Zannat

While in Class Ten Raja and I one night had sneaked out to watch a jatra play. It commenced at 10 p.m and ended at dawn. I was allowed to study with Raja and even to stay over at night in his house. We relished the jatra so much that we couldn't control ourselves and slunk out on three alternate nights to enjoy the plays. Those three nights we miraculously escaped the watchful eyes of our parents but were caught on the fourth night by Zannat. Raja's twelve-year-old sister had peeped into our reading room that night at the time of our departure. Raja promised her a doll and I pledged her sweets so that she wouldn't tell on us. The allurement worked. We were saved. But after two days Zannat too wanted to go with us. She became adamant, and threatened to tell on us if we went again without her. This episode stopped us from stealing away any longer, which however, also proved to be a blessing in disguise, because examinations were knocking at our door and had we kept up the secret nightly trips we would have performed very poorly in them.

Raja's father led the prayers in mosques and performed rituals in our village and in neighbouring ones. My father was a well-off farmer. His hope was that I would be a physician, educated first in Dhaka and then in London. He got this idea from a relative who was a civil servant in the government posted in Dhaka. I always heard my father narrate this fond hope of his to every visitor who came to see him. I used to digest it silently. On the other hand although Raja was a good student, his father wanted him to be a preacher and teacher of Islamic subjects. While Raja had no objection to the idea, Zannat did. She expressed animosity against her father's wish to groom Raja as an Islamic preacher as well as not allow her an education beyond Class Eight. Zannat's father had strictly ordered her and her younger sister Munnat to wear the veil whenever going out of the house. Munnat used to carry out the order faithfully but Zannat didn't. She used to set out from home wearing the veil but would take it off as soon as she reached the main road. One day Munnat was teased by a boy on the way to school. Zannat snatched his books away and threw them in a road-side ditch. Another time a class-mate of Munnat had pulled her by the hair during an altercation. Munnat did not protest and arrived home in tears. Zannat, however, avenged it by pulling that girl by her hair.

After Zannat caught us sneaking out, she started talking with me. She sought my help in her studies. I couldn't refuse her, and astonished, soon saw that she was a sharper student than me in some subjects. One day after I told her about my father's aspiration that I should be a doctor, she became excited and said that she would also study medicine and become a doctor. Both Raja and I laughed at her remark. At this she became furious and threw all her books at our faces and went away.

When the examination results came out we found that I had topped the list, Raja stood third in the Board, and amazingly, Zannat secured the top place in the Junior Scholarship examinations in the entire country. Despite this marvelous performance her father abruptly ordered Zannat to cease further studies. A marriage broker then came calling with a proposal for her wedding. The groom was a teacher in a Madrasa who earned as much as her father did. 'Not a bad sum, enough for leading a humble, pious conjugal life' was the contented comment of Zannat's father. Though I was stunned at the news, I couldn't help her in any way except by telling my father about it. He too expressed annoyance at this action on the part of Zannat's father. But Raja was unmoved by his sister's plight. It was only Zannat who couldn't accept her father's decision, and had been shedding tears in solitude when I came upon her that evening. 'In the eyes of Islam children must obey their parents or else shall burn in hell. A girl's master is her father until her marriage, and then the husband after marriage' was what her father used to counsel.

Zannat didn't appear consecutively for ten nights in our study session which bothered me. I kept asking Raja about her. At last he revealed that Zannat had been beaten by her father because she had gone to meet with her school teachers without his permission. Then the next day she disappeared. The matter had been hidden from their neighbours lest the girl should be black-listed in society. In a rural community boys may abscond, but once girls are known to have done the same, their reputations are compromised forever. Hence Zannat's family had suppressed the matter from everybody.

