Finding Mr Perfectly Fine, page 4
This is why I’m lying on my bed with my third Korean face mask on and fresh cucumber slices on my eyes, listening to calm spa music. I’m hoping that the soothing atmosphere I’ve created will coax all the negative energy and toxins out of my body and give me an aura of confident nonchalance tomorrow.
‘I think you need to chill out,’ I hear my younger sister Amina scoff over the sounds of the sea. ‘This whole finding a husband thing is so anti-feminist.’
‘This is me chilling out,’ I mumble, trying not to move my mouth as I speak. ‘At least, it was until you came along.’
‘Leave Zara alone,’ I hear my mum say in the background somewhere. ‘She needs to take this marriage search seriously – and unless you want to end up in the same situation, you could do with a face mask or two yourself.’
I sigh. I should have just booked myself into an actual spa, but after spending a fortune on a new saree, I didn’t want to spend any more on this wedding of a person so distantly related that I’m not even sure how we know each other.
‘Do you guys mind? I’m trying to relax here,’ I say from between clenched teeth.
‘All right, I’m going! Just wanted to give you girls your sarees, that’s all. Your dad’s brought them back from the dry cleaners, so they’re lovely and pressed now,’ she says. ‘Here take yours, Amina. I’ll leave Zara’s here.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I reply, my eyes still closed. Ironing sarees encrusted with gems is a mission, so it was nice of my parents to get them professionally steamed for us. There are some things I’m going to miss when I eventually leave home.
‘Seriously, Zara, I don’t know why you’re letting Mum pressure you like this,’ Amina continues once our mother has left the vicinity. ‘You don’t have to get married you know. You’re not going to turn into a khodu when the clock strikes twelve on your thirtieth birthday.’
‘No one’s pressuring me,’ I reply. ‘I want to get married. The older I get, the harder it’s going to be to find someone, so I need to get cracking.’
‘Do you know how ridiculous you sound? The older you get? You’re twenty-bloody-nine! I bet men never worry about getting old! The double standards make me sick!’
‘Amina! My trying to get married doesn’t mean that I’m complicit in upholding the bloody patriarchy, OK? I want a life partner. I want kids one day. That’s it! It’s not that deep!’
Amina mutters something about failing feminism under her breath and stomps out of my room. The door slams closed and all the tranquillity I felt moments before disappears with her.
*
Despite yesterday’s mishaps, the bit of pampering I did has refreshed my complexion and reduced the puffiness around my eyes. A good thing too, because today is going to be a golden opportunity to parade myself in front of potential in-laws. According to Mum, the crème de la crème of the UK’s Bengali elite will be at this wedding and I need to make it count.
‘Zara, I need your heeeeeelp!’ I hear Amina screech from her bedroom next door. Before I have the chance to answer, she bangs on the connecting wall in case I’ve developed hearing problems overnight.
Amina, Yasmin and I may be sisters, but not only do we look nothing like each other, our personalities couldn’t be more different. Amina is like a volcano ready to erupt at any moment, and it could be over something as minor as losing her favourite lipstick or something as complicated as Middle Eastern politics. She is also extremely loyal and has a heart of gold, and I can say with the utmost confidence that she would kill for me. No joke.
Yasmin, on the other hand is really, really chilled. Nothing fazes her and she’s often the one who rushes to placate Amina. And me, to be truthful. She’s very mature for a uni student and while she works hard, she plays harder. She’s rarely at home and has a social life that is far more active than any of ours. I’m supposedly a cross between them both.
‘What’s the emergency?’ I ask as I walk into Amina’s meticulously tidy sea-green room. Mum thought that a soothing colour would help calm her. We’re yet to notice a difference.
She looks up at me from her cross-legged position on the floor in front of her full-length mirror. ‘I need help curling my hair. I can’t do the back properly.’
‘Can I do it later?’ I say, trying to put her off from hijacking my getting-ready time. ‘It’s only ten thirty and we’re not leaving until one.’ And I need every second to make myself look desirable since I’m the one whose eggs are drying up as we speak. I don’t say this out loud, though. I’m well aware of Amina’s thoughts on the topic of marriage and old age.
