God knows how, but a call from Nihal's phone somehow went through to my cousin-in-law's number. And he heard it — the sounds of struggle, of blows. Meanwhile, his own elder sister, the jethima, hearing the dull thud of strikes, began wandering in distress from room to room until she came to stand outside this one, understanding that the beating was happening here, but unable to fathom who was striking whom. How could it be? A fresh bride in the house, and someone is striking her? What would the new bride think seeing all this? Lost in confusion, she hurried to the door and demanded it be opened. Over there, they were devastated — how had someone found out?
Only after much pleading from outside did they finally open the door. Walking in, they saw my neck still locked in the grip of her younger sister's arm. She was a large woman, heavy, dark-skinned. She kept me pressed against her body, raining blows on my face with both her fists. I lay limp, unable to move my limbs, groaning and bleeding. The jethima came running, wrenched me free from her grasp, and held me to her chest.
I had gone senseless, foam streaming from my nose and mouth. Even then they were saying, "She's putting on an act. Nothing's wrong with her." The jethima said, "What crime has this new bride committed that you beat her like this? She's just arrived in this house and has been working all day like an old woman already! What sin has she committed, that she left Khulna and came here in a single sari because she couldn't bear to even look elsewhere? If she had truly done wrong, you should have complained to her parents. Or at the very least, you could have called the village elders."
One by one, the neighbors began to fill the room. Everyone was learning what had happened. Then, to change the course of events, they hatched another scheme. Her elder sister, the one who had been standing there urging them to beat us harder, suddenly began shrieking, "Allah! Mother! I'm gone! I'm gone!" — and they hurried her off to the hospital.
Meanwhile, I lay plastered like clay in the jethima's lap. She lifted my blouse and saw my back — swollen and mottled a deep, dark blue. The women, following the jethima's lead, began rubbing me with salve, some with mustard oil. The towel they were using to wipe me had become soaked through with blood, matted and stuck.
At some point they realized the call had gone through to my brother-in-law. Now they phoned him directly, showed him great anger and insult, saying, "We've beaten your girl. Come and settle this and take her away." My brother-in-law was stunned. What on earth was happening?
My brother was away at his in-laws' house with his wife, in some distant village. The moment he heard the news, he set out for Khulna. Meanwhile, Mother was calling me, but couldn't reach through. They had taken my phone and switched it off. When I turned it back on later, I was sitting in that aunt's room, praying despite the pain in my back. She answered my phone and told my mother, "Nothing's happened, sister. Don't worry about your daughter. The siblings had a quarrel. She'll be fine."… And with these words she comforted my mother.
I too never once told anyone at home that they had beaten me. Instead, I said there was no need for anyone to come. Everything would be all right.
But the story kept unfolding. They made phone calls, forced and pressured my family, and brought them over.
My brother, my uncle’s daughter, my aunt’s son, my younger uncle, and the cousin who works as a sub-inspector there—they all came together and arrived the next evening.
In the meantime, his father kept threatening me with glares, then his mother, then his brother-in-law. His uncle’s wife wouldn’t leave me alone. I knew that if they got the chance, they’d beat me again. If they could kill me, they’d say Sanjida had committed suicide.
By evening, everyone left for their house. No one even offered us a meal. They listened to everything from our side. Meanwhile, his younger sister was hiding in a corner of another room, beckoning me with hand signals and whispering in a low voice… “Come here, whore, I’ll bury you here.” She looked truly terrifying then!
Some neighbors called my uncle over and said, “I don’t know what relation you have to Sanjida. But these people have made their intentions clear. Anyway, they’ll throw Sanjida out of this house. They’ll turn her into a corpse if needed and throw her out. You don’t know these people. The boy has done something terrible, so they need your daughter for it. That’s why they brought her. But they won’t keep her—that’s for sure. If necessary, they’ll beat her to death. Either Sanjida will leave this house, or her corpse will.”
My brother had stepped outside for a moment when their planted people insulted him terribly. After that, my brother wanted to take me away to Khulna. He said, “Where no one wants my sister, we won’t keep her any longer.”
But they wouldn’t let me go then. That night, Nihal convinced me that he’d get up at dawn and take me to Dhaka. He said he couldn’t live without me. He told me to tell my family this.
Following his word, I said goodbye to them and set off with him toward Dhaka at dawn, wearing a sari and sandals his friend had given him. I had some books with me.
On June 14, 2019, we went to Dhaka. That very day, the two of us found a place to rent. A single-story house with a tin roof. The rent was 5,000 taka. The room had large windows like a school on the east and south sides. No fan in the room. The heat from the sun came through in the morning and afternoon from the east, and from evening through dusk from the south. And all around were normal houses with tin roofs. Heat radiated from them into our room too.
