The Bridesmaids.

no wedding can be complete without a set of the bride's girlfriends being there at her beck and call at every waking moment. to receive shouty sms's, to be the punching bags, to deal with her rants, to share in her dreams, to manage the cell phone, to resolve her past, to peep into her future, to laugh madly, dance insanely, cry uncontrollably, share looks meaningfully, to bitch without reserve, absorb quietly and simply simply be there. to my bridesmaids, without whom this wedding could not have happened.

life.

i think Allah Mian sends down the juxtaposition life and death, of extreme happiness and sadness, to us to instill in us a deep sense of appreciation of what we have today, to make us realize that both pain and joy is transient and in the end, we should be thankful for those we have around us and pray for the strength to always deal with what we have humbly and as best as we can.

Five Days After Marriage

the first few days of being married is kind of like being on a vacation. you know those summers when time used to slow down or speed up depending on how good a time you were having or how tired you were. when time was a mere concept and there were no rules of having to sleep at a particular 10pm or wake at a specific 8am. everything just puttered along merrily, in one happy slow-mo kind of way. post marriage is like that. like the vacation of your life, with your best friend. anything less than that is a compromise.

The Big Day

aafi called me from england the day after my wedding and said she had one thing to ask me which would tell me a lot about how the rest of my life with k will be. "How did he receive you on the stage on your wedding day?"

i didnt have to hesitate.
he came up to hold my hand to take me to our seats, and then stopped, looked at me and handed me a single red rose. i a hall packed with people, all of whom are trying to wish you the best simultaneously, thats the closest it gets to a private i love you.

on my last single night...

...i went to espresso with drying mehndi on my hands with meena and mars and we drank coffee and laughed and took mad pics.

...my red hot chilli pepper bottle got smashed to bits by my darling niece, who i still love despite that.

...my morning nikah outfit got left behind at the tailors with no hope of recoevry before the ceremoney tomorrow.

...my cousin, sisters and i tried to figure out what to do and ended up family gossiping instead.

...i wrote an email which signaled the end of an era.

...i prayed to Allah Mian to help me retain my sense of humour and faith and to keep me realizing that this is all some detail of a large plan which im too small to understand.

The Perfect July Night in Karachi.

in one of my several daily conversations with Allah mian for the past couple of days, i had been requesting insistently on my mehndi being uneventful rain-wise. with karachi you never know. at sam's rukhsati in december 2002 we practically threw her in the car and ran for cover to escape the sudden downpour. at z's engagement, we hopped under the shamiana looking for dry spots where the rain didnt pelt through the canvas. at b's baraat, our ghararas sloshed the floor as we waded through a foot of water to get to the hall. rain has its charms, as a karachiite i must admit, but not on important wedding days. and so as Allah mian sent me the perfect july night for my mehndi (dholki), i smiled in thankfulness at the rightness of it all- the family, the friends, the dances, the songs, the yellow gharara, the lights, the colours, the happiness and very importantly the person, k, who i love so much and whose wife i will be tomorrow inshallah.

Dhol Bajnayy Lagaaaa

its 9 pm. its the big dholki tonight. finally. the shinnering lights and the dark green gao takkiyeh and gold net. the lights a la marquee style. the songs. the dances. the sisters. the friends. inshallah everything will go well. karachi, dont let me down. no rain tonight, please, Allah Mian.

i dont know how people get married without sisters, friends or cousins to add to the utter madness and confusion of wedding time.

keeping the bride busy...

bitchy bride.

now that i have officially fought with my sisters and screamed and shouted at everyone in the house for their utter insensitivity do i finally feel like the textbook bride, all high strung and nervous, a stranger to the usual person she likes being.

im on top of the world, looking down on creation...

Majority of the past few days have felt like my intestines are doing some kind of twisty dance. as a person who is getting married "late in life", I have gotten used to marrying friends and cousins off and dancing and singing and genereally being an onlooker-participant type; which is why getting married myself has been confusing. Half the time i feel like Im attending a wedding and the other half of the time, Im trying to remember that this is MY wedding. At the mayoun/milad, I had an out-of-body experience as i watched the whole proceedings hovering above, watching me sit there, laugh insanely, sing, dance. And the me that was above kept whispering to the me below, its you getting married, its you!! Most of my wedding preps are over, and with the main functions left, I find myself slipping into the "watch from above" mode ever so often, looking with amusement at the bride down below.

if the past comes visiting your house 10 days before your wedding, smile coz you dont live there anymore.

some things dont change.

when i was 8, i thought brides were beautiful, magic beings, sent to earth to make us happy. at 28, i still think so.

the drawing room of a decade of dholkis.

one testament to a good dholki is when you have so much fun that you completely forget to take pictures. thanks mars and meyum.

lets invite everyone.

the biggest battle ensuing in the house these days is on who to invite and who to NOT invite. random relatives seems to be crawling out of the woodwork and claiming undying closeness to my family. myself being the practical-coldhearted dulhan-being keeps wondering where these people were so far. my parents being the emotional our-daughter-is-getting-married beings are welcoming everyone with open arms, even khala khatto, a mythical someone from somewhere far away who we claim always shows up at our weddings, but is in actuality NOT related to us. maybe shes a spirit of good luck or maybe she just comes for the food, but she is always there.

why cant people understand they everyone cannot be invited to everything? its along the same line of understanding as money does not grow on trees. people complain of having to go to so many weddings, and then complain some more if they are actually not invited to one pointless event in the entire celebration.

and as the battles goes on, i accept resignedly the random people at the wedding (the ones we see once a year at eid, maybe), people who have vague relations to someone or the other in the family, people who are there because of of some tie long ago to someone who maybe isnt even there anymore, but i look FORWARD to seeing those faces i care about, those people who have in the recent years of my life been there, meant much and who will constitute the more cherished memories of my wedding, inshallah.

here comes julyyy.

it took a yellow kurta, a red chunari dupatta, motia ke phool ki earrings and a bunch of cousins singing lathe di chadar on a dhol and making cracks about the 'gora' dulha to make me feel like wedding time has finally started.

Abducted.

you know youre getting married when your phophos abduct your fiance for an afternoon of sherwani, shoes and kurta shopping. and if he survives it, you know he is worth holding on to.