This is the story that’s closest to my heart; that of my
parents. Of all the love stories I’ve heard, none compare to this, at least as
far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’m just hopelessly in love with my parents. There
are cuter stories out there. But I think this one deserves a telling – if
nothing else, it might touch your heart, just like it did mine.
So we’ll begin with a brief history of my mum and dad. My
mum was – to put it briefly – traditional. She did have a receptionist’s job –
something she still is proud of, maybe it was a really awesome job for someone
to have in her day, in her position. So she was a receptionist (awesome), but
was traditional. Or maybe it would be more correct to say she was innocent. She
loved her mum, and spoke with her about everything, up to and including Jaweed,
my eventual dad.
And she looked like an angel. No really, not just because
she’s my mum, not because she might read this, but because she did, I have a
photo to prove it.
And my dad was a stud. He knew karate, so you couldn’t mess
with him, and he was a good-looking basket of fruits. He also – how do I put it
– he liked good-looking people, especially of the female persuasion and was
almost constantly in the company of one. Doesn’t paint him in an awesome light,
or maybe it does, depending on how you look at it.
And they met because of their mothers. Now, for the sake of I
don’t want to keep saying my mum and my dad throughout this story, I’m going to
refer to them as Jaweed and Maleka from here onwards.
So this Maleka person who I have no personal connections
with whatsoever’s mum, Sarrah, did a lot of things, one of which was tailoring,
and this Jaweed’s mum, Fatema, had asked her to come home and please teach her
how to stitch.
Maleka would accompany her mum sometimes, and that’s where
it all began. Jaweed saw Maleka and thought to himself, ‘Wow, what a simple yet
good-looking girl! I must find an intelligent and acceptable way of getting to
know her better with probable intention of marrying her – only with her mum’s
permission, of course.’ Ok, what he probably actually thought might have been
slightly shorter, but this was what Maleka told me.
So he started looking for intelligent, acceptable ways of
getting to know her and found one that was foolproof – she was weak in
chemistry (of the academic sort). So he started to teach her.
Now Maleka refuses to admit this, but probably she was also
only too happy to let Jaweed teach her chemistry.
An obvious double entendre later, they both started to like
each other. So this Jaweed asked her out.
He said “Let’s go for a movie sometime?”
Maleka didn’t know what to do. She went and asked her mum –
I mean, really? Hot guy asks you out, you go and ask your mum? But she did. And luckily for her, Sarrah liked Jaweed too. So
she said, “Yes beta, let’s all go.”
So Jaweed went to the theatre they’d arranged to meet up at,
looking his grubby best (that was in fashion then) with a flower and
everything, to meet the girl he wanted to get to know better in a purely
intellectual manner, and saw Maleka walking towards him grinning broadly, happy
to see him. And her mum, walking beside her, and her dad and her two brothers
and her three sisters, walking like an army of in-laws ready to attack the date
with gusto and innocent ignorance of the fact that this was supposed to be a
date.
No one told me what happened to the rose – but they do say
that Jaweed sat next to Maleka’s brother throughout the movie, true bollywood
style.
Jaweed wasn’t one to give up though. He asked her out again,
this time making sure he mentioned that family, while welcome, need not be
dragged everywhere she went.
Maleka didn’t know what to do. She went and asked her mum. Sarrah
said in the next paragraph for emphasis:
“Go, beta, but when you meet him, before you start talking
about anything else, ask him first; is this temporary or permanent?”
And that’s exactly what Maleka did.
They met in a park, I think, and she said, as soon as she
walked up to him, or he walked up to her, or they walked up to each other,
“Jaweed, is this temporary or permanent?” Jaweed says he didn’t reply because
he didn’t know how.
They fell in love, erratically and with Sarrah’s permission.
In fact, I probably wouldn’t be all wrong if I said he wooed
Sarrah a lot more than Maleka. He would go to their house, and sit with her,
and they would talk about only God knows what. And then, if time permitted,
he’d meet Maleka.
So it might be true to say her mum fell in love with him
more than she did.
