Epistles to Love

I.
I was in my virginal bedroom in my parents’ home, resting during my winter break from college—if sweeping my hair into the oh-so-functional ponytail every morning, not changing out of my fleece pajamas for days on end, and reading Jane Austen novels in the hope of awakening any romantic sentiments within my cold-hearted bosom, qualified as resting and not vegetating. I was a senior at an Ivy League college, twenty-one years old, and utterly horrified to hear Ivy-League women gab incessantly about when they wanted to get married, how many children they wanted, and at what age. By being at home, I thought I would escape the murmurs of “Didn’t you hear—she got engaged last weekend?” or “Well, my boyfriend is going to be working here so I figured that I might as well accept that recruiting offer from the Boston-based company. We’re planning on staying together, you know?” Those conversations emphasized how mistaken I had been to think that intelligent women wouldn’t worry about things so trite as boyfriends (most likely this sentiment originated in the fact that I was so obviously and plaintively single and had been for all of my life.)

Yet being a South Asian woman, I should have known that what awaited me at home was far worse. One afternoon my mother came bustling into my room, her hair perfectly highlighted, her eye shadow subtly blended, her clothes immaculate. She surveyed the books scattered across the floor, glanced at the tattered copy of Persuasion in my hands, the two huge holes in my left sock, and sighed from the most profound depths of her being.

“You’ll never get married if you look like that,” she scolded.

“I happen to think I look perfectly fine.”

My mother snorted. It was a most interesting sound, a cross between the lowing of a cow and the grunt of a hippopotamus, and seemed even stranger coming from between her maroon lips, the latest lip color craze among the South Asian women in the community. I stifled a giggle and returned to my book. The dashing hero was just proposing to the unconventionally pretty heroine, and I could not bear the suspense.

“Put that book down and get dressed. We’re expecting company,” my mother informed me.

She waited, hands on her hips, lips pursed, as I reluctantly stashed the book in my backpack and dragged a brush through my hair.

“The guests will be here in twenty-five minutes. Make sure you wear that blue shalwar kameez with your gold earrings. That color is just right for your complexion. And for God’s sake, do something with your hair!”

The last piece of maternal advice dispensed, my mother sailed from my room and into the kitchen, where I could hear my aunt and older cousin arguing over how many cups of rice to put in the biryani. I curiously wondered who these guests could be as I ironed the blue shalwar kameez and dressed. A few minutes later, when I entered the kitchen, pandemonium raged. My aunt was pointing angrily at a pot of rice and screaming at my cousin, who was close to tears.

“No one is going to marry you if you can’t cook biryani properly, Nilo!” my aunt yelled, her face turning an alarming shade of red.

“Don’t worry, that’s what my mom says to me, too,” I whispered to my cousin. At these words, Nilo buried her face in her hands.

My aunt paused to take a breath and then continued on her tirade. “And what about that nice boy coming today to see you? Hmm? What is he going to say, what is his family when I going to say, when I put this plate of mushy Basmati in front of them? I will be dishonored! A daughter who cannot cook, they will say disapprovingly, and point fingers at me. They will blame me for not teaching you, and then I’ll have a twenty-nine-year old spinster on my hands again! My hair has turned white from thinking about your future, Nilo! Have some pity on your poor mother! A spinster! A spinster, that’s what you will be, just like your Aunt Farhana! And you’ll end up talking to your cats, too, just like she does!”

The image of my slightly batty Aunt Farhana flashed through my mind, and this time, I could not repress the giggle. What a mistake.

My aunt turned to me and screeched, “Oh, you think this is funny, hmm? Who’s going to marry a girl who reads books? Novels corrupt young girls, everyone knows that!” She pointed at my mother and said, “You’re going to regret sending her to that fancy-shmancy college, Minnie! No one wants to marry a girl who is only good at history! She can’t even make a good cup of tea! And she’s too fat!” my aunt added for good measure.

