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Despair sets in CATHERINE PORTER Aapi slumps down heavily into a
dark brown bamboo chair on one side of the family's eight-place dining room
table. She puts her elbows on the table, drops her damp forehead in her hands
and sighs. Her baby brother Asim is being a
lot more picky than he first let on. She checks over her shoulder:
"He's not satisfied yet with any of the girls." Unlike both his brothers, who
agreed to marry the first prospective bride they saw, Asim is critical of
this, disapproving of that. Aapi's model-thin younger sister
Shahina commiserates. She is the most traditional of the seven Bukhari
sisters. When she walks out into Waving away a cluster of flies
that crawl over the gray and white plastic floral table covering, she
predicts Asim will be the most difficult of their three brothers to marry
off. Aapi groans: "He talks too
much. He didn't even look at the girl." They have just returned from the
home of another "bride-may-be." Her name is Mavish, which in Urdu
means "moon-like," and she made the list because Ather knows her
father. The meeting did not go well. The cab ride was a 15-minute
lurch-speed-brake-lurch through graying streets. At the end of the bumpy
journey, the car turned on to a small road alongside a large pit brimming
with rainwater and litter. Little boys playing cricket
pulled the wicket they had fashioned with wooden sticks to the side of the road
to let them pass. A security guard, hired
privately by the neighbourhood, lifted up a white and red post blocking the
street like a train guard. The guards are commonplace in a city where
robberies, hijackings and assassinations have been on the upswing in recent
years, barely making front-page news in the city's 30 daily papers. They had
been affected even in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, an hour's drive from downtown. Aapi's area boasts a watchman
who tours the area by bicycle at night, blowing his whistle like a loon. The cab pulls up in front of the
last house on the street. Like theirs, it is protected by a thick white wall
topped with metal spikes. A plaque out front announces it is the home of
Professor Hussein. An older woman in a black and
gold shalwar kameez, traditional dress with matching pants, and a
young man answer the bell, ushering them into a small sitting room decorated
in a Japanese motif. Asim sits down in a brown sofa chair beside the man, and
his older sisters bunch together on the couch across
a black lacquer table. There are black and white prints with geishas on one
wall and a matching lacquer divider lining another. The conversation starts
tentatively. This was Mavish's mother and
brother. They were also mohajirs — Indian Muslims who migrated to the
new country of Mavish, she tells them, is 23.
She has a master's degree in nutrition, quite a feat in Aapi says they used to live in
an apartment nearby. How long have they been here? Asim leans across the arm of his
chair to chat to the brother, who, it turns out, is an accountant. Asim is in
his second year of accounting at He is so busy chatting,
he doesn't look up when a young girl in a pink embroidered shalwar kameez,
her scarf pulled like a hood over her head, comes into the room carrying a
tray of white, sugary cake. She is followed by a taller girl in brown with
spinach tea biscuits and a plastic squeeze bottle of ketchup. She bends to her knees before
the table and passes out plates and forks. Asim declines softly. "My stomach is not too
good," he says shyly. Later, he discovers this is not Mavish but her
sister, who is getting married in two weeks. "It must be because of the
change from Aapi forks a piece of cake into
her mouth. It is very stale. She tries another topic. Have
they had difficulties here with water? Since it started two weeks ago, the
monsoon has flooded the sewage system. Reports in the newspaper are that some
septic systems had leaked into the water supply. "No," the mother
replies. They get their water delivered by tanker every week. Asim hits a dead end in his
conversation also. No one can think of anything to say. The room beats in time with the
fan whirling overhead. All eyes are glued to the floor.
Asim slides his thumb along the edge of his beading glass of Coke. The black
fringe on the gold curtains breathes in and out. The leaves on a small, fake
maple tree in the corner shake. Each second stretches out like warm naan dough
in the oven. The sound of the television wafts in from the kitchen. Later, Aapi explains it is
considered impolite in Only after he had given the
green light did the family accept. Five seconds out of the house
and into a cab, Aapi bursts. "What did you think?"
she asks Asim. "I didn't see her. She came
in, dropped the food and just left," he says. "I was talking to her
brother." His knees are pressed up against
the taxi's dashboard. It is a small, rattling, black-and-yellow Datsun with
burgundy velour seats and doors the driver jimmies with a key to open. "I liked the other
one," he adds. "She's chubby." She is not chubby, Aapi insists.
It was the cut and material she was wearing. Stiff cotton is not flattering. "It is a very nice family,"
Shahina agrees. "An educated family. Her father is a director of This is the fourth bride they
have seen for Asim since he arrived, jet-lagged and nauseous. He had been too
sick to come to any of the other meetings. But, when they reported back, he
dismissed each and every one. The young medical student would
be too busy for him. The girl who lived on university campus was too dirty.
