Online Web Editor Haamid Bala
The years had settled on Suraiya like a fine, forgotten dust. At fifty-four, she was, by any objective measure, a stunning woman. Her eyes, the colour of monsoonal twilight, held depths no one peered into anymore. Her nose was a delicate, elegant line, and her lips, even in repose, held a gentle, unappreciated pout. She maintained her figure with a quiet, innate grace, a “complete woman,” as her mother used to say, now wrapped in the invisible cloak of matrimonial neglect. Rashid, her husband for thirty years, had long since ceased to see her. His gaze slid over her at the breakfast table, focused on the newspaper’s financial pages. His conversations were logistical: “The bill is due,” “We’re expected at the Khan ‘s at seven.” Her loneliness was a constant, hollow ache in her beautifully shaped chest.
One humid afternoon, while Rashid napped, she took a solitary walk. At a dusty roadside stall selling old magazines and discarded paperbacks, a faded blue cover caught her eye: The Sanctuary Within: A Journey to Self-Love. On a whim, she bought it for a handful of change.
That night, while Rashid snored softly beside her, she read under the pool of her bedside lamp. The words were not revolutionary; they were gentle reminders. You are the first house you live in. Tend to its garden. Admire its architecture.
Something shifted. A quiet resolve, long dormant, began to stir.
The next morning, she didn’t just make breakfast; she made herself a vibrant smoothie bowl, topping it with seeds and pomegranate jewels. She dug out a silk salwaar kameez suit from the back of her wardrobe, a deep emerald that made her eyes luminous. She fastened her silver jhumkas to her ears, put on a kada, few rings.and anklets , their weight a familiar, comforting poetry against her skin.
Rashid, gulping his tea, mumbled, “Going somewhere?”
“Just here,” she said, her voice softer than usual.
She began to walk daily, not as a chore, but as a gift to herself. She felt the sun on her skin, the strength in her legs. She started taking selfies—not for anyone, but for herself. A picture of her smiling in the park, the light catching her silver hair. A close-up of her kohl-rimmed eyes, reflecting the sky. She documented her own renaissance.
At first, Rashid was vaguely irritated by the new scents of her perfumes, the time she spent choosing clothes. Then, he became puzzled. The woman moving through his home was familiar, yet utterly unknown. She glowed. She hummed. She was… happy without him.
The selfies, which he glimpsed on her phone, were the final catalyst. A cold dread gripped him. Who was she smiling at with such secret joy? Who was appreciating the woman he had so carelessly shelved?
Insecurity, a jealous and anxious vine, began to climb around his heart. He started to look at her again. He noticed the way the peach cotton dupatta draped over her shoulder, the delicate chain at her wrist. He saw the quiet contentment in her face as she read in the evening, and it terrified him. It belonged to another.
He began to court her. He suggested dinners out, films she might like. He bought her a garish necklace, which she accepted with a polite, distant smile that felt like a knife. He tried to engage her in conversation, desperately searching for the shadow of the “other man” in her replies. He started giving her the time and attention he had withheld for decades, a frantic campaign to win back what he feared he had lost to a rival.
One evening, after a particularly attentive day where he had even helped with the dishes, after a day of his uncharacteristic attentiveness, Rashid stood in the doorway, watching her brush her hair in soft rhythmic movements,
“Suraiya,”he said, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “Please tell me. Who is he?”
She paused,meeting his worried eyes in the mirror. A soft, understanding smile touched her lips. She put down her brush, reached to her nightstand, and picked up the worn, faded blue book. She held it out to him.
“There is no‘he,’ Rashid,” she said, her voice gentle but clear. “But I have found an ‘extra’. The ‘extra’ is me.”
He took the book,his fingers tracing the title. Confusion, then a slow, dawning realization settled on his face. He looked from the book to her serene expression.
“I am learning,”she continued, “to care for the person I had forgotten. To appreciate my own life. It’s not an affair with another person. It is a reunion with myself.”
Rashid stood silent,the weight of her words and his own years of inattention settling upon him. He had been looking for an intruder, when the only real change was within her own heart.
Suraiya turned back to the mirror,not to dismiss him, but to complete her quiet ritual. In the reflection, she saw his stricken gaze drop to the book in his hands, and then lift again to her face, truly seeing her—perhaps for the first time in years.
She offered her reflection a small,private smile of contentment. It was not a victory, but a homecoming. And in the quiet of the room, a new understanding, fragile and sober, began to take root between them.
Naheed Muneer ( senior Lecturer in Education Department)