‘So? You know it takes me ages to do my makeup!’ Her voice goes up an octave so I give in and sit down to get on with it as fast as I can. As I curl her hair around the heated tongs, she talks about the Muslim charity she works for and how all the old men don’t take her seriously, and I ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’ in the right places. When her maroon hair is suitably bouncy, I leg it out of her room and go back to my comfortably cluttered haven with only an hour and a half to turn myself into an irresistible goddess.
‘Oh, you look beautiful,’ Mum gushes as she enters my room to put my new coral-coloured saree on for me. The border has pearl and crystal embellishments and I’ve tailor-made the blouse so it has long sleeves and a long top that doesn’t expose my stomach. I may be ready to start making an effort with my appearance again, but there’s a limit to how much attention I like drawing towards myself.
Mum gets to work with wrapping the saree around me. It isn’t easy because I’m tall as it is and with three-inch sparkly heels, it’s just about long enough. Once she’s finished, she takes out three industrial safety pins and pins together parts of the saree that are likely to come undone. I honestly don’t know how my nani lives in them with no safety pins. She even jumped into the pool wearing one when we were on holiday in Dubai. You should have seen her backstroking away with her headscarf on and everything.
‘There, let me see.’ Mum pushes me back to observe her handiwork. ‘Stunning!’ A strange expression crosses her face and I frown, wondering what’s wrong now.
‘What is it?’ I ask warily as I check myself out in the full-length mirror and, to my surprise I agree with her. Sarees are amazingly slimming and I look as though I’m in proportion for a change.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ she mumbles, wiping the corner of her eye.
‘Mum! What is it?’
‘Nothing important! I . . . well . . . you’re probably not going to be around much longer and I felt sad for a second. You know I love you and want the best for you, don’t you?’
I stare at her, not sure if she’s serious or winding me up. She ignores me and takes out her phone, ordering me to look demure while she takes pictures of me, muttering something about replacing the one from my biodata.
‘Omigod you look so sexy!’ Yasmin squeals, stomping her way into my room, her chin-length hair swishing like she’s just stepped out of the salon. She has no problems showing off her skin and her mint-green saree has tiny sleeves and a low back. Although Nani has wrapped it to cover her flat, toned stomach, the material is slightly sheer so you can make it out through the fabric.
‘So do you,’ I say raising one eyebrow. ‘A bit too sexy, perhaps?’
‘Oh, leave her alone, she’s still young,’ Nani chides as she shuffles into the room, out of breath from climbing the stairs. ‘Let me go and see if Amina needs any help.’
We hear Amina grumbling in the next room while both Nani and Mum sort her out. She finally emerges in a hot-pink saree. Like Yasmin, she’s also gone for the exposed look. Her newly dyed maroon hair clashes with the pink, but I say nothing. I value my life, after all.
At last, we all trundle into my dad’s eight-seater car, arguing over who has to climb into the back. None of us want to risk messing up our outfits. In the end, Mum shoves us aside and gets into the back herself so the three of us can sit in the middle whilst Nani, as always, rides shotgun.
Thankfully, the drive is short as the event is at a banqueting hall in Wood Green that every other Asian in a ten-mile radius hires for their wedding reception. There’s lots of squealing, hugs and air kisses as we enter the main hall and bump into relatives we haven’t seen since the last family wedding in December. Everyone is dressed in their finest with jewellery dripping from every available outlet; big, dangly earrings, headpieces, forehead tiklis, rings, bracelets, armlets, anklets and even jewellery you can clip onto your hair.
You know how at English weddings it’s considered bad form to wear white? Well, Bengalis have no such qualms and you’ll always find one woman dressed in her own wedding outfit. Sometimes you can’t even notice it because it looks like another red saree. Today, however, it’s glaringly obvious because not only is the woman wearing a red and gold saree that is so heavy she can barely move, but she is also wearing what is clearly her wedding gold, right down to the nose hoop that is connected by a gold chain to her earlobe.
