Pride

Pride

Mir Mahboob Ali

S

aima was sitting in front of her dressing table leisurely looking at her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, a lock of grey hair awakened Saima to the undeniable fact that she is aging. That sent her into a contemplative mood. Pensively she set before the mirror, and her past began to ooze out from the depth of her unfathomable memory, like a play enacted just yesterday. Overwhelmed by memories flooding in she almost went into a trance, finally, she came back to senses with tears rolling down her cheeks.

She remembered Samir. He is certainly not her first love, since she has experienced many, because of her propensity to fall in and out of love almost regularly. The state of being in continuously altering love, she assigns to the softness of heart, meaning a loving and sensitive disposition. Perhaps! But, her detractors find pleasure in branding that as coquetry of a flirt par excellence.

She pedantically ponders, “She was not the vamp that she turned into. A diminutive simple girl aspiring to be a physician, she was admitted into a medical school. An innocent romantic lassie, still in her teens, watched handsome young lads with adolescent inquisitiveness. Belonging to a tolerably conservative family she mixed with her male cousins, and that was the only experience she had of mixing with boys. In the new environment, the atmosphere was much too open. The shy little soul took a bit of time to adjust to the new realities. Gradually, she got accustomed to the new ways of life but still mixing with boys was not unrestrained. Initially, she did not pay more than casual attention to her male classmates, but unknowingly she started enjoying their company, particularly, the company of not so handsome seemingly shy Shabab. Slowly, everything around her changed, she blossomed into a woman from the little timid girl she was. Shabab and she became great friends and enjoyed each other’s company immensely. Their classmates fondly called them the ‘Inseparable SS’. It never occurred to Saima, in their almost three years’ relationship that they never vouched their love for each other, until almost at the end of their internship, when Shabab told her that he was engaged to marry one of his cousin sisters just after the completion of internship.  She is the first person he is breaking the news to, since they are great friends. Shabab kept on, but she was not listening, the marriage was settled long ago between parents, and how could he disobey his parents … etc., etc.

Saima was simply dumbfounded, for she accepted Shabab as her life-partner when they first succumbed to their emotions, during internship duties in nightshifts. Shabab showed a little reluctance. In fact, that bit of reluctance strengthened her faith in his love. In hindsight, she thinks, ‘Shabab must have faked his hesitation.’  He used reluctance as a ploy with great precision to create a feeling of genuineness of his love for Saima in her. She trusted Shabab and never dreamt that he was otherwise involved, in spite of being warned several times by friends that Shabab was a philanderer. She never believed that she could so thoroughly be deceived, for she had great faith in her intuition. She cried, cursed and threatened but without success. Shabab argued, as they were not lovers but mere friends who enjoyed each other’s company they were not under any obligation, whatsoever, to each other. The shameless SOB never even blinked. She could not defend. Silently, she walked away from him and could not even tell him that she was carrying his child. She was bereft of all desires to talk to him. Shabab betrayed her and she hated him bitterly.”

Shabab a chameleon, underneath his innocent looks resided a shrewd, dexterous, seducing philanderer. The fact of Shabab being dishonest did not matter much but her inability to see through his schemes pained her most. She fell sick. Most of the following three months she remained confined to her bed, delirious, barely eating.  Her gravid condition was revealed to her parents during her sickness, she was told later, and of the miscarriage due to her illness, as well. She was in a way thankful to God that she was sick enough to be spared of the agony of going through the stern punitive measures following such revelations.

All men became Shabab to Saima. Subconsciously, she embarked on a crusade to take revenge. To quench her thirst for revenge she began with betraying men indiscriminately, that, gradually, became her nature. Now, Saima betrays her lovers after alluring then into her net almost involuntarily, with great poise and finesse.

Nevertheless, she genuinely fell for Samir; his stupid jokes, constant teasing, unceasing blabbering, loud laughter and chain smoking, all attracted her. At his sight she would go dizzy in the head, breathe heavily and the fairness of her cheeks would be besmirched with reddish glow. “Samir the heartless braggart seemingly refused to understand these apparent signs of human frailties. Or, perhaps, he is not so refined to perceive those emotive signals,” thinks Saima. She is still in love with Samir. Her love for him is so intense, though she denies that even to herself, that she had even fallen in love with Samir’s shadow. A man in whom she saw the peculiarities of Samir held her spellbound for almost a year. His falsehood was the Bible to her.  He almost dragged her by the nose. A married man pretended to be a bachelor and rich and talented and sought after. He dished out stories about himself and his literary activities, which she believed unhesitatingly. She was serious. At least, she led others to believe she was, for at the same time she was playing with the emotions of another much older man. In spite of her supplementary affair, she asked this man to talk to her guardians about their impending marriage. A superbly diabolic mind working on different people at the same time betrays analysis. Apparently, the charm finally lifted when repeatedly the rogue failed to talk to her guardians and gave her false addresses where he never lived. She would not have been deceived the second time if she had not seen Samir in the pretender. She unconsciously has been so mesmerized by Samir that for an unusually long time she lived in a fool’s paradise, refusing to read ominous signs.

Remembering Samir, she feels elated and simultaneously an excruciating pain reaps her heart open, she shakes with uncontrollable rage. Saima murmurs to her, “I can kill him. I can kill that idiot, if I may lay my hands on him.” Then sobering down she thinks, “What is his fault? I never told him about my feelings for him. I always expected to trap him by my positive overtures into expressing his passion for me first, as I did so many times before, saving me the ignominy of baring myself to him.” She feels mad at herself for failing this time. She broods, so many times, nay almost all the times the ploy worked, worked to perfection.” After the intended lover was drunk to the hilt with the elixir of her mesmerizing pouting signals and trapped into admission of unceasing love, she would imperiously with leisurely abandon laugh off the admirer. In serious and aggressive cases, she would plead misunderstanding her friendliness with perfect immunity.

Unmarried in her forties, though she has retained the seductive charm of her youth, she realizes that she is aging and soon be without the lustre she once exuded. Saima feels a churning desire to settle down. With the urge to tie the knot once for all, Samir’s face slowly emerges from the shadows in front of her eyes. She fondly hangs on to that for how long she does not know. Ringing telephone brings her back to reality. She receives the phone and it is none other than Samir on the other end. A thrilling sensation runs down her spine, trembling involuntarily, she melts like a cube of ice in a glass of liquids. She responds with such softened voice barely audible that Samir is forced to ask, “What is the matter with you, are you all right?” Quickly, she recomposes herself, replies with her natural eloquence, and chats incessantly into the mouthpiece, afraid lest she is betrayed by her emotions. Samir is assured that nothing is wrong. As he heaves a sigh of relief, Saima again loses her composure thinking, “Yes, yes, yes, yes...he is concerned, he cares.” Her heart jumps into her mouth and she almost chokes with emotion, breathes heavily into the mouthpiece and faintly murmurs, “Oh! My love Samir I love you so, my darling, my life.” Unable to understand, Samir asks, “What?” His voice, heavy with apprehension, awakens Saima, she quickly regains her senses and fear of being exposed grips her. She coughs to cover, her emotional-softening stops, she breaths deeply to recompose, and than bluntly blurts out, “Nothing, I was talking to my maid, I am sorry.”  She excuses herself saying that she is cooking something that needs her attention and hangs up.