Amina's Apology

My name is Amina Sinai and I have sinned. My body serves as a reminder of the spoiled nature of my decisions; the corns and verrucas scream out to the world that I am impure, that I no longer deserve the namesake of truthful, trustworthy and honest. I have sought the cleansing power of sadhu Purushottan, only to exhaust his magic. I have attempted fruitlessly to extricate the impurities; the verrucas on my feet and my hands but oh my soul, my soul is spoiled with the memory of Nadir. Well why not? Things keep coming back to me these days. Seems like you just can’t leave anything behind (179) But where to begin with this most sordid admission? I must go back, way back, when Amina Sinai did not exist, when Mumtaz Aziz was known for being good, dutiful and alone (57) And alone I was, with nary a glance from pitaji to keep me from the silence of those rooms. I took consolation in the dark, where the tone of my skin would finally blend with its surroundings and I would not be castigated for what I could not control. I would be enveloped into the opaque abyss without hesitation – it was my only comfort in those days. Perhaps that is why, when dadi announced the presence of a man, a stranger, a poet of sorts, who was to live for an indefinite amount of time in our basement, my heart soared. Could it be that this man takes refuge in the darkness like me? At the age of 19, my life began and ended almost simultaneously, the moment the name Nadir Khan passed my lips. For although it was the happiest time of Mumtaz Aziz’s life, it would become the cause of great misery for the future Amina Sinai. Once married, I waited patiently for my husband to consummate our bond, for my love to overcome the hesitation which his sensitive constitution insisted upon. Not a word would I complain as we happily ruled our underworld, as marriage should not depend on the thing (64) But alas, my secret came out and my poetic prince abdicated his throne. Then I was unable to even take solace in the darkness, for the memories of my Nadir lingered there the longest. And what can I possibly say for my subsequent actions? Did the abject rejection of my one true love justify me in finding consolation in my sister’s suitor? No. But this inquiry was not pursued back then. In my blind fragility I was convinced of Ahmed’s boredom with Alia and spurned on by the fact that he had spent years in her company without so much as a glance towards matrimony. I was determined to leave the darkness behind and focus on the only road in which a woman of my means and age could demonstrate her worth in such a world; by bearing children. I allowed Ahmed Sinai to reinvent who I was – no longer a creature of the underworld, I was to have a new name and a new life in Dehli. I can still remember standing on that platform as dadi handed over my dowry and whispered to me “in the end, everyone could do without fathers” (71) Why did these have to be the last words imparted to me? Why would you relinquish your paternal duty without forewarning me of the perils of the perforated sheet? But no, this is my admission, not yours. With all the earnestness at my command, I set about providing my new husband with what he deserves in the only way I learned how, by breaking him down bit by bit and charging myself with the task of loving him in fragments. How I wish I could say this was the end of Nadir. I believed that, by giving myself over to a new life dictated for me, that I would no longer suffer the grievous loss I had endured. And what came of this? Despite the piece by piece process, the assiduous care of our home, the insistence and success of having my child be the Times of India child of independence? What I realize now, what I could not see then, is that I had given over in law that which did not belong to me. In my desperation I believed that I could rename, reinvent myself by handling my life, my husband one piece at a time. By not looking at the full picture, I missed how Nadir seeped into the cracks of each fragment. By the time he reappeared in my life, reinvented himself, I was not surprised. He had always been there. Which is how I gradually (seemingly) found myself at the Pioneer Café. As I was so accustomed to the lies I told myself, I found it unremarkable to declare into the telephone “wrong number” or to arrive at the Café under the pretense of grocery shopping. As I think back to the washing chest, where I had mourned once again the absence of my Nadir…