The slap

Zoha and Samar met in college, became friends and eventually fell in love. Zoha had since the beginning been the brighter one. Bright and diligent, she scored well in the examinations and had a bevy of admirers, both male, and female, at her disposal. Towards the end of their management course, during the campus placement drive, the best offer of the batch landed in Zoha's lap.

Samar, on the other hand, was destined for a long struggle entailing a series of disappointments. Every rejection brought in its wake the bitter taste of failure which after a while began to linger permanently in his mouth. Fortunately, he was endowed with patience that comes in the lot of few. He tried his best to not let the bitterness into percolate to his heart.

While Zoha minted money at her job and climbed the ladder of success at an extraordinary pace, Samar barely managed to keep his head above water. He hobbled from one odd job to another while his resume added to the horde of resumes in placement agencies. However, to his credit, he wafted through the hostile circumstances with dignity and self-assurance. He wore his two pairs of clothing crisply ironed and shoes shining. He shaved every day, trimmed his nails once a week and patronized the barber every month. Leave alone Zoha he never even asked his parents for financial assistance. His self-respect often pushed him too close to the edge. At times he skipped a meal, at other times he skipped two in a row.

One morning much to his despair, he discovered that the sole of his shoe was about to abandon it. With just eighty rupees in his pocket and three days to payday, he repaired it with a mixture of quick-glue and sand. With the money thus saved he bought his next meal and narrated to Zoha how he managed to keep his soul from abandoning his body. He made it sound like a joke and expected Zoha to appreciate the humor.

Samar’s words glanced across Zoha’s heart like a whip. She asked him why he would not let her help him out.

‘If I was in your place and you in mine, I would have asked you for money right away.’

‘Since you are the woman and I am the man that would have been the perfectly natural order of things’.

‘So it’s unnatural for a woman to help out her man financially?’

‘It’s unnatural for the man to seek alms from his woman.’

‘Alms. Really? You consider my support to be alms.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me tell you one thing. That’s not self-respect, in case you are mistaking it for that’.

‘What’s it then Mademoiselle?’

‘That’s patriarchal arrogance of supreme order’.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that your head is full of masculine shit.’

‘That’s my large intestine you are taking for my head Zoha. Did you even pass your biology examinations at school?’

‘That is not funny Samar.’

‘You don’t find anything funny nowadays. Do you? Your company has sucked up all your humor with your blood.’

‘They are paying me very well to suck my blood. Aren’t you desperately looking to hand yourself over to such well-paying bloodsuckers?’

‘Paying well doesn’t mean they own you.’

‘Listen my lunch is over. I got to go.’

‘Ok. Take care. Allah Hafiz.’

‘Allah Hafiz.’

For a long time after disconnecting the call, Samar stood rooted to his place. The magnificent Hussain Sagar with a mammoth-sized statue of Buddha in the center spread before him. Its unstill waters sparkled as sunlight bounced off its surface.

To Samar it looked like a huge gem-studded sheet hiding inaccessible treasures beneath it. Samar looked to his right and left and strode across an almost deserted Necklace road towards the sagar. As he approached it, a pungent smell emanating from the sagar hit his nostrils. He crossed over the green belt edging the larger part of sagar’s circumference and reached the railing. From close quarters the sagar lost its appeal. That bewitching water body that had lured Samar from the other side of the road suddenly ceased to bewitch. Not only was it not sparkling anymore, its bank was littered with filth.

Samar did not know what prompted him at that moment to text Zoha. Was it the instinct to shield Zoha from rotten realities behind promising exteriors or was it a desperate attempt to salvage his ego that got crushed every time Zoha’s financial superiority manifested itself, Samar would never know.

Once I get a decent job we will get married and you will not have to slave for those bloodsuckers.

No sooner did he send the message that he began to anticipate a rebuttal.

It came promptly.

Thanks but no thanks. I will continue to work. We have had this discussion a million times before. What is it that you don't get about my decision to have a career.

That was true. They had had the discussion before. In fact, Samar fully respected Zoha's wish to continue her career. He had no intention whatsoever to compel her to sit at home. Not that he would even succeed if he tried. What he couldn't get his head around was why Zoha insisted on slogging fourteen hours a day even in the future when he himself begins to earn well.

Samar had no doubt that he will soon be able to provide for Zoha comfortably. Was Zoha money minded then? Or was it her way of telling him that he will never be able to earn enough for both of them? Samar conceded with the later and felt an anger-laced sadness slither through his being.

