The Naked Woman

 By Dr. F. Chaudhry

15 min read

I was hardly five-year-old when India was granted independence and partitioned. I had three siblings, two sisters and one brother. I was the youngest. We migrated to the Pakistan side of the Punjab province and settled down in a small town of Batpur, which was 127 miles from the provincial capital. We were lucky to have a terrace house of a reasonable size in the town and 31 acres of cropland about four miles away. This was the maximum the refugees were entitled to get in that district. The rest of the entitlement could be allotted in a different district. But, as my father, a reclusive man, did not like to bribe rehabilitation officers nor did he ask someone influential to help, we had to be content with what we were given. (It took nine more years before we got the rest of the arable land about eighty miles from the town).

Before long, I started going to a primary school run by the local authority, which was in a building converted from the Sikhs’ worship place called Gurdwara. It was just a few minutes’ walk from our house.

I still cast my mind back to the period when I was in the primary school. Sometimes, our class was held under the shade of a big oriental jujube fruit tree. One could see that a tiny goldish ripe fruit was hanging low or dropped near you. For a five or six- year old child it was an irresistible temptation to pluck it or pick it up and put it in his watering mouth. But you would not dare to touch it let alone eat it. Any attempt to do that would entail instant punishment, which could be to sit upright on the brick floor, bend the body forward, raise the bottom, position your both the arms under the legs and hold your ears with the hands.  It was one of the harshest corporal punishment which was in vogue at that time and probably still is extant.

 When I was in the last year, we were given a classroom. It had three windows with iron bars from which we could peep outside. Our teacher, 5’ 4’’ tall with Balbo beard and wearing a tailed turban, was also a refugee.  His son was in the same class, who was treated without any favour. Rather, he was meted out more than normal share of the punishment.

Our teacher had a goat which he or his son would bring with them but kept it outside in the street securely tied with the window bar. One of the pupils would do the goat-sitting on the window sill.

I remember vividly a man with grey beard, called Ahmadu, would come to our house to see my father. He was much older than my father. He was known to our family back from India where he used to run a grocery shop in a village a few miles from our place. My father and Ahmadu would indulge in nostalgic and abiding memories.  During summer my father would ask me or my brother to bring yogurt drink for Ahmadu. In winter he would be served tea which he would slurp. Sometimes, my father would insist him to stay for

the supper. During the crop season my father would send my brother to ask Ahmadu to pick up grain from our house. Mostly, I would accompany my brother. On some occasions my father would pay cash to him. Whenever we visited him, he would ask us to come in, but my brother always declined.

During and after the partition, Ahmadu did not have a run of good luck. There was killing spree on both sides of the border. His wife was killed on their way to the new country. Most of the relatives and fellow villagers were killed too. He and his sixteen-year-old daughter miraculously survived by playing possum. He lost his money and jewellery.

In the new country, Ahmadu could only get a mud house in the outskirts of the town. He had a donkey and would sell grocery in the villages around the town. His daughter’s name was Shanoo, which literally meant glamour. Back in India she had passed her secondary school examination and intended to go to a college in the town near their village.

Of all the woes which Ahmadu had, the worst to boot was that his daughter who, during the migration ordeal, had witnessed the horrific scenes, including the murders of her mother and many relatives, was so much traumatised that she was no longer in her sound state of mind. She would be near normal for a few days and then back to the condition when she would coop up in her room, sit idly with icy stare and speak sparingly. If she did talk it would be about her mother.   In the town or in the district, there was not any specialist doctor to treat her. The nearest place he could take her was the provincial capital, which he could not afford. He had compromised with the fait accompli. It was his kismet, he believed.

Things were moving apace. I was permitted to go alone to Ahmadu’s house to run the errands. On one occasion my mother gave me some clothes to be delivered to Shanoo, which were worn only once. I knocked on the rickety door. Ahmadu opened it and asked me to enter. I went in for the first time. Shanoo was sitting on a cot.  Her father introducing me told her my name. She looked at me and asked:

“Do you mind if I call you just Little?”

“Not at all. You can call me by whatever name you like,” I answered tenderly.

Then she noticed a packet under my axilla, and asked:

“Little, have you brought something for me?”

“Yes Shanoo, I ‘ve brought a dress for you,” I replied softly.

