Unmarriageable(2)

Rose-Nama said, ‘It’s Western conditioning to think independent women are better than homemakers.’

‘No one said anything about East, West, better, or worse,’ Alys said. ‘Being financially independent is not a Western idea. The Prophet’s wife, Hazrat Khadijah, ran her own successful business back in the day and he was, to begin with, her employee.’

Rose-Nama frowned. ‘Have you ever reimagined the first sentence?’

Alys grabbed a yellow chalk and wrote her variation, as she inevitably did every year, ending with the biggest flourish of an exclamation point yet.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a husband!



‘How,’ Alys said, ‘does this gender-switch from the original sentence make you feel? Can it possibly be true or can you see the irony, the absurdity, more clearly now?’

The classroom door was flung open and Tahira, a student, burst in. She apologised for being late even as she held out her hand, her fingers splayed to display a magnificent four-carat marquis diamond ring.

‘It happened last night! Complete surprise!’ Tahira looked excited and nervous. ‘Ammi came into my bedroom and said, “Put away your homework-shomework, you’re getting engaged.” Miss Alys, they are our family friends and own a textile mill.’

‘Well,’ Alys said, ‘well, congratulations,’ and she rose to give her a hug, even as her heart sank. Girls from illustrious feudal families like sixteen-year-old Tahira married early, started families without delay, and had grandchildren of their own before they knew it. It was a lucky few who went to university while the rest got married, for this was the Tao of obedient girls in Dilipabad; Alys went so far as to say the Tao of good girls in Pakistan.

Yet it always upset her that young brilliant minds, instead of exploring the universe, were busy chiselling themselves to fit into the moulds of Mrs and Mum. It wasn’t that she was averse to Mrs Mum, only that none of the girls seemed to have ever considered travelling the world by themselves, let alone been encouraged to do so, or to shatter a glass ceiling, or laugh like a madwoman in public without a care for how it looked. At some point over the years, she’d made it her job to inject (or as some, like Rose-Nama’s mother, would say, ‘infect’) her students with possibility. And even if the girls in this small sleepy town refused to wake up, wasn’t it her duty to try? How grateful she’d have been for such a teacher. Instead, she and her sisters had also been raised under their mother’s motto to marry young and well, an expectation neither thirty-year-old Alys, nor her elder sister, thirty-two-year-old Jena, had fulfilled.

In the year 2000, in the lovely town of Dilipabad, in the lovelier state of Punjab, women like Alys and Jena were, as far as their countrymen and -women were concerned, certified Miss Havishams, Charles Dickens’s famous spinster who’d wasted away her life. Actually, Alys and Jena were considered even worse off, for they had not enjoyed Miss Havisham’s good luck of having at least once been engaged.

As Alys watched, the class swarmed around Tahira, wishing out loud that they too would be blessed with such a ring and begin their real lives.

‘Okay, girls,’ she finally said. ‘Settle down. You can ogle the diamond after class. Tahira, you too. I hope you did your homework? Can you share your sentence on the board?’

Tahira began writing with an orange chalk, her ring flashing like a big bright light bulb at the blackboard – exactly the sort of ring, Alys knew, her own mother coveted for her daughters.

It is a truth universally acknowledged in this world and beyond that having an ignorant mother is worse than having no mother at all.



‘There,’ Tahira said, carefully wiping chalk dust off her hands. ‘Is that okay, miss?’

Alys smiled. ‘It’s an opinion.’

‘It’s rude and disrespectful,’ Rose-Nama called out. ‘Parents can never be ignorant.’

‘What does ignorant mean in this case, do you think?’ Alys said. ‘At what age might one’s own experiences outweigh a parent’s?’

‘Never,’ Rose-Nama said frostily. ‘Miss Alys, parents will always have more experience and know what is best for us.’

‘Well,’ Alys said, ‘we’ll see in Pride and Prejudice how the main character and her mother start out with similar views, and where and why they begin to separate.’

‘Miss Alys,’ Tahira said, sliding into her seat, ‘my mother said I won’t be attending school after my marriage, so I was wondering, do I still have to do assign—’

‘Yes.’ Alys calmly cut her off, having heard this too many times. ‘I expect you to complete each and every assignment, and I also urge you to request that your parents and fiancé, and your mother-in-law, allow you to finish secondary school.’

‘I’d like to,’ Tahira said a little wistfully. ‘But my mother says there are more important things than fractions and ABCs.’

Alys would have offered to speak to the girl’s mother, but she knew from previous experiences that her recommendation carried no weight. An unmarried woman advocating pursuits outside the home might as well be a witch spreading anarchy and licentiousness.

‘Just remember,’ Alys said quietly, ‘there is more to life than getting married and having children.’