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Intolerable Girl

by Nabila Ali
Iouldn't tolerate it anymore.
What rights does my parents have to ground me? I am a free woman who has the will to do whatever she wants. Why does my parents have to be so nosey?
"Cher! No more televisions! You don't study!" Screamed my dad in rage.
I as usual shouted back.
"What right do you have to ground me? I cried out.
"As long as you are living under this roof." said mom.
I giggled a little bit. I never took mom seriously.
"Well I will climb on top of the roof then." I said.
My two younger sisters stared at me for some time. Then suddenly my youngest sister gave out a loud giggle. It came out as a squeak Mom thought that I was beating my little sister again. She rushed out of her room and smacked me hard.
"What did you smack me for?" I asked in shock.
"Why did she shout?" asked mom.
"She didn't shout mom. she gave out a squeak." Said my younger sister. Torry.
None in our family ever took mom seriously. I am one of the most disobedient daughter in mom's theory.
"I don't know what I am going to do with the eldest." mom would say to my dad at night.
Dad as usual was more worried about his business affairs. He would snore while mom would give out her long lists of complaints. Everybody was scared of dad though. Mostly because he threatened to shoot us with his gun if we didn't do our homework. Sometimes he would take my youngest sister on his huge shoulder and threatened to drop her if she wouldn't do her homework.
That night I was grounded for the first time in my life. I was sent to bed without my dinner. As I sat on my bed I fan-tasied that I was putting arsenic in everybody's dinner. After sometime I imagined my mom as a fly. I would be the big fat spider who would squash the big juicy fly in her mouth.
In the morning before going to school, dad and 1 had one of those heart to heart conversations.
"I decided to cancel your membership in the video rental shop." He said.
’What!" I squeaked.
"Don’t you know that there are no good programs on Bangladesh television?" I asked annoyed.
Watch the dish." Dad said.
My sisters watch cartoon network on the dish." I said angrily.
'That is good. It is about time you start watching Bangladesh television." He said.
"Dad I don't understand all the Bangia." I said.
On my way to school 1 crept into my younger sister's room and smashed her vase and tore off mom's shalwar kameezs. I pictured dad as the vase and mom as the shalwar kameez. It helped to cool off my anger a little hit.
After school I quietly had lunch and kept into my room. I kicked hard at a small ball lying beside my piano but it gave me no satisfaction at all. I then smashed my pencil case. 1 quietly took it on the roof and smashed It with a stone. I looked delightfully at the broken crumbs of pencil case. I smiled and cursed my parents.
Sometime later than day 1 decided to buy new tapes for my recorder/
"Why can’t 1 go alone?" I asked dad.
"It is because the city is unsafe with young girls like you." Replied dad
Dad decided to send our guard with me. He went to any shop I went to. It was like some-
body was following a criminal at work. After I came home I was sent to bed early. Plans for revenge rooted in my brain all night. I would run away or be more intolerable.
Next day I skipped classes and came home early.
"Was it half day at school?" asked mom.
"Yes. Only for Middle Schoolers." I said for my sisters were still at school.
I stayed most of the time In my granny's room and quietly did my math homework. Suddenly an idea came into my mind. 1 would wear my granny’s borkha and creep out of this house to the market place. A borkha is a black garment. Muslim women wear it. Only a portion of your eyes can be seen and the rest of the part of your body would be covered by borkha.
"Grandma can I borrow your borkha?" I asked my grandma who was quietly meditating on a chair.
She nodded and I crept out of the house and quietly jumped over the gate. The garment tan-
gled with the iron gate but I managed to go out successfully. As I took a rickshaw I heard some of the older men say.
"It is not good for a priest's wife to go alone on a rickshaw." I overheard them muttering.
After buying some cosmetics I headed my way home. I crept my way in but I realized that I was caught.
Mom called dad from the office and told him about my escape from the house.
"She is impossible." Said mom.
When dad arrived from the office he lectured me in behaving properly. I didn't listen but swore never to go out alone wearing a borkha again.
I don't have much friends at school. My best friend is Akasha. She marvels at my disobedience towards my parents.
"That was so brave." She would tell each time I finished a story about creeping out of the house.
I used to creep out of school too. Sometimes 1 would climb on a mango tree and Jump over the walls. One day as I climbed over a tree the guard caught me.
"What are you doing mam?" He inquired.
T am trying to get some
mangoes.” 1 said.
■There aren't any. Mangoes grow In the summer time He said.
I sighed in relief. 1 wasn't suspected but from then on that mango tree was guarded carefully.
"You can climb out of the school gate." Akasha said.
'That is easy." She added.
"But there is a guard on the other side of the gate." I said.
'Then go out pretending that you work here at school.” She said.
"Would you come with me tomorrow when I skip school? 1 swear I got to skip PE" I said.
"You know that I am scared. Cher." Said Akasha.
"Pussy." I said mockingly.
Akasha never agreed to escape from school. Sne was an a student and never liked ditching classes like me.
The ala's In our school wore a light coloured shalwar kameez. I skipped school after the following week with some of the aia's outfit. I found lying wet in the worker's bathroom. The guard on the other side of the gate thought that I was on of the ala's. Some of the boys in our
grade were standing outside the Sjate. They didn't recognize me or I had a cloth wrapped over my head.
As I took a rickshaw I observed men from a tea shop observing me. I realized after sometime on the rickshaw that 1 was being vain. The men following me took a rickshaw and kept on following me. The men followed me as I went to the drugstore too. 1 felt scared as I walked on the department stores. Suddenly one of the men following me stepped infront of me and punched me in the belly. I wailed in pain as they tore off my gold chain. A few men observed the gangsters and ran for help. 1 was bleeding for they cut my wrist to get the gold bracelet off my hand.
The gangsters escaped. Some of the men from the drugstore look me to the hospital and called my parents. My dad refused to come and see me but mom came in to the hospital in tears.
You should be glad that they didn't kill you." She said crying.
I hated to see my mom cry.
"Promise me that you would be a good girl from now on.” Said my mom.
I promised as she bent and kissed me on my cheeks.