One Day When Someone Came

Tahiba Khan

Pablo Picasso

Muniya, see who has come?” shouted Muniya’s mother Saroj from the front room. While flipping the familiar pages of her favorite book by Ismat Chugtaayi, Muniya tried to hear the voice of that ‘someone’. She heard a voice of ‘someone’ she knew. She closed her book and went to the other room….

 Muniya, in her early teenage years, was full of energy. She had energy like a storm. She would always fight over small issues at home, issues she considered unjust or unfair.. She would often protest when her brother was allowed to go out and she wasn’t. She was the only one in the family who resisted anything that seemed illogical. But who cares for logic. Still in her small world she always looked for reasons.

Muniya had many friends to play with. Apart from school friends there were friends from her housing society. She never cared for anything other than her friends.

One day Muniya was playing badminton outside her house with Ashfaq. Ashfaq was her neighborhood friend. He told her that some boys were planning to go to some place. As she saw this group of boys she went near them with Ashfaq. One of the boys in the group was her friend Omar.

Muniya said “Hey, what are you up to? Let’s play a game, I bet you can’t win with me?”

Omar’s friends started laughing at Omar. Omar watched them, looked at Muniya and said “I will play some other day; right now I’m going to explore something else far away near the river”.

“River!!”Muniya shouted.

She had never been to the river. She knew that there was a river, had heard others talking about it. She had always wanted to see the river. She could not contain her curiosity…. “What will you do there… tell me …please tell me” she pleaded with Omar.

“Aah! That’s a nice question, do you want to go?”

“First tell me, what will you  do there?” asked Muniya.

“There is something that I want to see” he replied with a smile.

“What do you want to see there, now tell me quick or I’ll smash your face with this racket” Muniya burst out in anger.

“Ha ha ha ha!! Well we all are going to watch a boat there. You must be thinking what is so unusual about this. But let me you tell you that this boat is something special. We have heard that this particular boat comes at noon from somewhere and takes a circle in the water and then vanishes into thin air.” 

“Wow!” exclaimed Muniya, and without a pause said “Can you take me along with you please?”

One of the boys in the group looked at Omar as if he found the idea of taking Muniya with them ridiculous. But Muniya was not going to let this opportunity go for anything in the world. She quickly  said “Give me two minutes, I’ll be back in a minute, I have to keep my racket at home”.

Everybody laughed when they heard her. She always cracked jokes and gave statements at which everyone laughed. She ran home, found nobody at home and came out. Omar was in favour of taking her along with him. He always enjoyed her company.

As she came out, Omar asked “Have you informed anybody that you are coming with us?”

“They’ll never let me go if I tell them, anyways,”Nobody was at home, Amma had gone to the market and Abba was at office”, it was the perfect opportunity for her, so she hurriedly came out and joined the group in their adventure. If somebody was at home, even then she would never have thought of asking for their permission.

Feeling uneasy, she retaliated, “Have you told about this to your parents?”

They looked at each other and smiled.

She also smiled and said “Rascals!!”

They all left for the river. After a long walk through fields and huge mangrove forests they reached the place where they saw a variety of trees they had never seen before. There were long nests in the shape of bottles hanging from the branches. Wide-eyed, she asked,

 “Omar, which bird’s nest is this? I have never seen this…it’s beautiful”. Omar was also feeling the same sense of wonder. He said “I don’t know, I have also never seen this before”.

While crossing those mangroves, they saw many nests of different shapes and sizes, beautiful unknown birds chirping and playing…they were all surprised and awed by the sight of these birds. ‘What a beautiful worl!d’ thought Muniya.

But they didn’t see the extraordinary boat for which they had come. Later they found out that, it was a rumor created by one of the boys from school.  But none of the children felt angry about this.

However, the whole trip was more than fantasy to Muniya. While coming back she was tense, thinking about her mother Saroj. She was thinking that her mother would really beat her that day. Then her mind started drifting to escape this tension, and suddenly she remembered something she heard in school but never believed. To set her mind free of any tension, she tied two thin bunches of her hair in a knot. She had heard one can escape trouble by tying one’s hair in this way. This was the first time she had tied her hair like this. She also considered it an opportunity to experiment and see whether it worked or not.  She prayed to God and knotted her hair.

Muniya entered her house and ran into her room, noting from the corner of her eye that her mother was working in the kitchen. She opened her book and turned towards the wall. She started creating her fantasy, didn’t care what happens at home. That whole evening she was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even realise that it was time for her to stop studying. She was lost in thoughts about her expedition. She had lots of question but who would have answered them? She didn’t dare to ask her brother or mother since it might create a problem. She ignored those questions in her mind too, and just lived the feeling of the visit.

While Muniya was in her room, she heard the doorbell ring. Saroj shouted, “Muniya, open the door”. She ran and peeped from behind the netted door.

“Sanjeev Uncle!!” she exclaimed happily and opened the door. Sanjeev uncle was like her friend. He always brought her something. One day he brought her sketch colors. Another day a drawing book… Muniya liked to paint and sketch in her leisure time and was happy with the presents.

Sanjeev Uncle was in his 30s.  He had big beady eyes, thin moustache, and unshaven but clean face. He was dressed in trousers and shirt and was half bald. He came infrequently but whenever he came there was a recurring topic regarding his marriage. Saroj always teased him by saying “When will you get married?”

