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Asifa’s Feudal Lord…!

  • RK News By RK News
  • Comments 0
  • 28 Sep 2025

JUNAID QURESHI  Dressed in a pale green suit, adorned with a white dupatta and a tightly wrapped black scarf covering my hair, I looked at my face in the small mirror above the half-broken sink in our little bathroom before hearing my father calling my name for the third time from downstairs.   The mirror frightened me.   I was scared and did not want to go.  Noor Mohammed, Baba’s friend from Srinagar had come to pick me up. We lived in Chithi Bandi near Bandipora, and I had just passed Class 6. One of my elder brothers had also gone to Srinagar with Noor Mohammed a few years ago, working as a cleaner in an office. The other one stayed back and helped my father on our fields. Four of my sisters were younger than me, and after the death of my mother, I used to take care of them. Now the oldest of them, Afroza, one and a half year younger than me, was old enough to take over my role and it was time for me to go to Srinagar with Noor Mohammed to work.  This was a normal practice in our village and surrounding villages. For my father, a simple ‘pheri woll’ (street vendor), it was a win-win situation as he was relieved from clothing and feeding me, and at the same time, I would start earning money for our family. Despite my measured steps and contained emotions, as I sat down on the muddy grass, perhaps, Baba and Noor Muhammad realized that I was fearful. “Trust me, Nazir Ahmed, your daughter is like my daughter”, said Noor Muhammed to my father. He continued, “You will have no complaints. She will have to do very little household work and Sahib has even agreed to send her to school during daytime. They have two other servants who do most of the work. She only needs to help the others a little bit in the morning with breakfast and in the evening with dinner. She will have good food, clothes and Sahib is paying a salary of six thousand a month. During daytime she will go to school”. Hearing that I could continue going to school offered some reassurance and assuaged my anxiety.  Maybe this change wasn’t so bad after all. Noor Muhammed and I did not exchange a single word during the journey. We changed three Sumo’s and I kept looking out of the window for hours. I don’t remember blinking even once during those four hours that it took us to reach Hyderpora in Srinagar. We walked the last bit and stopped at a palatial house surrounded by high walls and a heavy iron gate.  There were some policemen at the gate and after seeing Noor Muhammed, they opened the gate. While we walked past the huge green garden and bright flowerbeds, I was in awe of the different coloured tiles used on the path, exquisite wood at the outer part of this palace and indefinite glass windows. It was then, just before taking off our shoes and entering the house that Noor Muhammed spoke, “Behave! Sahib is a very important man. He used to be a Minister”.  The light from the many chandeliers made my pale green suit look even paler. A boy, maybe around 20 years old and dressed in shabby trousers and an oversized t-shirt welcomed us and guided us to the main living room with glass tables, three big sofas, silky lush carpets on the floor and photos on the wall.  Noor Mohammed and I were instructed to sit on the floor and as I sat down, I could see that there was not a speck of dust on the floor. The boy said, “I will call Abbaji” and left the room. Noor Muhammed told me the boy’s name was Imtiyaz, and he had been working here for six years now.   A few minutes later, Imtiyaz came back with two steel glasses of water and put them in front of us before he hurriedly left again.   It took some time, probably half an hour or so, before Abbaji, as Imtiyaz referred to him, stepped into the room followed by what I assumed was his wife.  Dressed in a white shirt, neatly pressed beige trousers and a hat, Abbaji was a stout man of around 70 years old. Grey short hair, a stubble beard, skinny legs and a huge belly. He had an aura of dominance and strictness and sat down on the sofa without saying a word or acknowledging our presence. His wife walked in behind him. She was a lady of around 65 years old, I guessed, and was dressed in a beautiful golden colour Shalwar Kameez with an embroidered dupatta loosely draped around her shoulders. She looked very friendly as she smiled and came towards me. I stood up to greet her.  “What’s your name, beta?” she asked. “Ruksana”, I answered. “What a nice name. They all call me Auntyji here. How old are you, Ruksana?” I looked at the floor for a few seconds before looking up in her eyes and in a soft voice answered, “Twelve, Auntyji”.  Auntyji’s face exposed her surprise, and she looked at Abbaji with a somewhat disapproving look.  A grimace.  She turned to me and said, “Don’t worry. Asifa, the other girl, will explain everything to you”.  She turned around as Abbaji stood up and they both left the room. I sat down next to Noor Muhammed and waited. Imtiyaz entered the room along with a girl who was perhaps one or two years older than me. “This is Asifa”, he said.  Asifa hugged me and told me to follow her.  