Hello,

I'm the new guy, Mastiff, and I'll be reviewing your piece. These are just my thoughts and forgive me if I ramble, and realize I make just as many mistakes as anyone else. Thank you for sharing your writing. That's kind of my standard intro, but for you, Happy Birthday! I hope you have a good one, and mine is this month as well. :) Also, I hope you get some good sleep. I've had insomnia before and know how much it sucks.

Title: The title and the subtitle work together well, and it drew me in. I'm not sure what I'll find yet, but making me curious about your work is what you want to do, so it works.

Initial Reaction: I generally like to get a little bit deeper before making this comment, but I saw in one paragraph you described three senses, hearing, smelling, and sight. That let me know quite a bit.

Setting: After the first paragraph, which set the scene fairly well, I thought I'd find more, but perhaps that's all we needed to know. I like to remind everyone I review, and myself, to use all five senses (or six, even). How did that chicken sandwich taste?

Character Development: You did a very good job here, and I could visualize the people. I might have enjoyed a bit more description of Javed, but maybe you wanted to leave your readers to fill in the blanks.

Plot: Clearly this is a culture I cannot fully understand, and only have a basic knowledge from reading and such. So, it gave me a bit more insight, which is a good thing. I enjoyed reading it, and did so several times to catch all the nuance I could. It wasn't meant to surprise the reader, just give them a glimpse of how other cultures work.

Ending: Personally, I'd have loved a paragraph on the ceremony, and how both families reacted to the nuptials. That's just me, but if I want more, it means you've done a good job with the piece.

Line-by-line and Suggestions:
Par. 1 Ln. 3 - I'd have used "and" after the comma, or broken it into two sentences.
Par. 4 Ln. 1 - I know it's done a lot these days, but I always try not to end a sentence with a preposition.
Par. 4 Ln. 3 - Last period should be in the quotes.
Par. 5 Ln. 1&2 - Just a missed space.
Par. 7 Ln. 4 - "As a result" is a prepositional phrase, and should have a comma after result.
Par. 11 Ln. 3 - Non living should be one hyphenated word.
Par. 12 Ln. 1 - I wouldn't have used a hyphen in "question-answer." Using "and" would be more proper, and even Q & A works.
Par. 15 Ln. 3&4 - If you either move the last to sentences, or as a paragraph break, and it may read a bit smoother. (Same with the next paragraph.)

Overall - It may look like a long list, but most of those are minor edits. I was an English TA and a tutor, so I went through papers like this to help students. One good edit and your work would jump at least half a grade.

Happy Writing!

Mastiff