Akbar Mai

It was not easy living as a widow in Saharanpur but Akbar Mai quietly accepted it as her fate. It wasn't that she missed her husband much. He had been a no-good bum anyway - though years of separation had erased many of the worst scars. Most of the occasions when she missed him were when her son Khursheed misbehaved or refused to listen. At such times she cried. She felt weaker as Khursheed grew bigger. This year he had grown taller than her. She would have loved to be proud of him but he rarely gave her a chance - except on the occasions when he won a cricket game and was carried on the shoulders by the mohalla kids. But such moments of happiness were fast becoming rarer.


Khursheed was only sixteen but she had heard that he had been seen smoking. She had suspected as much because she could smell it from his clothes whenever she washed them with the dhobi danda, which was often (his usual shalwar suit smelled like donkey shit: she was almost too disgusted to wash it but she had to - it was Khursheed's only good suit). She was worried about him as she suspected that he was smoking something other than just K-2 cigarettes. She worked hard sewing neighbor's clothes and working in the house of the local Sayyids to make enough money to feed the two and pay his school fees but all he seemed to be interested in these days was going out with his awaara friends.


She couldn't figure out what she had done wrong. She tried to send him to Moulvi Sahib to learn Quran and he did learn the Qaida. She blamed all his bad habits on his bad company and a lack of self-discipline. How much had she prayed for Khursheed's growing up and what dreams had she had of him studying and becoming a big officer. He was only ten when Khursheed's father passed away. She soon realized that Khursheed needed somebody to discipline him, to beat him up. Her husband had been good at that.


The only other times she missed her husband was whenever her neighbor Ramzan gave her that greedy look.

"How shameless", she always thought, considering that he had a jawan daughter and a wife at home. "What, Suraiya must now be ten".


Ramzan had offered to have her as his second wife but Akbar Mai had refused. Many a times had she heard Ramzan beat his wife. She thought that she had done her time to society and did not deserve a second term. Listening to the yells on the other side of the wall, those painful memories of her own married life would come back to her. She could feel his kicks in her chest, his slaps, him pushing her across the floor, him grabbing her from the ear and dragging her and locking her out of the house. Tears always came to her eyes to think of those moments.


She had almost gotten used to the complaints she received from the neighbors about Khursheed. Yesterday he beat up somebody's kid. Today he stole from chaabri waala. Her standard response was that it couldn't have been only Khursheed's fault: others must have done something to provoke him. Yet she always felt sorry for Khursheed's victims and she would swear at her son and run after him with a danda as soon as he came home. All that would be achieved was that he would let her chase him out of the door, out of her world. She knew her limitations; the four walls of the house. That's why you need a man, she thought, because a man's world in not limited to four walls. A man is not only maalik of the household but also king of the outdoors. Khursheed was fast becoming a man who lived more and more in the outside world.


He wasn't afraid of her anymore. When he had brought home that set of nude cards, she had taken out the danda but he had simply grabbed it from her and thrown it away. That day, for the first time, he had stayed away from home all night. Then she felt guilty for having chased him out. The next day when he came home, she had forgotten all her anger and had kissed him on the forehead as he tried to push her away. Why was he so angry, she had thought. But in the end he did sit down with her and eat roti and even started talking to her. In a conciliatory tone, she had reminded him that he was a grown man now and should find some work and help her with the household expenses.


"Look at me" she had said, "I'm an old woman of forty. I cannot do manual labour anymore. The house needs repair. It leaks in the rain. And look at the walls. They look as if they are about to fall."


She remembered telling him to talk to his uncle about letting him work at his grocery shop. He had said he would. She had not believed him but she had felt better.


From the style of the knocking on the door she knew it must be yet another neighbor come to complain about Khursheed. But she wasn't prepared for five men - including Ramzan - barging in and asking her very rudely to come with them. She asked what for, but they started dragging her and despite her wailing and crying they kept pushing her until they got to Sayyid Sahib's havaili. There the verdict was read in front of men and children and the few women who had gathered to watch the spectacle. Sayyid Sahib asked her where Khursheed was. She said she didn't know. They didn't believe her. From what she could gather, that morning when Sughra, Ramzan's daughter, had gone out for tutti to the field, Khursheed had grabbed her near Sayyid's tube-well and tried to do the ’bura fail' with her. Her spontaneous reaction was to say she must have done something to provoke him and that Sughra was always a bit too friendly with Khursheed. But she felt sorry for the poor girl. Besides, no one was listening to her. They had already decided what was to be done.


Sayyid Sahib said that it was the only just thing to do. The Quran allowed for "an eye for an eye": If you kill someone the only deserving punishment is that you too should be killed; beating someone can only be avenged by beating that person back. "Therefore", Sayyid Sahib said, "the Punchayat, in accordance with the tradition and the Shariah, has decided that Akbar Mai should be assaulted by Ramzan just as Sughra has been assaulted by Khursheed."