I glared at her and then looked pointedly at my mother, who shrugged and tried to pacify my aunt. “Now, now, Nishat, let’s not get overwrought. Calm down, it’s just rice. The boy will come and he will like Nilo. You’ll see.”

“That’s what you said all the other times,” Nilo wailed.

“This is no time for tears, Nilo,” my mother said as she inspected the biryani. “Now go to the bathroom and put on some more mascara. And please change the color of your lipstick—it makes you look old. A better color would be a translucent, fresh pink.”

“You left your pink lip gloss in my room, Nilo. Why don’t you try that one?” I suggested to her as she shuffled out of the kitchen.

As soon as Nilo was safely out of earshot, my mother turned to Nishat. “This biryani really looks horrendous. I’m going to call that nice Indian restaurant for some edible food.”

My aunt sighed. “What am I going to say to these people about my daughter’s culinary skills?”


“Who’s coming anyway?” I questioned.
“A potential marriage proposal for Nilo,” my mother responded absently while rifling through her (fake) Louis Vitton address book for the card of the restaurant.

“So what’s his biodata?” I opened my eyes wide as if to belie the innocence of my question as I snuck a grape out of the fruit chaat.

“Biodata?! All these young people, such Amrikan words they have,” my aunt muttered.

I rolled my eyes. Nishat looked at me. “Well, girl, make yourself useful! The table needs to be set. In the desi way, ok, none of those silly forks on the left-hand side, no self-respecting Pakistani man would ever use a fork for rice.”

Oh, God.

II.
Nilo eventually ventured out of my room, hastily applied concealer ill concealing the puffy dark circles around tear-stained eyes, mouth painted a conch-shell shade of pink. I made a mental note to myself to never use that tube of lip gloss, even in an emergency. A well-used pot of Vaseline would work miracles in its stead.

By this time, edible biryani, pillowy naan, toasted to precisely the exact minute, and vegetable curry graced the dining table, laden under dishes and glasses and silverware, minus the offending forks. The doorbell rang, a tinny sound that became trapped in our wood-paneled hallway, losing itself in the demure wallpaper. Nilo glanced at me, paling.

“Oh, Selma, what if they don’t like me?” she agonized.

“Ok, come on, we at least have to fix that damn concealer,” I whispered as I pulled her upstairs and raided my mother’s cosmetics drawer. I triumphantly withdrew my favorite brand of concealer and carefully dabbed it under her eyes and then blended, just as my mother had taught me. I may not be a size 0, I may read too many novels, and I may not know how to cook, but I sure can apply concealer.

We heard my mother unlatch the front door, which always reminded me of a castle door when I was a kid and had read too much fantasy literature about princesses and moats. I knew the routine my mother must be doing right now, greeting the mother of the potential nephew-in-law with her air kisses, smiling at the young man, giving them her salaam, welcoming them to “her humble abode.” (It was only humble in the sense that my mother had run out of room into which she could cram her second glass chandelier, her Swarovski crystal flowers, and the two-foot tall geisha she had bought in a Japanese shop in northern New Jersey.) Nishat had joined my mother, all traces of the past hour’s wrath wiped from her face, smiling and air kissing the boy’s mother. She was buying time for us.

“Quick,” I hissed, and my cousin and I dashed down the stairs and into the kitchen, rearranging our dupattas.

My mother had led the guests into the upstairs living room, and my aunt bustled into the kitchen.

“Eyes down when you meet the family!” She whispered furiously to Nilo. “Look like a modest and efficient girl, one that will be a pleasing housewife. Now, get the tray of tea ready.”

Nilo hurried around the kitchen, her nervousness almost causing her to drop one of my mother’s precious Royal Doulton tea cups. Eventually, the tea was ready, and Nilo took a deep breath. My aunt inspected the tray and removed a plate of cookies and a plate of barfi and placed them on the ugliest and most flower-bedecked tray I had seen.

“You’ll be taking this one up,” she informed me.

I opened my mouth to protest before my good South Asian girl upbringing rose to the occasion and the words, “Of course,” were emitted from my mouth instead of, “You hag, you’re crazy if you think I’m going to be put on display like that.”