He would always reply “When you find a girl like you for me”.

Although Muniya never understood these discussions about marriage, she tried to find a girl for him on the t

elevision. She and her sister Sabina always pointed to a new girl in advertisements while watching television and would say “Sanjeev Uncle, she will suit you”. Sanjeev Uncle used to laugh at this.

Sabina was Muniya’s elder sister and a very talkative girl. She was always busy with her school friends. In nature, she was the opposite of Muniya. She never tried to explore anything new. She was obedient and did whatever Saroj or anyone asked her to do. Sabina never refused anyone anything. Everyone loved her sweet nature. But surprisingly, Muniya talked more to Sanjeev uncle, than Sabina .

Strangely enough, whenever Sanjeev Uncle came home, more often than not, Sabina would disappear. Sanjeev uncle would ask Muniya, “Where is Sabina….call her…go call her”. Muniya roamed around the house in search of Sabina, but couldn’t find her. She came back and told Sanjeev uncle that she could not find Sabina.  When after Sanjeev uncle left she found her sister, Muniya asked her, “Didi, where were you when Sanjeev uncle was there, he was desperately looking for you.”

To this Sabina shouted at her, “You mind your own business…” This surprised Muniya too, because Sabina was quite soft natured and had never shouted at her before.

One day Muniya was sitting with her mother in the backyard. She was sketching since her father had asked her to draw something for him while leaving for office in the morning. Her mother was busy working in her garden at the back of the house. TAA, TAA…the bell rang. Saroj asked Muniya to open the door. Muniya reached the door and saw Sanjeev uncle on the other side.  

She opened the door. But Sanjeev uncle looked strange to her. Muniya started feeling uneasy. This feeling of something unusual was slowly lost in the impression of Sanjeev uncle’s love which he always showed to her. She asked about his well being. Sanjeev uncle came close to her. She asked him to sit. He sat there  and asked Muniya to sit. Muniya hesitantly sat there.

 It was the silence, which was making Muniya uneasy, but her teenage mind was not mature enough to understand what that feeling meant. Muniya wanted to leave the room and the situation. As she got up and tried to say ‘I’m calling mum…..” Sanjeev uncle looked around in the room, pulled her back and gripped her  shoulders. Turning her around, he pressed his mouth on her mouth and dragged her tongue with his tongue.

Muniya felt shell-shocked as if she was in an accident. She felt as if she was going on a road and suddenly a truck came and threw her out in a second on the road in the blood. She was almost stoned to death for the moment . To get herself out of the situation, and unable to understand the weirdness of the act, she pushed him back using both her hands and shouted angrily “Sanjeev Uncle!!” She felt like vomiting. She was scared. She didn’t look at Sanjeev Uncle, as if it was she who had done something wrong.

Muniya got up, her legs and hands were trembliing. Her whole body was shivering. She heard her mother’s voice from behind ‘Muniya who has come?” and Saroj opened the back door to enter the house. Muniya stepped back and her mind immediately directed her into the other room. She closed the door of the room and dragged herself under the blanket. Her eyes were closed. Her mind had stopped thinking. Under the blanket she was sweating.

Sanjeev uncle, alerted by Saroj’s voice, adjusted himself on the chair. Saroj went to the guest room, saw Sanjeev uncle, and chatted with him. Saroj didn’t seem to feel that anything strange had happened in the same room some seconds ago to her daughter. While juggling her thoughts and thinking about the weirdness of the act, Muniya heard the voices of her mother and Sanjeev uncle! In the dark under the blanket her eyes was wide open. After struggling to escape all fear, making shields to protect her, she went to sleep. She didn’t eat that night. Nobody came to ask her what had happened. Her dream was blank. She dreamt of sitting in the dark entrapped in her own body on a dark road.

In the morning her mother woke her up for school. Her eyes were swollen, her forehead skin was shrunken, her lips were saddened. She went to school and didn’t talk to anybody that day. She didn’t even talk to Omar. While coming back from school she thought about telling her mother about the incident the day before but again thought ‘What she will say and how will she say ’. Her mind didn’t want to remember the act again. She was trying hard to escape the act.

In the evening when she was sitting with her mother and brother Rizwan, without thinking much Muniya just voiced “Do not allow Sanjeev Uncle to come.”

 “Why, what happened?” asked her mother.

“He kissed and hugged which I don’t like”

“He does it affectionately, he loves you a lot” Saroj said.

“Oh ho, what are you saying, he loves you, don’t think so much. He cares for you, it’s just his love” said Rizwan.

Neither understood what Muniya wanted to say, and got busy with their work. She also didn’t try to give them the clear picture; it was hard for her to tell all that happened the other day and put it in words, which she herself was unable to understand.

It was he who rang the bell again. When Muniya heard his voice she didn’t run towards the door, she ran to other room. The old fear came again to her in the form of reality. This time she dragged herself under the bed.

She saw two wide open eyes looking at her in pain gripped horror . 

“Sabina didi,?” Muniya whispered.  Sabina was silent and looked in Muniya’s eyes, Both heard Sanjeev Uncle’s voice. He was saying, “Where is Muniya?’

Saroj said, “I don’t know where she has gone.”

Muniya and Sabina were holding each other’s hand and shared the silence in their hearts.