49. MY MOM GOT MARRIED AT FOURTEEN

My mother would on our school holidays, usually, after lunch, draw all of us together and try to put us to snooze. For that, she would moreover swell on her stories what dad told us the previous night concerning Islam. On certain days, she would relate gorgeous episodes and life-size anecdotes from the lives of the prophets and their companions very vibrantly. This had been customary. We were all part of the house we lived in, like bricks and walls, inside the fortress, and all that was outside was out of bound. This went on strictly and we all obeyed the home-rule. We all played rested entertained and lived inside the four walls. Happily.

She, as you would expect, was an artistic storyteller and all the stories were unforgettably poignant .We were by that time, had become staunch followers of Islam. We were all convinced by the time that Islam and the way of life it had sought to mould our faith were more than everything on this earth was. Worldly life and living was only secondary and insignificant that was the only reality.

Why then my dad did not get married, yet. Conceivably, he honored the bachelor life or might be he feared the nebulous marital obligations. My dad’s sisters were both older than he was by sixteen plus years and were married for more than thirty-five years. They were now aged and so they could not help my dad in his livelihood, to any further extent. They were pressing for my dad’s nuptials

In my maternal granddad’s family,  more often than not, they get their girl child married at an early age, no sooner than one attains one’s puberty. My mom’s family was going ahead to get her married somewhere in Kerala. They unfortunately lacked the economic wherewithal for the wished-for marriage.

It was here that my dad came forward to take her as his spouse in a bid to help my granddad tide over his financial suffering and so he proposed to this wedding with all his heart. My maternal grandpa also was joyful and gave his blessing. My old age aunts did not favor the idea of my dad getting married to one outside the Urdu fold. This proposal was not that much cherished by my old aunts. They had their own feeling of resentment, as my dad did not consent to marry the girls they had earlier proposed from their rich and orthodox relatives.

My dad’s outright denunciation of getting married to one in an affluent family close to my aunts’ was also something my aunts did not back up forever. My dad however, took the hands of my mom as his spouse when she was hardly fourteen while he was forty-four. It was a simple marriage performed as per the demands of Sheriah law.