My sisters, cousins and I grab a table in the middle of the hall as it’s the perfect location from which to spot potential suitors. Mum and Nani head off to mingle with guests their own age.
There are ten of us at the table; us three sisters, three of my elder uncle’s four children (Kamal, Madiha and Ridhwaan) and all four of my younger uncle’s children (Rashid, Jannah, Samia and Ameera). Within minutes we’re all laughing away at Kamal’s jokes and Rashid’s one-liners and, for a moment, I forget that I’m supposed to act respectable and demure like a suitable prospective daughter-in-law. The only cousin who’s missing is Sabina, who lives in Dubai.
I’m sitting next to Samia, my twenty-five year-old cousin, who I’m closest to after Sabina. Although Samia’s closer in age to Amina, the two of them seem to rub each other up the wrong way. They’re both too ambitious and highly strung, always competing or arguing. They also both work for non-profits, and Amina can’t seem to help dropping in the fact that she’s more qualified than Samia, whenever they talk turkey.
Samia and I don’t see each other that much since she lives and works in Luton, but we chat on the phone pretty much every week. We start catching up on everything that’s happened since we last spoke, and I fill her in on the biodata, MuslimMate and the chocolate event.
‘To be honest, you should have let Fufu make you a biodata a long time ago,’ she says and, as always, I feel as though she’s older than me, instead of four years younger.
‘Yeah, well, it’s taken me a while to get my head around marriage again after what happened,’ I say quietly, so the boys on the table don’t overhear.
‘You think you’re ready now?’
‘Yeah. I am. I’m nearly thirty. If I want time to find someone, get married, and have a couple of years together before kids, I need to do it now.’ She nods, and I ask her if her parents have started looking for her, as she’s the eldest of her siblings.
‘Not really,’ she replies vaguely. ‘It’s on their radar, but I’m not in a hurry. Anyway, I’m off to Zimbabwe next week for two months, so I’m not even gonna think about it until I get back.’
It doesn’t take long for other relatives to start dropping by our table to ask intrusive questions or make distasteful comments. At first, it’s not too bad and I handle it like a boss. But they keep coming and each remark is beginning to feel like a bullet. One granny tells me that I’m getting old, one tells me that my colouring has become ‘dirty’ and another tells me that I’ve put on weight. And that isn’t even the worst of it.
The worst is when Mum brings an aunty over and not-so-subtly presents me to her, rambling on about how great I am at cooking and how I’m such an obedient and perfect daughter. My cousins all snigger and giggle as mum tells lie after lie to try and sell me to this woman. She might as well stick a price tag on my face, the way she pitches me to her.
‘Boish khotoh?’ the aunty asks, and Mum stumbles a little before plastering a fake smile on her face and telling her that I’m twenty-nine.
‘Yallah go mai, ita oitoh nai,’ the aunty exclaims in dismay. ‘Damandor boish matro shataish!’
The groom is only twenty-seven? So why is my mum even putting me through this ordeal? My cheeks have turned red. I know they have because the heat is so intense that I’m certain my makeup is about to melt off. Oblivious to the embarrassment she’s inflicting on me, the aunty peers at Samia and asks my mum how old she is. Mum’s expression freezes, and when she tells her that she’s twenty-five, the aunty beams and starts quizzing Sam about her future plans.
The confidence I felt this morning begins to seep out of my pores. Who was I kidding, trying to make myself look attractive? I’ve met three distant cousins a similar age to me who, last year, were single and this year are either engaged or married. There’s obviously something wrong with me. Why else am I still alone?
‘Excuse me,’ I mumble, getting up. ‘I need the bathroom.’
‘I’ll join you,’ Sam gathers up the folds of her saree so she can also get up. Then, ‘Ignore them,’ she says as we walk across the hall. ‘You know what busybodies they are. Always sticking their nose in other peoples’ business.’
I say nothing.
