story space-1:"choices"

Fatimah Banu, was my classmate in college. Sheathed in black, her slow, pensive gait matched her frail and reed thin physique.

One of the many Muslim girls in my class, her ‘gang’ of friends, were all from similar background, conservative, studious and burkah clad.

At that time I belonged to the most ‘happening’ group in class. We were a bunch of smart young under graduates, ready to do anything, bold, and outspoken, we considered ourselves the best!

At times I could sense Fatimah hanging around us, at the fringes of our circle, smiling quietly at our comments, observing us, unobtrusive, and diffident.

Just before the exams one day, she came to borrow my notes, and in the same quiet manner, disclosed her difficulty. She had studied in Tamil medium, and here she was drowning in an English quagmire. Only now in college was she faced with the tremendous task of learning in English.

Awestruck, I could not fathom the depth of her difficulties nor fail to appreciate her courage, as all our books, notes, and lectures, were in English.

Dictionary in hand, painstakingly she would translate notes borrowed from me. Complicated Tamil tongue twisters replaced scientific English jargon. The only solace for me (and her) was that, she was not alone; some others too, shared her plight. My amazement increased as she revealed that our college had provisions for them to write exams in Tamil.

We heaved a sigh of relief as we emerged from our self-centric world of word limits, time limits, marks...and exams.

Fatimah had slipped my mind, but I needed her on that day, as I had to borrow her burkah, for a stage drama.

I went in search of her, to find her leaving for home. She was very happy to talk to me, and divulged that she had written and passed all her exams, in Tamil. My respect and admiration for her increased manifold!

Fate threw me a curve ball, as she asked me to accompany her to the hostel (I did not know, she stayed in one!) She could not possibly give me her burkah and walk to the room without one, could she?
So I went to her hostel…ten girls living in two rooms, sharing a bathroom. What could I feel? Shock, discomfort, pain…?

She shared her story with me. A first generation student, she was the first girl, from her village, to go to college. She was ambitious, hard working, and studying on a scholarship. Her strong willed mother had supported her plans to study further; her father, though conservative, was proud of his daughter’s achievement; and her younger sister, was waiting to follow in her footsteps.

Yet, her greatest fear was marriage, and all the other traps of a conservative Muslim family.

I left silently, burkah in hand, with a myriad thoughts swirling through my mind.
Fatimah was fighting for her future, for a life of independence, as against one behind the purdah. An ocean of difference lay in our up bringing. We had tread totally different paths, I took my freedom for granted and I made my choices…

Or so I thought…

The last I heard of Fatimah, she had completed her M.Phil and was working in the same college as a lecturer, while I, have got married and am a full time mother, house keeper, to my two children!

She broke shackles within the mind, to free herself from conservatism.
Conservatism is not in our religion, or in the clothes we wear; it is in our mind and in our actions.