That’s all it was going to be—a display of how my cousin walked, how she balanced a tea tray, how she arranged mithai, tea cups, a teacozy, and napkins on a 15” by 14” wooden plank that posed for a poor excuse of a tray brought from the motherland. And now it seemed that I would also be subjected to this inspection, though for what possible reason, I could not understand. I supposed my mother thought that I should get a head start in the marriage market, although by now I knew the routine well enough by watching my cousin suffer through it for the past five years.

Nilo led the way to the living room upstairs. My mother was smiling at a plump, formidable-looking woman sitting next to her, her hair primly done up in a tight bun, her simple shalwar kameez arranged immaculately. Next to this woman sat the prospective groom, his dark hair swept neatly to one side, his light green slacks highlighting the pale color of his eyes. My aunt swept into the room, practically simpering in front of the guests.

“My dear Samina, this is Nilofer, my niece, and Selma, my daughter,” my mother graciously introduced us.

I had no time to wonder when this sudden familiarity had sprung up between Samina and my mother as I followed Nilo’s lead and kissed Samina on each cheek.
“And this must be Zahoor,” Nishat beamed at the man.

Zahoor glanced up at Nilo once, and then, his face flushing a pale pink, stared resolutely at my mother’s Oriental carpet. Nilo fumbled with the tray as she attempted to gracefully pour tea and mix the right amount of sugar into each cup. I divested myself of my tray and then sank gratefully into the chair in the furthest corner of the room, hoping that I would miraculously melt into my surroundings and be forgotten.

“Well, I hope you like the tea,” Nishat said eagerly. “My daughter made it, and everyone has always complimented her tea.”

“I see,” replied Samina. “And what else does she cook?”

Nishat seemed a bit floored; apparently, she hadn’t been expecting that question so early in the game, but then she herself had ventured towards the culinary department of Nilo’s resume, which lamentably was rather insufficient for a traditional Pakistani mother-in-law. “Er, well, you know, she’s just learning. But she’s a quick learner.”

I thought about the mushy biryani and sighed. Nilo was the worst cook I knew, other than myself. Samina sipped her tea, stared at Nilo for several uncomfortable seconds, and the expression on her face indicated that she had reached a rather unsatisfactory conclusion regarding Nilo’s cooking abilities.

“Nilofer, how old are you?” Samina had wasted no time in appraising my cousin’s biodata.

“She’s twenty-nine,” my aunt interrupted. My mother glared at her. My aunt had just violated the cardinal rule of always subtracting at least a year off any woman’s age, especially one who was being evaluated for a rishta.

“I see. Well, Zahoor himself is just thirty, and you know what they say—a younger woman is always better for a man,” Samina responded. I could practically see her thinking that my cousin would be a spinster in another year.

My aunt almost choked on her tea. My mother pursed her lips, amazed at the rudeness of this woman.

“I am a traditional woman, Nishat,” Samina stated pompously. “I want a young, accomplished woman for my son, one who can cook and attend to our house. Zahoor is my only son.” She patted his knee fondly while he stared more intensely at the carpet. “I only want the best for him.”

“Of course, Samina,” my mother responded. “I myself have only one son, and sons—they are a category unto themselves. Every mother dreams of the day her son will bring a young bride into the house…”

I stared at my mother. The only context in which she mentioned my free-spirited younger brother’s nebulous wedding day was in lamentation of the fact that he would probably bring home a gori American girl who would not know anything about Pakistan and disgrace the family.

My mother continued, oblivious of the obvious lies she was feeding to Samina.
“I understand your sentiments and that you want the best for your son, but let me tell you a story: the girls in this family are quick to learn. My own sister, she knew nothing about managing a household or cooking, because I used to do everything around the house. But as soon as she was married, suddenly she realized that to survive in marriage, she would have to learn. Now she can make everything from biryani to gulab jamun.” Without pausing, my mother plowed ahead. “Speaking of mithai, would you like some more, Samina?”