Professional failure, it seemed, was ultimately taking a toll on the calm and composed man Zoha had fallen in love with two years ago. Even when they were not arguing, the subtexts of his speech were laced with bitterness. That was why she had started to receive Samar’s calls and messages with apprehension. But Zoha being who she was, preferred a bloody battle to a cold war any day and looked forward to Samar’s response even if with slight trepidation. The silence was what she could not take and would not take ever. She was determined to never become like her mother and let any man treat her the way her father treated her mother for all the years they lived together before he finally abandoned them five years ago.

Like most of her relatives on both sides of her family, her parents had had an arranged marriage. Before they got married her father had been in love with a girl his mother did not approve of. Although he could not counter his mother’s will, he decided to never fall in love with the girl his mother approved of. Zoha’s mother, Zakia, on her part was too proud to express her emotional needs before a man who did not care to take initiative with her. His deliberate aloofness at first soon turned into a habit for both of them.

Such a state of affairs persisted till both Zakia’s parents passed away in close succession and Zakia found herself unanchored. Grief and loneliness overpowered pride and she turned to her husband only to discover that the woman displaced by her had reclaimed her place. Her mother in law who had stood like a rock to secure her family’s reputation and had prevented her son from marrying the girl of his choice became uncharacteristically helpless in securing justice for Zakia. She flatly told Zakia that her pride was responsible for what has happened to her and there was nothing she could do in the matter.

All Zakia she now had was little Zoha. Zoha too had no one except her mother for it seemed that her father and grandmother were forever penalizing her for a crime she never committed. Perhaps they saw Zakia and Zoha as a single entity and were thus rendered incapable of treating them differently. The same silent treatment and lack of acknowledgment came in Zoha’s lot that had come in her mother’s. Twenty four-year-old Zakia and four-year old Zoha thus began to grow up together, tethered to no one and nothing except each other.

Five years ago when her grandmother passed away after living, according to Zoha, a fruitless and unnecessarily long life, her father packed his bags and moved out of their home. She came to know of her father’s second marriage from relatives. As long as he had lived with them he had paid the bills and taken care of food, medicine, and clothes. No sooner did he move out that he dispensed off those duties too.

Although he left a roof over their head, an eighteen-year-old Zoha and her professionally inexperienced mother were left to fend for themselves. Zoha took up a job at a call center where she worked the night shift and attended college during the day. Between the two occupations and long commuting, she was left with all of four hours to sleep. To her mother’s chagrin, she lost ten kilos of her weight in the first two months.

‘At this rate, you will soon become invisible Zoha’

‘Amma you have no idea what most girls would do to lose ten kilos in two months.’ Zoha laughed away at her mother’s concern.

Zakia could see that her daughter was determined to take the trials and tribulations of life in her stride. What she hadn’t realized at the time was that the tribulations too on their part were determined to test the limits of her daughter perseverance.

Three years flew by in a blink. An academically astute Zoha who would have in normal circumstances opted for masters and subsequently for research in genetics decided to cut short her way to professional life. She wrote the CAT examination and got admission in one of the best management institutes of her state.

Destiny, however, wasn't about to relent yet. A couple of days to before Zoha had to deposit her fees-which she had saved over the last three years from the paltry pay she got at the call center, her mother developed a fever. Zakia popped a couple of Crocins and waited for the fever to subside. It subsided but only to return with greater intensity after a few hours, accompanied by tiny rashes. The rashes were at first visible only on the face but within no time there appeared a jungle of red rashes all over her body and she began to throw up. Zoha placed her palm against Zakia’s forehead. It burned. The high temperature caused thin blood vessels to burst and create red patches on the whites of her eyes.

In all her life Zoha had never seen her mother so ill. Panicked and with no one to turn to for advice Zoha called a cab and took her mother to one of the most exorbitantly priced hospitals in the city. The interning doctors in the emergency room diagnosed her mother with the deadly and contingent swine flu. They gave her a mask to wear against her nose and mouth, referred her to isolation and instructed Zoha to deposit thirty thousand rupees as advance.

Panicked, desperate, lonely and utterly scared, Zoha did as she was instructed.

Inside the isolated room, a masked nurse took Zakia’s blood sample which the hospital sent for analysis to a government-owned laboratory. Zoha looked around the aesthetically furnished room. It had two beds. The one for the patient with remote controlled head and foot raise was covered with a milk-white sheet. Her mother who lay on it with closed eyes appeared to Zoha like a sleeping angel. At the same time, another thought trespassed into Zoha mind. Were her mother to leave for her heavenly abode now, this is how she would appear, waiting patiently to be placed in the grave. Zoha shunted out that thought with all her might and concentrated instead on the lovely pattern of the Jaipuri bed cover thrown over the attendant’s bed.

