Bharam (Aymal Raza)- Story Review by Shoby

Bharam (Aymal Raza)- Story Review by Shoby

D.H. Lawrence said, “A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.” (Lady Chatterley's Lover). Hasn't Lawrence explored a universal truth. Women are difficult to understand. Sorry, I should have said that this specie is immensely impossible to understand. At one point of time, they can be the the most dreadful of the entities who can devastate a generation of sorts and on another side, she would dare to do anything just for the sake of making her commitment tangible.

Aymal Raza has explored a general yet very interesting trait of the female fraternity in this short story. A women can take whatever difficulty she has to face in her life. She will go side by your side and will never make a complaint about anything bad coming in in front of her. She can bear any unprecedented incident in the journey of life, be it poverty, sickness or anything, however there is one oint which is beyond her tolerance level. She can never tolerate the betrayal. Danka V. talked about the same, “What irritated me most in that entire situation was the fact that I wasn’t feeling humiliated, or annoyed, or even fooled. Betrayal was what I felt" (The Unchosen Life).

Zubaida's married life started in the way just like the normal relationships starts. With colours of happiness of present and hopes for bright future. After having laid major portion of life with each other, a good 35 years to count, she parted ways, the reason best known to her only as she was not willing to disclose what happened in actual and the finale discloses a reasoning which takes the story on an entirely different level. Aik bharam aurat ka hota hai or aik dawa mard ka... Mujh mein itni himmat n ahi ke usey be'parda karu... Lakin us ne mera bharam tor diya hai...

Divorce, this word itself is haunting and Zubaida's condition was saying it loud that she has been divorced by the husband. Sir sabz zameen per saem or thaur ka safaida nazar aney laga... Excellent depiction of a recently divorced shattered women. Band bazar ki tarha weeran or udaas aurat...

Women can never be predicted and you can never assume what they actually have in their mind. She left her husband, (Fine... Acceptable) but see what she was up to, Main un larkon ke paas her bhi giz nahi jaon gi... Khoon to apney baap ka hi hai un ki ragon mein bhi... This shows how badly hurt she was from inside due to the behavioural attitude of her husband.

Aymal's writing flourishes quite beautifully in the narrative and there are many interesting one-liners which can seriously be termed as "Proverbs". She delved into the personality of Zubaida not only as a faithful wife but she also discovered many more aspects of her life especially her being a mother and a sister.

While talking to Khurram, out of no where she asks her Kaun hai woh larki??? What a true rendition of how a mother can gauge what is going inside her own children. Similarly, see how she reacts as a sister, the volume of trust she shows for her brother, a reliance which she can never have on anyone else except her very own brother. She not only came straight to him but also tells him the factual cause of leaving her husband. Well done Aymal Raza.

On the whole, Bharam is a fantastic short read and I can confidently say that it has that typical Aymal's touch in it. Read the complete story on Aymal's recently launched story collection "Sooraj Ke Paar".