Yasemin And Nirmala: A tale of two teens[1]

Yasemin McGinty-Mahsud

“Today you are you!

That is truer than true!

There is no one alive

who is you-er than you!”[2]

The car was plunging, plunging into the ravine! OMG! Where are Abu-jaan and mom? Sikander, Sikander! Move! I can’t move, can’t move, can’t …

Yasemin abruptly sat up in bed. A scream had woken her up.

“Yas! Yas! I’m here, sweetheart!”

Jennifer McGinty rushed into her daughter’s bedroom and hugged her.

“It’s alright, darling, just a nightmare.”

“But the scream! Don’t tell me. It was me, wasn’t it? Again? When will this stop, mom?”

Yasemin couldn’t control her tears much longer. Her mother’s patient and loving arms kept her safe from the dreadful images of the accident.

 “Come, darling! Time to get ready. Come downstairs when you’re ready.”

Yasemin smiled, reached for a tissue to blow her nose, and got up. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror. OMG! … I’ll be fifteen in a week! Thought it would feel different somehow. Does it? She looked at her face, then down at her body. Plenty of change there. She smiled, remembering the visit to MACY’S in Marshall Field with her mother to buy sexy bras. The fuchsia-colored lacy ones were really cool. And the matching panties. Wonder what Jeremy will …

Yasemin’s glance went to her left arm, to its destruction three years before. Those months of physical therapy after surgery still haunted her. And then the day had come when Doctor Varghese had fitted her with a permanent prosthetic. It had all been very complicated, with laser scans and other stuff. Then had come the dreadful physical therapy. Dr. Varghese had never once lost his sense of humor. She had to grin at the memory. The doctor had put on his most solemn expression and asked her, pointing to the prosthetic around which the nurse had tied a red bow, and which sported all kinds of signatures from her family and friends:

“Wilt thou, Ms. Yasemin McGinty-Mahsud, love thine arm, comfort it, honor and keep it, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all other arms keep thee only unto it as long as …”

And Yasemin had jumped in:

“… as long as a bionic arm with veins and nerves hasn’t been invented!”

They had laughed and laughed, Dr. Varghese’s guffaw shaking his belly AND the hospital bed. With his generous salt-and-pepper beard, he really resembled Santa – a dark-chocolate-brown Santa. After checking the temporary prosthetic, he had finally said:

“By the healing powers vested in me by the State of Illinois, I now pronounce thee body and arm! Thou mayest kiss the … ahem …”

Yasemin had solemnly touched a finger to her lips and planted a kiss on the prosthetic.

“I’m waiting,” Dr. Varghese had said.

“For what?”

“For a name.”

“A name?”

“Aren’t you going to give your beautiful new arm a name?”

She had grinned, then sighed.

“I don’t know yet, Doctor V. Have to think about it.”

Yasemin got up and took her arm out of the cupboard. Her very own Medusa. She had spent hours in the library searching for a suitable name. An illustrated book on Greek mythology had caught her attention. The cover showed Medusa, the one Homer chose from the three Gorgon sisters, the one who turned everybody who looked at her to stone.

She showered, applied a special lotion to the stump and massaged the skin with her right hand. She grimaced. There it was – the phantom pain. Dr. Varghese had told her that the pain would feel as if it were coming from her missing limb, although the arm was not there any longer.

“It is a post-amputation phenomenon.”

“But how … I don’t have an arm. Can’t be …”

The doctor had smiled and patted her arm.

“It’s not a figment of your imagination. These are real sensations that originate in your spinal cord and brain.”

She was getting much better at controlling the pain now. POST-AMPUTATION PHENOMENON. She no longer capitalized new meaningful words. But this term haunted her. I’ll capitalize only words that are really intriguing or have a positive connotation! Otherwise, it will only exacerbate the whole situation. EXACERBATE. She slowly hissed the word out with her tongue, stressing every vowel, every consonant. The nightmares were not that frequent.

It was three years since the accident. She could still hear Abu-jaan’s[3] desperate shouts as their car’s brakes had failed, and they had crashed through the protective rails into the valley below. Luckily, they had managed to get out of the car before it exploded. She had thought that it was a miracle that only she had been injured – she had left her arm behind in the flames. No one else had been hurt. But Abu-jaan and Mom had been devastated that she had been singled out. Their family vacation in the Southern Indian hill station of Udagamandalam had come to a disastrous halt. And all memories of the beautiful woods in the hills and valleys of this town that had led the British Raj to compare it with Switzerland were erased. Did it HAVE to be my arm? A blow to the head, being in a COMA – that was so much more dramatic than being disfigured for life!

