Aadila

1 | Fried Jalebis

Aamir burnt my sister to death. He set fire to a room, cackled wildly, and heard her shrilled screams as she disintegrated into bloody ash. He was her hus-

Sorry. Calling him her husband is like icing a moldy gulab jamun: utterly disgusting. And even that's being nice.

Aamir. The name means civilized. Ironic, right?

He took a deep breath, ran out of the house, his skinny arms flailing above him. He took an eye dropper and faked tears running down his cheeks. He gave his mother a successful grin and they ran out into the streets together.

I wonder how many times they rehearsed it because it was an Oscar-worthy performance. I wish I had recorded it to show you.

"Hayyy!" Zainab, the plump lady whose scarf always smelled of fried onions, ran out of the house with a broom in her hand and a hand on her lower back. "What is the ruckus about?!"

She was the first one running out of the house, always awaiting juicy gossip in the neighbourhood to tell her three daughters-in-law.

Then, it was Saima and her husband Asif who ran out. I'm not going to say anything bad about them because they are probably the only real people in our neighborhood. Both of them were writers. And I'll stop there because anyone who's a writer is an ideal person.

Naive to the situation, Saima ran to Aamir's mother, Baree Naak which meant "big nose" and was a name my sister gave her since her nostrils are always flared like an angry Spanish bull. Baree Naak rocked back and forth on the ground as if she had been shot in the leg.

"Baaji, are you okay?!" Saima and Asif ran and helped her up.

And then, Baree Naak "fainted" into their arms. Both Saima and Asif exchanged worried glances.

"Baaji?! Baaji?!" Saima tried to get the woman to open her eyes by slapping her wrinkled face.

I can almost imagine Baree Naak counting the seconds in her mind because, as if on cue, Aamir ran out screaming too.

"My wife! My wife!" He screamed. "I tried getting her out!"

He didn't even say her name which is good because he has a filthy mouth but, at the same time, it was enough to raise suspicions for the vigilant.

At this point, the whole street had gathered to figure out what was going on in the Khan family.

"Please! I need help!!"

Asif and Saima's eyes widened and her husband ran behind Aamir into the house. His nose turned as he took a whiff of the putrid smell - the odor of my sister's burning flesh. Aamir led him to the room and forced salty water to come out of his tear ducts.

Meanwhile, Baree Naak should've been the Winning Actress. Her frail yet sturdy hands viciously tore at her greying hairs as if she was in agony. She began wailing, getting louder as she hung limp in Saima's lap in the middle of the road. And the winning scene was when she tried to get up and tripped on the gravel road.

She even sacrificed some aging skin and bones, making sure to reveal the scraped part of her ankle as she fell. Of course, the stone would have had to be placed beforehand because no one trips on a pebble.

Now, that's what I call dedication and realism.

As for Aamir, he didn't have to do much. He was a mama's boy, after all.

"Let me take care of this for you," His mother would often say to this 35-year-old man and lovingly pinch his hairy cheeks.

His mother's real name was Aakifah, the dedicated one. Now, her name fits her just right if you know what I mean by her theatrical performance.

"The door is locked! She's burning inside! There are no windows inside!"

"No windows?!" Asif, the kind and reasonable man asked Aamir as they raced to the burning room.

I imagine he viciously shook the door to get it open. But at this point, my sister's screams had been hushed and only the crackling of flames was heard.

The word got around like wildfire (pun intended) that Aamir, the poor boy, yes they called this 35-year-old psychotically ill man a boy because it makes him sound innocent. Why would an innocent boy go burn his wife on purpose?

"I tried to get her out in time," Aamir sobbed when our shell-shocked family confronted him. "She always...She always said she was so unhappy."

He sneakily looked at his mother for approval. It wasn't any different from a school presentation where your friends hold up gigantic cue cards for you to read off of while presenting.

"I tried...," He cried again, this time louder and trying to be more convincing after Baree Naak glared at him. "To make her as happy as possible. I bought her gifts, We went on walks, I...um, we did everything together. She was the love of my life. We were..."

He let out a shrill cry startling everyone. "Soulmates."

He sank to his knees in defeat.

At this point, it was a bit over-the-top for me. But, any mention of drama and people swarmed the situation like hungry piranhas.

He had probably searched up "10 Things to Say to Your Partner to Make Them Swoon" a day before the funeral. People were touched by his love for my sister. The men, especially, came up to him and patted him on the back as he held his head in his hands and shook it a bit too violently.

I looked around me as the women dried their tears with their sweaty, white-coloured scarves.

Baree Naak beat her chest and rocked back and forth as she held the rosary with red beads in her left hand. She was draped in all white and to me, appeared like a cruel ghost kindling my pursuits for the future.

In short, Aamir got written off as unlucky. A poor BOY.

And my sister, Fareeda, whose name means precious like a pearl, and she indeed was precious, would be deemed as ungrateful, impious, a heathen, and, sometimes, especially when I was near, unfaithful.

Some said she has probably done something terrible and, in turn, Mother Nature had turned on her. Some whispered she had cheated on her husband and he had served her right. Others went as far as to say they saw a woman in the streets in the middle of the night with another man. They were beyond horrified to find out it was Fareeda. Unbelievable.

I wanted to take their scarves and wrap them around their fat necks until the veins popped out and they were strangled to death.

I cannot express how much it made my blood boil like the oil used by street vendors to fry jalebis, a sweet delicacy that Aamir's mother brought for the formal proposal.

The women clicked their tongues and kissed his forehead around Aamir. "There there! Mera bacha, my poor boy."

The strange thing was that Aamir avoided eye contact, in fact, all contact with me. Perhaps, he was smart enough to see that I didn't buy any of this. Neither did my grandmother. She was unlike the rest of the sniveling, gossiping women and, instead, chose to lead by example.

I admired her. Not only was I frying like a jalebi, but she was too. We exchanged glances of fury at my sister's funeral. I had cried all night but now I was thinking of all the ways to slit my brother-in-law's throat. He did this. There was no question.

Aamir.

He is a disgrace to his name. He took my precious sister away from me and didn't feel an ounce of remorse.

My entire body was shaking with shock, fury, and sorrow. No one consoled me.

I stared at him from the corner of the stuffy room as he faked his cries and belted out Fareeda's name.

I know. It's all quite dreary and shocking. But, guess what? Today, everything changes because I'm Aadila, the just one. And in order to live up to my name, I must bring justice. And I'm bringing justice to my sister.

How so?

I'm on my way to kill him.