A short story from Piazza Bangladesh by Neeman Sobhan.
Barely twenty-one years old, Cheeni was far too young to be a grandmother, a Naani. Yet in our family that was what we cousins had been taught to call her. Cheeni Naani. Her name, Cheeni, meant sugar, and she did have the sweetest smile, which left a dimple on her left cheek.
He, on the other hand, though a Naana by virtue of his marriage to our beloved Cheeni, would remain forever in my memory merely as ‘The Bridegroom’. In fact, I never saw the man in normal clothes, or ever again, except on the wedding day, wearing the traditional dress of Bengali Muslim bridegrooms. I found both him and the attire clownish. Neither was a fair assessment, but I didn’t want to be fair to the villain who was taking away our Cheeni from us. So no matter what he wore, I would have thought of him with derision anyway.
He was not the only one who looked silly wearing such clothes. In my opinion, most men of that era – lacking the present day role models among virile Bollywood film stars who look sexy in both western and traditional clothes – were unable to carry with grace the cream, high necked sherwani, those tight pajamas, and on their heads, the crown like turban with the veil of jasmine garlands like a curtain of popcorns. They didn’t even have the confidence to refuse the ridiculous handkerchief that they were made to hold delicately against their nose.
“As if warding off some bad smell!” we cousins giggled.
“You silly girls. It’s just supposed to show their modesty.” Old Paagli Naani, the supposedly mad sister of my maternal grandmother tried to explain to us. We understood without being told, that this was the male version of the token shyness that was expected to be displayed in public, which in the bride involved coyness to the point of abjectness. In fact, the correct mien in brides was a lowered head and a submissive posture.
“You girls better learn to act shy if you ever want to be a bride!” the addled woman crackled as she stuffed another betel leaf into her mouth.
“Nonsense!” we protested.
My cousin Tamara was vociferous. “I will never be a silly Bengali bride, thank you. And if I must, I will marry Paul McCartney.”
I adored all the Beatles, but even if the opportunity arose, I wasn’t sure I would marry one of them. And after all, there was something romantic and compelling about all the hype, the sights and smells, the elaborate paraphernalia and preparations surrounding a Bengali wedding. Why else would our adored and fragile Cheeni Naani agree to marry a stranger and, that too, such a gorilla of a man?
I had often asked my mother, Dilara why we had to call Cheeni by the same title we used for our silver haired grandmother. She had explained that the word ‘Naani’ also referred to a great aunt – the sister of a maternal grandmother, and also the wife of a great uncle.
Given Cheeni’s age, she was closer to being a young aunt or an elder sister, and she should have been called a Khala or Apa. The fault, Tamara whispered, lay entirely with out great grandfather, Boro Abba, for having many wives. Mother confirmed this. But she explained hastily that her grandfather had not married all the wives at one go but was an unlucky man who lost each wife at childbirth and married afresh to provide a mother for his children. Cheeni was the daughter of his last wife. Thus, she was the youngest stepsister of my sixty-year old maternal grandmother Bilquees.
Light skinned and delicate boned, Cheeni Naani was a miniature version of a tall and stately woman, that is, if you forgot that she was only five foot nothing in her usual flat sandals under her starched cotton saris, you would think you were in the presence of a towering persona, such was her immense, reined in energy and dignified bearing.
I can still imagine her sitting at her study desk in her room at the end of the long verandah of Great Uncle Rizwan Naana’s Dhanmondi house, which was her home since the death of her parents. During Eid or any other festival or wherever we returned from West Pakistan after our father’s postings, once in Malir and the last time in Kharian Cantonment, the first house we would visit after my maternal grandmother’s was her brother Rizwan’s, as soon as we had greeted everyone, I would rush off to see Cheeni Naani forever studying for some exam, it seemed to us.
