Yours, Eternally

Match Made In Heaven?

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Tara

Apparently, the Iftikhar family and their relatives had a tradition: each female of the house would feed a morsel of food to the bride. For what purpose, only Allah knows. So that's why Zain had apologised to me!

"Instead of moun-dikhai, it will be moun-thounsai, I guess." I whispered to Zain, amused.

*Moun: face. Moun-dikhai generally means seeing the bride's face for the first time, which may possibly be why the groom's gift is also known as the moun-dikhai, as in the olden days, in arranged marriages, the bride and groom only saw each other after the Nikah. 
-And moun-thounsai is my own made-up phrase, meaning stuffing food into the bride's mouth.

Zain laughed, shaking his head.

"What's so funny?" Talha Bhai asked, curiously.

"Your new Bhabi is hilarious, if I'm being honest, Bhai." Zain told his elder brother.

Lamisa Bhabi began to feed me a small piece of paratha.

*Paratha: fried, round flatbread.

"Lamisa, you leave it beta." A middle-aged woman told her. 

"Why?" Arzoo Aunty looked at her, confused. "Lamisa is Tara's jethani. She has the first right to feed her, besides me."

"It's been more than a year since she got married, and there's no sign of a baby." The woman said, shaking her head. "Do you really want a girl like her to feed your new daughter-in-law?"

That woman, blatantly, without caring that the males of the house were present as well, spoke such harsh and insulting words towards my sister-in-law, who looked like she was in tears.

"It's a shirk to think that being fed by someone who doesn't have a child yet will affect my future kids." I spoke up, as politely as possible. "That's because you are basically saying that anything or anyone but Allah is responsible for whether someone has kids or not. Superstitions are also considered a shirk."

*Shirk, under Islam, means to worship any other power or being apart from Allah. It is widened to include beliefs where something else is associate with controlling an outcome of something, for example the abovementioned belief that a woman who doesn't have a child shouldn't feed a new bride, so that the latter is not cursed with infertility. Shirk is considered a major sin, and superstitions fall under this term.

I looked up at Bhabi. "Please feed me, Bhabi. Even though I don't believe in this custom either, you should not be stopped from participating in this for no valid reason." 

And it's only been a year, for God's sake!

Lamisa Bhabi's hand shook as she fed me the piece of paratha. "May Allah bless you with a lifetime of happiness and good health, Tara. Ameen." 

"Insolent girl! This is your daughter-in-law, Arzoo?" The same woman snapped.

"She's not wrong, Bhabi." Arzoo Aunty told her. "I'm not participating in Shirk." She ran a hand over my head. "If our children teach us something politely and with respect, we should not be offended by it. In fact we should be proud to have them as our family." 

I'm not the type to stay silent just to look good in front of everyone. Wrong is wrong, and I will stand up against it, no matter how many people end up hating me for it. The disrespect of a woman in front of other women and men, especially by a woman herself, is disgusting and should not be tolerated.