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Emotional tightrope CATHERINE PORTER Whatever confusion Asim Bukhari
felt last night about getting married is compounded this morning. He hardly slept, tossing and
turning on the large, black pillows laid down on the cool stones of the
family's front room, waking to hear the mosque's nasal call wafting through
the open window. It is Friday — the Muslim day of
prayer. He reluctantly pulls himself up,
stumbles into the family room off the kitchen where his sisters and nieces
buzz around cups of sweet milk tea and white bread at the table, and flips on
the computer to see if there are any new messages in his Hotmail account.
There, in his in-box, waits a fresh note from Farah — the second he's
received from her since he returned to She sounds wounded, and just as
confused as he is. "All is over in a few
seconds," it begins. "I was never yours and I will never be
yours." She says she wishes they had
never met. She has cried so many tears. She hopes to wipe all vestiges of him
from her heart. "Have fun searching for a
wife, getting married and living the rest of your life," it ends
flippantly. Asim slumps in his chair. Why
would she write this? On the day he left "What can I do?" he
told her. "I must get married. I promised my sisters." Now he feels less sure. A heavy weight falls on his
chest. He breathes shallowly. He shuts down the computer,
pulls on his Tevas and steps out into the laneway running alongside the house
to the front gate and car. It has been raining again. The concrete is slick
with water and flies whirl at his ankles. He backs his nephew's little
beat-up Suzuki Khyber out on to the muddy, narrow street. Men in soiled
cotton pyjamas hammer on the rusty shells of cars outside the mechanic's
shop. A garbage wallah pushes a wooden cart down the road, shouting
out to customers to come see his second-hand goods. This is recycling at its
finest. The eucalyptus trees that line
the road swell and sway in the breeze. A film of moisture forms on
Asim's upper lip. It is 28 degrees. The humidity index reads 85 per cent.
Since the monsoon started two weeks ago, He manoeuvres the car down the
road past the mosque's tall minarets and out on to the main street. He's off
to mail a package back to his home in The traffic is more chaotic than
he remembers. Mounds of dark mud line the edges of the main roads, where
workers are installing new drainage systems. They are badly needed. Some
corners are so flooded, passing motorcyclists wade to their calves in water.
Donkeys are reined by little boys on wooden carts, transporting rags bundled
together with coarse rope. Sputtering motorized rickshaws buzz in between
cars like bluebottle flies, spewing white exhaust. Giant city buses roar
along the road, indifferent to pedestrians. They look like Chinese New Year
dragons, mottled with vibrant pastel colours and crested with pounded metal
scales. Dusters stick up from their hoods like whiskers. The road oscillates between
concrete and mud. Giant potholes every 10 metres act as natural speed bumps. There are no marked lanes. Even
if there were, no one would pay attention to them. It seems like one giant
bumper car rink. He used to weave across the city
on a motorcycle. But nearly five years in "Look at this guy! What is
he doing?" Asim mutters as he comes windshield to windshield with
another car, heading down the street the wrong way. Just yesterday, his sisters had
taken him to see a second "bride-may-be." They had sat for an hour
in her family's small, neat apartment, discussing politics and education,
while he watched the girl with soft brown hair and a gentle face bring in a
tray of Coca Cola. He had thought she was pretty,
but his sisters emphatically ruled otherwise. She was too fat to be a good
match for Asim, they said. He must be patient and wait for the right one. It left him confused and
disturbed his sleep. There is only one who is right
for him, he thinks. No matter how hard he tries to forget her, Farah is
always there — soothing his headaches with gentle kisses. "She used to say, `I am
your medicine,'" he says. Asim is caught between two
worlds. His old home that defines itself by family and honour, and his new
one that lives by individualism and free will. One where marriages are
arranged like business deals by families, the other whose theme song is
romantic love. "I feel like killing
myself," he groans. "My friends say when I get married, I'll forget
about her and everything will be normal. I want to cry." Everyone in his family has had
an arranged marriage. His grandparents, his parents, six of his seven sisters
and his two brothers. His one cousin in "I could have done the same
thing, but I can't. Family is too important. You don't know what Aapi and my
brother-in-law have done for me. They take care of our whole family. They
don't have any privacy for us," he says. "I have to pay the price
for that. That's why I am disturbed. I don't know if I should listen to my
heart, my mind or my sisters." The weight on his chest has
grown heavier by the time he turns back on to his family's small street and
rings the bell for Azra, the family's 9-year-old helper, to open the gate. Asim collapses into a dark
wooden chair in the family room beside Aapi. The cream wall above them has
only two adornments: a small poster with a quote from the Qu'ran about
courage, wisdom and stability, and a brown wooden plaque with three bronze
maple leaves and the word " Aapi is 13 years older than Asim
and has always seemed more a mother than a sister. He was only 4 when she got
married. He sat sobbing in her lap during the ceremony. For that reason, she
feels it's mostly her responsibility to see Asim married to the right woman. Turning in her seat beside him,
she lifts up an index finger and presses play on the lecture that has been
simmering inside her for a week now. Everyone has problems. Everyone
has difficulties. "You must be strong," she says, touching his arm.
Asim wilts, slipping deeper and
deeper into his chair. He keeps his eyes locked on the floor. He needs to take care of his
family and his future wife. Only then he can make her happy, she says. One tear
slides out from under his glasses and rolls down his cheek. Another follows.
Asim begins to sob. "What is it?" she asks
gently. Ten minutes pass before he can
push out the words. "I don't know if I can ever
make my wife happy," he says. "Farah is the only one I love." Stroking his face, Aapi asks him
why he didn't say anything before. "We just want you to be
happy," she says. "If you think Farah will treat you well, then go ahead." But first, he must pray. Before
he left for He lays down a small maroon and
white rug on the floor and begins to asks God for
guidance. "I am not in a position to
decide what is right and wrong. You help me to decide," he prays,
bending at the waist towards A few paces from where Asim had
been crying, his 26-year-old niece sits watching
Pakistani music videos on television. Both she and her younger sister are
getting married this month to their two first cousins — common in Muslim
countries. Both marriages were arranged by the families. She is satisfied,
she says. She has faith in God and her parents that it is the right decision.
She thinks Asim should be more sensible. "He is very, very
sensitive. He feels things too much," she says, twirling a piece of her
black hair like a teenager. "That's why he needs not just a wife, but a
mother." Asim emerges from his prayers
cleansed, calm and content, and heads back to the
small computer room. In the subject bar of his e-mail
to Farah he types "Gooooooood Newssss : )." He has played his role,
he writes. It's her turn to play hers. If she wants to marry him, she has to
convince her parents to accept him. "Now, I'm all yours,"
he types. "Catch me if you can." |
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