My mother placed a dark brown gulab jamun on Samina’s plate before she could respond. I imagined that my mother would have stuffed it in Samina’s mouth if she could to prevent her from asking any other questions. “My sister made these.”
I rolled my eyes. My mother had not spoken to her sister in four years, and even when they were on speaking terms, she had never made any type of mithai for us. Apparently, my aunt had not caught on to the lie, because she was looking rather confused.

Samina cautiously bit into the gulab jamun my mother had bought yesterday at her favorite mithai store on Oak Tree Road. “Well, it is rather good,” she admitted reluctantly.

“But Minnie, that was the mithai we bought together from one of the Oak Tree Road shops,” Nishat said hesitantly.

Samina glared at my mother and replaced the gulab jamun on her plate.

“Oh, I’m rather sorry,” my mother responded smoothly. “I suppose I must have reached for the wrong box of mithai; my sister’s must still be in the fridge.”

Samina looked perplexed, and Nishat nervously opened her mouth, as if searching for words that would make the situation better. My mother, in the least noticeable of movements, nudged her to indicate that she should remain silent.

After a pause, Samina stated, “I heard that Nilofer had been engaged once before.”

“Oh, yes,” Nishat replied a little too readily. “It was a rishta that had been arranged through a mutual friend, but it was long distance, and it did not work out. Besides,” Nishat leaned in conspiratorially and whispered to Samina, “the mother-in-law was a witch.”

A muscle twitched in Samina’s face. My mother paled, and Nishat opened and closed her mouth like a fish on land gasping for breath.

“I see.” Samina stared at Nilofer whose hands were tightly clenched in her lap. “So this is how you speak of future mother-in-laws.”

“Not at all, not at all, Samina,” my mother began, but there was no way she could remedy the situation.

Samina glanced at her watch and said, “It’s getting late. We really must go.”

“So soon…?” Nishat asked weakly.

“I’m afraid so. Thank you for the chai.” Samina stood up, and Zahoor followed his mother’s lead.

My mother realized that there was no way she could deter the guests and led the way down the stairs.

“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you and your son, Samina,” Nishat said congenially.

“Yes, well…” Samina’s voice trailed as she groped for the words that would appropriately describe the encounter. Finding none polite enough, she nodded at Nishat, herded her son before her, and swept out of the house. As soon as the door closed, Nilo glared at her mother and burst into tears.

“How could you say those things?” she wailed.

This was my cue: I sprinted towards my room, locked the door, and dissolved in a fit of laughter. That prospective rishta had afforded me the best entertainment I had seen in months.

III.
An hour later, I had returned to Persuasion when my mother knocked on my door.

“Dinner’s ready,” she said when I opened the door. “I figured we might as well eat what we had set out for the guests.”

Nilo was already sitting at the table, staring morosely at her plate. Nishat fiddled with her glass, and I sat down next to Nilo and began helping myself to the curry.

“This is really good, Nilo. Do you want some?” I asked my cousin.

She shook her head.

“Now really, Nilofer!” Nishat said exasperatedly. “It wasn’t all that bad. Samina seemed rather unpleasant. You wouldn’t want to have her as a mother-in-law anyway.”

“It’s not about that, Nishat,” my mother impatiently interjected. “It’s just that you are, well, rather tactless.”

“What do you mean?” Nishat bristled.

“Oh, Mama!” Nilo glared at her mother. “Don’t tell me you don’t realize this!”

“Realize what? I was just trying to make conversation.”

“Don’t try in the future then!” Nilo shouted.

“Lower your voice when you speak to me, young lady! It’s no wonder you can’t get married with that temper!” Nishat reprimanded.

“No, Mama, the reason why I can’t get married is you! It’s you! You always go and say the wrong thing, or you refuse perfectly good matches just because the boy isn’t light enough for your taste or because he drives only a Hyundai and not a Jaguar.” Nilo stood up. “What about what I want?” She stalked out of the house, slamming the door, and we heard a car start.