It was the scorching month of June. All day long, I felt like I was being boiled alive. I had some money saved—5,500 taka. I took it out and gave 2,500 for the rent, and spent 2,500 on dishes and groceries. I gave the remaining 500 to him for pocket money and transportation.
The sun was fierce all day. But with a tin roof, the nights were bitterly cold. I was especially prone to catching cold. So at night, during winter, I’d wrap his extra lunghi and my other scarf around myself. But I never asked him to buy me a blanket or a normal quilt. Because I knew it would stress him out.
His income then was 20,000 taka a month. Every single taka was hard-earned. So he’d spend it his own way. I didn’t want him to worry on my account. He’d go to the office in loud blue shirts with flowers or bright orange ones with big stripes, olive-colored pants—clothes that hadn’t been washed in days.
He didn’t know what formal attire meant. I, on the other hand, had studied BBA. I’d even had to study formal and informal dress in my Business Communication course.
I wore my old clothes and went around the small market in Khilkhet, picking out five formal-looking shirts, matching wristwatches, Active Man body spray, shoes, eight to ten pairs of socks, an iron, belts, ties—all according to his preference.
Every day he wore what I gave him, and the next day I washed everything. I’d wake before dawn and cook. After finishing, I’d call him up. He’d bathe, and I’d have all the food ready. I’d feed him with my own hands. I’d dress him, comb his hair, pack his bag, sling it over his shoulder, put on his shoes, and stand at the gate until he was out of sight.
Once he left, I’d tidy the room, eat something, and sit with a book. During his bath time—well, he wasn’t there—I’d wash one of his clothes, say my prayers, eat, and read again. When he called to say he was coming home, I’d start cooking all over again.
Every day when he came back, he’d bring me two pieces of jalebi—my favorite. How happy I’d be to see them! It was as if the whole world fit in the palm of my hand! After eating, he’d sit and watch serials, movies on the laptop. Then we’d eat dinner together and the day would end.
This was how the days went.
He never talked to his family on the phone for more than thirty-six, forty seconds when he was home. But once he left the house, he’d talk for forty, forty-two minutes—I could see it on his phone. One evening we went out to buy something together. On the way back, his younger brother-in-law called.
Right away he asked, ‘Are you home or outside?’ He said, ‘Outside.’ Then his brother-in-law said a lot of things. At one point he said, ‘Sanjida is a city girl. She won’t stay in the village. She won’t look after your parents. She doesn’t understand housework, and she never will. Not every woman is made for marriage. You’ll have to marry again.’
He said, ‘Okay. If I have to marry to look after Father and Mother, I’m willing. I’ll marry again.’ I stood there listening and went numb.
When we got home, I asked, ‘Will you really marry again?’ He said, ‘If everyone says so, then I will. But that would only be for Father and Mother. You’re enough for me. I don’t need anyone else. She’ll be there, I’ll be here with you.’ Hearing this consolation, I laughed and said, ‘Alright, fine. If you marry, go ahead. Let her take everything, but I won’t give her your share.’ He said, ‘No, silly. I’m only yours. I love you!’
Hearing this, I’d be so happy that tears would stream down my face. This is how the days passed.
I used to take exams sometimes, and he’d go with me. He’d go dressed in a suit and tie with polished shoes and a pressed shirt. I’d go with him in a pair of old house sandals and one of the two three-piece sets I’d brought from my mother’s place after my wedding, wearing one of those.
Going to exams felt like a fair of sorts. You’d run into people you hadn’t seen in ages. One day a friend of mine glanced sideways at my feet. Right then and there, I told him to buy me a pair of shoes suitable for going out. When we went out, people didn’t take kindly to my state alongside his impeccable appearance. And it would reflect poorly on him. A newlywed, and yet my feet in ordinary sandals while I’m here to take an exam. I explained all this to him. He said, ‘Come on, forget it!’
“We’ll see later. A known dwarf doesn’t need the sacred thread.” After that, she never bought me sandals again.
One evening I was praying. I had a pot on the stove. I’d only completed three units of prayer when she called. I answered. She told me to take whatever money was in a bag’s pocket in the room, just as I was, and come out immediately. She’d spotted a pair of shoes under the airport overbridge. If I delayed, someone else would snatch them. She told me not even to finish my prayers and come. So I went. She bought herself shoes for 1200 taka.
