Some people use words to write their poetry. To tell the stories sleeping in their hearts. And others use paint or fashion strange enigmatic forms out of the body of the earth. But words can be read by other people or burnt in flames and the ashes scattered into the air or amongst the rotting garbage heaps of Dhaka city to be washed away with the rising flood waters. And paint and clay costs money. And I have none. Besides, where would I keep the vast library I create? So, I use the smells and sounds of my world. The ones surrounding me, and the ones I conjure up in my thoughts. The foods I cook and the flowers I grow so tenderly in my mistress’s garden are also the ingredients of my poetry and tell their secret stories. But, only to me. Only to my soul do they reveal their narrative and constantly keep alive the laughter and the river of tears. Even the deliberate walking barefoot across the garden in the monsoon and letting the red mud squelch between my toes, is like a whole three pages in an epic novel. Only, the next page would have to describe how corroded and pitted my feet have become from the constant exposure to the acid in the water.

Every night, after I’ve finished all my cooking and cleaning duties, while moonlight is able to come in through the metal bars in the window and my little Salima sleeps quietly on an old blanket on the floor next to my mistress’s cane sofa, I bring out the special, enamelled pendant I have, hidden deep inside my sari. Money-wise, it’s probably not very valuable. But one day, I will give it to my daughter and tell her its story. Until then, I’ll just continue my nightly ritual of catching fleeting moments with it in this blue lunar light that doesn’t do justice to its beautiful colours. I daren’t turn on the light or use a hurricane lamp! I’ll get a beating from my mistress’s slipper for wasting fuel. And I can’t look at it during the day, as the whole family will accuse me of stealing it from someone and take it off me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rupa, the mistress’s younger daughter, says that it’s hers. She’s a sly one. Just like her mother! Nazma, her older sister, is more like her grandmother, a very kind, gentle woman. She would know that I could never do such a thing. But, still, everyday I live in fear. Knowing that things could become very difficult or even dangerous for me if the pendant was to fall out of my sari and onto the floor to be seen by accusing eyes. And when I worry about my Salima, I think of burying it at the foot of the frangipani tree where it can be serenaded by the silent chorus of its waxy, fragrant flowers scattered by a playful breeze. But, it would break my heart to part with it! So, I keep it hidden and pray.

I can see a lot of light streaming through the bars tonight. Not just moonlight, but lightening too. And I can feel the power of the wind rising as it dances through the coconut trees and across my face. And the rain is quite heavy. November is notorious for storms. I just hope it doesn’t happen now. As I’ll have to get up and start checking things and making sure the whole house is safe. Even though I am exhausted from the extra work of single-handedly gutting, descaling, slicing and frying or salting ten large carps. This is a lazy family I work for. They never even so much as make their own tea. And they think I’m dawdling if I stay in the toilet too long when I have my period or a bout of diarrhoea!

Rain reminds me of that gentle smile ten years ago. My mother feeding me balls of rice with potato bhartha with her own hand, while she told me stories of two-headed snakes and women who cured people of various ailments by slitting cuts into their skin using broken brown glass and letting the bad blood drain out. She also told me she had a surprise! But, that she’d only show me if I was a good girl and ate all the balls. I was so excited! Then, after I’d finished all my rice and washed, she took out a red velvet box from under her pillow and asked me to open it. I was so happy! There was my earring inside. Only, now it was a pendant. My mother had put a chain through the top hole where the hook used to be. I had cried so much when I lost the other one. We had been coming back home from Sylhet on the train, when I stuck my head out of the window to enjoy the exhilaration of the wind rushing past. I was a foolish child, and I’d been wearing the earrings when they should really have been in their box. And it was when I was looking at cows semi-submerged amongst the purple water hyacinths next to a pretty bamboo bridge and a mustard field nearby, that I suddenly noticed that one of my ears were bare. I desperately checked my hair and clothing, and also all my family’s hair and clothing in the hope that it had landed, tangled up in something safe. And then I just cried! I was devastated!

Arika’s mother had given the earring to me as a present. Arika had helped her choose it. It’s funny how people can so quickly capture your heart sometimes! We declared ourselves as inseparable best friends, Arika and I, by the end of her month long stay. The last time I had seen her before then was when we were both four. But, our souls were completely intertwined, and I can still see her beautiful, broad ten year old smile. Before she left, we decided that one day, I too would go to London, live with Arika, go to the same university and study medicine together. We had so many dreams! And then I let half her gift blow away. And I used to dream that my prince charming would somehow have caught it, and just like Cinderella’s glass slipper, tried to track down the owner of the other earring.

But my life took a different turning and I never saw Arika again or any prince charming. Instead, about a week after my mother so gently presented me the pendent, my family’s house burnt down while I was away visiting my Uncle Rumman. They say it was arson, and everybody died. So, from that moment, I only had the pendant round my neck and the clothes I was wearing. They never found the murderers, and I lived in my uncle’s house in deep shock and mourning for months. And to show my gratitude, I would help his wife around the house while I gradually metamorphosed from niece to servant. And all my education and dreams of making something of myself, died with all the gentle smiles and laughter buried beneath the flames.

I stayed there for four years, working really hard, exhausting myself, while everybody forgot that I was a relative. Family. And whenever I could, during any quiet moment, I would take out my pendant and cry. Also, as my own helpless, silent and passive form of defiance, I would constantly read discarded newspapers, sheets of magazine paper used to line portions of roasted nuts or the labels on powder milk tins. I would read anything that could keep at least some embers of my literacy alive. I had my pride! I may have become a nobody now. An almost invisible! But the world inside me was still mine. And nobody would steal that from me!

Eventually, my uncle and his wife arranged a marriage for me with a completely illiterate young man, Iqbal, who did odd jobs and recycled old batteries. I didn’t want to marry him. But I had no choice. And two years later, he died of poisoning from all the gunk he’d smashed out of the batteries. And I’m now alone with my daughter, working in vile people’s homes, looking for a way to change her life.

Perhaps after the rains have gone, and this year’s storms pass, I’ll look for work in a garment’s factory and send her to school! I can show her the pendant then. When we’re free!


---Jib, 9.30 am, 11 Sept 2002