Daily Fable
2yrPosted about a book
An excerpt from “Unmarriageable” by Soniah Kamal
To help make reading a healthy habit, every day we share a short story, essay, poem, or excerpt, so you'll always have something great to read.
Today’s Daily Fable is an excerpt from “Unmarriageable” by Soniah Kamal:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl can go from pauper to princess or princess to pauper in the mere seconds it takes for her to accept a proposal.
When Alysba Binat began working at age twenty as the English-literature teacher at the British School of Dilipabad, she had thought it would be a temporary solution to the sudden turn of fortune that had seen Mr. Barkat “Bark” Binat and Mrs. Khushboo “Pinkie” Binat and their five daughters—Jenazba, Alysba, Marizba, Qittyara, and Lady—move from big-city Lahore to backwater Dilipabad. But here she was, ten years later, thirty years old, and still in the job she’d grown to love despite its challenges. Her new batch of ninth-graders was starting Pride and Prejudice, and their first homework had been to rewrite the opening sentence of Jane Austen’s novel, always a fun activity and a good way for her to get to know her students better.
After Alys took attendance, she opened a fresh box of multicolored chalks and invited the girls to share their sentences on the blackboard. The first to jump up was Rose-Nama, a crusader for duty and decorum, and one of the more trying students. Rose-Nama deliberately bypassed the colored chalks for a plain white one, and Alys braced herself for a reimagined sentence exulting a traditional life—marriage, children, death. As soon as Rose-Nama ended with mere seconds it takes for her to accept a proposal, the class erupted into cheers, for it was true: A ring did possess magical powers to transform into pauper or princess. Rose-Nama gave a curtsy and, glancing defiantly at Alys, returned to her desk.
“Good job,” Alys said. “Who wants to go next?”
As hands shot up, she looked affectionately at the girls at their wooden desks, their winter uniforms impeccably washed and pressed by dhobis and maids, their long braids (for good girls did not get a boyish cut like Alys’s) draped over their books, and she wondered who they’d end up becoming by the end of high school. She recalled herself at their age—an eager-to-learn though ultimately naïve Ms. Know-It-All.
“Miss Alys, me me me,” the class clown said, pumping her hand energetically.
Alys nodded, and the girl selected a blue chalk and began to write.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young girl in possession of a pretty face, a fair complexion, a slim figure, and good height is not going to happily settle for a very ugly husband if he doesn’t have enough money, unless she has the most incredible bad luck (which my cousin does).
The class exploded into laughter and Alys smiled too.
Keep reading on Fable:
Unmarriageable
A NovelWritten by Soniah Kamal
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