when she turns twenty!

By Yumna Azhar

....After spotting the prey, the predator stalks using available cover. It now tracks the prey calmly… the prey, unaware of the situation is busy with its own stuff. The ruthless animal attacks with a rush, often from behind without giving the poor soul anytime to think and react…

A mature woman in her late 40’s spots a pretty girl at a wedding. She follows her for some time to observe the nature of the girl as if she has some high tech James bond gadget to detect the nature of the person by the way they walk and talk. The lady approaches the girl pretending to see her coincidently…thinking of herself as an undercover agent who is on “mission impossible”. Agent X whispers to agent Y, “phssss Fehmidah, look at that girl in yellow, such a doll she is…what a pair she would make with my papooo na...”. “Sure sure, hey Rihana, look at the one in pink, the tall one, she would look so good with my guddu, he wants a tall bride for him… Just pray that they aren’t already engaged, we will go for the shadi shopping together, I’ll wear a red saari by karma”. “Oh my God I have already thought of the names of my grandchildren….”

The usual scenario you have to face at any wedding you attend after turning 20 and in some extreme cases even before that, if…. (I may mention) You are a girl. The aunties literally “hunt” girls for there “laals”. On every other wedding or gathering you start feeling a pair (or two) of eyes following you and after sometime rather too obviously coming and meeting you, inquiring you about your family and trying to suck all sort of personal information possible from your head. ....

Ever noticed a sudden change in your mother? All of a sudden she becomes  so hyper excited about your best friend’s sister’s wedding  that she buys you new clothes all (branded ones you had ever dreamt of), makes you go to the parlor to get your hair done and makes sure that you look your best at the wedding oh, and that too of someone else. “Mom wasn’t like this two years back at my cousin’s wedding and I had to beg her to get me a new clutch (not to mention all the household chores she made me do in return and yes, all the list of promises of do’s and don’ts…) then what is different this year?....” I’m turning 20 this year. The year a girl turns 20, her parents’ starts worrying about her marriage and start treating her like what the daily soap folks call “paraya dhan”.

A real pain in the tooth for every girl falling within the bracket of 20 to 30 years of age. Worth mentioning here are the expressions of my teacher and TA while I was discussing the idea of the article with them. “I mean you should ask me….I’ll be turning 28 and this is what I have to go through each day” states Miss Sonia who is an instructor at the Lahore School of Economics, while the TA nodes in agreement helplessly making you feel sorry for the poor girl. We all ride in the same (BIG) boat girls…....

Sixty three years post partition and we are still living in the rip offs of the sub continental culture. The mentality of the people has not quite nurtured since then. I can link every other current incident to the “question of identity” from the Sialkot incident to the westernization, from democracy to law, from the education standards to the societal pressure on a girl to get married early. 

Who said women are equal and should be given equal rights? Who said they deserve to be given equal opportunities as men? Is this equality? If it is, why isn’t there any pressure on a man to get married? Why do girls get to hear every single day that you won’t get a decent “rishta” after 26? What is 26 by the way…? A scale of measure or something? And if it is, then who set it in the first place? The society..? Ok, what society; the Muslim society or the Hindu society? Or maybe the leftovers of both that we are living in.....

We have some best institutions in Pakistan for everything ranging from fashion to medical which give equal opportunities to both, men and women. If there is no disparity there, then why is it afterwards? A man will marry after 30 after he is well settled and all but a woman has to get “hold” of a good proposal till 26, because after that the so called downfall of a girl’s beauty starts. I’m sorry what century are we living in?....

Since my early years in life I had high plans for life, and being the eldest child my parents treated me like a son or for that matter, there was no difference between a son and a daughter. As I grew up I learnt that you get to live only once so I wanted to achieve all of it. I joined the Lahore school of economics to acquire bachelors in business administration and planned to get a diploma in fashion designing later from NCA. It was my dream to launch my own label and work as a reporter at a news channel. I wanted to learn guitar and meet Brad pit (some dreams).  Also I thought of becoming an RJ and write for a magazine. I wanted to do it all and all of it for myself… but to my bad luck, I’m born as a female in a society that as the power to impose injustice on people and call it traditions.

The problem with our culture is that nothing we have or want to have belongs to us. We follow a culture which is a fusion of the Hindu and the Muslim norms with a twist of westernization in it. We don’t have an identity of our own. For centuries the weak is suffering on the name of religion, honor, power, wealth, status and what not. Why do we call ourselves a great nation? Until or unless we define greatness by breaking the chains of the society we won’t achieve it.

It is the people who make the society and not the other way around!  Think about it.