Meherunnisa :

A love story from Lahore

By Zeenat Mahal

Chapter 13

The next morning, after breakfast, Mehru told Bibi to keep everyone away from her. No one was to disturb her. She sneaked into Jamal’s study when Bibi wasn’t hovering. She wanted to root around for clues, and plan a fitting retribution for her husband. Jamal, she knew, was a man of honour. What he was doing to her was a way to preserve that honor he so cherished. He’d married her because that code demanded that he do so. He didn’t want to see her, because that honor he loved so much made it impossible for him to forgive her. Nothing mattered to him more than his bloody code.

So, her plan was simple.

She was going to be the source of his public dishonor so that he’d have no choice but to cut himself off her. She was going to make him so miserable that he’d have no option but to divorce her, and then she’d be free. A social outcast, but free. The notion scared her a little. Divorce was unheard of. Unthinkable. Ruin.

But she couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t live like this. She didn’t wonder about why she felt so miserable. It was her father and her grandmother, Mehru told herself. They made her miserable. It was her mother’s life and death she wanted to avenge.

Friends

Rummaging through his study table drawers, she found a list of names and addresses of Jamal’s friends and colleagues. Why was he so organized, she thought in irritation. So convenient and so easy. She would have to write the invitations. She sat down to copy the postal addresses and names. Poor Jamal had always been so easy. She copied down each and every one of those addresses, including his family’s. Then she wrote the invitations from him, telling them all how very excited he was to announce his marriage to Mehrunnissa, the daughter of Sahibzada Farooq Ahmed Khan. He and his grandmother would be so very happy if they could come to their dinner in a week’s time to their home. That done, she went to Bibi and told her the plan. Bibi nearly fainted.

‘Oh no. Oh no. oh no.’

‘Bibi. It has to be done. Take this money,’ she handed he the money Mallo Chachi had given her some for her dowry, or something when she came. ‘You have to make sure it’s done. It must be a secret.’

‘Till he sees a hundred guests in his house.’

Mehru looked shocked.

‘Not a hundred, Bibi.’

Bibi looked relieved.

‘A hundred and fifty.’

‘Mehrunissa!’

She laughed and said, ‘Bibi, do you want me to be happy?’

Direction

Bibi looked at her favourite person in the world and realised that maybe a nudge in the wrong direction would bring Jamal to his senses. How could he let his love die for Mehru just because she had been foolish enough to confess her schemes? Maybe, when everyone’s wrath descended upon Mehru after this clearly unwise step, and it would, Jamal wold defend her and realize how vulnerable she was. Bibi agreed.

The palanquin was called and Bibi sat inside, drawing the curtain down and set off with the invitations to deliver the invitations herself. She would have to tell Gulaabo all the details. Bibi sighed. Children could be so vexing, especially when they were all grown up.

The entire week, Bibi and Mehru were on tenterhooks. But the y needn’t have worried. Jamal noticed nothing. He hardly even noticed her, Mehru thought tartly.

The following week, Mehru chose to wear one of her most immodest saris. A silky fuchsia pink, with a blouse that had a rather deeper neckline than was acceptable. Her midriff showed. Just two inches of it. Bibi was horrified.

‘You are not going like this…oh my heart…my heart…’

‘Okay fine. I’ll wear a shawl.’ Mehru gave in with a huff and Bibi’s heart problem went away in peace.

Palanquins

Soon, palanquins were being brought into the verandah. Bibi and Mehru greeted the guests. No sign of her grandmother or other relatives. They had to come. Jamal would come a little late. Too late to know what to do. The men were being escorted to the drawing room. She saw her father amongst the men, along with a couple of other relatives, from the safety of a window. Good. One down. Mallo Chaachi would bring her grandmother she hoped.

The furore at the arrival of all the ladies was a well-controlled flurry of running servants, coded looks, and intermittent trays of drink and appetisers. Bibi had taken off towards the kitchens to help.

Her grandmother walked in with Mallo Chachi. Mehru took swayed towards her grandmother. Talk dimmed, her grandmother’s mouth fell open as she saw her.

Mehru said, ‘Ami Begum, adaab. I am so grateful you came. You forgave Jamal?’ Then she looked around at the other women and said in a plaintive tone, ‘I mean, what was Jamal thinking, eloping with me to marry me! And not even the night we eloped. For a whole night we had to live in the same house alone, without a chaperone, and unmarried.’

There were gasps. Mehru suspected a lady fainted. She didn’t stop to check.

‘And yet Ami Begum has forgiven him.’

Her grandmother was pale and still. She sat down on the nearest chair.

‘But I so love Jamal,’ Mehru giggled.

Someone else did too. Others were watching her with horror. Mehru watched shadows in the verandah. Men were being escorted in the drawing room.