Yasemin picked up Medusa III (the other two had broken down or outlived their usefulness, and given a decent burial in the backyard) and expertly fitted her into the socket of her arm. Yes, you will turn any boy who looks at you to stone. Jeremy, the boy across the street – she imagined him turned to stone. Will he look like one of those Greek statues? She blushed as she remembered Michelangelo’s David. She stood in front of her open closet. On her thirteenth birthday, she had told Abu-jaan and mom that she wanted to try out being a covering Muslim girl. Her parents had looked at one other, surprise written all over their faces.

“Where … how did you …”

“Well …” she had responded in what she presumed was a mature, adult way. “I’ve been learning a lot about world religions in our World History class. And … and Islam APPEALS to me. The ‘FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM’ covers a lot that’s important: it refers to … to PROMOTING what’s right and to stopping what’s wrong. And it talks about helping the poor. And …”

(She had capitalized every word that she considered to be important)

Her mother had taken her daughter’s hands in hers.

“You said ‘try’. And that is what we …”

She had looked at her husband, who had nodded with a smile.

“… we as your parents have taught you kids. Make your choices, but make them wisely, after giving them a lot of thought. As for Islam, I am sure your teachers are telling you that there are many paths to the divine, or to enlightenment.”

“Yes, mom,” she had replied, surprised at her parents’ understanding. “So, you’re not upset that I have chosen Abu’s religion?”

Her father had gently cupped her face in his hands.

“Islam is not a birthright, my love. I have never stopped questioning and learning, and you must do the same, whether the path has posters reading Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or Jainism or Judaism or … there are so many other paths that are less well-known, but they also exist.”

And then her mother had said something that had made her cringe.

“Just a word of caution, sweetheart! If the Qur’an’s reference to modest dress is the reason for your wanting to cover yourself, then … then it’s your choice.”

She had looked very pointedly at Medusa. Her mother had this uncanny ability to read her like an open book.

That was two years ago. But her mother’s words had lost none of their ability to sting. Yasemin would have willingly worn a burka, anything to hide Medusa.

Was mom hinting at this, that Islam’s clothing guidelines were really a pretext for covering Medusa?

She had convinced herself that being a misfit was intolerable. She had felt isolated. And then Mariam had happened. Her neighbor across the street. Mariam wore a hijab when leaving home, but always took it off in school; her mother never ventured out of the house without a niqab. Yasemin had cornered Mariam the following day on their street – Mariam’s family lived across the street from Yasemin’s:

“Hey Mariam! About your … your hijab.”

“What about it?”

“Why do you wear it?”

“Why? Well, I don’t know. I just do. It’s kind of … like … a family thing. Ammi-jaan wears it, all the females in our family do! I guess it’s like … tradition … or something.”

“So, you don’t wear it to be modest? You do take it off in school.”

“Hey! Don’t tell my Ammi, Yasemin. She’d have a fit.”

Yasemin had smiled.

“Of course not. But when you’re not in school, you wear those long-sleeved shirts and rather baggy pants or long skirts. I mean, don’t you want to wear something like … like what some of the girls buy from American Apparel or … or Abercrombie & Fitch? Like Crop Tops or Sheer Mesh Blouses …”

“Hold it!” Mariam had shushed. “Ammi-jaan would never allow it. And it has to do with the hadiths.”

“You read the Quran?”

“Bits of it,” Mariam had admitted, “what Ammi-jaan or Abu tell us to read. Like … certain Surahs. And I listen in the mosque to the prayers, of course.”

She had looked at Yasemin curiously, and added:

“You … why all these questions? What are you? Muslim or … or Christian … or something else?”

Just then, Mariam’s mother had joined them, clad in her usual niqab.

“Come in, Mariam. It’s time for Maghrib.”[4]

Mariam’s question about Muslim or Christian – so, it’s an either/or thing … or is it a neither/nor case?

“Well, I don’t care.”

She had desperately continued to wear a hijab. The kids in her class got used to the hijab, some even finding it cool. And the school uniform that allowed long-sleeved shirts reduced everything else to a common denominator.

Resolutely pushing out of the way the nagging doubts that her mother had so cleverly injected into her, Yasemin opened her closet and looked now at the shelf with a stack of loose, long-sleeved shirts in every hue and texture.

“They ought to keep Medusa safely covered.”

