Kumu: Nani’s salt

My nani's nickname was Bokul—like the flower. In English, it's called the Spanish Cherry or Mimusops elengi, though no translation quite captures its softness. The Bokul tree is tall and unassuming, often overlooked until it blooms. Its flowers are tiny, pale yellowish-white, with a scent so deep and lingering it seems to float long after the petals fall.

They bloom quietly at night. By morning, the ground beneath the tree is scattered with fallen blossoms, as if the tree had shed dreams in its sleep, quiet and deeply personal. At dawn, girls and sometimes boys gather beneath the Bokul tree, lifting each fallen flower with care, as if each one holds a blessing. The faint yellow-white blooms are collected in the ends of scarves or bamboo baskets, destined to be placed around khopas, slipped onto wrists, or simply inhaled. It's not just about beauty, it's about wearing a scent that stays with you, a small act of peace that softens the sharp edges of the day.

My nani was much the same. She moved through her day quietly, unassumingly, like the scent of the flower she was named after. She was taken for granted, as women often are, but like the fragrance of Bokul, her presence was felt, steadying, grounding. She brought a stillness that held the household together—necessary and full of grace.

She grew up in Assam, in the railway quarters, walls the colour of old tea, mornings blurred with coal smoke, the whistle of trains slicing through the stillness like unfinished sentences. Her father, who was a railroad official under the British Raj, a man who believed in building tracks and destinies a railway man, moved with timetables and transfers, and for a brief, shining moment, the family lived near a school. And so she went, bangles jingling, slate in hand, Bangla blooming on her tongue.

She was quick with language, quicker with wit, curiosity, and intelligence. But in homes where duty pressed against every wall, intelligence in a girl was an indulgence, a temporary distraction. Not something to be nurtured. Not something to last.

When her mother fell ill, nani stepped into the silence of unpaid labour. No farewell. No choice. Just the quiet shifting of roles, keeper of the house—laundry, rice and lentils, and firewood. She didn't ask why. Women like her rarely did. Not aloud. Her dream for education crashed. Her father instead turned to the boy, the one who would marry her someday, and poured the family's future into him: books, encouragement, ambition. He was the chosen path. She was the hands that cleared it. A life of her own was not a conversation anyone had. Not for her. Not then.

My grandfather, Mosharraf Hossain, was "Gobore poddo phool"—a lotus growing out of the filth. His merit shone bright enough to blind my great-grandfather. He handpicked my nana for his daughter, not for his family, not for his charm, but for his intelligence. My nana was able to earn his degrees from a prestigious university in Kolkata, funded by my nani's father. It was part of the agreement, a promise of marriage to his daughter. A merit match, designed to secure an educated husband for her, with a faint promise of love lingering beneath the arrangement.

Nani's rebellion didn't arrive like thunder. It didn't raise its voice or slam doors. It came instead in the rush of afternoons, in slivers of time stolen from the tyranny of chores. Her protest was made of smaller things—quiet, stubborn, fiercely her own. Moments carved out like prayer beads from the long rosary of the day. When the rice had boiled, when the knives were rinsed, when the sweat on her back had dried into salt, she would lie down. On the floor. The cool cement kissing her cheek, as if the earth itself had been waiting for her to pause.

The ceiling fan hummed above, its blades lazy with heat, whispering lullabies to no one in particular. The house, finally done needing her, exhaled. And in that breathless space, she read.

Books brought home by the children, borrowed from neighbours, forgotten in school bags or rescued from the damp corners of someone's almirah. Dog-eared magazines tucked under piles of folded sarees in drawers that smelled of mothballs and camphor. They waited for her faithfully. They knew she would return.

She read with the urgency of someone who had once been denied. As if every sentence restored a breath she didn't know she was holding. There were no exams, no applause, no audience. Just pages and silence. And a woman reclaiming a piece of herself that no one else could touch.

The books didn't demand. They didn't ask for salt or stillness, didn't tug at her saree or cry from a distant room. They waited, quiet and sure, asking only to be opened. And in that waiting, they became hers. The only thing in the house, besides her breath, that belonged to her without question, without noise.

In time, all four daughters, and the three sons too, walked barefoot and brave through the unbeaten paths, winding shortcuts, and narrow backyards of the Bogura police line, that led to the tin-shed classrooms of Latifpur Primary School. And my grandmother, who fought battles too heavy for her small frame, battles that never quite surrendered, found in her daughters' lives a kind of rebellion, a quiet, unspoken triumph. Not her freedom, perhaps. But theirs.

"Kumu" is a living memoir of Selina Hossain's early life, told through carefully chosen themes and reimagined by her daughter, Lazeena Muna. Section 1 of Chapter 1 was published on Selina Hossain's birthday, 14 June.

Lazeena Muna writes occasionally, weaving together gender and politics, and often exploring memory, movement, and meaning.