The Fallen Widow

31: Panchayat - The Judgement

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This chapter: #ShahRayn #ShahMaan

Eid Mubarak! Have a great day. 

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It was the glimmer of the silver jewel on Shah Nawaz's kurtha button that caught Shafiq's eye. He'd heard a lot about him, more bad than good. A spoilt Choudhary, bought up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Supping from goblets of wine and spending his nights inebriated with voluptuous courtesans swaying their hips towards his bed. Shafiq tilted his head up looking at his stalwart figure bearing the scaffold of a strong Choudhry, his kurtha moulded around his strapping arms exercising his strength.

Shafiq's gaze turned to the far side of the room, his eyes widened with joy when he noticed Meh'r-Bano enter the room dressed in dull violet dress and a beige shawl draped over her. He shifted his body ready to jump up and greet her, but stopped when he remembered the room was in session. He wanted to speak to her, to hold her, and ask if she was okay. Shah Nawaz spotted Meh'r-Bano scuttle into the room with her head obediently bowed. Shafiq's wide eyes spoke volumes.
"She's a traitor!" Dilawar-Baksh lifted his stick and pointed it at Meh'r-Bano slumped figure. "She conned us. She went to the rally and planned a fake bomb making us assume it was Muzammil's trick. It's an act of war." He looked at Shafiq with contempt.
"No." Shafiq shook his head. "Not my Meh'r-Bano."
"Please, Choudhary Saab-" Kaneez neared Dilawar-Baksh foot pleading to him. "I don't understand any of this, but my son is innocent. Please spare him."

The room was in chaos. Kaneez wailing on one side in fear for her son. Shafiq's hands clasped together holding his shawl pleading for Meh'r-Bano's life. Meh'r-Bano silently coiled loose threads from her shawl around her index finger. Her finger turning bloody red.
Dilwar-Baksh shifted his foot away from Kaneez's sticky hands.
"Meh'r-Bano has admitted it." Said Shahgul. "Do you have any idea why she would that?"

In this panchayat, Meh'r-Bano had no voice. Her husband spoke for her. But, Shafiq was oblivious. It didn't make sense. He looked at his mother in confusion.

"Please don't punish my son. That girl is a curse." Kaneez pointed at Meh'r-Bano.
"I have told my son many times." Kaneez continued to plead. "For four years she hasn't given my son a child! She is a barren and a curse!"

Meh'r-Bano's face burned red with embarrassment and her heart dropped to her feet. The mark of a traitor was bearable, but being labelled barren in front of the haveli, was soul destroying. The haveli hadn't damaged her as much as Kaneez's corrosive accusation.
"You live on our land and try and fool us." Dilawar-Baksh raised his voice. "I will summon her to the panchayat and have her publicly flogged, so everyone learns the punishment for treason."

Kaneez cried out. Shafiq shuffled and grabbed Dilwar-Baksh's leg grabbing for mercy. Wajahat Ali marched into the bettak and dragged Shafiq back by the scruff of his collar. Kaneez screamed and begged him to leave him alone. Meh'r-Bano gasped stepping forward.
"Do what you want to her!" Kaneez cried holding onto her son. "My son will divorce her-just say the word."

Tears burned Meh'r-Bano's eyes. Divorce. Cursed. The woman attacked her mercilessly. Shah-Nawaz curled his hands into fists behind his back and took a deep breath into his lungs watching the mayhem unfold. Baba lost control of the session.

