Published : 19 Jul 2018, 12:11 PM
Saima is watching the two ladies in front of her. They are continuously talking about their lifestyle, shopping, jewelleries, children and most importantly husbands. The relationship between these two women is totally commercial. One is customer and other one is the ladies parlour owner. The name of the customer lady is Mina, middle aged, quite rich and beautiful. She has three children whom she has kept under her maid's supervision while coming to the parlour. And now they call to order their mom to bring nun roti and kabab for dinner while going home.
-Oh my god! It seems like today my fate won't allow me to eat rice. The whole day I have eaten burger and sandwich. And now the children demand to have nun roti at dinner. For me, it really seems like one long month that I have last eaten rice.
– Oh, Sister! You know, yesterday I had gone for shopping. The prices of the products were quite expensive that I have spent 23k in one day. All the dresses are pretty. And whenever you buy a dress, it becomes mandatory to have matching jewelleries with it. For me, not buying matching jewellery is a crime, heinous crime.
– 23k is a simple amount. Last month I have gone to India for the Eid shopping and I have spent 53k at once, and more money on jewelleries, approximately 55k. This is my shopping and my daughter bought dresses worth 25k.
Listening Mina's shopping list, Sabina(the parlour owner) finds herself blank to say something. Saima, in between these 20 minutes, has already knows their names, lifestyles, even how many children they have. Saima is not a regular parlour going person. She hardly goes to parlour whenever she gets time. But whenever she goes to parlour, it seems like a live entertainment of ladies talking. One is always in the move to prove how superior she is from the other one. Superior is, in the means of, achieving rich husband and posh lifestyle; but not achieving knowledge. Saima leaves the parlour with a mind full of entertainment. While she was giving money to the parlour owner, she hardly notices her. The reason is quite clear and it is appearance. Saima is short, used to wear hizab to hide her depressed almost bald head, thin and pretty much dark in complexion. Who would like a girl like that? Who don't even know how to look posh and beautiful? The neighboring aunt of Saima clearly told that she didn't know about her writings, but the publisher who published the writings are fools. It seems like they have wasted their time on such a girl who is not even recognizable with a certain quality of femaleness. For her, writings are not important, only beauty matters. Thinking these things, Saima is going to her home. Little Sami has already wakes up and he has done a lot of mischievous works for sure to agitate his grandma.
2
Amena, Saima's mother, used to watch the Indian Bengali serials for the whole day long. These serials are pretty much quite entertaining like the parlour incident. Saima remembers, one sunny and happy day, Saima as usual had gone to parlour and she has a fortunate timing that she heard a really entertaining conversation.
– My goodness! I thought that the lady protagonist of this serial will die while giving birth a child as the advertisement shows but she is still alive.
– O Sister! I thought the same. I had already decided to leave watching the serial because without her the serial would be lifeless. I like her most because of her sense of quarrel and this is the most interesting part of the serial.
These ladies are enjoying quarrel. How entertaining! Anyways, Amina told that she has to leave for her home today as there is a problem going on regarding her property. She has to end it. Saima's husband, Hasan, will be little bit late today as there is lots of works to be done in the office before Eid. Sami usually goes to sleep at 11pm, but surprisingly he has slept at 9pm. Saima feels a great happiness as she can have a look on her project before Hasan comes.
At 11pm, Saima feels a great emptiness in her house. It seems like the whole weight of her house is on her and she can't move an inch. But what she feels that she is sleeping, a deep sleep. But her consciousness is still active. Suddenly she hears some noise from the terrace as someone is walking. No, it's not someone, they are 3 in number. No, not 3, they are four. Two ladies, wearing burka and a long veil in front of their face and two female kids, who also are also wearing the same kinds of cloths. They are talking, what can be their topic of conversation. Only the ladies are talking, not the kids.
– The house is quite big. But I think she is not available to talk with us today. Look, she is sleeping.
– But we should talk with her.
– No, we should not disturb her right now.
– But we should at least see her beautiful face.
Afterwards, the lady starts coming towards Saima. As she is stepping ahead there is a surprising heat which is increasing as well. She is coming, Saima tries with all her strength to move, she can't. The lady comes and sees her face, while Saima feels the same heat which doubles at this time. And most importantly one fragrance, yes, one quite familiar beautiful fragrance is coming from their body. The fragrance is familiar, yes, she knows the fragrance. 4 years back when she and her husband is struggling to have a baby but there is some biological problem in Saima and the doctors told that she can never become a mother. Then these ladies came, but these two children were not present then. They came in a similar way while Saima was sleeping, and said to Saima that she would have a baby soon. After one month, Saima got pregnant. Is it possible to have good news again? Not regarding pregnancy but regarding other things!
