April 24

My family has been talking about the misaq ceremony to transform me into an adult even if I do not look like one. I would rather not have to go through it because these days for reasons no one can understand the priests at the mosque change names they think are not religious enough. I interrupted all their planning to ask my older aunt why she named me Zeenat and she told me that she liked a heroine in an Urdu novel called Zeenat and decided that I would be called Zeenat after she saw me at the hospital. She said she whispered the name in my ear for the first time when I was seven days old. It is what an aunt is supposed to do. I was so small that I do not remember it. She also said that during the ceremony a goat almost killed me. Papa was with the goat in the corridor trying to make the first cut, but instead of dying the goat found the force of life and tried to escape. It ran inside the house towards me in my aunt’s lap but the butcher ran after the goat and cut its throat in the middle of the hall and that was the end. The carpet had to be thrown away. Half the meat was given to poor people and half of it was cooked for the family to celebrate my birth. My older aunt told me that Papa had to bury the goat’s skeleton in a graveyard.

We do not go to visit its grave because it does not have one. Even if this goat could have been my murderer, I feel sad that he was killed for me. Zeenat means beauty which is something I never tell anyone. Maybe I would have chosen another name if I had the choice but now I am used to being called Zeenat. I have a cousin who is also called Zeenat. I have never met her. She is 12 years older than me and lives in America. We get her old clothes sometimes and even though they are always washed they smell of perfume. She must buy her perfume from America because its fragrance lasts forever. Her father came home a few days ago and when my older aunt asked him about Zeenat, he shook his head for a long time and said listen to me you should change your daughter’s name because girls called Zeenat do what they like.

I was so irritated with him that I pretended to be asleep the whole time. Everyone is crazy. Last year Mummy invited a man who can perform miracles to our house to find out why Papa was not getting any work. I did not know he was going to come visit in the morning so I did not wake up to change my shorts before the bell rang. I had to stay under the blanket without moving so that he would not see my legs but my eyes were open and I watched him through the cloth. He was going around the house looking at everything and muttering. When Mummy gave him biscuits and chai, he told her what surahs she should pray so that all of Papa’s problems would be solved. Mummy asked him why I fall sick so often as if he was a doctor or a scientist. I was not even sick at that time. He asked her my name and date of birth so Mummy told him Zeenat, born on 21st Safar. He kept praying for some time and asked Mummy for a bottle of water into which he blew some air so that I would be able to drink his prayers even though I do not want to drink anything full of his red breath of paan. Before leaving he told Mummy that my name does not suit me. Is that really a scientific approach to illness?

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Changing a name does not change how germs behave inside our bodies. So many religious people think that they can simply ask us to do anything they want and we will not refuse. Last year two girls in my class changed their names after they got their periods. Farah became Fatema and Shenaaz became Sakina during their misaq ceremonies when they told them that now that you have become a woman you have to fast and pray. Why have the priests started changing names they do not think are religious? Even Mummy does not know. No one has asked them to explain the reasons behind these decisions.

At school the teacher began calling the girls by their new names and nobody said anything about how strange that was. I pretended I did not remember their new names even though I very well did. I still wanted to call them by their old names so that they would not forget who they used to be. I could not understand how they had accepted it all. I could not understand them one bit. They looked like stones who do not care what names they are given. Is it not odd to give up something so important without a fight? At first did they cry and think about leaving their families? Maybe they locked themselves up in a room for hours and hours but afterwards they had to come out and eat food because they were hungry. Maybe they did not respond to their new names but after a while they just had to go along and do things. Can anger really disappear? I swear that when my misaq happens I will not give up. I am sure the priests will try to change my name to another name with the letter Z because my name is not religious enough. They cannot call me Zainab which is the most common Z name because it is my sister’s name. Maybe they will suggest Zehra or Zahra or Zohra. If anyone calls me Zehra or Zahra or Zohra I will not turn around and I will not listen until they are so fed up that they have to call me Zeenat. I will start writing my name on all the walls at home with a black marker so no one can forget it. Zeenat is my name and I am keeping it.

Excerpted with permission from My Summer Vacation, Zeenat Nagree, Véhicule Press.