The Gulf Widow

By Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Shabnam’s silky hair that smelt of expensive foreign shampoo trailed across the couch pillow. Dressed in a white shimmery Salwar Kameez with pink embroidery, she was curled up on the couch, her feet tucked up under her. Her pink duppatta was coiled up, on the beanbag where she flung it, when she came back home after the movie. Next to it was the brown paper packet with the Maybelline eyeliner, the Lakme cheek tint, the bottles of Elle 18 nail polish in the shades of morning mist, African plum and sunset peach. Sitting rather forlornly at the bottom of the beanbag was the take-away of half a chicken Broast, Shabnam had brought back from the food-court at Focus mall.

‘The pride of Calicut,’ Shabnam sneered when she turned up with the rest of her friends at the mall opening. As hundreds of youth bunked classes that day, strutting around, in their trendiest outfits of stone washed denims and check shirts and gelled heads, reminiscent of the early cowboys of yore, Shabnam neatly adjusted her dupatta over her head and pursed her full, painted lips.

‘If Ashraf sees this he’ll laugh. You should see the malls in Dubai! This Focus mall place could probably fit into one of the corners of the smaller malls there!’ She spat.

Her friends tittered. They were sure Shabnam knew what she was talking about. She was getting married to Ashraf next week and he had been in Dubai for six years. Lucky girl! When they were stuck roaming around like imprisoned tigers within the four floors of Focus Mall, here in the seaside town of Calicut, Shabnam would be whisked away by her handsome Ashraf. That had been two years ago.

Shabnam squirmed around in the couch to get more comfortable. She stretched her hand out and admired her freshly manicured nails.

‘Desert rose,’ the girl in the parlour told her. A tight smile stretched across Shabnam’s lips. She reached over for the remote and switched on the television. Images came across the screen and faded away mid-word and frozen, before they could complete that dance step, as Shabnam changed channels. There was nothing in particular she wanted to see, but there was nothing else she had to do either.

She could hear the steel pots clinking from the kitchen. Her mother-in-law had woken up and started with the making of the tea and the arranging of the biscuits. Ashraf liked Orange cream biscuits and her father-in-law liked Kozhikodan halwa. And that was what was served at tea every day. It did not matter that her mother-in-law liked coffee and Shabnam liked egg puffs. It did not even matter that neither Ashraf nor her father-in-law were there to share the tea and the teatime snacks with them. It was like eating what they liked made the absence bearable, almost forgettable. Almost.

‘Shabbuu, Chaya. Tea’ Her mother-in-law called out.

Shabnam sank deeper into the couch. She could not bear the thought of going through the charade that was teatime. Her mother-in law would first wipe the plastic table cover with the blue and white checks, with a damp cloth smelling of depressing memories. Then she would pour the tea into white china cups with hairline cracks running through them by the handles. Every day Shabnam would wonder why all the cups had cracks in that exact spot. Had it been a manufacturing defect or did her mother-in-law pull on those handles to vent her frustration? The frustration she saw when she tied up her hair in a bun every day so severely that not even a strand dared to escape? The frustration that came through when she pressed the fingers of her left palm to the side of her forehead and took a deep breath, each time she kept the receiver down after a long distance call. The frustration that came from living alone with her daughter-in-law who while shared her destiny did not seem to have her huge inner reserves of patience.

After placing the teacups on the left and right side of the head of the table, she would bring out the saucers with the biscuits and the halwa. Shabnam would join her after being called almost three times. She would sink into the wooden chair on the left, the chair with a splintering seat, which would snag her shimmery Kurta and leave a miniscule rend in it every time. Her mother-in-law would offer her the halwa and the biscuits, knowing Shabnam would refuse. She had refused it for two years, hadn’t she? Then, as Shabnam took a sip of her tea, her mother-in-law would slowly break a piece off the halwa and slip it in her mouth. Shabnam could see her jaws slowly working on the piece, while her eyes remained fixed on something on the ceiling, but her mind on places far away. After a bit, she would ask Shabnam how her day was and how things were, like an acquaintance she had bumped into on the street after a long time and Shabnam would recite the usual litany.

She had gone out after breakfast, met her friends, gone to her favourite stores in Focus mall, gone to the parlour, gone for a movie and had come back and fallen into the couch in front of the TV. There she lay till the daily teatime ritual and afterwards she would walk back to the TV and lie there in a dead slump, till her phone rang or it was time to go online. Somewhere in between, it would be time for dinner and then sleep. Or at least the motions of attempting to, as she lay on her side of the bed, staring at the wall from where two smiling faces looked down at her, almost mocking her efforts to fall asleep and get over with the day.

