Nahida Ashrafi
Like every ordinary story, the princess spends her days with her parents in an obvious dreamy way. Happiness tends to be brief—like the summary or substance one is asked to write down in a term paper. And here, it is nothing beyond that.
Suddenly, the princess’s queen-mother’s stress and the matchmaker’s toil meet in a geometric sequence. Though the king-father never felt a rush, the queen-mother’s anger-flushed eyes and bitter, caustic remarks made him fake urgency. Not that the daughter’s age was an alloy of steel that had to stick strictly to the years of twenty or twenty-two.
Let’s focus upon Princess Kajolrekha—the drawing of kohl in the leisure of the queen, the matchmaker, and the king’s arrangement.
The erratic and exotic words used by poet laureates and the literary community through the ages to depict female beauty have blessed Bangla language speakers in two ways. One is the formation of prejudice, where physical attractiveness is easily assumed to be synonymous with a woman protagonist. Readers begin with this burden of pre-knowledge. The other is vocabulary—too many words added to adorn the language at the expense of meaningful portrayal.
I am not aiming my writing at Kajolrekha’s good looks, mostly because the heroine of my story is not a perfect match for popular beauty standards. Yet she carries a share of Bangla girls’ natural prettiness. Still, it would be miserly not to mention the exquisiteness of her eyes.
Kajolrekha never needed the help of kohl or eye makeup. The Almighty must have been very pleased with His genius of creation while making her eyes. He was probably very close to being a poet then.
The Maker must not be messed with poetic power. That is why His poetic emotion received a strong blow from scholarly logic. After breathing life into Kajolrekha, He decided to be conclusive, because no other form of art except pen and paper would survive if every girl on earth received inborn kohl in her lower eyelids.
Writing would then be the only profession. Poets would gaze upon kohl-eyed girls and instantly begin penning poems. Tons of paper and dozens of pens would meet premature death.
But He could not take away what He had already given. So you must understand I am barely fit to depict the eyes whose elegance charmed God Himself.
Oh! I cannot stop myself anymore from declaring the good news!
The king, queen, and matchmaker’s toil finally ran toward success. An eligible bachelor for Kajolrekha was found. Thinking about eligibility, Kajolrekha wondered, “Okay then, with whom was I spending my life before? With the unfitted?”
Damn it! We have nothing to do with this sort of intellect. Rather, we should focus on the saree’s color for Kajolrekha’s wedding, the hairstyle, the makeover, and such things. What does deep thinking have to do with us?
Since the beginning of life, family, environment, and dear ones have carried the burden of making us believe that these thoughts are blessed with happiness. First, the kingdom of the father; then the reign of the brother; after marriage, the husband’s dominion; and in old age, the son’s realm.
Merely succumbing to this is our story of success, our answer to worship.
I never understood why, unreasonably, a girl rejecting conformity aspires to be a Pritilata, a Begum Rokeya, or a Malala.
Kajolrekha’s marriage produced two by-products. One was the complacency of the queen-mother and king-father; the other was Kajolrekha’s discontent.
Marriage and its accompanying responsibilities turned into a metaphorical eraser for Kajolrekha—a big one. At first, it erased her youth. Then, one by one, it wiped out her happiness, peace, pleasure, and feelings. Quietly, it rooted out her freedom.
The “rekha” (line) part of her name vanished quickly. Finally, the erasing rested upon the “jol” part, which means water.
To tell the truth, girls, mothers, and daughters are like water. They instantly take the shape of the containers they are poured into. They must tune themselves to the master—quenching thirst as cool water, washing stress away as warm water, remaining clean and transparent so others may come and make the water clay-clogged.
Every thirsty one goes near water. Frequently, I feel like asking:
“Does the water ever become thirsty?”
Translated by — Umme Salma Alam Leena
Editor’s Note: This literary fiction reflects the writer’s personal views; The Impartial 24 is not responsible for the content.
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