HOW TO AVOID MARRYING YOUR COUSIN (IN-LAW)
by SURA K. HASSAN
It’s a universal fact that in every set of three, there’s always an outlier. My youngest sister, Massie, and I were peas in a pod. We both took after our father’s family in the way we looked, in the way we spoke, and in the way our sharp tongues wagged to stir up drama. My sister Abby, however, being the quintessential middle child, was the outlier. She got our mother’s delicate features, her thick, long hair, her grace, and, most importantly, her ability to shut up and look pretty. And that was a quality desired by all South Asian mother-in-laws. So, it was only a matter of time before she became the target of the latest marriage plot in our family.
I’d joked about it. Of course, I did. I couldn’t hold back, not when she walked into the tiny corridor of our parents’ apartment, looking every bit like Mummy in our mother’s engagement ghagra. Seriously, it was shiny, sequined—this grand rust and gold thing that only Abby (and our mother) could pull off.
“You’re so getting a rishta,” I teased her, and she glared at me. But she didn’t have a comeback. Instead, she chose to ignore me as she settled into the vanity and used our mother’s engagement day picture as a reference for her makeup.
Not too concerned with looking good myself, I plopped into one of the twin beds in the corner of the bedroom, and videocalled Massie. I flipped the camera towards Abby and she burst out laughing.
“You’re so getting a rishta,” she exclaimed, cheekily. Abby groaned and we spent the next hour doing just that: bullying Abby, talking about the weather in Ankara, how it had changed from what we remembered, and how critically, she was confident that she’d spotted Abby’s ex boyfriend from uni at a cafe.
Our little gossip round was, unfortunately, interrupted by our mother who stopped short from her lecture on wasting time when she saw Abby. I’m pretty sure my mother had tears in her eyes…before she turned to me. I’d decided to let my dress—equally shiny, sequined in a pale grey—talk for itself and had not done any makeup.
“Hum aisay tu nahi ja saktay baraat mein!” she exclaimed, eliciting gleeful snickers from Abby and our baby brother who’d stuck his head into our room.
“Mummy, I have no interest in weddings,” I drawled lazily, “the wedding is a sham. They’re marrying their cousins. They spent twenty years in Canada and couldn’t pull anyone. And we’re supposed to celebrate that? You know their last names aren’t gonna change. I wanna be in the room with the Canadian immigration officers when they read the application forms.”
“They’re marrying their cousins?” Hammie, our brother, shrieked from the door. “Eww, gross!”
My mother took a deep breath, her glare matching Abby’s, and she pursed her lips together. Then, she turned to our brother and snapped, “Tum idhar kia kar rahay ho? Jao apnay baap key paas!”
“Har koi mujhey kyun daadhta hai?” he grumbled but quickly retreated. My mother turned to me, eying my mischievous grin. She studied me for a few seconds, as though assessing if it was worth fighting with her recently-home-from-college, clearly radicalised by western values, but also financially useful twenty-three year old daughter before admitting defeat.
“Sab key samnay yeh bolney ki zaroorat nahi hai,” she sighed before commanding Abby to do my makeup. It took some doing, but after a quick argument over lipstick swatches, we were finally ready for the wedding.
At the baraat venue, Abby was quickly hounded by relatives, family friends and those aunties who just seem to appear wherever you go. Meanwhile I sat at the kids’ table with my baby brother and our younger cousins, looking for an isolated corner where I could smoke in peace. I didn’t find one, of course. But I did notice how happy our cousins looked, sitting beside their spouses (their father’s brother’s sons) on the stage.
“They look so pretty,” one of the little girls at the table stated.
“Like princesses,” another piped up.
“Princesses don’t marry their cousins,” I retorted, and the table grew quiet. Good. Finally, Abby joined us, glowing from the praise, adamant on taking pictures to immortalise the moment. We scuttled to a part of the wedding hall with a good background and began the tedious ritual of choosing the right filter, the right angle, the right setting to capture the moment. It was here that I first noticed them: a pair of men, possibly a few years older than us, constantly nudging each other as they discreetly (or what they thought was discretion) looked our way. When they did it for the third time, I glared at them. That didn’t work.
