Azra

Sahar puts on the new solitaire earrings she bought at Colliers just yesterday. Umair can be stingy sometimes but most times he just relents. She had been dying to wear these. Checking her brand new Cartier watch, she realizes they have exactly ten minutes to get to Sindh Club. Looking herself up

and down, she likes what she sees. She put her hair up especially so that the earrings would stand out. Her new Body Focus outfit falls perfectly.

I feel like I’m stuck at a perpetual yellow light. As if all this is temporary...I want to be freed. From myself and from meaningless encounters with relatives and acquaintances who know nothing about me, who are more alien than the stranger sitting next to me in the bus.

I wish this feeling would go away This experience may alienate me from the very people I yearn for right now.

It’s a bright Toronto morning; I get up, make myself some tea and check email. Like everyday, there’s one particular message I immediately click on. It’s from Ammi, describing for me the Mehndi I couldn’t attend.

I feel nostalgic. Perhaps nostalgia has become a permanent feeling now. Everything I do, read, and reflect on is intertwined with my experiences, my emotions, and my memories of Karachi.

My ride will be here soon. There’s a Milad at a distant relative’s place in an hour. Distant is such a cold word. It exudes a chilly feeling. Why not just call them a third or second cousin, why use distant relative? I suppose I want to demarcate an intangible boundary between those whom I choose to know and those who I’m obliged to keep in touch with.

Could this be the fear of being alone in this strange land? But is it not better to be alone rather than being surrounded by people who have nothing in common with me? And is Toronto a strange place for me? Maybe its my bond with Karachi that holds me back from even wanting to like Toronto, because it has – Toronto has – embraced me. Perhaps it’s a question of acknowledging that.

My aunt picks me up right on time. Taking our coats off, we enter the hall, which reeks of expensive perfume and makes me nauseous. We enter, and I hate these moments, when all eyes are fixated on the new comer. Judging, probing, evaluating. What must they be thinking? Why does it matter what they think?

I make my way to the closest vacant spot on the carpeted floor and sit down. Everyone wearing diamonds, everyone in the latest pastel colours, everyone gloating, and yet everyone giving off this jealous and insecure vibe. “Oh how pretty she looks”. Was being envious of others the key to declaring them a part of the group? How can they be this superficial? Karachi was so different…

Sahar and Umair get to Sindh Club just in time. The bride and groom aren’t here yet. “Lovely earrings jaan”, says Sahar’s phuppo staring at the rocks in her niece’s ears, all the while thinking. “Real? That Umair must be making good money”. Gratified, Sahar comes up with an equally pleasing compliment for phuppo.

I wrap my arms around my knees and let the dupatta fall so that my rings won’t show. I am in turmoil inside, one part of me fighting to consolidate the non- confirming Azra, who doesn’t want to be like these fake aunties, who abhors them for the prissy designer bag-clad women they are while the other part is just dying to belong, to be like them, to wear what is considered “in”. Or is it simply that they are victims of an artificial, insincere society and I can see that, and yet find it hard to break away from it?

The only simple lady in this entire place is the Mullani singing praises of the Prophet. She breaks the uniformity of the gathering, which these women maintain without even making an effort to do so, perhaps without even realizing it. She isn’t one of them. And I am? I know this naat, I want to sing along, but no one around is participating. Will it make me look too religious?

Lubna comes up to Sahar as she tries to inch away. Damn! too late. “Hi Lubz, kya haal hai?” Sahar asks coldly. “Hmm did you buy those earrings with your own money?” Lubna asks the question Sahar predicted she would “Of course not, mein kyun kaam karne laggi when I have a perfectly healthy hubby?”

“Uhh maybe because it’s meaningful, because you’d realize how hard making money is and how easy it is to spend it”. Uff Lubna with her career-crap. Shadi nahi hui na iss liyay. Kher it must be hard – she needs something to hold onto. “Acha what is this I hear about you going to Amsterdam?” Sahar tries changing the subject.

“…Exciting opportunity... conference…lecture…” Lubna is going on and on…Sahar wants to go and meet others. Show her diamonds off. Mercifully Lubz shuts her trap and Sahar is free to mingle. She notices Seema wearing those latest flare sleeve things. If only the stupid darzi would have made her those kind of sleeves for her outfit…kher, everything else about her is perfect, while Seema’s handbag is so last year.

I can see Natasha approaching me. Her gait is so runway-like. “Hi Azra! Thanks for coming” I exchange pleasantries with the hostess. It amuses me to see this fusion of east and west that Natasha personifies. She’s wearing a long floral top complete with ruffles and flared sleeves (which is supposedly the latest fashion) coupled with a narrow shalwar and a matching scarf. It’s a striking ensemble. A part of me is conscious of my own baggy shalwar and ruffle-less kameez, but I easily overcome fretting over it. Perhaps my sociology class had something to do with it: the way my Professor had talked of the fashion world assisting the capitalist world.

“Heyyyyyy” cries Sahar’s eighteen-year old cousin. “Awesome outfit Sahar Baaji, and those earrings! Oh my God! I should get married a.s.a.p!” Aww Sabeen is such a sweetie. Always complimenting me, but this girl knows fashion, thought Sahar. “You like?” Sahar coyly asks in what she considers teenage-lingo. “I liiike” comes the anticipated reply. Their tête-à-tête is broken abruptly as phuppo instructs them to “go stand by the reception area”. The bride and groom are finally here.

Two months…two more months and I will be back in Karachi, amongst the people I care about. At this very moment, my entire family must be at my cousin’s wedding. This is the first ever wedding in my family that I have missed. Yet I realize it isn’t such a big deal. It’s just a wedding…frankly weddings mean so much unnecessary spending; lately they’ve become nothing but a manifestation of ostentation and extravagance, if anything I like running away from them…and yet it would’ve been fun.

“She looks gorgeous na?” Sahar asked Lubna. “Yeah, and so happy”. “I absolutely love her outfit…is it designer?” inquires Sabeen. “Of course yaar” Sahar replies quickly. “My sister would wear nothing less.” “I wish Azra was here, she sent me such a sad email yesterday...she’s dying to see the pics.” Sabeen quips.