Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, “Whoever amongst you may live (for long) will see many differences. I urge you to follow my Sunnah and the way of the rightly guided Khaleefaas who come after me. Hold on to it firmly. Beware of innovation for every newly invented matter is going astray.”

–Abu Dawood; at-Tirmidhi graded it as hasan saheeh

 
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The preparations around her proceeded with full gusto, causing heaviness to settle within her chest. Her throat felt tight. There was a constant pang inside her heart. Inexplicable emotions made it difficult to swallow the anxiety and pain ripping her insides.

She felt like a scared little kitten stuck atop a tree. She felt like a bird whose wings had been chopped off before being shut inside a cage. Despite being surrounded by relatives who had travelled from all across the country for this day, she felt terribly alone. It was as though she spoke a language no one around her understood. No one really took a moment to hear what she had to relay.

There were people everywhere she turned, and yet she was utterly and despicably alone.

With the realisation of the thought had come sorrow taking a firm grip over her heart—tightening its hold until she could take it no more and mounting its pressure until she could feel no more. The vestiges of her feelings were deprived of any outlets, for her tears—the only way she could have let it all out—were no longer at liberty to flow. Her eyes were not allowed to water. Tears were not even allowed to show up at the corner of her eyes. In their stead, she was forced to keep her lips curled in a smile. A mere twitch of those muscles, honest to Allaah, took so much effort that particular day. She surmised it was because their ends were tied to her heavy heart.

A shuddering breath escaped her lips. She thought of her feelings that had been neatly discarded to the side. Regardless of what she was feeling, she was being forced—forced to smile at the people who came in to look at her, forced to smile for the sake of people who enquired after her. Her emotions had to take a back seat that day for the sake of those who graced the occasion. She was compelled to smile and pretend to be happy for all those who had come together in the place. In truth, however, her soul was being butchered; and they had all gathered, unaware, to watch the play unfold.

Farce.

Overall, she had become a puppet whose strings others pulled according to their own fancies and whims and in order to get something done. Her actions were not her own. Her reactions were not her own. Her words, too, were borrowed. When it came down to dissecting it all, she realised that she owned a mind she could not use, a right she cannot exercise, and an emotion she could not express. She had become, at the end of the day, something she immensely disliked—a being with no words nor choice.

She was being controlled and forced to be someone she cannot recognise.

Façade.

What other option did she have? She was bound by circumstances and restricted by the so-called family honour. Emotional blackmails and tears held her hostage. Multitude of things, including her family, hovered over her; and, for the first time in her twenty-two years of life on earth, she had become mute. For the first time in her twenty-two years of experience in the world, her extensive vocabulary could not be of any aid to her; and, as for her lips—they stayed glued, refusing to part for all the words that she could have uttered to escape were cruelly snatched away from her. When it came down to the borrowed words that were available in plenty, she preferred staying mum to using them. She, at least, had a choice in that—a choice she could exercise.

Her words.

Her loss.

Her engagement.

Manha cringed at the undesired reminder. Her engagement! The ceremony that would officially let people know she was reserved for someone—she wasn’t sure who—was about to commence in an hour, and her attempts of keeping her miserable thoughts at bay were proving to be futile. A sob rose in her chest, and she rubbed a hand over it to keep it contained. Her eyes rolled up on their own accord to suppress the tears that threatened to show. She swallowed.

Every single thing in her vicinity reminded her of the inevitable—of what was going to happen to her, or rather, with her. The heavy lehenga she had on, her extravagant veil, the unnecessary assortment of delicacies that were being prepared and packed with intense care in colourful arrangements, the big utensils of biryani cooking right outside the wedding hall—every single thing screamed of the inevitable, and every single thing screamed money. Displeasure flashed across her face at the thought.

For a person who looked at the world with the perspective of needs separated from wants, none of the additional expenses made sense to her. Her rational self found it outrageous that her mother had booked a wedding hall just for an engagement function when engagement ceremonies were not even encouraged in Islaam to begin with.