On the way back, the rickshaw fare was 10 taka. I said, “Forget it, let’s walk and talk instead.” So we were walking together. On the way, I saw a pair of shoes on the pavement and asked her to buy them for me. I even tried them on. She said, “These aren’t good. I’ll buy you better ones later.” I said, “They’re only 200 taka. It’s fine, really.” So I took them off and left them there and came home.
Once I wanted to buy a burqa. Black and ash-colored. Very dignified. But she made some excuse and put it off. I wanted that burqa and those shoes because when I’d go for exams, I’d see everyone, and wearing those same two old three-piece sets every time, the way they’d look at me—it hurt, thinking they must be judging my husband, thinking he was stingy or something. After not getting those two things, I never asked for anything again.
Next to the eastern window of our tin-roofed room, there’s a pipal tree. That window was slightly broken. It couldn’t be closed completely. After getting him ready for the office and seeing him off, I’d tidy the room, eat, and sit down to study. While studying, every day at half past eleven my head would spin and sleep would come. I’d fall asleep. And every single day I’d have nightmares. Sometimes I’d see Father dead, sometimes Mother. Some days a snake or a buffalo would chase me. Or a mad person would grab me.
This happened every day. So out of fear, I’d sleep with the door open. Of course, the neighbors’ wives had plenty to say about that, good and bad. Right in front of my room was the washroom. It belonged to two families. Water would drip from above into the washroom and into our room too. But I didn’t mind. Every day I felt that if there’s love, you can touch the sky. These small things didn’t matter at all.
I’d weave dreams around him. One day we’d have everything. A roof of bricks and rods above our heads, a car, children born into a new generation. I’d already chosen their names—if a girl, I’d call her Sunny (radiant with sun), but then it matched his ex-girlfriend Sonia’s name, so I dropped it. Then I chose Sabiha Nihal. The Sa from Sanjida, and Nihal straight as is. If a boy, his name would be Alif.
In the evenings when he came home to sleep, he’d tell me stories about that tree and scare me with made-up tales. And I’d huddle close to him, pressing myself against his body, and fall asleep. I’ve always been naturally afraid of jinns and fairies. When I slept in his chest, it felt like heaven to me.
During that time, there was always some exam every Friday. Sometimes they’d overlap. Like the General Banking Assistant Manager exam and the CGDF Auditor exam fell on the same day, same time. It was July 12th.
# from a novel
If only there had been no exam on some Friday, I would have pestered her to let me hold her hand and walk through the evening city bathed in the artificial red and blue lights of the streetlamps. No van, no rickshaw, no bus, no CNG—we’d have walked everywhere. I was always trying to save her money. And I’d hunt for tutoring jobs myself so I could support her a little.
During exam season, I’d wake at four in the morning, cook, pack food for both of us in containers, study a bit, do all her chores—even polish her shoes—dress her, comb her hair, and then we’d leave. I couldn’t tell one Dhaka street from another, couldn’t even distinguish the people anymore; they all looked the same to me. We’d walk holding her hand. Before the exam, I’d feed her something with my own hands. Then she’d sit for the exam. Or sometimes, after the exam, I’d feed her again. This is how the days went.
I arrived in Dhaka on June 14th, and on June 19th I had the combined written exam for four banks’ General Officer positions. My body still ached. Blue bruises from her family covered my entire back. Even sitting was painful. Going in to take the exam in that condition, I didn’t do well. I was eliminated at the written stage itself.
Before the divorce, I took almost eight or nine exams. I didn’t fail a single one. After the divorce, for those exams where I’d passed the preliminary before the divorce, and for the new exams I attempted, I failed consistently and miserably. On June 25th I had a Primary exam scheduled. None of them would let me sit for it. The exam center was in Khulna. And I was in Dhaka.
I begged her with folded hands, made countless requests, but her family had decided they wouldn’t let Nihal come to Khulna. So she wouldn’t come either. Later, I had everyone from my house call her. Only then did she agree. But very reluctantly, very negatively. I got everything ready and stood waiting on the opposite side of Dhaka Regency. When she finally came, we both got on a bus together. The funny thing was, I still couldn’t manage those Dhaka buses on my own. They seemed to race along like madness.
I noticed she wouldn’t even talk to me. We came to Khulna like that, awake the whole night. We reached home at seven in the morning. The exam was at ten, I think. I left my bag and headed straight out. She came with me.
I sat for the exam. After finishing, instead of going home, I went to the banks of the Rupsha River. There’s a beautiful spot there. The two of us sat there. Dangling our feet, talking and eating chaat. After our wedding ceremony, one day she had beaten me at my father’s house. Then she’d gotten angry and come here to eat chaat. That day, she made me eat it with her.
