Something about Nani being so naive as to give away her bangles whenever someone asked her for a loan. Another bit about how Apa Jan would leave black-and-blue marks on your thigh if you left the chulo on. How, at age sixteen, Naseem Babi came to marry Aslam Mamou, who was seventeen years her senior; and how her aunties and her mother prayed after sour-milk promises were made—gripping their tasbihs tightly—that Naseem Babi would actually like this older man. How the success of this marital fable is revealed in the beginning, because we are sitting here today, right now, happily, as a family. I am half aware of the moral aim of this story, with its awkward empirical dimensions: In Order to Be Happy, One Must Marry Isma’ili, Even If It’s a Little Creepy. There is a part of me that enjoys—with a notable degree of reservation—this simplified offering of a great, confusing truth.
I am quietly pondering the onset of diabetes during postdinner kulfi when my old chacha speaks, from the head of the table, in an affected, deep baritone; a man asserting his God-given right to silence and command.
I look up stunned—Is he talking to me?—first straight ahead, then left, and then right—to find the collective gaze set upon me. Eyes range from expectant to earnest to curious. And of course, there’s Pops’s shit-eating grin. I am positive I have melted kulfi cream all up in my beard.
“Sorry—what did you ask, Chacha?”
How old are you now—no longer a question but an annoyed test of patience.
It was inevitable. I already knew whatever number I said would precipitate the dangerous mantra my uncle was dead set on delineating. At twenty-nine, this question is a predetermined, existential adjudication: the contextual set of evidence being that my older cousins (all twenty-six of them) are exempt from this line of questioning; that my sister is well on her way toward respectable, Isma’ili family-hood; and that here in the old country, my tawdry theories of progressive neocultural hybridization make even less sense than usual. I make eye contact with no one, grab a little Karachi banana from the center spread of postdinner fruits, and brace for the worst.
“You’re overdue,” he says.
Like rent. Like car payments. Like this banana covered in soft, brown spots.
Across the table, the look on Ma’s face is unmistakably one of a mind at work. She is calculating some monstrosity of a multivariable equation, involving my sister’s marriage at twenty-five and upcoming five-year anniversary; twenty-six weddings of twenty-six first cousins; three grandnieces and four grandnephews; thirty-seven years of marriage to Pops—such that in the multifarious matrix of time, tradition, and propriety, all tallies end up with me in the red: overdue.
Paola’s Infinite Street Cred
Sofiya’s eyes are a little sunken, and up close, nose-to-nose—her breath mixing with my own—they are vast. The darkness of her eyes against the light brown of her cheeks makes it seem as if she was born with a just-right touch of kohl in permanent, perfect placement. I can’t see it, but her smile reverberates up through the delicate folds of her cheek under her eyes; her nose is soft as it slides across the side of my own; our eyes close gently, slowly, and into the moment. Four days before, Paola and I were taking a Tuesday postwork stroll around the municipal lake. She noticed I’d stopped paying attention to her workday story, and that moreover, our easy gait was accelerating toward a light jog. My eyes were trained fifty feet ahead of us on a certain striking somebody. Paola, being my lifelong best friend, could see right through me.
“Do you know her or something?”
“What? Oh yeah, maybe—I think she goes to my masjid.”
“Oh shit, really?”
I begged her to slow down as she began to tear ass toward the Unidentified Potentially Isma’ili Chokri. Paola knew what it meant—she had known my mother too long not to—that meeting a UPIC in an unprovoked, real-world, love-interest-type situation had all the trimmings of a big deal.
I pulled at her arm, but she broke my tackle: either she was looking to score eternal street cred with Ma, or else Paola’s rambunctious streak was some uncashed check of childhood revenge. Regardless, it was no more than a minute later that I was taking a first shy glance into Sofiya’s eyes.
“Hello.”
Game Recognize Antigame
It is undeniable that at its foundation, Pops’s jamat khana status as a Sweet & Funny Uncle is built upon merciless flirtation. It’s kind enough, and seemingly aimed at no particular gender, so as not to cross the line to Creepy Uncle. Pops makes it hard to not love him, a cup of Bapa Uncle’s chai in one hand, the other busied by gesticulation; holding court with his old buddies, or the twenty-something Corporate-Type IndoPaks who live in the city, or maybe the East Bay young college students. They are always laughing.
My sister Zarah either occupies her own group, or plays a perfect second fiddle to Pops’s irresistible charm—she is gregarious, attentive, kind, and a little sassy. Dynamic even. Her laugh can warm hearts and capture souls—as it’s done with Samir, my incredibly handsome but awkward brother-in-law; a caring being, yes, but one who will often wait in the parking lot to avoid conversation.
Ma operates on a more prophetic plane inside the prayer hall— if the game isn’t spiritual, she’s probably not playing it—or else, it’s the kind of fastidious social-religious work that would seemingly require a clipboard. (She doesn’t need one, though. Her practical capacity for doing good by her fellow murids is only surpassed by her spiritual one.)
Let’s say now—for the sake of experimentation—that one Friday, I happen to notice a Striking Woman by Bapa’s chai percolator. If you’ve been keeping score, things, seemingly, should go my way: sister and Pops, clever and engaging, masters of flirtation—are well occupied by their respective crowds. My handsome brother-in-law waves timidly while backing toward the door. My mother is either in a corner of the prayer hall, still silent and rocking at a Sufi’s pace, or else doing good somewhere.
Taking advantage of the moment, I move toward the percolator, mindlessly busy myself with chai preparation, and maybe get out a quick and mellow “hello” to said Striking Woman—the one and only innocent second before the Avalanche begins. Oh, my dear SW, let me introduce my entourage of misguided matchmakers: sister-and-Pops, suddenly and inexplicably free, materialize out of thin air, armed with coquettish collocations in stereo sound; brother-in-law Samir lingers awkwardly on the outskirts, having forgotten the keys to the car in my sister’s purse; Ma comes over for chai and unassumingly requests full contact information for the Jamati database. Et voilà—the Avalanche has swallowed me and Striking Woman whole, and I realize, in paralyzed awe, that this is most certainly the death of cool.
