SO I AM NOW AN ENGLISH GIRL,
PREDICTABLY, AMIT PATEL WAS VERY ANGRY, both with Purika for allowing Maleha to make such shameful statements, ‘How could you let her tell them a man has touched her?’ he shouted, and with Maleha, ‘for bringing this shame and dishonour to me?’
Angry and hurt, in pain, Maleha responded, for the first time in her life answering back to her father, ‘No Baba, the dishonour is yours; the man attacked me and hurt me and all you care about is the money and your pride. What shame have I brought you? Eh, Baba?’
‘Shame, you dare speak to your father this way. That is the shame, no respect or honour. I send you back to India, to learn manners and respect as a dutiful Indian girl. No decent Indian girl would tell the police of her shame, and that is the shame you brought to me, that you speak to me with no respect, not as a dutiful Indian daughter should.’
‘But that is it, Baba, I am not an Indian girl, you brought us here to England to become English, so I am now an English girl,’
‘So, I will send you back to India, to stop being this disrespectful English girl, to teach you respect.’
‘If you try to do so, I will kill myself, here in your stupid shop, the only thing you care about. Think of the shame that will bring you?’
Amit raised his hand to strike, then noticed, as if for the first time, her injured arm, and slapped Purika instead, shouting and abusing her again. Purika said nothing, just hung her head; a husband has the right to chastise his wife if she displeases him, and she had done so, although she was not quite sure how or why. Meanwhile, Nabiha sat on the stairs, sobbing quietly, dreading the prospect that her beloved elder sister might be sent back to India or worse still, might kill herself. She could not contemplate either possibility.