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Dreams beneath a hizab

" Wear a hizab", came the stern order of her grandmom whom she lovingly called nanijaan. On such days she often wondered, if her grandmom deserved all the love she had for her. But, did she have the time to think and reflect on it, she was getting late for school. For one last time she looked at her mother's eyes pleadingly. Ammi, perhaps had already lived the same story, she saw a faint glare of disdain in her mother's eyes for the hizab as she went to fetch it for her. That piece of clothing was supposed to save Naz's honour, but what she failed to understand was, why wasn't her brother supposed to wear one when he would be walking the same way with her to school.

Two decades hence, she now realises that not only the hizab, she was destined to wear a price. A price of being born as a girl. A price which came sealed as her fate.

A flashback:

As she dresses to attend her classes, she falls in love with the freedom she had discovered after moving out of home. She no longer had to get worried for any of her evenings or nights. She could roam about at her will and not be judged. The first thing she had done after moving into the university hostel was colour her hair bright red, the red in her hair complemented the fire in her eyes. When I went to meet her, she smirked hinting at the new change she had opted for whereas I always knew that she always wanted such stuff for herself.

As we were strolling around the campus which was supposed to be her home for the next few years, she kept on moving at a jittery sway. The untamable spirit in her had finally found home. I graduated before her because she had joined the institution late. It was during one of my visits since I left our university that i came across her,  God! she was blushing when I saw her. The reason being the chap beside her  who looked at me with confused glances. It took me no time to understand that she finally had found love, the girl in her had finally found what she had aways wanted for herself.

Everything was fine but what she probably had missed was she was born to pay a price, she was to be the shield of her family's honour. She felt helpless, her degrees on paper couldn't possibly award her the right to live a life she wanted. She had always thought about it but had been hopeful that somewhere , somehow she would be understood; but she was mistaken. She pleaded, but her voice was shunned, the red in her hair slowly faded, the fire in her eyes got dim. The chap of her life became history and along with him a part of her died.

If only she thought, she  never had dreamt, if only she could limit herself within that hizab, if only she were given her flight!

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