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Asim's day of decision CATHERINE PORTER The story so far: Asim
Bukhari has returned to Since he returned to Farah said no. "It's over," he says,
slumped on the couch in a dark, humid corner of the family room. The
electricity has been out since the heavy rain started this morning. "She
didn't have the courage to step up." The call from "Where is the love?"
Asim sighs heavily, flicking a cluster of flies from his foot. "Maybe she was too good for
me." After a tentative start, the
monsoon has just rolled Inside Asim's older sister
Aapi's home, the air hangs like a hot, wet towel. Aapi hands out bamboo fans
to her family members who crawl into the shadows to answer the call to prayer
echoing through the still house. When his pores begin to swell,
Asim escapes upstairs to the roof. On the flat rooftops around him, fathers
splash gleefully in puddles with their sons, and women in darkening pink and
green shalwar kameez (flowing dresses and pants) lean over railings.
The waxy leaves on the mango tree beside the house flutter in the wind. He thinks about the mess he's created.
What he's put his family through over Farah. He must make up for it. "I will marry Nida,"
he decides. "If I don't do it, I'm going to be considered selfish. I
don't want to be selfish. I love my family. They expect me to get married.
Like Faheem said, `You should have a family, wife and kids.'" Aapi and her husband Ghulam
Soomro suggested Nida as the best match for Asim even before he left Ghulam knows first-hand about
co-operation. His father got tuberculosis when he was 15, forcing him out of
school and into a textile factory to support the family. He returned to
school later, studying after his shift on the machines was over each night,
and completed a doctorate in literature. Tonight, he and Aapi will go to
Nida's home to present her family with a formal proposal of marriage, while
Asim waits at home, biting his nails. He has never seen Nida, other than in a
photo. He was sick when his sisters went to visit her family last week. "Do you think I'll be
happy?" he asks his nephew Farhan. Aapi and Ghulam had never spoken
to each other before they were married. She was only 16, and she didn't speak
a word of his family's language — Sindhi — when she moved into his mother's
house. And now look at them: 28 years together, five children, and they go
walking side by side every night in a nearby parkette. More than you can say
for most North American "love marriages." But neither entered the marriage
with such a damaged heart. "After marriage, in six
months, it will be okay," Farhan tells Asim. At 24, he is Asim's closest
friend, who plans to return to Aapi and Ghulam return after
dark has fallen outside, as well as inside their home. Although the rain has
stopped, the electricity is down again. "Good news," she
announces, striding into the shadowy back room of the house, where her two
daughters have lit candles. Asim listens absently as she
relays the events of the evening: The feast Nida's family laid
out of meat pastries, yogurt desserts and cookies. How beautiful Nida looked,
her brown hair cascading to her elbows, her almond eyes, her wheat-coloured
skin. And, most important, how her father Shakir had responded to their
marriage proposal. "He said he'd have to talk
to his parents and ask for their permission," Ghulam says. "But
that is just a formality. It is certain." As in many South Asian
countries, weddings in That's why Asim wasn't present
at the proposal, and when Shakir and his family come to give their formal
reply the following evening, it will be without Nida. In fact, it's not widely
considered acceptable for a couple, once the engagement procedures have
begun, to meet at all before the wedding ceremony, Ghulam explains. The first time that Asim's
younger brother Kazim spoke to his wife Sadia was on their wedding day last
summer. Even Nazia, Aapi and Ghulam's
22-year-old daughter, who has been engaged to her cousin for four years now,
has never had a personal, private discussion with him. "Here, love starts after
marriage," Ghulam says. "First comes
marriage. Then they get to know each other, then respect each other, then comes love." The theory is that when done
with good intentions, arranged marriages work because a person's parents know
his or her temperament and will choose appropriately. They often select from
families they know well, with the same cultural and religious background,
level of education and economic status. "Another reason they tend
to work out is that when families arrange marriages, they are making a
contract that they are going to help make it work. When there is a problem,
or dispute, everyone gets involved," explains Anita Weiss, a professor
of international studies at the The following evening, the house
simmers with anticipation. Aapi and Nazia set the dining room table with
plates of spicy Bombay chips, chickpea curry, vegetable patties and
egg-shaped methai — rich desserts that are the Pakistani equivalent of
champagne. They sweeten the mouth and signal celebration. Farhan turns on the fans in the
rose-coloured sitting room at the front of the house, and slides a compact
disc of soft music into the stereo. Four of Asim's other sisters arrive
wearing freshly ironed shalwar kameez. Just as the gate bell sounds,
Asim changes out of a black casual shirt into a purple button-down. He is
suddenly nervous. "Are my glasses bent?"
he whispers. Aapi and Ghulam welcome Nida's
family into the front room: her younger sister, older brother, aunt and
uncle, her parents, and the matriarch of the family, her grandmother. Asim is directed to a seat on
the couch beside Shakir. He is an imposing man with a neatly manicured brown
beard and moustache, and one snow-white eyebrow. He opens with a gentle reminder
they had met before 15 years earlier in the hospital, the day his father
died. And then, he begins a 15-minute interview. What do you do? What is your
education? Where do you live? How are Canadian people different from
Pakistani people? What is it like for Muslims in Asim answers each question
carefully. Later, Shakir says it was Asim's
respectful manner that swayed him. Nida's family has already
refused more than 20 marriage proposals over the past four years. What made
Asim a strong candidate, her father says, are his prospects as an accountant,
his family's close connection to theirs, and his life in "Of all the countries, But Asim doesn't know this yet.
When Skakir pulls out a pen and paper and asks for his brother Faheem's
contact numbers, Asim thinks maybe the family wants to do more research
before accepting. Shakir tells Asim he wants to
speak to Ghulam, and people in the room shift like
pieces on a chess board. Asim sits down beside Nida's
grandmother, whose stringy gray hair leaks out from beneath a white scarf and
whose teeth are stained dark brown from chewing betel nut. When her husband
died of cancer two years ago, it was Nida who sat with her in mourning for
four months. Half an hour later, the seats
shift again. Ghulam stands up and waves Aapi out of the room with him.
Shakir's wife takes his place beside her husband on the couch. Everyone whispers
conspiratorially. Not until the door to the dining
room is opened and the guests are ushered in for the feast, does Asim
understand how the negotiations have gone. In a daze, he opens his mouth to
one methai after another. "Mubarak," his
family shouts. Congratulations. Shakir pulls him in for a hug as he leaves. Asim is now formally engaged to
a woman he has only seen in a photograph. In 17 days, he and Nida will be
married. He joins his family in walking
the guests out to the gate and onto the road, where their cars sit like
alligators on the edge of a swamp. The eucalyptus trees across the road wave
dramatically in the wind. Another storm is brewing. A storm is brewing inside Asim
as well. A lecture Aapi gave him earlier
about forgetting the past and starting afresh plays in his mind. He needs the
courage to embrace his decision. And what about Nida? he thinks. How, after Farah, can he marry a girl he
doesn't even know?He must at least see her in person
once before they are married. "I just want to talk to
her. I just want to get to know her a bit," he says. In the morning, he decides, he
will ask Aapi to make it possible. |
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