syed muzammil April 12, 2005

Tags: relationships , love , desi

href="/tag/love">love is restrictive, you get to see your beloved for a very short span of time, had to be careful with touching, everything was really private and secretive. Compared to that, the independence I got here was liberating. The girl had her own car, cell, room, could see her whenever I wanted, could drive with her wherever I wanted, moved around public places without any inhibitions. Her parents invited me in their house, they would let me stay, allowed me to go out with their daughter. I was like wow, this is the place and the time for me, I was having the time of my life, everything seemed so simple, and the future so rosy.

But soon the intricacies of a relationship here dawned on me, and left me with nothing but complications. The same love in pakistan seemed so much more simple and innocent. You like a girl in your school or ’mohalla’, get her number through directories or her friends, initiates it by ’lets be friends’, and soon it trascends into love, pure eastern one love for life. Well, untill her parents gets a ’rishta’ from a guy settled in the USA, and your status of unemployment leaves you helpless. The laila-majnu fight for their love, some might runaway, but most sacrifice their first love hormones for the eternal parental love. Yes, classic hindi filmi story, but this is a usual occurence in every galli mohalla there.

Now, the love stories here are as different as hollywood from bollywood. The complications here are of a different kind; they dont include parents, limitations or privacies; they grow from paranoias and insecurities. My love vocabulary increased tenfold here, with words like relationship (it was always love, what the hell is a relationship?), breakups (no breakups in pakistan, either you marry the girl or her parents marry her to someone else), ex (noone kisses a hundred frogs there to find a prince charming), and you dont need to know a person’s favourite music and movies to be in love. I was astonished when I first heard this; "Irfan janu, I love you but I'm not in love with you"; my poor soul still can’t figure out the difference. And I was petrified when I first heard the F word from her beautiful mouth, which was really a prelude towards my enlightment with curses; she doesnt believe it but I swear to God I had never before heard any woman curse! being called stupid idiot and dork was bad enough for my ego.

The worst was yet to come; the ritual of being compared to her list of ex-s, everything good about me was always outshined by someone in that list. My accord 94, my proudest possesion, was the shittiest, my room trashy, my body anorexic, my accent fobby, my dressing childish; suddenly my supposedly attractive personality was in dire need of total reconditioning. I had to go through the ignominy of being told that my favourite jagjeet and kishore songs are stupid and boring. She wanted me to listen to Paul van Dyke and Jay Z to be modern, I kept on recommending Bob Dylan and Radiohead for matureness.

My sense of humour which always cracked up girls back home, was a source of insult for her (I’ve interacted with a number of girls here and they just can’t laugh at themself; to them it’s always a matter of respect and insult. Why?? Can’t you girls cool down a litle, light up a little and for heaven’s sake spare the attitude)

I’m ok with English but still to speak it for hours was like an arduous ritual I had to go through everyday. I can’t understand why Pakistani parents here are so oblivious about teaching their children their own language, why do they only realise it when their child is twenty and can’t converse with his/her grandparents, or when their daughter’s in-laws demands an urdu speaking girl. I’m not a five times nimazi but to meet a muslim girl who doesn’t know a word of nimaz was the shock of my life.

I don’t mean to criticise any individual or any culture, my intention in this articile is to press on the cultural differences between two individuals of the same color and family background; and their journey of discovering each other. An ABCD girl would label her FOB partner insecure, paranoid, immature and possessive; and the guy would name her liberal, self centered, immature, with no value of love family and religion. Both are wrong, cause both personalities are products of their own distinct environments, which developed their thought process, their ethical and moral behaviour. The ironic part is it’s comparitively simpler between a couple consisting of a desi and a white, cause the differences are much more obvious and they expect it from eachother. But desis and muslims with conflicting backgrounds find it extra hard to adjust, subconciously they expect the other person to treat and love them as anyone in their culture would. For their relationship to succeed, they need a lot of understanding of their partner’s culture, and a lot more compromise. Patience and tolerance are the most essential ingredients in this relationship.