So be it, you listen to a story of a woman who lived not but exemplified. At the age of 16, merely glancing at a post card size photo of a young man, she agreed a marriage. The one that is a subject of sharing that finds no expressions, no facial picture at all. Habla was the depiction of God’s promise, an exclusive one for her heirs. Born and brought up in a well known family of “Meheengars” claimed to be one of their kinds into imitation jewelry business. Habla has seen the rise and the fall, the fall of a kind that gave no choices, life then fell like a decree, like a plan. However, the most absurd sounding plot of God makes sense with time. The man she had agreed to marry was the son of the man she actually did. The photo was a deception, horror of its kinds. She married the man who had sent his son’s picture for her to see.
The injustice of those dark times did not hear her sigh, her complaint. Ghulam Ahmed was married twice; he lost both his wives untimely leaving him a destitute widower with a trial of children of the same age group as his new wife Habla. Habla later bore three of his children, two sons and a daughter. A year after into a marriage of this sort, it suddenly occurred to Habla, that her youthful self was disrespected by this absurd covenant with a man as old as her father. She could no longer place her eyes on his grey hair; it reminded her of what a waste she has become. One day she packed up little of what she had from her family and left to a broken empire “khojabazar”, her home. Her poor parents were astonished, petrified at this untimely return of their daughter who they had been able to get married somehow despite their acute poverty. Habla took days before she could express her discontent about the marriage fully to her father. Her mother was hesitant to take any further steps about it and demanded Habla leaves to Ahmed’s house.
However, the despair on Habla’s face turned the warmth of the poor household into cold of mid-winter. The laughter of the house had disappeared until one morning Habla said to her father, “I want a divorce from that old man who is as good as my father”. This numbed her father, he at once imagined the plight of a young woman like his daughter and agreed to whatever Habla’s mind was up to. They called the “istamfarosh” fixing an appointment for a divorce. Habla relaxed in her mind, she felt the day was not far when she would live a life, she deserved.
Habla twisted and turned in her bed the whole night before the day “istamfarosh” was to come. She often looked at her father’s face during that night and she felt nervous if her father was never able to get her married off again. But she consoled herself at the thought of marrying someone who was more youthful and deserving of her. She kept dreaming and thinking all night. As the dawn broke, as was the norm in the household Habla prepared herself for “Fajar” prayer, the thought of what the day would bring to her did not leave her during the ablution or the prayer. She kept seeking God’s intervention; she was nervous, fearful but hopeful too. Habla’s mother seemed too worried and Habla was lost in her thoughts for most part of the day watching sun rise slowly. Her head would turn from the edge of the window every time someone opened the main gate to their house. She kept waiting and waiting. A smile spread across her deserted face as the door opened wide and a fat man with files in his hand shoved in through. Istamfarosh became the icon of doorway to freedom for Habla. Her blood rush increased and heart beat rose considerably only to sink back into nothingness and the smile which was governing her face disappeared slowly at the resurgence of Ahmed’s face.
The fear of God had stuck her, her heart beat stopped, the voice of her conscience spoke with such intensity that she felt numb in her veins. She thought, ‘What if Ahmed married me for a reason, his needs that God saw her most befitting of fulfilling? Or Does Ahmed need nothing but love, which she possesses? Is that why she married him in the most treacherous, illogical ways?
Suddenly a coarse voice interrupted her thought process, Habla do you agree to divorce Ahmed? It was but the flash of that second and Habla said, ‘No’. The crowd dispersed, Habla smiled to her own self, it felt like the first time she had consciously made up a mind to live with him, that is when she actually married Ahmed.
Where would one find love in the name of God or love for the love of God? Habla inspires not as a picture of submissiveness but an emblem of ‘love’. The love she continued to share even after Ahmed left his huge family behind. She was all of thirty years, youthful and epitome of strength. Apart from this Habla’s religious intensity had a political expression too. A regular attendant of Moulana Farooq’s sermons, all her Friday’s where a dedication to Jama Masjid. She would not give up a Friday even against the mountain of gold. Ahmed’s family of four sons and seven daughters where all strong supporters of National conference but that never deterred Habla’s conviction to be openly political and show allegiance to what was degraded in her family. Her own son’s were NC party workers from time to time. All her life Habla detested going to shrines, it was the biggest turn off for her, despite her step daughter-in-laws (often elder to her) great adulation for shrines, and she managed to keep away from the business all her life.
After Ahmed’s death, extreme hardships stuck her family and she was forced to live separately in a shabby small room on the outward of the grand house, good enough for the rats. It was her political vision that inspired her to always lay emphasis on education of her daughter. Her daughter later became someone who taught the children in entire neighborhood.
Habla’s story is the depiction of women’s rights and expression of self in a Kashmiri society about 50 years ago. It is a story of a woman from a lower class household and her difficult life. It is the attempt to break the monolith of Kashmiri society especially about women.
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