I handed the packet over to her. She opened it, saw the dress and went tonto. She threw it on the dusty floor and blustered:

“Little, tell your mummy I don’t like used clothes. In fact, I don’t like to wear any clothes.”

After a minute or two her feelings simmered down a bit, she went to her room and bolted it from inside.

My mother bought new clothes and I took them to Shanoo next time. After looking at it, she was euphoric. She went inside the room and wore them. She had beatific smile on her face and looked very pretty.

With the passage of time, Shanoo was getting prettier. The central parts of her cheeks, which deeply dimpled, looked as if the blood would seep through them any moment.  She had refulgent eyes. Her long hairs, often unkept, had turned into crimson colour due to some chemical reaction with the dust. Her upper lip was slightly exposed.

I was in my last year at the primary school. During my visits to Shanoo’s house she would talk to me in a friendly manner.  

On one occasion she asked me:

“Little, in which class are you studying?”

After I told her she added:

“You know back in India I’s a student as well. I’d completed my secondary school education and I’s about to go to the college”.

It looked that there was nothing wrong with her.

 After having quite sensible conversation, she relapsed and drawled:

“I’m sorry, I’ve to go and get ready. My mother might be coming home soon.”

 She entered her room and became quiescent.

Ahmadu said:

“This’s what she does. Sometimes, for weeks she talks sensible things. Back in India she was a bubbly girl. I prayed for her recovery, but of no avail. I’ve given it up. In fact, I’m losing my faith in prayers. To be honest I’m turning into an atheist. I don’t say it in public.

More years passed.  There was no improvement in Shanoo’s condition, rather it deteriorated.  There was a couple next door, who had three young children. They were poor as well. The husband would go to the forest about two miles away and collect wood fuel to be sold in the town. His wife, a compassionate woman, would help Shanoo, who now and then would go berserk.

I moved to the high school, which was about fifteen- minute walk from our house on the other side of the town. It was also run by the local authority. The children from our side of the town would avoid passing through the main bazaar. Instead, we would take short cuts through the side- streets.

One day when I was coming back from the school, I saw Shanoo, with tousled hairs and completely naked, squirreling around in a side- street. Some pack of noisy children were frolicking around her. I pushed them aside.  I went close to her and shouted:

“Shanoo“.

On seeing me, she stood stock-still for a few seconds, hung back against the wall, gaped at me stonily and got out of trance state in a trice. She cowered in shame, bent forward and doing a facepalm murmured:

“Little, what’ve I done?”

A woman from the house nearby gave me a bed sheet. I donned her with it and rushed pell-mell to her house. She was blubbering like a baby.

Ahmadu told me that when she had a bout of relapse, she would not listen to me nor the neighbourly woman.  She would repeatedly say that she was going to fetch her mother.

I told my parents the incident. They were sad and subdued.

As it was a small town, people sympathised both Ahmadu and Shanoo. But they were helpless. Even if they had collected money by crowdfunding, it was not easy to take her to the provincial capital for treatment.

 The children stopped booing her.

 Occasionally during summer, when completely naked, instead of going straight to the side streets, she would turn left and saunter to the canal close to her house. It flowed by the southern side of the town. Sometimes, after swimming she would get out on the other side of the canal and sprawled on the sward.  A few meters from the edge of the canal there was the grand trunk road. Though, in between the canal and the road there were bushes and trees, but due to some blank spots the motorists could gaze at her and bemused.  

Ahmadu was getting frailer with speed.

I passed my secondary school examination and got admission in the college, which was twenty -seven miles from our town.  I lived in the boarding house and would come home almost every weekend.

Due to some tests, I did not return home until the Xmas vacations. My father broke two devastating news.

 Ahmadu had passed away and from her appearance it looked that Shanoo was pregnant. She was raped.

No one would dare to claim responsibility for the hugely bestial act. The news got around in the town. The woman next door had taken over the responsibility to look after Shanoo. Beside my father, there were more people who contributed to her looking after.  From thence she was effectively restrained from venturing out even if properly dressed let alone naked.

On the other side of the town, there was a couple in their sixties and had no child. The man was a respectable and munificent businessman. They were not refugees but were early settlers. Those people were called locals. Just out of blue, the man offered to adopt Shanoo as his daughter.  He had a big house. His wife came and persuaded Shanoo to accompany her to her house. The couple engaged two maids, who would monitor her all the time. They would make it sure that she would wear proper clothes and would not tear them off. She would eat well on time.