"Please have mercy on her." Shafiq stood up and made his way towards Meh'r-Bano.
"She has no one in this world apart from me. I'm her world." As he approached Meh'r-Bano, Shah Nawaz marched into the centre and shoved him back. Shafiq lost his balance from the force hurling him across the room. Meh'r-Bano screamed and ran to protect Shafiq. Shah Nawaz grabbed him from the scruff of the collars shook him to his feet.
"Who do you think you are?" He grabbed him from the scruff of the collars, his knuckles white, his steel eyes pouring lava filled rage through the terrified man.
"Leave him alone!" Meh'r-Bano pounced to her husband's aid standing between Shah Nawaz and Shafiq. With her back against her husband, she looked up at Shah Nawaz who fixed his rage filled eyes on Shafiq.
"Do you think you can save her?" Shah Nawaz tightened his grip on him. "You can't protect her. No one can."
Shahgul leaned forward stunned by Shah-Nawaz's use of force. Kaneez pleaded the mighty Choudhary to spare her son.
"I beg you, have mercy on her." Shafiq clasped his hands together. "I can't live without her. I can't leave her."
Locked together in an explosion of fury, Meh'r-Bano was terrified with the look in Shah-Nawaz's eyes glaring at her husband, his knuckles white snatching his collars and tearing his kurtha.
"Do you know her? Do you know he truth?" He grit his teeth in rage on the verge of breaking her secret.
"I beg you, Choudhary Saab." She lifted her red raw hands from scrubbing the rust off the silver cooking pots. After witnessing baba's brutal beating, she was terrified Shafiq would suffer the same.
"Please, let my husband go." Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Shah Nawaz panted, his chest rising in short breaths. He grit his teeth and looked down from Shafiq's chin at Meh'r-Bano's glimmering tear filled eyes that drew him in. Her skin bristled with fear, she took a deep breath swallowing a choking lump.
"Please- I beg you. Let my husband go." Her shawl slipped off her head, few blades of hair spilled over her forehead poking her eyes.
"It's me you want." Her voice broke, tears choking her.
"I'm your murjirm." She pleaded guilty.
Shah Nawaz released Shafiq's collars and grabbed Meh'r-Bano's wrist, crushing her glass bangles in his powerful grip dragging her away from Shafiq.
"She stays in the haveli until we decide her punishment." Said Shah Nawaz.
Meh'r-Bano wrist throbbed with pain from the power of his grasp. She twisted her wrist, but the stronger he squeezed. Shafiq was right. She should never have stepped into the haveli. Shahgul's eyes were pinned on Shah Nawaz's hand wrapped around Meh'r-Bano's wrist like he owned her. Broken pieces of glass bangles scattered the marble floor. Her heart drowned. Quickly, she spoke up speak up.
"You will leave Jahanpur." Shahgul decided. She couldn't have Meh'r-Bano around Shah-Nawaz any longer.
"We have nowhere to go Choudhrani ji!" Kaneez grabbed her foot. "Please forgive us. Jahanpur is our home. Without Jahanpur we are landless."
Shah Nawaz released Meh'r-Bano's arm and ran his hand over his beard in frustration. What a stupid decision!
"We will leave." Shafiq sighed with relief. "I will take her and leave. You will never see us again. Please let us go." Shafiq agreed to the decision eager to protect Meh'r-Bano from the brutality of the haveli
Shah-Nawaz cackled with mock laughter and slow clapped his mother.
"The girl fools us, causes us idiots to kill each other and you reward her by showing her the door?" He approached his mother with his hands wide open patronising her decision.
"Zabardast, my dear mother! How did your smart mind thing of that!? Never mind their debt-He pointed to Shafiq. "Let them go." Shah-Nawaz laughed.
"No!" Dilawar-Baksh snapped. "You won't speak." He raised his to Shah Nawaz."
She has accumulated twenty thousand rupee debt, baba." He leaned into father intimidating by standing over him.
"She took the old man's debt and her own, not to mention what the mechanic owes us."
"She will work at the quarry and pay it off." Dilawar-Baksh lifted his hand.
"She has already worked at the quarry, baba." Shah Nawaz turned to Meh'r-Bano and approached her.
"Haven't you, bulbul?" he leaned into her mocking her. She turned her face away from him. He walked round to face her leaning into her.