Finally tired of the photoshoot, I dragged Abby to the couches near the stage to sit with our grandmother. That stopped them from ogling my sister. Good. She didn’t need any attention from them. She had a boyfriend. The pictures were for him.
Sure, our parents didn’t know about him. He was the wrong ethnicity, the wrong city, the wrong religion—but according to them, he was my friend and all my friends are Abs’ friends too (since she’s so timid). And that’s why no one really questioned why Abs spent several hours a day talking to him on the phone.
But that’s not the point. The point was, my sister had a boyfriend. And woe be the day I let some second cousins ogle her.
Of course, the problem with Pakistani men, especially second and third cousins, is that they don’t get the hint. At all. Not ten minutes after we’d been seated with my grandmother, the first one arrived. Let’s call him Al, because he was that unmemorable. He had a scruffy beard, a god-awful man-bun and an overly enthusiastic grin that made me want to leave. I was not impressed. He talked too much. Talked about his new job at EY, about London in the fall, about his apartment in Peckham, all the while nursing that fake Queen’s English accent that people seem to adopt after a week in the UK.
I didn’t like him, not one bit. He had that wolfish look some guys from the engineering faculty at university would get when they’d discover that I wasn’t a psychology or English major.
After his introduction, his brother came up to us, giving a similar glowing resume and a monotonously detailed description of his life in London. It got to a point where I couldn’t help it, I just couldn’t—
“So, you two have spent your entire lives in Karachi and got a London accent in what? Six weeks?” Everyone froze. I carried on, “While my sisters and I have lived in ten different countries but didn’t catch anything?”
“It’s not—” Al started, but stopped.
His brother, let’s call him Al-2 for now, tried to interject, “Well, my mother says that you’ve lived in Africa and the Middle East—”
“And went to private British schools there,” I pointed out, “before we came back to Karachi and attended our alma mater, which as you know, is older than this country.”
Abby shifted in her seat, uncomfortably. It took them a moment, but they decided to walk. And I smiled at a job well done. They didn’t bother us during the wedding ceremony, or during dinner, and certainly not during the rukhsati.
Of course, in the following days, I’d seen them lurk around my LinkedIn (thank you, LinkedIn Premium), but all was good.
Until the day Abs and I got our visas to go back to Turkey.
It was an unusually cold Monday for Karachi. Abs and I had returned to our parents’ apartment from the Consulate, beaming in delight. Our visas had come through. We were Istanbul-bound. Life was finally getting back on track. Or so, we thought.
For the moment we stepped into the apartment, our mother was at the door, beaming. I mistook her affection for the visa news, so I said, “Got them, just need to book the flights now and we’ll be off your hair soon.”
But Mummy wasn’t interested in that. She proceeded to call for the super, who promptly showed up in record time, a box of mithai in his hands. She took it from him, and ushered us into our parents’ bedroom where Dad and Hammie were playing a game of scrabble.
“Larkiyan aagaye hain,” she announced, sitting beside him on the bed.
I stood nearby, letting Abs sit at the foot of the bed.
Dad spoke first, looking at me cautiously. I raised a brow; had they discovered the cigarette buds I hid in the Pringles box in my room again?
“Tum bora mat manna,” he began in that voice he makes whenever he’s trying not to offend me, “I know you’ve always wanted to move to London. But there’s been a proposal…”
My mouth hung open. I was a mess at the wedding, and I was rude to those two idiots, there was no way—
“No,” I cut him immediately, “Absolutely not. She’s 21, Dad. She hasn’t even finished her degree, for fu—”
My mother glared at me. “Sun lo. We’re talking to them about you too!”
“Me?” I shrieked. “I don’t want to marry one of those dumbf—oafs. Who’s this for?”
