"Um'raan Langhi'aan Pabb'aan Bhaar"

Hi Everyone,

It seems like I am running out of interesting topics since I decided to write about marriage today. It is ironic that I am doing it now when things are slowing down in my life and I never thought of writing about it when I was going through a "full blown" marriage myself.

It is a very complex subject to write about as people certainly have definite and strong opinion about it, and I can only tell you from my own experience. Since my marriage was very much arranged, I felt completely off the hook going into it. The most precious gift I got from my parents, much more than even my precious gold and diamond jewelry, was an "arranged marriage" wrapped in their du'aas and blessings as if I stayed in the marriage, they would owe me their lives and God forbid if it didn't work out, I certainly have them to blame. So I entered this holy matrimony with a carefree mind, and what else helped me was my complete belief in the old punjabi saying, "Suni si tey dari si, payi si tey sahi si". Oh God, I just realized I am describing my marriage as a traumatic experience, which by the way can easily be blamed on my subconscious or my generational attitude.

Going through even a successful marriage is quite a humbling experience as nothing else can ground you the way a husband can. It seems as all your life you were residing on seventh heaven, and just took a "one way" trip to earth, in other words, you were pushed from a "takhat" to a "takhta". In my generation there was no turning back as my parents never sat me down and lectured me, but the message was loud and clear in the three words they said as I was leaving home, "Allah thay hava'ley". If there was such a thing called prenuptial agreement in my days, it would be between a girl and her parents as opposed to with her husband and it would definitely say,

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

I am a big believer of the harsh fact that the minute a girl signs her marriage papers, the demon of divorce starts following her, and she consciously or unconsciously ends up spending most of her life running away from it. Also, no matter how good of a marriage she has, she can not be fooled by the false sense of security of a husband, as this talwaar will always be hanging on her head with either a loud verbal threat, or in most cases, with a subtle message in his eyes that only she can read.

Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages", but I think as a married woman in both an eastern and western society, I went up a notch and surpassed many of those roles. There were quite a few surprise characters for me to play and I kept adapting to these roles as I went along in my marriage and had pretty much "on the job training".

I spent most of my married life with a poker face as I wanted to keep my husband guessing. It really bothers me that girls these days put all their cards on the table, and the courtship they have before they are married is not worth much since the logic often given is that they get to know the guy and only thing she ends up knowing is the extent of his charm. Although the downside to getting a good husband is getting a boring husband, the charm in a guy that a girl falls for during their courtship becomes as scarce as a ghost, and the "cool guy" she married turns out to be the worst kind of husband, as he is more into flirting with his ego than he is into her.

In marriage I alway chose my battles carefully, and never felt like fighting on all grounds as I learned to cut my losses and walk away with my head high. I had my share of "out of body experiences" to survive in my marriage, or rather, I should say my marriage survived on my out of body experiences. I walked out of my being to do things that were not humanly possible for me to do, or even too degrading to bear as I was sitting back watching myself do things and say words that I totally didn't believe in, and for that I have often commended myself as well as condemned.

Only a woman would know how painful it is to leave the home she grew up in, where she left her fingerprints on everything and footprints on each and every corner, but still can't dare to overstay her welcome so she takes the biggest gamble with herself and starts to walk towards the "mirage" of her husband's house, which is yet to be realized........ and then the SUFFER (English/Urdu both) begins. Although the journey from my father's house to my husband's house was only of a few hours, it seems like it took me a lifetime to get to my HOME and to realize the "mirage" of my husband's house required to check my identity, my soul, and above all my ability to feel pain at the front door.

The countless steps I took between both places left no footprints as I believe I was never on solid ground.

Much love,

Shehla