Suddenly she feels relief. She can move now. The first thing she remembers is Sami. She rushed to the bed room. Sami is sleeping. Kids are always innocent, nothing can touch their innocence. Saima feels blessed to have a kid. Kids are the true blessings from God, the best gift of Allah in earth.
3
Hasan comes at 2 am. There is a sudden leakage in the area, and he is a renowned civil engineer and the duty is all about his responsibility. Hasan is very responsible person. Responsibility actually spoils one's capability of showing loving affection towards the better half. Saima thinks of telling him all the incidents but she cannot. Previously, when she told him about their first coming, he laughs loudly. He actually described the incident as a nightmare. For him, it is actually the outcome of her Archeological thinking, like she is always busy in thinking about mysterious old things. And the result is the nightmare as she thought these mysterious or magical women came to bless her. There are many beautiful stories regarding Jin and Pori ( In some religion, it's called Spirits) in her grandparent's home. In her school days, she used to go to her Grandparent's house frequently with her parents. Then she heard about the stories regarding her Nanavai, Mr. Rahman. People had said there were two beautiful Fairies who used to visit Mr. Rahman every day before his marriage. They came late at night, and used to sleep by the two sides of Mr. Rahman. They used to place beautiful flowers by the side of his pillow before leaving his room. Even whenever he faced some problems, they fixed it every time. But after marriage, whenever they came at night, they first took Mrs. Rahman to the other room and then sleep by the sides of him. Mrs. Rahman never complained about it. She enjoyed seeing the flowers which would never lose it's charm, it will remain the same and used to spread beautiful scent always. But one day Mr. Rahman got angry as waking up in a winter morning he found his wife lying on the cold floor. He summoned a Huzur and told him to arrange all the things to have a ritual in his house as these two fairies could never come again. The Huzur requested that these fairies were crying very loudly as they would never do such offence, even they were splendidly beautiful. But Mr. Rahman was adamant on his decision. As a result, the Huzur had completely closed their way of coming. They had given a curse as Mr. Rahman would never become the father of a male child. Formerly, Saima thought that this story is a made up story by people as they were unaware about the scientific fact that some men can never give birth to a male child. But, now she starts believing this one. Last year when she had a visit in her in- laws house there she learnt about another incident of Dalia, one of her sister in laws. Dalia is now a happily married woman with two kids. But before she had 7 Jins with her, who constantly followed her, even in her nuptial night one of the Jins slapped the bride groom as a result he became completely dumb for lifetime. Then other family members had taken a step to kill those Jins by Huzur. Then they killed six of them, and the last one disclosed the fact that he will help Daila in all her bad times and never behave rudely with her husband. These Jins were madly in love with Dalia. By the grace of almighty and the help of the last living Jin, Dalia is now happily married and a wealthy person. All the stories are roaming around her head. Is this incident similar to all these incidents? Or this was an illusion?
4
Today is a bright sunny day. Saima's depression has suddenly goes away, a strange kind of happiness has took place in her mind. She laughs at everything, even when she is alone the laugh comes in abundance. Today, her head is full of hair, because no depression is here now. Something strange happens to her hairs like whenever she feels depression, her hairs starts to fall. Sometimes the head becomes almost bald. Then suddenly she feels the happiness which again fills the head with long beautiful hair. Doctors said they didn't find anything abnormal in her hormones, they just suggested to being happy always. Now, she is entering to take the class. She is a prominent Archeologist in this country, and quite popular among students as she is the only friendly teacher in this University. She is in her way for the class with the strange happiness as well as she cannot control her laugh as well. She is thinking about how to take the class in a sober way without laughing, at that time the phone call comes. It's an international number. The phone shows it comes from UK. But she has no relative there. She picked the phone call. The strange news comes. Her archeological project proposal has been selected by the renowned University called Oxford. Now they will sanction a huge amount of money for the project. Her laugh suddenly stops by this shocking happiness. Just one thing comes in her mind, those ladies. Is this their blessings again? From where did they come? Are they spirits or something called Pori? Why did they help her?
The answers of these questions are totally unknown. But what is true right now is her success. From now on, her smile will never fade away by the gloomy depression as she promises to herself. She is now preparing to shift in UK with her whole family. Sami, Hasan and Amena, are waiting in the airport lounge. After few minutes the plain will fly towards an unknown place, everything is unknown there. Does this unknown place will bring happiness or some other kinds of pain? If she faces any problem there, will the two ladies come again to help?
2nd June, 2018.