At the other corner of the room stood a pair of sleek sofa chairs flanking a glass topped tea table. Facing that aesthetic arrangement was a built-in writing table with wooden drawers and granite top. The room also had an AC that they would have easily done without. In the attached bathroom the tap let out a neat and thick stream of hot water 24/7 and a small package containing a mini toothpaste, mini soap bar, mini shampoo bottle, and mini comb appeared at the wash basin every morning.

The government laboratory took its time in preparing and sending the blood report. In the meanwhile, the vanities of the room swallowed Zoha's prospects of an MBA.

When the report eventually came forty- eight hours later it turned out to be negative. Her mother did not have swine flu. Nor did she have dengue, malaria or any of the other afflictions to confirm or rule out which the hospital had conducted tests worth eight thousand rupees.

‘What’s wrong with her then?’ Zoha asked the doctor when he came on his routine round followed by a swarm of interning doctors and nurses.

‘It’s measles.’

‘There hasn't been a measles test so how do you know’

‘I know from experience. I have twenty-eight years of that my dear.’

They discharged Zakia the next day. After settling the final bill Zoha who had deliberately not applied for scholarships so that needier students can avail them was left with just twenty thousand rupees in her bank account. There wasn't going to be an MBA. Not that year at least.

The lump of helplessness suspended in her throat since last three days slowly transformed into a knot of anger and settled heavily on her heart. She had been robbed. She had been conned. The doctor with twenty-eight years of experience would appear in her dreams and she would wake up enraged. Despite the emotional despair she thanked Allah for having her mother back at home and tried her best to not let her frail mother notice her despair and dejection. But notice Zakia did and pulled her little one in her arms. Zoha buried her head in her mother’s bosom and again thanked Allah.

That evening their neighbors Mrs. and Mr. Singh dropped in to ask after Zakia and came to Zoha’s predicament. They offered Zoha a loan of forty thousand rupees with a payback window of six months, that was, just in time for their daughter’s marriage.

As soon as they left Zoha made some quick calculations. She calculated how much she could save from her call center job and concluded that she will have to live on the edge if she were to save for next semester, pay back the loan and survive too on the mere eighteen thousand that the job gets her. Although her mother dissuaded her she took the giant leap and joined the MBA course.

Soon the going got tough. A month into the grueling twenty-hour college-office schedule Zoha realized the folly of her decision. Zoha eventually realized that she had burdened herself with more than what she could cope with without breaking her back. Retrieving her steps was not an option Zoha had. She continued to toil while her frail frame creaked under the psychological and physical burden. Soon the whites of her eyes turned pale and she lost more weight. Zoha barely noticed the change in her appearance. It was Zakia whose heart ached upon seeing her daughter become thin and pale.

As much as Zakia wanted to she did not pester Zoha to eat more. Zoha’s frequent temperamental outbursts had begun to scare Zakia and she was always careful not to trigger one. Zakia largely blamed herself for her daughter’s condition. She blamed herself in too many ways for that.

Zoha traveled in the rickety public buses surrounded by tired, solemn and sweaty people who were either struggling their way up like Zoha or those who had called it a day. The struggles of the latter category were not about moving up the ladder but surviving the rickety ride at that rung itself. In moments of despair, it appeared to Zoha that she would forever be stuck at the same rung, in the vicious circle of the struggle for survival. In moments like those, her heart became heavy with regrets and grievances.

It was such a Zoha , Samar had met when he joined college five weeks after classes had started. His name had appeared only at the end of the third list. It had taken Samar just a couple of days to realize that Zoha was the brightest of the lot and therefore the right person to seek help from. Calm, confident, untouched by complexes Samar walked up to Zoha one day after class. He introduced himself and told her the tale of his academic inadequacy which was responsible for his late admission.

Zoha soon began to help him with notes that he would take one day and return the next day. Their little exchange took place every day after class in a corridor brimming with students. Standing there Zoha hurriedly ate her meal of subzi paratha while Aabshar tried to make small talk to which Zoha responded with courteous coldness. Samar soon began to walk her to the college gate where she would her bus to the office. One day Samar bought two glasses of tea from the tea vendor by the college gate. Zoha, although a bit taken aback accepted the tea and sipped away quietly.

From that day onwards Samar awaited all day for his two minutes of tea tryst. Zoha’s calculated coldness could not sustain for long before Samar’s warm disposition. To her own amazement, Zoha began to drift towards Samar.

Zoha drifted towards Samar just as a battle wrecked ship drifts towards calm shores.

