The Centre

by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

What Adam was witnessing were the remnants of a culture where once he was, by law, obeyed and pacified. That kind of “hospitality” was in fact a legacy of his people’s wrongdoing. Or maybe it went further back still; maybe it was this “hospitality” that gave colonizers the impression that they were welcome in the first place, to claim a land and people not their own.

“If I were a man,” she’d once said, “if I had the kind of freedom and independence they do, I would never get married. I don’t know why they do it.”

I looked again at her desk, at the ivory pot beside her that held the geraniums. I realized it was in the shape of a human skull, with the flowers sprouting out of a hole at the top of its cranium. I found it strangely mesmerizing and examined it for several moments before clearing my throat and asking, “Um … is that real?”

Also, frankly, it felt nice to have people being so nice to me. Being respected felt nice. Being taken seriously felt nice. I felt that people were listening to me the way they listened to men, carefully, attentively, as if something of great value might drop out of my mouth at any moment.

“The narcissism of small differences.” That’s a term coined by Freud. “Der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen.” It means, I think, that when two things are very similar, you end up inflating the small differences between them far more than you would the larger differences between two less similar things.

“There’s a long history behind this, Anisa. It’s something humans have always done. You know, people used to drink the blood of their enemies during wartime—they said it gave them the strength and knowledge to defeat them. That’s how nations were conquered, back in the day.”

“Just listen to how you say it. Cannibalism. Tell me, what image pops into your head when you hear that word? Cannibal?” Arjun asked. I stumbled, “What … I don’t know—” “These are age-old rituals, Anisa. And they can be incredibly powerful. Absolutely transformative,” Shiba added. “But it’s disgusting,” I said. “You can’t deny that it’s disgusting.” “But that’s what I’m trying to explain to you. It’s not inherently disgusting. Our bones and muscles, they carry unimaginable wisdom, immense capability. It’s for that very reason that these practices have been demonized, made to seem primitive, barbaric. But there is nothing inherently revolting about flesh and blood,” Shiba said.