My marriage story

Realization

I walked around the street from my tuition to reach the main road. From here, it's a 15-minute walk to my home. I always go through this way. It's a bit cloudy today which made my walk much easier. I am in Chennai India, so it was mostly hot.

I am doing my high school and I have my maths tuition every day. It's needed for me to score well and get into the best college. I always go to my tuition with my friend Afsa but she didn't come today.

I wanted to do medicine and become a doctor but my parents wouldn't mind much. They don't worry about my studies. They focus on marriage when it comes to their daughters. So actually it quite rubs off on me too, I also think that marriage comes first to studies. I know you don't want to hear that from a girl who is so young, but that's how I was brought up.

All my cousin sisters got married by the age of 18, and they are happy. They share great stories about how their husbands take care of them.

If I am not going to get married after high school, I would like to do medicine. So I study, because we don't know where life will take us.

I reached my home to find there were two cars parked outside. And there are a lot of slippers outside my house. Ours is a two-storey house, my father is a successful businessman and he earns well. I have two elder brothers, Abdul 21 and Ahamed 19.

My father owns a textile shop in T Nagar which is like the shopping hub of Chennai. So it's safe to say that our business is booming. I don't have many details on profit and all, because I am not allowed in any business discussions. Girls don't carry their father's business and sharing details with them will only lead them to share family business secrets with another family when they get married.

So my brothers were involved in all those discussions, not me. I like to discuss it too, but I am a girl. So, not possible right?

Alright, back to the present, I silently went inside the house. I saw a lot of people sitting on the sofa, mostly men, woman would be in the second living room. So I just mumbled a quick "welcome" and headed inside without seeing anyone.

In the second living room, I could see 5 women sitting and some were scrutinizing me from head to toe. I was not wearing a hijab, but all five were wearing one. My parents never asked me to wear one, so I never did and my friends at school too never wore a hijab.

"Welcome," I said commonly to everyone.

They all nodded accepting my greeting.

I saw my mom coming towards me, she was wearing a shawl around her head loosely and she smiled at me and dragged me to the bedroom.

She asked me to change into a saree quickly and made me wear a hijab. I Don't know what's happening but I can guess.

Maybe I am not going to go to college now. I felt sick suddenly, I mean I know in my family women's education is not considered to be of utmost importance even men's. Because they will mostly inherit the family business.

I felt sad, I didn't know that this would happen all of a sudden. Just now, I realized how much I wanted to study.

By the way, where are my manners, I am telling my story, without even introducing myself properly. I am Aafrin, 17 and everyone in my family calls me Aafie.