And Nida was too close to the family. Her mother and Aapi were childhood
friends. "I don't want to get
married to someone I already know and whose family we have a good
relationship with," Asim explains. "If there is a problem, she's
going to tell her mom that I did that, I will tell my sister she did this,
and then it affects the whole family." That makes it that much more
difficult to find a match. "This is not a good
method," Aapi says, slumped at the dining table. "We can't go to
four or five families, eat and drink there, look at their girls and then not be interested." It's not only rude. It's demoralizing
for the girls. She has two daughters herself. The same time the next
afternoon, Asim emerges from the bathroom in a beige and rust striped shirt
and beige pants. He has showered, shaved, dabbed a dollop of gel into his
short, dark brown hair and applied generous amounts of Ace body spray. They are going to see another
girl who teaches with Aapi's daughter at a primary school. Her name is
Nazish, meaning pride or attitude. She's 21. Aapi has applied dark red
lipstick to match her shalwar kameez. Their sister Anjum is coming
with them. She is one year Aapi's senior and her spitting image, except her
eyebrows gather more thickly above her glasses. She has eight children. They arrive four minutes later
at the walled gates of an apartment complex, covered with the black,
spray-painted graffiti: "Down with Inside, white and beige
apartment buildings rise in towers, separated by thin alleys. The balconies
are barred like cages. They mount the stairs to the
very top floor. Asim stops on the landing before the door to catch his
breath. "Are my glasses
crooked?" he asks nervously. "You go ahead of me." They are greeted by another
smiling woman who leads them into another small sitting room. It is furnished
much more simply, with a dark brown couch and matching chairs. The only
adornment on the cream walls is a framed verse from the Qu'ran. A large fan beats overhead. Asim takes a seat at the end of
the couch, from where he has a clear view of the door. A man in a long gray shirt and
white, flowing pants barrels into the room. He has a large, friendly face and
an easy laugh. This is Nazish's father. Her mother brings in extra
chairs that have to be lifted up over the furniture and squeezed into the
corners in order to seat everyone. The conversation flows easily:
traffic, politics, the degeneration of education and health care. "No one does anything for
charity any more," Nazish's father says. "Everything's driven by
profit." His wife brings in plates of
chips, chocolate doughnuts, mini pizzas Nazish baked and a small, squeezable
bottle of ketchup. In a country where one in three live
in poverty, store-bought treats are a symbol of status. And then she enters. Nazish is wearing a black kameez
embroidered with pink and green flowers, with the scarf flowing backwards
over her shoulders, revealing long, soft brown hair. She has doe eyes. Aapi elbows Asim, sitting beside
him on the couch. Speak to her, she whispers. "Do you have much free
time?" he asks shyly. Everyone watches encouragingly. Yes, she says. She's on summer
holiday. Aapi jabs him again. "Ask
her how religious she is." He shakes his head. It doesn't
seem appropriate. Before he knows it, she is gone,
only returning for a second to drop off a tray of empty glasses and a bottle
of Coca Cola. Five minutes. That's all the
time he gets. On the short ride home, Asim
glows. For once, he approves. "She is nice," he says
smiling. But his sisters, huddling in a
bedroom, think differently. Listening to Anjum's report, they twitter with
discontent. When Asim enters, they swarm
him. "She is too fat,"
Anjum announces, blowing up her cheeks for emphasis. "Her wrist is the
size of my arm." Aapi nods her head in agreement.
The family was perfect, but not the girl. "You are in too much of a
hurry," she says. "There are better girls in "Don't worry Asim,"
Shahina say, touching Asim's arm. She is wrapped in a pink and white cloth
like a nun. "We will find you a better girl. This is not the right
match." Asim storms into the bathroom
for his third cold shower that day. First he is too picky. Now he's
not picky enough. "I like her face. I don't
care if she's chubby. People can change," he says. "If she was too
beautiful, she might think she was too good for me." At The watchman's whistle moans in
the distance. "I'm so confused. I have a
headache," he says. Should he go against his
sister's judgment and choose Nazish? Or should he swallow his conviction and
choose Nida, the daughter of his family's friend and Aapi's favourite? And
behind it all, Farah lingers. He remembers what his younger
brother Kazim did when deciding whether or not to marry Sadia — a girl he had
never spoken to — last summer. He recited a Qu'ranic verse and
then went straight to bed. The answer was revealed in his dreams. Asim hopes he will be so lucky. "I will pray to God on
this." |
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