As their friendship grew Zoha felt dreariness lifting from her heart. She began to experience a lightness she hadn't in months. Although Samar had many adorable qualities it was his ability to listen without being judgemental that won Zoha over. Before Samar she could unleash the reservoirs of insecurities and regrets locked away in her heart. ‘In time everything will fall in place. You are a very brave girl Zoha’ Samar would say and restore Zoha’s faith in herself. And wither restored faith she would take one more stroke in the ocean of adversities spread before her. Now, three years later, like dutiful slaves of circumstances both of them, had begun to change. Their roles had reversed and Samar seemed incapable of accepting the altered status quo. To Zoha it appeared that her love was proving too weak to keep Samar tethered to her while the winds of adversity raged over him.

Zoha’s phone beeped as she emerged from her manager’s cabin. Instinctively knowing that it was Samar messaging her she dipped a shaky hand into her pocket and fished out her phone. It was a single long message from Samar indeed. Zoha halted midway to read it.

It read: You ask me what I don’t get about your decision to have a career. Well, that’s secondary. What I don’t get is your attitude and arrogance. You have no respect for anyone. You don’t respect me. You don’t respect my mother. You are arrogant and money minded. Your success has gone into your head. You believe I cannot earn enough for both of us.

When Zoha resumed walking towards her cubicle she realized that just like her hands her legs were shaking too. Once inside her cubicle she allowed herself to drop on her revolving chair. In response, it creaked loudly enough for Manish in the adjoining cubicle to pop up from his chair and stick his head into Zoha’s.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes Manish. Thank you.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes. Thanks.’

Manish persisted in that position for a while before backing off. If Zoha were Manish she would have witnessed in that small well lit cubicle a girl with a bewildered pale face ready to burst into tears any moment.

Zoha leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She waited for her heartbeats to normalize and shaking f limbs to subside even as the events that had unfolded in previous days played before her eyes.

She had just arrived in the office on the previous Monday when her manager Tahir Khan called her into his cabin. Midway his one way and rather detailed communication about the upcoming appraisal Khan gently placed his hand on Zoha's. She instinctively drew it back and when she looked up at his face she noticed an unmistakably sly smile lingering at the corner of his mouth. She immediately got up and left his office, naively assuming that she had made herself clear to him and he would not repeat the inappropriate behavior. That was not to be.

Three uneventful days later Khan once again summoned Zoha into his cabin and made clear to Zoha that his intentions have not been derailed. This time took his malicious agenda many notches up. As soon as she entered his cabin he bolted the door and pushed her against the wall. Standing mortified between Khan and his wall Zoha looked him straight in the eye and asked him what he wants.

‘It’s not about what I want. It’s about what you want my dear.’

‘I don’t get you’. Zoha said even as she unsuccessfully tried to wriggle out of his grip.

It’s very simple. Your appraisal is in my hands. You make me happy. I will make you happier. The gain is all yours. But you stay adamant and I will ruin your career.’ That said he let her go.

‘This is not the last company in the world. I would rather resign than trade my dignity.’

‘Fresher candidates like you are found a dime a dozen. Don't you know what the job market is like now Zoha’

Tears welled up behind Zoha’s closed eyes. When a couple of them rolled down her cheek she wiped them with the back of her hand. Then she took four sips of water from her bottle, settled her wayward hair took a deep breath and got up from her chair.

Zoha walked straight into the office of Anirudh Sinha, the HR manager. Sinha was a man worth his job. Warm, patient and compassionate Sinha did a fine job of striking a balance between the employees as well as between employees and the management. Zoah fought back tears as she narrated him her ordeal. He listened patiently, nodding his head in empathy at appropriate junctures. When Zoha's desperate attempt to not cry before Sinha failed and she burst into tears he bent forward and offered her a pack of tissues. Then he got up from his seat and poured Zoha a glass of water.

‘Would you like to have some tea?’

‘No Sir, thank you.’

‘Coffee perhaps.’

‘No thank you, sir, nothing at all.’

Sinha walked back to his chair and placed himself gently on it. Then he placed his chin in his hands and sat in a contemplative position for what seemed to Zoha like an eternity. Then he shifted in his chair and cleared his throat.

‘You see it’s very unfortunate but there isn't much that can be done without evidence. You see he is a very senior member of the staff while you are just fresher under probation. The management will never believe your word against him.’

‘This is not fair sir’

‘Who said that the world was meant to be a fair place?’ Sinha said in a sage-like voice.

Having attained such profound wisdom Zoha got up and walked out of his office without so much as a goodbye.

Back in her cubicle and badly wounded Zoha took out her phone and read Samar’s message again.

You ask me what I don’t get about your decision to have a career. Well, that’s secondary. What I don’t get is your attitude and arrogance. You have no respect for anyone. You don’t respect me. You don’t respect my mother. You are arrogant and money minded. Your success has gone into your head. You believe I cannot earn enough for both of us.

