Azra

I , Azra Shaukat Rahman , am the only child of Late.Shaukat rahman and Nasreen.

I have introduce myself sometime , otherwise , you'll end up listening to a story by a nameless face, a ghost.Ghosts have no power , and I don't want to be a ghost.I'm alive.

A hazy recollection of my past reveals broken memories-scattered events  , shattered conversations and battered images.

Mom would often say "I wish I was never born a woman" or "I wish you were never born" .Those days I thought she hated me.No , she didn't .She hated being a woman, bound by her religion and bound by her country.

I wish I could understand , but we never talked about it.

Didn't she love me ? Yes she did.

She made sure that I grew up a boy.I didn't ask why , though I wish I did.No dolls , no earrings , no necklaces or anything girly.Instead of skirts and salwars, I was made to wear T-shirts and loose pyjamas.Does this have anything to do with the story ? No . I had to say this to someone who is listening to me , Thats all.

So , for all practical purposes , I was  a boy.

But there were signs that I was not going to remain a boy for long.

"Azra's getting a butt on her just like a girl" remarked Meher , my thirteen year old cousin , when were being bathed together.

"Next thing you know, she'll be  mooning in the mirror and wanting to pluck her eyebrows and colour her lips "

"No way" I said defiantly , yet a bit unsure.

I grew up outside the kitchen , playing with plastic guns with other boys.Yet after thirteen , after the  first time I bled , I was no longer allowed to be with the boys.

I was not a boy.

Then what was I?

"You're  your mama's boy , big and strong, and always dependable" mom would reassure.Sadly the oe person who could save this from happening to me , dad , was too consumed by maintaining a struggling business and coping with alcoholism.

Shaukat Rahman, my dad , was in my life , mostly invisible and tragically irrelevant.

But now I knew.I was a woman.

I would have balked at the Idea that pregnancy would make me complete and hence I was a "Complete Woman"

But at least , I was a woman.

To be continued