Tap. Tap. Tap.

I woke up to the pitter-patter sound of the rain outside. That beautiful rhythmic pattern of sprinkles tinkling on the roof. The love language spoken to us from the skies above.

One of the greatest pleasures in a pluviophile's life.

I was curled up in bed. The room was cold. My mind felt relaxed. Overall, it seemed like the beginning of a lovely day. The vibes were right already. And I hoped and I prayed it would remain the same.

With eyes half-opened, I grabbed my phone from the table next to the bed. The time was 9:50 am. Ah! The beauty of waking up late on the weekend. It was the adult equivalent of happiness gained through stuffing your face with candy as a child.

No alarm clocks. No traffic. No stupid coworkers. Only joy and tranquility. Weekend was pure happiness.

I got out of bed and made my way to the kitchen. There was just one thing needed to make this moment perfect. A warm cup of COFFEE! And I was going to make it for myself, with lots of milk and sugar. Yum!

"Have they called yet?" I heard dad ask mom as I walked past their room. There was desperation in the way he spoke. Without entering the room, I stood behind the curtain, wanting to know what it was about.

"No, not yet. Maybe they are still thinking whether she is the right match," replied mom with a sigh. I knew exactly what they were both talking about. Two days had passed since the thin guy and his family visited me but no news came from them.

Poor mom and dad. They thought it was a case of 'not yet' but I knew the right word was 'NEVER'. There was no way that guy would say 'yes' to me. I knew it right from the beginning.

And there it was. The moment of truth. Perhaps the day wasn't going to be as pleasant as I thought. At least not for my family. Not with their worries about my marriage and the unreceived response.

I wanted to walk in and greet them, but I knew that looking at my face would only make them sadder. So, I went straight to the kitchen, made milk coffee for myself and Zoya, and got back to the room.

I sat near the window hoping to enjoy the moment. But neither the rain nor my mood was anything like before. There was a significant change. The rain had almost ended and so had my feeling of excitement.

I was not sad. Maybe I was a little disappointed with myself for being a burden to my family. If only I could change things!

Sigh.

A little later, when I was doing my favorite pastime — checking out food pages on Instagram, Zoya said, "Oh no! You won't believe this."

"What?" I asked.

"Get ready for yet another melodramatic bride-seeking episode in your life." She sounded annoyed as she spoke.

I shot a confused look at her. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. How could someone agree to come and see me so soon? I mean, it was just two days since the last drama. Besides, it wasn't that easy to find proposals for a chubby girl like me. Mostly, it took weeks or even months for such things to happen.

Had God already answered my prayers of transformation and given me the body of a model or something? I truly wondered.

"What do you mean? How?" I asked her and she started telling me all about it. That was when I learned that Shaheen had discovered a futuristic method to find marriage proposals for me.

Apparently, there was a Muslim version of Tinder on Facebook in Sri Lanka which digitally connected elders of a family with each other and made it possible for them to find matches for their sons, daughters and siblings. Perhaps it was wrong for me to compare it to Tinder because this was not about dating. It was just a couple of Facebook pages with limited details of brides and grooms, moderated and published by the admins — more like a matrimonial site, except that this was free and did not involve posting photos.

Hmm...so far impressive.

I mean, I didn't even know whether this method was effective but I certainly welcomed the idea of finding partners without involving stupid brokers, their humongous broker fees and above all, the avoiding of any random idiot getting access to see our pictures. In this case, it looked like only people with a genuine interest were approached by our adults and photos or further details were shared with total consent from the family. Nothing was decided by a money-hungry matchmaker. That itself felt like a huge relief!

"But how come you know it and I don't? I mean, I didn't even see any messages on our group about it," I said.

"Oh that! We have a separate group to discuss about your proposals," said Zoya with an eye-roll. She still sounded irritated for some reason.

"Huh?"

"Yeah."

WOW! My family was really serious about finding a husband for me! I couldn't believe that they were maintaining a different chat to discuss about these things day and night, without me seeing it. Such commitment. Or in other words, they were super desperate.

I guess it was time for me to start addressing my sisters with an honorary title such as 'Marriage Scientists', 'Proposal Hunters' or 'Wedding Detectives'.

And so I did. I texted the group calling them that and the conversation was pretty weird.

Me: Hey marriage scientists! 😖
Me: What's this new thing I hear from Zoya? 🙄
Daneen: what? 👀
Me: some FB proposal 🤦🏽‍♀️
Shaheen: did she tell u already? 🤦🏻‍♀️
Me: sort of 🤷🏽‍♀️
Shaheen: she is such a blabbermouth
Zoya: I didn't tell everything 🙂
Zoya: there wasn't much to tell anyway 🙂
Zoya: u guys can do the needful 🙂
Me: 🙄🙄
Daneen: that's good. We will come and talk to her 😇
Shaheen: yes I will explain things to her 🤗
Zoya: k 🙂

"What's going on?" I closed the chat and asked Zoya who was right in front of me. Because I figured out there was something strange about the way they spoke about this proposal. Like there was a difference of opinion among them. Shaheen and Daneen sounded positive about it and Zoya seemed the opposite. As for Aira, she had checked all the messages but did not respond. Weird.

"Nothing," she replied. She tried to hide her emotions but disappointment was written all over her face.

"Your messages don't seem right though."

"As in?"

