"Kuri Thi Maa Dekho"

Hi Everyone,

In 1972 when I joined Kinnaird College, something triggered panic in my mother and she embarked on a mission (somewhat like a "Mission Impossible") to get rid of me. She labeled this quest of hers "My Marriage" and started to entertain families for that sole purpose. It might be illegal now but my sister Ghazala , who was only 18 months older than me, got engaged to my first cousin at the age of 13, so I was my mother's next project since all my aunts would talk about how hard it was to get good matches for girls once they were over 20 years of age.

One odd thing that I noticed was that whenever a family would come for me, after "checking me out"they would be all about my mother. As I would be sitting there with a dumbfounded look on my face, my mother would turn on her charm, which was not hard for her as she was a very charming lady to begin with and people would get very impressed with her warmth and beautiful personality.

A few years after my mother successfully married me off (way off), I heard the old saying, "Kuri na dekho, kuri thi maa dekho", and finally figured out why my mother got more attention than I ever did from those "godforsaken" rishtas. If you look at it realistically, it makes good sense that when you look at the mother, you can pretty much tell how this skinny, shy girl is going to turn out, or more importantly, what she'll look like a few years down the line. When I repeatedly caught myself behaving and talking just like my mother, I started believing in this old saying as well.

Since I am a mother of four daughters, I find myself in the same situation that my poor mother was in more than 30 years ago. Actually it puts a lot of pressure on me, and on top of that, people are not as subtle and refined as they used to be. A couple of families took it a little too far, following the old saying literally and keeping their focus on me although I would still have the same dumbfounded look on my face. I am pretty sure they thought that there was going to be a "package deal" and somehow I was going to be a part of that package, meaning whatever my daughters lacked (being American born) I would make up for (such as a 'chicken chawal supply line'). I don't know if any of you have experienced anything like that yet, but I am quite sure you will.

I have a NEWS FLASH for all the suitors and their families: whoever came or will come for my daughters or your daughters......our daughters may look like us, but they won't be as patient, as compromising, and definitely not as subservient as we were, so please stop looking at us and look at them because with this generation, "what you see is what you get".

"Kuri thi maa na dekho, kuri dekho"

Much love,

Shehla