**Winner 2024 Amby Awards**
Fiza has everything planned-medical school, a respectable future, and an engagement she never wanted. Determined to escape a loveless match, she creates a checklist to find the perfect husband her father will approve of.
...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The external exams came and went, and before I knew it, we were in third year. The preclinical slog was behind us, and our studies now revolved around gentler, more patient-facing specialties—ENT, ophthalmology, and community medicine. There was a sense of ease, a lightness, that I hadn't felt in ages.
With more free time on our hands, we threw ourselves into the extracurricular life of the college. Music events, basketball tournaments—we were there, always side by side.
The group would plan weekend trips to enchanting destinations like Coorg and Mysore. Alan went along with my group willingly, but I rarely got invited into his social circles. Not that I minded. Most of his friends outside the basketball team were non-medical folks, and I knew I would be more wound up than relaxed on their trips.
The day scholars on the basketball team, our fellow teammates, occasionally hosted parties in their homes. These were usually very upbeat and fun.
Almost everyone assumed that Alan and I were a couple. Shahana, who had recently started dating Vineet, was the lone voice of dissent.
"If you look like a couple and act like a couple, you are a couple," she would tell me exasperated by my denial. "You both are just lying to yourselves."
"It's not like that, Shahana," I would insist. "He's free to date whoever he wants, and I still have my eye out for my future husband."
She would then sigh. "I love Vineet, and he loves me... but I don't know if we have a future together."
I understood Shahana's fear all too well. She was Muslim, Vineet was Hindu. She was from Calcutta, his family was Tamilian from Bangalore. Religion, language, region—why did any of it matter? Why was love never enough? "You know, if it's meant to be, you'll find a way," I told her gently.
"I want it to be meant-to-be," she confessed, her gaze dropping to her hands. "He's everything, Fizz, but my parents, his parents, the community—no one will support this. I don't think a marriage can survive without support from family. At least from one side."
The vulnerability in her voice tugged at my heart. I reached out and squeezed her hand, wishing I could offer more than just platitudes.
I thought of Fahad, of my own parents' insistence. How could I ever be with Alan, when my family's approval was so important to me?
Her anxiety made me wonder if there was any scenario where Alan and I could work. Was there a world where we could have more than friendship without it ending in heartbreak? Was now enough? Did it really have to be forever?
Sometimes, during intercollege events, a brave senior or an outsider would muster the courage to ask me out. Alan would tease me endlessly afterwards, gleefully trying to fit those poor guys into my checklist.
"They don't need to hit a hundred percent, Fizz," he'd say, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Fifty percent is a pass. Seventy-five is distinction." He'd scrunch up his nose, pretending to calculate. "Aravind... what's-his-last-name... is about, ummm... fifty-eight percent of your criteria. That's a passing score, Fiza!"