Publicising the wedding was encouraged in Islaam, the engagement wasn’t, especially since the duration between the engagement and the nikkah held so many uncertainties. An engagement was not even a binding contract between two people. They were still very much na mehram to each other, and anything could occur in that time interval. The engagement could break or, may Allaah forbid, one of the parties could lose their life. Publicising the engagement meant staining the individuals’ lives and giving them an additional baggage in case anything untoward happened in their stories, but how could she make her mother see sense regarding it all? She would never see past pleasing her relatives.

How could she let her know that she wanted something pure—devoid of extravagances? Something that would only involve those who really meant something? Something that would not go against the peripherals of Islaam? Something that she would be comfortable with?

Would her mother, at least for once, pause and think of what she wanted more than caring about what the world had to say?

She had lost all hope and had decided to settle with whatever came her way. Clearly, she had no choice or say in this phase; and the only option available was to face life as it came—changing phases and alternating between waves of euphoria, grief, and madness. Whatever her Lord was making her go through couldn’t be without a reason. The haze would, for sure, clear in the long run.

Manha shifted uncomfortably in her dress. Her cousin chastised her. “You are going to ruin your make up if you don’t sit still.” Her eyes fell on her reflection in the mirror at that, and she had to stifle a gasp. Her reflection looked so unlike her. She almost couldn’t recognise herself.

The maroon lehenga suited her quite well and matched her complexion. Her complicated hairdo gave her a sophisticated yet elegant look. Her light makeup enhanced her cheek bones, and her eyes—the only feature she liked of herself—looked ethereal. She doubted if anyone could look past the makeup and see the pain it cleverly concealed.

Looking away from the mirror, Manha struggled to come to terms with the fact that she was getting married to a guy she had only seen a picture of. Ah! How could she forget the resume? Soon, she would be married. She would have to move in with him; share a room with him, a bed with him, listen to him; and try to please him . . .

“You’re ready!” her overly eager cousin exclaimed as she packed all the things spread on the vanity. Manha sighed in relief; but, even before she could reclaim her calmness completely, a flurry of aunties descended upon her.

“Oh, beti, you look lovely, Masha Allaah!” an aunt gushed. Almost immediately, Manha was expected to paint a smile on her face.

For the next few minutes, she was passed around all those ladies who smiled sickly sweet at her and exclaimed the same dialogues of how she had grown, over and over again.

At first, she had let the comments slide; but, with the passage of time, she grew abashed at their behaviour. Manha was different from most desi people. Be it her features or characteristics or even her choices, she stood different than most; and if there were people she could never everbear, it was kind who were two-faced. People who had one thing in their mind yet portrayed a completely different story in their actions irked her to no end.

Most of these ladies, who were gushing over her now, hadn’t batted an eyelash when she had achieved things for the first time in the whole family—in the entire family tree, in fact. These were, in truth, people who had been jealous of her, bad-mouthed her, and started all sorts of rumours about her at every opportunity they had.

And now . . .

Manha shook her head.

No point of wasting my time pondering over their nature. I shouldn’t stoop to their level.

She forcefully blocked the philosopher in her from seeking reasons she so badly wanted to know—reasons she was sure held the answers to the behavioural pattern of her chameleon relatives.

Sometime later, her future mother-in-law arrived with her female relatives, and they each took their time cooing over her. Indian traditions had it that in Muslim engagements, only females would attend the ceremony for the bride while only males attended the ceremony for the groom. That was the reason why only females had gathered here. The following day, the males of both his and her family would be attending the ceremony for the groom. This way, they presumed, the segregation would be maintained.

Manha almost snorted at the thought.

First of all, engagement ceremonies itself are not encouraged in Islaam; and the extravagant things we are doing are frowned upon. In this, we are trying to keep men and women from intermingling. What a selective way of following the religion. Wow!

She had to literally stop breathing when her aunties, dabbed with heavy perfumes, hugged her. How can they breathe with this on? It is choking me. She had to pretend she was really happy to hear what they had to say.  Overall, she had to pretend she was okay with this entire hoax.

