Life, Shrivelled

Sukirat Anand

A short story about how prejudice erodes a community. Artwork sourced via Kaleido Kontemporary (Lahore).

He got a seat by the aisle in the second-class AC compartment. The passenger assigned the seat opposite him was already stretched out on the upper berth. Across the aisle sat two young couples—though in his forties, from his perspective, they still seemed young. The journey was long, so he too reclined and joined both seats to prepare his berth, drew the curtain halfway and lay down, half-reclining.

The two couples were engrossed in continuous chatter, and despite not intending to hear what they were talking about, their conversation reached his ears.

“Our Rahul wants to settle abroad, but my husband won’t agree. He says that he’s our only son—if he leaves too, who will handle the business? My husband is right, but kids these days hardly listen to anyone; they just do as they please.”

“What is your line of business, brother?” The question likely came from the other woman’s husband.

“Copper wires—the kind used in machines, fans, mixers, and such.”

“That’s a very good business, quite profitable.”

The one who earned didn’t respond, but his wife quickly interjected, “That’s exactly why we don’t want to send Rahul abroad. We lack nothing here—we have property worth crores, servants, drivers, all comforts available, by the grace of Lord Ram.” The woman seemed somewhat boastful by nature.

“Absolutely right, but these days, every child is obsessed with settling abroad. Our son just got admitted to the ninth grade, but his entire focus is on going to Canada,” the other woman shared her apprehension.

“How many children do you have?” The voice of the first woman again echoed in his ears.

“Two. The elder one, Vineet, is 14 years old, and a year younger than him is Prerna. Both study at Carmel Convent and are currently away on a school trip. And you?”

“We also have just two. Our daughter is the elder one, and Rahul is two years younger than her. By the grace of Lord Ram, our family is complete. Anyway, what's the point of having too many children when the population is already so high—all because of these Muslims. They keep four wives and go on producing children one after another.”

“You’re right, Mrs. Kakkar. Even my husband once came back from a shakha meeting and told us how much the Muslim population has increased in UP and Bihar. Entire villages are getting emptied of Hindus. They say that if this continues, by 2050 Muslims will be the majority population in India and will rule the country,” the other woman added her own bit.

A flame of anger rose within him—he wanted to jump into this traveling conversation and say: “No, not all Muslims are the same. I myself have only one child—not even two like you people have. And I’ve never come across any Muslim with four wives, even though I am Muslim myself and have spent my whole life in Muslim surroundings.”

But he keeps this argument with himself—he doesn’t speak it out aloud. Anyway, who even speaks up these days in this country!

“As if anything was left for them to claim—the rule was practically theirs already. Past governments appeased them so much for the sake of votes. It’s only now that Modi Ji’s government has come that they’re starting to learn to stay within their limits…”

He’s astounded that he’s hearing all this while sitting in Punjab!

He had stayed in Punjab all these years precisely because he had felt safe here.

Even now, the only reason he was going to the head office in Delhi was to try and get his transfer to Bulandshahr canceled somehow.

He had no desire to return to U.P.—in fact, he was afraid of going there.

Even if they transferred him from the Jalandhar branch to some tiny town, it would be fine—as long as it wasn’t in Uttar Pradesh. But from the conversations of these travellers, it seemed that the poison blowing in the U.P. had started affecting the air of Punjab too. Perhaps this air had begun to flow throughout the country. What kind of poison was it that had started taking over everyone? Somewhere deep down, even he must have felt this because now, while booking a ticket from Punjab to Delhi, he writes M.S. Gandhi instead of his full name, Mohsin Asghar Gandhi, so that no one figures out he is a Muslim. Except for Gujaratis, people from other states hardly know that there are Muslims also with the surname Gandhi, and Parsis too. Bapu’s name was so significant that most people, upon hearing ‘Gandhi’, automatically assumed he was Hindu.

What times have come, where hiding one’s religious identity is considered wise!

Although he was never one for religious beliefs, his family and relatives would often dismiss him as faithless and remain upset with him. He is a Dawoodi Bohra Muslim but could never accept the restrictions of his sect—a small subset of Shia Muslims. Despite heavy disapproval and constant pleading from his family, he completely stopped attending jamaat after reaching college. And then, he fell in love with Ayesha, who belonged to a Sunni Kidwai family from Lucknow. She was neither a Bohra nor from another Shia sect, nor was she Gujarati. To make matters worse, her name was Ayesha—the name of the wife of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) whom Shias around the world view as self-serving, believing she waged war against Imam Ali and was the cause for the centuries-old Shia-Sunni divide. Sunni Muslims may regard her with motherly reverence; no Shia family names their daughter Ayesha.

