The Menstrual Coupé

by Shahina K. Rafiq

Genres: Short Stories

Synopsis

A train filled with light wound through the city. I too wanted to get on that moving island of light and travel...

In Shahina Rafiq's carefully crafted stories, women fantasize about genies as well as murders, dive into hidden worlds, and seek to wrest control of their lives. Slipping past the tedium of homemaking and the frustration at husbands and fathers, they travel, stick together like migrating birds, and poke fun at the imposing patriarchal world.

Deftly translated by Priya Nair, these unabashed stories cast an incisive look into the hidden layers of fundamentalism and misogyny in today's society. Bold, perceptive and audacious, The Menstrual Coupé is a celebration of women's spirit and their endlessly inventive power to create their own realities.

Release date: July 26, 2024

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 200

Sample

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Shahina Rafiq’s Menstrual Coupé: Stories is a perfect blend of reality and imagination. Her stories are a reflection of the lived realities of women, where the world of imagination is at times the only space a woman can truly be herself, without furtively looking around to escape patriarchal policing. These stories are deeply embedded in the geo-local context of Kerala, and we as readers understand that even while the lives of women are constrained by specific cultural practices, the desire to escape patriarchal norms is pan-cultural.

The transition from the real to the imaginary is achieved with an enviable ease, as can be seen in the story titled ‘The Genie’; the vocabulary used by the writer transports the reader to a liminal space where the unreal becomes real and the real unreal. Perhaps this is what a woman caught within the invisible bars of the cage erected by society does: she lives out her life mixing reality with dreams. ‘Menstrual Coupé’ on the other hand celebrates an exclusively female space and it is fascinating to watch different women perform their gender in completely different ways. The writer uses her narrative world to counter fascism at all levels – from the micro-space of the house to the macro-space of the nation. The stories strongly critique the different modes of fundamentalism that have crept within us. But what is remarkable is her sense of humour which laces the stories. This translation is the outcome of a harmonious collaboration with the writer. I cherished the moments we cackled with glee as we picked ourselves up after having stumbled upon certain terms that were bound to the geographic terrain of the tales.

Rafiq’s language is earthy and mellifluous, and her choice of words clearly challenges existing gender norms that are followed as a matter of course. Writing and translation are intensely gendered activities. When I began to translate her stories, I paid close attention to the nuances of gender that are crucial to her stories. These stories question and challenge male assumptions about language and strive to create a literary world that is intensely female-centric but not exclusivist in nature. We hope that this book will be able to persuade readers to actively engage with a female literary imagination.

INTRODUCTION

‘Hey, Sayi!’

Thus began Maimoona, while threading my hair with her fingers. Her sixth finger, just a stub that hung from the edge of her palm, touched my cheek softly.

Maimoona was married, and I was in college. While she was telling me stories (or was she talking about her own life?) the previous day, I had been playing in the backyard pond. I continued to play till my white petticoat turned brown. Nooru, Nadeera and Suleika were also there. Maimoona whitened the clothes with the white Panama soap suds. She would rub her feet on the saboon suds to whiten them. I used to think her soles were the colour of the water snake that occasionally raised its head from a corner of the pond. Once the expanse of the pond bored me, I would take a dip in the O-shaped well that had been dug in the middle of the field to water the crops. When my teeth began to chatter from the cold, I would sit beside the pond under a warm sun, ready to plunge into the water again, until Umma came for me with a stick.

Sometimes, when it rained, I would float in the pond. Echoing the water all around me, my eyes would fill with tears. My life had no scope for any existential angst. I was an only child; the younger brother would appear ten years later (he didn’t create any problems then or now).

Whenever I stubbornly demanded something, my grandfather, whom I called Valyappa, would support me. I was given coconut milk with pathiri – paper-thin rice pancakes – and a deep bowl of sugar for breakfast. For lunch, I had to be given ice sticks to coax me to eat the little balls of rice Umma made with her own hands. Others washed my feet and carried me to bed as I pretended to be asleep on the bench in the kitchen. This was a snapshot of my life.

Next door to us lived two lovely people whom I called Appila and Ikkumma, names I had invented for them (my wordplay had already begun). There were no children in their house, so there were more people to pamper me. Innikutty, who used to offer me tender coconuts as I sat on the veranda swinging my legs. Chakkitkutty, Vallutty and Nadi, who used to hand me their long threshing sticks that had grown smooth from constant use as they worked in tandem to the beat of a song they sang together. I was fascinated by the long earrings that swung from Chakki’s drooping ear lobes. They looked like the seeds of the sage flower. I wanted multiple piercings through the length of my ears like my grandmother, whom I called Vallimma. (That I screamed the house down when my ears were pierced is another story.) Yet I would sit alone, filled with sorrow. One needed sorrow to be able to write. And I had to write, I knew it even back then.