She gave birth to a healthy boy. He was named Hasan.

Shanoo was taken to the provincial capital for treatment. By regular visits to the consultant, there was let up in her mental illness. She started talking to her baby-son and was able to feed him.

Our family were devastated when my mother died of breast cancer aged about fifty. My father was fifty-five. After a year or so, people suggested to him to marry again. He bluntly refused. He had monomania on the issue of facilitating his children’s education.  My brother did M.Sc. (Economics) and got a job as a lecturer in a college. I was sent to London for further studies. Under the country’s State Bank rules, the maximum my father could remit to me was £50 per month, which was reasonable to meet my needs at the time. My brother joined me later to do Ph.D.

 During vacations, I went home and enquired from my father about Shanoo and her adoptive parents. I was told that her son was still young when in the town a deadly conflict between Sunnis and Shias broke out. As Shanoo’s adoptive parents were Shias, they feared imminent danger. They sold the business and relocated to the provincial capital.

After finishing my studies in London, I got married and went to West Africa. My father visited us a few times. Later, I worked in Pakistan. After my father passed away at the age of 76, I returned to England with my wife and two children.

I settled down in Lancashire.

After more than fifteen years in the UK, I was diagnosed with a kidney problem.  I was referred to a consultant nephrologist, under whose treatment I remained for years. During this time I was given a bespoke treatment by the National Health Service.

My visits to the hospital’s outpatient renal unit were interesting, but as these are not germane to the titled story, I skip them. One visit, which was eventful and its omission from narration would render this story patently incomplete, is rehearsed here.

 I was waiting for my turn. The consultant came out of the consultation room and announced my name. I had been examined by him once before. He was in his early fifties, about 6’ tall, medium built and very soft spoken. From his looks and accent, I had surmised that he was from the Indian sub-continent.    

He had since grown a short- boxed beard. He shook my hand and we entered the room where there were two girls which I could conjecture were medical students. The consultant asked my permission to allow the girls to watch the consultation. Before he could start, I told him

“I’m sorry I struggled to recognise you.”

Swiping his right hand across his beard, he said:

“Yes, I’ve since grown beard.”

I replied:

“That’s very good. You look smarter, slimmer and more importantly younger.”

Before he could reply, addressing the girls, I asked them:

“What do you think?”

Both nodded their heads grinning gleefully.

I added:

“Recently, two universities have published a research paper making a finding that women like bearded men more than the beardless ones.”

He said:

“Thank you.”

Due to my convivial and candid comments about his beard, he appeared to be friendlier rather than formal and at the spur of the moment asked me:

“Originally which country you come from?”

Giving my detailed answer, I said:

“I was born in India, grew up in a small town 127 miles from the provincial capital in Pakistan and educated in London. My wife was born in Pakistan, my son in West Africa and my daughter in England.”

 He said:

“It’s fascinating. You’re an international family.’

He added:

‘What’s the name of the town where you grew up?”

“Batpur”, I replied.

On hearing the name, he looked startled.

It did not take long to find out that he was Hasan son of Shanoo, who was alive and well. She was living with him, his wife and three children. His adoptive grandfather’s surname was Shamsi, which I remembered very well. He told me that they had passed away after he had qualified as a doctor. They left reasonable inheritance for him and his mother.

He wrote on my file that henceforth he was no longer my lead Consultant. Instead, we were friends. He gave me his telephone number and invited me and my wife to his house for dinner.

I was raring to see Shanoo after so many years.

Shanoo was still well. She was over the moon to see me and embraced me with both the arms. She had lines on her face, but still looked glamourous and younger than her age. She remembered the town and her late biological father. She could jog some faint memories of me after I told her that she would call me Little. She knew and so did Dr. Shamsi that they were adopted many years ago. I did not rake up memories of the forgotten and unpleasant years in the town when she had naked stints in the side streets. But it looked that both the mother and son were apprised by their late grandparents of the unpleasant past.

After a few weeks, Dr. Shamsi with his mother and wife returned the visit. I had retrieved an old photograph of Shanoo’s late father with my father. I had made a framed copy for her. She was very pleased.

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