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Last-minute scramble
There are only three days left
until Asim Bukhari's wedding. His family members are buzzing
like wasps, arranging for painters, booking flowers, picking up wedding
outfits from the tailor. Everyone is busy. Tonight, after their dusk prayers,
three of his sisters push their way into Clouds of smoke waft from giant
frying pans of sizzling meat patties and vats of bubbling oil. It is an easy place to get lost.
"Where is Rizvana Baji?"
Shahina says, pushing up on to her tip-toes to scan the crowd flowing around
sidewalk stalls like white water around boulders. It is even harder to be found:
most of the customers are women wrapped in long, black chadors, or
shawls, that leave only their eyes exposed. Rizvana is one of them. At 46,
she is the eldest of the seven Bukhari sisters and the only one who never
married. She had many proposals, but none were considered worthy by their
parents. And then it was too late. For the past five months, Asim
has been helping her, setting aside up to $400 each month from his paycheques
in She is a very private person,
but Asim knows she laments that their mother's dying wish for her to wed is
unfulfilled. "She was unlucky,"
their sister Aapi agrees. Miraculously, the sisters find
her up a thin alley, sorting through silver sandals to match Nida's reception
gown. That's one more to add to the
four pairs of shoes, five purses, 13 outfits — including her wedding and
reception dresses — that Asim's sisters have purchased for his bride over the
past two weeks. Then there are the gold jewelry sets, makeup, lingerie, even
the drawstrings for her pants. Aapi stops before a bangle
vendor, whose nose beads with moisture like the glass ice cream cooler beside
him. His wares rise like glittery jewels: red bracelets, silver, gold, green,
purple. She wants six sets to match Nida's gold and red wedding dress. The bargaining goes like this:
"80 rupees a set. These are top-notch bangles."Aapi shakes her
head, digs in. Numbers fly. Salesman: "My profit ..." Aapi: "These are made in
Pakistan. They should be affordable for Pakistani people." Within 10 minutes, the deal is
done: 60 rupees a set. That's less than $2. Day Two Asim sits nervously at the front
of the bus, crowded with his nieces and sisters, all singing loudly like
cheerleaders off to a college football game. A drum pounds. "This is the night we have
been waiting for," they sing, rolling past the security gate into Nida's
family's compound, and stopping before a giant, glowing yellow tent pinched
between towering apartment buildings. "We are here to put henna on your
hands and flowers in your hair." Asim waits until they have all
filtered out, a hope swelling in his chest. He thinks he will see Nida for
the first time tonight. He's seen photos but never met her in person. Will
they have time to speak to each other? Two steps toward the tent a hand
grabs his wrist. Nida's uncle Rehan whisks him past a goat tethered to a
banister, upstairs and into the family parlour. She is less than 10 metres
away, shut behind the door of her bedroom where her cousins and sister have
been applying yellow jasmine cream to her softening skin for the past four
days. But, he doesn't know that. "She will not come in front
of him until the wedding," Rehan says. "He is the only one not
allowed to see her tonight." Inside the tent, Nida and Asim's
family members are battling like die-hard hockey rivals. Asim's sisters and
nieces are settled on the ground in a circle on the left side. Nida's team
has formed a circle on the right. Each is raging in song — traditional love
songs, Indian folk songs, even Pakistani pop tunes. Drums pound, hands clap, glass
bangles shatter. Before one group finishes, the other
launches into a new verse, trying to drown them out. "Tonight is the night we'll
put on makeup and put flowers in our hair," Nida's family sings. "Hey bride, we're here to
take your heart from you," hollers Asim's side. The battle continues for an hour,
until word Nida is arriving trickles through the crowd. She descends the steps canopied
beneath a pink scarf held up by her family. Just as they reach the tent, the
lights extinguish. Power failure. Neighbours crowd on their balconies to
watch. His family showers her with pink
rose petals, and she is led past where the girls had been singing, up to a
small stage at the front of the tent, where each of Asim's sisters and nieces
will feed her sweets, dab henna on her palm, and wave 10 rupee notes over her
head for luck. Just after midnight, after the
lights have flickered back on and she has returned to her bedroom, it is
Asim's turn. He desperately has to go to the
washroom. It is just beyond her bedroom, where she is sitting on the edge of
the bed, surrounded by her cousins. Only later does he find out that he
walked right past. And that if he had only turned his head, he would have
glimpsed his future wife. Sheltered under another scarf,
Asim follows her path down the stairs, into the tent and up on to the stage,
where he grimaces after the 10th sugary cake is pushed into his mouth. The last to sit down beside him
is Nida's younger sister, Hooma. She grabs his thumb, and in local tradition,
demands money in exchange for her sister. He pulls, she pulls. Each family
hoots in support. He slips a pink, 100 rupee note from his pocket. She shakes
her head, tightens her grip. The bargaining lasts more than 10 minutes with
his friend Asim Ali coaching from the sidelines. Asim leaves the party 1,500
rupees poorer, without having seen Nida. The Last Day Asim sits at a computer,
clicking through the digital photos his nephew Umair took at last night's mehndi
party. He zooms in on Nida's face, partially hidden by a yellow scarf. "She is beautiful," he
says. The house pulses around him. Umair has bought bags of sparkly hearts
and stars to decorate the bridal room. His mother and aunts dig through two
large suitcases of dresses and bedding Nida's uncles have just dropped off.
The men struggle to push a blue-gray vanity table and headboard into a back
bedroom that will become Asim's and Nida's tomorrow night. This is Nida's dowry. For her family, it is the
biggest expense of the wedding. Aapi and her husband Ghulam have
been saving for their two daughters' weddings for 20 years. They won't say
exactly how much they spent on each girl's dowry, but their daughter Nazia
suspects it's around 150,000 rupees each — approximately $3,600, or about
five of Ghulam's monthly paycheques from his job teaching literature at a
local Karachi college. They know about the controversy
surrounding dowries. The national government has proposed a law to limit
them. Last year, an American state department report on Pakistani human
rights reported 371 dowry deaths — brides murdered by their new husbands or
in-laws for their dowries. Sometimes, the family was seeking vengeance for a
dowry deemed too paltry, but more often they saw the marriage as a path to
financial gain, and once the goods were delivered the bride was superfluous. Aapi has heard of grooms
demanding furnished apartments, cars even, from prospective brides. But she
doesn't know any personally. For her, the dowry is a
practical send-off gift for a daughter, much like a North American parent
might give to a child leaving for university. In exchange, the men offer up a
bond on their wedding night, what is called the Haq Mahr. In a country
where few women work, it is an insurance policy. In Asim's case, he will
offer Nida 51,000 rupees — about $1,200 — to be given on demand. "If,
God forbid, anything goes wrong and it ends in divorce, she can have some
money to support her," he says. But right now, that's the
furthest thing from his mind. He is bloated with anticipation for tomorrow
night. Just after dusk he walks to a small
parkette two blocks from the house with his nephew Fahran. They sit down on a
bench beneath two eucalyptus trees and watch a boy and girl chase one another
on the grass. "Can you believe, you
haven't even seen her and tomorrow you are going to be marrying her?"
says Farhan, who at 24, is Asim's closest friend and confidant.
"Tomorrow, at this time, you're going to be sitting up on stage, and
Nida will be beside you, sitting where I am now." What will she be like? Asim
wonders. Will she like him, when she looks up and sees him for the first
time? Will they grow to love one another, like his sister Aapi promises? "Oh," he says. "I
am getting nervous." Follow the series and browse
the photo gallery online at http://www.thestar.com/wedding |