There she was bedecked in jewellery and swathed in emerald green silk and Ashraf looking happy in his silk Sherwani, so crisp you could almost hear the crackle. They were juxtaposed on a bright orange background, smiling as a newlywed couple from under glittering words that said “Happy Married Life.” This last being the photographer’s creative input!

Was this what her mother-in-law wanted to hear? That every night she stared at the picture and wondered whether she should have ever refused to marry Iqbal from the medical store by the Medical College? That she had returned all the Archies greetings cards and the soft toys he gave her, telling him that Ashraf had promised her a better future in the Gulf? That she was meant for better things and did not intend to stay at home cooking and cleaning for Iqbal, who could only hope to own the medical store at most? Where did Iqbal stand, when Ashraf’s family extended a proposal? Nowhere.

And what else did her mother-in-law want to hear? That as she went out every day, she almost got out of the auto rickshaw at Iqbal’s medical store and then decided not to, at the last minute. After all, what would she tell him? That she had been utterly alone for most of the past two years. That she missed having someone’s hand to hold while walking on the beach and having someone to clutch on to while she climbed up the rickety stairs of Crown theatre to watch an English movie. There was no one to dress up for, no one to wait for as the day wound down to a close. There was money, yes. Lots of it, waiting to get spent in the shiny stores that had mushroomed in the narrow crevices of the town. But that was about it. And Shabnam was pretty sure that this was not what her mother-in-law wanted to hear.

But then maybe instead of the present, she could tell her about things past. About how she felt when Ashraf flew back to Dubai on the sixth day after their marriage and about how embarrassed she felt in front of her friends, who she was sure, wondered why she had never gone to Dubai. She could probably tell her about the time when she almost convinced herself she had never been married, when Ashraf had not come back after almost two years. She wondered whether she imagined the phone calls that told her of bachelor pads and driving around dunes. And then there was that time when he had finally come down for two days when his uncle passed away. His arms around her felt alien and she was disgusted to find that she still thought of Iqbal’s embrace as the familiar one. ‘Take me with you,’ she sobbed as he packed his suitcase, hours before he left.

‘You won’t like it there Shabbu! You’ll be happier here with my mother. She had also tried to stay in Dubai once when we were little. She hated it. It’s too hot and your friends and family are here. Ask Mother, she’ll tell you how it’s better here!’ Ashraf said cupping her chin with his work-hardened palm. Shabnam looked back into the eyes of the stranger that was her husband and looked away, suddenly engulfed by an overwhelming grief.

She sat in their air-conditioned room, flipping through the stiff pages of their heavy wedding album, staring at the happy faces.

Was that her? Was this Ashraf?

This had been the happiest day of her life and now she felt like she hardly knew the man that shared it with her. She could not go back to her parents’ home and make the neighbours’ gossip about the married girl who had gone back. ‘That too, she’s not even pregnant yet! Imagine,’ they would squawk maliciously to each other. Her place was here, in her husband’s home. Being taken care of by, and taking care of her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law who had decided that this was the better life, the life where you did not have to cope with the weather or the customs of an alien land. Her mother-in-law who had revolted against change and come back to the safety net of her hometown, where she lived out her life of routine. Her mother-in-law who had sentenced her to be a lonely woman, counting out days with no end in sight. What did she expect Shabnam to say to her?

*** Ayesha Moideenkutty watched her daughter-in-law’s resentment flare up in her eyes. She watched as Shabnam sulkily sipped her tea. She broke off another piece of halwa and thought of Moideenkutty slaving away in the Gulf while she enjoyed a life of luxury and comfort in her hometown. This was the price one had to pay to maintain an expensive house and pay for the children’s education and to live comfortably without ever having to work for it. This was what she and her family had signed up for when she had decided to marry a man working in the Gulf. Her Moideenkutty who had been living the life of a bachelor and she, the life of a widow for the forty-two years they had been married. She broke off another piece of the halwa that Moideenkutty loved. She looked at Shabnam who was perched at the edge of her seat, looking like she could not wait to get away from the dining room, and from the house and from this life she had been condemned too. Ayesha thought of her son and sent out a fervent prayer to the merciful Lord. She put the piece of halwa into her mouth and pushed the plate of Orange cream biscuits towards Shabnam. The Lord knew she had a long wait in front of her.

 

Shweta Ganesh Kumar is a Writer and travel columnist. Her fourth book and first collection of short stories, ‘Suspended Animation – Short Stories of those who wait’ is now available worldwide. She is the bestselling author of ‘Coming Up On The Show’ and ‘Between The Headlines’, two novels on the Indian Broadcast News Industry. currently lives in The Philippines with her husband and three year old daughter. You can read more about her life and work at www.shwetaganeshkumar.com. ‘The Gulf Widow’ was previously published as part of my collection of short stories, ‘Suspended Animation – Short Stories of those who wait’ (Cresco Books, 2014).