Dear Amma

Dear Amma,

She sat there wearing this red and gold wedding scarf you stiched for her. Sewing up your happiness, not hers. You told her that he was tall and fair. That he was young and healthy. You promised her she would be happy. Then he arrived with his family. He wasn’t her age. He was older. Much older. His beady eyes leered at her breasts. Did you not seed the scars on his face? She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t , for our father’s dignity and out father’s pride.

Bright Lights. The Music. Everything Made her dizzy. You made her sit there and smile.

You clapped and laughed as the musicians played their drums. You didn’t feel her anguish, did you? You offered food to the guests. You smiled for the photographer, and you even embraced your future son-in-law. She watched the clock as it slowly ticked away. Ticked away her FREEDOM. No longer your daughter, my sister…just a bride.

Run!! her heart saud. Run!! But her legs didn’t have the strength. Where would she go?? Village women don’t run away…they have nowhere to hide. In any case, Chacha would find her. The village would shame her. She doesn’t want what happened to Naheed, in the neighbouring village, to happen to her. She doesn’t want the village council to decide her punishment. She didn’t want to be gang-raped by ten men in a hut.

I can still hear Naheed’s screams. “SAVE ME!!” “Please, anyone….HELP ME!!”

She was playing with her doll, Guddi. She was read, like the clay in our village. She loved dressing her in gold wedding outfits. Thats when you signed her life away. How could anyone decide the fate of a five year old girl….MY sister? Seven men…Seven village elders, decided what she was to do for the rest of her life. Our uncle committed the murder, and she would pay by marrying the victim’s uncle. Seven men decided the fate of a five year old girl.

You promised your only daughter in marriage to the enemy. He is fifty-five years old, Mother. She knew how to read and write, yet she had no control over her life. She is his property now. He owns her. She will be his servant….his MISTRESS.

He has waited eleven long years to take revenge, and revenge he will take. He has the right to BEAT her, to LOCK her within the four walls if his house. Even to kill her. Her pleas and her wails….go unheard. By everyone, including you, including father.

Your laughter still haunts me. Your izzat was more important to you then your DAUGHTER.

As she repeated after the village mullah, “I have made myself your wife”, she heard his voice, “I have accepted the marriage.” And I know she quietly prayed for her own death.

You told her that Islam gave her the right to choose her own husband, and then you took that right away from her. What right will she have when she is bundled off to her new OWNER like the cows in our fields? You lied.

They are waiting, Mother. They are waiting to take the bride to the groom’s house. They are asking, “Where is the bride?”.

This bride no longer wears red on her head. This bread wears white. This procession, these drums, will take her not to the house down the street but to the graveyard by the river.

She, my sister, your daughter chose FREEDOM, Mother.

Yours,

Beta.