Abby coughed uncomfortably, her face turning a light shade of red.
“The eldest one has chosen Abby,” my mother said, “we’re talking to his mother about you for him, and Abby as the younger one. But the younger brother’s personality matches yours—”
“You mean ponytail and can’t trim his beard to save his life?” I cried in horror. He wasn’t my type at all. Did my parents not know me at all? When she nodded, I shook my head immediately. “Mum, he’s the kind of idiot from CompSci I used to complain about! Why on earth would you think I’m into that?”
She started to answer but I stopped her. “No! Absolutely not, you want the two of us to marry them? Live in the same house? Like we’ve done all our lives? What’s next? Have our kids marry each other? Did I step back into 1922?” I looked around because I’m a sucker for drama like that. My baby brother snickered.
“We’re going back to Turkey, getting our lives in order, we’re not—”
“I don’t want to marry him,” Abby spoke so loudly and clearly that we all stopped. She was shaking, her face had turned a deep crimson, as she stuttered, “I–I don’t want to…m–marry him. Or a–a–anyone. R-right now.”
My parents stared at her in disbelief. “What?” My mother’s eyes were the size of saucers.
“I don’t,” Abby mumbled. “I just want to go to Istanbul.”
My father shook his head, not expecting this sort of response. “Don’t listen to your sister. He lives in London, he has his own house, he works at a big four corporation. And most importantly, he’s from the family. There’s no way—”
“Hammie’s from the family,” I barked back, “that doesn’t mean any of us are marrying him.” My brother, whose ears had perked up at his name, shrieked, “Ewww! I’m a baby!”
“Shut up, you’re twelve years old,” I quipped and he pouted, knocking over his scramble titles, wrapping his arms around his chest.
My father glared at me. “You’re not making this decision for your sister.”
“I’m not!” I exclaimed, gesturing towards her. “She said no too!”
Dad shook his head. “Your views are fine for Facebook—”
“—Excuse you, I don’t even use Facebook!”
“—but,” his voice rose, “there’s a way to do things. And when a proposal comes, you think about it realistically. Not based on whatever fantasy book you’re reading.”
I pursed my lips together. “Well, it’s a good thing no one proposed to me.”
He took a deep breath, turning to Abby instead. “He’s a good boy. His father’s a decent person. Think about it and give me an answer without listening to your sister. It’ll be a yes, or you can talk to your mother.”
Abby sat upright, her face burning.
My mother clucked her tongue. “Har khushi ka mookha kharab kar deti hai. Mein ney kaha tha na, laarkiyon ko itni azaadi nahi daini chahiye.”
I growled at that one, pointing out that I paid the bills; had been since we’d come back in January, when the pandemic made our father’s position in Doha redundant. That, of course, led to yet another argument, this one about how badtameez I’d gotten in university. The week that followed the proposal was…to put it mildly, a bad one.
Abby tried to convince my parents, tried to speak up and explain why she wasn’t interested, but no one listened to her. In typical form in my family, my aunts, married cousins…everyone who’d ever been married were pulled into the fold, trying to ask Abby of a reason why she didn’t agree with the proposal. And no—love, being cousins, being in a different phase in life—none of those perfectly reasonable arguments worked.
The family had made up their minds. In the evenings, Abby, Massie and I would conspire; Massie would call our mother trying to make her see sense. But no one listened, and by the time we were back in Istanbul, the families had started meeting.
No attempt of mine to put an end to this nonsense worked. Suddenly, I was jealous and too controlling; Abby too naive and silly—it was our childhood all over again when Abby had joined my preschool and I’d had to miss half of my classes because she wouldn’t stop crying unless I was there with her.
Only this time, we were actually all on the same page: Abs didn’t want to marry the guy.
“Should I talk to my father?” Dan—Abby’s boyfriend—spoke through the speakerphone in our empty Istanbul flat. Abs and I were putting our bookshelf together, Massie—in from Ankara for the weekend—was at the stove, making chai.
