A Midsummer Weekend (The Extended Version)

4. Two Years After that Weekend

Mariam (Farah's Mother)

The day Farah was born was unequivocally the best day of my life. I had always wanted a daughter. One that I had imagined would be my friend and confidante, more than an offspring. But the older Farah grew the more I felt forced in to the role of being the parent whose only job it was to discipline their child, and maintain a certain personality so she knew that I was serious when I said something to her. 

It didn't help that Asad, my husband and Farah's father was almost always away during the most formative years of her life. His job as a pilot for Pakistan's national airline helped give us a very comfortable life. But he typically flew on international routes and so even when he was home he was so jet lagged that he functioned on a completely different time zone than the rest of us. 

By the time he left the airline industry and started his own travel agency I was firmly etched as the bad cop in Farah and her younger brother's minds. While their father was the loving, humorous parent who never said 'no' to them. But now I was frankly tired of being the only adult in the house, who lost sleep over everything from my children's future to my elderly mother's health condition, on top of running the entire household without much help. 

"Kin sochon mein gum ho?", Ami called out as she entered the dining room that morning. (Which thoughts are you lost in?)

"Kuch nahi Ami. Aap chai piyain gi?", I got up to help her settle down in the seat at the head of the table, adjusting her footstool so that she wouldn't have to bend her knees too much. (It's nothing mom. Will you drink some tea?)

"Chai tou pi lein ge hum. Leikan tum yeh batao ke tumahari aakhon ke neechay itne halkay kyu hain? Pareshaan ho kya?", she looked at me, squinting her eyes at me like she always had since I was a child myself. (I will drink tea. But why do you have so many black circles under your eyes? Are you worried?)

Nothing escaped my mother. Whether it was my kids' not having finished their milk before rushing out of the home, or my husband leaving his shoes in places other than the rack near the front door. But most of all, I felt that she scrutinized me. Sometimes excessively, but always from a place of maternal love. 

The truth was that Ami was the only reason I managed to have a career as the vice principal of a small private school and raise two children with an absent husband. And that is why no matter what she said to me, or however she scrutinized my parenting skills or my personal life, I put up with it. She had earned every right to chide me when she wanted to. 

"No Ami. I am not worried. I am just thinking about how to tell Farah that there was another rishta for her. This time from the dentist that she went to last week", I sighed. 

"Hain? Woh bechari apne daant ki dard ke liye gayi thi, or dentist sahab ne dulha banne ke khwaab dekh liye? How unprofessional. Farah will never like him", Ami immediately shot down the poor young dentist who had actually been fairly professional while we were with him. 

(Huh? Poor thing went because of her toothache and the dentist started dreaming of becoming a bridegroom?)

I sighed again. Ami was probably right. But I was the mother of a daughter who was fairly decent looking and also polite even if reserved. And she had chosen a profession in which she interacted with strangers every day. As much as I wanted to let her soar and be herself, I knew the reality of our society, one that she was blissfully unaware of. 

"Ami she has to get married at some point. In a few months she will start having to stay overnight at the hospital, all by herself..."

"Beta, listen to me carefully. Maan baap ka kaam hota hai apney bachoun ki sahi tarbiyat karna. Jub woh bachey barey ho jaatein hain, phir humain apni tarbiyat aur Allah per bharosa kar ke un ko ghonsle se bahir jaane ki ijazat de deni chahiye"", Ami reached out to touch my hand, almost as if to say that she had done the same with me.