"About fields and crops9 Can t you say one sensible thing9" I said, bitterly "This is sensible talk," she replied. "You are an educated woman You must know that we women are men's tillage. And, my dear, a field is always at the mercy of its owner He can plow it in whatever manner he chooses." "I'm not interested in fields and farmers. Blast them all. Tell me about Iram The newspapers gave no details of the accident." "When a field dies newspapers don't print the details of its death. My Iram, too, was a field—a mere tillage." Her voice was a sob. My head reeled. Suddenly I realized that something more than Iram's death had destroyed Tamkinat's inner balance. I said, "Tamkinat, please tell me. Please say something." And I grabbed her hands in mine. "My dear, you really thought, didn't you, that Iram was a fairytale princess, and so her story too must end with ' and they lived happily ever after''9 Well, I taught her absolutely nothing about life. And she went on thinking of herself as Cinderella and of life as no more than a magic glass slipper " She went on and on in her tangled, twisted manner. But when I removed the twists and untangled her talk, I realized that I was ignorant and she was sensible. As I put together her broken sentences, and her disjointed phrases, I began to understand. And as 1 understood I died inwardly, for that was all 1 could do. Only after her marriage did Iram realize that it was no joke to be the wife of an Arab prince. She was his contractually and legally wedded wife and, as her prince put it, his tillage. A tillage didn't have the right to tell her ploughman how to till and which end to start from. Iram, who had been brought up on the novels of Charlotte Bronte and Margaret Mitchell, dreamed of sex behind enveloping mists of romance and crowded layers of mystery Her mother had erred by not giving her the Kama Sutra and Ananga Ranga to read; by not taking her to see those carved figures at Khajuraho; and, more importantly, by keeping her in ignorance about the Sons of Sodom who treated their male and female lovers alike. After Iram had seen everything, she wrote a letter to her mother Then she bought her freedom with her life. It was easier to die than to go on living. Her coffin arrived first, her letter afterwards. She was no Manu that some Lord Vishnu, disguised as a fish, would have come to rescue her My daughter is catling me. She has walked ahead while I'm still standing before "Achilles Tang." The sea water is gently rolling. The native of the Indo-Pacific is swimming peacefully. Here it cannot devour the smaller fish; here it cannot be swallowed by the bigger fish. Shaken, I look at my daughter and pray for an aquarium for her where the small fish would be safe from her and where she would herself be safe from the big fish. Translated by Muhammad Umar Memon Annual of Urdu Studies, #6 93