"The passive-aggressive emoji that you kept using indicated something. Isn't that what you use when you are annoyed or irritated?"

"I don't know. They will come in a while and then you will know why. That's all I'm willing to say," she replied and walked out of the room. I decided not to pester her anymore with my questions. So, I carried on with my work.

At around 3:00 pm, Shaheen and her husband Hafiz came home with their kids. They went straight to have a conversation with mom and dad. You know, those pretty serious discussions that brown Muslim families had whenever they wanted to make an important decision. It was one of those.

Aira also arrived after sometime but not Daneen. And that was typical. She was always the late one. She was probably still getting ready.

I expected Aira to join the serious discussion too but she did not. Only her husband Ahamed did. She came to our room under the pretext of wanting to feed her baby boy Samar. Maybe it was the real reason but somehow it felt like she did it solely to escape the conversation.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, totally," said Aira with a fake smile and Zoya smirked. I sighed not knowing what else to say.

Then entered Daneen with a very unusual statement, "Hey girls! The weather today has been balmy, right?" I mean, it wasn't that strange because of course, the weather was beautiful with mild rain throughout the day but Daneen mentioning about it as soon as she walked in was a little odd. It sounded like a set of words spoken due to sort of obligation and not really because of a genuine necessity.

Why was my family acting so awkward?

"Perhaps the weather wants to indicate something about the proposal you guys have brought for Alisha by reminding you of the traditional superstition associated with it," said Zoya.

I got the reference although I did not fully understand why she compared it to the proposal. She was talking about the paradoxical phenomenon of two opposite weather conditions appearing at the same time.

Sunshowers — yes, that's what it is called. Gloomy rain and vibrant sunshine mysteriously joining hands to birth a brilliant rainbow to bless those of us on Earth. For some weird reason, the local folklore in Sri Lanka is that a sunshower happens when there's a marriage between a crow and a bird. I have never really understood why they said that. Was it positive? Was it negative? I didn't know. However, I often heard people saying that in a jovial tone. Perhaps it was just a silly expression to talk about the union between two completely different aspects of life.

Now, that made me think, was this proposal about a similar situation too? Was this groom very different from me? Maybe yet another thin guy. But why would Zoya speak in ambiguity about that? This was all so strange.

"Oh stop it Zoya!" said Daneen and added, "Lish, I will go, bring Shaheen and come back. Let's discuss this." I nodded.

Aira was still silent, which clearly proved that she wasn't happy about it. Perhaps she did not find the guy to be an ideal Darcy or a Prince Charming. Poor thing.

Daneen returned with Shaheen and mom. They sat on the bed. All I did was shoot them a confused look.

"So, here's the thing," started Shaheen and continued, "There's a 32-year old groom who has a good job, is well-educated and he can even speak English. I sent your photo plus bio-data to his mother and it seems like they like you. Everything is fine except that—" She paused as if she could not finish her sentence.

"There is nothing wrong about that. As long as the guy is of a good nature and he has a proper job, we shouldn't be bothered about anything else," said mom, breaking the awkward silence. Well, that was mom's typical dialogue every time there was a proposal. There was nothing weird about that. But why was she saying that before Shaheen even completed her description.

What was so wrong about this guy? Was he a ghost? Was he a terrorist?

"Except what?" I asked.

"See, we don't want you to take us wrong for considering this. It's just that you know how hard it is to find a good guy, especially someone to match your education and job. So, please try to understand. We want nothing but the best for you," said Daneen.

Yet another vague statement.

"Okay, I know all of those things. Can you just be done with it already? What is it about him that makes you want to talk to me like this? It's not like you have ever cared about my opinion during the previous proposals," I said with a sigh.

"He is bald," replied Aira at once.

Well, that explained my family's strange behavior. This was the first time that a bald guy's proposal had knocked on our doors.

They all stared at my face, waiting for a reaction but I remained unchanged. Silent. I didn't know how to respond.

What did I even feel about this one? Was I upset over it? Or was I okay with it? Was I bothered about him not having hair? Did I even have any preferences? I wasn't sure. Or maybe I truly did not have an opinion on it. All I knew was that things would've been a lot easier if my family had treated this just like any other proposal.

"I hope you are okay with it, yeah?" said Shaheen. Even though her words had the tone of a question, I knew it was a statement. She did not expect any other answer but "yes".

And I gave them what they expected. "It's okay," I replied.

After all, I myself was considered flawed because of my weight and what choice did I have, right?

"Great. I knew you would understand. You are one matured girl unlike Zoya," said Daneen and Zoya made a face. Aira was dumbfounded.

"I pray that everything comes right. Hopefully, you will be at your husband's place on your next birthday," said mom with a wide smile. That was my family's biggest concern. They all prayed day and night, wanting me to get married before I turned 30. Typical.

"Okay then I will agree for the video call at 4:30 pm, right?" asked Shaheen.

"What video call?" I asked.

"The guy and his mother want to talk to you over a video call first. Then if they like you, they will come home. They suggested 4:30 pm today," said Shaheen.

I did not like this idea. Not in the least. Video calls were not my area of my expertise. Especially not for a marriage interview. The only ones that I had ever been part of were the HighGen group client calls. Even those made me feel nothing but uncomfortable.

How could they then expect me to speak to an unknown guy and his mother over a video call?

This all sounded so wrong.

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Will Alisha ace the marriage interview? 🤭
~~~

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