“NO!” The three of us cried in unison.
“Are you out of your mind?” Abby shrieked.
“Yeah, show up at our parents’ flat with your wrong culture, your wrong language,” Massie called, “and your wrong religion. Dude, if you wanna break up with our sister, just give Surs and I a five day notice.”
He laughed. “Nah, that’s fine. But what’re you guys gonna do? Isn’t she supposed to talk to the guy tomorrow?”
Abby nodded, as though he could see her, and I grinned. “Well about that…”
Massie joined us, handing us our cups. Then, she leaned against our unpacked cutlery boxes and spoke, “Look, the main advantage we have here is that Carrot—” We’d discovered that Al-2’s name rhymed with carrot. I take full credit for this one. “—has never heard Abs speak. He knows how Surs sounds. But not me. So, here’s what’s gonna happen…”
Dan listened intently, his laugh getting louder, as we revealed more of the plan.
The next day, the three of us huddled together in the finished drawing room. Our mother had been blowing up our phones the entire night. Massie and I got instructions to take notes, make sure to have Abby ask him the “right questions” and to make sure that she wouldn’t mess it up. Mummy and our Khala decided that they’d listen in, that they’d call me and listen to the conversation. Massie and I paused at that, but what’s a good plan without improvisation?
Unfortunately, Abs was panicking. “This isn’t going to work,” she wailed, “I’m going to get married. I’ll have to learn how to cook, have babies and forget I ever wanted to be a fashion designer!” I told her to shut up and hold my nonexistent beer. When Carrot called, it was Massie who picked up the phone, putting it on speaker, her voice higher and airy like Abs. I turned on the standing fan we’d bought and took my phone, turning the dial up so there was distortion. Massie began by greeting Carrot.
My mother texted me that the connection was bad, that they couldn’t hear “Abby” properly. I texted back, telling her the internet was acting up and then turned to Abby, nudging my chin towards the WiFi modem. She closed it.
And just like that, the WhatsApp calls to my mother and Carrot dropped. Massie grinned. Our plan was in action. What was an internet disruption to my mother and aunt, was a carefully crafted (improvised) plan to reveal the truth of our circumstances to Carrot. Something any self-respecting Pakistani family will tell you is the very thing you should not be telling a potential shohar.
“Now, let’s call him properly,” she announced, taking my mobile phone and calling his number directly. When he picked up, she began, “Sorry about that,” she said, her voice normal and her own now, “I think our internet is acting up. We just moved to Istanbul, you know.”
He accepted the apology immediately, and they went right back into it. Carrot gave a brief introduction of himself: where he’d studied, what he’d studied, where he’d worked…standard introductions that go into any discovery calls during the rishta process in Pakistan.
Massie listened, praising him for his efforts, glazing him for all intents and purpose. He spoke freely for a full thirty minutes, laying out his plan: how he wanted to marry before the year ended, how he expected his future wife to live back in Karachi with his parents while the paperwork was done, how he expected her to be firm but proper, respectable but generous, doing whatever his darling mother wanted but also putting him first. She listened, we listened; I made faces at his archaic views, especially when he mentioned that he sees his wife as an extension of his support to his parents.
Which, you might think is reasonable, but in Pakistani society that means that you’re the unpaid help at home, managing everything and not even getting a date with your husband once a week. Things are changing of course, but our family’s one of the old, conservative lot. We’d seen our mother struggle all our lives and there was no way we’d subject Abs to the same.
When he was finally done with his set of requirements, he finally opened the floor to Abs—well, Massie.
“I think our values are very much in sync,” Massie started, dodging the throw pillow Abs threw at her, “my mother was the eldest bahu too, you know.” She paused. “And, normally, I’d say yes in a heart beat but…what do you know about my family?”
