Mumtahina ‘Ruma’ Jannat
Imagine a laugh that tinkles, and eyes as wide and as inquisitive as a deer’s: those two things belonged to my aunt Mumtahina ‘Ruma’ Jannat, and they are two things I remember most about her.
I also remember the way she would dive head and heart first into any romantic Indian movie, sitting for hours on our sofa with her two beautiful daughters, watching and sighing and laughing along, completely enraptured.
How she would come to my room and run her fingers along my bookshelves, speaking of her dream of going to college one day, seeing her daughters grow up to graduate from university, and in her words, ‘travel as far as their feet and heart will take them’.
I remember the last thing I did for her was to book her first ever driving lesson online, and feeling her squeeze my shoulders in happiness at the thought of driving her way to independence and freedom.
She never got to do those things. But her daughters now are. And through us all, and through Making Herstory, her star lives on.