I remember one particular visit, on a normal day when my mother and her sisters, Afsana and Tarana Khala, decided to drop by at Rizwan Naana’s with their children in tow. There was myself, and my cousins Tamara and Lipi, all pre teens. Perhaps it was during Cheeni’s B.A final exams. She had a ‘paper’, as she called the examination, in a few hours and was doing last minute cramming, so she said she wouldn’t be joining the rest of the family in the impromptu lunch, which would be served to us visitors in the dining room. It was early yet for lunch, but Cheeni had to leave for the examination hall soon, so food was sent to up to her on a tray. My mouth watered as she mixed hot rice with ghee and mashed potatoes.
“Khaabi? Want some?” She winked at me and, making a ball of the fragrant, Spartan food, pushed it into my eager mouth. It was delicious. Soon the others also wanted a mouthful. We watched fascinated as she took a crunching bite out of a long green chilli with her mouthful of rice. She grinned approvingly, smacking her lips.
We whined: “Give us a bite!”
She widened her eyes in mock horror: “Are you crazy? It’s hot, really jhaal! In fact, its ‘ferociously’ hot!” At least, that’s how I can translate her words: shangatik jhaal. The word ‘shangatik’ could also mean dangerous or even life threatening. So we were temporarily deterred.
Then we burst out, “But you ate it!”
Our indignant tine accused her of lying and depriving us of this crisp treat.
“Aha, but I have special powers! I am a witch, don’t you know?” her eyes twinkled naughtily. “I can eat a whole bunch of hot green chillis without a tear in my eyes.”
We believed it. I, who had once secretly bitten off one of her chillis and felt the sting, particularly believed her. I knew then that she had the power to wrestle with things larger than herself.
When she suddenly decided to marry the rich widower doctor from London it released an agitated beehive of gossip among the relatives. But there was general approval as well. It was felt that Cheeni had made a brilliant match and that it was an astute move on her part. It would liberate her from being a poor relation who lived on the kindness of her eldest stepbrother.
Great Uncle Rizwan Naana was my grandmother Bilquees’ own brother. Their mother was my great grandfather’s first wife, who had died at the birth of her third child, pulled out by forceps: Nargis, our Paagli Naani. My grandmother and her brother Rizwan were the elders of the family, and after the passing away of their father and his three subsequent wives, they had, among themselves, raised and educated all the other siblings – a dozen of my great aunts and uncles, of which Cheeni was the youngest.
She was the same age as Raihan, the younger son of Great Uncle Rizwan Naana, and also a contemporary of my own beloved Muneer Mama, my mother’s youngest brother. Cheeni, Raihan and Muneer were all friends, but I was sure Cheeni liked Muneer Mama better than Raihan who was funny but not as good looking as my uncle. Also, Raihan Mama was one who annoyed her the most. They were always fighting and making up.
At family gatherings, I remember seeing Raihan Mama and Muneer Mama walking in and out of Cheeni’s room all the time. They would laugh and joke with her, play chess or cards and listen to their favourite radio programmes: ‘Binaca hit parade’ from Radio Ceylon, Akashbani Kolkata’s ‘Onurodher Ashore’ broadcast from Air India, or even the local ‘Listener’s Choice programme’ from Radio Pakistan Dhaka.
On visits, as we cousins sprawled around her desk, Raihan Mama would be sure to appear sooner or later. At Cheeni’s whispered order to us to pretend he didn’t exist, we would ignore him at first. Then, unable to keep a straight face, we would start giggling which enraged Cheeni.
He was a tease. If she were telling us a ghost story, he would interrupt her to debunk it. “What an idiotic story. Listen kids, the real ogress, the real petni in the story is this woman.” He would flick open Cheeni’s coiled up hair so it streamed down her back. “Just watch her feet. See how they are slowly turning inwards.” We would scream and scramble behind Mama’s back.
Cheeni would land a fist on Mama’s arm and shove him out of the door, “Get lost, you!”
He would put his head around the curtains, with his eyelids turned outwards, shiny and pink we would scream and scramble behind Cheeni’s chair.
