Samra Habib - We Have Always Been Here

We both had shaved heads. Although the reason for mine was that a week earlier my barber had discovered head lice before giving me my monthly bowl cut, I suspect her reason was more exciting. I couldnt have been older than five when I saw her, but I can still vividly recall her face. My eyes fixed on it as honking trucks zipped by and three different qawwalis blared from the shops behind me. My mother likes to tell the story of how intently I would focus on the flickering television screenthe only one on our street in Lahorewhile she nursed me. She would turn me around in an attempt to protect my eyes, but I always managed to swivel my head toward the screen. She would be the first to tell you: Ive always been drawn to action.

My dad had parked the car in front of the shops in Liberty Market as my parents searched for last-minute Eid dresses for my sister and me. I always hated the muted colours my mother chose. Greys the colour of concrete or washed-out browns that reminded me of Ovaltine. As I waited in the back seat, I found myself drawn to the woman with the shaved head. Something about the spontaneity of her movements and the ease with which she rested her hand on her matte black motorcycle captivated me. She was probably closer in age to my mother, who was in her mid-twenties at the time, but the similarities ended there. I had never seen a woman laugh so freely in public and be so comfortable in her skin while socializing with men and women, as if that were a regular occurrence for women in Pakistan. Eventually she noticed my little face interrogating her from afar and smiled before shifting her attention back to a conversation with her friend. I seemed to be the only one fascinated by her: my younger sister continued to talk to herselfor maybe to me, who can sayin the back seat. Soon the woman was hiking up her black shalwar and adjusting her dupatta, securing it tightly so that her breasts were modestly coveredalmost like donning armour before entering battle. She sped off on her motorcycle and joined the busy night-before-Eid traffic.

Id only ever been surrounded by women who didnt have the blueprint for claiming their lives. There were my aunts, who would never be caught socializing without their husbands presentcertainly not publicly. They couldnt drive their cars without their husbands, let alone ride a motorcycle. And there was my mother, who was notified of her own name change only when her wedding invitations arrived from the printer. She stared at one for a few moments, wondering if my father had changed his mind and was marrying someone else instead. Without consulting her, he had decided that Yasmin would be a more suitable and elegant name for his wife than Frida. It was one of the first signs that her identity was disposable. Her free will was up for grabs, available to be stencilled over by my father and perhaps even by her children. Her role was to be a pious wife and an attentive mother. Being a sacrificial lamb meant a place would be reserved for her in heaven. Even if it meant that her life would be hell, surely Allah would see her sacrifice and allow her into jannat, the prized heaven.

I dont know much about my fathers life before he met my mother, but Id heard stories of him hitchhiking through Iran in the 1970s and working as a dishwasher in Hamburg for racist restaurant owners and coming close to death several times over the course of his travels. Id look with curiosity at all the young Pakistani men in the black-and-white photographs from Istanbul, remnants of a life hes too ashamed to talk about. Years later he would insist that my brother keep his hair short and respectful, yet in those early photos, which show traces of a life full of adventures, long, thick layers and wispy bangs frame his face as he looks back at the camera in a snug leather jacket and tight bell-bottoms, his hand resting on his waist. He would say that his life began when he married my mother, but I had to wonder whether he was simply trying to convince himself.

After a series of miscarriages, my mother became pregnant with me, at which point my great-grandmotherwho had enjoyed the freedom of not having a husband for decades after being widowedordered my mother to move in with her. She was certain that the stress of being a dutiful wife and looking after my father and his family was not good for her pregnancy. For nine months, she and the older women in the family took care of my mother by making sure she was well fed, adequately rested, and had very little interaction with men. My father was to visit her only on Fridays until I was born.

When I was just six months old, my father embraced me tightly as he sped around on his candy-red Kawasaki, showing me off to his friends. I hadnt yet done anything to earn my parents pride, but they were always so vocal about what a blessing I was. My mother still shows me pictures of the outfits she sewed and dressed me in solely so she could stare at me for hours. According to her, one of my first full sentences was Stop staring at me.

We prayed every day to have you, my father told me several times as he braided my hair before nursery school.

My mother would give birth to two more girls, each of us a year and a half apart. By the time their third daughter was born, family members and neighbours were in mourning. They would drop by unannounced and express their condolences to my parents for having yet another girl. Being parents to daughters meant mounting burdens; it didnt guarantee the prosperity that having sons did. Boys were free to go out and generate income for the family, whereas girls needed to be sheltered from the dangerous outside world until it was time to pass them on to their new guardians, their husbands. Daughters were additional mouths to feed, and dowries for them had to be accumulated before marriage. My father told the mourning guests to kindly go to hell, and in an act of stubbornness and, perhaps most important, love, named his third daughter Shazadi, meaning princess.