March on Relentless - Anamika Kundu

They crouched low behind the boulders, tucking in their veils closely. They were awaiting the arrival of Ameena. Shirin the brain behind this adventure knew they had to be patient. Rukhsar, the gutsy girl silently prayed to God for courage and favourable opportunities. It was getting dark as the sun gently set behind the huge mountains. If only the mountains were men, strong, resplendent, protective, their story would be of a different hue.

They heard her before they saw her. Ameena softly crouched besides them, panting heavily as she had sprinted the last mile knowing she was late. She did not want to miss the opportunity. They sat together silently offering their prayers because they knew their Heavenly Father was their guiding star.

Slowly they crept forward, in the direction opposite to the sun. They were headed east, to the land of mighty tigers, and mighty men; where women did not have to wear veils but went to school; where women could work, sing, and dance!

They were leaving behind their pathetic lives, filled with abuse of all kind, verbal, physical, emotional, sexual. They were leaving behind a society riled with misogynists, where it was a punishment to be born a woman, because they were neither to be heard, nor seen.

Slowly but surely, they walked single file in silence. Shirin had been to school for a few years, for her father was brave to defy the Taliban, secretly. He was probably one of the few Afghani men who loved his daughters as much as his sons and was determined to give them an opportunity to live.

Rukhsar had lived a life on edge, being one of the few to hang around with her brothers when they were young, running in the barren, stark mountainside, that too barefoot, tending to their herds, where every pair of hands was a blessing. But since she grew up, she had faced what women in her country do, being locked up indoors, where even the golden rays of the sun could come in only stealthily. The very same brothers who were her playmates, threatened her. She was married off at the age of 12 to a 50-year-old as he paid a handsome bride price. Her ordeals began then. Being tortured in every which way, beaten and bruised, but her indefatigable spirit kept her going.

Ameena, with her beautifully chiseled face, gold flecked tawny eyes, silky golden hair, with the gentlest smile, did encourage the worst in all those who were her family. From her 76-year-old husband who told her day and night she was ugly and should be whipped, before he exercised his conjugal rights. From being publicly shamed to being lynched by a mob of men because some man had seen her delicate fair ankles as she ran to get medicines from a shop, so he accused her of being a temptress, she had all kinds of pain inflicted on her.

The three had met incidentally when they were being treated for injuries at the lone hospital for women at Herat. The doctor tried to heal their wounds physically and emotionally. Tonight, they risked everything, their nails would be pulled out, they would be stoned to death but before that every guardian, would have a go at them, to teach them a lesson and drive home the lessons in the hearts of any woman who dared to follow. That seemed to spur them on.

The uneven path hugged the rugged wall of the mountainside, with a deep precipice on the other. They had chosen the darkest night, so that they would be well secluded, and the new day would usher in new life. Gingerly testing the ground in front, they moved on. Keeping an eye on the North star, they kept marching on.

Taking a break to catch their breath, the shadows settled down into a crevice in the mountainside, sheltered from the cold, icy winds tugging at their clothes and freezing them to the bone, despite the sweat dripping down their brows. Shirin whispered, ‘I am going to wear a skirt, a mini skirt, just like my grandmother had done, before the soviets had come into our country. And I am going to vote, once I become a citizen… You know Afghani women had a right to vote as early as 1919!’ The others just gasped… deliciously savouring what it would be like to be free!

They got up in a while and marched on to new horizons and a new life!

But was it really any different, in the country of their dreams?

There too women marched to and fro, cause only in the month of March, rather the 8^th of March, did men and women suddenly awaken to the rights of a woman, a girl child, from the right to take birth to the right to live their life on their own terms and not be snuffed out because of the whims and fancies of men and women in society.

Let’s pledge to make the world as much a place for women to live in as men, for which changes have to be made not just in March!