to the ground and being swept away by the light breeze that tickled the hairs on my neck.
After around ten minutes had passed, Mrs Khan came outside, striding forward and sitting beside me. "I'm not your enemy, Aqsa."
I nodded, slowly. I didn't need her slow, caring speech to make me feel better. I needed to be left alone, to think about how my father would most likely murder me, today. "You know, not everyone is born smart. That is why they must try harder."
I nodded again, but my mouth stayed shut.
"You must promise me, Aqsa. That you will try harder. If you don't I will have to call your parents... Okay?" She looked at me concernedly, her brown eyes widening. "I promise." I whispered, looking shamefully at my toes as they floated above the dusty ground. She smiled, "Okay. Come, I will give you your exam back."
"Mrs Khan... is there any chance you could alter my marks, just on the paper? I promise I'll do better in the future."
She stared at me, puzzled, "Why on earth would I do that?"
I shook my head, "Never mind."
I didn't want this to get anymore heated than it needed to get, but knew all too well what would happen if I didn't listen to her warning. I'd just have to face whatever punishment was destined for me.
..............................................................
"Are you going to tell them?"
"Of course not. Don't be ignorant, Daniyal."
He huffed, hopelessly, shaking his head at me. "You really are a hopeless case, aren't you, Aqsa?"
I smiled, cordially. "That's me."
We walked on, letting the intensifying heat from the bright sun burn our foreheads. The scorching mud roads of Kashmir burnt my sandals as they slapped the dirt across the roads. "So you're not going to tell them anything?" Daniyal asked. I shook my head, "No."
He nodded, a bit too considerately, "Your choice."
"Really? You're not going to try and stop me?" I laughed.
"It is your decision, Aqsa. I can only advise."
I grinned, "Wow, wise words, Daniyal!" I gave him a light punch in the arm, his smug face grinning with ease. His dimples, becoming automatically defined.
Suddenly he stopped outside a large house. I almost laughed, it was way too large to be his, of course it was. Only those who had politicians and doctors as fathers lived in houses like these. It had two balconies, laden with cherry blossom, on either side. There were two, possibly three floors and a spiral metal staircase that went all the way up the side like a growing vine, reaching the balcony on the far right. The front garden was growing all sorts of beautiful plants and flowers, brightly coloured and beautifully smelling.
I'd seen this house many times before when walking to school but I'd never assumed it belonged to anyone at my school, let alone Daniyal. I thought it belonged to someone of an extremely high importance. But maybe that someone was Daniyal. I stared at him, his cheeks were flushed.
"You live here?" I chuckled. I was going to make some cheeky joke about how he wished he lived there, but then he nodded slowly, looking up to the towering house in front of us. Before I had a chance to question him further, a woman, seemingly young, yet old enough to be his mother, walked out onto the stone path and ambled towards us. I tried to subtly leave but after a second she was standing next to us, examining me carefully.
"Salaam, Daniyal. Who is this?" She smiled unsurely at me. Unlike my mother, she spoke with authority, and importance. Her clothes were much nicer too. My mother was simple. Her light brown hair had streaks of white and grey and was always a mess under the same black or white dupatta that she covered it with. Daniyal's mum, however, wore a pink dupatta that sat in a neat pile below her neck, long ringlets of brown with streaks of golden, hung down her chest. Their was no point of a head-covering in the first place. Her clothes were embellished with sequins and ornate designs, all different colours. I'd never seen it worn before. Her sleeves were pulled up to her elbows, whereas my mother never had any skin showing at all. Even a bit of ankle was seen as impolite and 'too revealing'. She'd only ever worn plain shalwar kameez's. In white, black or light blue. This woman, however, seemed like a Pakistani model. Her eyes were dark brown, unlike Daniyals. He must've got his bright emerald eyes from his father.
"This is Aqsa, Maa. She lives down the road so we walk to school together."
Daniyal's mother looked down the road to the sight of shacks and shanties. Only poor people lived further down the road from their house. I shuffled on the spot, drowning in shame as she examined the street beyond her. It was almost as if she'd never seen anything beyond her house before. Daniyal flashed me a sorry glance, as if he knew what I was feeling, and was sorry to have even spoken. "Oh. Salaam, beta." She smiled, more confidently, towering over me with her large structure. Almost like she knew that now, there was nothing to lose. That she was above me and that her dominance was okay. It wasn't. Just because I wasn't as well off didn't mean that she had a right to be so assertive.
"Salaam, aunty." I squeaked, longing to be home, even if it meant facing my father. Sensing the tension and awkwardness almost suffocating us, Daniyal broke the deafening silence. "Goodbye, Aqsa." He smiled, turning to the direction of his abnormally gigantic house. I nodded a goodbye back to him and turned to continue my journey. "Allah Hafez, child." Daniyal's mother chimed, after me. I took the brave decision to ignore her, simply because she was wildly intimidating and not worth my time. I had already decided that I disliked her. Not through any actual fault of her own, I'm simply too quick to judge most people. Quickly disappearing into a crowd of busy workers and returning students, I never looked back.
I continued to walk home, breathing in the sights and smells of Kashmir. I looked back only once to examine Daniyal's gargantuan house as it cast a shadow on the rest of the houses next to it. Even their house intimidated me. Once I had reached my own house, that now seemed smaller than a shed, compared to theirs, I walked inside. I dropped my brown leather satchel onto the kitchen counter in front of me and greeted my mother. "Hello, beta. Why are you so late, today? Your father's been waiting for you." Ammi Jee asked.
My heart suddenly pounded in my chest. I remembered my test paper, sitting in my satchel. I remembered the horrific mark scrawled on it in bright red pen. I remembered the imminent doom that I would soon be facing. "I got held up. Sorry..." I mumbled.
"Bilal! Aqsa is home!" Ammi Jee shouted up the stairs as she sat down at a stool to scrub the dishes that lay before her in towering piles. I yearned for escape as I heard his leather shoes tapping with every step. Leather shoes, all the best to slap me with.The creak from the wooden flooring echoing around the house. Soon enough, he was stood there, wearing a black waistcoat over a plain white kurta. His hair was thickly gelled back in long black streaks behind his head. "Your exam?" He asked, not even caring to greet me. Clearly, it was all he'd been thinking about. No Salaam's, no 'how was school's'. Just my exam.
I gulped, swallowing down the fear that had gathered in my throat. "I, I..."
No matter how hard I tried, the words remained in my mouth, I just couldn't spit them out. "Well?" He started to turn angry, that worried me more than anything. My mother looked at me nervously from the stool where she was sitting, a brown clay pot wobbling in her hands. I shook my head slowly, a sign to show that I was clueless in the situation. Before I could control what happened shortly after, my father swung in, pulling my satchel out from in front of me.
My bloodshot eyes widened as he pulled apart the metal buckles and prised open the leather lid. He was getting angry now, in fits of rage as he looked through my many belongings. His hairy arms shuffling books and pens around in the small leather bag. His murky green eyes turning hazel. His neat strands of immaculate black hair had fallen down his face and turned into a large mess. The first sign of a beating that at this point, was inevitable.
My heart pounded so hard that my chest hurt with nerves. When I finally saw the pale yellow paper from my exam appear at the top I felt as though I would faint. It was instantly pulled out, that's when I knew that I was most definitely dead.