After a three-day search Zannat was traced in one of her class-mate's house in a distant village. She had gone there after a long twelve-hour bus ride. As soon as she was brought back home two of her teachers urged Zannat's father to continue with her education. 'Mr. Mustafa, you are very lucky to have such a meritorious girl. She has secured scholarship which will enable her to meet all expenses, even to save a portion for the family. Won't it be sheer injustice to deprive her of the privilege?' Both the counseling by teachers and protest by Zannat eventually worked, for Mr. Mustafa allowed her to continue with her studies in high school.

The next year Raja and I had completed the first year classes in the college. Both of us topped the list in our respective classes. The month of December is the harvesting season of paddy. Hired workers carried home bundles of paddy plants and arranged them in tall heaps all over our yard. The paddy needed to be separated from the plants by incessantly walking cattle on it. it was usually done at night by all the whole family. The activities are chasing cattle, constantly shuffling the plants, then finally separating and collecting the grains from the straw. A spontaneous excitement used to prevail and I used to enjoy the task. So much so that I wouldn't feel weary even at midnight and my mother would force me to go to bed. This resulted in my failure to visit Raja's house for three nights in a row. On the fourth night Zannat came to our house to convey her parents' worries about my absence. Then, though she was supposed to return home, she suddenly she began assisting us in grain-collection. She was very good at it. It amazed all of us. At last my mother had to force her to return home lest her parents should worry. On her way out Zannat hissed at me, 'I need your coaching, please resume.'

The match-maker who had come up with the marriage proposal was persistent and kept on trying to persuade Mr. Mustafa to accede to the marriage. He would narrate the virtues, fame and wealth of the prospective grooms. He would recite verses from the Holy Quran and Hadit about parents' responsibility of getting daughters wedded at a marriageable age. He assured Mr. Mustafa that the groom wouldn't demand any dowry. All these added fuel to burning fire. Zannat's father was virtually convinced. So he resolved again to stop her education at secondary school level. Raja and I were not aware of this ill-fated decision till the results of her examination were out. This time she didn't weep, she didn't go to see the teachers nor did she speak to any of us. She simply fled. We thought she would be found hiding with one of her classmates' like first time, but months elapsed and she couldn't be traced. At last the villagers came to learn about her absconding and termed it a scandal. 'How come the devotee's child turns to a devil, being a girl how dare she flee home?' 'It is absolutely unbecoming,' were the comments passed by villagers. They folks called her many names, but never rebuked her father whose decision had compelled her to abscond. Zannat's mother shed tears for months and years. Nevertheless, time heals, and the villagers stopped talking about the 'scandal.'

Six years after the disappearance of Zannat I graduated in medicine from Dhaka Medical College. One day I was on an internship round in the cancer ward when four girls in medical aprons rushed in and identified themselves as students of Comilla Medical college.They told me they had brought a class-mate who was in coma. She seemed to be suffering from leukemia and urgently needed transfusion of blood. They requested me to arrange immediate treatment. I went to examine the patient and immediately recognized Zannat. I became speechless for a minute, then hid my emotion. She looked pale but more beautiful than ever. I called Professor Malek of oncology department, who prescribed the necessary drugs and tests. But it was too late: her treatment had been delayed, blood transfusion and chemotherapy wouldn't work now. She breathed her last on the twentieth day. Her mother, Raja and I gazed at her dying face with agony in our hearts. They had arrived promptly after getting my call, but the stone-hearted father didn't come to see his defiant daughter even though she lay dying.

The classmates who had carried Zannat to hospital told us that she was a brilliant student and a charming girl. She had been awarded full scholarship by the medical college. One of the class-mate's father, enchanted by her zeal and high ambition had even volunteered to be Zannat's legal guardian. Zannat used to remain absorbed in studies. For the last one year she had been looking pale and weak but hadn't bothered with a check up.

While carrying the dead body to our village in a carriage I told Raja in a tear-soaked voice, 'See, Raja, she had promised to study medicine and she fulfilled it defying all atrocities of your father.' This time Raja wasn't apathetic. He looked bereaved.

Ali Idris works for Sonargaon Hotel, Dhaka.