A Woman Alone

 

            The scene I am about to describe is one that does not outwardly seem of great importance but I believe it is important because the connotations of self-discovery within the main character in it. In this scene, the main character, Nazneen has just seen her husband off to work after realizing only a few days before that she is pregnant with his child. She decides to take a stroll and think for a while and ends up having a great adventure within this short scene. There is no character that she is constant contact with the whole time during her eventful walk so I decided to write a few characters perspective on their short time seeing Nazneen.

 

The Tattoo Lady.

It was around 9:00, in the morning that is. I was sitting there, like I do everyday. I guess I am a kinda habitual person. I was smoking my morning cigarette and drinking my morning beer, and I see that Indian girl, at least I think she’s Indian, there are a lot of them in my neighborhood, and she was saying good-bye to the ugly old husband of hers. You can see it, y’know; she’s not truly in love. Ha! Listen to me, talking about true love. As if the world worked that way. As if life could be meaningful. No, life is short and cruel and worthless, and so that was how I lived my youth. Now I’m old, and poor, and I sit here everyday and think about how much life sucks. It’s pretty hilarious how everyone tries so hard, especially that Indian girl, faking it for her big fat husband. Right now she’s waving at me. I’ve never actually talked to her, I don’t even think she speaks English. I tip my beer can at her and she smiles and starts to walk out of the apartment building we live in, looking straight ahead, Ignoring those jerky, teenage, Indian hoodlums that hang out by the stairwell as they talk loudly and stare at her. What buttheads. They’ll probably end up like me someday, sad and alone. But the Indian girl, she’s headed somewhere.

 

The Man in The Suit

I’m Late. I thought. I’m late and it’s the biggest meeting of the business quarter. My steps quickened, but the mass of people walking down the street made it seem impossible to move forward any faster than then the pace I was currently going. Stupid taxi. Dropping me off two stupid blocks away from the Morgan and Morgan headquarters. Not only that, but my new suit was now wrinkled and linty from the disgusting cab. I shook my head. There was no way I could break through the traffic-like flow of people. It was like a river of grey and black and blue; the colors of the corporate world. All of a sudden I saw a strange color up ahead, a frantic pink fish darting about awkwardly against the flow of the dark river. As I walked closer I saw that it was an Indian, or perhaps Bangladeshi woman in a pink sari. She looked more than out of place; it was as if the buildings and the street itself were rejecting her. Strangely though, no one seemed to notice her. No one looked at her. Perhaps it was because she was so strange that no one wanted to question her with a quizzical look, or perhaps it was simply because all the people in the street were engrossed with their own individual missions that they could not spare a second of their time to watch the wide eyed woman staggering down the street. Well if no one else is looking at her, why should I? If they don’t find it strange, why should I? These questions popped up in my mind, as I stared straight at her. She was standing in the middle of the busy street, parting the flow of people, and looking up a big-marble office building with awe. How different must her life be that simply to see a building such as this would evoke such emotion? I stared at the building. The Office of Staney-Simson Inc. I was suddenly reminded of my meeting I was now 8 minuets late to. Simply seeing this young woman had taken up at least 6 minuets of my valuable moneymaking time. How dare she. I blew out air in a puff of anger, and headed down the street at an even brisker pace. No stranger should be more important than my own business. It was a strange little occurrence in my day, but nothing more.

 

 

            I decided to tell the stories of these two people (the tattoo lady, and the business man) not because of any relationship with the main character, Nazneen, which they really didn’t have, but because of the different ways they saw her and she saw them. To Nazneen, the tattoo lady is a curiosity. “The tattoo lady was still in her nightdress. From the stump of her cigarette she lit a fresh one, keeping the sacred flame alight. She was fat like a baby. Her arms were ringed with flesh and her hands seem tiny. This woman was poor and fat. To Nazneen it was unfathomable. In Bangladesh it was no more possible to be both poor and fat than to be rich and starving.” (37) Not only is she a curiosity to Nazneen, she also is very different and make Nazneen aware of differences between her homeland and this new society. With the businessman it is much the same. As Nazneen takes an unpremeditated stroll through London, she finds herself in the financial district and says this about it. “The building was without end. Above, somewhere, it crushed the clouds. The next building and the one opposite were white stone palaces. There were steps up to the entrances and colonnades across the front. Men in dark suits trotted briskly up and down the steps…Every person who brushed past her on the pavement, every back she saw, was on a private, urgent mission to execute a precise and demanding plan: to get a promotion today, to be exactly on time for an appointment…”(39). I decided to write the story through one of these people’s eyes.