Zoha composed a one-line reply: I am leaving my job with immediate effect.

Samar who had just unlocked his phone and was composing a message of apology in his mind was stunned to receive such a reply from Zoha. The Zoha he knew was supposed to not talk to him for two days after receiving a message like that. He wondered what has come over her.

What happened all of a sudden?

Zoha told him what happened.

How can you quit just like that Zoha? How can you lose so easily? What happened to Zoha who refused to cow down before anyone. Leave your job I will happily fend for both of us but not like this.

What should I do but?

Do what you do best. Fight for your rights.

After her conversation with Samar ended a hundred outrageous ideas started to race through her mind. As they vied with each other she weighed each of them against effectiveness and practicality. At long last, she stood up, inhaled till her lungs could take no more and then exhaled slowly through her mouth as she walked towards the cabin of Tahir Khan.

Standing outside his door her heart seemed to have stopped. She pushed open the door, he was not in. At once relieved and disappointed Zoha turned around to come face to face with office boy Shantanu.

‘Sir is downstairs in TT room’

‘Thanks’

Zoha was sure Shantanu had noticed the quiver in her voice as she thanked him for his gaze lingered on her longer than usual. It was a gaze laced with concern. It was a gaze Zoha would never be able to thank Shantanu for but one she will remember for her lifetime. Zoha marveled at what the simplest of gestures can mean to one shrouded in a blanket of insecurities. She walked downstairs, acutely aware of her vulnerability as well as the enormity of what she was about to do.

As she walked towards the TT room familiarly garrulous laughter greeted her. Once at the entrance, her eyes first fell on Khan and then on his opponent who at the moment had his back towards Zoha. It was none other than the charming and enigmatic Anirudh Sinha. A fire raged through Zoha. Khan paused midway in his service as he saw Zoha. Sinha turned around too. Walking towards Khan Zoha gave Sinha one long look and then averted her gaze in a manner that unmistakably conveyed disgust.

‘You wanted my answer. I am here to give my answer.’ Zoha said in a low tone.

‘Surely I did not expect it to be so fast. Please give me the honor of getting the answer explicitly’ Khan whispered as he tilted towards Zoha. He had the same cunning hint of a smile lingering at the corner of his mouth.

Zoha took a step back, stretched the palm of her right hand, raised her forearm and then fluidly swished it across making a neat albeit invisible stroke in the air. Her palm came in thundering contact with Khan clean shaven left cheek. The slap that felt like lightning to Khan, resounded across the TT room which was, in fact, a hall.

‘Although I am sure I have stated my stand explicitly let me state it verbally too. I will not sleep with you in exchange of a positive appraisal report. Is that clear to you?’ Zoha said loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it. To Khan’s chagrin there were more than half a dozen witnesses to his epic humiliation.

Khan stood shell shocked as Zoha glided out of the room like a queen who has just tasted victory.

When Zoha opened her Whatapp to update Samar on what she had done a message from Samar was already awaiting her. She opened it. It was a list of job openings in various companies including some in which Samar had himself applied. That effectively made them competitors. The nervousness harbingered by sudden unemployment was immediately overcome by the relief that Zoha’s fears about Samar turning into the typical egoistic male were after all unfounded.

‘Oh Samar what will I do without you.’

‘Tell me how it went with you.’

‘I have slapped Khan. In full public view.’

‘Slapped? Really?’

‘What a gratifying slap it was Samar. Oh you had to see his face. I should have clicked his picture to show our children. There is no question of continuing here now. But I will now leave with my head held high.’

‘You actually slapped him?’

‘Yes I did. You only told me no?’

‘When did I tell you to slap him?’

‘You said do what you do best. Didn’t you?’

‘Slapping is the best you do?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘In that case I think I didn’t know you fully.’

‘Not to worry. Two unemployed people will have all the time in the world to know each other. You know we will have the most unique wedding card in the world. It will read Unemployed weds Unemployed.’

‘But what if we don’t like what we come to know.’

‘What kind of a question is that? We know each other well enough to have fallen in love.’

‘I loved what I knew of you. But Khan’s episode has revealed an all new side to you. I am not sure if I will be able to love that side of you. ‘

‘You only told me to fight for my right.’

‘Fighting for your right doesn’t mean being violent and aggressive.’

‘I have an idea. I will learn tight rope balancing and practice it in all spheres of my life. Then I will neither lose nor over-win.’

‘Stop being sarcastic now. I said I didn’t like that side of your personality but I will still try loving you.’

‘Oh! Don’t bother, just don’t bother. Find yourself a goat instead. Peaceful. Useful. Manageable.’