“No One Will Ever Marry You”
Chapter 2 of “Hold On”: Peshawar Museum 2011
(N.B. I’m writing a novel, a chapter a week, here on Medium. Find out why I write here, start from Chapter 1 here, and always feel free to give me feedback in the comments. I write here for the community.)
Soft lights and slow music; couples were dancing in the ballroom of the Victoria Memorial hall. Hira was in the center, dancing with her eyes closed. As she glided across the room it seemed she had entered a trance with no control over her movements, and it felt good. The ambience of the ballroom added to the calm she was feeling as her body swayed. She was thoroughly enjoying herself; her body in sync with the rhythm of the music.
This was the only time in her adolescence when she was not worried about taunts at home and school. Even though she could hear her mother’s voice “no one will ever marry you”.
Immersed in her thoughts, she was jolted back to reality by Sadia asking her to go to the other side of the museum. Startled, she caught a glimpse of Ahmad watching her before he quickly turned away. Sadia held Hira’s arm, taking the duo to the left wing of the Victoria Memorial hall, where artifacts of Buddha’s life story were displayed.
The museum trip was part of an initiative by the Peshawar Technical University, aimed at opening up avenues for students to coordinate and mingle outside school. Professor Arifa Khan had announced this surprise a few days earlier to the entire class. The students were given two options: a visit to the Peshawar Museum or a trip to the Torkham border, just an hour away from the main city. There were silent whispers in the class until they realized she expected them to reach a unanimous decision right then and there.
Ahmad, unsurprisingly, was the first one to speak up. He shared his experience of the museum, sounding like a frequent visitor. Hira glanced at him with a hint of envy. She had seen the building from outside often but could never ask anyone at home to take her there for a visit. Her only family outings had been to a park at a little distance from their home near Chamkani.
Another student then spoke up. He belonged to Khyber Agency and passionately advocated for the visit to the Torkham border with Afghanistan instead. He spoke about the importance of knowing the history and ethnic affiliation of Pakhtuns with the people across the line, drawn by British colonizers.
Professor Arifa appeared to be enjoying this discussion. She was, perhaps, the only teacher at the university whose class was a safe space for students to express their ideas and concerns. The rest -as Ahmad had made them realize- seemed to talk obsessively about their degrees from abroad, while casually browsing through their lecture slides.
Sadia went along with Ahmad’s preference for the trip and nudged Hira to speak. But Hira just pushed back her hand and preferred to stay quiet. She was simply not comfortable endorsing Ahmad’s viewpoint in front of the whole class.
After some discussion, it was decided that the class trip would go to the Peshawar Museum in the next week.
After class, Ahmad came to Sadia and Hira’s desk and offered to give them a tour of the Peshawar Museum. Hira thanked him and then hurried towards Professor Arifa to talk about her scholarship pending at the university administration’s end for the past two months. Professor Arifa reassured Hira about the fee waiver. Relief washed over her. She could not wait to convey the news at home, knowing it meant her father would not have to take a loan for her fee… for the next semester at least.
At the museum, Hira, free from the burden of her fee payment, admired the clear blue sky which perfectly complemented the indigenous kiln brick architecture. She rushed past this beautiful view, however, as she was far more eager to get inside and see the Gandharan artifacts and learn about the city’s Buddhist history. As she stepped into the main hall, she was awestruck by the double-heightened space held by Mughal-era pointed arches. The polished dark-wood floor tapped with every step she took while the sun rays gleamed through the ventilators installed at the top of the hall. She felt like she was in the limelight as she walked inside, mouth agape. It was like walking into a fairytale ballroom, echoing melodiously with orchestrated music. Hira felt ecstatic.
The university had arranged a few guides for the students but the trio chose to ignore them in favor of Ahmad’s expertise. He was very excited to be a guide for Hira and Sadia, and turned out to be quite a knowledgeable one. The most fascinating part, for Hira, was the stone sculptures laid out in chronological order to tell the life story of Buddha. Against deep orange and yellow backgrounds, centuries-old, intricately designed artifacts were laid out on the shelves. As Ahmad narrated the story of Gautama Buddha, the illumination of the shelves took Hira 2500 years back in time. Hira looked at artifacts and could envision the young prince who had been protected from all sorrows in life. Later he was heartbroken after seeing a sick and an ageing person during his first excursion out of the palace, and this led to him leaving the castle for good to find the meaning of life. Then he faced the realities of life. As Hira turned her gaze to the right, she saw the statue of Starving Buddha. She could see the real starving Buddha reduced to skin and bones reaching closer to nirvana.
Ahmad continued his narration of how the young prince became Buddha. The sculptures narrated the life of Buddha- it was as if it was a movie set in stone. Hira was particularly moved by the depiction of Buddha’s realization of leaving behind worldly wealth and pleasures, and the lust for power in the sculptures. The statues beautifully showcased prince Siddhartha’s journey to enlightenment through starvation, meditation, and nirvana. The state of nirvana reverberated in the arched galleries of the museum, a manifestation of Buddha’s ideology. Hira felt the momentum of her life slowing down with the beautiful narration of Buddha’s life in Ahmed’s soft, carefully curated voice.
Ahmad then took them to the first floor of the museum to show them a better view of the grandiosity of the ballroom. The grand hallways were built to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. The building was a fusion of Mughal architecture with gothic, colonial, and east Asian architectural elements. Just as he was painting a picture of elegantly dressed colonizers dancing in the hall, he was pulled away by one of their professors. The professor jeered at Ahmad, asking why he only chose to guide his female classmates. His cheeks flushed and for a moment, he seemed ready to lash out at this unnecessary remark. Remembering how things worked here, however, he just calmly told them it was nothing special and walked away. He came back to find that the moment was over; Hira was lost in her thoughts again, whereas Sadia was gossiping with other students.
They continued to move through the other exhibits. Hira finally saw the Great Buddha of Sahri Bahlol, which she had eagerly read about before the trip. The magnanimous statue was a deep grey color. It weighed 1.5 tons and was around 3 meters tall. This artifact was excavated in 1909 by the British in a small ancient town, Sahri Bahlol, in Mardan District. It was indeed the crown jewel of the Peshawar Museum. It was quite literally the greatest sight she had ever laid her eyes upon.
After the trip was over, Hira waited for her father in the lush green lawn of the Museum. She looked at the magnificent and symmetrical building, made with indigenous terracotta-colored bricks, having two small domes on the top. She then recalled the sheer splendor of the giant statue of Buddha and it evoked a deep sense of self-pity and regret at having never been to the museum before. She was saddened that this rich collection of Gandharan art, which was housed just a few kilometres away from her for the past three years, had been hidden from her.
As she fixed herself side-saddling behind her father on his motorbike on the way home, she could not help but feel weighed down by these thoughts. She wondered if her family would even be interested in listening to her experience of the museum as she reaches home. She decided to share her experiences only with her youngest brother, hoping this would pique his curiosity as much as it had fascinated Hira.
Picture Credit: Daily Times