But then Jaweed’s dad, Jaffar(ji), had a problem with the
marriage. Why? Because Maleka’s family was poorer than Jaweed’s, which was
saying something since Jaweed’s family barely managed to make ends meet.
But all the sons were suitably well-educated and Jaffar(ji)
had hopes that they would all marry awesome people, maybe richer than themselves.
So he held out.
Sarrah, since it wasn’t working out with Jaweed, got Maleka
engaged. It doesn’t matter who to, what matters for the sake of poetic justice
is that he was rich. Richer than Jaweed, richer than his father, richer than
some other people. Actually, he wasn’t just rich when compared to poor people. He
was rich by anyone’s standards (except the unfairly rich. Those guys don’t
count). So poetic justice was served.
Jaweed may or may not have been devastated by this. No one
tells me this part. What they tell me, which I will get to in a while, is what I
will get to in a while.
I’m choosing to assume that Maleka and Jaweed kept in touch,
though she had moved to Bombay and he was still here in Chennai.
I know for a fact that she went through some serious stuff
in Bombay. This stuff probably played a role in shaping her decision, you know.
She and her family have always had a bigger share of problems than it’s fair to
give a person. Maybe that’s why she was so emotional. Maybe that, and the
probability that she and Jaweed kept in touch and she realised that he still
loved her, made her do what she did, which I will come to now.
She broke her engagement. She left everything in a spirit of
independence and rebellion and enough-is-enoughness and probably
something-in-my-life-must-go-rightness – and came back to Chennai, with, I’m
assuming, little means of support (that’s the way it’s been narrated to me).
She came back, and told Jaweed, “Look dude, I’ve come back
for you, you’ve got to marry me, you know.” She might have been more emotional
than that, that’s just the gist.
And Jaweed did and they lived happily ever after, after some
stuff happened first.
He was okay with it, considering, like I said, they’d
probably kept in touch, and he’d probably wanted her back, and probably even
called her back, knowing the dude in question. Knowing the dude in question, if
they were communicating, he would’ve told her, dude I love you, to which she
would have replied (now i’ve to do justice to her emotion, so,) “I love you
too, jaan” (I tried), to which he would’ve said, (since he’s a reasonable guy),
“well if you love me, then you shouldn’t be marrying that guy, you should be
marrying me”, to which she would’ve replied, “ahuhuhuhuhuhuh, what choice do I
have, who’s going to save me from my fate which has been decreed upon me by the
unfair World?” (the first bit is the sound she’ll make when she’s crying), to
which he wouldn’t have replied, “oh darling, I’ll take care of you. Just come
off, I’ll die for you if I have to. Love is love, you can’t mess with it, and I’ll
love you to my dying breath ahuhuhuhuh.” What he would have said would have been, “nonsense. Come off, we’ll manage,”
but to her it would have sounded like the first thing. And she, knowing her,
would have come off. (People had guts in those days).
She did. And he was okay with it, although he probably did
sweat a bit, and think, even for a second, “oh shit.”
And now they had to deal with the dad.
The next part, you could probably borrow from Dilwale
Dulhania Le Jayenge.
They considered running away, because facing up to his dad
was a little scary. Fatema was fine with it, although she couldn’t be forced to
have too much of an opinion, or too much of an influence on what happened
later. Who helped were Jaweed’s sister and brother. It wasn’t just Maleka who
had an army of brothers and sisters, you know.
Farzana, farzu, for short, and Afsar, Afsar for short,
stellar, awesome, forward-thinking, heroic, persuasive people, convinced Jaffar(ji)
to let the romantic couple get married and make this love story a happy one. Jaffar(ji)
held out for as long as he could, but Maleka’s charm combined with the entire
family really liked her combined with he didn’t know if any of his sons would
even get married and this was at least one less son he had to worry about,
convinced him to let the happy couple be.
So Maleka got married. And Jaweed got married on the same
day. And they fought happily ever after.
Yes it’s abrupt, but what did you want? Dilwale Dulhania Le
Jayenge?