When they were done with praising her and passing her around like a doll, her future mother-in-law came forward and took her in her arms. “Masha Allaah, beti. It looks as if the moon has descended on earth. You look beautiful!” A tendril of hope unfurled inside her chest at those words. Poetic mother-in-law! Okay, that’s . . . that’s good. Finally, someone who could speak with the poet in me. Maybe that’s what they say—there’s always good in every bad!

“You look even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

Manha stilled. “Last time?” The words spilled out of her mouth before she could even process them in her mind, her confused tone quite evident. She could not recall ever having met her. She was sure she had not even seen her face before. When was this “last time”?

“Ah! I see your mother didn’t tell you.” The lady caught on as she righted Manha’s veil. “I saw you in your cousin’s wedding, the one who got married to that Emirati guy. I watched you from afar. I liked how you behaved, so I approached your mother. Since we had mutual relatives, I was able to find out who your mother was easily.”

I shouldn’t have gone to that wedding in the first place.

“You see, I didn’t want to let you go and was actually afraid that if I delayed, someone else will overtake me. I hope you don’t feel that all this was rushed, beta.”

Manha had to summon a smile with great reluctance. “Oh no, Aunty. It’s nothing of that sort,” she denied while her insides screamed something else. In truth, she wanted to let the lady know what exactly her proposal had done to her; but she knew very well if she were to say anything, her mother would have her head the very next second.

“Besides, it’s time you got married.”

“Bhabhi, look at this.” Some lady interrupted them, and the potential mother-in-law scurried away.

Manha’s mother appeared beside her and took her to some old ladies who were whispering things amongst themselves. They sat her down on the decorated stage as they proceeded with all the traditions. They laid out the things necessary for the ceremony and went about doing things she almost wanted to laugh at. It took a lot of effort for her to sit down and not make a big fuss—to not scream at them for doing things which she detested.

She gazed at the gifts—an assortment of packed fruits and sweets her in-laws had brought. They were packed in intricately woven baskets and covered with colourful and bright cellophane paper. The basket of heavy garlands beside those things made her want to tear through the crowd and run away.

This was wrong. Very wrong. More than marrying that Faheem guy, the way she was getting married ired her. How could they not consider her desires? Was she not human? Was she not the one who was getting married? Should she not be asked about it?

The few times Manha had allowed herself to dream about her wedding in the past, she had envisioned a simple, Sunnah-styled wedding, having only a handful of important people but still filled with Allaah’s blessings and angels who would actually pray for her.

Now, though, as she looked at the crowded hall, she wondered how on earth the angels could squeeze in amidst these oversized Indian aunties.

Who am I kidding? Angels attend only the nikkah—the only actual ceremony that should be held. They don’t come for weddings that take place like this—filled with humans who come more for the food and gossip and showing off their dresses than to pray and bless the couple.

This engagement itself is filled with so many people and unnecessary sophistication. If my mother could have her way, she would invite the whole of Chennai for the nikkah.

That’s it, Manha, no angels at your wedding. They wouldn’t be praying for your union. Allaah’s barakah wouldn’t be there . . .

She frowned at herself, bringing the sentence to an abrupt halt.

In sha’ Allaah it would be there but . . .

The thought was left incomplete knowing full well that angels didn’t grace occasions where people engaged in the impermissible. Intermixing, the playing of music, the abandonment of haya, and so many other things that people had introduced over the years pushed the barakah and angels away from gatherings.

Manha ignored the overpowering feelings that arose in her after that, willing herself to sit still as they swarmed her.

She watched as her future in-laws slipped the ring onto her finger and forced a sweet inside her mouth.

She looked on as they hugged each other in jubilation and fed each other sweets from boxes they had brought along.

She stared as they shred her dreams into finite threads, tore her heart into infinite pieces she cannot collect, and murdered her feelings to an extent that she bled. She was not able to do anything more than stare.

For the first time in her entire life, she felt helpless being a girl.

Had I been a guy, they would have never forced their opinion on me.

A layer of dust settled upon her self-esteem. Gone was the soul that took pride in being a girl!

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