She found herself in her old bedroom after the mehndi with Gohar, who looked extremely worried....
COVER STORY
Hina did not know that arguing with Sameer on Amani’s mehndi would lead to her being swiftly deposited back to her mother’s house. She found herself in her old bedroom after the mehndi with Gohar, who looked extremely worried.
“Ray doesn’t want to pressure you into talking about it so soon, but I’m not like that,” Gohar said, taking Hina’s hand. “What’s been going on between you and Sameer?”
“I told him that I chose him as my husband recently,” Hina said. “He took that very badly.”
Gohar stared at Hina. “That’s the kind of thought you keep to yourself, don’t you think?” Gohar said.
“Why?” Hina asked.
“He’d wonder where your heart has been for the first three months of marriage,” Gohar said. “Don’t make him wonder about that.”
“Why not? It took me that long to make up my mind about him,” Hina said.
“Yes, but he was committed to you from the start, right?” Gohar said.
“Yes, but…” Hina said slowly.
“No buts,” Gohar said. “Men can’t tolerate knowing that they’re not your one and only.”
“That’s not fair,” Hina said.
“I think your real complaint is against your mother, Hina,” Gohar said. “For pushing you into this marriage before you were ready.”
Hina thought about this. “That’s true,” she said, “but I can hardly go up to Ammi and tell her that I have this complaint, right?”
“Why not?” Gohar asked.
Hina looked at Gohar carefully to make sure she was not joking. “You know Ammi,” Hina finally said.
“Yes, but that has nothing to do with it,” Gohar said. “Tell her how you feel.”
“I’ll be quickly executed if I do that,” Hina said.
“Let’s get Ray’s input on this,” Gohar said.
Before Hina could stop her, Gohar had gone and called Ray into the room.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me about this tonight?” Hina asked Ray.
“I am ready to talk about it whenever you are ready,” Ray said. “It’s pretty late, though. Don’t you want to get some rest?”
“How can I rest when I am away from my own home,” Hina said.
“What happened, then?” Ray asked.
Hina told him. Ray looked thoughtful.
“You’re a guy,” Hina said. “Let’s get your feedback on this. Would you be extremely hurt if Gohar told you she was undecided about you?”
Ray blinked quickly. “I would, actually,” he said. “Not to the extent of kicking her out of the house,” he added, “but I would have questions. Didn’t you talk about it with Sameer?”
“I did,” Hina said. “Gohar thinks I need to talk about it with Ammi.”
“Gohar is a genius,” Ray said, grinning.
“You’re just biased in her favour,” Hina said. “I think it’s pointless to talk to Ammi.”
“Maybe you’ll find out something that will help you with Sameer,” Ray said. “It can’t hurt to try.”
Next morning, Hina went into Ammi’s room. Gohar was out of the house on bridal duty with Amani for her barat. Ray was on duty driving Gohar and Amani around. That left Hina alone at home with Ammi.
“Ammi, I want to talk to you about something,” Hina said.
“What do you want?” Ammi asked.
“I want to talk to you about my marriage,” Hina said.
“What about it? Did Sameer leave you here? It’s up to you to apologise to him and go back to him as his wife,” Ammi said sharply. “I refuse to be involved with it.”
“This isn’t about me being here,” Hina said. “It’s about you banning Sameer and me from talking before we got married.”
“You know very well why I did that,” Ammi said. “You weren’t supposed to be talking to each other. You were supposed to marry the person I told you to marry. None of this talking before marriage business.”
“I needed to do that to get to know him first,” Hina said. “I didn’t get enough time to get to know him before marriage, you know.”
“That’s not my problem,” Ammi said. “As your mother, I decide who you marry. As my daughter, it’s your job to uphold the marriage.”
“It’s not that simple, Ammi,” Hina said. “I would have liked to get to know Sameer more and have gotten to assure myself that I wanted to marry him before the actual wedding. As my mother, you should have facilitated that.” Hina found herself shaking at her own boldness.
“Nonsense,” Ammi said, fixing Hina with a cold gaze. “That’s not how marriages take place. Our mothers matched us up with our husbands and we upheld it. Their mothers decided their marriages and they upheld them. That’s how it works. You have no business coming to me and complaining about it later. You will learn to like the man I picked for you. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
Hina stared at Ammi. “Aren’t matters supposed to improve across generations?” she asked. “Why should we keep repeating what our forefathers have done?”
“If it isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it,” Ammi said, turning away from Hina. “You tire me with your persistence. When you have a daughter, you will do the same to her that I did with you. When you become a mother, you will understand.”
“I’ll do better by my future children, I assure you,” Hina said, standing up to leave. “Better than you did with me!” She left the room.
When Ray came to pick the family up for the barat, he asked Hina how she was doing.
“I talked about it,” Hina said, making a point to look anywhere but at Ammi.
“What came of it?” Ray asked.
“I’ll tell you at the barat,” Hina said.
At the barat, it was a festive scene and Amani was at her happiest. The nikah ceremony took place, after which Gohar and Hina crowded around Amani to hug her. After receiving their congratulations, Amani said,
“You look much better today, Hina!”
“I am better today, Amani,” Hina replied.
“It’s the happiest day of my life,” Amani said. “On this happiest day of my life, you should make up with Sameer. Come on, you know you want to.”
“I’ll try,” Hina said. She found Sameer in the audience and sat down next to him.
“Ammi told me to uphold my marriage with you,” Hina said to Sameer without preamble.
“You don’t have to do what your Ammi says,” Sameer said.
“Yeah, it’s not like I completely followed her guidelines with regards to marrying you, otherwise I would have never talked to you before we got married,” Hina said. “Ammi’s plan for our marriage is that she put us together, so we need to make it work.”
“You don’t need to obey her, you know?” Sameer said. “You’re allowed to follow your heart.”
“My heart says I need to go back home with you,” Hina said. “Not because Ammi told me to, but because I really want to.”
“Think about it another day,” Sameer said, getting up for the rukhsati. Hina looked to see if Amani was crying, and it looked like Amani was going to wash her makeup away as she walked down the aisle towards the exit.
“I can’t believe she’s crying when she’s known Moeed literally her whole life,” Hina said.
“It’s still an emotional moment, isn’t it?” Sameer said.
“The real crying comes after marriage,” Hina said seriously. “You’re putting me through a lot, Sameer.”
Sameer looked troubled. “Give it one more day,” he said. “You need time to figure out what you really want. Isn’t that what you said about us getting married in the first place? You needed more time to figure out your feelings about me. Well, here’s more time.”
“See you tomorrow,” Hina said, as Sameer left without her.
To be continued…
