When BTB (Beyond The Box) Chronicles came up with a prompt in 2021, on Unconventional Friendships, I wrote this, based on my friends in Dubai. This story was featured in their Edition 7 in Aug 2021.
MUM’S THE WORD.
Shailaja hung on the door handle, tugged it twice before sprinting into the foyer. As the elevator clipped to her floor, she gazed through the mashrabiya. An ever-enthralling view – the tallest building in the world, a monument of steel and concrete towered imperially with its head in the clouds. The lift doors opened with a ding. Her thoughts hovered over her friends, who would have assembled already.
And she knew that they would not open their mouths until she reached.
Shailaja, Benaifer, Mehroon, and Tahira met a few months ago at the playground. While their kids were swinging and sliding, the women smiled and nodded at each other.
Shailaja linked her palms in Namaste and spoke in English, “Hello. I am Shailaja from India.”
Mehroon’s burka flapped as she clucked, “Ah, I from India. English no. Malayalam.”
Shailaja, a Malayalee from Mumbai, not very conversant in her mother tongue, managed to string words together. She assured Mehroon that conversation was possible without English.
Benaifer and Tahira mumbled a flaccid hello. They furrowed their brows at the two women chattering in a strange nasal twang.
Benaifer, from Karachi, chirped in Urdu, and Tahira, from Cairo, spouted only Arabic. Shailaja managed to converse in Hindi with Benaifer, and her love for acting, which she had developed since school, aided her in enacting the conversation with Tahira.
When Mehroon drawled a sentence in Malayalam, Shailaja decoded it into Hindi, which Benaifer grasped. Getting through to Tahira posed a challenge. She scratched her mauve hijab, staring at her three friends gesticulating in a frenzy. After a few unsuccessful attempts, they reached a mutual agreement. Shailaja would pantomime, and the others would not interfere.
Every evening, the foursome convened at the playground. It then slowly branched out into visiting homes. They scheduled their recipe swapping session for noon on Wednesdays. Today, the meeting was held at Benaifer’s house, where she prepared a Pashtun Chapli Kebab while the ladies took notes.
Shailaja hoped the twins stayed asleep. Their exhausted nanny enjoyed the diversion of the ‘funny women’ as she had christened them. The twins were the latest addition to Benaifer’s swelling breed. Benaifer’s salwar had flaps stitched into them, for her breasts perpetually had a baby dangling from them.
Last month, everyone relished Shailaja’s Mumbai Pav Bhaji and Mehroon’s Malabar Pathiri and Chicken Curry.
The class at Tahira’s turned out to be an adventure. Deciphering the ingredients, such as ‘mulukhiyyah’, by looking, touching, biting, or googling, was an ordeal. Halfway through the process, Tahira put the ladle down, pushed the ladies onto the couch of her cramped studio apartment, and switched on the television, where they watched a drama in Arabic without subtitles. Tahira wrapped up the dish. The soup and the vine leaves were delicious.
So, without Shailaja, not a tongue will move other than to greet – Salaam Alaikum and Walaikkum Assalam. She needed to be there at Benaifer’s for the mutton to cook.
Can you imagine three women sitting silently?
An Oxymoron indeed!
***
Glossary
Mashrabiya – Lattice work.
Burka – An outer garment worn by Muslim women.
Hijab – The cloth covering the head/hair by Muslim women.
Pashtun Chapli Kebab – A lamb dish
Mumbai Pav Bhaji – Bread and Vegetable Curry.
Malabar Pathiri – A type of bread/roti.
Mullukhiyah – Egyptian Spinach.
Salaam Alaikum & Walekkum Assalam – Greetings in Arabic.
Picture Courtesy- Unsplash – Pricilla Du Preez