Dilawar-Baksh looked at his son in surprise. "Yes, baba." Staring at Meh'r-Bano he replied to his father.
"She secretly taught the children at the quarry. Do you think it's wise to send her back there to impressionable children? She'll have them writing digests before you know it."
"Damn the girl!" Dilawar-Baksh pounded his stick on the marble floor.
Shafiq shook his head. It was a matter of time before Meh'r-Bano was found out. Kaneez cried dabbing her tears with her chador. They were in serious trouble because of their troublesome daughter in law.
"So, it was her- the secret teacher." Dilawar-Baksh looked at Shahgul. "This girl is trouble."
"She won't be teaching at the quarry or here anymore. Reading and writing is forbidden." Shah-Nawaz decided. He stepped into the centre of the room taking over the panchayat as his father lost control and had no idea of Meh'r-Bano's reach. He'd investigated her from the valley and knew everything about her from the day she was born. His father and mother had no idea what to do with an educated woman like Meh'r-Bano, but he had other plans. Plans he couldn't share.
"Take them away Wajahat." He pointed to Shafiq and Kaneez. "We'll let them know what we decide. For now, she stays in the haveli as a maid."
"Please let her go-" Shafiq pleaded as the guards dragged him out. "Please take me, let her go. I need to talk to her."
Shafiq and Kaneez were taken away and out of the haveli and Meh'r-Bano ran behind to speak to Shafiq.
Back inside the hookah bettak, Dilawar-Baksh sighed with frustration taking a deep inhale on the hookah.
"Who is this girl? Why has she caused so much trouble?" Asked Dilawar-Baksh. "Why haven't I heard about her before?"
"Baba, she's an outsider." Shah Nawaz sat on the sofa beside his parents.
"Outsiders are nothing but trouble." He hinted to Jahanzaib and straightened his sleeve and noticed a speck of blood.
"They plan the seeds of revolt. She will be taught and forced to live the way in Jahanpur." Leaning back into the seat, he spread his arms across the backrest.
"We can't even take her in front of the panchayat. We will be baring out backsides to the entire of Jahanpur." Dilawar-Baksh took another deep inhale.
"This girl has humiliated us! She must be made an example of!" Said Dilawar-Baksh
"Shah-Nawaz, she must be held accountable, an example in front of others." Shahgul added.
"She will be flogged in the haveli! An example to all! Punishment of treason." Dilawar-Baksh blew the smoke into bettak. Shah gul shook her head in agreement.
"Times have changed, Baba?" Shah Nawaz leaned forward shifting his body towards his father.
"You have no idea, have you?" He stood up towering over his father. "You've locked your long-lost grandson in a room whose crying like a bitch because he wants to go home to his mummy." He scoffed with laughter. "He doesn't know this is his home and believes you killed Shah Jahan." He poured a bucket of salt over his wounds.
"You want to punish the teacher by sending her to the quarry teach our kids." He scorned his father having the upper hand.
"Have you lost your touch baba? You don't have a clue anymore. We are not the barbaric rulers of Kharagpur- don't you remember the girl, they stoned to death? The villagers revolted against them." The dark days of Kharagpur were written in the history books, when a young, village girl was accused of seducing a Choudhary and Choudhary Muzaamil ordered her to be stoned to death. What followed were revolt from villagers, the fields were barren and the river dried up. Villagers believed God had cursed them for the injustice.
"You have to use your brain." He taped his temple. "I will crush her spirit, so she never has the energy to lift a book" Shah Nawaz flicked the strong arm of his shawl across his chest. He needed a few days until Wajahat Ali executed his plan.
"She's staying in the haveli? In Jahanpur?" Shahgul raised her brow.
"Shafiq will pay the twenty thousand rupees. Bury the bastards in debt. Meh'r-Bano will be paying it off at the haveli." Shah Nawaz had the final word.
Baba wallowed in self doubt after Shah Nawaz attacked his authority and judgment.
"I don't agree with this!" Dilawar-Baksh kicked the hookah. "This is not the appropriate punishment."