Twinned Souls, an unfinished story

Twinned Souls

an unfinished story (quite literally and metaphysically!)

Ruhy carefully stared at the palms of her hands. 

She turned them upside, and then the other side round, waving her fingers gracefully, as she had seen a talented kathak dancer do on stage at the British Museum many years ago. They were once again red with a rich, earthy smelling henna. 

She had patiently allowed the mehendi lady to choose a paisley rich pattern for her, and laboriously squiggle the light brown liquid over her palms up to her elbows. There was a part of her that snapped at her irritably, “Why are you giving into their demands all over again, like a bachhi? Keep your dignity and your power as far as you can.” 

Yet the truth was, she really loved the ritual of applying henna to her hands, to her feet, and had even calmly requested a tetrahedron tattoo on her left upper arm. It would all wash off in a couple of weeks, yet there was a graceful death of the patterns. She would keep the original paste overnight, sleeping with cellophane wrap around her hands and feet to keep it in place. Her mother would insist on a sugar water solution to dab on it (even though there was no evidence of it improving the quality of colour at all). In the morning, she would wash off the dried, dull brown to reveal a brazen deep orange on her hands, emitting a musky scent.

“Ahhhhh! There are some things about Indo-Pakistani-East African Khoja culture that I just love, I can’t help it!” she thought to herself as she languished diagonally upon the bed, swimming her hands like fish and flaking some of the paste onto the white bedspread. 

The room she was staying in was quiet, and therefore loud in silence. The dust fell in tiny specks onto the thick carpeted floor, and the lazy afternoon sun was gliding in a slant across the opposite wall.

There was a gentle knock on her door, and then it opened. 

Mahdi poked his head through, smiling and showing his gleaming white teeth. It was amazing how easily he would smile these days. “All done? Can I see it?”

Ruhy rolled over into a seated pose. “Yup. How are you coping? Are you okay? Have they driven you nuts yet? I have already shouted at my mother a few times, and I feel very ashamed about it, but it just…”

“… it just comes out?” he laughed. “Ruhy, you can only use that excuse another 5 times, and then it becomes obsolete! You know better than that.” 

He sat down next to her, and took her hands into his. He took a whiff of the scent and twisted his nose and quickly looked away. “Yuck! I honestly do not understand how you women love this mehendi stuff. It stinks so badly! I like the pattern, though. Very artistic.” 

“Thank you ji. I approve of your approval. You're stuck with the stink, as you call it, for the enxt two weeks, buddy. So suck it up!" She playfully teased him by sliding one palm all over his face, and he recoiled in mock horror. They both began giggling uncontrollably.

"So, tell me. How are you coping with everything?”

He was silent for a long minute, as his body language softened a little. He leaned closer to her, and placed his somewhat heavy head on her shoulder. She let out a little sigh. She really felt this sense of being at home when he let down his barriers and showed her his vulnerable side. 

“I dunno. I really don’t. I mean, I have been to Iraq, Saudi and Iran, and other places, so it’s not as though I am inflexible in that way. But being here in Karachi, it’s something I haven’t done before. It’s a learning curve, definitely. It’s just a different place. Your family is also quite different, the people are very different. It feels a bit heavy, though, do you feel like that? I find myself struggling to think straight sometimes.”

She nodded silently. Yes, she could feel the dense, heavy, sometimes manic energy of the city, with its billions of people leading very busy, cacophonic lives, unmindful perhaps of the other realities that were just as apparent to her as this one. She still didn’t understand how she had lived here her entire childhood, and had survived it to the extent, she had many happy memories. 

“Yeah, I can’t understand how you lived here for so long. You don’t fit in here at all! I know I don’t!” he almost purred like a tomcat. “I mean, your cousins, I get on with, some are intelligent to, as are your uncles. They are very amiable. And sane. But other than that…” 

“Yeah, well, as I’ve said, in Pakistan, there are so many paradoxes, it does your head in sometimes. The most generous people in their nature, especially in Ramadhan, yet sometimes they can behave as the most ignorant in words and actions. It’s crazy, chaotic, and I never found my footing here at all. I love this country with my heart, yet I don’t have the inner strength to live here. Not in Karachi, at least. My friend Redha… you met him... lived in Lahore for a year, and says that’s the best city in the world. I haven’t been to Lahore yet. It will be fun for us to go together after our nikah! A relief from all of this bakwaas, to be honest.”

Mahdi moved so that he was lying on the bed and his head was now in Ruhy’s lap. Ruhy was finding it difficult to keep her hands straight and aloft above his torso as the henna dried, but she didn’t say anything, in case it triggered one of Mahdi’s dangerous sulks and silences. 

Twin soulmate ducks

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