Wedding Woes

Bickering Like an Old Married Couple

Mrs. Maya Amin was as typical as a Bengali mother with three daughters can get. She liked watching Star Plus. She liked craning her neck while standing on her balcony, just in time to catch Mrs. Mowla's youngest daughter tiptoe out the gate, with her face hidden behind her dupatta, being whisked away on her boyfriend's motorcycle. She was an avid collector of the popular lifestyle magazine Shanonda, and secretly, Cosmo. She liked to indulge in dessert when she thought no one was looking. She loved to emotionally blackmail Mr. Majid Amin to get whatever she wanted. But most of all, she loved to worry about her daughter's marriages.

It bothered her that her husband did not seem at all worried about their daughters' skyrocketing ages, especially the eldest two. So, she liked to remind him from time to time.

"Amin Shaheb?" she approached her husband, putting on the widest smile she could manage. Mr. Amin looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, without really taking them off the newspaper he was poring over. That telltale smile made him stiffen in alarm. He knew exactly what was coming and he braced himself for it.

"Yes, my dear?" he asked innocently.

"Our daughters have grown up"

"I am aware" he said, turning a page, pretending to be deeply interested in the sudden increase in prices of produce.

"Are you? Are you really?" she retorted, her voice hitting that shrill note it usually did when she thought her husband was being difficult or unreasonable, which was often.

"Yes my dear, my glasses work just fine". He adjusted his tone to convey finality, but his wife was not one to give up. Tone deaf by choice.

"Well you seem to be blind regardless! Don't their ages bother you?" she squeaked in disbelief.

"Why should it bother me? Aging is a natural biological process. In fact, I would be worried if they suddenly stopped aging" he replied as a matter of fact.

"Oh aging is a natural process alright! And so is menopause!" she exclaimed, as though that statement explained everything.

"Menopause?" Mr Amin asked, stifling a laughter, "Is that what's making you so cranky? Are you menopausal?"

"What? I.... no! No I'm not! I was talking about our daughters!" she exhaled in indignation.

"Which one of our daughters is menopausal?"

"None of them are. But they will be! Their biological clocks are ticking. We have to get our two eldest daughters married. They need to have babies soon, or they might not be able to conceive later!"

Mr Amin sighed.

"Maya", he said, taking his wife's hands into his own, "Our eldest is in her mid-twenties. Her biological clock is hardly going anywhere. Relax".

"You don't get it" she sniffed, "Jameelah is turning 27 in a month, so she's as good as in her late twenties. Before we know it, she'll be 30, and no one will marry her then, and it's going to be such a shame! She's the prettiest among her sisters. What is the point of being so beautiful if no one's even there to appreciate it?"

Majid Amin disagreed with everything his wife just said. Firstly, Jameelah still had several years before she hit 30. There was a very good chance that she'd meet, fall in love and marry someone before that. Or after that! It's the 21st century, why should age still be an issue? Secondly, Jameelah was beautiful alright, and well trained in the art of housekeeping, but she wasn't particularly bright or engaging. She was quite like water, molding herself into the shape of whatever container she's been poured into. A malleable obedient people pleaser. Maya called it being amiable. Majid called it being a doormat. He could hardly fathom why that was considered a good trait in women. When have the meek ever inherited the world? Say what you will about Maya, but she was a stubborn opinionated woman, and despite not agreeing with her opinions in most matters, Majid loved that about his wife.

He looked at his wife's genuinely distressed face and decided to not vocalize that bit Jameelah not being bright. Maya loved her firstborn in all her obedient glory.

"Twenty-six isn't old, Maya. She still has time to meet someone and fall in love and.."

"No, she doesn't!" Mrs. Amin cut in. "The time for love marriages is past. She's as good as 27 and we have to take the matter into our hands now. Or else we will end up with an old spinster for a daughter who's probably going to adopt ten cats to keep her company! I shall not have it! And, and, who's going to marry our other daughters if the eldest and the prettiest isn't married? This is all your fault!" she brandished a finger at her husband, "This is all your fault Amin Shaheb!"

"My fault?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Yes, it is. We should have gotten her married when she was still getting her undergrad and marriage proposals were flooding in every day. But you! You wanted her to get her degree first and get a job! And all that self-dependence bullshit you preached! She could have been living like a queen, but now she's slaving away 9 to 5"

"9 to 2", said Mr. Amin.

"Oh whatever! My poor daughter. And what's the use of wearing away the soles of her shoes? How much does that school pay her anyway?"

"Let's not forget, Maya, that Jameelah could have easily applied for a higher paying corporate job. You were the one who insisted she work in a school. Some mumbo jumbo about it being safer and appropriate" he straightened the creases of his newspaper and focused on yet another river being filled with dirt for constructing buildings.

"Well I was right, wasn't I? Don't you see Mrs. Mowla's mejo daughter? Coming home late at night from her "corporate meetings", said Mrs Amin employing a sarcastic note to the term "corporate meetings" and putting them in air quotes.

"And what's wrong with that?" Mr Amin frowned.

"You don't understand anything, do you?" Mrs Amin threw up her arms and stormed off to the kitchen responding to the whistle of the pressure cooker.

Mr Amin sighed and went back to the news. He knew it wasn't over. Maya was not going to let this go.