Last Dance Before the Window Opens

By Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin

Muhammad Salaam stood before the mirror, tracing the kohl lining her eyes, her reflection caught between defiance and despair. Her mother’s words, sharp and haunting, still lingered in her mind, “A person can’t choose to be born a woman or a man. If you’re born with a boy’s body but act like a girl, people will call you a Hijra.” These words, like a shadow, had followed Muhammad since childhood.

At the age eleven, draped in a white lungi, Muhammad participated in a ceremony she didn’t belong to. The boys from her neighborhood gathered, snickering from the corners. “A Hijra getting circumcised—what a joke!” their laughter echoed, piercing Muhammad’s silence. Her skin crawled with the weight of their ridicule, but she had no words, only silence as her shield.

Muhammad often stood in front of the mirror, imagining herself as Ardhanarishvara, the divine being that was both man and woman, in perfect balance. She had first seen the deity’s image in the brass-framed picture at the dance school, a figure she found comfort in. But her mother’s words always followed, cutting into her peace. “That’s the devil’s work. You’re Muslim. It’s forbidden.”

Muhammad wanted to worship Ardhanarishvara, wanted to belong, but she knew her place was neither here nor there. Confusion clouded her mind, and she would often ask in silence, “If Nataraj, the god of dance, is both, then who am I? Am I half-man, half-woman, or neither?”

The streets offered no escape. The boys’ hands lingered on her waist too long, pulling her into the shadows, their whispers vile and full of desire. “Don’t tell anyone,” they’d say. “You’re such a cute boy, that’s why I love you.” Their cruelty was wrapped in false affection, but when the night fell, their hands were rough and forceful.

“If a child like you was born in my house,” one boy sneered, “I’d strangle them.” Yet under the cover of darkness, they returned to her, their lust unrelenting, treating her body as an object. Every touch made her feel like a stranger within her own skin, like she no longer belonged in the world.

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain and finding joy in the midst of life’s challenges.”

Vivian Greene

In her room, Muhammad stared into the mirror, her face foreign to her now. She wasn’t man, nor was she fully a woman in the eyes of society. She was something they called unnatural. Their words echoed, louder each time, “Not man, not woman.”

At night, Muhammad’s despair grew heavy. The weight of it pressed down on her, and she longed for an escape. She wanted to sleep and never wake, for in her dreams, maybe she could be whole. But the nights were sleepless, and the mirror only reflected back the torment that wouldn’t leave her.

One day, she stood before the mirror, draped in a sari and bangles, her reflection finally a woman in full glory. But the world around her hummed with cruelty. “Sick, sinful, unnatural,” they whispered. Yet Muhammad didn’t care anymore. The chains that had bound her, that had trapped her in fear, loosened with every passing day. She felt a freedom she had never known before, a release from the pain and rejection.

In a final act of defiance, Muhammad tied a dove around her waist, feeling the presence of the teenage girl she had buried long ago. The girl who had cradled the image of Ardhanarishvara in her hands, dreaming of a life where she could be whole.

Time stood still in the small room, memories of childhood, adolescence, and youth blending into one. Two lifeless legs dangled from the window frame, a haunting symbol of the truth Muhammad had carried her whole life. Her mother’s voice circled the air, soft but menacing, the voice that had condemned her since birth. “Your birth was the sin of your whole life.”

But now, in this final moment, Muhammad was no longer listening. She had found her own voice. And for the first time, she was at peace.

This case study blends fictional imagination with a real-life tragedy we learned about through social media: the suicide of one of our fellows in Khulna. This individual, a dancer and a very feminine man, faced relentless family pressure and social bullying due to their gender expression. Over time, the weight of these challenges eroded their will to survive. In the end, they chose to leave this world, seeking peace in their final journey.