Living In Contrast (ON HOLD)

I1I

If people had their ways, I would have been hidden. Layered with lies. Or better yet, my existence would have been erased clean from the world. It wasn't due to the lack of trying that such didn't occur but unfortunately secrets never last.

I am a by-product of someone else's illicit sin, when my only was being born. That didn't matter. It never did because this very fact became what defined me in many times in my life. For many I became a scampering pest that always manages to escape. A rotting dent that was spoiling a perfectly good apple, or they thought so. For an unlucky few, I became a permanent scar. A reminder of things they would do well to forget. Scars however can be very apparent.

Eventually ,albeit slowly, it came to a point where even being called kanjeri ki bachay, a harami could only trigger just a twig of pain. It had to be that way.

I didn't blame them for it. No I couldn't, not when my own mother would spew it in my face time-to-time.

Baba wasn't one of them. The word never left his mouth. In all truth however I myself couldn't claim to have truly known the man.

When I was a child, Baba's visits were cherished. He would come once a week perhaps. Each time with his right hand holding a bag or more of varying treats at varying times. Eventually in the small living area in Ammi and I's cottage, he would be there sipping ginger tea while sitting on an ottoman. Always ginger tea, sometimes with honey. Although Baba didn't seem like a man of many words, in that arrangement he had to be since Ammi didn't utter anything unless necessary. His conversations many times just orbited around his career and the travelling perks that came with it. Baba was a tradesman, an importer and exporter of goods and you could tell his fondness for it even from his gruffly voice. It did help that he was one of the best at it in the city.

There were few things he liked better than his craft, most of which he rarely mentioned, but whatever he said, I had gleefully listened to.

As I grew older, veils began lifting. Things became clearer.

Our cottage of course was conveniently on the opposite side of city to where he and his family lived, and the money he gave as well as he himself came discreetly. Of course it had to be, no one should know that the great Akbar Javadd not only slept with but impregnated his wife's very own cousin. That secret didn't last very long though.

It then came to a point where Baba couldn't keep entertaining by moving around the bush and I couldn't just keep being the good girl who kept quiet and listened intently. From then on Baba's visits became sacred until it was no more. He is no more.

Baba had made very few promises to me but always kept and fulfilled them, his best quality. He kept them all except one; he never gave me his family name.

It hurt a little less eventually for he was the reason I met her.

I was 12 when I first met then 10 years old Mehreen.

No longer can I remember the date or day, but I remember being surprised. First by Baba's sudden appearance at the wooden front door and secondly with the small hand that he held with his right hand.

That hand eventually lead to a body that held an oval face. The face held almond shaped eyes which I found each to hold a brown iris. There was a thin pointed nose, like Baba's and like mine. But her skin color made all the difference, this time nothing like Baba much less me, it was spotless ,glowing and more importantly caramel. With her glistering lilac floral dress I remember her wearing, and her immaculately straight raven hair she looked no less than a porcelain doll.

If anything, it was envy at first sight.

A green envy followed by a feeling of loath. It wasn't because of her fancy beaded dress that probably had cost more than anything I owned nor was it her odd yet striking beauty. It was that she held to Baba all the way through, my Baba. When he entered the cottage, she hid behind him. When he sat, she sat on his lap, the same spot I had loved to sit. I have heard enough of Baba's stories to know who she was. She was one of the three children Baba had with his one wife. Legitimate children. One of the three children that had spent more time with him than I ever will. One of the three children that shared his family name. One of the three children who will never bear the pain of being called a bastard.