The Bridesmaids.

no wedding can be complete without a set of the bride’s girlfriends being there at her beck and call at every waking moment. to receive shouty sms’s, to be the punching bags, to deal with her rants, to share in her dreams, to manage the cell phone, to resolve her past, to peep into her future, to laugh madly, dance insanely, cry uncontrollably, share looks meaningfully, to bitch without reserve, absorb quietly and simply simply be there. to my bridesmaids, without whom this wedding could not have happened.

life.

i think Allah Mian sends down the juxtaposition life and death, of extreme happiness and sadness, to us to instill in us a deep sense of appreciation of what we have today, to make us realize that both pain and joy is transient and in the end, we should be thankful for those we have around us and pray for the strength to always deal with what we have humbly and as best as we can.

Five Days After Marriage

the first few days of being married is kind of like being on a vacation. you know those summers when time used to slow down or speed up depending on how good a time you were having or how tired you were. when time was a mere concept and there were no rules of having to sleep at a particular 10pm or wake at a specific 8am. everything just puttered along merrily, in one happy slow-mo kind of way. post marriage is like that. like the vacation of your life, with your best friend. anything less than that is a compromise.

The Big Day

aafi called me from england the day after my wedding and said she had one thing to ask me which would tell me a lot about how the rest of my life with k will be. “How did he receive you on the stage on your wedding day?”

i didnt have to hesitate.
he came up to hold my hand to take me to our seats, and then stopped, looked at me and handed me a single red rose. i a hall packed with people, all of whom are trying to wish you the best simultaneously, thats the closest it gets to a private i love you.

on my last single night…

…i went to espresso with drying mehndi on my hands with meena and mars and we drank coffee and laughed and took mad pics.

…my red hot chilli pepper bottle got smashed to bits by my darling niece, who i still love despite that.

…my morning nikah outfit got left behind at the tailors with no hope of recoevry before the ceremoney tomorrow.

…my cousin, sisters and i tried to figure out what to do and ended up family gossiping instead.

…i wrote an email which signaled the end of an era.

…i prayed to Allah Mian to help me retain my sense of humour and faith and to keep me realizing that this is all some detail of a large plan which im too small to understand.

The Perfect July Night in Karachi.

in one of my several daily conversations with Allah mian for the past couple of days, i had been requesting insistently on my mehndi being uneventful rain-wise. with karachi you never know. at sam’s rukhsati in december 2002 we practically threw her in the car and ran for cover to escape the sudden downpour. at z’s engagement, we hopped under the shamiana looking for dry spots where the rain didnt pelt through the canvas. at b’s baraat, our ghararas sloshed the floor as we waded through a foot of water to get to the hall. rain has its charms, as a karachiite i must admit, but not on important wedding days. and so as Allah mian sent me the perfect july night for my mehndi (dholki), i smiled in thankfulness at the rightness of it all- the family, the friends, the dances, the songs, the yellow gharara, the lights, the colours, the happiness and very importantly the person, k, who i love so much and whose wife i will be tomorrow inshallah.