What to wear? This was the second week of High School. There were no dress regulations. Uniforms were out. Every day was torture now. Everything in the closet marked her as a misfit. She hadn’t thought it would be this difficult. She could almost the whispers of ‘she looks kinda bunchy’ from the others in her class.  It was so easy for the other girls in her class, for her BFF Natalie. Of course, they just had to walk into the nearest Forever 21 or Abercrombie & Fitch, and there were dozens of choices for something appropriate AND cool. Yasemin sighed and chose yet another short skirt to layer over tight pants, and a loose, long-sleeved shirt. A matching hijab completed her choice.

“I’m beyond caring,” she told herself. But that was not quite true.

“Who am I kidding? I care … desperately!”

She dressed and looked at herself in front of a full-length mirror. The reflection showed a girl who stood at 5’4” with waist-length straight long black hair. Her deep-set chocolate brown eyes stared back at her rather impudently. Yes, she liked her eyes. Her nose? “Aquiline” is what her paternal granddad had called it; “Roman” was her Abu-jaan’s pronouncement. For younger brother Sikander, it was a ‘beak.’ She herself thought of it as ‘hooked,’ which wasn’t that complimentary either. What else? Oh yes, her mouth. Rather full, the upper lip straight. Abu-jaan’s friend had once commented on her high cheekbones, saying that they lent an intriguing accent to her face. Intriguing? She laughed hollowly. What did it mean?

She peered more closely at her face. OMG! A zit!

“That’s all I need to absolutely ruin the day.”

 She hurriedly looked for the concealer. Just a dab should do it. Hopefully, it would go away overnight! She stuck her tongue out at the light brown face in the mirror. Then her eyes fell on her right arm. Those long fingers … they had been her pride until … until Medusa happened.

“Now I can’t even paint my nails myself.”

 Tears of self-pity flooded those soft brown eyes.

“Yas!” her Mom’s voice brought her back with a jerk to the present. “Are you ready? Please hurry!”

Yasemin picked up her backpack, took a deep breath, and went downstairs. Jennifer looked at her, her brow creasing with worry. Had she herself been this insecure as a teen? Most certainly. There was no escaping the insecurities, the fears and anxieties of adolescence.

“Sweetheart, would you make sure Sikander remembers to take his lunch? Today is Friday, no school lunch.”

“Yes, mom.”

She felt a sharp pain beneath her left breast.

“Breathe! Breathe!” she told herself.

She shouted:

“Sikander! Get your stuff together, little brother!”

“Oh ****!” came a cussword from the next bedroom.

“Watch your language, little brother,” Yasemin cautioned.

“Will you stop calling me that?”

Sikander shot out of his room, ran down two steps at a time, roughly shoved the lunch box into his backpack, grabbed his soccer gear, and rushed out of the house.

“Temper, temper!” Yasemin shouted as she picked up her own backpack. She looked around for her father.

“Abu-jaan? My headscarf, please!”

Iftikhar Mahsud took the matching head scarf his daughter was holding and tied it around her head.

“Don’t worry … about Sikander, I mean.”

“But Abu, he’s such a pain! You know what? He and I – we used to do things together, like … like watching movies. But he’s been avoiding me, Abu.”

“Jaanam,[5] listen to me. Have you ever thought about the impact your accident has had on him?” 

“On him, Abu? But that’s … that’s absurd! He didn’t …”

“… lose an arm,” Abu finished. “Have you ever thought about how your loss would have affected him?”

Yasemin froze.

“Yasemin, you were severely injured. Your mother and I – you know that we blamed ourselves. And I’m sure Sikander shared the blame too. You occupied center-stage. Nobody really bothered about him – or so he must have thought.”

“Oh my god! Abu, that’s dreadful. I … I didn’t realize …”

“Yeah,” her father agreed, as he tied the hijab. “Just so you understand.”

“Thanks, Abu.”

How could I have been so damn insensitive? Have to go to him, talk …

Yasemin picked up her bag, slung it over her right shoulder, and ran outside. The school bus drove up. Driver Kyra Mitchell blew the horn twice. A mix of grades from middle and high school ran towards the bus, among them Mariam and Salim from the Ahmad house, Jung-sook and Dakshina from the home of Madhu Singhania and Barbara McDonald, Yasemin’s best friend Natalie Polastri from one of the new condos at the end of their street, and Devorah, Esther, and … and Jeremy from old Mr. Cohen’s house. She felt a tightening in her chest. “It’s hormonal, that’s what it is. It isn’t as if he were Prince Charming and I …” She laughed at herself. “… and I the damsel in distress!” He hadn’t shown any signs of interest in her, so why … why pursue the whole thing? Was it just infatuation? It had to be. She couldn’t even look in his direction – he always sat at the back of the bus – without trembling.

