Posted by ‘good family, well educated, steady job, audi, building a house’ – you can bet that I came to Bangladesh fully prepared with an arsenal of witty responses to the inevitable question of the “M” word. H*ll, I’ve even thrown in some truth about how I view it all right now.
The most amusing is to ask “dorkar ki?” – “what’s the need?”. That always throws them for a loop. Need? It’s just time! Now some of them might be thinking that I’ll finally be ‘allowed’ to knock boots and if someone would have the ballz to give that answer, that person would be picking out a girl for me right now – or not.
But the best answer ever was given to me a while back by a 6yr old. We were sitting outside one day and he turned to me and told me that he thought I should get married. Rather amused, I asked him why. With relish, he replied, “Because when you’re married, then you can kiss on lips!!!” Ahh youth, venturing closer to the truth than any adult would dare.
So anyway, I thought I’d done a reasonably good job of fending off the marriage questions either with my “dorkar ki” response and laughing unintelligibly or by simply saying I’m not ready, maybe in 2-3 years (more like… no). This morning I got a call from one of my older cousins (siraji bhaiya); he said he’d found a nice girl and would I like to go see her? Oh man, wtf?! But he was genuinely sincere so I told him I’m just not ready to which he acquiesed and so I settled down to veg out in front of the TV (we miss amrikan football)
During lunch, my Aalok unkel called my Sabrina aunty and asked whether they were looking for a girl for her son, who is about 6 months younger than I am. Oh we all nearly started cracking up at the table. She told him no but as he persisted a little bit, she mentioned that I was in town, older than my cousin and why doesn’t he call my dad to set something up. My cool aunty sold me out! I mean, it was all done in fun; Sabrina aunty is knows not to be serious about anything like that with me.
But Aalok unkel didn’t realise so he called my dad up toot-sweet and my dad, rather than quash anything as I’ve directed him to do so, told him that he had no objections and to call me to talk. So Aalok unkel calls Sabrina aunty back and says (without really consulting me) that he’ll pick me up in the evening.
Now you can imagine my surprise and consternation. Every single scenario is running thru my mind!! “Is the girl gonna be there alone? nah.” “Will she be there with her parents?” “Will her parents be there alone?!” I spoke to… nooo, yelled at my dad later in the day for not squelching such behavior but he assured me that I was just going to talk to my Aalok unkel, maybe see a picture and get her email address.
But, my cousin Buneka so enjoyed increasing my blood pressure… “Maher I smell a rat… I don’t think you’re only going to seeing unkel. And we were told the girl is in Calcutta. So I think you’re going to meet the parents tonight!!” Meeting the parents?! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!
In the end, it was all alright. Aalok unkel went thru a detailed description of the girl’s father’s background (wait, who am I to be talking to?) and said that she had done her masters at Oxford (I have one undergrad for a state school, d*mnit!).
He said that she and her sisters (two older) had been raised in a very muslim, yet cultured household (ahem, cough) and that was the sort of person they were looking for for her. He said they’d been raised not to do any ‘going out with boys’ and relayed a story of how one of them had been talking to a boy over email for a bit and that he had suggested she come to spend a weekend with him… well, that killed the entire affair. The nerve of the guy!
Like I said, the descriptions were all pretty kosher – the sort of boring drivel I would expect my parents to give about me… “oh he’s such a good muslim boy.”
Now you know me – I work hard at looking the good, clean, bangali muslim child (as do many of us) but d*mn I enjoy celebrating my ‘russian heritage’. And let’s not even get started on my warped sense of religious humor. I had to bite my lip several times during the discussion!!… esp. at the part about not going out with any boys (oh how I do miss Buenos Aires).
In the end, I’ll play along out of morbid curiosity. Could this girl really be that kosher? Given that my parents would make me sound that kosher and boring to anyone else, one can only hope this girl has been grossly mis-read by her fam and is “our kind of muslim” (as I often like to call it).
I’ll get a pic of her and an email address tomorrow but most likely in a few emails, I’ll get bored and make a crass ‘muslims like to blow things up’ joke and never hear from her again. Seriously, muslims do like to blow’d things up!!… no wait, it’s just the d*mn a-rabs. Peace.