Asifa took me to a room and told me that we would be sharing this room together from now on. It was a small room with unplastered walls, two thin mattresses on the cold vinyl floor and three bulbs hanging from the ceiling along with a brown coloured fan covered in thick dust. The room had a damp smell and looked rather unpleasant. I put my bag down in a corner as Asifa pulled me by my arm and said, “Come, I will show you the house and the work”. Asifa showed me the house and explained all that needed to be done. She said that Abbaji and Auntyji despite having two children and grandchildren lived alone as both their son and daughter, lived separately. “We must clean the whole house every day. Imtiyaz is mostly for outside work like bringing groceries, gardening, washing the car and other outside chores”. I kept listening to her while admiring the cleanliness and beauty of the house.  She promised me that for the first few days I could just assist her so that I would learn the work quickly and afterwards would be able to work independently.   The next morning, Asifa woke me up at 7 o’clock in the morning. I quickly washed my face and followed her. We went to the kitchen and made breakfast for ourselves which consisted of a cup of tea and two rotis each. Asifa said that we were supposed to have our breakfast before Abbaji and Auntyji woke up. We finished our breakfast at 7:30 and Asifa, after cleaning up, started preparing breakfast for Abbaji and Auntyji.  Rotis, omelettes, fruit, tea, coffee, curd, chickpeas, toast, butter and daliya (wheat porridge). She made everything ready as I looked on. She then started washing all the dishes while showing where to store them afterwards.  Auntyji woke up at 9 o’clock. Asifa greeted her and put everything in front of her. Auntyji had her breakfast and Asifa started doing the dishes again. Abbaji came downstairs at 10:30 and Asifa started warming up everything for a second time and laid it out on the table. After he was finished, she cleaned everything and started doing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, now for the third time this morning. It was almost 11:30 and Asifa started preparing lunch. She told me she had to cook at least three dishes for Abbaji and Auntyji and one dish for us. The cooked food at lunch would also serve as dinner unless guests came over.    One meat item, chicken- and one vegetarian item for them and dal (lentils) for us. Basmati rice for them and Kashmiri rice for us. Asifa explained that we were not allowed to eat their food, but sometimes when Auntyji was in a good mood, she would give us some leftovers at dinner. That was very rare, because as Asifa explained, if something was left, Abbaji could ask for it in the morning at breakfast.  Lunch was served at 2 o’clock. Asifa, Imtiyaz and I had our rice with dal half an hour later. Afterwards, I helped Asifa with the dishes and cleaning the kitchen. It took us an hour to do everything in the kitchen and almost immediately we started with our chores; cleaning the rest of the house, washing clothes, ironing, making up beds, emptying dustbins, dusting, sweeping, mopping and what not. Halfway through our work, when we had finished three rooms, Asifa said we had to go back to the kitchen to prepare the evening tea.   Evening tea was served at 6:30 and we were allowed to have tea afterwards at 7 o’clock. We cleaned the dishes and the kitchen again, for the fifth time today, and went back to finishing the rest of the chores. At 9:30 in the evening we were done and went again to the kitchen to prepare dinner. We only had to cook rice and make some salad as there was enough left from lunch for dinner. Asifa added a few glasses of water to our dal and a spoon of salt to compensate the taste, as she thought it would not be enough for the three of us.   Abbaji and Auntyji had their dinner at 10 o’clock in the evening. We all stood next to the table serving them. I looked at how Abbaji devoured many pieces of meat and almost a quarter of the chicken while he helped himself to three servings of rice.  He burped a few times but kept eating.  He asked for a small plate and put two tiny pieces of chicken, mostly bone, and a small piece of meat, mostly fat and bone, on it. While finishing his last bite, he exclaimed, as if he had conquered Rome, “You people also enjoy today. Here take this and eat it later”. He stood up, washed his hands, tapped Asifa on her lower-back which made her visibly uncomfortable while Auntyji cringed at the sight of it and said, “See Asifa, what a good master I am. I give you all good food”.   Auntyji went to her room after finishing her dinner and Abbaji went to the living room to watch TV. That’s when I came to know that both slept in separate rooms. We started having our dinner close to 11 o’clock and finished tidying up the kitchen around midnight.  When we left the kitchen, we passed by the living room where Abbaji was watching TV wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He called for Asifa and said, “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to massage my feet? And tell that new girl, Ruksana, to make me kewha”.    Asifa brisked towards the living room, and I went back to the kitchen. I enlisted Imtiyaz’s help as I did not yet know where I could find all the things to make kehwa.  The hot cup of kehwa almost fell out of my hands as I entered the living room.  Asifa was not massaging Abbaji’s feet. She was massaging his thighs while Abbaji sat there with his eyes closed, clearly enjoying the hands of an adolescent girl on his thighs.  Asifa was visibly trembling, and her face was full of disgust.  I quickly put down the kehwa on the glass table and ran back to the kitchen, waiting for Asifa to return.    It was close to 1 o’clock in the night when I did not hear the TV anymore. I looked out of the kitchen and saw Abbaji walking towards his room with Asifa behind him.  They went inside and the door closed.      