“Hahaha… she isn’t safe either. Look at her feet!”
We would run to stand helplessly in the middle of the room screaming our heads off, not knowing whom to trust.
That time, I remember clearly, in walked stern faced Bela Naani, Raihan’s mother, Rizwan Nana’s wife. Cheeni’s stepsister-in-law. She snapped at all of us, but mostly at Cheeni: “Aah! Ki hochchey? What’s all this noise and childishness, may I ask? And you, Raihan what are you doing here? Don’t you have anything better to do than hang around Cheeni’s room?
Cheeni gave Raihan a vicious look as he departed. After the spoilsport, Naani, left, Cheeni was in a foul mood for a while. “Just wait and see what I do to your Raihan Mama. I’ll bite his stupid head off like a green chilli.”
We were thrilled and dragged Raihan back to Cheeni’s room to witness the trial and punishment. But something had fizzled out. It was no fun; there were no sparks. Cheeni was just cold and distant and Raihan bent over her speaking softly into her ears. We saw her flick his hand off her shoulder at first, then, she let it remain, leaning her head lightly against his sleeve.
Other times, hearing us crowding in Cheeni’s room he would walk in humming a Tagore song in his grainy voice and Cheeni would join him. Often she would correct the words he was singing.
“Oh! Yeah?” Raihan would turn to us: “Just because she is my aunt in relationship – though younger by a while year, mind you, she thinks she knows more than me. Hah! I’ll get the Geetobitan and we shall see who is right.” He would walk off in a huff to the bookshelf outside and return carrying Tagore’s beige coloured collection of songs and poems. He was mostly wrong, but would lie, misread, pretend to go deaf and blind, refuse to admit defeat and any number of silly things that always end up in hilarity.
We adored the pair, and our visits to the otherwise morose house of our Great Uncle Rizwan Naana, composed of many widowed and ailing female relatives given asylum in this household, were always enlivened by these encounters.
After the wedding was announced, we heard from our mother’s that from now on “poor Cheeni” would at last be independent and rich and living in bidesh in distant London. She was considered to have struck lucky, or as the Bengali phrase, in rough translation, went: “her forehead had opened up” because the Bengali word kopaal implied both forehead and fate, to me, somehow, it sounded like a grave injury.
“He is old and ugly,” Lipi brought fresh news about Cheeni’s husband to be. I was horrified. Bridegrooms were obliged to be good looking and young; it was an unspoken rule of the wedding fairy tale we girls spun. This was the first wedding in the family that I remembered attending. I was only twelve that year. This was the early ‘60s. The 1965 Pakistan India War was a year away and my family was still in Dhaka. My father had been waiting for a promotion to be transferred back to West Pakistan, but eventually he realised that his would never happen so he resigned and took another job.
The wedding took place in the most glamorous hotel of Dhaka at that time, the Shahbagh. Despite having my younger brother Shahed, then a toddler of three, my mother was able to sew me a dress with extra frills for the occasion. Uncomfortable in the scratchy peach organdy, I followed my cousins to the dressing room to peek at the bride.
She had become an object, the Konay or the BRIDE in capitals. There was nothing of the thin girl who fed us lumps of fragrant hot rice and mashed potatoes with ghee and a smile. Her delicate collarbones were hidden under layers of thick gold necklaces, studded with nine gems, the Nouratan.
“All given by the groom,” the women whispered around me touching and handling the jewelry in awe.
“No, that choker and wide bracelet were given by the brother,” declared a relative from our side of the family, feeling obliged to point this out.
The smile on Cheeni’s lips was tight was artificial. But when she saw us she held out her hennaed, be ringed hands and smiled sweetly. After we had hugged her and smelt some alien and expensive perfume instead of her usual Cuticura and Ponds Dream Flower talcum powder, we let be ogled and manhandled by the throngs waiting to view the bride before she was taken to the hall to join the bridegroom.