My aunt stared at the spot where her daughter had sat, stunned at this outburst from the usually pacific Nilofer.

“What in the world…?” she floundered for words.

“It’s true, Nishat,” my mother said sharply.

“Fine, you take her side, too,” Nishat said sulkily.

“It’s not about sides,” my mother began, then stopped short when she saw the stormy look on Nishat’s face. “Oh, never mind…Come, don’t quarrel. Let’s eat,” she suggested instead.

IV.
My mother had just returned from dropping Nishat off home as I loaded the dishwasher. She shook her head and sat down at the kitchen table.

“What was all that about today?” I asked.

“The usual. Nilofer is getting old, and the number of prospective proposals is dwindling practically by the minute. Nishat is getting worried, and when she gets worried she just says the wrong things.”

“But why do these people always have to come to our house?”

My mother paused absently for a few moments and then said, “Well, Nishat doesn’t think her house is a suitable place for entertainment. You know what she’s like…She wants everything to be grandiose and luxurious, and with my brother’s salary, that is not exactly possible. So she brings them here, in the hope that they will think better of her. If she just set her expectations realistically, things would go better for Nilo.”

“Maybe it is the process that’s flawed,” I mused. “I just don’t think this whole rishta procedure is the best way to bring out how nice Nilo really is.”

My mother’s expression stiffened. “This is tradition, and it will eventually work, as it has for me, for your aunts, and one day for Nilo.”

“Is this what I have to look forward to one day?” I asked wryly.

My mother glanced at me, and for a minute, a rare flash of mutual understanding existed between us.

“I am sure that you will not have as many blunders in your path,” my mother said quietly. “You have me as a mother, after all.”

V.
I was sitting in the family room, knitting and watching reruns of all the shows I had not kept up with since going to college. (My knitting was just a shapeless blob of crimson yarn that I had been endlessly knitting, undoing, and reknitting. I called myself a purist knitter, one who knitted solely for the sake of knitting, of hearing the clink of the metal needles against each other, of feeling the soft yarn wound through my fingers, of relaxing myself in the rhythmic motions. In reality, I had adopted this philosophical approach to knitting simply because I could not master even the simplest patterns of a sock.)

The doorbell interrupted my thoughts on knitting, and I hastily stashed the yarn and needles in a corner and raced towards the door.
Expecting it to be my mother, I had just opened my mouth to ask her whether she had forgotten her keys, when the door swung open to reveal a man with green eyes and neatly combed dark hair standing nervously on the front porch. A few seconds elapsed before I recognized that it was Zahoor, Nilo’s latest ex-suitor, and a few more confused moments passed before I recovered enough self-possession and invited him into the house.

My South Asian training kicked in as I seated him in the living room and prepared tea and sweets for him.

“I was hoping I would find you alone,” he said as I brought in a tea tray laden with sweets.

Seeing the startled expression on my face at this perplexing (and possibly indiscreet) statement, Zahoor hastened to clarify himself. “Well, you just seemed the least frightening out of all the women who confronted me the other day, except for Nilo. But of course it would be impossible for me to meet her considering what happened…” His voice trailed off uncertainly as he stared into his cup of tea.

“What I mean to say,” he resumed as he looked up at me, “is that you seem like someone sensible, and right now, that is the type of person I need to talk to. I need a sensible person’s help.”

I stared at him blankly. South Asian training definitely skipped over how to interact with a suitor who had rejected one’s cousin and then mysteriously showed up at one’s doorstep uttering rather disjointed statements.

“What…what can I do for you?” I questioned.

The hesitant question seemed to encourage him, and he leaned forward and blurted, “I’m in love with your cousin and want to marry her.”

This confession was what I had least expected. His disarming honesty made me realize that with Zahoor I could discard the stale instructions my mother had drilled into my head as to how to deal with South Asian men that only resulted in the farce of a conversation.