‘Jamal is like a hero, you know. From movies. He loves me to sing for him. Usually the new ones by Gauhar Jaan.’

At the mention of the famous prostitute from Calcutta, there was a definite thud as someone fainted. Yes, definite faint that one, Mehru thought.

‘Some water please,’ the husky whisper was from her grandmother. Mehru turned towards her and smiled. Her grandmother’s eyes swivelled towards the door. Mehru’s did too. Jamal stood there carved in stone.

Announcement

The party was in full swing by the time Jamal came home around nine. He’d only come home early, because one of his friends had met him with the strangest announcement.

His friend, he hadn’t seen in months, was apparently going to be late to his dinner. He certainly couldn’t make it before nine, he apologised. He was even more surprised to see so many carriages outside the house, lined on the street-side. His gatekeeper informed him with a big grin that there was a ‘party’ at the house.

With escalating fury, he realised that it was obviously, something to do with his newly acquired wife. Mehru spotted the fleeting shock on her husband’s face, quickly masked. No well-bred person showed shock at the presence of a guest. Especially unexpected ones. Mehru bit her lip to keep from laughing.

‘Jamal! Go to the men’s area, you are so voh! I will sing for you in a minute.’

Jamal’s face was slowly gaining life. It turned red. Then white. Then he gave her one long, long look and left. Right behind his fleeing footsteps Mehru sent the latest lyrics of a raunchy song by a prostitute all of India loved to talk about.

With escalating fury, Jamal walked towards the drawing room full of men…including his father in law, who looked wild-eyed and on the verge of hysteria. Jamal took a deep breath and greeted everyone, while the voice of his wife, singing about her wedding night and the fun she’d had with her ‘naughty lover’, serenaded her father.

Cassual smile

Jaw clenched, Jamal threaded his way towards the men, who smirked and sniggered. He greeted them all with a casual smile and off-handed remarks.

‘Nice voice…why waste her here with all the women?’ someone whispered in his ear. They thought it was a prostitute.

‘Wrong. Just wrong. It should be us looking at that mouth that emits such a voice…’

Jamal nearly punched the man. Then realised he didn’t know. Then realised that was exactly why Mehru had done this. Then he found himself smiling. He checked it. This was no laughing matter.

The voice was still lilting words of such horrific duplicity, he couldn’t help looking at his father in law, who was trying his best to talk in a loud voice to shut out the words of his daughter. Jamal wiped the grin off his face with his hand, trying to control his own hysterical laughter. What the hell was wrong with her?

He pulled my veil and he tickled the heart of me…

Jamal fled.

He found Bibi as he knew he would in the kitchen.

‘Jamal Mian, what are you doing here?’

‘Bibi. Make her stop.’

Bibi smiled and said, ‘You don’t know her very well do you? I cannot stop her.’

‘Then who can?’

Bibi shrugged.

‘Maybe, you’re asking the wrong question.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Maybe it isn’t who, but how?’

Jamal, at the end of his tether asked, in a fierce whisper, ‘Alright. How?’

Bibi gave him a long look and said, ‘I think you know, Jamal. The best answers are always the simplest. Love.’

Ridiculous

Jamal stared at her and then whipped around. Through the kitchen he entered the little passageway between the sitting room and the kitchen that led to the dining room. Hidden, he watched his wife, making eyes at her grandmother and singing her wild song. Again, he felt the involuntary smile take over. God she was beautiful. And so brave. And ridiculous, and maddening and so inappropriate.

Ami Begum was looking at his wife like one would at a snake, and he felt that old urge to protect her take over. He had to protect her from herself before he did anything else. Still smiling and shaking his head at her silly antics, he went to find Bibi again. Did Mehru think he was going to give her up over some silly songs, if he hadn’t given her up over her betrayal?

‘Bibi. Alright. I take your point. Please ask Mehru to come out in the back garden. Tell her, her father wants to see her.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Bibi, trust me. We both want the same thing, don’t we? Mehru is doing all this because she wants acceptance from her father. She has felt betrayed all her life. Avenging her mother is all that matters to her. His love is all that matters.’

‘But Jamal, that is not at all what I meant. She is hurt and she did this not to hurt you but—‘

Reconciliation

‘That is not what I’m talking about, Bibi. What she did to me…that is another matter. But she has to stop now. I’ll ask Farooq Chacha to talk to her and maybe some sort of reconciliation can be brought about between the two of them? That would be a start.’Bibi stared at him.

Then she smiled. ‘You are a good man, Jamal.’ Jamal smiled and shrugged. Then he went to see his father-in-law. Maybe, her father’s love would heal her. Because he didn’t have any left for her.

Glossary of words

Voh: slang women used in the early twentieth century for naughty

Chachi: paternal uncle’s wife

Chacha: Paternal Uncle

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