Natalie pulled her long brown hair into a ponytail as she whispered:

“You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Wha… what?”

“Where are you, girl? You have that look … Old Navy has a sale, a massive sale! We have to go – today! Saw their ads for amazing sleeveless tops!”

She bit her tongue.

“Hey! They also have tons of long-sleeved smocked-yoke shirts and … and …”

Yasemin placed her right hand over her friend’s mouth.

“Oh, shut up! Don’t need your pity!”

Natalie looked away. Her best friend was increasingly distancing herself. What was going on? It had to be a boy, but which one?

“Can’t be anyone from our class. I would have known. So, a Junior or Senior.”

She looked around and to the back rows of the bus where the juniors and seniors usually sat. Which one?

She stopped and glanced at her friend. Yasemin was staring out of the window.

“What?” Yasemin said, plonking herself on the seat next to her friend. “What is it?”

Natalie sighed.

“Knucklehead! Your head is in the clouds nowadays. You don’t remember? Really? The play! Mr. Glor said we’d be choosing one for our end-of-the-year celebration. Hey! What’s up?”

“I forgot!”

Yasemin’s face fell. She hadn’t forgotten. It was just that she knew she wouldn’t be in the cast.

How many plays had cripples in them?

She’d never forget the day, a couple of years ago, when Abu-jaan had talked about Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of Richard III. The king was supposed to have been a crippled hunchback. She had begun to read the play, but had got bogged down by the weird English. She supposed she’d have to wait a few more years. Actually, something on that first page of the play had struck a chord.

Have to write them down. Did they really talk like this? Well, these words apply to me too!

“But I, – that am not shap’d for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time

Into this breathing world scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.”[6]

‘…unfinish’d.’

“I’m ‘unfinish’d.”

Most of the kids in her neighborhood couldn’t stop talking about Into the Woods, that ‘Once Upon a Time’ story with so many fairytales blended into one. It was a musical. That would be a lot of fun. But they’d need ‘finish’d’ people. Even the wolf was ‘finish’d’. She thought of the film adaptation the family had seen with Anna Kendrick as Cinderella.

“Meryl Streep as the witch! Really awesome. And Chris Pine as the prince – so hot! But there’s nothing for girls like me. Even a witch has to have all her limbs. And no princess is ever a CRIPPLE, is she? No, of course not. So unfair! The world’s so unfair!”

 Her eyes filled with tears of self-pity.

The day didn’t seem to want to end. The moment the bus stopped in front of her home, Sikander jumped out, rushed in, and bolted to the basement. Yasemin followed slowly, formulating and reformulating what she would say to him.

“Sikander?”

He looked up from his phone.

“What? What have I done now?”

Yasemin walked up to him. She looked around her. Her brother had transformed it into a kind of man-cave. There was even a futon. And against one of the walls was a long table with a net in the middle.

“This is cozy,” Yasemin said, squatting on a big cushion. “Remember how we used to play table-tennis?”

“Yup.”

Sikander took out his phone and pretended to check messages.

“Sikander, listen to me. You and I – we don’t do much together anymore, do we?”

Sikander looked up and scowled, but kept quiet. Yasemin continued:

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m a selfish you-know-what.”

She heard a soft laugh. Wow! I’m getting through to him.

She got up.

“Hey! Up for a game? I can still beat you, with Medusa tied behind my back.”

This time, the laugh was loud. Sikander jumped up.

“You wish.”

They rushed to the table and picked up the rackets.

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[1] All the main characters in the novel live in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Present time.

[2] The quotes in each chapter heading are taken from Seussical, a musical by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and based on the children’s stories of Dr. Seuss, with most of its plot based on Horton Hears a Who! (http://www.playbill.com/article/lynn-ahrens-and-stephen-flahertys-seussical-to-run-at-londons-arts-theatre-for-christmas-com-198201)

[3] “Father” in Urdu.

[4] Just after the sun goes down, Muslims remember God again as the day begins to come to a close. (https://www.learnreligions.com/islamic-prayer-timings-2003811)

[5] A term of endearment in Hindi and Urdu. The closest equivalent would be “darling.”

[6] William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III, Act I, Scene 1.