We could feel the confusion in the man’s voice as he gave an answer. “Yeah, that was true until 2020,” Massie explained, dripping honey, “my dad actually got let go during the pandemic. And my elder sister and I…we dropped out of uni. That’s why we were in Pakistan for the wedding.” There was a pause on the other line and she continued, “—and, well, my eldest sister’s been supporting us all financially. We actually just saved enough to pay for the year and come back to Istanbul. And I have a year and a half to go…so your timeline, can you—? Is there any way you can change that? Or if you want, I could finish uni after we get married…?”
The pause this time was longer.
“No–no one told me that,” he said finally, “Everyone in the family says that your dad’s very well-settled—” Translation: everyone in the family knows that my father pays for his siblings and their families, and that we all went to insanely expensive schools. That’s low-key why dad being laid off hit us so badly. We never had any savings. We just had enough money to pay for everything each month without worrying. “—so I thought you and your sisters were fine.”
“No, we’re kind of struggling but you know how the family is,” Massie continued, “and my eldest sister works in crypto, so she makes good money. But everything’s on her. I don’t think it’s fair. I just…I want to finish my degree and help her a bit. For like, maybe three months? Then we could get married, if you want?”
He disagreed. Carrot’s tone changed to that of a donor visiting an orphanage. He said, he understood, that it was definitely harder for women…but he couldn’t change his timeline. He couldn’t wait.
Massie, having accomplished her task, went for the kill, “If you don’t find anyone by the time the year ends, I’d be open to it. It’s just…if it were any other year, even if it was 2020, I would’ve said yes, you know.”
He agreed vehemently. She wished him well, and he did the same to her, and right before the call ended, she added, “It was a pleasure meeting you. I really wished it worked out, but can you do me a favour please? The family…you know how they are, can you not tell them that it was my fault…I really, really don’t want my parents to feel bad about this. It’s just…you know the situation.”
He agreed, his voice suddenly deeper, protective. “I’ll handle them,” he said, in a brotherly tone, “I won’t mention that. And I’ll make sure the other cousins don’t get any ideas. You girls—your sisters and you—guys are handling this very well. No one in the family knows. Good luck to you.”
And with that, he cut the call. Abby lunged at Massie.
“You told him it was a yes if he decided to wait???” She screamed, “Are you insane?”
Massie pushed her away, grinning, “He’s not gonna reach out. Relax. No one’s going to. No one in the family’s gonna bother us now.”
I nodded, grinning. “You keep forgetting how important Dad’s money is to people,” I reminded her. “Remember your birthday parties?”
Abby shuddered, remembering how every birthday of hers got torpedoed by our cousin’s. She had the unfortunate luck of sharing a birthday with my father’s eldest niece. And so, every year, her mother would call my father in despair, and Dad would melt, Abs’ party becoming more about our bratty cousin than her.
“So, what do we do about Mummy?” she said instead.
I looked at the WiFi modem. “I’ll text them and let them know that there’s an issue with our electricity. We have to go to the office to register tomorrow, right? So, not a lie. And then we’ll turn on the WiFi tomorrow and speak to them.”
“Yeah,” Massie agreed, “let’s let ‘em stew. Now, wanna go to the pub and celebrate?”
We all agreed and headed out. When we finally turned on the internet the next day, my mother was furious, but not at us. She gave a detailed account of how Carrot’s mother had called her to tell her that he didn’t feel that Abby was right for him. And since my mother considers Abs a direct reflection of her, she took it personally. In fact, she took it so personally that she never spoke about Carrot again, she didn’t attend his wedding at the end of the year, and certainly stopped looking for any rishtas for Abs. Unfortunately, she found a new target: me.
Sura K. Hassan lives in Istanbul, and finds solace in the works of Paulo Coelho. Her writings primarily focus on relationships, personal mythology and identity with splatterings of adjusting to adulthood after a sheltered childhood. Her works have appeared in Welter, Fahmidan Journal, Ignatian Literary Magazine, and more.
Next (Kat Echevarría Richter) >
< Previous (Matt Zambito)