As we approach the doors to the foyer, I catch the eye of a tall, very good-looking guy in a three-piece suit. He must be from the groom’s side because I’ve never seen him before. Even though I’m still reeling from all the questioning, I feel my spirits begin to lift. From the way he’s looking at me, maybe I’m not such a hideous old hag after all.
So, I do what every girl at a Bengali wedding would do in my situation; I look away, force my expression into one of aloof indifference, push my shoulders back and catwalk past him like a Brazilian supermodel.
At least, that’s what I try to do. I end up stepping on Samia’s saree, causing her to buckle and let out an ungodly shriek. Gasping in horror, I try to grab her arm but she falls to her knees and I stumble. My first instinct is to let go of Samia and run. Anywhere. But if I do, someone else is going to have to help her up and she will never forgive me.
My face bright pink, I pull her back up and she glares at me, too angry to say anything. Her hijab and head jewellery askew, she grits her teeth and limps out of the room, clutching on to the parts of the saree that have come undone. I follow her, but not before I spot the look of amusement on the guy’s face.
‘What the hell was that!’ Samia explodes the minute we enter the restroom. She whips around to look in the mirror and upon seeing her dishevelled appearance, turns a scary shade of purple. I gulp and offer to help sort it out.
‘You don’t even know how to put on a saree!’ she hisses and starts fixing it herself. I’m too scared to start reapplying my lippy now, so I hang back with a guilty look on my face.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble when she’s finally sorted herself out. ‘I got a bit carried away.’
‘Carried away doing what?’ she demands, giving me a look. She appears to be slightly calmer now so I tell her about the guy and my epic fail to ignore him and look cool and mysterious.
‘Well, the illusion is shattered,’ she sighs, and I smile wryly back, dreading the fact that I have to walk back in there.
We leave the bathroom and linger around the foyer for a while, still working up the courage to head back into the hall. On one side there is a drinks station set up with fresh juices and mocktails, and a gelato stand with a range of different flavours. On the other, there are two stalls, one with a lady dressed in a bright green saree wrapping up fresh paan with betelnuts and all the traditional accompaniments; and the other, a skinny man frying up chana choor mixed with lemon juice, chilli, fresh onions and coriander. The fragrance of the chillies and lemon is too good to resist, and since it’s already two and neither lunch nor the bride are anywhere in sight, I help myself to a little cone and dig in. Samia doesn’t want to look greedy or drop any on her clothes so decides to swallow her embarrassment and go back to our table.
A group of drummers dressed in white sherwanis burst into the building and start pounding a traditional Punjabi beat. Their energy is infectious and immediately everyone in the hall (apart from the really old or really religious) stands up and starts clapping to the beat.
The huge bridal party follows in a haze of pink. In the middle of all her siblings and cousins is the bride, looking absolutely breathtaking in a white raw silk lengha covered in crystals, carrying a pretty floral bouquet. I have no idea how she’s managing to walk with the stone-encrusted dupatta weighing down on her complicated updo and the long train of her skirt. She is clutching on to her dad for dear life and is looking downwards, as is the custom for Bengali brides. You can’t look too happy, you see. If you do, everyone will think you’ve had a love marriage and couldn’t care a toss about leaving the safety of your parental home.
After the bride and groom unite on the stage and exchange flower garlands, we finally get to eat. The food, as always, is the main event at our weddings and everyone tucks in as though they haven’t eaten in days. Except me. I’m too afraid of dropping curry onto my expensive saree and humiliating myself even more than I already have done.
The happy couple also eat during this time, and I notice how ecstatic they both look. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when Bengali girls didn’t meet their future husbands until their wedding day; and even then, they were too shy/respectful/scared to glance at the man they would be expected to share a bed with. They would sit there, dressed in beautifully adorned red silk sarees with red dupattas draped low over their heads and faces. Their vision obscured, they wouldn’t dare to look up even when feeding their new life-partner mishti. I’ve lost count of the number of wedding photos I’ve seen where the bride is looking in one direction, and her arm is pointed in another as she reluctantly brings rasmalai to her husband’s lips.
