A Wedding Night in Boston...

So a couple of weeks ago was the long awaited wedding of Tabish - my childhood friend. And it was a gigantic hoopla. Lots of food, bhangra, akh-matukka with deliciously dressed girls, and …oh yeah … the wedding too.

The wedding hall had a couple of hundred guests. I had never before seen so many semi-blonde Pakistani women. Even Dr. Nazli seemed to have added some color in her hair for the night. Tabish sat on the stage with that beautiful girl, "A", who was condemned for life to be his wife. They were flanked on either side by their parents and siblings. It is my observation that when God puts a beauty in a house, He also provides means to protect that beauty. Roses come with thorns. A’s two brothers were huge and burly men. They are the kind of men who in their thick Punjabi accent would pronounce “Ataf” instead of “Atif” and “Tabash” instead of “Tabish”. You don’t fuk with them. You just don’t.

It all started last year when Tabish spotted A in an Eid get together. After a brief period of customary repulsion, she warmed up to his lies and false promises of a glittering life together. That was enough for Tabish to bring his case to his mother. Auntie, a very simple woman, told him that the girl was too ‘fashionable’. He asked my opinion. I told him flat out that she was too good to be his wife. He protested that he wanted a serious opinion since that was the matter of his life. To this Babar responded, “now that you put it that way, my opinion is that she is too good to be your wife”. To make a long story short, his mother relented, the engagement was performed in June and the wedding date was set for October.

Inside the wedding hall, Tabish and guests listened patiently to Imam’s speech on the rights and responsibilities of husband and wife. I wondered what the hell was going through Tabish’s head at that time. Was he even listening? Or was he stunned by the enormity of the moment? Or was he simply planning the vicious carnal events that were to unfold later in the wee hours of night? A loud ‘ameen’ from the crowd brought me back from my thoughts. This ‘ameen’ was not only for the dua Imam had just concluded for the couple, but also I sensed that crowd chanted it for the fact that his long speech was finally over.

Religious formalities out of the way, family, friends, and guests lined up to get on the stage to congratulate the couple. The group of us friends decided to do it together. I offered my best wishes to A and gave Tabish a long hug.

Music and dance ensued after dinner. Bhangra took the spot. DJ had picked a good selection. There have often been times when I have knelt before God thanking Him for creating women and putting that extra “lachak” in their waist that makes all the difference in their dance. As I watched the blonde and brunette Pakistani girls gyrating and bobbing to bhangra, I wanted to kneel before God once again.

A word about bhangra. I do not believe that the founding fathers of bhangra had envisioned it being done while wearing Armani suit and fragile dress shoes. Bhangra was meant to be done while in lungi and with bare feet. It is much easier to squat and shake your booty when you are not constrained by western attire. Nevertheless, the dance continued.

Farooq spread this outrageous fact among friends that Tabish had been sitting pretty on stage for far too long with his silly smile on display for everyone to see. It was time he be dragged down to the floor to join us. Fifteen seconds later, Tabish was on the floor dancing. His dance moves resembled that of a drowning man desperately trying to stay afloat. But then, he wasn’t there to impress any girl - the marriage contract had been safely signed and there was no turning back for A.

The party winded, it was time for dulha and dulhan to depart for the hotel a little drive away. With Tabish in the driving seat of the rented white Hummer, his wife sitting next to him, and a car full of her friends following them, they were warmly sent off with lot of prayers and a few slaps on his back from his friends.

Let me briefly vouch for Tabish’s character - unlike some other friends of mine who treated their virginity like a disease and found a cure for it as soon as they could, Tabish had guarded his like a Saudi girl would. Tonight, however, Mt. St. Helen’s volcanic eruption would meet its match; two souls will make up for all that lost time and all those repressed desires of many years. Their bad angels will close their eyes; their good angels will leave the room; God will look the other way.

With Tabish and his girl safely tucked in the hotel, a few of us got together for a late night coffee in a café. As we sat there, reminiscing the events of the night, it occurred to me that I missed Tabish’s presence at that moment. I missed how he would have described the events of that night with his silly anecdotes and made us all laugh. He had been my companion for many years in our late night escapades in Lahore and in Boston. He would no longer be with me this late anymore.

In the early hours of the morning, I entered my apartment, quietly closed the door behind me, and laid down on couch exhausted.