Ma had wanted me to make something for the guests so that she could tell them that I had made it with my own fair hands. Everyone knew that I wasn’t the best cook. In fact, it was a running family joke that started when I was twelve and attempted to boil eggs without any water. I’d tried baking a cake the day before and I swear I followed the instructions to a T, but somehow, I still ended up burning the top. It was also really flat and the inside was so dry that when I managed to extract it from the tin, it made a noise when it clunked onto the plate.
In the end, I decided to order a cake from a local home baker and pretend I had made it myself. Ma wasn’t impressed with the idea – she said something about deception being the root of most failed marriages – but agreed when she saw the state of the frisbee-like cake I had cooked to a crisp. The house still smelt a bit burnt, despite airing it out for twenty-four hours and burning scented candles, incense and the strong bakhoor Malik had got from Dubai last year.
‘You look really nice,’ my cousin Pretty said to me as we chatted in my bedroom. Her identical twin sister, Pinky, nodded in agreement. Ma made me wear a teal-coloured silk kurta and get a mani-pedi done, since my bare feet would be on display. I usually appreciated the fact that wearing shoes indoors was considered bad form (aka dirty) in my culture, but at moments like these, I wished we did. I debated buying a new pair of heels that hadn’t been worn outside, but then the potential in-laws wouldn’t know that they were new and would question my hygiene and lack of respect.
‘It’s nerve-wracking, isn’t it?’ Pretty mused, adjusting her cotton shalwar kameez as she got comfortable on my bed. The twins were two years younger than me but had already gone through this process a few times. I could tell from the simplicity of their outfits and minimal makeup that they had been instructed by their mum to tone it down and let me shine. They usually loved glamming up. I wasn’t sure whether to appreciate the gesture or feel offended by it.
‘God, I hate this part,’ Pinky agreed. ‘All that waiting always has my stomach in knots.’
‘It’s not as bad as the moment you have to walk into the living room and they all stare at you like you’re a circus act,’ Pretty countered.
I looked at one and then the other, as they went back and forth in this manner, my palms beginning to sweat. I wasn’t that nervous before, but now I was. Walking into the room was going to be awful.
‘The worst part is when you have to pour the tea,’ Pinky said. ‘Remember that time when I spilt some of it because my hands were shaking so much?’
‘Ah, that was bad,’ Pretty nodded along. ‘The mum was horrified. Imagine a wife who can’t pour a cup of tea without soiling the carpet.’
‘Girls! You’re not helping!’ I interrupted, feeling sick. ‘Is this supposed to give me confidence?’
‘Just being realistic, babe,’ Pretty giggled. ‘We’ve seen it all already, at our ripe old age of twenty-five.’
I wondered how it worked when you were a twin. Did you both look at the biodata and then toss a coin as to who got to meet him? And if there was no chemistry, did you pass him on to your sister? I asked them this and they both laughed in unison.
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Pinky chuckled. ‘Pretty and I are so different that suitors who tick my boxes don’t necessarily tick hers, do they, Pree?’
‘Yeah. Pink wants someone religious who prays five times a day and has a beard and I’m not bothered,’ Pretty replied. ‘So all the biodatas that are looking for someone in hijab go to her. It works out quite well.’
‘Imagine if they knew that my hair is pink under my hijab,’ Pinky giggled and we all laughed at that. My uncle and aunt threw a fit when she first dyed her hair.
‘I still don’t know how you had the courage to do it,’ I said in between laughs.
‘They shouldn’t have named me Pinky!’ she shrugged and Pretty leant over and gave her sister a hug. I couldn’t remember the last time Malik and I hugged. Growing up, I would have traded him for a sister in a heartbeat; someone I could confide in about everything, share clothes and makeup with, someone who understood what it was like to be a female in our culture and society, someone who wasn’t revered as the first and only son. Someone who didn’t (unintentionally, perhaps) make me feel like a failure for being the inferior sibling in every way.
‘So what do you know about this “Zakariya”?’ I asked. ‘His dad is friends with Chacha, right?’
‘Yeah, they’re friends but we’ve never met him. Uncle sometimes comes over with Aunty but he’s never come round,’ Pretty explained.
‘We’ve met his younger sister Hasina though,’ Pinky added. ‘She’s nice and chill. They’re like us, not your typical family with crazy high expectations of a daughter-in-law.’
I wondered how they could tell that from meeting his mum and dad. You could never really know what someone was like unless you lived with them. I had heard so many horror stories of women who thought they were marrying into reasonable families, only to be treated like a slave once they moved in.
There was a knock on the door and Malik poked his head around. He was wearing one of his many tailored shirts and designer jeans, looking effortless yet expensive – a look I hadn’t attempted replicating because I knew I wouldn’t be able to.
‘Dimple, they’re here,’ he announced. ‘Come and peek out of Ma’s window!’
The three of us jumped up and followed my brother out of my room and into our parents’ bedroom next door, which faced the street. Peering from behind the net curtains, we watched as a bunch of people began climbing out of a white Mercedes. There was an older man, obviously the father, in a grey suit and blue shirt. The mother, I assumed, was the one in the burgundy saree and coiffured hair. There were two younger women, both pretty, one in hijab and one without. From my position behind the curtain, I couldn’t tell which one was Zakariya’s older sister and which one was younger. They both wore shalwar kameez. One was carrying a bouquet of flowers and the other was carrying a huge Ambala box full of mishti.
And then Zakariya himself climbed out from the driver’s seat. I tried to get a good look at him as he straightened his charcoal-coloured suit, but his head was bowed down. He looked like he had a good body and a full head of hair, but that was all I could make out.
As they turned to face the house, we quickly ducked away from the window so we wouldn’t be caught spying.
‘He looks all right!’ Pretty whispered loudly, in case they could hear us through the double glazing.
‘This is so exciting!’ Pinky chimed in.
I didn’t feel excited. I felt sick. When I agreed to this whole ‘looking for a husband’ thing, it was to get my parents off my case. It was something theoretical, intangible, like a puff of smoke so far in the distance that when I reached it, it would be gone.
But the smoke had turned into fire and it was right outside my door.
The doorbell rang and the four of us looked at each other in a panic.
‘I’ve got to go back downstairs,’ Malik said. ‘Chill, sis, it’s going to be fine.’
‘We’d better go down too and find out what’s expected,’ Pretty said, following Malik out the door. Pinky trailed behind and, my knees weak, I collapsed onto my mum’s bed as I listened to the muffled voices in the downstairs hall.
This isn’t a big deal, I told myself. I had done harder things in the past month, like nearly drawing a naked man and almost reading the whole of Ulysses. This was nothing compared to that. So why were my nerves holding me hostage like this?
I have never been a confident person. My whole life I had heard comments about how it was such a shame that my mum has fair skin, but I had inherited my dad’s darker complexion. How it was unfortunate that Malik, a boy who didn’t need good looks to progress in life, is lighter than me. He is more successful and accomplished as well. I am lesser in every way.
And now, this random guy I didn’t know, along with his whole family, was going to judge me and my parents and our little house and our modest means. And my dark skin. And they were going to turn me down, I knew they were.
My phone buzzed with a message from Pretty:
PRETTY: Come down, they’re in the living room. Your mum’s in there chatting to them and she told us to get the tea etc ready!
Chapter Ten