We raced ahead to find a spot near the stage where the ceremony was to take place. I saw the groom then from a distance. He looked huge, dark and bespectacled under the sehra of flowers. His face was too crowded to be distinct. I assumed he was ugly, but when he stood up at the bride’s arrival I only noticed that he looked down tenderly at the bride who came no higher than his chest. She ignored him and strangely, I felt protective towards him rather than Cheeni Naani who sat down coolly, gracefully in a cloud of red and gold. A tiny but imperial figure.
A murmur of approval, admiration and general discussion started in the crowd. Then instead of lowering her head coyly she looked up steadily, almost defiantly at the audience. The buzzing faltered into momentary silence. Then, even more shocking, she looked sideways and smilingly at her groom!
A guest sneered, “How shameless! People would think this was a love match and not a negotiated marriage.”
Another said: “How do you know it isn’t? She is not a young chick and seems like quite a fast girl. Look at her. I bet she has known the groom a good long time. Surely, some affair-taffair?”
Paagli Naani rushed to her stepsister’s defence, flapping her hands: “Rubbish! She never saw the groom before in her life. Don’t go by her smile. Her heart is breaking and she’s only smiling bravely to prove everyone wrong. I know my little sister. Bechari, he is marrying to escape Dhaka. My poor Cheeni…”
She wiped her eyes. One guest started to giggle. Another woman made the gesture showing a screw loose in her head.
My grandmother appeared from nowhere: “Aah! Nargis,” she scolded her eccentric sister, then turned to the guest, “Our Cheeni is a modern young woman, confident and poised, not shy and foolish as we used to be. She grew up without a mother to teach her social graces. But she needs your blessings. Please pray that she will always smile and be happy as she looks today.” My grandmother’s dignified words worked and the guests dispersed.
Paagli Naani continued to blubber. “What do they know? And all that talk and nonsense about taboo and forbidden relationships and right wrong and keeping the family face. In my time, the same. Have they looked into Cheeni’s eyes? I know, she’s running away. Her kopaal is like mine…” she struck her forehead and sniffled, and we moved away from her in embarrassment. I turned around to check, and it was true: she had the same narrow forehead as Cheeni Naani.
The frivolous rituals were over. Then Rizwan Naana took Cheeni’s hand and put it in the groom’s enormous paw. Cheeni stooped down to touch her stepbrother’s feet. Bela Naani patted her head, as did my own grandmother. Paagli Naani embracing her burst into tears. One of the guests whispered, “Quite a strong girl, the bride! No breaking down into tears, no emotions at leaving her family!”
Then before the final farewells the bride was taken to the dressing room to adjust her sari and veil and make a last trip to the toilet. We followed the strong group of women into the room. Cheeni suddenly pulled me aside into the bathroom. “Shayla, listen, was your Raihan Mama there in the hall when I was on stage?”
I had seen Muneer Mama but wasn’t sure of seeing Raihan Mama. I thought I saw him once in the distance scolding a waiter. He was scowling and in a bad mood. But I just nodded to Cheeni.
She whispered, “Can you give him this? It’s top secret, okay?”
I nodded vigorously. This was like those jovial old times, playing games around her desk. She passed a piece of paper into my hands.
“Make sure you give it to him when no one’s around, okay?” The she hugged me quickly and with a sort of half smile she turned towards the mirror.
Something askew in that smile made me blurt out: “Cheeni Naani, are you happy or sad?”
She stopped in the act of re-pinning her veil and looked at me blankly for a second.
“Happy.” She said it decisively and turned to the mirror to reapply lipstick. I had never seen her with coloured lips. The alien mouth was unsmiling.
“Truly?” I asked.
“Yes. In fact, tell your Raihan Mama, I am extremely happy. Got it?”
And suddenly she smiled. It was the wicked grin of her green chilli moments.
“Tell him, I am ferociously happy! Shanghatik khushi!” Her eyes flashed and burned as if her tongue were on fire, but not a tear appeared.