Amma had declared a jihad at home. Their family had always been under the benevolent grace of the Bohra community’s spiritual leader, Syedna Sahib. For the past fifty years, every marriage in their family had taken place with his blessings—in fact, many alliances had even been suggested by the Aqa Maula himself. In Bombay’s small Bohra community, where everyone knew each other’s business—and considered it their moral duty to do so—chatter had already spread that the middle son of the Gandhi family on Grant Road was refusing to attend jamaat. People would subtly question Amma, and she would make excuses that convinced no one.

'Loose' by Fatima Sughra (collagraph, 2024; via Kaleido Kontemporary)

  And now, Asghar was determined to marry a Sunni girl—not just any girl, but one named Ayesha, as if proclaiming to the whole world that the devout Bohra family had brought home a Sunni bride. There would be endless gossip in the community, and how would they ever face Aqa Maula again. 

Asghar was just as determined—he would either marry Ayesha or remain single forever. Defeated, Amma laid down a condition: if Ayesha converted to Shi’ism and chose a reasonable name—so that people wouldn’t have any reason to gossip—then she would allow the marriage. But Ayesha refused. She wasn’t willing to abandon Sunni traditions, nor was she ready to change her name. Though, like Asghar, she wasn’t unbendingly religious, she refused to convert to Shi’ism just to please his family. There was no point in pretending to believe in something she didn’t feel from within.

“Ayesha, I completely understand your refusal to convert—Amma’s demand is unreasonable and orthodox. But if you could at least change your name for their sake…” Asghar suggested hesitantly.  

“No, Asghar, I can’t compromise on my name. If I make this small compromise today, I’ll have to make bigger ones tomorrow—and you know that.”

And Asghar did know. In fact, it was Ayesha’s independence and steadfast determination—so unlike other girls—that had drawn him to her in the first place. He let the matter drop.

Between two stubborn people impenetrable in their pride, it was Amma who had to finally give in. The nikkah was performed. There was no grandeur, no festivity—just a quiet compromise shaped more by weariness than joy. And so, in the tight, ever-breathing heart of Bombay—a city of swelling crowds and shrinking spaces—Ayesha and Asghar found themselves living in his childhood home, crammed with her parents and younger brother. Privacy was a luxury. Silence, rare. Every wall heard everything.

For Ayesha, those first years were among the hardest of her life. Not just because Amma had, with quiet determination, begun calling her Fatima in front of others—as if the name Ayesha could be erased like chalk from a board_—because the Bohra community never truly accepted her. Ayesha had tried to soften the edges of her own traditions.

But it was never enough. No matter how she dressed, spoke, or behaved, she remained, in their eyes, Sunni Ayesha. In every gathering, every festival, every shared prayer or celebration she wasn’t fully included in, there was always that faint, bitter whisper behind the eyes of others: She’s not one of us.

She remembered the first time someone had paused just a second too long before handing her the mehndi cone at a wedding. Or the time her name wasn’t included on the invitation list until Asghar made a call. It’s always the small things, she thought. The things no one else would notice —but you do. Because they hurt enough to linger.

Ayesha knew, and Asghar came to see, that to the Bohra relatives—those warm, smiling people who blessed and praised and gossiped in the same breath—she would always be an outsider. No matter the marriage, no matter the effort, no matter how many times Amma called her Fatima.

Even the weekly jamaat meetings—something so central to the community—were closed to her in spirit, if not in rule. Ayesha never went. Not because she wasn’t allowed, but because the silence she’d be greeted with felt colder than any locked door. And Asghar? He had long distanced himself from all of that. Years ago, perhaps out of quiet rebellion, or just fatigue, he had stopped going too.   

Even at weddings, religious celebrations, and festivals, there was always a quiet, unmistakable reminder that she did not belong. These were not direct insults or crude witticisms. The real wounds came from what was left unsaid—the glances, the silences, the gestures that made their meaning clear. These subtle s innuendos cut just as deeply as any open mockery.

Asghar didn’t speak of it much, but she could tell it gnawed at him. Every half-finished sentence, every prolonged silence after a family visit. His laughter had a tired echo. And when the offer came—the bank proposing a transfer to Bikaner—he didn’t hesitate.

He brought the letter home, holding it like an award. “We can go,” he said simply. “Start fresh. No one there would know us. No one will expect anything from us.”

Ayesha felt something loosen inside her—a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. It wasn’t just about space, or rooms of their own. It was about being able to walk through a door without wondering who had been whispering on the other side.

And then, of course, there was Bombay itself.