Just then, Johnny suddenly showed up with three of his friends. They kept looking over at us. At my husband, that is. What kind of husband was he that I’d refused Johnny for his sake! Johnny was my school friend. We were classmates. When university admissions came around, Johnny had another friend approach me to tell me that he loved me. I explained to him that I had no time for love and romance. Now was the time for studies. There were exams ahead. Let me study, and let him study too. First we’d build our careers. When the time came, we could tell our parents, and if they agreed, we’d marry. All this love business was wrong, false. It was nothing but a waste of time.
I’d also told him I didn’t believe in all that. And while I did care for Johnny, it was only as a friend. He was a boy—I had never even thought of him that way. I mixed with him the same way I mixed with my girl friends.
# From the Text
Yet the thought that she would be my life partner makes my skin crawl, I don’t know why. We’ve even fought. But to hold her hand as a lover—the very idea makes me feel small in my own eyes. I don’t think I can bind myself to her like this, not really. I tell her all of this.
His full name is Saiful Hasan Jonny. I call him Saha. He went to take the admission test at Jahangirnagar and brought me bangles and a wallet from Dhaka. I was already enrolled in the first year at Khulna University by then. He tricked me into coming and gave them to me. But something made me think suddenly: *If I take these, he’ll think I’ve accepted his proposal. And why would I take gifts from a boy anyway?* So I refused. He begged me to take them. But I felt this overwhelming shame. I came back home without taking anything. He got angry and threw those gifts into the lake beside the university, then left. We didn’t speak for three years after that.
Three years later, in 2017, my brother had a fight with me. He came up from behind and beat me with a foreign lighter—beat me so badly that I was hospitalized, unconscious for three days. When I came home from the hospital, Jonny knocked on the door. He asked how I was doing. I sent him a picture of myself with a cast on my arm and bandages around my head.
When he saw a picture like that, Jonny went mad. He cried so hard. That same day he brought all my friends from my 2011 SSC exam class to our house. From that day on, after three years, he started checking up on me again. Did I take my medicine? Did I clean the wound with Povidone? That’s all—just these small things.
After that, he proposed to me again. But by then I was in a relationship with Nihal. I told Jonny about it. He didn’t believe me. Then I got married. He found out. But he’d never seen my husband. So that day at Rupsathi, he stood there staring at us both with his mouth hanging open. I’d already told Nihal about Jonny before. So Nihal knew everything.
Nihal was five foot four or five. Dark-skinned. And Saha was five foot ten, dusky. When Nihal saw Jonny, he said to me, “Let’s go. Otherwise it’ll end up like the Rifat Sharif Minni thing.” I said, “Hush! Why do you say such things? I don’t even talk to him on my own, even though he was my classmate. What are you trying to connect?”
That day, I didn’t stretch the conversation further. I took him straight home. Straight back to the house. I’d thought I’d go to campus, where we girlfriends drink tea together, eat puris, and where I’d text him or talk to him then. I thought I’d take him there. But none of that happened. We just went straight home.
That very night he had to leave for Dhaka. After 9 p.m., he couldn’t be even a second late. My mother said, “After all this time, you’ve come—stay a few days, look around.” Without saying anything to Mother, he said to me right in front of her, “If you want to stay, stay. I won’t.” But how could I stay without him? So I got ready right away and left for Dhaka with him.
When my exams got close, he’d call from his place to my house, trying to make sure I wasn’t alone, couldn’t study, so my exams wouldn’t go well.
But he couldn’t go with me since he had no leave then. So Eid came around. Eid ul-Adha. His elder sister called me and said, ‘Sanjida, when will you come to your father’s house? Nihal can’t come home unless you go. He’s been stuck waiting for you. Once you go to Khulna, he can come. I’ve kept a duck for him. He loves it. And we’ll sacrifice a goat. He really loves goat meat.’ I said, ‘I don’t know, Auntie. But I’ll ask him and let you know.’
I hung up and sat there crying alone. I was thinking that since my brother got married, there’s been no Eid for us anymore. He and his wife leave a week before Eid and come back after nineteen or twenty days. If Mother ever asked, ‘When will you come back?’, my brother would scold her terribly. On the first Eid after his wedding, I bought everyone Eid clothes with my own money. Father and Mother had already bought for everyone, but I bought separately anyway. Rice for pilau, vermicelli, five kilos of beef, and so on. That time too, they suddenly got ready and left, and that’s when I realized—they weren’t staying for Eid here. They were leaving. Since then we don’t really celebrate Eid anymore. On Eid day, Father, Mother, and I just lie around like the dead.