He spontaneously began to talk about how he and Nilo had first met in the bank where she worked when he went there to open an account. From the first moment, he had felt an attraction to her, and it was heightened by their subsequent encounters at her workplace. One day he had invited her to join him for a coffee during her lunch break, and that hour had been the most enjoyable one he had ever passed with a woman. He had resolved to ask her to dinner the next time he saw her in the bank, but when they next met, her behavior towards him had been so cool and formal that it had confused him. He had not spoken with her for a few weeks when suddenly her name came up during dinner with his mother, who had actively been searching for an appropriate wife for him for the past few months. She had casually mentioned Nilo as a woman who could potentially be a marriage partner for Zahoor. He had used his utmost powers of persuasion to convince his mother to present an official rishta to Nilo’s family, hoping that through this traditional method he could show her that he was serious about her. However, he obviously had not foreseen the disastrous possibilities that could occur when two potential mothers-in-law were seated in the same room.

His last sentence prompted me to smile. “You have just been initiated into the complex ritual of mating, South Asian style,” I said dryly.

“Yes, well, I’m sure that I don’t like it,” Zahoor responded morosely.

“Where do I figure into all this?” I asked contemplatively.

“I need you to tell her that I love her,” he said simply.

More and more, this conversation was starting to sound like a Bollywood film.

“What then, you’ll come galloping by the house one night in your white Hyundai and whisk her away to your castle?” The sarcasm in my voice was so thick that he could not have missed it.

“My Hyundai’s blue.”

I grinned despite myself. “That doesn’t matter. My aunt is mortally offended by your mother’s comments, your mother thinks my cousin is a worthless spinster, and unless you can convince both of them that this marriage would be the best thing for you two, all the love in the world isn’t going to help things.”

“Maybe you’re a bit too sensible, Selma,” Zahoor commented.

Apparently, the Jane Austen novels had not succeeded in awakening any sort of romantic sentiments within me.

“All right, all right then, I’ll tell her,” I said grudgingly. “But I still think the best thing would be for you to convince your mother that Nilo really is a nice girl.”

“Of course I’ll do that, but first, I need to know whether she likes me or not,” he stated forcefully. “Can you please tell her what I’ve said and that I’m willing to speak to my mother again about Nilo.” He handed me a business card. “That’s my cell phone number; please call me as soon as you talk to her.”

“Sure,” I murmured.

He stood up to leave, then paused. “I would really appreciate if you didn’t tell your mom or your aunt about me coming here.”

“No problem.”

“Thank you for everything,” he said as he left.

And, yes, his Hyundai really was blue.

VI.
That night, Nilo and I did what many Jersey girls do on a Friday night: we drove to the nearest mall and spent hours sifting through the holiday sales. As we walked to the car, laden with bags of shopping, I suggested we stop for ice cream before going home, and Nilo readily agreed.

Over fudge sundaes, I told Nilo exactly what had transpired earlier in the day. She did not interrupt me once but stared thoughtfully at her slowly melting pool of vanilla ice cream.

“Nilo, he loves you, and he’s willing to talk to his mom again,” I stated. “All he wants to know is whether you like him.”

Nilo shrugged. “What did it matter even if I did like him? My mom thinks Samina’s another witch and would never consent to the marriage.”

I sighed. “At some point you have to take control of your own life, Nilo. You’re not a kid. If you like this guy, go for him. You don’t want to lose a good man who cares about you—and he does care about you, otherwise why would he have gone through all the trouble of revisiting the scene of such humiliation—just because you’re afraid to talk to your mom honestly. For once, just do something selfish.”

“It’s impossible, Selma,” Nilo responded diffidently. “My mom is just going to become angrier if she finds out that I went out on a date with him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, do you want to be stuck with the label of the Shah family spinster? You know what Pakistani culture is like: at this point, you had better exert some effort or reconcile yourself to being the wife of some overweight, balding, workaholic, Pakistani divorcee because everyone else thinks you’re too old to be a good baby-making machine.”

“What if I don’t want to get married?”

“Are you kidding me? That’s what we’ve all been brought up to do. Besides, do you really want to die a virgin? Where’s the fun in that?!”