The city had changed. Ever since the riots in 1992, its mood had hardened. Something unspoken and uneasy lingered in the air. Where once the city had felt like a giant, chaotic family—loud but welcoming—now it felt like everyone was watching their step, watching each other. Even friends had begun to speak with caution, as if religion now lived in the space between their words.

“We don’t belong here anymore,” Ayesha had whispered one night, the ceiling fan whirring above them in tired, dusty circles. Asghar didn’t reply, but he reached for her hand. That was answer enough.

So, they left.

With few possessions, fewer expectations, and hearts heavy with old wounds but a fragile hope tucked quietly between them, they boarded the train to Bikaner. To a rented house and a rented beginning—but a real one. One where they could belong, not because someone permitted it, but because they claimed it for themselves. They knew Bikaner wouldn’t be easy. A rented house, unfamiliar streets, the burden of building a new life from scratch. But still—it would be theirs. A home where she could call herself Ayesha without hearing the invisible wince in someone’s voice. A life where their love didn’t have to apologise for its origin.

The city had changed. Ever since the riots in 1992, its mood had hardened. Something unspoken and uneasy lingered in the air. Where once the city had felt like a giant, chaotic family—loud but welcoming—now it felt like everyone was watching their step, watching each other. Even friends had begun to speak with caution, as if religion now lived in the space between their words

Their assumption turned out to be both right, and wrong.

Right, because in Bikaner people saw them simply as a young Muslim couple—not as an anomalous pairing of a Shia Bohra husband and a Sunni wife. No one cared that one was Gujarati and the other from Uttar Pradesh. To the people of Bikaner, they were both outsiders in the same way—neither more peculiar, nor more familiar.

Wrong, because the events after 1992 had poisoned the atmosphere not just in Bombay but across the entire country with the bitterness of division. Though Bikaner had seen no riots, no bomb blasts, the air was far from convivial. People who would have cheerfully extended a friendly hand upon hearing ‘Gandhi’ now stiffened as soon as they heard ‘Asghar’. No one openly expressed discomfort, but beyond a couple of exceptions, neither colleagues nor neighbours developed more than a formal social connection with them. Surely, life in such an environment was their own, but it felt shrunken, constrained.

When their son was born, it was Ayesha who suggested naming him Kabir—a name shared by both Muslims and Hindus, so that Kabir Gandhi wouldn’t be instantly boxed into a category or rejected at first glance. Ayesha, who had once refused to become Fatima just to make her own life easier, was now thinking far ahead to ease her son’s path.

Over the years, Asghar’s bank job took them to different cities and states. Ayesha, who had taught English at a prestigious Bombay school, found work in private schools wherever they moved, thanks to her qualifications. Their small family of three never lacked for comfort. They made annual trips—one to Barabanki, one to Bombay—meeting relatives from both sides, ensuring Kabir grew up knowing and mingling with his cousins from his maternal and paternal families. Asghar, being the son-in-law, was treated with due respect by Ayesha’s family in Barabanki, as per Indian customs. For Ayesha, too, visiting her in-laws in Bombay became less strained over time. As a short-term guest, initially she was treated with formal courtesy, but after Kabir’s arrival, Amma’s conduct softened noticeably—he was her beloved grandson. Besides, as happens in most families, with time, the sideways glances at Ayesha grew fewer.

But over time, the general gaze toward the Muslim community had grown colder—what began as detachment had, in many places, turned into disdain, and in some, into outright hatred.

Asghar and Ayesha couldn’t understand why, despite their dignified and exemplary conduct, no neighbour or colleague truly warmed up to them. There was always a wall, invisible but firm.

Asghar felt anger rise within him at this atmosphere. Ayesha, on the other hand, was gripped by fear. But more than fear for herself, it was Kabir she worried about.

They could learn to endure the tightening noose of suspicion that surrounded them, but what impact might it be having on a growing child? As a teacher, Ayesha understood children’s psychology well. She was increasingly anxious about what all this might be doing to Kabir’s inner world.

“If this continues, Kabir will develop a deep inferiority complex, Asghar,” she said, her voice low but urgent. “I think you should somehow try to get a transfer back to Bombay. At least there, we’ll be among our own people...”

Asghar smiled faintly, maybe with a hint of irony. “It was to escape from our own people that we left Bombay in the first place.”

