The Cage Of Culture

Hina Appa

I saw the freckly boy everyday on the way back from school. He was always staring and I never minded. Whenever I saw him, my stomach felt like there was a tornado of feathers in there. I was too young to know what that meant. And on days he wasn't there to stare at me, I walked home a sad, disappointed girl. People hardly seemed to notice me. But this strange boy gave me a feeling of importance. A feeling that I was his most important task of the day. He used to stand in different places on my route. It was as if he had tracked me. And as if it was his sworn duty to make himself seen by me. Never In my life had anyone bothered to ask me what my name was. It wasn't just because I wasn't pretty. It was because my mother believed that good girls need not raise their voice so much as to even gather the slightest attention. Good girls talked in hushed voices and seldom had themselves seen. But my younger sister did not care for these principles. She would talk as she wished. And she would laugh as loud as she pleased. Me and Hina Appa, however, had learnt the art of silence. And in between the tiring family gatherings, we found solace just by washing dishes in the kitchen together. Neither of us talked much. But Hina Appa's motherly manner was comforting.
   On other occasions, I was quite by choice. I was shy with little self esteem. While Hina Appa had no choice but to be quite. She felt she had no right to move her lips as long as she remained a burden on our parents. As long as she remained in this house, she was a ghost.
   And even when she would come out of the kitchen's solitude to meet our 'loving' aunts, she would be treated by the most hurtful of remarks.
But my mother had to suffer by hearing the auntie's suggestions the most:

"28!! Why! You must search for suitors!"
"I hear Aafia's son is Unmarried. He may be a little overage in his 40s but so is Hina! You can't do better than Aafia's son. I wonder why you never consider him!"
"Poor Hina. Bechari. I'm so glad all my daughters are happily married and settled."

Hina Appa had been engaged once. To our cousin in Dubai. Everyone thought they were a perfect match. Well, everyone just considered Hina lucky because she had a fiance with a job. Even though the guy earned less than my father did. It was a priveledge for girls in my family to just have someone to marry.
But when the guy returned to Pakistan, he did not marry Hina Appa. He married my cousin Ayesha. With whom he had been having an affair all the while he and Hina Appa were engaged.