My school was right across from my house. I crossed the road only after the first bell rang. My religious education lasted a week. The ustad complained that my frock didn’t cover my knees. Besides, I was too lazy to wake up in the morning despite the temptation of Umma’s crisp achappams. My tuition classes didn’t last long either. In grade four, I was put in a convent school in Malappuram where my father worked as a college teacher, and travelled to and from school on Vappa’s scooter. As the scooter returned home to the welcoming golden rays of the setting sun, dragonflies with large red wings would sweep against my face, a kiss that hurt. The wind with a variety of smells would entangle itself in my hair. It carried the fragrance of the roses from the garden of the house that had figures of lions on its gate, of the pond filled with green algae, of the paddy fields that had recently been harvested and of the hay that had been stacked in a corner of a compound.

Near my school was the ‘Premier Bookshop’, which I often visited. I would touch and stroke the books I had decided would come home with me. I would make them my own using my pocket money. The shopkeeper would allow me to take the books home even before I paid for them. Once, in the excitement of being done with my exams, I forgot to pay him. He must have told my father when he was returning from college, so when my father came home and saw me sitting on the veranda with my legs stretched towards the areca nut tree, he asked me, ‘Do you owe money to Premier Books?’

There was no anger, only a question. But as I sat, unable to meet his eyes, I vowed to make enough money to buy the Premier Bookshop and read all the books there. (I had made this promise to myself, but as it’s embarrassing to ask Vappa for money to buy a bookshop, I haven’t bought it yet.)

My father, who had a deep knowledge of both economics and the Quran, did not impose his will on me (I was a zero in both subjects). Instead, he gave me books to read. He presented a pocket diary with red corners to a fourth-standard student. He wrote the first line in blue ink. The mornings I woke up to the songs of K.L. Saigal and Ghulam Ali were his gifts. He showed me the sheer joy one felt while planting a sapling. In turn, Vappa was planting the seeds in me so that I could sprout.

My mother, on the other hand, was popular enough to win elections. The door to my home was always open, and the kitchen would always have food. There were very few stomachs around that hadn’t been fed by Umma. Sorrow-filled eyes and hungry bellies would leave my home filled with coconut and rice, and sometimes even bangles around their wrists, which Umma lent for special occasions. I, who sat in my room hesitant to talk to people, was a zero in that department as well. Now, when I call Umma, she tells me, ‘You wasted your life. Not working despite all that education. Your Vappa was saying…’

I boasted, ‘Umma, tell Vappa that when you both die, your obituaries in the newspaper will say you were my parents.’

Umma would retort, ‘How will I see what is written about me after I die?’

She is right. So, this book is for them. Though not of much use as a daughter, it’s for them: my parents, who brought me up.

THE GENIE

The problems started after I watched a movie called Iblis.

Divya came home in the afternoon with her usual question, ‘Have I lost weight?’ We shot videos on our phones and spoke about the movie we planned to make one day. Then we went to watch Iblis, taking Roshni along with us: three witches to watch Iblis.

The popcorn and fries that we bought were mostly left uneaten. The oil had gone bad. But we enjoyed the movie. We spoke about it on our way back in the autorickshaw: the beautiful costumes in kalamkari and ikkath fabrics, and the sublime poignancy of the scene in which Fida, who had decided to die, sits on a swing. Night had fallen by the time we got home. The bouts of sneezing began after a while.

In the movie, there were scenes where people who stood next to the ghost began to sneeze. ‘Has a genie entered my body?’ I asked myself. ‘A movie buff who has always dreamt of making a movie, but hasn’t achieved anything. A corpse that sat staring at the screen even after the movie had come to an end.’ I wondered whether I could write a story with these ideas. But I got bored after a while. A number of stories had been written about cinema. Even Paul Zacharia has written one!

The bouts of sneezing increased by the next day. As I listened to the torrential rainfall at night, I felt a fever creep in. I felt a piercing pain on either side of my forehead as I tried to read. I snuggled under the blanket with a couple of paracetamols inside of me. But I couldn’t sleep. I woke up every hour. As I tossed and turned, I could feel the characters in the book I was reading stomping all over my head, threatening to break it open.

There is nothing more agonizing than lying awake at night. My stomach and feet started to ache as if I had menstrual cramps. I groaned each time a fresh wave of pain washed over me. If anyone outside my bedroom would hear me, they would wonder whether I had a lover inside my room when my husband was away. They would smirk upon hearing my moans.

My husband wasn’t home. He would return after two weeks. His absence was an occasion for celebration. The previous day’s movie was the second I . . .