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A clean sheet was spread, once again, on the square wooden chauki that day. Sunlight filtered in through the chinks in the tiled roof, making odd patterns in the courtyard. The woman of the neighbourhood were around silently with awed anticipation as though a momentous event was going to unfold. Mothers clasped their babies to their chests. Only some sickly, irritable infant was occasionally heard crying.
“No, no my darling,” a scrawny mother would say, laying the baby on her knees and bouncing him as though she were shaking a winnowing tray. The baby, after a few hiccups, would fall silent.
That day many expectant eyes were riveted on the thoughtful face of Kubra’s mother. The two short pieces of cloth had been strung together, but no one would dare to apply the scissors at this point. As far as cutting and measuring cloth was concerned, Kubra’s mother’s skill was undisputed. No one knew how many dowries she had prepared with her shrivelled hands, how many suits she had stitched for new mothers and their babies, and how many shrouds she had measured and ripped. Whenever someone in the mohalla ran short of fabric while stitching and all her efforts at measuring and cutting the fabric failed, the case was brought to Kubra’s mother. She would smoothen the edges of the fabric, break the starch in it, and arrange it sometimes in the form of a triangle, sometimes in the shape of a square. Then, her imagination fiercely at work with her scissors, she would measure the cloth with a final glance and break into a smile.
“Well, the sleeve and the hem will come out of this. For the lapels take some scraps from my sewing box.” And thus the crisis would be resolved. She would cut the cloth and hand over the bundle of scraps to the woman.
But that day the piece of cloth was smaller than usual, and everyone was sure that Kubra’s mother would fail to show her wizadry this time round. That is why they were all looking at her intently, holding their breath. Kubra’s mother’s face bore a resolute look without any trace of anxiety. She scrutinized the four-finger-long piece of fabric. The sunlight reflected from the red twill and lit up her sallow face which suddenly showed up the deep wrinkles like darkening clouds. It was as though a forest had caught fire. She smiled and picked up the scissors. A deep sigh of relief rose from the crowd of women. Babies were separated from chests and laid on the ground, eagle-eyed virgins leapt to thread the needles and newly wed brides put on their thimbles. By that time Kubra’s mother’s scissors were running along the fabric.
At the far end of the she-dari, the veranda, Hamida sat thoughtfully on a couch, her chin resting on her palm, her feet dangling.
When lunch was over, Bi Amma would settle down on the chauki in the she-dari, open her sewing box and spread out before her a multicoloured array of scraps. Sitting on the stone mortar in the washing area and scrubbing utensils, Kubra would observe the red scraps and a tinge of red would flash her pale, muddy complexion. As Bi Amma spread the network of silver sequins on her knees with he delicate hands, Bi Amma wilted face would suddenly brighten up with hope. Golden flowerets would glow like tiny candles against her deep, moat-like wrinkles. At every stitch, the golden embroidery sparkled and the candles fluttered.
No one knew when the sequins for the muslin dupatta were first made and put into the depths of the heavy, coffin-like wooden box. The edges of the sequined network had faded, so had the gilt border; the spools of gold thread wore a forlorn look. But there was no sign of Kubra’s wedding party yet.
When one suit of clothes meant to be worn on chauthi got old, it was set aside with the remark that bride would wear it on her second or later visits to her parents and preparations on a new bride would be selected for the first snip and the sheet would spread on the chauki in the she-dari. The women of the mohalla gathered with babies at their chests and paandans in their hands, their anklets tinkling.
The border of the underwear can be taken off this, but there won’t be enough for the bodice.”
“Just listen to her! Are you going to use the twill for the bodice, surely not?” Everyone looked worried. Like a silent alchemist, Kubra’s mother measured the length and width with her eyes while the women whispered jokes among themselves about undergarments and broke into guffaws. While someone burst into a wedding song, another, now emboldened, lustily sang a number about wicked in-laws. At this juncture the unmarried girls would heave deep sighs and long for the day when they would be allowed to join in the laughter.

Far away from this hustle and bustle, Kubra, overcome by shyness, sat in her mosquito-infested room, her head bent low. Meanwhile, the sartorial process would reach a delicate point. Some gusset would be cut against the grain and the women would be at their wits’ end. Kubra would watch nervously from a chink in the door.
That was the problem! Not a damned suit could be stitched without some hassle or the other. If a gusset was cut on the reverse, there was sure to b some trouble arising out of the gossip of the naain, the barber woman. Either the groom would be found to have a mistress or his mother would put up a hurdle by demanding solid gold bracelets. If the hem got wraped, it meant that the marriage would fall through due to disagreement on mehr, or there would be a scuffle over the groom’s party insisting on bedstead with legs inlaid with silver work. The omens associated with the dress made for the chauthi were indeed portentous. In case of any mishap all of Bi Amma’s resourcefulness and practice would be in vain. No one knew why, at the critical moment, some trivial problem would crop up and hamper progress.
Kubra’s mother had started to prepare her dowry at an early stage. Even if a small piece was left, she would immediately stitch the cover of a bottle with it, decorating it with gold lace, and then put it away. There’s no telling about a girl-she grows up by leaps and bounds, just as a cucumber grows. When the marriage took place, such far-sightedness would pay off.