Asifa came out half an hour later. She had tears in her eyes and was unable to walk straight. She came to the kitchen and pulled my arm again, just like she did in the afternoon. “Let’s sleep. We have to wake up again at 7 in the morning”, she said.  That night, I couldn’t close my eyes for a second and kept staring at the ceiling. I had thousands of questions.  The next few weeks went by in the same manner. Long days and very short nights. Waking up at 7 in the morning and going to bed at 2 in the night. Some days, whenever guests would visit, were more arduous.  Other days were all the same.   Every day, a new scar. Every step, a new blister. It was a sunny Friday morning in September when Auntyji said at breakfast that we did not need to make lunch and dinner for her and Abbaji as they would be going to attend the wedding of Abbaji’s niece, the daughter of his sister. “We will be back very late after dinner. You can go to sleep early today”, she said.   They left around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. We finished all our chores and quickly went to our room after an early dinner.  That day was a blessing. Since I had come here, I hadn’t had the chance to talk to Asifa even once. Tonight, while we were both lying on our thin mattresses in our stenchy room, I decided to pour my heart out.  “Asifa”, I said. She sat up and looked at me, “Yes, Ruksana”. I sat up as well and with a soft voice continued, “Asifa, I was promised that I could go to school when I came to work here”.  Asifa had a dejected smile on her face. “Ruksana, I was promised the same”. She continued, “But when are we supposed to go to school? We hardly sleep five hours and toil like slaves the whole day without a minute of respite. In return, we get dal and rice twice a day, two cups of tea and two rotis. And sometimes, we are thrown leftover bones with slivers of chicken or meat as if we are dogs. Have you eaten anything else since you came here? I have been eating dal and rice for the last 11 months!”    I had no answers.  Asifa’s eyes were empty.  For some reason her eyes resembled the windows of this house which we cleaned every day. Empty and bereft of any dust or scratches.  Her empty eyes; Windows which gave me a peek into her numb soul. “I was thirteen when I came here. Imtiyaz told me that three girls, all our age, worked here before me and they all ran away. I haven’t had one day off in the last 11 months. If lucky, I have the time to shower twice a month. I am not allowed to be sick”. For the first time this night, the emptiness in Asifa’s eyes was replaced by tearful tears.   “Ruksana, I live a life of servitude, paralyzed every night by an ugly beast. Every night, I think of cutting each and every inch of my flesh which fell prey to his lust”. Recoiled in horror at her words, I asked, “Why don’t you run away, Asifa?” Asifa sighed. “To where? I have no parents anymore. No brother. Three of my sisters also work at someone’s house and another one is married to a man almost twice her age with three children from a previous marriage. I have no safeguards. Nothing to fall back on. No help”.   She continued, “And don’t think it is only me. All these palatial houses in the city are dungeons of nightmares. All the servants at the neighbours have similar tales to tell. Underage, young and poor girls and boys from far-flung areas are brought here as slaves, lured with promises of education, good food, decent accommodation, reasonable salaries and little work. And then, they are exploited! Sometimes, pledges of paying for the girl’s marriage are made, a government job for her brother or guarantees of defraying the costs of the treatment of a sick relative. At some places it is more agreeable and at other places, like this one, it is an ordeal to be alive”.  She stopped for a few seconds to quickly catch her breath and wipe her tears, “Whenever one of these slaves wants to go home for a few days, months of salary is withheld to ensure that they return. If they want to leave permanently, they are beaten, abused, scolded and threatened that a case will be registered against them of stealing money or jewellery. All these palaces are owned by powerful vultures. They own the law and are perceived as honourable members of society because of their influence and money. And young girls like you and me and boys like Imtiyaz are considered their private property”.   I had nothing to say and for lack of anything was only able to utter, “But Auntyji seems nice”. “Ruksana, she is not nice. She has no say. She is a mute spectator. Complicit by her silence. Would she allow the same to happen to her own daughter?” I tried not to cry.   I couldn’t run away. I had no money. And how could I climb these high walls with policemen guarding them. I also didn’t want any cases of theft registered against me.  I was lost.    Lost between hope and despair.  Despair as I accepted my faith and soon became another Asifa.  A soulless soul.  Hope, because perhaps this story of Asifa and mine, and the likes of us, burdened by thousands of compulsions attempting to live an honourable life by toiling day and night, might shake your conscience. Or, at the least, make a small dent. Hope, that you might start seeing us in your daughters and your daughters in us.  Hope, that you might start considering us as if we too were humans with emotions and not just pieces of meat put on this earth to satisfy your sadism.     Bloody parasites!  (Author is the Director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at: j.qureshi@efsas.org)

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