“Who said anything about dying a virgin?” Nilo arched an eyebrow, and this little bit of mischief from a woman who was generally as chaste as a nun made me think that perhaps there was hope for her.

“I think you like him but just don’t want to admit it,” I teased.

“He is a really amazing guy…” She grinned and then paused. “I think there are moments when my mom gets so desperate that she would pawn me off to any bachelor just so that she wouldn’t be stuck with a 29-year-old unmarried daughter on her hands. I’ll talk to her. She’ll come around to the idea, I think.”

EPILOGUE

I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, and thinking mean thoughts about my mother, who had flown off to Pakistan without a care in the world and left me to deal with the drudgery of housework for two months. If she had had the least bit of consideration, I thought savagely, she would have taken me with her. (I had conveniently forgotten that I had been the one who decided to forfeit the trip back to the motherland in order to continue an amazing internship in New York City.) My bitterness lost its edge as I thought about why my mother had gone to Pakistan: to celebrate Nilo and Zahoor’s wedding, which was probably occurring as I dumped bleach and water into a bucket. While things had not gone smoothly with their courtship—both mothers had required considerable amounts of persuasion, wheedling, and tea parties (these had been more successful than the first) to acquiesce to the marriage—the marriage was finally taking place after months of negotiations.

The phone rang, disrupting my train of thought, and my mother’s voice resonated in my ear.

“How are you? How is the wedding?” I asked eagerly.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, but a bit crowded. I stepped out for a minute so I could call you. You really should have come…wait until you see the pictures I’m going to bring you of the latest fashions in saris. Simply stunning. I’m planning on getting my tailor to make some new outfits for me. Coming back to Pakistan has made me realize how terribly dated my clothes are.”

I suppressed a grin. My mother’s clothes were always at the height of fashion, but she still fretted over them endlessly and commissioned her tailor to concoct new shalwar kameez every few weeks.

“How is Nilo?”

“Happy as a lark, although of course, she can’t show it. Poor thing is wearing jewelry and clothing that weigh more than her and has adopted a suitably sad demeanor. She can’t be too happy, you know, otherwise people will talk. We wouldn’t want someone to say that she actually wants to leave home.” My mother’s voice faded for a second and then became stronger as she resumed her soliloquy. “And of course Nishat is an emotional yo-yo. Part of her is elated that Nilo is finally getting married, but then another part of her is whimpering because now she’ll have to do all the housework alone.”

“That sounds like a lovely reason to be sad the day of your daughter’s marriage,” I responded sarcastically.

“What was that? This connection is awful…”

It was just as well, I thought.

“Look, I’ve only got a few minutes left on this card, and I wanted to tell you something,” my mother resumed. “I’ve received a rishta for you, from a very nice family, and I’m going to talk to your father about it.”

Unfortunately, the next sentence I uttered, replete with expletives, was a bit too adequately transmitted to my mother’s ear.

“Selma Khan! Did I raise you to use rude, unladylike language? And at the very moment when I am telling you of the most important thing that could ever happen in your life! Well, I never could have imagined a daughter of mine—“

“Ma!” I cut her off before she could gather steam and roll into full-lecture mode. “I don’t want to get married to some random fresh-off-the-boat dude with a nice family. Actually, I don’t want to get married at all right now!”

“Well, who said anything about right now? I’m thinking about your future. These things only happen once, you know. The family is really just exemplary, and their son is very well-educated, did his undergraduate at an Ivy League, just like you…”

“Ma, I can’t hear you anymore, this connection is terrible,” I lied as I held the phone away from my ear.

“I just figured that since one of our girls is married, now it’s time to focus on the other one,” my mother persisted.

“Can’t hear you!” I yelled as I held the phone at arm’s length.

“You can have all the fancy-shmancy degrees in the world, but they won’t do you any good as a woman unless you’re married and established in your own home,” my mother continued relentlessly.

I stared at the phone with a mixture of disbelief and barely repressed hilarity and hung up.