“You don’t understand,” Ayesha pressed. “Kabir feels cut off. He senses the distance, the difference. This quiet alienation—it gnaws at him. And I’m scared, Asghar, scared that he might drift toward the wrong kind of influence, that he might fall under the sway of someone harmful…”

Asghar understood exactly what she was implying. He said gently, “You shouldn’t worry yourself into such distant fears. We’ve raised Kabir ourselves. His paternal side may be full of businessmen, yes—but from his mother’s side, he’s inherited political consciousness, love for this country. That runs through his very veins. He knows—he must know—that his nana jaan spent years in British jails for the freedom of this country. And besides, it’s not like we’re sending him to some madrasa where he could come under the spell of some misguided cleric.”

“But still, at least try to get a transfer back to Bombay. Our home and family are there. It's been so many years since we've been away from our own people…”

Asghar didn’t say what he was thinking—that it was because of ‘those very people’ they had left Bombay in the first place. Instead, he explained, “Leaving a city like Bombay for a smaller town is easy, but getting a transfer back is nearly impossible. People pull every string, use every recommendation, and still fail.”

That day, the conversation ended there. But a few months later, Ayesha brought it up again. “If not Bombay, then at least some other small town—but we need to leave this place. I don’t feel safe here anymore... The way they dragged Mohammed Akhlaq out of his home and killed him—his own neighbours, the people he lived among…”

At the time, Asghar was posted at a branch in Noida. Dadri, where a man had been lynched by his own villagers on mere suspicion of keeping beef in his fridge, was in the same district. For the first time, Asghar seriously considered applying for a transfer to another state.

Not only had Akhlaq’s killers not been arrested, they were being feted as ‘defenders of the faith’, hailed as heroes. They openly marched in political rallies alongside political leaders, were garlanded and welcomed with flowers. Watching this madness, a wave of fear rose inside Asghar—what was happening to this country? What kind of rulers had it fallen into the hands of?

Ayesha, who had never been regular with her prayers, had now started reciting Ayat-ul-Kursi almost daily. Whenever Kabir got late coming back from college or anywhere else, Ayesha would begin reciting Durood-e-Pak as a ritual. Sometimes, she would recite the four quls to settle her petrified heart.

Then, Kabir got admission to Vellore, and Asghar, too, started making efforts to get a transfer to some southern state. On one hand, the states of South India seemed free from this blatant sectarianism, and on the other, Kabir wouldn’t be too far from them either. But getting a voluntary transfer was no easy task. After much effort and with the help of a recommendation, Asghar somehow managed to get transferred to Jalandhar within the year.

Punjab was not their first—or even second—choice.

“How will we live there? We don’t know Punjabi at all. An incomprehensible language, unfamiliar people…” Ayesha now worried that they would feel completely isolated there.

“You know Hindi, don’t you? Nowadays, everyone speaks Hindi anyway. Besides, Punjab is a safe place—there’s never been any news of lynchings or any kind of oppression against Muslims from there,” Asghar said to reassure Ayesha, though he too secretly feared that adjusting to a purely Punjabi environment wouldn’t be easy. Had the transfer been to a mixed city like Chandigarh, it would have been a different matter.

Yet, upon arriving in Jalandhar, they sensed a qualitative difference in Punjab’s atmosphere right from the first few days. When renting a house, no one asked about their religion—whether they were Christian or Muslim was of no concern to anyone. What mattered was that they were working professionals who would vacate the place in three or five years. Nor did anyone care whether they ate meat or fish. They were free to eat or serve whatever they liked, as long as the rent was paid on time. Having lived in several cities across India, where they had grown accustomed to answering such questions—directly or indirectly—this was an entirely new experience for Ayesha and Asghar. In many cities, they had been denied housing simply because they were Muslim. In some places, they were forced to live in Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods, which were neither Ayesha’s nor Asghar’s first choice. The atmosphere of such segregated settlements, rooted in religious lines, did not align with their preference for an open, free way of life.

In Jalandhar, in their colony, they were perhaps the only Muslim family. Yet, from day one, apart from the language barrier, they felt no sense of alienation. Ayesha noticed that people their age always spoke to them in Punjabi, even though they fully understood Hindi. If Ayesha asked something in Hindi, the reply would come in Punjabi. But this mismatched conversation had its own benefits—soon, both of them began to understand Punjabi. Ayesha observed another thing: “Asghar, here, parents speak Punjabi, but the kids speak Hindi. It’s strange—almost as if the children don’t know Punjabi at all.”

“It’s not just children,” Asghar replied. “I’ve noticed that in the office, most young people prefer speaking Hindi, even among themselves.”

Contrary to their initial apprehensions about settling in a purely Punjabi city, Jalandhar suited them well. Ayesha quickly found a job at a large private school. Neither their colleagues nor their neighbours ever made them feel that they were being treated differently—or being scrutinised—because of their religion. It had been years since they had experienced such an environment, and they realised that, over time, they had unknowingly grown accustomed to living a constrained, guarded life. Now, they could finally breathe freely again.

