`Get out of my house. You have made my life hell. I lament the day I married you. Tell me, during these ten long years, have you ever brought a moment of pleasure to me?` he almost thundered with rage of an uncontrollable degree and again began to beat his wife with his kicks, with full ferocity. The derision went up and volleys of abuses and vilification showered like hailstorm.

She was mute like a lifeless statue on the floor, facing her husband`s kicks, whips and fists without uttering a word of protest. It was a fresh bout of anger mingled with agony and desperation that had taken her husband in its grip since a month. It was routine to scandalise her and call her names of any variety he wished to, and adding insult to injury that day, Hamza was thrashing and beating her up with a cane incessantly.

Her silence and muteness were her only tools of defence, as any reaction from her or responses, verbal or physical could have infuriated her husband beyond limits. Amuck was he already, but the mildest protest by the wife would have maddened him and would have awakened his bestiality. The woman had to endure all this beating, bashing and brutality till the man had exhausted all his stock of fume, fury and fire of wrath, rage and invectives.

He then threw away his cane and went up to the door, then turned around and warned his hapless wife to leave the house before he returned home, otherwise she would find him in the worst of moods. Perhaps the beast would turn up; the woman could easily understand what her husband meant to do on finding her still lodged in the house.

She was lying on the floor like a corpse, but a breathing one. Every inch of her body was aching terribly; every bone and joint seemed to come apart with a piercing pain. And the injured soul of a woman was crying to the wounded body of a wife who was being rebuked for something she did not possess...

`Hamza, you tell me have I not given you any `pleasure`. Do you know what pleasure is, my dear husband. Hamza! I have become an amalgam of your family and clan. I have served you in thick and thin. So much so that I could not visit my own parents for months on and kept serving your family, your guests and kept up your house as my own home, doing all the dusting, cleaning and washing like a maid-servant.

The derision went up and volleys of abuses and vilification showered like hailstorm. She was mute like a lifeless statue on the floor, facing her husband`s kicks, whips and fists without uttering a word of protest. It was a fresh bout of anger mingled with  agony and desperation that had taken her husband in its grip. Her silence was her only tool of defence, as any reaction from her verbal or physical, could have infuriated her husband beyond limits.

This entire endeavour of mine was to make you happy and comfortable. Ingratitude is your nature, my dear husband. The pleasure you are seeking from me is not in my power to give you; only God Almighty can grant it to us in His beneficence. None has the right to interfere in His plan. When I was a child, my brother Wali used to tease me and beat me; my mother would come to rescue me, taking me under her protecting arms. She would scold and ask my brother, how he could take heart to thrash his lovely sister. `She is not going to stay here for long. She is a guest for a few days.` And Gulli, while wiping her tears with her mother`s head cloth would say that she would not abandon her parental home not would part company with Wali, Aba or Amma. In turn the mother used to hug her and kiss her tenderly with all the love of a mother for a daughter. Time was passing at its own pace. And for a girl it was even faster. They say a female child grows like a barley plant. Similarly Gulli grew up to puberty and was told that she was being married to Hamza. She like all the other girls had been taught that the real abode of a woman was the home of her husband. She like the others was lost in her thoughts of fabricating those webs of a sweet home, where they (wife and husband) would dwell.

Finally the day of her hopes and happiness seemed to take shape in her imagination, when her girl friends were preparing her with the bridal costume, spraying musk and the traditional bridal perfume over body. She was bedecked in bridal ornaments and hers was the image of a beautiful fairy, as her friends were telling her that fairies meant that beauty to the bride, in addition to her own, for the first three days of marriage. This idea had made her face more radiant. She was asked to tightly close her eyes lest her dreams dropped suddenly and brought drought for her.

Gulli was religiously observing the rites and was meticulously following the instructions of her grown up female companions. When the green leaves of the Quran and pure water of the bowl were brought before her, she was asked to open her eyes. She opened her eyes reciting bismillah (in the name of Allah) and read from the Quran with a prayer to the Almighty for a happy prosperous life with her husband. She looked at the clear water in the bowl and asked Allah to purify the heart of her husband like that sparkling water. On witnessing the green pages of the Quran she also prayed for the gift of motherhood.

She left her ancestral home to become a part of Hamza`s life. At the same time she locked all her love for her parents, brothers and sisters in a remote corner of her heart. Hamza`s house was, for all purposes her new home, abode and residence. She adapted herself to all its ways and accepted all of its vicissitudes as a part of the family. And now he had come to ask her to leave that house. She was agitated and moved her body a little, but felt as if a hot iron needle was being pierced into her aching body.

In her melancholy, she became nostalgic for her ancestral home and her parents. A sudden surge arose in her to go there and catch hold of her mother and ask her as to why mothers get their hapless daughters married and turn them out of their homes. Parents tell them that the daughter`s home is the house of her husband. And the husband tells her, `It`s my house, get out of here. You have no right to live here. A woman is chatt el. She can be bought like any saleable commodity. She is like other items of a household which can be kept or disposed of according to my sweet will. A wife is similarly an item of my household. If I don`t like Gullain, I will turn her out and in her place, bring a new one`.

Suddenly she recalled the fate of Shah Gul and Zeenat, and memory of them was so shocking that she forgot the pains and aches in her body; she started with a jerk and sat up erect as if she had been struck by a thunderbolt. Shah Gul used to give birth to a child every year but her lap was empty as the babies could not survive. According to the medical reports the blood of the couple did not match and resulted in the post-natal fatality of their children.

The physicians suggested medication and treatment. The husband did not want to spend money on the treatment of his wife. He threw Shah Gul out and brought a new wife in her place. Shah Gul went mad in grief. Zeenat did give birth to children but all of them were female. Her husband also threw her away to bring in a new bride. Renouncing old marriages for new ones was the order of the day on this pretty pretext or that clumsy pretension. But what was my fault?