So there I sat, thinking—if I go to my father’s house now, what will my sister-in-law think of me? And they won’t take me to Nihal’s place either. So where do I go?
After much thought, I decided: nowhere. Not to my in-laws’ house, not to my father’s. But I can’t stay alone at night. I have a friend in Jatrabari who’s pregnant, so she won’t go home for Eid. I’ll stay with her for these few days. Then I’ll go to Khulna four or five days after Eid. If anyone asks, I’ll say, ‘My husband is very busy. A call came from the office suddenly, so he had to leave. That’s why I came from my in-laws’ place alone.’ I told him this. Then he felt sorry for me. He said, ‘No. Why will you stay alone? Come to our house with me.’
I was so relieved to have a place to go! No sooner said than done. I got leave from the office. I packed everything and set off for Norahil, to their place. It was August 8th, 2019, I think.
We cooked rice, put it in a container, and the two of us set off. We had such a hard time getting two seats on a bus. We got stuck in traffic for 16 hours on the road. We ate the rice we’d brought for lunch sitting right there on the bus. It was almost two o’clock by then. The rice had spoiled in the plastic container in that terrible heat. When we were eating, he looked at me, and I looked at him. Neither of us could say anything to the other. The spoiled rice had gone sticky, but we both kept eating it anyway.
I couldn’t say anything because I was thinking he’d scold me for wasting the rice. And he couldn’t say anything because he was thinking—if he didn’t eat it, I’d get angry since I had cooked it with such effort. A little while later, the two of us just burst out laughing. And couldn’t eat anymore. Like this, the day turned to night. The two of us sat on that bus and watched three ghost movies on my laptop all through the night. Still, the time wouldn’t pass.
At five in the morning we reached their house in Norahil. We washed our hands and face and fell asleep.
The day we left, his younger sister heard of my departure and went straight from our house to her in-laws’ place. The two houses stood side by side. They were making it clear to me that she visited here only occasionally. But I learned later, from the way they spoke, that she had gone there on the evening of my departure.
—
I woke in the morning and went to cook with my mother-in-law. From the moment I entered the kitchen, she said to me, “Listen, Sanjida, I have something to tell you. You must hear me out.”
“Yes, of course. Please, go ahead.”
“What you’ve done—there’s no forgiveness for it. But we want to forgive you. For that, you’ll have to touch Nihal’s younger sister and her husband’s feet and ask for their pardon. Because of you, they don’t come to this house. You have to go to their place and touch their feet, asking for forgiveness. She’s very kind-hearted. When you go there, hold their feet firmly—you’ll see, they won’t be able to refuse you. Keep holding until they forgive you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Then I’ll arrange when and how you’ll go, and let you know.”
“Yes, Mother.”
—
The day passed in cooking and other household work with her. I threw myself into it with genuine affection. When it comes to studies, I can’t give myself completely the way I do to other things. But once I set my mind to a task, I give it everything. That day I worked well—made three kinds of rice cakes, breads, and other dishes. I tried to perfect everything. And I told her, “Mother, one day I’ll do all your work for you. I’ll manage everything, inside and outside the house. I’ll become an all-rounder one day.” She said nothing, just smiled.
—
She had taken me there to touch their feet, so neither of the two sisters came home. Yet they spend all their time at their father’s house anyway. I’ve become completely obtuse. Even if they insult me, I don’t understand it, don’t feel a thing. Mother had told me before leaving, “You chose this path yourself—don’t ever listen to anyone else’s advice. And whatever happens, you’re married now. As you go, don’t ever come back alive to this place. Your in-laws’ house is your home.” And Uncle had said, “Make the ultimate sacrifice, so you can place your hand on your heart and say you have no regrets.”
That’s how I’m living my days. Pain, sorrow, insult—none of it touches me. I’ve forgotten what self-respect means. I’ve deleted all personality from within myself. Guests come to the house asking to see the daughter-in-law. They can’t find me. Everyone says, “The way she works, it seems like she’s the very daughter of this household.” “What did you buy her for Eid?” they ask. To save face, Father-in-law told Nihal to bring me a sari. He can’t manage it himself. He’s too busy.
So Nihal took me and his older sister’s daughter, Nitu, to the market two kilometers away. I wasn’t going to buy anything. I know Nihal has no money. After drawing his salary, he’s paid the rent. It’s all divided money. He’s given something for household expenses, and if we go to Khulna it’ll cost two or three thousand, then he needs to keep enough for living expenses in Dhaka until his next salary. That’s the money a sari would have to come from. I’d kept the cash in my side bag. Five thousand taka went missing from it. When I went to take out the money, I saw the state of it.
(To be continued…)