Chapter 3
Part 1/2
MARRIAGE? ME? NEVER!!”
I was not meant to be married. Later in life, much would be written in the media about how I was a conniving, manipulative woman. People would say that I was the one with a plan and an ulterior motive. In reality, virtually everything that ever happened to me was accidental. I was alone at home when my dad suddenly called me from his clinic, asking me to get ready to go to Abbottabad for his nephew’s wedding. The rest of the family had gone a couple of days before. Daddy and I had stayed back because he had not been feeling too well. I wasn’t very fond of the cousin who was getting married. They were a part of our family no one socialised with much because of their father’s scary reputation. I particularly disliked that cousin because of his cheekiness and overt interest in my friends. I was going through a very religious phase and avoided mixed occasions. I had also started
covering my head. I groaned loudly over the phone. “Daddy, I have no clothes for the wedding. Do we have to?”
Daddy was clearly under emotional pressure from a sister he loved very much, and had been persuaded into attending the reception. I reluctantly got up to take a shower, sent the driver to pick my clothes up from the tailor, and we set off. The tailor had made a few mistakes in the stitching, but I could not refuse my dad’s request. This would become a recognised fact: forcing me into doing something would result in me making no effort, to the annoyance of those forcing me.
We arrived at the groom’s house with my hair still wet and tied in a loose bun, and a scowl on my face. As I entered the small four-bedroom house, a very thin man in a grey suit emerged from one of the bedrooms with black socks in his hand. I had never seen him before. I asked where my aunt was. He took one look at me and rather nervously called me by my older sister’s nickname, “Sweety?” He knew very well what Sweety looked like. She had attended the wedding celebrations the night before, and he had spent most of his childhood around her. Rather irritated at his stupidity, I responded, “No! It’s Reham”. My aunt emerged from behind him. I asked her if we could get ready somewhere and she rather bluntly responded “Nah. No place here”. I said OK, turned on my heel, and left for the house of my other cousin, Zahid bhai, where the servants were promptly directed by him to
open up the guest rooms for us. During the reception, the same thin man with his nervous movements kept popping in to the ladies’ side. He was the groom’s much older, unmarried brother.
Later that evening, all our cousins sat in the groom’s drawing room singing songs. My older phuphee’s children and I had always been very close and would sing traditional folk songs together. The thin man was here also, prowling around. He wasn’t really joining in but was eyeing us all from the corner of the room. It turned out that this thin man had recently qualified as a psychiatrist. Everyone kept going to him to ask about depression, insomnia, anxiety, and any other problem they were facing. I noticed how he struggled to remember the medical terms. When he forgot the correct term for a phobia for the umpteenth time, I could not help myself, and interjected, “It’s Agoraphobia”. He looked up, clearly impressed, and asked how I knew. I shrugged my shoulders and said that I was studying psychology. He then replied, “But people still use the wrong terminology and call it claustrophobia”.
I got up and went to the toilet. When I returned, the topic of the conversation had changed to this man’s marriage. He turned to my mother and said “Mami jaan, if you were to find me a girl then I would consider. My sisters and mother keep showing me strange girls”. Someone asked him what kind of girl it was that most attracted him and he replied, “The film star Rekha is attractive”. He then went on to talk about how women in Pakistan were still backward and not given any independence. And that was the conversation in the lounge full of people. No less. No more. We left.
The following day was the last reception. There was no conversation between this man and I. Exactly two days after this reception, my aunt and uncle came over and asked for my hand in marriage on behalf of their son. My mother was initially appalled at the idea. It was, after all, not only her in-laws, but also the son of a man everyone in the family and in his entire hometown disliked. She had seen how my aunt had suffered all her life at the hands of this man’s temperament. He had allegedly been thrown out of the army because of his violent temper, and had punched my other aunt’s husband during Hajj pilgrimage. However, my sister and sister-in-law (Munir’s wife) had a soft spot for the suitor. My mother didn’t mind him as such. She wanted to remove him from the environment and family she disliked. Her words at the time were, “I wouldn’t mind if I could extract him like a strand of hair from
butter”.
My brother’s wife really liked him. By contrast, my brother clearly disliked the idea but never vocalised his opinions. My father and brother are men whose displeasure is demonstrated by their silence, a trait which has earned them the respect of their families and friends. My late brother-in-law, however, pleaded with my mother repeatedly over long phone calls to reject the proposal. In their sophistication, families like mine sometimes avoid open discussion and confrontation. This means that no one approaches an issue openly. This led me to being very open and honest with my children. I went for direct questions and straight advice. However, my father wasn’t an overimposing figure, choosing to let my mother do most of the talking, while my mother was the epitome of ladylike grace and avoided direct, open conversations. She didn’t particularly like my rather bold approach of
calling a spade a spade. It’s ironic that those who live with us are perhaps the ones who never really get to know us. Sometimes strangers know your heart better than you do yourself.
The whole process took another three months, but eventually I agreed. All I could think was, “There is nothing wrong with him I suppose”. Nothing wrong with him? Now girls, that is no reason to marry someone. There should be everything right in a man before anyone even considers spending their evening with him, let alone their entire life. I gave myself away thinking, ‘I guess he’ll do’. You wouldn’t pick a handbag on that basis. I was 18, the most popular girl in college, and was no economic burden on my parents. But still I felt that he was the best I deserved.
It is said that everything is connected in this universe. I discovered years later how my destiny was indeed connected to all the events in my life. The family had been thinking over the proposal until the day of the 1992 Cricket World Cup final arrived. My father, the sport fanatic, would only ever look angry when Pakistan were playing. All of us were totally engrossed in the match. I remember praying feverishly for the win, when I was suddenly asked to leave the room: The cousin asking for my hand, Ijaz, had arrived unannounced with his family.
Apparently, it wasn’t appropriate for me to be in the same room, watching the match with someone who was proposing to me. I remember muttering angrily and watching the last few moments through the clear glass door, swearing under my breath at this idiocy. I remember the jubilation after the match we had nearly lost, but won. I remember my mother being the first one to question why the captain had chosen to give himself all the credit for the win. His choice of words demonstrated his narcissism, she said. My mother had a very sharp, intuitive sense, and was very good at analysing people through body language and gestures. Sadly, our culture did not allow her to make full use of her abilities, even though my father never laid down any restrictions.