One day, Mrs. Saggu sent them some halwa. Ayesha thanked her and said, “Your halwa was delicious. Asghar also praised it a lot.”

“Not halwa, Ayesha ji—it’s karah prasad,” Mrs. Saggu corrected her with a smile. From then on, on every Sangrand, the first day of the Punjabi month, other festivals, and even on ordinary days, a small box of karah prasad, made in pure desi ghee, would arrive at their doorstep.

On the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr, Ayesha reciprocated by sending Mrs. Saggu a generous box of sewaiyan, which received equally warm praise. “Ayesha ji, I’ve never tasted such delicious sewiyan in my life, truly!” Mrs. Saggu exclaimed.

During Bakrid, Ayesha hesitantly asked, “Mrs. Saggu, do you eat biryani?” What she really wanted to know was whether these people, who ate meat, would also eat meat cooked in their Muslim household.

“Ayesha ji, vaadhoo! We love it!” Mrs. Saggu replied enthusiastically. Ayesha didn’t quite understand the word ‘vaadhoo’, but she got the essence—there was no hesitation whatsoever. Mrs. Saggu’s eager response delighted Ayesha so much that she didn’t just send biryani—she also included a generous portion of shami kebabs, which she had made on Kabir’s special request who had come home for Eid. All of it was heartily appreciated. 

“It feels like Eid again after so many years, Asghar,” Ayesha said. “What’s the point of celebrating if you can’t share it with your neighbours?”

Three years in Jalandhar passed by comfortably. There were direct trains to both Bombay and Lucknow, and when needed, Amritsar’s airport wasn’t too far either. They never felt like they were living in some far-off border state of the country.

That’s why, when Asghar’s transfer orders to Bulandshahr came, they were crestfallen.  Going back to Uttar Pradesh in these times? This was an even worse transfer than being sent back to Noida.

And so today, he journeyed to the head office—with a recommendation letter in his pocket and a glimmer of hope in his heart—thinking that if not to a major city in Punjab, they might at least agree to post him in some smaller town like Mukeriyan or Kartarpur.

But what was he hearing now? The same venomous winds that had long howled through distant states had crept into Punjab’s air, too. The poison, from which this land had once been spared, now seeped through its soil. Or had it always been here, lurking beneath his own illusions—this belief that Punjab stood untouched, that Punjabis were immune to this contagion?

But then again, bad apples exist everywhere—even among his own community. Fools and bigots sprouted like weeds, even among his own. Why let the words of these random fools bother him? He tugged the half-drawn curtain tighter, as though erecting a wall between himself and their idle malice, then turned the pages of his magazine, seeking refuge in ink and silence.

But a curtain is no soundproof barrier. Against his will, their voices slipped through—sharp, persistent. Now their talk had turned to their children’s schooling, their grievances ripe on the tongue.

“Our Vineet is no dullard, but what chance has he now? Every seat snatched away by these—these Scheduled ones, these backward castes. Reservations have strangled merit.”

“True, Neeta ji. These Chamars, these Chuhras—they swarm like locusts. All doors swing open for them . Everywhere, it’s their rule now…”

“Lower your voice—you’re on a train. Don’t you know using such words is illegal now? If one of them hears you, they’ll have us all arrested right here,” the woman’s husband hissed in a sharp tone.

“But how long must we kowtow to these quotas?” she muttered, though the fire in her voice had dimmed to embers.

Asghar pulled the remaining half of his curtain shut.

---

Sukirat Anand is a Punjabi writer who writes under the name Sukirat. He has published ten books in Punjabi in various genres: Short story, travelogue, political and social commentary. He sometimes self-translates his work into English, published in Indian magazines and anthologies. His book of memoirs about his stay in Russia has also been published in English under the title A Time to Remember: My Years in Russia.

Fatima Sughra is a visual artist based in Lahore. She is a Fine Arts graduate from the National College of Arts, Lahore, majoring in printmaking and has exhibited internationally and in Lahore, including at the Waterloo Festival in London as part of the group show ‘Our House is on Fire’, and at Kobbekaduwa Primary School, Sri Lanka (2024). She was part of the programme coordinating team at Articulate Residency during the ‘Power of Image’ Residency (2025); and part of the collaborative project between Cowasjee Print Studio, Hausprint Studio and Morley College titled RE-USE, RE-WORK, RE-CONSIDER, conducted by Nilofar Akmut and Michelle Avison, as well as ‘Breathe: Lahore’, led by Dryden Goodwin.