“My parents are very poor. I was the main reason of their stress. When I grew up everyone around me wanted to settle me soon. They said otherwise it would be too late to get any groom for a short, black girl. My main task was putting a lot of powder on my face and walking on shoes that were too difficult to walk in. Those potential grooms and their families never liked me. It was difficult to express myself when they questioned about things like how good I could cook or how much I was earning. More awkward was when they asked me to walk to check if my legs were okay, or touched my hair to check if those were fake or real. When I met my husband we met outside in a nearby field. I felt disgusted when I was going to meet him. I wanted to go back and never meet him; my relative forced me to go and asked me to talk to him alone.

We were sitting silently; I was looking at my shoes and expecting to hear same questions. He pointed at my shoes and asked me how I could manage to walk on those. His face was so genuine that I started laughing. Then he told me I can ask him anything what I wanted to know. I paused for a while as that never happened to me, no one ever asked me if I had any question to the groom. I asked him what kind of girl he wants to marry. He told me, ‘I want a wife who can laugh just like you. I earn very little, have no such quality to share. Only sometimes I can cook very well and sing old songs. If you think I am worthy of you, I will bring my mother.’

It’s been six months we are married. I did not wear those shoes again; he only buys slipper for me. After work we return to home together. While returning to home, we buy vegetables and laugh at silly things. But we never talk about love, we feel very shy to talk about it and never said ‘I love you’ to each other. On this way it takes more time to reach to home, but we love to walk extra miles together.”

– Textile worker Saheena Begum (19) with Husband Mominul Islam (21)

Story By – GMB Akash

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