The silence and the gaze

   For me, Bismillah revolved around two things- a constant silence and a thorough gaze. The former is Bismillah's silence which she embodies through out her story by making minimal use of language. She tried to seduce Saeed with her dramatised gestures. She is monosyllabic when she speaks, her longest dialogue in the story being, "kahin bahir gaye thay". This silence along with her apparent unawareness of herself attracted Saeed even more.  Her constant silence keeps saeed in a limbo, he tries to penetrate under her skin but her bland expressions and dialogues made this impossible. The latter was saeed’s gaze, which can also be identified as the narrator’s gaze itself. He is endlessly in a dialogue with himself, scrutinising Bismillah through out. He is analysing Bismisllah but cannot decide if Bismillah is reciprocating his advances. He even said, 'koi aur aurat hoti to samajh jati isse kin ankhon se dekha ja raha hai, per shayid samajh bhi gayi ho. kuch samjh nahi ati". The story through out is uneventful until the dark twisted end when Saeed realizes who Bismillah really was, and is left longing for her udaas ankhein.