The Holy Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

with one another, each shunting the responsibility of explaining Zarri Bano’s whereabouts onto the other.
    Shahzada first peeped up at her father-in-law and then at her husband, her heart sinking at the look of pure malice in her beloved Habib’s eyes. Bitterly she accepted that Habib was in a cruel, uncompromising mood.
    ‘Zarri Bano is visiting Sikander’s home.’ She slipped the information in while moving the glasses of drinks onto the tray. ‘His family wanted her to come and visit their home.’ Shahzada’s voice trailed off into the silence of the room. All of a sudden she experienced a strong urge to rush out and into the fresh air of the rear courtyard.
    ‘Are you telling me, Shahzada, that my young, unmarried granddaughter has gone to stay, all alone, in a strange family’s home and is in the company of a single young man?’ Siraj Din’s words cut Shahzada’s ears like a whiplash. She turned to look at the stately old man, dismayed at the harsh words. Her father- in-law had never spoken to her in such a disparaging tone or manner before.
    ‘I have done nothing wrong!’ Shahzada rebelled, trembling inside with rage. Remembering her beloved eldest daughter’s wistful eyes, Shahzada found the courage to look her father-in-law straight in the eye: she also had the presumption to speak boldly in front of the most revered elders of their clan.
    ‘
Aba Jan
,’ she said quietly; she always called him ‘Father’: ‘Zarri Bano has lived alone in Karachi in a hostel, as you well know, while she was studying atUniversity. She will be moving to Karachi anyway, because of her new editorial post and the company she is hoping to set up. She is a mature woman of twenty-seven years of age. Also, she
didn’t
go alone – Jafar went with her. Sikander’s parents asked her to stay a few more days. I think it is good for her to get to know Sikander and his family before she marries him.’ Shahzada mentally excused her new spirit of rebellion by telling herself that she was doing it for her daughter’s sake.
    ‘I see,’ the old man commented in a dangerously calm voice. ‘And that means staying in the same house, does it? Spending time with a young man – two people with no blood or any other legitimate ties between them? Since when did we become so immoral?’ Siraj Din’s voice lashed.
    Taken aback by her father-in-law’s verbal assault and the chilly vehemence of the words, colour flooded Shahzada’s cheeks.
    Tapping a rhythm with his stick on the silk carpet, Siraj Din waited for his daughter-in-law to say something , to apologise for her temerity in both speaking and answering him herself instead of letting her husband do it. And to top it all, she then had the audacity to justify her action to him! Siraj Din was now very, very angry with his most favourite daughter-in-law. Truly dismayed, he shook his head in disbelief. This was not the Shahzada he knew and loved.
    Shahzada cast another helpless look at her husband, desperate for his support, hoping that he would say something in her defence. However, Habib, his eyes as cold as his father’s, remained self-righteously silent by her side.
    All of a sudden Shahzada again experienced the urgeto escape from that oppressive atmosphere. She rose, but Siraj Din’s words rooted her to the sofa again.
    ‘Shahzada, I know that I am an old man and am fast becoming obsolete in this rapidly changing world. Day by day we are being invaded by Western values, via the satellite dishes and television programmes. But I must be allowed to say that my clan hasn’t yet had the misfortune to become so outrageously “advanced”, so morally corrupt that we let our beautiful young unmarried daughters stay in strange people’s houses unchaperoned. Alongside our land, our wives and daughters, our
izzat
– our honour – is the most precious thing in our lives. We never
ever
compromise on the issue of our women and our
izzat
! No matter what age we live in; no matter what