However after Abba’s death, even such foresight came to no avail. At that moment Hamida was reminded of her father. Abba was tall and frail, like Muharram’s aalam. If he bent down once, it was difficult for him to straighten up. At the crack of dawn once, he would break a neem twig to brush his teeth and, and he would start coughing. Hamida would get down from his knees in a huff. She didn’t like her father shaking all over with the cough. Her father would laugh at her childish pique, and the phlegm would get struck in his chest, making him writhe like a slaughtered pigeon. Then Bi Amma would come to his rescue and thump his back.
“God forbid ! What sort of laugher is this?”
In the midst of the choking, Abba would lift his bloodshot eyes and smile helplessly. The coughing would stop after some time, leaving him panting.
Why don’t you take some medicine? “I’ve asked you time and again to do so.”
‘‘The doctor at the main hospital says that I’ll need injections. He also advises me to take a litre of milk and fifty grams of butter daily.”
“Shame on them, these doctors! The cough is already there, and on top of it he’s advising you to take fat. Won’t it create more phelgum? Consult some hakeem.”
“I will.” Abba would draw in the hookah! It’s because of this that you’ve got the cough. Do you ever think of your grown-up daughter?”
Abba would cast a pitiful look at Kubra. She had grown up to be a young woman. Whoever said that she had become a young woman? It was as though right from the day of her bismillah ceremony she had heard intimations of her approaching youth and had been cowering from it. What kind of youth was it where fairies never danced before her eyes, not did curled ringlets play coquettishly with her cheeks? She did not experience any storm raging in her chest, nor did she impetuously ask the monsoon clouds the whereabouts of her beloved. Adolescence crept up on her unawares, with silent steps as it were, and left her no one knew when! Sweet years gave away to sour ones, and finally they became bitter.
One day Abba stumbled on the threshold and fell on his face. Neither a hakeem’s prescription nor a doctor’s could get him on his feet again. After that, Hamida gave up making demands for sweet roti, and Kubra’s marriage proposals somehow lost their way. It was as if no one ever knew that behind the sackcloth curtain someone’s youth was at its last gasp. And there was another whose youth was raising its head like a serpent’s hood.
But Bi Amma’s routine did not change. She would spread the colourful pieces in the same way on the she-dari and continue to play her game of dolls.
During the month of shab-e-baraat, scrounging and economizing. She somehow managed to buy a crepe dupatta that cost her seven and a half rupees. She just had to buy it. A telegram had arrived from Kubra’s maternal uncle saying that his eldest son Rahat was coming to stay with them during his police training. Bi Amma began to drive herself with worry. It seemed as though it was not Rahat but a veriable baraat that had arrived on the threshold. And she had not yet cut the gold leaf for the bride’s hair-parting! Too nervous to do anything by herself, she sent for Bundu’s mother who was her moonhbholi behn, her adopted sister. The message was: “Behn, may you find me dead if you don’t come immediately.”
Then the two women began their hushed whispers. Once in a while they would glance at Kubra who, sitting on the veranda, would be winnowing rice. She knew well what these whispers were about. Bi Amma pulled out the clove-shaped earings weighing four massas from her ears and handed them over to her adopted sister so that she could buy a tola of fretted gold, six massas of gold leaf and sitare, and a quarter yard of twill. The room in the front was swept and dusted clean. A little lime was brought, and Kubra painted the walls with he own hands. The walls became sparkling white but the skin of her palms came off because of the lime, and that is why when she sat down to grind spices that evening her head began to spin and she fell. She kept tossing and turning all night long—partly because of her palms and partly because Rahat was to arrive by the morning train.
‘Allah, mere, Allah Mian, let Aapa be blessed with good fortune this time. Mere Allah, I shall say a hundred voluntary prayers in Your exalted presence,” Hamida prayed after her fajr namaz, the dawn prayers.
By the time Rahat arrived, Kubra had already hidden herself in the mosquito-infested room. Rahat helped himself to the breakfast of sewaiyaan and parantha and retired to the sitting room. Then Kubra came out from the room with helping steps like a newly wed bride and picked up the used dishes.
Bi Aapa, let me wash them for you,” Hamida said mischievously.
“No.” Kubra became bashful and lowered her head. Hamida kept teasing while Bi Amma smiled and stitched the gold lace on the dupatta.
The gold flowerets and leaves and the silver anklets went the way of the clove-shaped earings. And finally the bangles, too, which Manjhle Maamu had given Bi Amma on the day marking the end of her mourning after Abba’s death. Eating simple food herself, she would prepare paranthas, koftas and meat pulao for Rahat every other day. The aroma of koftas and meat pulao filled the air. She would swallow her dry morsels with water but feed her would be son-in-law rich meat dishes.
“These are hard times, my child,’ she would try to pacify Hamida who would go into a sulk seeing her mother’s behaviour. So we have to starve to feed the son-in-law’, Hamida thought.
Bi Aapa would get up at the crack of dawn and begin doing her chores like a machine. Taking just a glass of water herself, she would fry paranthas for Rahat and keep the milk on the boil until a thick layer of cream formed over it. If she could, she would have cut some fat out of her own body and stuffed it in the parantha. And why not? After all, one day he was going to be her very own. Whatever he earned, he would pass on to her. Who does not water the plants that gives fruit? And, when flowers would blossom and the fruit-laden branch would bend low, all the backbiting women would be shamed.