‘Have a piece of baid ghanam next,’ Dina instructed. She did the same thing with the bread and lemon and I followed suit. This wasn’t too bad. At least it was chewy and had flavour. It was like heart, but more tender.
And then I remembered that it was lamb testicles and once again, I fought the urge to retch.
‘OK, I’m done. Sorry, Dina, I can’t bring myself to eat anymore.’
Dina laughed and helped herself to a plateful. ‘It’s OK, I didn’t think you would. Go check the microwave, there’s something else there for you to have for dinner.’
‘What? You serious?’
‘I wasn’t going to let you starve, was I?’
In the microwave, I found a plate of chicken pesto pasta and I had never felt so relieved to find something so ordinary and inoffensive.
‘Thank you so much,’ I almost wept in relief when I returned to the dining room, avoiding the lamb’s bits that were at the centre of the table.
‘Now you can tick off that ridiculous item on that crazy list of yours.’
When I got home that evening, still feeling a bit queasy whenever I thought of the grey mush I had allowed into my mouth, I decided to distract myself by online-stalking Zak. It had become a bit of a habit for me.
Staring at his Instagram page, I wondered for the thousandth time why he hadn’t been in touch properly since Snowdon, aside from the occasional meme. Had I done or said something on that trip that had made him write me off, even as a friend? Or maybe I was looking into it too deeply and he was merely busy. He hadn’t posted anything on his page since then either. Analysing the feed that I had already memorised was proving to be utterly futile.
When I finally came to terms with the fact that stalking Zak wasn’t going to make him magically contact me, I decided to reach out to him myself. Before I lost the nerve, I quickly typed out the first interesting thing I thought of. I hit send and it was only after the message was released into the ether, once it was too late to backtrack, that I thought to proofread.
And when I glanced over what I had written . . . SHIT. I stared at the two little blue ticks that meant it could no longer be unsent:
MAYA: Did another item on the list and had to eat lamb balls.
I had written BALLS instead of BRAINS. For God’s sake!
I was contemplating throwing my phone behind my headboard so I wouldn’t be able to look at it again until I somehow managed to retrieve it when I saw that he was typing a reply.
My breath trapped in my lungs, I waited.
Zakariya is typing . . .
Then the typing stopped and there was no response.
When Ramadan came along, I decided to take a break from the list and thinking about Zakariya and connect with God instead.
I spent the four weeks being as Islamic as I possibly could: waking up for dawn prayers, attending the nightly Tarawih prayers at Wightman Road Mosque, abstaining not only from eating and drinking, but lying, swearing, backbiting and gossiping. Arabic classes were paused during the Holy Month as they clashed with iftar time and I barely heard from Zakariya the whole time, apart from one of those generic ‘Ramadan Kareem’ WhatsApps I got on the first day.
Despite there being no classes, I still practised my Arabic whenever I could. I watched TikToks and listened to audio classes. I wanted Ustadha Salma to be proud of me when we returned.
Ramadan wasn’t all fasting, praying and reading the Qur’an, though. We also saw more relatives than we had seen the entire year. My aunts, uncles and other friends and relatives hosted elaborate iftar parties and we returned the favour. It all became a bit too much because every Bengali cooked the same thing for iftar. By the end of the month, I wanted to hurl the plates of pakoras and samosas across the room. But that wasn’t the reason why I refused to attend the last few iftar parties. I was sick of everyone asking me why I was still single.
‘I can’t take it anymore,’ I complained to the twins. It was an hour after we had finished eating and the three of us collapsed onto Pinky’s bed after the mammoth clean-up session which, as usual, the men didn’t bother participating in.
‘Me neither,’ Pretty moaned. ‘I can’t stand the sight of pulao and Deshi roast chicken, anymore. All I want for iftar is something plain and simple, like a chicken and mushroom pie or a roast dinner.’
‘I would kill for a roast dinner,’ Pinky agreed, unwrapping her hijab and pulling her fuchsia hair out of its bun. ‘But stop talking about food! I feel so sick, I’ve eaten way too much.’
‘That’s not the only thing I can’t take,’ I groaned, rubbing my swollen belly. ‘I can’t take people asking me about when I’m going to get married. It’s driving me insane!’
‘To be fair, you’ve always been a sandwich short of a picnic, Maya,’ Pretty giggled.
‘Why are all our idioms so anglicised?’ Pinky mused. ‘When have any of us ever taken a sandwich to a picnic?’
‘If you mention the word “samosa” or “pakora”, I will literally kill you,’ Pretty threatened.
‘Guys! Stay on topic,’ I implored. ‘How do you cope with all the comments about your marital status?’
Pretty looked uncomfortable. ‘We don’t get it as much as you,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘You being on the shelf longer than us and all that.’
‘In fact, when you’re around, it eases the pressure on us,’ Pinky added.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ I said, half-heartedly throwing a cushion at Pretty.
‘We aim to please,’ both twins said in unison, proceeding to cackle at how funny they thought they were. With a sigh, I picked up my now-lukewarm cup of tea and vowed to stay at home and pray for the rest of Ramadan.