Himna Bashir
The sun was setting. A soft golden light slipped through my curtains and spread quietly across the floor, like a memory waiting to be born.
I was half-awake, wrapped in my blanket, when I heard it. The distant wailing of wanwun, the traditional Kashmiri wedding song. No matter how many times you hear it, it always pulls at the heart.
“Be chasai khanmaej koor diuv mea rukhsat, myani baba jaano…”
(Your beloved daughter becomes a bride today, and you, Baba, bid her farewell.)
The words were gentle, yet heavy. The sound came from next door. It was Bilkeesa’s wedding day. Our neighbour. The girl who had grown up beside us, whose laughter once filled the lane on summer afternoons.
I sat up.
My mother stood silently by the window, watching Bilkeesa’s yard. Red clothes, marigold garlands and tear-filled smiles. The last light of day rested on everything. She said nothing. It felt as if she was seeing the past and the present together.
I looked at her face. In one moment, I saw happiness, sorrow, excitement and a quiet pain she had never spoken of.
“Mama, kya chakh sonchan?” I asked softly.
(Mama, what are you thinking?)
She did not turn. Her voice came slowly, almost to herself.
“I was just like Bilkeesa once,” she said. “A daughter, loved and pampered. My baba spoiled me the way yours does. Chocolates, ribbons and little gifts from roadside shops. He knew how to make me smile.”
She paused, smiling faintly.
“And my mother. If I was even a minute late, her heart would race. I was a khanmaej koor, the pride of my home.”
I could picture her then. A young girl dancing to wanwun at weddings, dreaming of her own future.
“One day,” she continued, “my wanwun was sung too. The same words. The same pain. And I was sent to your father’s house. A place that did not feel like mine at first.”
Her voice grew heavier.
“It was different there. My mother-in-law was not cruel, but tradition ruled her life. She believed a bride should speak less and work more. Zeav cxhot nadi zeache. I did not complain. I cooked, cleaned and smiled. At night, I cried quietly into my pillow.”
She sat beside me, smoothing the blanket absent-mindedly.
“Then you were born. My first child. My Himna. I was studying and working then. I rocked your cradle with one hand and checked papers with the other. I do not know how I survived, but I did.”
She let out a soft laugh filled with sadness.
“Then I became pregnant again, with twins. I lost them both. That pain almost broke me. But life does not stop. A year later, your sister Umama was born. She was beautiful. And by then, the whispers had started.”
I knew those whispers well.
‘Only daughters?’ they asked. ‘No son yet?’ As if my body owed the world a boy. I carried those words like stones in my chest. But I raised you both with love. I never let my bitterness touch you.
She turned to me, her eyes shining.
“Today, when I saw Bilkeesa in red, her eyes full and her face glowing, I saw myself. I saw every daughter who leaves her home believing she is going to another, only to learn it is never quite the same.”
Outside, the wanwun rose again. Louder now. Filled with prayers and wishes for the bride.
Softly, like a prayer, my mother said:
Kood yeli aasi tas gasen teli qadr shinaakh lukh milen.
(A daughter should be given away only when her new home loves her as her old one did.)
The sun had almost disappeared. Shadows stretched across the floor. Bilkeesa stepped out in red, her head bowed, surrounded by crying women and silent men.
My mother and I watched from the window.
“Will it be easy for her?” I asked.
“Maybe not,” she replied. “Every woman carries her own story. Some bend. Some break. And some, like me, bloom again.”
As Bilkeesa’s car drove away and the wanwun faded into the evening air, I held my mother’s hand.
In that quiet room, filled with fading light and memories, I understood one simple truth.
Every daughter’s story begins in the heart of her mother.
About the Author:
Himna Shabir is a first-year BSc Biotechnology student at GDC Anantnag. Her writing is inspired by real-life experiences and shaped by her love for poetry and short fiction.
