Love me, hate me, you cannot ignore me!

 Niha buttoned her satin shirt. The third and the fourth buttons gaped and I did a peek-a-boo. Immediately, she punched the window with a safety pin. Now, now, now... I was getting suffocated, breathless. That little window was my airy respite but for her safety, it had to be tightly shut. Adjusting a scarf on her forehead and my grumpy exteriors, Niha set out to toil under the sun. Before she could sweat it out, I was already drenched under pads, slips, a shirt, and a scarf, to bury my existence. 

"Ufff, Bombi, get me out of this, or I will tear it up all!" My lazy twin had woken up from his deep slumbers. Being on the left, he was perpetually perplexed, neglected, and sometimes abandoned. Niha's boyfriend was righthanded after all! Hay Allah!!! What did I say? My musings would bring a pang of religious guilt to Niha. Talking about pleasure and recreation, was haram to the sect she belonged to. Irrespective of the sect, her marital status of being a widow and two children to fend for, society balked at all the urges and surges. Who would explain to these self-proclaimed torchbearers, that Desire, is a drug more potent than opium? 

"Hey bro, can't we just be left loose? It feels as if something is smothering me. I'm going to break free of shackles! Wait, wait, Niha just bought those lacy envelopes. Wow, the feel of satin and ribbon, so cool and lovely!"

"Bambi, you idiot!! Stop cavorting!!! As it is our mass, embarrasses her. The moment you jump while she is running to catch the local, eyeballs are popping out. Not only men but women too are condemning her for bearing, two muscular..... You know what." The left had no sense left. It was my duty to bring him on the right path. 

 Settled into the corridor of local, Niha took off her scarf and let loose the tight second and third buttons of the shirt. Closing her eyes, neck perked up, she allowed a cool breeze to entire our dark confines. A smile replenished her haggard face. Niha slowly took out the fancy dress, she had purchased after gleaning money from her clients. A blithesome lady, she remembered how Altaf used to gift her such naughty lingerie. His untimely death had left her distraught and dissembled. At the raw age of 29, with two calves to feed, Niha had to throw away her burkha and come under the sun. She worked as a saleswoman, going door-to-door selling, household cutlery, and small devices. Women would shut the door in her face, citing household chores to be completed. Men, on occasions, offered her a cool glass of water only to delve deep inside our hot interiors, not once these morons must have delved into their true conscience.  Few even spoke to us, "You have HUGE RESPONSIBILITIES to bear. Why don't you allow us to share the load?" The men showed their disdainful teeth and laughed like the Lizzat papad bunny. No izzat at all! 

All the sympathies hurled, with hooded hawk eyes fixed on me and Bambi, wolves in sheep skin, wastrels in the name of comforters. Amongst all this, very recently there had been a rainbow in Niha's dull life. Ajit, her colleague, in the sales department became her true hero. Friendship blossomed into love and love had its ways of expression. After years of desolate life, Ajit was wine to her parched desires. Yet, she was filled with compunction, every time she met him. 

"Bombi, bro why are you telling Niha's story? Get back to the point. It is the story of our struggles and ostracized living. Men are offended for not bearing us and women displeased for having to bear us."

"I get your point Bambi, but women like Niha are a face to our hidden agonies. We just can't jump out of the closet crying Eureka. People will label us, be judgemental and taboo us for being who we are."

"NO!" Bambi's bald monosyllabic answer disturbed me. 

"No, Bombi no. Niha is just one end of the spectrum. Her story is kahaani ghar ghar ki. But you know the story of her grandmother, whose breasts were chopped off and she brutally raped during the partition? Isn't this too haram?" Though being on left, he is right. We have been objects of love and violence, alike. Want and dislike, together. Nothing more, nothing less, the turmoil was real. 

Coming back to Niha, what the future held for her, only her willpower could tell. Time had been the same. In different forms and ways, we were blessed and cursed, alike. Blessed to feed the hungry calf, cursed to douse the fire of an enraged monster. 

For now, Niha was happy looking at her lacy possession when she heard a few feminine murmurs, "It is because of such outrageous desires of some filthy women that men get aroused, and then these witches cry rape. Look at her audacity, how she is admiring a secret cloth in public!"

Niha prised the cups into her bag. Suddenly, she became conscious of her unbuttoned upper three buttons. Forget the men, she didn't feel safe in the lady's compartment as well. Again the tight buttoning and scarf masked our existence. Until, this compartmentalization of being men and women, didn't stop, the breasts will always stand out as a bold part. Why not a large hand or a face be the object of attention? Does only a large breast speak volumes to you? I'm not guilty of my gargantuan size.

With my sermons, Bambi had gone to sleep again. His way of turning a blind eye to the happenings.